Lizard: You call his mother, you call his grandmother, you call who the fuck you want, bro’ but I gotta get it!

RH: It’s stressin’ me, too, believe me . . .

Lizard: Still happy, man, that you stressed . . . You saw the photo, bro’, there be a million ass-holes lickin’ my ass so I get them some of this stuff, but I’m not given’ them nothin’ ’cos I’m waitin’ on you! So get operational, dude, and do it fast and don’t come tellin’ me no more that it’s just a matter of time.

I had at least twenty-odd conversations like these ones to translate each session, and from the interval between the numbers appearing in the corner of the reports, I deduced that over the past few days there had been more than 200 of a similar type between the different protagonists involved in this deal.

Unfortunately, in their hurry to make a profit, the cretins had stopped taking what they imagined were precautions in their communications, and were speaking in French, so there were fewer and fewer Arabic phrases in their conversations, meaning I was no longer able to monitor their activities.

I organized a second delivery for 15 August, this time in a spot with an even stronger stench of the guillotine than the prison parking lot: the Quai de l’Horloge, outside the Palais de Justice, directly opposite the exit from the cells. Scotch had begged me to grant him an additional week to allow him to gather the full amount; a week I had naturally refused him, bringing his deadline forward by two days for good measure, just for having dared to ask. I knew, as they did, how the capitalist game played out: the more repugnant you were, the more respect you gained.

Once again I took a taxi and again I told the driver the same story: I’ve got a meeting with my nephews. When I turned up at our meeting place, there were no longer three but five dealers waiting for me. All different versions of Scotch: bearded Islamist louts, heavy lids half concealing a breathtakingly moronic expression. One small fat one and another tall skinny one, one of whom would turn out to be — I recognized him by his voice — the famous Lizard.

The exchange went unbelievably smoothly. I succeeded in flogging four Moroccan bags in two enormous wheelie bags of 40 kilos each, plus 20 kilos loose, for 450,000 euros in 500- and 200-euro notes. Scotch was a fast learner, so I demonstrated my satisfaction with him by throwing in the 10 kilos I had with me in a sports bag, as a gesture of good will. There was very little talking as they were all in such a hurry to disappear from this place that was crawling with cops looking benevolently on at the adorable little Arab family exchanging bags of laundry for some poor guy on trial.