Death on the Installment Plan (76 page)

We were knocked for a loop … We tried to figure it out … Gradually the old lady calmed down … The kids searched the joint again … They went up in the loft … They turned over all the hay … Will he come back? Won’t he come back? That was the chorus.

In Blême he didn’t have his cellar to hide in like at the Palais-Royal … Maybe he hadn’t gone far … Maybe it was just some fool idea … A little spell of lunacy … Where would we and the kids go if he didn’t come back at all? … What with thinking it over, the old girl began to feel more optimistic … She told herself that it couldn’t be … he had some heart after all … it was just some idiotic trick … he’d be back soon … We began to take hope … for no good reason … except there was nothing else to do …

The morning was getting along, it must have been about eleven … The lousy postman shows … I saw him first … I was looking out the window kind of … He comes up … He doesn’t come in … He just stands outside the door … He motions me to come out … he’s got something to tell me … I should hurry … I beat it out … He’s waiting under the arch, he whispers to me, he’s all excited …

“Quick, quick … Go see your old man … He’s down there on the road, after you cross the Druve … on the way up to Saligons … You know the little wooden footbridge? … That’s where he is, he’s killed himself … The farmers at Les Plaquets heard him … Jeanne Arton and the kid … It was just after six o’clock … With his gun … the big one … They said to tell you … So you can take him away if you want to … I haven’t seen a thing, understand? … They haven’t either … They heard the shot, that’s all … Say, here are two letters … They’re both for him …” He didn’t even say good-bye … He beat it along the wall … He hadn’t taken his bicycle, he cut across the fields … I saw him coming out of the woods by the road up top, the one that goes to Brion.

I whispered the whole story in her ear … so the kids wouldn’t hear … She made one bound to the door … She ran out full tilt … She raced over the gravel … I didn’t even have time to finish … I had to quiet the kids down … They suspected a disaster …

“Don’t get excited … Don’t show your mugs outside … I’m going to catch the old bag … You keep on looking for Courtial … I’ll bet he’s still here … hidden someplace … He hasn’t gone up in smoke … Turn over all the straw … bale by bale … He’s sleeping underneath … We’re going to see the cops in Mesloirs … they’ve sent for us … That’s what the postman came about … We won’t be long … Don’t shit in your pants! … Stay right here and keep quiet … We’ll be back by two … Don’t let them hear you from outside … Don’t go out … Search the loft … Take a look in the stable … We didn’t look in the bins …”

The kids were scared stiff of the cops … That way I knew they wouldn’t trail me … They smelled a herring all right … but where? … they had no idea …

“Keep the doors closed whatever you do,” I told them. I tried to locate the old lady out of the window … She was miles away … I shook a leg … I had a hell of a time catching her … She was cutting across field and forest in high … Well anyway, I followed her … Hell, it took’ all I had just to keep her in sight … All the same I put my thoughts together … I’m running blue blazes … And in the fever of the chase a rotten suspicion comes up in me … “Hell,” I says to myself, “what a business! … You’re a sucker again, kid … it’s a frame-up … a swindle … that stuff about the footbridge! … Nuts! … It’s a big hoax … a stinking lie … a sinister trap, that’s all!” I strongly suspected it … A crummy trick of the postman’s! … It was just like him, the stinker … And all those cannibals! … I wouldn’t put it past them. That’s what I was thinking in the middle of running … And where was our old man at that exact moment? … while we were breaking our necks running after his corpse? … Where could he be? Maybe he was only at the Big Ball … playing cards and sopping up anisette … We were the suckers again … I wouldn’t put it past him … It didn’t take a suspicious nature to know him for a mean sly bastard! … We were the fall guys … That was a cinch …

After a long level stretch through soft fields, there was a steep climb up the hillside … Up top you discovered the whole countryside so to speak … The old lady and I were puffing like oxen … We sat down for a second on the bank to see better … The poor old thing’s eyesight wasn’t very good … But mine was really piercing … You couldn’t hide a thing from me ten miles away as the crow flies … From up top there … all the way down the slope … the Druve flowing at the bottom …. the little bridge and then the bend of the road … That was the place, I could see it plain as day … right in the middle of the road, kind of a big bundle … I was dead sure … Maybe two miles away it stood out against the gravel … And right that minute, the second I saw it, I knew who it was … By the frock coat … the gray one … and the rusty yellow pants … We beat it lickety-split … We ran down the hill … “Keep on going!” I said … “Go straight ahead … I’m going to turn off … I’ll take the path …” It was a big shortcut … I was there in no time … Right on the spot … Two steps away … He was all shrunk … all shriveled up in his pants … It was him all right … But the head was a mess … He’d blown it all to hell … He’d hardly any skull left … Point-blank … He was still holding his gun … He was hugging it in his arms… The double barrel went in through his mouth and passed straight through his head … It was like hash on a skewer … shreds, chunks, and sauce … Big blood clots, patches of hair … He had no eyes at all … They’d blown out … His nose was wrong-side out … nothing but a hole in his face … all sticky around the edges … and plugged up in the middle with a lump of coagulated blood … a big mash … and trickles oozing all across the road … It was flowing mostly from the chin, which was like a sponge … Even in the ditch there was blood … puddles in the ice … The old lady took a good look … She just stood there … She didn’t say boo … So then I decided to do something … “We’ll move him up on the bank,” I said … The two of us went down on our knees … First we tug at the bundle … We try to dislodge it … We tug a little harder … I pull on the head … It wouldn’t come loose … We weren’t getting anywhere … It was stuck too solid … Especially the ears were welded fast … The whole thing made a solid block with the ice and gravel … We could have unfastened the trunk and the legs by pulling hard enough … But not the head … the hash … It was one solid brick with the stones on the road … It couldn’t be done … The body bent crooked like a Z … the head impaled on the gun barrel … First you’d have to straighten him and get the gun out … His back was all bent, his ass was wedged between his heels … He’d spasmed as he fell … I looked around … I see a farm down below … Maybe that was the one the postman had mentioned … Les Plaquets … I says to myself: “That’s it … that’s the place all right …”

“Hey, you stay right here,” I tell the old witch. “I’m going to get help … I’ll be back in a minute … They’ll give us a hand … Don’t move … That must be Jeanne’s farm … They’re the ones that heard it.”

So I come up to the house … First I knock on the door, then on the shutters … Nobody seems to notice … I try again … I double back to the stables … I go right into the yard … I knock … I knock some more … I yell … Still no sign of life … But I could feel there was somebody around … The chimney was smoking … I shake the door with all my might … I tap, I clatter on the windowpanes … I’ll tear the shutters down if they don’t come … And then a face peeps out after all … It’s the Arton kid … by a first marriage … He’s not taking any chances … He just barely shows himself … I tell him what I want … Could they give me a hand carrying him? … Just those few words send her sky-high … She won’t allow it … she comes to life … She wouldn’t even think of touching it … She won’t even let her lousy brat answer me … She won’t even let him go out … He’s going to stay right there with his mother … If I can’t get him off the road, why don’t I call the police? … “That’s what they’re there for …” The Artons aren’t going to get mixed up in this … not for anything in the world … They haven’t seen a thing … or heard anything … They don’t even know what I’m talking about …

Old lady des Pereires up there on the embankment watched me parleying … She let out terrible screams … She was making a disgusting stink … That was the way she was … After the first shock you couldn’t hold her … I pointed her out to the two savages … the poor woman in despair …

“Do you hear that? I suppose you can’t hear her? … Her terrible grief! … We can’t leave her husband out there in the muck, can we? … What are you afraid of? Good God, it’s not a dog … he hasn’t got rabies … It’s not a calf … he hasn’t got hoof-and-mouth disease … He’s killed himself and that’s that … He was perfectly healthy … He hasn’t got the glanders … The least we can do is shelter him in the barn for a while … till they can come and take him away … Before the traffic starts up … They’ll run him over …” Those shitheels were adamant … The more I tried, the more pigheaded they got … “No, no!” they yelled. Certainly not, they wouldn’t take him in … not on their property … never, never! … they wouldn’t even open the door for me … they told me to beat it … They were burning me up … So I says to this rotten bitch:

“All right, all right! That’ll do, madame. I see. You won’t help. That’s your last word? You’re sure? All right, It’s your ass … In that case I’m going to stay right here … That’s right … I’ll stay a week! I’ll stay a month! I’ll stay as long as I have to! I’ll yell until they come! … I’ll yell so everybody can hear me, I’ll tell them it was you … that you engineered the whole thing! …” That got them … Christ, were they scared! They were shitless! … And I went right on … I wasn’t going to stop … Those scums made me so mad I’d have thrown an epileptic fit to show them … They didn’t know how to make me shut up … The old lady up on the bank was shouting louder and louder … She told me to hurry … “Ferdinand, hey, Ferdinand … Bring hot water … Bring a sack … a cloth! …” The only thing those two bastards were willing to do … in the end after my song and dance and to make me let go their blind … was lend me their wheelbarrow on condition that I’d positively bring it back that same day … rinsed, cleaned … and scrubbed with Javel water … They said it over and over … They repeated it twenty times … So I toted the thing up the hill … I had to come back down to ask for a trowel … to pry the ear loose … to break up the lumps … Little by little we made it … But then the blood began to gush again, it flowed profusely … His flannel vest was one big jelly, a pudding inside his frock coat … the gray was all red … But the worst was getting the gun out … The barrel stuck so hard to the enormous plug of meat and brains … it was so completely wedged into the mouth and skull … that it took the two of us … She held the head on one end and I pulled at the butt on the other … When the brain let loose’, it gushed out even harder … it dripped down sideways … steaming, it was still hot … a stream of blood spurted from the neck … He’d impaled himself completely … He’d fallen on his knees … He’d collapsed like that … with the barrel deep in his mouth … He’d stove his whole head in …

Once we got him loose, we turned him over on his back … belly and face up … but he folded again … He was still like a Z … Luckily we managed to squeeze him in between the sides of the wheelbarrow … We still had trouble though with the neck, the stump of the head … It kept dangling against the wheel … The old girl took off her petticoat and her heavy kilt … to bundle up his head in … so it wouldn’t drip so hard … But the minute we started moving again, with the bumps and jolts, it started gushing thicker than ever … They could have followed our tracks … It was slow going … we took little short steps. I stopped every two minutes … Those four miles took us at least three hours … I saw the gendarmes way in the distance … or rather their horses … right outside the farm … They were waiting for us … There were four of them plus the sergeant … And besides there was one in civilian clothes, a big guy I didn’t know … I’d never seen him before … We were crawling … I wasn’t in any hurry at all … But we finally got there … They’d seen us coming … all the way down from the ridge … They must have spotted us even before we went into the woods …

“OK! Leave the wheelbarrow in the doorway, you little stinker! This way, both of you … The inspector’ll be here in a little while … Put the handcuffs on him … and her too …” They shut us up in the barn. One of the cops guarded the door.

We waited several hours in the hay … I could hear the mob collecting in front of the farm. The village was crowding up … They were pouring in from all directions … Some of the hicks must have been right there under the arch … I could hear them talking … The inspector hadn’t come yet … The sergeant came and went, getting madder and madder … He was making a show of activity while waiting for the orders … He was dishing out orders to his men …

“Push back the crowd. And bring me the prisoners …” He’d already questioned all the kids … He had us brought in to him and then he sent us back to the barn … After a while he hauled us out for good … The bastard browbeat us … He was eager-beavering … He threw his weight around, trying to terrorize us … probably so’s to make us talk … so we’d confess right away … He had another think coming … He said we had no right to tote the body around … That was a felony in itself … We shouldn’t have touched it … It was doing fine on the road … that now he wouldn’t be able to make his report … What do you think of that? … and that twenty-five years in the pen would teach us a thing or two! Hell! that boy didn’t like us … Anyway, the worst kind of bullshit … a lot of stupid cocksucking bellowing …

The old lady wasn’t acting up much since we’d come back … She just sat there crying, huddled against the door. Once in a while she let out a hiccup, followed by the same two three laments …

“I’d never have expected it, Ferdinand … Oh, it’s too much … Too much misery, Ferdinand … I haven’t the strength … No! … I can’t go on … I can’t believe it … I can’t believe it’s true, Ferdinand … What do you think? … Is it really true? Do you think it’s true? … Oh no, it can’t be …” She was really stunned … She was out for the count … she was goofy cross-eyed … But when that cop started in again, calling us criminals in his stupid hayseed accent … that stirred her up … Worn-out as she was, she bridled at the affront … Christ! … She bounded like a tiger … She was in form again.