Fatale

by Jean-Patrick Manchette

  Aimée was already through the hall and out the front door. She ran down the steps, mounted her bicycle, and set the dynamo for light, for night had fallen. Puffing, the baron emerged at the top of the darkened front steps. He was rubbing his knee.

  “Wait, for God’s sake!” he cried. “What is your interest in this, for God’s sake? Don’t leave. Explain!”

  But Aimée, her tires creating a crackle and spray of gravel, was heading full-tilt for the gate, then she was through it and gone.

  11

  THAT SAME evening, as he returned home a few minutes before midnight, the journalist DiBona found Baron Jules waiting for him on the stairs of his apartment building. As DiBona told it the next day, he had the impression at the moment that the man was drunk, although you never really knew with the baron. What is certain is that the impecunious nobleman was highly excited and vexed. DiBona invited him into his apartment and they had a conversation. (At some point during their exchange, DiBona telephoned the Dépêche’s printshop; and later that night, after the conversation was over, he left his home once more and went to reset the entire front page of the next day’s paper and made some changes to the inside pages.) As the two men were talking the baron drank a great deal of red wine that DiBona poured for him and repeatedly buried his face in his hands, pressing his palms hard against the area just below his eyes, then abruptly moving them downwards, still applying pressure, as though seeking to wipe away deep stains, or perhaps tattoos, from his cheeks. He was also continually rising from his chair and then sitting down again. He paced back and forth across the dull parquet floor. At times he was voluble, at others information had to be dragged out of him. Throughout the interview he displayed a quite remarkable animosity towards DiBona, for after all the baron had come of his own accord, no one had forced him and nothing obliged him to reveal things to the reporter or to talk to him as he chose to do.

  For example, after evoking Bléville’s past in a vague and abstract manner, and after DiBona asked him what was so special about that past, Baron Jules well-nigh shouted.

  “Nothing! Nothing special at all! Corruption, influence peddling, swindles of every stripe, sexual turpitude—just like anywhere else. But do you want the wherewithal to destroy Lorque and Lenverguez, or don’t you give a shit?”

  “Don’t get angry,” said DiBona. He was setting up an enormous, dusty, ancient tape recorder on a round table covered with an oilcloth. “It wasn’t me who brought you here,” the journalist pointed out. “Anyway, we’ll record what you have to say, in case it is of interest.”

  “Interest?” repeated the baron. “You little twerp, I tell you I know everything about this town. I know everything about you too, DiBona. I know what you did in 1943.”

  DiBona cast an inscrutable glance at the baron.

  “If you don’t mind,” said the journalist, switching on his recorder, “let’s stick to Lorque and Lenverguez...”

  The next day, in a town already roiled by the furor over the rotten fish, the mood deteriorated even further, and quickly. THE TRUTH ON LORQUE AND LENVERGUEZ was the headline in the Dépêche de Bléville, while the subtitle read: “Deadly Canned Goods Just the Latest in a Long Series of Scandals.” From that point on, the peace that usually reigned in Bléville was irremediably shattered, and things only got worse over the following days. Each morning the Dépêche gave the “Latest on the Scandals” and followed up by launching new bugaboos. Nothing earthshaking. It merely emerged, in a general way, that Bléville’s municipal government and public treasury had always been in thrall to the interests of Lorque and Lenverguez. This was scant justification for outrage. But passions were aroused by the deaths of the baby and two or three old people, along with thirty or so cows, all poisoned by L and L products, by Old Sea-Pilot canned goods and Happy Baby baby food. Many solid citizens pretended to be appalled; quite a few, out of stupidity, really were appalled. Others stood up for Lorque and Lenverguez. The bourgeoisie of Bléville was split in two.

  At noontime the atmosphere at the Grand Café de l’Anglais would be electric. As early as eleven thirty, DiBona, often joined by Georges Rougneux and Robert Tobie, the bookseller and the pharmacist, would lay claim to the back room of the brasserie. The men would drink Ricard, unfolding that day’s Dépêche, passing its pages from hand to hand, commenting loudly and laughing maliciously. Around a quarter past twelve, senior manager Moutet would appear and be slapped on the back by the drinkers. Though not indicted as yet, he had twice been deposed by a magistrate. He spoke more quickly than formerly, and his voice seemed higher pitched. His complexion was more florid, as were his gestures, and each time he came he downed several full pints of German beer. A little later, between house calls, Sinistrat would become part of the noisy group for forty minutes. Affecting a smile steelier than usual and a curt tone, lowering his eyelids somewhat and throwing his head back to blow cigarette smoke towards the grubby ceiling, the doctor played the subtle analyst, the icy extremist, the Machiavelli.

  “So old Lenverguez has two good reasons, doesn’t he,” DiBona asked him, “for not clasping you to his bosom? There’s your articles, and then there’s his wife...”

  Sinistrat smiled, making no effort to contest the insinuation. Then he suddenly put on a serious face.

  “This has nothing to do with personal matters,” he said. “Fundamentally, this is political.”

  At one o’clock precisely, Lorque and Lenverguez, along with their wives, would enter the brasserie, scan the room with a distant air, share a few friendly handshakes, and go upstairs to take lunch on the second-floor balcony. From the back room, their field of vision limited by the balcony which extended above their heads, DiBona and his allies were obliged, in order to inspect the factory owners’ party, to peer over their glasses and beer mugs and hold up their chins, which gave them a weak and furtive look.

  During these days Aimée made no appearance at the Grand Café de l’Anglais, nor anywhere in town, except for a daily trip from her studio to and from a tobacco shop on the harbor front, where she bought the papers and crime novels. The rest of the time she stayed in her apartment doing a little thinking and reading the papers and crime novels.

  Early in the morning of the fourth day, she received a telephone call from Baron Jules, who had apparently gone to ground since his interview with DiBona. He sounded nervous, tired, filled, perhaps, by a kind of perverse glee—and bitter.

  “Yes,” Aimée told him. “Alright. But maybe you would rather come over here?” The baron said no. “Whenever you like then,” replied Aimée. “Right away, if you wish.” But the baron demurred, and said he would rather she came at exactly five o’clock. “That’s fine,” said Aimée.

  She spent the day in her studio, reading, then watching a television show designed to edify housewives and an episode from a stupid and restful American series. At four o’clock she opened a can of corned beef and ate the contents. Then she went out. She went by the tobacco shop for the papers. The Dépêche had new revelations, accusing

  Maître Lindquist of corruption and calling for the opening of judicial investigations into Lorque and Lenverguez and the attorney-realtor. Aimée got on her Raleigh and rode to the baron’s. He met her on the front steps.

  “Could you stay for a while?” he asked immediately. “Till eight o’clock?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Aimée.

  The baron was wearing wide-striped pants and a blue seaman’s sweater. He was sockless in disintegrating tennis shoes. He had not shaved that morning and tough white whiskers could be seen on his pink cheeks. His features were drawn and his reddened eyes had dark rings beneath them. He seemed unable to stand still. He took Aimée by the arm and led her haphazardly through the garden. It was a mild day. The sky was a low and uniform gray. From far-off fields of stubble came the throb of a tractor’s engine.

  “It’s coming from me, everything they are putting out in the Dépêche,” said the baron.

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it.”
<
br />   “You should be happy.”

  Aimée shrugged. “Yes.”

  “Well, I am not happy,” said the baron.

  “No?” Aimée shook her head.

  “There’s not one of them that can redeem the others,” said the baron. “You really think DiBona deserves to be given ammunition? Do you know what he, DiBona, was doing in 1943?”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “He was turning in Allied parachutists to the Germans.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” Aimée repeated.

  “You egged me on,” said Baron Jules grumpily. “You pushed me into this. You got me to set one clique against the other. You got me entangled with them. I’m not happy about that.”

  “If you’re not happy, you can go fuck yourself,” Aimée suggested. “I’m cold.”

  The baron took Aimée’s arm once more. By this time the pair had circled the residence. The baron led the young woman towards a small back door. They went in, climbed three steps, and emerged into the hall where the Weatherby Regency shotgun hung. The baron started up the stairs.

  “Just wait,” he said with venomous satisfaction. “You’ll see.”

  Aimée followed him up the stairs and then up to the observatory. The stained-glass windows cast colored light on the walls, on the instruments, on the wheeled enameled table on which lay several brown kraft-paper envelopes.

  “I’ve been thinking things over, these last three days,” said the baron. “What I’ve revealed about these people amounts to nothing. I can do much better. On the others too I can do far better. I can decapitate this town.”

  “So go ahead,” said Aimée in a bored voice.

  Smiling, the baron tapped with the flat of his hand on the brown envelopes, which were bulging. Then he stood back and leaned against a wall with his arms crossed. Aimée picked up one of the envelopes. It was marked “Jacques Lorque.” She glanced at a few more of them, marked “DiBona,” “Dr. Claude Sinistrat,” “Lindquist,” and so on.

  “They are not sealed. Take a look inside,” said the baron. “Half of them are going to prison, and the rest will have no honor left. Go on, take a look.”

  “I’m not interested. I couldn’t care less,” said Aimée, sounding weary and bored, and she pushed the envelopes away.

  “Vipers! Swine! Dogs!” cried Baron Jules in a high-pitched voice. He stepped away from the wall in excitement. “They’re all crooks, can’t you see that?”

  “Crooks or not. Even if they were honest...” said Aimée. She did not finish her sentence.

  “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 out for, and which made its appearance a little after the others, bringing up the rear. When she saw it emerge from the hamlet, going at a reasonable speed, she came out of the trees and went back onto the road. Holding her bicycle by the handlebars, she positioned herself in the middle of the roadway. With one hand she signaled the car to stop.

  “I have a flat,” she said to Lorque, pointing to the deflated tire. “Could you take me back to town?”

  Lorque helped her put the Raleigh in the roomy trunk of the Mercedes. He got back behind the wheel and Aimée sat beside him in the passenger seat. The man’s lips were tight, his glance distracted. He started the car fairly gently, then accelerated.

  “Don’t go too fast,” said Aimée. “I am not what I seem to be. I have a proposal for you, one that will surprise you. Between now and when we get to Bléville, you have to hear me out, and you have to answer me yes or no.”

  A few moments later, Lorque parked the Mercedes behind the fish market on a dirty deserted street because he and Aimée had not finished their discussion. Night had come. Cats ran among piles of empty shells. Inside the car, Lorque and Aimée talked and sat in silence by turns. At one point Lorque covered his face with both hands and it seemed as if Aimée had spoken sharply to him. At another moment he burst out laughing, but his laughter appeared to be bitter.

  “You might be in cahoots with the baron,” said Lorque at one juncture.

  “That’s a risk you must take.”

  “It is
indeed a risk.”

  “My friends are also taking a risk,” said Aimée.

  “Do I know these friends of yours? Have I ever met them?”

  Aimée shook her head. “You have never seen them. And you never will.”

  “I have to think this over for a few hours,” said Lorque. “I’ll telephone you tonight.”

  “On the phone,” said Aimée, “just say yes or no. Three hours after your call, I’ll meet you here. The problem will have been taken care of. I’ll give you the documents that concern you. You will have deposited the forty thousand francs in the self-service locker. You will give me the key to the locker.”

  “It would be simpler if—”

  “No discussion,” ordered Aimée.

  “It’s a large sum,” said Lorque. Aimée made no reply. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. Lorque shrugged. “Very well,” he said, turning towards the young woman. “But I’ll need some proof that the problem really has been taken care of. How am I to know—”

  “A Polaroid print,” said Aimée. “Would that do?”

  “That will do.”

  Aimée consulted her watch. Seven ten. The guns and ammo stores would be closing soon. She turned a placid face to Lorque.

  “Fine,” she said, to end the conversation.

  “I am flabbergasted,” said Lorque, smiling almost despite himself. “I can’t believe my ears, honestly. I had found you strange, but this...no. I’m still not quite sure it’s real. I’m going to need an hour or two to decide whether it’s real or not.”

  “It’s real,” said Aimée. “My proposal is real. Everything is perfectly real.”

  Lorque grabbed Aimée’s wrist and looked intensely into her eyes. He was half sneering, despite himself. With his other hand he clasped the nape of her neck, pulling the young woman towards him and giving her a breathless kiss. She let herself be kissed. His mouth was warm. Then she pulled away.