Three to Kill (7 page)

“Let me drive,” said Bastien.

He took the wheel. Carlo jumped in beside him. They fastened their seatbelts and pulled back onto the road without even throwing up any gravel. Bastien was a meticulous and scientific driver. He put on his sidelights and his headlights and drove as fast as he could. On a number of straight stretches, he got up to 160 kilometers per hour.

“We should be able to see him,” said Carlo.

They were approaching a town. They could see its lights against the black background of the foothills of the Alps, which blocked the horizon. To their left, a freight train rattled along. On the right, a service station appeared, small but well illuminated. The Taunus was standing at the pumps. In shirtsleeves in front of the car, Gerfaut was stretching and clasping his lower back and drawing on a Gitane filter. Pumping the gas was a young man in a smart uniform and a red canvas hat. The gas station had opened only recently, which explained the attendant's impeccable manner and appearance. Nonplussed, Bastien stamped on the brake pedal. The Lancia halted with a horrible screech of tires just past the gas station exit. Gerfaut turned his head and saw the Lancia and, through its right front window, Carlo, who was looking straight at him. Wheeling, he reached through his car's open window and grabbed the Star from his jacket. Hastily and clumsily he released the safety on the automatic.

“Put your hands up!” he announced idiotically.

The Lancia turned on a dime and drove into the gas station via the exit. The car sprang toward Gerfaut, who pulled the trigger of the automatic. The Lancia's windshield exploded. At the same time, Gerfaut jumped back, stumbled, and fell hard against a coffee machine, bruising his back agonizingly. The bright red car bore down on him, rocking and pitching. Gerfaut fled for his life, but the Lancia swerved and accelerated, threatening to smash Gerfaut into the office window. Gerfaut pirouetted away, but the car's left headlight struck him glancingly on the buttock and catapulted him across the cement on his belly. The Lancia utterly demolished the office window. With a thunderous roar, huge pieces of broken plate glass, road maps, toolboxes, cans of oil, lightbulbs, and cartoony promotional figures made of wire and latex were hurled in every direction.

With gravel still clinging to his forehead and cheeks and his nose scraped raw, Gerfaut turned over onto his back. His buttock was horribly painful. He had lost the Star. He had no idea where the weapon had landed. He raised himself on his elbows and saw Carlo get out of the Italian car, on the side farther from him, holding the Smith & Wesson .45. Bastien reversed at top speed, heading for the attendant, who abandoned the pump and ran for the office. Carlo took aim at Gerfaut. The attendant lowered his head and butted Carlo and sent him sprawling into the debris of the window, the lightbulbs, the road maps, the figurines, and all the other debris. The tank of the Taunus was full, but the automatic pump was still delivering high-octane gasoline at full flow, and the fuel was flowing freely across the concrete. A long rivulet wended its way toward Gerfaut.

Bastien got out of the Lancia and shot the pump attendant in the back with the SIG automatic. The man fell on his face at the door to the office, pulled his knees up beneath him, and tried to get up. Still sitting amid the debris of the office window, Carlo brought his .45 up with both hands, placed it against the side of the attendant's face, and blew the man's head off.

“Shit! Shit!” said Carlo.

Gerfaut managed to get up. He had taken three steps toward the Taunus when White Streaks fired at him with the SIG. The projectile raked his skull, and he fell bluntly on his back with blood streaming over his face. Carlo got to his feet, ran toward the Lancia, and got behind the wheel. Gerfaut rolled about on the concrete.

“Finish that cunt off!” yelled Carlo.

Bastien tossed his head to get his white forelock out of his eyes and headed for Gerfaut. Gerfaut took his Criquet lighter from his shirt pocket and ignited the rivulet of high-octane gasoline. His hand and arm were badly burned in the process. Flames leapt instantly from the lighter to the Taunus, enveloping the automobile in seconds. Gerfaut bounded to his feet, flabbergasted to discover that he could stand and even run. He dashed toward the road. As he reached it, he had the impression that he was still being fired on. At that moment the gas tank of the Taunus blew up, and the blast hurled him across the road. He landed nose first in soft earth and turnip or potato leaves. Once more he got to his feet. Shouting meaninglessly, he turned to look back. He was much impressed to see the killer with the white streaks in his hair flaming like a tailor's dummy, prostrate on the concrete with his arms crossed at his chest. Every window smashed and tires smoking, the Lancia emerged phoenix-like from the flames and bounced back onto the road. The panic-stricken Gerfaut turned his back on the inferno and began running across the field, wrenching his ankles in the loose dirt. He ran blindly in the direction of the railroad tracks.

12

When Gerfaut half regained consciousness, he did not know if he was at home in Paris, or on vacation, or even perhaps at Liétard's place. He was lying on a hard surface in an almost completely dark enclosed space. Slivers of light shone weakly through the walls. A rhythmic rattle filled his ears. He dreamed he was shooting at a man with an automatic pistol. The rhythm jolted him regularly. Upon reflection, he decided that he was in a railroad car, a freight car. Reassured by this thought, he fell back asleep.

Some time later, the door of the car was very slightly open, making the interior visible. Between two crates bearing the handwritten legend HANDLE WITH CARE, a man was sitting on his heels facing Gerfaut. In silhouette the fellow resembled a bear or some other animal—a beaver, possibly. He was entirely shrouded in a sleeveless oilskin raincoat, or rather cape, such as might be used by a cyclist to protect not only the head and back but also the legs and a bulky backpack. The guy across from Gerfaut had neither bike nor backpack, however. The raincoat puffed out about him like a wigwam, making it impossible to make out the shape of his body. He wore a bowler hat that was green with mildew. His face was fairly young looking, but wrinkled and unshaven and dirty, and his teeth were rotten.

Gerfaut himself was not a pretty sight. Grime and coagulated blood streaked his face. His shirt was ripped at the elbow, his pants at the knee and the seat. From head to toe he was splattered with mud, and his shoes were completely caked in it. Within his matted hair a bright red slash resembling a buttonhole could be seen, a piece of hairy scalp dangling from it onto his forehead.

“Do you work for French Railways?” Gerfaut asked.

The man made no reply and kept on looking at Gerfaut and grinning—unless this was the natural aspect of his face in repose. Gerfaut considered repeating his question at the top of his voice, in case the noise of the still-moving train had prevented the guy from hearing him. But that was unlikely, and Gerfaut felt weak, so he remained silent. A sudden thought caused him to start hunting through his pockets. His burned hand hurt. His whole body hurt. His gestures grew more and more frantic as he checked every pocket. He looked at the man with an injured expression, at first incredulous and then outraged. He made as if to get up. The drifter, for that was what he was, leapt to his feet instantly, drew back a flap of his oilskin cape and struck Gerfaut on the side of the head with a hammer. Gerfaut fell back onto the floor of the wagon. Once again he felt blood trickling across his skin. He could not get up. The drifter kicked him twice in the ribs. Raging, Gerfaut cried out and tore at the floor with his fingernails. The drifter watched him dispassionately or perhaps with amusement—it was impossible to tell what went on behind that awful fixed grin. The man's head was slightly tilted beneath the bowler hat, his right arm slightly bent, held slightly away from his body; he was ready to pull back the oilskin cape so as to hit Gerfaut again unimpeded. Then he opened the wagon's sliding door a little wider with his left hand, which required some effort.

Gerfaut had managed to shift his position somewhat. Blood trickled along the line of his lower jaw and dripped from his chin and splashed in tiny stars on the dusty floor in front of him. Things were happening in slow motion.

“You bastard! My wallet! My money! My checkbook!”

Through the open door of the freight car, Gerfaut could see the tops of larch trees filing by. The track must have been ele vated, or perhaps it ran along a mountainside, for the passing treetops seemed level with the wagon door. The drifter returned the hammer to his belt, grabbed Gerfaut under the armpits with his two hands, pulled him up, and, thrusting him forward, propelled him (as Gerfaut wailed incredulously) out of the car. For a moment Gerfaut's heel caught on the edge of the door, then he fetched up belly first in the ballast. All the breath was knocked out of him. He bounced, performing a somersault just as he had in the water when they had tried to drown him. Among the larches now, he rebounded and twirled on down the slope for fifty or sixty meters. Once again he lost consciousness. And he broke his foot.

13

In the late afternoon it began to rain. By now, Gerfaut was several kilometers from the railroad.

After his fall he had remained unconscious for but a few minutes. Picking himself up, he was amazed to discover that he was not dead. In truth, he was not really amazed. The events of the last few days, coming after a comfortable childhood and an early youth of successful upward mobility, had more or less convinced him that he was indestructible. But, given his improbable situation, arrived at by way of such thrilling vicissitudes, he found it appropriate, even exhilarating, to be surprised at the fact of still being alive. The image he now had of himself drew on a crime novel he had read some ten years earlier and from a small, baroque Western he had seen the previous fall at the Olympic movie theater. He had forgotten the titles of both works. In the first, a man left for dead and hideously mutilated by a crime boss proceeds to wreak a horrifying vengeance upon the said crime boss and his lackeys. In the film, Richard Harris is likewise left for dead by John Huston, but survives, living in a completely savage state, hating God and fighting with wolves for morsels of food.

Gerfaut shuddered at the thought of fighting ferocious animals for morsels of food.

Once he had come round and sat up, Gerfaut first leaned against the trunk of a larch and palpated himself with an excess of precaution. His left foot was painful. With the help of the tree trunk, he struggled to his feet. His foot gave way beneath him, and he slipped back to the ground, scraping his palms on the bark of the tree as he did so. A second attempt met with more success. He let go of the trunk he was holding on to and made it in four stiff and risky steps to another, around which he threw his arms, about three meters away. He experienced a sharp pain in his instep, but oddly it seemed to diminish when he walked. His ankle kept twisting painfully beneath his weight. Staggering from trunk to trunk, he nevertheless advanced fairly easily.

The slope helped him. Initially, he had wanted to make his way back to the railroad tracks in the hope of flagging down the next train or else following the rails to the nearest station. But he had to abandon this idea because of the steepness of the terrain. So he went downward, instead. The farther down into the valley you go, he told himself, the more likely you are to find houses. By and large, anyway.

One tree at a time, he cut across sharply falling land that supported a fine dark grass, mosses, and the odd cluster of mountain primrose, catchfly, or houseleek. The larch needles were slippery underfoot, and another barrier to quick progress were the many gullies of reddish earth strewn with loose stones. Gerfaut fell often. To go in the direction he had chosen, he was obliged to walk with his injured foot lower than the other on the slope, which made things much more difficult.

The air was crisp. The forest was full of lively, whispering breezes. Birds were few, darting with precision from tree to tree, just below the lowest branches. Once, looking up between the pistachio-green treetops, Gerfaut noticed a larger bird gliding high against a sky become gray. Soon afterward, he got beaten up all over again when he careened down into a ravine on the seat of his pants, bouncing and swearing as he went. As he finally came to rest, his ankle collided brutally with a tangle of roots, and he almost wept. Getting up yet again, and seeing where his slide had brought him, he thought he was done for.

So far down had he fallen that he was at the very bottom of a mud-filled hollow full of vegetable matter in various stages of decay. If there were wild boars at this altitude (which Gerfaut doubted), the place would surely have been a boar's lair. At all events, if Gerfaut was to go on in any direction at all, he would now have to climb.

He made several false starts that ended in pathetic and painful tumbles. At last, he had the idea of crawling and using his fingers for purchase. In this way, he dragged himself up a short incline and reached ground that was all broken up and distinctly discouraging: nothing but sharp rises, patches of bare granite, tangled branches brought down by lightening or avalanche, and vertiginous overhangs. From an aesthetic point of view, the landscape was highly romantic. From Gerfaut's point of view, it was absolute shit.

He continued to make headway, still on his belly, but his strength was on the ebb. Above, the sky was lowering. Then it began to rain.

It rained hard and long. Yellow water ran down the red gullies. Gerfaut hauled himself to a chaos of uprooted trees, curled up beneath them, and turned his shirt collar up. Water trickled between the fallen tree trunks and into his clothes. It was cold. Gerfaut began crying softly. Night fell.

At the break of day he had been asleep for only a short time. Anxiety, and a certain morose enjoyment of his misery, had kept him awake for many hours. Showers had followed one another at short intervals. Even when rain was not falling, water continued to run down the hillside, dripping from the branches above, percolating into Gerfaut's niche under the fallen trees and soaking him. When he opened his eyes, he felt as if he had only just closed them. His teeth were chattering. His grimy forehead was burning. He felt his injured foot and found it swollen and more painful than the day before. Laboriously he removed his mud-encrusted city shoe. When he stripped off his cotton sock, it ripped at the heel and instep. With a perverse satisfaction, Gerfaut contemplated the inflamed and purple flesh and the large, hard, unhealthy-looking protuberances on the front and side of his foot. He was unable to get his shoe back on, even after he tore out the lace and hurled it away from him with all his strength; it landed in the mud all of two meters away. He wanted to consult his Lip watch—which he had bought directly from the Lip workers when they had occupied their factory and which had never worked very well—but he discovered that he no longer had it. Then he recalled having already discovered this shortly after falling from the freight train.

The clouds no longer formed a uniform and somber vault. They had lost altitude and broken up on the mountainside. Gerfaut even saw some passing below him and reckoned that he must be at two or three thousand meters. He crawled out of his den on all fours. For five or six minutes he advanced furiously, ignoring the pain. He grunted like an animal—not without a measure of satisfaction.

This brief effort exhausted him utterly. Thereafter he took long, panting halts, moving forward only five or six meters between each. The weather had turned fair. The larches had thinned out. The sun started beating down madly. Steamy mist rose among the trees. Flying insects filled the air. Soon it was very, very hot. Gerfaut was burning up with fever. The whole business no longer gave him the feeling that he was in a novel.

As the day wore on and absolutely nothing in the situation changed, Gerfaut became frankly serious. He laid plans for long-term survival alone. He inventoried his possessions, which now comprised a dirty handkerchief, the keys to his Paris apartment, a scrap of squared paper bearing the telephone number of LTC Laboratories in Saint-Cloud, and six soaked Gitane filters in a crumpled pack. No lighter, no means of making a fire, no weapon, nothing to eat. Yet somehow Gerfaut got his second wind. He contrived to tear off a half-broken low branch of a tree and use it as a crutch. He began once more to walk on his two feet and even achieved a speed of four kilometers an hour. He entertained, then rejected, the idea of finding bees, following them back to their hive, somehow chasing away the swarms, and gorging on the honey. He decided that he would be stung countless times and put out of action once and for all—or die right then, for that matter. Besides, there were no bees anywhere to be seen.

He felt duty bound to sample every likely looking plant he noticed along the way in case it was edible. Everything he tried was hopelessly stringy or far too bitter.

Once, sitting on the ground, he hurled a fragment of granite at the head of a speckled brown bird that was clinging to a tree trunk and pecking at it. He missed his target by a wide margin without even frightening the creature. He didn't try a second shot.

The sun had dropped in the sky, and it must have been five or six by the time Gerfaut, still on his feet but advancing now at no more than two kilometers an hour, emerged into a meadow. He had earlier crossed a couple of clearings, spots where there were no more damned larches for thirty, maybe as much as fifty meters, but they had still blocked his view. This was different: even before reaching the forest's edge, Gerfaut saw thin grass extending a good hundred meters to a bluff. Beyond was a panoramic view of a great trough of a valley, bounded by wooded humped-back hills and ending some eight or ten kilometers away, in a low notch. On one flank of the valley was an area where the forest had been cleared. Higher up, just beyond the tree line, a pale shape indicated a shelter for hikers or possibly a cowshed.

Gerfaut immediately lost all sense of being lost in thousands of kilometers of wilderness. He hastened toward the outcrop, which hid the bottom of the valley from view. As he proceeded, he was thrilled to make out paths, other cleared areas, other cowsheds on the peaks.

As Gerfaut reached the end of the meadow, a joyful groan rose in his throat. Below his feet lay a little dark-blue lake and a fairly substantial town—more than two dozen houses with slate roofs, enclosures, dividing walls, roads, and straight, shimmering streaks that must have been some kind of giant hydraulic system for distributing water from the mountainside. Gerfaut was very thirsty. He stretched out slowly and heavily on his stomach to lick the grass and contemplate his good fortune.

A full minute passed before it occurred to Gerfaut that he was not yet home and dry. He calculated the distance between his position and the bottom of the valley. As the crow flies, one or two kilometers. On foot, perhaps five or even ten times that.

Horribly aggravated, Gerfaut rested for a moment or two. Then he became afraid of falling asleep and dying where he lay. He clambered to his feet with the aid of his makeshift crutch and set off again. In order to make the descent to civilization, he had to go back into the woods. At once he lost sight of the village. After a quarter of an hour of hesitant progress, he was hit by waves of anxiety that tightened his throat and his empty stomach at the thought that he might never find the houses or that it might require a week's march to reach them.

Night fell—for the second time since Gerfaut had been thrown from the train. He felt his way forward in the darkness. He collided with tree after tree. He wept. After falling twice, he gave up. He was very tired. Sleep came instantly. The next morning, he was found by a Portuguese logger.