Read Online The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette - Free Book Online

of the new French crime novel? And do you think that jazz can still progress? Personally, I have my doubts when I see Archie Shepp practically return to bebop if not to Ben Webster, or when I see a guy like Anthony Braxton hailing Lee Konitz, or when I see what’s become of guys who once showed such promise, like Marion Brown or, more in our line, Chico Freeman. Between meaninglessness and suffering, I prefer bacon, as the Auvergnats say. No, seriously, it’s frivolity on one side and boredom on the other, and I say fuck it. Of course, I’m well aware that these are aspects of the same crisis. Don’t you agree?”
    Félix noisily caught his breath. Terrier was frowning.
    â€œI don’t know,” said Terrier.
    â€œStop bullshitting, Félix,” Anne murmured distractedly.
    â€œSo what do you like?” Félix mockingly asked Terrier. He glanced at Anne and looked back at Terrier, who was perplexed. “In music, for example.”
    Terrier shrugged. Félix brought his glass to his lips and emptied it at one go.
    â€œMaria Callas,” said Terrier.
    Félix had a choking fit. He coughed, spat up his whisky sour all over his chin and his sweater, stood up desperately gasping for breath and whistling like a fife, coughed again and stumbled as he circled the table, stamping his heels on the terrace floor in an apparent attempt to clear his bronchial tubes and trachea. Anne looked at Terrier, who got up and thumped Félix’s back. Then the young woman suddenly turned her head toward the interior of the little house because there had been a small crash, as if a breakable object had fallen on the kitchen floor. Anne left the terrace while Félix was trying, with difficulty, to catch his breath. His face was flushed; tears streamed from his eyes.
    â€œBut you’re not for real,” he said to Terrier in a weak, halting voice. He had trouble pulling a vast white handkerchief out of the pocket of his tight jeans; he dabbed his eyes and chin and then the front of his sweater with it. “You’re a fool,” he asserted, wonderment in his voice. “That’s it. You’d have to be a fool to go away for ten years and imagine. . . . ” He broke off with a little gesture and a little laugh. “As for money, I didn’t have any more than you in terms of personal money. But I’m intelligent. I’m not a fool like you. A lot of good that does me, mind you.”
    Terrier put his fists in his jacket pockets and stiffened his arms, which made him pull his head down between his oddly raised shoulders. He had the posture of a man fighting against the cold or against a disagreeable emotion.
    Félix smiled nastily and sadly as he looked off into space.
    â€œWhat I have belongs to me,” he whispered, still hoarse and panting. “It’s not for you. That’s the way it is. There’s no mistake.” He frowned; he seemed to be thinking hard. “No, there’s been no mistake,” he concluded firmly.
    â€œDinner’s ready!” shouted Anne from inside the house.
    â€œWe’re coming!” Félix shouted back. He looked at his watch and said in a low voice: “Shit, what’s the matter with her? I’m not hungry yet.”
    Terrier took his hands out of his pockets, turned his back to Félix, and went into the house, going directly into the vast main room, where there was a dining nook, a living area, and a convertible sofa where visiting friends could sleep. The walls were made of rough boards coated with a clear varnish, most of the furniture was rustic and old, and here and there old copper utensils decorated the place. In the hearth burned a wood fire that Félix had lighted a little while before and stoked with a copper toasting fork some sixty centimeters long that he had purchased the year before at an antiques shop in Ireland. Terrier took a deep breath. After emptying what remained of the whisky