The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette Page A

Beneath the tile roof, the attic had been converted into an immense studio whose walls were paneled in varnished fir. There was an ornamental garden enclosed by a low stone wall with suburban-style iron railings on top; the building was situated in the forest, eight hundred meters from a main road across the Allier département. Anne Schrader and Martin Terrier had been brought there in a horse van the night after Terrier and Cox’s meeting.
    The short guy in the gray overcoat and his Le Monde diplomatique –reading acolyte had spelled each other at the wheel. They had arrived around three o’clock in the morning. Three flashes of the headlights had quickly roused the caretakers of the place. Anne and Terrier had been taken upstairs via an interior staircase that was steep and simple like a ladder. The drivers had departed again almost immediately.
    â€œI was just coming to fetch you,” the caretaker said when Terrier left the converted attic by a trap door and descended the staircase around ten-thirty on the morning of the eleventh day.
    The caretaker called himself Maubert. He must have been a few years older than Terrier—perhaps thirty-five. He was big and muscular, with a thick head of blond hair parted on the side and a thick blond mustache on a narrow face with a long, thin nose. His eyes were slightly slanted and a little too close together. The skin of his face and hands was tanned and weather-beaten. He always wore wide-wale corduroy trousers and plaid flannel shirts. He looked like an advertisement for American cigarettes. When he went out, he would put on rubber boots and a lumber jacket, but right now he was in shirtsleeves and carpet slippers. Once Terrier was down, Maubert beckoned him into the combination living room and storeroom. The caretaker’s girlfriend was cooking something in a pot on the stove and didn’t turn around as Terrier went by.
    A log fire made a low roar in the fireplace. The house dog, a setter, wasn’t there; it must have been roving in the forest. On the surface of the stone table were blue chalk marks, some toy motorcycle police, and three miniature cars: two Citroën SMs and one Citroën Pallas.
    â€œLet’s sit down,” said Maubert. “Beer? Coffee? Something else?”
    â€œNo.”
    They sat down on rustic wooden chairs with cushions. Maubert picked up a miniature Renault van from the uneven tile floor and kept it in his hands, passing it from one palm to the other. Terrier, leaning forward, examined the miniature cars and motorcycle cops. They were not to the same scale. Still, this was clearly a convoy. And the chalk marks were the street plan.
    â€œHere is the Champs-Elysées roundabout,” said Maubert, putting his index finger on the stone table top. “North is that way. So this is the beginning of the Champs-Elysées, which doesn’t interest us. And this is Avenue Montaigne.” He pointed to Avenue Montaigne, which was shown in its entirety, from the Champs-Elysées roundabout to Place de l’Alma; the miniature vehicles were positioned on Avenue Montaigne. “Are you familiar with this part of Paris?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen you know that it’s a one-way avenue with a service road on either side, both running in the same direction as the avenue.” He put the Renault van on the edge of the avenue. “You will be inside this, stationed in the left-hand service road, just short of the junction with Rue Bayard.” He looked at Terrier as if expecting him to say something, but Terrier said nothing. “I will be your driver.” Terrier sat up slightly and contemplated Maubert, but he made no comment and turned back to the crude map and the models. “The back of our vehicle,” continued Maubert, “consists of a hatchback for the top half and two doors for the bottom half. The target will come down the avenue. You can choose the position and the field of fire