Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette Read Free Book Online

window of a store called Fairy Fingers: LINGERIE—GENTLEMEN’S SHIRTS—HOSIERY—NOTIONS—SPECIALISTS IN DELUXE UNDERGARMENTS—BABY WEAR—LACE—KNICK-KNACKS—BIBS—FINE HANDKERCHIEFS—BUTTONS—FORM-FAST AND REDUCING CORSETS (NEVER RIDE UP—NO NEED FOR GARTERS). ALSO ALL TYPES OF GIRDLES AND BRAS—PLEATING—OPENWORK EMBROIDERY FOR BED LINEN—BUTTONHOLES—STOCKING REPAIR—BUCKLES.

9
    â€œDo you know what I remember?” cried Gerfaut, alarmingly jubilant. “The only thing I remember is the sign in a shopwindow! I know the whole thing by heart!” And he recited it word for word.
    â€œDrink your coffee,” counseled Liétard.
    Gerfaut complied. He was sitting in the back room of Action-Photo, a small shop not far from the town hall of Issy-les-Moulineaux, where his old friend Liétard sold cameras, film, movie equipment, binoculars, telescopes, and a mass of smaller items. Liétard wore a red shirt and worn-out black pants. He had a long, thin intellectual’s face and a gentle manner, but these traits were misleading. He is one of those who were in the entrance to the Charonne metro station at a bad moment: 17 October 1961, when police cornered Algerian protestors there. He is also one of those who came out alive. The next year, six months after his release from the hospital, Liétard set upon a lone policeman late one night in Rue Brancion, beat the man savagely with his own baton and left him naked, two ribs and jaw broken, handcuffed to the iron railings around the Vaugirard slaughterhouses.
    â€œYou must be wiped out,” said Liétard. “Did you sleep on the train?”
    â€œNo, I didn’t! Of course I didn’t!”
    â€œYou can lie down upstairs if you like. You ought to, you know.”
    â€œI couldn’t possibly sleep now.”
    â€œWould you like me to give you a sleeping pill?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t work.”
    â€œGive it a try, anyway.”
    Gerfaut protested weakly. Liétard brought him two white tablets with a glass of water, and he took them.
    â€œYou must think I’m losing it.”
    â€œI don’t think anything. I’m listening, that’s all. I have to open up shop, okay? It’s nine o’clock.”
    Gerfaut nodded distantly. Liétard got up from the table and went through into the front. He opened up and almost immediately had to serve a customer wanting a 36-exposure roll of Kodachrome X. By the time he returned to the back room, Gerfaut was already half asleep and half slumped over the corner of the table. Liétard helped him upstairs via an interior spiral staircase covered with riveted jute matting. Gerfaut undressed almost unaided and lay down on the bed. He promptly began to snore—or perhaps “buzz” would be a more accurate word. He half awoke once, vaguely noticed that it was daylight, wondered where he was, and fell back to sleep. When he came to, night was falling outside the shutters. Gerfaut got up and got dressed. Liétard appeared at the top of the spiral staircase with a cup of coffee in his hand. Gerfaut rushed at him and grabbed him, and coffee sloshed from the cup and filled the saucer.
    â€œYou bastard!” shouted Gerfaut. “Have you telephoned my wife?”
    â€œNo. Should I have?”
    â€œDid you telephone the cops? Or anyone?”
    Liétard shook his head in perplexity. Gerfaut let go of him and stepped back with a grimace of apology.
    â€œShould I make us steak tartare?” asked Liétard. “For old times’ sake? I’ve bought all the makings.”
    Gerfaut nodded.
    â€œDo you think,” asked Liétard, once they were seated before plates of ground steak black from overspicing, “do you think they were trying to do away with you on account of that guy you picked up on the road the other night?”
    â€œMe? But why?”
    â€œWell, I mean, what you were