Jean-Patrick Manchette - The Mad and the Bad

“A five. Whose turn next?”

“Give it to me,” said Bibi.

“Ace!”

“It’s not fair,” said Bibi. “Coco hasn’t rolled.”

“It’s settled. It’s settled,” said Nénesse. “My brother and me will go and have a smoke over there.”

The two turned away and went off into the trees and undergrowth. Bibi went to open the car’s trunk. Julie had closed her eyes. Even through her eyelids, the sunshine hurt.

Bibi manhandled her like a sack to get at the ropes. There were two of them. The young man made slip knots at the end of each, then went over to a large round rock with a birch growing right next to it. The place had been chosen beforehand. Bibi knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He scrambled up the rock and, leaning over, tied the ropes around a fork in the tree. They hung down the trunk, the nooses about two meters above the ground. The young man wiped away the sweat that was trickling into his eyes. He got down off the rock and returned to the car. He looked in every direction. He no longer saw any sign of the two brothers among the trees, which were close-set and festooned with creepers.

“Hey!” shouted Bibi into the woods. “At least give me a hand getting the girl up onto the rock.”

“Up yours!” came Nénesse’s voice from a good thirty meters away.

“Bastards!” replied Bibi without much conviction.

He leant down and clumsily got his arms around the girl. She was heavy and limp. He bounced her to make sure he had her tight and lugged her over to the round rock. Pushing her against the limestone, he gripped her by the hips and shoved her up ahead of him. It was a devil, but he managed it. The rock sloped slightly. A rather practical place for a hanging.

Bibi finished heaving Julie up and hauled himself up over her. The noose had to go around the girl’s neck. Just push her off into space and let her swing. She would never be able to get her footing on the rock. Easy. Must not forget to throw the scribbled note on the ground that said “Had it. Can’t anymore.”

Bibi leant in to shove Julie up farther. She was breathing little short warm breaths on his neck. Nervous cramps assailed the young man’s leg muscles. The victim’s body rubbed against his. He gulped anxiously as he felt an erection coming on.

At this juncture, Julie moved her right hand. She groped briefly at Bibi’s chest. She grasped the MAB in the inside pocket of his pea jacket and fired a shot through the young man’s body.

The 9mm bullet entered below Bibi’s ribs, burst his liver, and exited through a buttock. The little gangster fell backwards screaming. He tumbled from the rock and landed on his back in the heather. Julie jumped after him and ended up on all fours on top of him. Bibi was shaking and wailing. The girl ran stumbling to the car. She could not see clearly, and she was dizzy. She was amazed when she realized that Peter was fast asleep. She swept the boy into her arms and carried him away, still sleeping.

Meanwhile, once their initial shock had passed, the two brothers charged through the brush like bulls. They emerged not far from the car and saw Bibi lying on the ground and Julie disappearing into the greenery.

“She shot him!” cried Coco.

“Stay with him.”

Nénesse scrambled in pursuit of Julie. He could no longer see the young woman. Branches slashed at his eyes. He could hear her up ahead battling her way forward. She was not more than twenty-five meters away. As he ran, Nénesse drew his revolver, a Spanish Ruby. This was a reflex: He knew he must not shoot the girl. What mattered was to capture both her and the boy.

Just then he spotted them. Julie was running, the boy in her arms. She was tripping and bumping into trees. Where the woods were thick her silhouette was unclear. Then it disappeared. Nénesse upped his pace. It reappeared. She had stopped. She could not escape him now. Nénesse sneered, then he got the feeling that a metal rod was being thrust into his thorax, heard the report of a pistol shot, fell onto all fours, and lost hold of his pistol.

“This is stupid!” he exclaimed.

Nénesse was in shock. He felt himself. There was a hole in his flank. He was lying on his side. He heard his brother’s voice.

“There you are, for Christ’s sake! What the fuck are you doing? I’ve been calling you for ten minutes! Where’s the girl?”

“Help me up,” said Nénesse. “That little bitch put a slug in my chest!”

Julie was far away. She was out of breath. She was not running now, save over brief stretches of open terrain. Soon she found herself in completely wild country. The woods thinned out and gave way to rolling sandy ground interrupted here and there by jumbled rocks surmounted by pines. There were hollows with great masses of bracken. There was no trace of human settlement.

Gradually, as she walked, the girl’s mind became clearer. Her teeth chattered. She had to resist the urge to lie down and sleep. Peter was still unconscious in her arms. Her shoulders hurt, her calves hurt, her feet hurt. Her shoes were not made for walking. They were full of sand and bits of heather that got between her toes. Her smoky-gray tights were in shreds. It was three in the afternoon. It was fine and sunny, but clouds were gathering in the west. Julie navigated by the sun. It was her guiding star.

Though she was holding the little boy, the automatic pistol was still in her hand. It was hard for her to believe that she had shot two men. The idea made her burst out laughing. The girl was exhausted. She halted in the shade of a stand of pines, her back to a rock, on a mound offering a long view. She got her breath. She tended to Peter. Laid out on the ground, the little boy was sleeping with his mouth open. Julie shook him but got no reaction. She pushed his eyelids open. His eyes were slightly rolled up. He shook his head in his sleep. He was not exactly comatose but he was in a very deep, involuntary slumber, and there was nothing she could do but wait. With a dead branch she drew a large heart in the sand in front of her, and inside it she wrote: HERE LIVED JULIE THE RABID BITCH.

The girl was thirsty. After a while, carrying Peter, she set off once more. She forgot the MAB in the sand. She crossed somewhat less arid heathland. The birches were more numerous again. Eventually Julie pushed on through a veritable palisade of trees. Once through them, she found herself at the top of a rather bare slope. A valley stretched before her. At the far end of it the gray houses of a settlement could be seen. A road ran through the village. Julie set off down the hillside. Along the way, realizing what she must look like, she stood behind a rock to shed her ripped tights and untangle her hair. The sky, meanwhile, was clouding over. As she got closer to the village, from the open windows of the houses she heard live radio commentary on a football match, part of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup. The girl reached the edge of little vegetable gardens behind the houses. She clambered over an ironwork fence, followed a stony path, and emerged onto the main street, which was also the main road through the village.

Julie waited for a moment, expecting anyone and everyone to rush up to her and greet her or ask her questions. But the two or three passersby she saw paid her not the slightest attention. As for some youths seated at a refreshment stand, they were mainly interested in her legs. One of them whistled. Stiff-backed, Julie walked on.

She stopped at the local purveyor (according to the enameled frontage) of “Newspapers, Tobacco, and Novelties.” That day’s France-Soir was displayed on a plywood rack, and Julie’s photo was on the front page. A bad picture, taken several years earlier. The words “Little Peter’s nanny had been in psychotherapy” appeared in medium-size type below the picture, and underneath that, in smaller characters: “She has disappeared with the child (page 3).”