Read Online Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette - Free Book Online

lots of things to do.”
    For the last ten minutes, the Lancia had been standing on a pedestrian crossing just under a hundred meters from the building’s entrance. A woman came out with an Airedale on a leash. The Airedale was sixty centimeters long and a male (unlike Alonso’s bullmastiff, Elizabeth, who measured nearly seventy centimeters). The woman with the Airedale crossed the street in front of the building and got into a Datsun Cherry parked opposite. She started up the car and left. Carlo had his motor running the moment he saw the woman’s right-hand blinker light up. The Datsun was barely out of its spot when he slid into it. Carlo was alone in the Lancia. Bastien was keeping watch from a café with a good view of the parking lot on the far side of the Gerfauts’ building. The two hit men had begun by telephoning Gerfaut’s apartment from the café. The phone had rung, but no one had picked up.
    â€œYou wait and see, shithead!” Carlo had said vehemently. “He’s gone back to his wife.”
    All the same, Carlo was not very keen to drive the six or seven hundred kilometers all over again just to check this out.
    The two agreed, therefore, that to start with they would simply wait and watch. See if Georges Gerfaut came home. If he didn’t, when night fell they would break into his apartment to make absolutely sure.
    And if he wasn’t there, they would send a fake telegram to Saint-Georges informing the guy that there was a water leak and that he should call home as soon as possible. The two would then spend the night in the apartment. In the vacation period, Carlo and Bastien loved to spend nights in temporarily vacant apartments. Especially Bastien.
    â€œIt’s like we’re tourists,” he would say. “People’s apartments are like other countries.”
    â€œOh, shut up, dickhead,” Carlo would reply.
    In short, if it turned out by the next morning that Gerfaut had indeed returned to Saint-Georges-de-Didonne, they would take stock—but they would no doubt go back there and kill him, most likely with a rifle.
    â€œBecause,” declared Carlo emphatically, “I have had it up to here with half-measures.”
    â€œI’m just a bit depressed,” Gerfaut was writing. “It will blow over. Please don’t get upset. I plan to come back by a roundabout route—do a little touring, drive through the Massif Central.” Once again he closed his letter with declarations of love. He promised to be in Saint-Georges “within three days, four at the most.” He sealed the envelope, addressed it to Béa, and went down to mail the letter. Carlo was stunned to see him come out of the building. Gerfaut had the letter in his hand. He walked the fifty meters to a mailbox near the corner of the building and dropped the envelope in the slot. Then he returned to the entrance and went back in. Carlo started the car, drove around the building as quickly as he could, and stopped with a great screech of brakes in front of the café where Bastien was ensconced. Gerfaut took the elevator from the lobby to the basement, climbed into the rented Ford Taunus, and started the engine. Carlo was now making emphatic hand gestures directed at Bastien. The man with the white streaks in his hair placed five francs on the counter and rushed out of the bar. The bottle-green Ford Taunus, with Gerfaut at the wheel, exited the parking garage and merged into the traffic. Bastien got into the Lancia next to Carlo, and the two set about tailing the Taunus.
    â€œHe really pisses me off, this guy,” said Carlo in disgust.
    It was four-thirty in the afternoon. Gerfaut headed for the Porte d’Italie and got onto the Autoroute du Sud, the superhighway to the Mediterranean.
    â€œWhere the fuck is the prick going?” fumed Carlo.
    It was the second of July, and people were still leaving on vacation. The traffic was jammed up all the way to