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

saying last evening. How you thought they imagined you had run the guy over or something like that, and how they might be friends of his out for revenge.”
    â€œI’m sorry. I don’t follow you,” said Gerfaut, shaking his head vigorously.
    Liétard repeated what he had said.
    â€œOh, well, yes. I suppose that could be.”
    â€œYou ought to talk to the police.” Liétard was pouring Médoc.
    â€œI don’t want to.”
    They looked at each other as they munched.
    â€œYou can stay here for a few days if you like,” offered Liétard.
    â€œNo, no.”
    â€œTomorrow afternoon, on the box—oh, what shits they are, though! Did you see the Fuller yesterday? They showed the dubbed version, the morons! But of course, you couldn’t have seen it, could you? What was I saying? Oh, yes, tomorrow afternoon they are showing Edward Ludwig’s Wake of the Red Witch. It’s really wild. I always cry at the end. You know what knocks me out every time—and I don’t know how this works, but it never fails—it’s when characters that are dead come back to life at the end, like in Yang Kwei Fei or in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Even with The Long Gray Line —every time I think, shit, what militaristic trash, but then at the end—it always happens—when Donald Crisp and dear, old Maureen O’Hara show up again, wham!” Liétard used his fingers like a mime to suggest tears running down his face.
    â€œUh-huh,” murmured Gerfaut, who hadn’t the slightest idea what Liétard was talking about.
    They finished their steak tartare and wine. It was late in the evening now. They lit cigarettes. Gerfaut asked Liétard if he had any music to play.
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œA little blues from the West Coast?”
    â€œ Kleine Frauen,” quoted Liétard, “ kleine Lieder, ach, man liebt und liebt sie wieder. ” And he translated: “’Little women, little songs, you love them and go on loving them.’ A bit of blues from the West Coast? That’s so typical of you! Sorry, old pal, all I have is hard bop.”
    â€œEven back in high school we were never on the same wavelength.”
    Then Liétard spoke a little about himself. The store brought in enough for him to survive. He had no plans to marry. The year before, he had had an affair with an American woman.
    â€œI have written a film script,” he said, “but I am not happy with the end. I have to get the end right. And I may write a book on the great American cameramen.”
    â€œBéa—my wife—works for the film industry as a press agent.”
    â€œThat’s great. We should get together. Not just on that account, of course. I mean, generally.”
    Before long, Liétard said that he would soon be going to bed, and Gerfaut said he would be leaving.
    â€œAre you going back to Saint-Georges-de-Didonne?”
    â€œI don’t know. I suppose so.”
    â€œNo point driving yourself crazy. It was probably just two nuts, guys who were drugged up, who went for you in the water for no particular reason. There are creeps everywhere, you know.”
    â€œDo you think you could let me have a gun?”
    â€œSure, if it would make you feel safer. But let’s be quick about it.”
    The two men went rapidly back upstairs. Liétard opened a chest of drawers containing several cloth-wrapped boxes. After a moment’s reflection he removed one from its dull blue covering and produced an automatic pistol engraved with the words BONIFACIO ECHEVARRÍA S.A.—EIBAR—ESPAÑA—“STAR.”
    â€œThis one you can take with you. A guy left it here. He completely forgot about it—a funny story. Well, not so funny, really, if you think about it. A friend of a friend. He came from South America, but he was French. His father was tortured to death by the Nazis during the Resistance. He had been turned