Fatale - Jean-Patrick Manchette [25]
“I have called them all here for six o’clock. I’m going to show them what’s in the envelopes. These are all just copies. Wait till you see their faces.”
“Do you plan to sell them the originals?”
“What do you take me for?” yelled the baron.
“Oh, I said that just to get your goat. What are you proposing to do?”
“I’m going to send all this stuff to the Paris papers,” replied the baron. “But first I’m going to show them these copies, make them sweat with fear, so they know what’s coming to them.”
The baron took a few steps, shaking with silent laughter. At that moment the sun, shining through a stained-glass pane, threw a bright streak of scarlet across the baron’s neck. The man looked as though his throat had been slashed. Aimée felt a certainty and an anxiety that made her wobble on her feet.
“Why are you pulling a face?” asked the baron. “Isn’t this what you wanted? It is what you wanted!” he said with conviction. “I don’t get it, but it is what you wanted.”
Aimée wheeled, and tore off down the staircase. Stunned, the baron did not move for a moment. Then he raced down the stairs in pursuit.
“Don’t deny it!” he cried. “I know you wanted this!”
“Leave me alone. Get away from me,” said Aimée as she crossed the hall at top speed, passing the Weatherby Regency mounted on the wall.
She left the house, leaped onto her Raleigh. For a second time she rode off the property with the baron, now out on the front steps, calling vainly after her.
“They’ll be here in twenty minutes,” he shouted. “Stay! You’ll see them go white about their ugly gills. Stay!”
Aimée disappeared. The baron let his arms drop to his sides. Thwarted and seeming unsure of himself, he went back inside. Meanwhile, Aimée sped along the road, left the hamlet behind, and headed towards Bléville. After a few hundred meters, she noticed a copse on the right. She braked and put a foot on the ground. Then, holding the bicycle by the handlebars, she left the road. There was no one in sight. She went into the clump of trees and hid there with her bike.
12
HIDDEN in the copse, Aimée did not have long to wait. After barely a quarter of an hour, she began to see cars going by on the road to the hamlet. The vehicles continued to pass for ten minutes or so, sometimes one or two minutes apart, sometimes closer. There were three cars separated by only fifty or sixty meters, apparently traveling in a group. Altogether, Aimée counted more than ten vehicles. Standing in the sheltered half darkness of the clump of trees, invisible amid the prickly branches, she recognized most of the drivers, among them the bookseller Rougneux at the wheel of a Renault 6, the pharmacist Tobie in a Citroën GS, Lorque with his brownish eyelids driving a large tobacco-colored Mercedes. A chauffeur in street clothes and a cap was at the wheel of another Mercedes with the skinny, laconic Lenverguez in the back. Dr. Sinistrat, attorney and realtor Lindquist, and senior manager Moutet in his Alfa Romeo also passed. Two or three other vehicles were driven by people unknown to Aimée, among them a Citroën 1200 Kg van with a sign on the side reading GÉRAUD AND SONS—BUILDERS—ENGINEERS—PUBLIC WORKS. The journalist DiBona brought up the rear at five past six, flying along on a mud-streaked Polish WSK motorcycle in a leather coat and an English crash helmet with a visor.
Then the landscape was empty once more as far as the eye could see. Standing still in the obscurity of the copse, Aimée smoked two cigarettes. She felt rather cold. She crouched by her bike, unscrewed the valve of the rear wheel, and pressed down. The tire deflated. Once it was flat, Aimée stood up again.
Once more the cars began to pass by, returning from the hamlet now and heading towards Bléville. They were traveling fast, the pitch of their engines changing as drivers shifted into a higher gear and left the houses behind. The roaring motors seemed to express anger and fear. Aimée let them all pass by without showing herself, all save Lorque’s tobacco-colored Mercedes, which she watched