Three to Kill Read Free

all. But now suddenly his beams picked up something at the edge of the darkness. At the same time, Gerfaut saw stationary taillights on the road up ahead; he eased up on the gas; the taillights began to move and were soon literally swallowed up by the night (or perhaps they had never been stationary in the first place and some trick of the darkness had fooled him). The Citroën, in any case, was not only stationary but off the road, one fender in the ditch, the other all twisted and misshapen and rammed up against a tree trunk. A torn-off door, hurled ten or twelve meters farther along, lay half on the roadway, half on the grass, its window shattered. All this Gerfaut took in at a glance, as the Mercedes, still doing eighty, cruised past the wreckage. He was tempted to speed up. What held him back was less a sense of the proprieties, or some categorical imperative, than the idea that the people in the Citroën were no doubt there in the darkness noting his plate number and liable to report him for failing to come to the aid of a person or persons in danger. Gerfaut braked, not quickly, indeed with a distinct lack of conviction, and pulled up eighty or a hundred meters farther on.
    Up ahead a pair of taillights—the Italian sports car? was it perhaps a Lancia Beta?—had just been enveloped by the night. Gerfaut looked about nervously, could see nothing behind but blackness. The Citroën, too, had vanished. Still gripped by the desire to continue on his way, he groaned between his teeth, shifted into reverse and backed up, zigzagging slightly, to the scene of the accident.
    He pulled over onto the shoulder between two trees, alongside the detached car door. From the cassette player came “Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West.” Gerfaut turned it off. He was possibly about to discover horribly mutilated corpses, a little girl with braids sticky with blood or people holding their guts in with both hands. Not the sort of thing you did to a musical accompaniment. He got out of the Mercedes with his waterproof electric flashlight and pointed it directly toward the Citroën. To his relief, he saw only a man, and he was standing up. A small man, with frizzy blond hair, the first signs of baldness, a sharp nose, and round glasses with plastic frames. The right lens was clearly cracked. The man was wearing a reefer and rough brown corduroy pants. He looked at Gerfaut with big frightened eyes. He was leaning against the hood of the Citroën and panting.
    â€œHey, there,” said Gerfaut. “How are you doing? Are you hurt?”
    The man moved vaguely, perhaps nodding, then almost fell. Gerfaut approached anxiously. His gaze fell by chance on a damp, dark area on the man’s side that was just becoming discernible against the dark wool of his jacket.
    â€œYou’re bleeding from your side.” Gerfaut’s mind spontaneously produced the odor of blood and its taste, and he thought, my God, I’m going to throw up.
    â€œHospital,” said the man, and his lips continued to move, but he managed to add nothing more.
    It was the man’s left side that was bleeding. Gerfaut grasped his right arm, wrapped it around his own neck, and tried to hold up the injured man as he led him over to the Mercedes. A car of indeterminate make screeched by at high speed.
    â€œCan you walk?”
    The injured man made no reply, but he walked. Drops of sweat gathered below his receding hairline and on his upper lip where short whiskers grew.
    â€œS’pose they come back?” the man mumbled.
    â€œWhat? What’s that?”
    But the man would not or could not speak anymore. They reached the Mercedes. Gerfaut helped the injured man lean against the car and opened the right rear door. Grasping the backrest, the man hauled himself slowly onto the seat, where he lay on his back.
    â€œShit! Shit! I’m bleeding,” he said with a mixture of regret and rancor. He spoke like a working-class