Authors: Jean-Patrick Manchette
“It's me,” he hissed. “Did you get her?”
He came abreast of the trawler and with difficulty jumped onto the deck himself. Fellouque seemed stricken. The prone body was DiBona's.
“He's had it,” said Fellouque. “He wandered over here to take a piss.”
“What an idiot,” said Lorque.
Fellouque asked Lorque how things were. Lorque told him that Aimée had killed all the others. The commissioner found it hard to accept this news. He gazed at DiBona's corpse and shook his head.
“He suggested to me that we leave you to it,” he said reflectively. “Just before going off for a piss, he suggested that we let you sort it out with her, you and the others. In the meantime, he wanted us to go the baron's and get the papers, the documents. I said that that was stupid, that she might well make her getaway over a bridge if we didn't keep watch. Then he suggested that I should guard the bridges while he went to the baron's for the documents. He said that the two of us would then be masters of Bléville. It was tempting.”
“I bet it was,” said Lorque.
Fellouque nodded.
“Well, it's a moot point now.” There was a tinge of regret in the commissioner's tone, and of weariness. “Do you really think she is still around here?” he asked, raising his head.
Lorque opened his mouth to reply. A hawser came looping down from the quay above and settled around the commissioner's shoulders. Immediately the hawser tautened and the wire noose tightened about the policeman's neck.
“Oh, no, no!” the man shouted in tones of distress and terror.
Somebody pulled vigorously on the hawser. The commissioner was dragged along, taking a few steps on the trawler's deck before falling between the boat and the wharf. The tension in the cable arrested his descent halfway, just as his lower legs entered the water, which was streaked with fuel oil and full of trash. The man dropped his revolver and it was swallowed up by the water of the dock. He put both hands to his throat. A gurgling sound escaped from his open mouth. Lorque bent down in a frantic attempt to pull the policeman back up, grasping him under the armpits, but just at that moment the hawser unreeled slightly and Fellouque fell completely into the water. Still gurgling, he clung to the trawler's hull and tried to clamber back on board. Lorque held a hand out to him. At the same time, the fat man with the brownish eyelids kept looking up in high alarm at the quay, at the place where the other end of the hawser disappeared in the luminous night. But he could see no one.
Grasping Lorque's hand tightly, Fellouque almost succeeded in getting back onto the fishing boat. But at that instant an electric motor started up noisily somewhere on the quay. The commissioner grasped what was about to happen and screeched in horror. He was done for in any case, for the wire had cut into his neck, and Lorque was aghast to see spurting arterial blood drench the policeman's throat. The power purchase on the quay was now operating. Its cable and the attached wire tensed. Commissioner Fellouque was hoisted aloft, his feet kicking at the air. When he was dangling three or four meters above the trawler, a hanged man with his throat slit, Fellouque's feet stilled and Aimée cut the motor of the purchase. On the double, she left the quay and stationed herself in a room inside the fish market, a room with two exits, one to the quay and the other to the dirty roadway where the Mercedes was standing.
In the darkness the young woman was not visible. Had she been visible, she would not have been beautiful to behold; or perhaps she would have been beautiful to behold, depending on one's taste. She was utterly disheveled. Gummy with sweat, her hair stuck to her skull and fell in damp strands over her brow and the nape of her neck, like the hair of ladies who make love relentlessly for hours at a time. Streaks of coagulated blood varnished her elbows and one side of her head and a whole forearm. Her long wool-knit coat was soiled in places by dust, fuel oil, and fish guts. Her silk blouse was bloodstained, its ribbing slightly torn on one side. Her nose was smudged with dirt. She heard Lorque's voice.
“Let's get it over with!” cried the fat man with the brownish eyelids. “I'm the only one left. Tell me where you are. I'm not going to spend all night looking for you.”
By leaning forward a little, Aimée was able, through the door that gave onto the quay, to see Lorque, who had come off the trawler back onto the peninsula and was shouting and wandering about on the concrete with his arms dangling.
“I don't give a shit,” he cried. “If you don't tell me where you are, I'm leaving. Perhaps you like playing hide-and-seek. I've had it with this. I'm fifty-nine years old. I'm too old to play around. What happens, happens. Screw it! I'm out of here. I'll spend a few years in prison, big deal!”
He fell silent, waited for a moment, shrugged, and turned on his heel.
“Over here!” shouted Aimée.
Lorque froze. His head twisted this way and that. He was trying to tell where the voice had come from. He massaged his left arm ruefully. He took two or three steps, away from Aimée.
“You're getting cold!” called Aimée.
Lorque stopped again. Turning around right away, he took three long but hesitant strides.
“Getting warmer!” cried Aimée. She chuckled delightedly.
Lorque headed straight for the doorway through which Aimée was watching his approach. He halted once more on the threshold.
“Now you're hot!” said Aimée.
“I am unarmed,” said Lorque. “I want to talk to you. Listen here, I don't deserve to die. What have I done except follow the natural impulses of the human race? And even that is saying a lot. We are choirboys compared with our ancestors. Does the sack of Cartagena ring any bells with you? Some of Bléville's bold seafarers were there. I'm not talking about the first sack of Cartagena, that was Sir Francis Drake, but the second, when the French did the sacking. What I've done is nothing alongside the sack of Cartagena. Okay, so I worked a bit on the Atlantic Wall, I had to keep a low profile in South America for a while, then I came back and I've been giving employment to workers and making land productive. I've made my pile in the usual way. Just tell me one outrageous thing, one truly criminal thing, in what I have done, in what the baron had in his files, just name me one!”
“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.
T
HE 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
.
âClamart, Menton, 1976â1977
Nine Notes on
Fatale
T
HIS IS
a
roman noir
, so classified on the back jacket of the French edition, but what
is
a
roman noir
? As we know, the term originally referred to what were also called Gothic novels, a genre initiated in the eighteenth century. Eventually it came to apply only to the type of literature known as crime fiction, a form whose invention, as Walter Benjamin pointed out, coincided with the advent of photography, which meant the end of anonymity in that it made it possible, notably for the purposes of oppression, to identify individuals.
Is the crime novel the kind of novel where death is the prime mover? Where, aside from violence and evil, money is the motor and the stake of the action? Certainly as much may be said of
Fatale
, possibly the darkest of its author's works. Indeed the tone is set as early as the end of the second paragraph, where a group of hunters is presented: “They had been hunting for a good three hours and still had not killed anything. Everyone was frustrated and crotchety.” One is tempted to ask whether this mood might not be that of the impatient reader: We have been reading for two paragraphs and still no one has been killed!