Jean-Patrick Manchette: Fatale

“I haven’t read the baron’s files,” said Aimée. Lorque tensed and listened hard, apparently striving to determine the precise source of the young woman’s voice. “I couldn’t care less,” Aimée observed. “Do you really imagine I’m interested in your crimes and misdemeanors? You must be joking!”

Having pinpointed the source of Aimée’s voice, Lorque lit his flashlight. Its beam revealed Aimée, sitting and laughing. The fat man with the brownish eyelids reached behind his back and appeared to be rooting in his trousers. Then, suddenly, brandishing the longshoreman’s hook, he ran at Aimée with a shriek.

Lorque swung the hook like an ax. Caught short, Aimée was slow to dodge the blow and the hook plunged into her shoulder. At the impact, the handle slipped from Lorque’s moist grip. The man fell to one knee as Aimée cried out in pain and staggered against a wall with the hook still buried in her shoulder. Blood spurted; the whole side of her upper body was inundated.

“You asshole! You stinking bastard!” she said. “You’ve hurt me.”

She was tottering. She looked at Lorque, who was still on one knee. He was pale and he was biting his lip. Both his hands were clasped to the left side of his chest. He was short of breath.

“My ticker!” he said. “It’s my ticker.”

He struggled back to his feet. He made his way to the back of the room, still clutching his chest, still panting and groaning. He went out through the door that led to the dirty street. He seemed to be having great difficulty placing one foot in front of the other. Aimée followed him nonchalantly. Blood was coursing down her whole side as far as her ankle. As she went through the doorway she had to reach out for support and cling to the jamb. She wrenched the hook from her shoulder and threw it to the pavement, where it landed with a clang. The flow of blood increased. Meanwhile, outside, it was possible to tell from the blue tinge to the sky that though the dawn had not yet broken, it would soon do so. Slowly, Lorque made for the Mercedes, dragging his feet. Aimée followed.

“Sonia!” cried Lorque. “Sonia! A heart attack!”

Since he could no longer control his voice, Lorque’s words sounded almost boastful, his tone almost triumphant. Then he gave a sharp cry, his knees buckled, he fell on the asphalt, and, rolling over among the discarded shells, died.

Dragging her own feet, Aimée went over to Lorque’s body and made sure that the man was dead. The beams of the Mercedes came on. Aimée was caught in the center of their yellow light. Nonplussed, she did not move. She heard the door of the big car open, then Sonia Lorque appeared in the yellow light holding the little Austrian automatic in her hand. The woman advanced towards Aimée. Her cheeks were streaming with tears.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Aimée. “He is dead.”

“Bitch!” said Sonia Lorque.

Aimée pushed her palms out towards Sonia, as if to repel her.

“I beg you,” said Aimée. “I beg you. Please go away. My only quarrel is with the real assholes. I have nothing against you. You do the best you can. It’s over now. Please, please, go away.”

“But I,” said Sonia, “I have things to settle with you. You little shit!” She fired with the small automatic and missed Aimée by a mile. It was a rudimentary weapon, with a very short barrel. Accuracy could not be expected from it. “Couldn’t you have left us the hell alone?” Sonia shouted at Aimée. “I don’t care what he was. I loved him. I loved him. You damn bitch.” Sonia fired again. She was now three meters from Aimée, who was on her knees. The small-caliber round struck Aimée full in the chest. Aimée toppled backwards. The back of her head hit the roadway with a soft thump. “Serves you right, you cow,” observed Sonia Lorque. “I loved him, my little guy; I lived only for him.” She placed the barrel of the little automatic next to her eye and blew her brains out.

The sound of the little automatic resembled the crack of a whip. Sonia took a step backwards, fell against the hood of the Mercedes and bounced off. She tumbled to the ground. Her extremities shook for ten or twenty seconds, then it was over. Nothing moved for about three minutes. It was approximately five past four. Aimée stirred on the ground, then sat up. With her torso erect, straight-backed, she swayed and was obliged to hold herself up with her arms stretched out behind her.

Next to the young woman was Lorque’s body; a little farther away was Sonia’s. Aimée got to her feet, stumbled over to the Mercedes and turned the headlights off. Through the now-graying night she made out, in one direction, the dock and the trawlers moored there, and beyond them Bléville, where the respectable people slept; in the opposite direction was the other docking basin and, beyond it, the hillside with its working-class suburbs and its streets with names like Jean Jaurès, Gagarin, and Libération. Aimée got into the Mercedes. The keys were in the ignition. She started the car. Her head was continually lolling to one side or falling forward like a dead weight. All the same, she managed to drive away from the market area, over one of the bridges, up the hill through the suburbs where the workers were sleeping FOR JUST A WHILE LONGER, and head north. Blood gummed up one side of her body and clothes. On the other side, the small hole made by the 4.25-millimeter bullet was not bleeding. The young woman seemed to have forgotten the hundred and eighty thousand francs in the self-service luggage lockers and the Paris train. She drove north for seven or eight kilometers, then blacked out for a few seconds, which was long enough for the Mercedes to leave the road. When she came to after her brief syncope, it was too late to straighten up. She braked with all her might, standing up with her foot on the pedal. But at that moment one wheel of the powerful automobile slipped into the ditch, the Mercedes swung across the soft shoulder, skidded in an explosion of grass and earth, and landed up against a tree. The chassis and body were twisted in the middle. Aimée hit her head on a doorframe. For a short while she stayed in the wreck, coughing. Then she got out of the damaged machine. A dirt track led off from the main road about ten meters away. Aimée began walking along it, limping. The dawn was breaking. Aimée’s temples throbbed. After a moment, I don’t know whether it is part of a vision she had on account of the blood loss or for some other reason, but it seems to me that she was now wearing a splendid, possibly sequined scarlet dress; that there was a glorious golden dawn light; and that, in high heels and her scarlet evening gown, intact and exquisitely beautiful, Aimée was with great ease climbing a snow-covered slope like those in the Mont Blanc massif. SENSUAL WOMEN, PHILOSOPHICALLY MINDED WOMEN, IT IS TO YOU THAT I ADDRESS MYSELF.