The Prone Gunman Read Free Page A

target.”
    â€œI was in a hurry.”
    â€œI see,” said Cox. “You’re saying it jokingly, but it probably is the reason.”
    â€œI’m not joking,” said Terrier.
    Cox gulped down a bit of pancake dripping with melted butter and syrup, then shook his head with his eyelids lowered. As he ate, he leaned over and sighed and opened a leather briefcase at the foot of the sofa. Unhurriedly, he withdrew a brown package that could have been a ream of paper and pushed it across the table in Terrier’s direction. Terrier weighed the package in his hands. He looked at Cox.
    â€œThere’s a bonus,” said Cox. Linguistic details betrayed the fact that French was not his mother tongue. But he had no trace of an accent.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œThere’s a rumor that you’re going to get out, Christian.”
    â€œA rumor? That would surprise me.”
    â€œYou’ve sold your car, you’ve bought another one, you’ve given notice on your apartment. Various other things.”
    â€œOkay,” said Martin Terrier. “I’m getting out.”
    â€œIt seems that you’re not going to work for someone else. You’re simply going to get out. I can easily understand that. Still, you should have talked to me about it. You can’t just disappear without warning.”
    â€œBut that’s just what I’m going to do.”
    â€œWe’re not in agreement,” said Cox. “Obviously, no one can force you, not with the kind of work you do.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought.” Terrier smiled.
    â€œThe company has an important project in preparation,” said Cox. “Just one, as far as you’re concerned. You can get out afterward. I daresay we’ll even make things easier for you. You know we can make things easier. On the other hand, we can make a lot of difficulties for you.”
    â€œI’d advise against trying to fuck with me.” Terrier smiled again.
    â€œFor this project you can name your price. What if we said one hundred and fifty thousand French francs?”
    Terrier shook his head.
    â€œTwo hundred thousand,” said Cox.
    Terrier stood up, the brown package under his arm.
    â€œSorry. Not at any price. I’m going now.”
    At a nonchalant pace, he withdrew as far as the staircase, the package under his left arm, his right arm partially bent. His blue eyes darted from Cox to the short guy on the balcony.
    â€œToo bad,” said Cox. “Drive safely. If you ever want to get in contact with me, run an ad in Le Monde in the public announcements section. Never try to get in contact through other channels.”
    â€œGoodbye,” said Terrier.
    He went downstairs, crossed the paved courtyard, and left through a covered passage and a porte cochere. He headed toward the Seine, hailed a Mercedes taxi that was going by, had himself taken to Barbès, took the metro, changed lines two or three times, and found himself back in the open air at the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette station. He had an eleven o’clock appointment with his financial adviser. He was early, so he waited at a café counter with an espresso that tasted like leather.
    Faulques, the financial adviser, lived in a ground-floor apartment on Rue de la Victoire, at the back of the courtyard, in two cramped rooms, one of which functioned as an office. He sometimes left the communicating door ajar, exposing a badly made-up bed with grayish sheets in the other room. Faulques was short, ugly, and bald, and he had two blackheads and a dirty, idiotic little mustache. Winter and summer he answered the door in shirtsleeves, his striped pants held up by tight elastic suspenders that crossed in the back. He was voluble and nervous and smoked hard-as-rock Toscanellis that were always going out.
    â€œI don’t inspire confidence,” he had once said to Terrier. “People mistrust me because I look seedy. Oh, yes! I look seedy,