Fatale - Jean-Patrick Manchette [27]
“I know,” she told nearly all those she parlayed with, “that the baron possesses documents that you would like to retrieve. I have friends who are ready to retrieve them for you. No, don’t interrupt, just listen.”
The rest followed, more or less quickly, more or less easily.
“My dear Madame Joubert, you astound me!” exclaimed Lindquist, but then she spoke to him brutally, using malicious, coarse language that shattered the man’s façade of respectability and left him speechless; and he offered little resistance when she made her proposition.
Aimée got back to the Seagull Apartments around eleven o’clock. She disturbed the manageress, who was watching television, and announced that she would be leaving Bléville that very night. The manageress hemmed and hawed a little, but since Aimée was paid up through the end of the week, there was not much she could say. The young woman went on up to her studio apartment and packed her bags. The telephone rang. She answered. Lorque was on the line.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said.
“Is it yes or no?” demanded Aimée.
“It’s yes. What do I have to lose?”
“Fine,” said Aimée.
She ended the conversation by depressing the cradle switch with her thumb, and without replacing the receiver called the telephone standard in front of the train station with its enamel plaque reading KEEP YOUR TOWN CLEAN! In response to Aimée’s call a taxi appeared in front of the apartment around twelve fifteen. The young woman was already waiting in the lobby with her luggage. She had herself driven to the station. There she put her bags in the self-service lockers. She kept only her handbag, which among other things held a small Polaroid camera, doubles of every key to the lockers, and six 12-gauge shotgun cartridges. There was a 4:35 a.m. boat train that picked up connecting passengers arriving by sea, and she booked a ticket to Paris on it. Then she went back out of the station, took another taxi, and returned to the Seagull Apartments. Wheeling out her bicycle, she slung her bag over her shoulder and pedaled energetically to the baron’s.
It was ten past one when she got there. Lorque had phoned to say yes just an hour and a half earlier. Aimée grimaced when she saw light coming from the baron’s bedroom on the second floor of the house. Taking care not to let the gravel crunch underfoot, the young woman slipped through the shadows and leaned her bicycle against the wall of the manor. Perfectly still in the cold of the night, she waited without feeling anything. The light went out. Aimée waited for a good quarter of an hour longer. Her teeth chattered now and again, her stomach fluttered, and she was sweating, but she still felt nothing. At this point, she could have gone back to the station, opened all the lockers, taken whatever money was already deposited in them, and vanished on the 4:35 train. She rooted in her bag. She worked her hands slowly into a pair of latex gloves. She walked around the house. Disturbed, the rabbits made muted sounds as they hopped about in their hutches. Aimée approached the back door, meaning to pick the lock, but it was not locked. She switched on a small penlight. Once across the hall, she took a few steps into the living room. The thin beam of light from her torch raked the furniture and the drawers that would have to be opened, broken open if need be, so as to suggest a burglary. Then Aimée went back into the hall, took down the Weatherby Regency, and opened it. It was unloaded. She inserted two 12-gauge shells. Cautiously, she went up the stairs. In the second-floor passageway, the bedroom door stood open. The baron’s snores were audible.
Aimée entered his room, turned on the lights, and trained the Weatherby’s superposed barrels on the baron. At first the light failed to awaken the sleeping