The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette Read Free Book Online Page B

pardon?” said the clerk.
    â€œNothing. She came and went by car?”
    â€œI suppose so. I don’t know.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œPhilippe, monsieur.”
    â€œWell, Philippe,” said Terrier, “let me know right away if this woman shows up again. There’s a tip in it for you—in any case. And thanks.”
    â€œMy pleasure, monsieur.”
    â€œGood night,” said Terrier.
    He hung up softly, shaking his head and smiling. Then his smile vanished. He returned to the opened package and completely freed the aquarium of its wrapping. As he did so, a card appeared bearing a hand-stenciled message in capital letters: “WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF LUIGI ROSSI.” Terrier carefully examined the card, then the wrapping paper and the ribbons, even holding them up to the light of the bedside lamp. After tearing the card into tiny pieces, he put everything in the wastebasket.
    The man turned out the lights in the room and positioned himself near the window, observing the humid night and the yellowish glow that the ground-floor lights, reduced at the moment, cast on the front steps, the gravel paths, and a few dark, gleaming, motionless automobiles.
    After putting the aquarium in the bottom of the armoire, closing the shutters, and drawing the curtains, Terrier slept, with the HK4 under the pillow, until close to eight in the morning.
    As he drove away from the hotel, he discreetly observed his surroundings and the rearview mirror. Sometimes he drove very fast and sometimes times very slow. It seemed that he wasn’t being followed.
    At present, the public dump carried a sign that read “No Dumping,” but on the slope was still the same mess of broken bottles, melon rinds, tin cans, rusty springs, dark rags, and dismembered celluloid baby dolls as before. Terrier stopped the DS on the adjacent flat area. When the road was empty, he threw the aquarium down the hill. It bounced once, then broke apart on the second impact and continued to tumble down, the plate glass shattering, with pieces of dead cat flying in every direction as the thing bounced and smashed and scattered its parts around the base of the cone of rubbish until they were just indistinct and motionless pieces of detritus.
    Terrier got back behind the wheel of the DS and sat still for a moment, looking frequently in the rearview mirror. A few cars passed quickly on the wet highway. Nothing else happened.
    Terrier got back on the road going the other way and returned to the center of Nauzac. From a telephone at the post office he dialed a Paris number.
    â€œWhere are you?” asked Stanley.
    Terrier did not answer the question. He told Stanley as little as he could: he mentioned the phone calls before his departure from Paris, the ransacked apartment, the name of Luigi Rossi, the death of Alex, the cat.
    â€œThat’s disgusting,” said Stanley.
    â€œDo you have any idea of what’s going on?”
    â€œNo. You ought to come back, Christian.”
    â€œTry to find out.”
    â€œIf you come back,” said Stanley, “you’ll have the protection of the company.”
    â€œTry to find out,” repeated Terrier. “I’ll call back.”
    He hung up and returned to his hotel.
    There was a message for him: Anne had called, she would call back, no point in calling her because she would be out. Terrier gave a hundred francs to Philippe, the clerk.
    â€œThe tip I mentioned,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Are you on duty twenty-four hours a day?”
    â€œFrom seven in the morning till one in the morning,” said the man in the burgundy jacket.
    â€œYou’re going to wear yourself out.”
    â€œIt’s only temporary,” said the clerk. “I’m ambitious.”
    Terrier nodded and went up to his room. He was sweating. He went into the bathroom and looked at the shower head, then went back into the room and looked at the