Black Diamond

man close to retirement, saying he was off-duty and just there for the market. Nicco introduced him and the baron to the town’s mayor, a live wire who had pushed for the online truffle market and had gotten European funding to turn Ste. Alvère into a pilot project for alternative energy. Just before 8:00 a.m., a plump man appeared with a key in his hand, almost breakinginto a trot when he saw the mayor. It was Didier, the market manager, an ingratiating grin on his face, scurrying to unlock the door into the large room with a series of tables covered in white cloth. A gleaming digital scale held pride of place beside the new computer that ran the online market. Three webcams covered the room. And on a side table in the corner stood a high-grade microscope, to help settle disputes about the grading of the various truffles. Bruno understood enough of the technicalities to know that some unscrupulous dealers tried to pass off a
chatin
as a
brumale
.
    “It’s a joke,” Hercule murmured in Bruno’s ear. “All the real deals are still done outside, between people who’ve known each other for years and don’t need fancy machines to know what’s what. You’ll see the
renifleur
didn’t even bother to come inside. There’ll be another auction at the end of the day for the stocks left over, but there’s something fishy about that.”
    Hercule prowled around the tables where the sellers were laying out their wares in small baskets. He bent to sniff a couple of times but moved on. A third time he bent and then turned to Bruno.
    “Sniff this one. It’s good, maybe even a bit better than yours.” He turned his back on the vendor to whisper into Bruno’s ear. “He’s asking fifty euros a hundred grams. You did better, and you didn’t have to pay the market fee.”
    Hercule plucked Bruno’s sleeve and jerked his head at the baron to lead them outside. They walked up the hill past the tower of the ruined castle, its stone improbably pale in color after enthusiastic cleaning and its surroundings of fresh turf looking too picturesque to be true. Hercule’s dog paused to lift a back leg on the base of the ruin, and the old man led them at a brisk and warming pace up the lane to his home.
    Each time he visited Hercule’s house, Bruno was curiousthat such an evidently learned and cultivated man should affect the style and dress of a country hayseed. The walls were filled with books. From the way they were stuffed sideways onto crammed shelves, with small note cards and bookmarks in the pages, it was clear they were constantly being used. In the spaces between bookshelves were paintings and hangings with foreign calligraphies. Bruno could not have identified, far less read, them had Hercule not explained the difference between the Viet, the Khmer, the Thai, the Lao and the Mandarin.
    The furniture was old and heavy and comfortable, of a dark, dense wood and a style that Bruno now knew to be Vietnamese. A vast desk squatted by the window, covered by newspaper clippings, a laptop computer and framed photographs of an Asian woman and child, plus several of French soldiers in uniforms of an earlier era. The baron moved to the desk and picked up one of the photos, turning it to the light.
    “Bab el-Oued, when they still loved the French army. I recognize that corner by the St. Eugène Cemetery,” the baron said as Bruno looked over his shoulder. “That’s General Massu himself on the right, so it must be fifty-seven, when he was running the battle of Algiers. I didn’t know you knew Massu that well, Hercule.” He put it down and looked at his old friend. “You had something on your mind. Tell us.”
    “I don’t know if you can do anything to help, but I’ve got to get this off my chest.” He knelt to put a match to the nest of newspapers beneath the kindling in the fireplace and then stood, watching the fire catch hold.
    “A drink? Coffee?” They shook their heads. “It’s the market. There’s something nasty going on, and they won’t listen to me. When they think of fraud, they think only of the old tricks like people dyeing the white summer truffles and sellingthem as blacks. But this is different. One of the
renifleurs
, not the one you met, says a couple of his big clients in Paris claim they’ve been fobbed off with fakes, cheap
sinensis
, Chinese black truffles. It’s common enough in oils and prepared foods, but each of them reckoned they got some Chinese rubbish in a shipment of tailings,