Free Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette Page B

marked “Jacques Lorque.” She glanced at a few more of them, marked “DiBona,” “Dr. Claude Sinistrat,” “Lindquist,” and so on.
    â€œThey are not sealed. Take a look inside,” said the baron. “Half of them are going to prison, and the rest will have no honor left. Go on, take a look.”
    â€œI’m not interested. I couldn’t care less,” said Aimée, sounding weary and bored, and she pushed the envelopes away.
    â€œVipers! Swine! Dogs!” cried Baron Jules in a high-pitched voice. He stepped away from the wall in excitement. “They’re all crooks, can’t you see that?”
    â€œCrooks or not. Even if they were honest...” said Aimée. She did not finish her sentence.
    â€œI have called them all here for six o’clock. I’m going to show them what’s in the envelopes. These are all just copies. Wait till you see their faces.”
    â€œDo you plan to sell them the originals?”
    â€œWhat do you take me for?” yelled the baron.
    â€œOh, I said that just to get your goat. What are you proposing to do?”
    â€œI’m going to send all this stuff to the Paris papers,” replied the baron. “But first I’m going to show them these copies, make them sweat with fear, so they know what’s coming to them.”
    The baron took a few steps, shaking with silent laughter. At that moment the sun, shining through a stained-glass pane, threw a bright streak of scarlet across the baron’s neck. The man looked as though his throat had been slashed. Aimée felt a certainty and an anxiety that made her wobble on her feet.
    â€œWhy are you pulling a face?” asked the baron. “Isn’t this what you wanted? It is what you wanted!” he said with conviction. “I don’t get it, but it is what you wanted.”
    Aimée wheeled, and tore off down the staircase. Stunned, the baron did not move for a moment. Then he raced down the stairs in pursuit.
    â€œDon’t deny it!” he cried. “I know you wanted this!”
    â€œLeave me alone. Get away from me,” said Aimée as she crossed the hall at top speed, passing the Weatherby Regency mounted on the wall.
    She left the house, leaped onto her Raleigh. For a second time she rode off the property with the baron, now out on the front steps, calling vainly after her.
    â€œThey’ll be here in twenty minutes,” he shouted. “Stay! You’ll see them go white about their ugly gills. Stay!”
    Aimée disappeared. The baron let his arms drop to his sides. Thwarted and seeming unsure of himself, he went back inside. Meanwhile, Aimée sped along the road, left the hamlet behind, and headed towards Bléville. After a few hundred meters, she noticed a copse on the right. She braked and put a foot on the ground. Then, holding the bicycle by the handlebars, she left the road. There was no one in sight. She went into the clump of trees and hid there with her bike.

12
    H IDDEN in the copse, Aimée did not have long to wait. After barely a quarter of an hour, she began to see cars going by on the road to the hamlet. The vehicles continued to pass for ten minutes or so, sometimes one or two minutes apart, sometimes closer. There were three cars separated by only fifty or sixty meters, apparently traveling in a group. Altogether, Aimée counted more than ten vehicles. Standing in the sheltered half darkness of the clump of trees, invisible amid the prickly branches, she recognized most of the drivers, among them the bookseller Rougneux at the wheel of a Renault 6, the pharmacist Tobie in a Citroën GS, Lorque with his brownish eyelids driving a large tobacco-colored Mercedes. A chauffeur in street clothes and a cap was at the wheel of another Mercedes with the skinny, laconic Lenverguez in the back. Dr. Sinistrat, attorney and realtor Lindquist, and senior manager Moutet in his Alfa Romeo also passed. Two