The Mad and the Bad

21

They had left the Rover at the Orly West parking lot.

“Wait for me,” said Thompson to the two brothers once they were in the terminal. “Wait for me. I’m going to see if there’s not a message for me.”

He disappeared briefly and returned hunched over, carefully tearing up a slip of paper. Coco and Nénesse were looking around the terminal with curiosity, concentrating chiefly on the legs of stewardesses. They both wore cheap slate-gray suits and checked shirts. Each carried a small suitcase containing a change of underwear and a gun.

“The girl,” said Thompson, “has been almost nabbed twice.”

“That a message from your client?”

The Englishman nodded. His eyes had horrible dark circles under them and the edges of his mouth were white.

“The police just missed her at a hotel where she spent the night. Then seemingly she caused a scandal at a hot gospel meeting a hundred kilometers away later in the morning. She’s been reported seen in other regions, in Rouen, in the Alps-but that’s perfectly impossible.”

“It’s always like that with regular citizens,” sneered Coco. “They see evil everywhere.”

“Your client,” said Nénesse, “he has his ear to the ground.”

“He stays informed,” said Thompson with a sigh. “Come on.”

The three men went on foot to the far end of the airfield. A few corporate and charter aircraft stood there, near a gray temporary building. Some young men in short-sleeved shirts were playing boule on the grass. Thompson hailed one of them.

“Finish up without me, fellows,” said the man to the other players.

“Where are you going?”

“Lyon.”

Thompson waited until they were seated in the plane then leant over to the pilot.

“Actually, I’m not certain that we are going to Lyon,” he said. “I need to get as close as possible to Boën, between Roanne and Saint-Étienne.”

The pilot scratched his head. He was dark, with brown eyes, a crew cut, and a lively, healthful mien.

“There’s Villeneuve, near Feurs,” he said. “That’s the closest. Otherwise, farther south, you have the Saint-Étienne airfield, which is actually at Andrézieux.”

“None of that means much to me. Let’s take off anyway. I’ll take a look at the map.”

The pilot put on his earphones and sunglasses with nylon frames and exchanged cabalistic signals with a mechanic. The engines sputtered into life. The aircraft had two of them. It was a yellow-and-red machine, quite graceful though a little garish, with scarlet nacelles on either wing that probably housed reserve fuel tanks. A Cessna 421. The cabin had room for six passengers, comfortable seats complete with armrests and ashtrays. The grass outside lay down flat in the prop wash. The twin-engine plane went into motion, maneuvering on the tarmac. The pilot chattered into his radio. The craft took up its holding position, brakes on.

“At Orly,” the pilot confided to Thompson, “it’s always a bitch on account of the commercial traffic.”

He gabbled into his microphone. The brakes were off. The aircraft raced over the concrete for the longest time, then tipped up and took off. Thompson rejoined the brothers aft. His color was greenish, his eyes half closed.

“I’ve never been up in a plane before,” said Coco.

Thompson was consulting his maps, marking places with a gold mechanical pencil. He stepped away for a moment, went into the lavatory, and vomited in an almost absentminded way; he was getting used to his condition.

Meanwhile the brothers were in ecstasies at seeing the earth from the air.

When Thompson emerged from the lavatory, his mouth dry, he went and shouted into the pilot’s ear, “At Villeneuve, could I easily hire a car?”

“You mean a taxi?”

“No. A hire car without a driver.”

“That, no way, old pal.”

“I’m not your old pal,” said Thompson.

The pilot blanched. “Excuse me, sir.”

Thompson smiled. “Take us to that airfield you mentioned before, near Saint-Étienne. I fancy we’ll find a car there.”

They found one right away, a black Simca 1500, rather the worse for wear but the best thing on offer.

Nénesse was grumpy. “I’m quite fit to drive,” he insisted. He took the wheel. The others did not argue.

Thompson had rented the car under the name of Andre Proust, producing all the paperwork needed.

“Make for Montbrison,” Thompson told Nénesse. “Then to Boen. We’ll make inquiries at the train station or the bus company office.”

“We’ll never corner her before the cops,” said Nénesse. “It’s hopeless.”

“Yes, we will,” countered Thompson. “We have to.”

The 1500 was going at top speed. Coco fidgeted in the back seat.

“Take it easy!”

“Shut up!”

Thompson sighed and contemplated his knees. He had fastened his seat belt. The road was very straight. The Simca was eating it up at roughly 100 kph. It was three in the afternoon when it entered Montbrison.

“Slow down,” Thompson ordered. “Look for signs to Boen or Roanne.”

“Christ alive!” shouted Coco. “There! Look there! Stop! Over there! The girl! She’s here!”

Nénesse slammed on the brakes. The Simca pulled to the left as it slowed. Eyeing his rearview mirror, Nénesse spun the wheel frenziedly. He felt a violent force applied to the side of his body. Skidding, the Simca performed a U-turn on the spot, blocking a Renault 4CV coming the other way. Coco and Thompson were half thrown from their seats. Their car had gone some fifty meters past Julie and Peter. The girl stood motionless, stricken, at the edge of the sidewalk, which was lined with plane trees.

“We kill her immediately and leave via the National 496,” declared Thompson.

He reached inside his jacket.

“We’re not hanging her anymore?” asked Coco in bewilderment.

“We kill her. That’s all that matters.”

The Simca hurtled towards Julie with its engine roaring. The girl seemed to come alive. She took Peter by the arm and ran between cars parked on the sidewalk.

Thompson’s hand emerged from his jacket armed with a bizarre-looking SIG automatic of the kind used for target practice. It could have been mistaken for a rather unrealistic toy gun. With his other hand he rolled down the window of his car door as quickly as he could.

Ten meters from his goal Nénesse downshifted. Braked by its transmission, the Simca slowed rapidly and leant forward on its tired suspension. Thompson heard Coco’s shot detonate right by his ear. Julie dived headlong into the dust, but Thompson spotted the bullet’s impact point, too high, on the roof of a parked Renault 4. Julie was crawling as fast as she could around the car. Thompson’s innards were in the grip of an iron hand. He saw Peter’s pale face lined up with his sighting mark and squeezed the trigger of the SIG just as Nénesse gave the steering wheel a violent twist. The round passed just beneath the little boy’s ear.

“I’m going to crush them,” said Nénesse.

The Simca, turning so sharply that it almost flipped over, mounted the sidewalk, lost contact with the ground, and swiveled head-to-tail.

“Fucking shit!” cried Nénesse.

Julie, still holding Peter by the hand, set off in the opposite direction, zigzagging among the parked cars. Coco fired just under Thompson’s nose for the second time, his hot powder scorching the Britisher’s face. The Simca, still skidding, collided with the R 4 and tore off a fender. Julie dashed between two vehicles.

“Pull out of here, Nénesse!” yelled Coco. “We’re fucked.”

Coco emptied his revolver at random. Rounds ricocheted wildly off bodywork. Triplex glass rained down. Its motor still roaring, the Simca jounced back onto the roadway, leaving Julie behind.

“Stop, you idiot. I order you to stop,” said Thompson in a steely voice.

Nénesse was not listening. His lips were blue. Thompson struck his fingers with the barrel of his automatic weapon. Nénesse braked hard.

“What do you. . you want?” he stammered. “You want. . want us to be picked up on the spot?”

“The kid and the girl. They must be killed.”

“In three minutes the cops will be here.”

“In three minutes I’ll have killed them. U-turn!”

Nénesse did nothing.

“U-turn or I kill you,” said Thompson, digging the barrel of the SIG into the man’s ribs.

Nénesse blinked and started up.

“Three minutes,” he said between gritted teeth.

A hundred meters behind them a crowd was gathering. Farther away, Thompson saw Julie and Peter disappearing down a side street. People were running. The Simca turned round and headed for the throng.

“There they are,” cried the locals. “It’s them!”

“Drive right through the lot of them,” said Thompson. “Then take the first left.”

The Simca drove right through the lot of them. The locals scattered, shouting. Nénesse clung tightly to the steering wheel. The tires sang as the car turned sharply into a little cobbled street. At the far end, Julie and Peter were running. They were crossing a bridge. The Simca bounded after them. The roadway was crowded with people. They were forced to press themselves against the walls and the shopwindows. Cries of protest filled the air.

On the far side of the bridge milling hordes completely blocked the street. Peter and Julie melted into the mass. Nénesse braked vigorously. Once again the car pulled to the left as it came to a halt.

“That didn’t get us very far,” said the driver.

Just round a sharp turn thousands of people were besieging stalls set up in the middle of the street. Vehicular traffic was out of the question. Julie’s gray-and-brown silhouette could be glimpsed in the crowd. Thompson punched violently at the inside of the car door.

“Coco and I will continue on foot. Nénesse, you go and park this car on the boulevard and then steal another one.”

“You’re cracked,” Nénesse hissed.

“We’ll meet in the café-tobacconist you just saw on the boulevard. It’s called Les Fleurs. In a quarter of an hour. Don’t forget my case.”

“A quarter of an hour!” groaned Nénesse.

“Bye-bye,” said Thompson.

He got out of the Simca and shouldered his way roughly into the crowd. Coco did not move.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said.

“No,” sighed his brother. “He’s the boss. And he’s a pro. Just do what he says.”