The Prone Gunman - Jean-Patrick Manchette City Lights Noir

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had her hands in her pockets and wore a sullen, calculating expression. Dubofsky followed twenty meters behind; he cast a furtive glance toward the pub.

      When the girl and the man were away from the theater and were about to go around the corner, Terrier released the clutch and caught up with and overtook them. Just before the redhead reached the intersection, he swerved, pulled up to the sidewalk, and came to a stop. With the engine running, Terrier opened the left door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, with the Ortgies in his hand. Dubofsky almost ran into him. Their eyes met. Dubofsky opened his mouth to shout. Terrier quickly shot him once in his open mouth and again at the base of his nose.

      At the discreet sound of these shots, the redhead turned. Terrier also turned, and they found themselves face to face just as Dubofsky’s head, which was split open, full of holes, and shattered like the shell of a hard-boiled egg, hit the sidewalk with a squishy sound. Terrier took two steps forward, extended his arm, put the silencer against the girl’s heart, and pressed the trigger once. The girl flew back, her intestines emptying noisily, and fell dead on her back. Terrier got back in the Bedford and left.

      He turned left once again and drove westward down an absolutely deserted shopping street where the violent wind pursued dirty newspaper pages. Behind the dark shopwindows were hundreds of empty suits, thousands of empty shoes, thousands of square cardboard labels bearing prices in pounds sterling and occasionally in guineas.

      The Bedford soon rejoined the highway. Around midnight it passed Oxford. Later it reached London.

      Terrier was staying at the Cavendish Hotel. He parked the little van in the hotel lot, went up to his room, and from the individual automatic bar removed a split of Spanish champagne. He drank a glassful, then poured the rest of the sparkling wine down the toilet and tossed the bottle into a corner of the room. He opened a bottle of Watney’s “strong ale” and sipped it as he reclined on the bed, his upper body erect, and smoked two or three cigarettes. He was almost motionless and did not seem sleepy. Then he got back up, dismantled the weapon, cleaned it meticulously, and put it away in a cardboard box. He smoked another cigarette, then put on his pajamas, got into bed, and turned out the light.

      2

      A Jamaican woman brought Terrier his breakfast on time, at eight-thirty. The man ate quickly. His features were a little haggard, his eyes looked a little tired, and the edges of his eyelids were red. He placed the tray in the hallway. He groomed himself and got dressed. He was just finishing adjusting his navy-blue knit tie over his light-blue shirt when someone gave eleven quick knocks on the door, followed by three more. Terrier slipped on the jacket of his gray suit and went to the door. A young guy came in: he was blond and fat, with sideburns; his green blazer and tie displayed the identical crest.

      “Did you know who the girl was?” he asked, after closing the door.

      Terrier shrugged. The young guy smelled of aftershave. He had big gray eyes. He smiled feebly.

      “That’s even better,” he said. “The police are questioning the husband. Do you have the gun?”

      With a nod, Terrier indicated the cardboard box. The young blond guy with sideburns put it under his arm.

      “Till next time.”

      “Maybe.”

      The blond guy smiled. He went out, closing the door soundlessly. Terrier shrugged again. In an ashtray decorated with an advertisement for something called “Younger’s Tartan,” which was probably a beer, he burned the photograph of Dubofsky that was still in his possession. He threw the ashes in the toilet and then went downstairs with his baggage, which he checked with the hotel. He paid his bill, took the little Bedford van from the parking lot, and went to return it to the garage where he had rented it, in Camden, in North London. It was cold and dry. Still windy. Terrier took the bus back toward the center of town, to Soho. He bought a few things and walked around. Greek Street was full of Chinese. In a dusty shop an old man offered Terrier a pirated Maria Callas recording, but Terrier already had it.

      In the middle of the afternoon, he returned on foot to the Cavendish Hotel and claimed his baggage. A taxi took him to the airport. A lot of police officers and soldiers were stationed at the entrance to check vehicles and people because of a recent resurgence of Irish terrorism.

      The airplane took off twenty minutes late and touched down early in the evening at Roissy–Charles de Gaulle. Around nine-thirty, a French taxi dropped Terrier in front of his building on Boulevard Lefebvre, across from the Parc des Expositions, not far from the Porte de Versailles.

      Terrier went up on foot. There was no elevator. The man’s apartment was a studio under the mansard roof, on the top floor. The telephone was ringing inside when Terrier reached his landing. As Terrier opened the door and entered, the telephone stopped ringing. The man closed the door behind him, turned on the light, and stood still for a moment, his traveling bag set on the floor nearby.

      The single room, flanked by a kitchenette and a toilet and shower, was sparsely furnished. A white bed, a beige shag carpet, two white plastic-covered armchairs, a coffee table—that was just about it. A large, spherical Chinese lantern made of white paper hung from the ceiling, and, by way of a bedside lamp, a black steel spotlight was attached to the wall near the bed with an X hook. Against the back wall, paperback books and records were piled on the floor. A bearded black man in a buff suit and a canary-yellow turtleneck shirt was sitting in one of the white armchairs.

      “It’s me,” he said.

      “You scared me,” said Terrier.

      “Sorry.”

      Terrier picked up his bag and advanced into the studio.

      “How did you get in?”

      “Are you joking, Christian?” asked the black man.

      Terrier put his bag down under a window. He went over to the kitchenette and put ice into a wine glass, poured vodka over it, and added a few drops of lemon juice. He served himself a bottle of overchilled Mutzig beer. He came back into the room and handed the wine glass of vodka to the black man, who had remained seated but had stretched out his legs. He wore black cotton socks and very soft leather shoes.

      “Well?” asked Terrier.

      “There are rumors going around. Are you getting out, Christian?”

      “Who’s saying that?”

      “Cox.”

      “He told you that?”

      “He told someone. He’s very worried.”

      “Did he send you?”

      The black man shook his head without smiling.

      “Cox is a nutcase, a worm, and a faggot,” he said. “I came to wait for you because I wanted to make sure that no one else was waiting for you.”

      “Why?”

      “I was the one who recruited you.”

      “So?”

      The black man shook his head with an absent look.

      “There were some guys fomenting guerilla war in Asia,” he said. “When circumstances changed, they had to drop everything. Some took it badly. Some are still in psychoanalysis. Some became Buddhists. You understand? That far gone.” He took a swallow of his lemon-flavored vodka. “I’m not nearly that far gone. All the same, I was the one who recruited you.”

      The telephone rang. Terrier answered. Cox was at the other end of the line.

      “I’ve just gotten back,” said Terrier. “It went well.”

      “Yes. This time, I’ll pay you in person.”

      “Fine,” said Terrier. He frowned a little.

      “Rue de Varenne,” said Cox. “Tomorrow morning, at nine.”

      “Fine,” said Terrier again.

      He hung up and

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