Castle in the Air

by Donald E. Westlake

  Fatalistic, Lida closed the door, while Manuel stared at her. "I cannot believe," he said, "that you have taken up with a German."

  In desperate Spanish, she told him, "I haven't taken up with anyone!"

  Gesturing with the champagne and red wine bottle, Manuel said, "You seem to have taken up with everyone!"

  Rudi glowered at Manuel. "A Spaniard," he commented inaccurately. "I thought I told you to wait in the ditch."

  "Why does no one speak English?" Eustace asked plaintively. "It's such a pleasant language."

  Hopelessly, Lida made the introductions: "Manuel, Rudi. Rudi, Manuel."

  Rudi fidgeted briefly with his bottle and glasses, then handed the bottle to Lida, who was already reaching for it, not even bothering to look, knowing it was coming. With grim correct politeness, Rudi stuck his hand out toward Manuel. Manuel was about to respond, then noticed his hands were now full of wine bottles. He glared at them, glared at Rudi, glared at the wine bottle in Lida's hand, glared at the two wine bottles in his own hands, then suddenly reared back with the champagne bottle, obviously planning to let Rudi have it across the head; launching him, as it were.

  General consternation. Rudi leaped into a defensive stance, a wine glass in each hand. Angelo nimbly skipped to one side, while Eustace and Lida both rushed forward, shouting, "No! No!" With Eustace and Lida standing in front of Manuel, waving their arms over their heads to keep Manuel from advancing on Rudi, everybody yelled at once, in all the languages available, Manuel threatening blood-curdling revenges on every male in Paris, Angelo insisting upon his non-combatant status, and Rudi declaring himself ready to take on whole battalions of Spaniards, bring 'em on, he'd wipe up the floor with them, and so forth. When finally everybody paused to take a deep breath, the blessed silence was broken by the sound of somebody knocking at the door.

  Everybody in the room looked at everybody else in the room. "No more," Lida said, first in English and then in Spanish. "No more."

  "Enough," Eustace said, "is very definitely enough." Formally handing one glass to Angelo and one glass to Rudi, he marched across the room, flung open the door, and Rosa marched in.

  Everybody stared from Rosa to Lida.

  "Oh, now!" Lida said. "Now! This is too much!"

  Rosa, hands on hips, glared in brief silence around at each man in turn, then began to speak. In English, she said, "Are you idiots trying to wake the whole hotel?" Then, in Italian, she demanded of Angelo, "Can't you take even a small vacation from lechery?" Before Angelo could answer, she rounded on Rudi, snarling in glib if heavily-accented German, "Don't try to behave as though you're passionate. We all know you're German." With both Angelo and Rudi becoming apoplectic, she turned to Lida and said, with a gesture at Manuel, "And this one? Does he have a language?"

  "Spanish," Lida said. "He's my cousin Manuel. From Yerbadoro."

  With a gesture at the two bottles in Manuel's hands, Rosa said, "Your cousin has a drinking problem." Then, turning to Manuel, she said, in quick harsh Spanish that sounded like sleet landing on a tin roof, "You will ruin your liver if you drink all that." Pointing at the bed, she told him, "Now, go to sleep. We'll talk in the morning."

  Manuel looked stunned. "But-"

  "Never mind," Rosa told him, and turned on Eustace. In English, she told him, "You and your Musketeers also. To bed. Your own beds."

  "Rosa, I assure you-"

  But she wasn't listening. To Lida, she said, "You come with me You'll stay in my room tonight, where you'll be safe, away from these grandfathers."

  Lida, too taken aback to argue, permitted Rosa to hustle her from the room; on the way out, she handed Rudi back his wine. Then she and Rosa were gone, and the men were left alone.

  Rudi was the first to react; with a bitter attempt at indifference. "Actually," he said, "I prefer blondes." And he marched from the room, head held high.

  Angelo was next. "I am very happy," he announced, to no one': comprehension but his own, "that I have not understood a word that anyone has said." With which he started toward the door, stopped, went back, took his red wine back from Manuel, and at last departed.

  Eustace approached Manuel, who had the glazed look of a man who's just had a chandelier fall on him. Plucking his champagne bottle from Manuel's unresisting hand, Eustace said to him, with bright and angry irony, "Welcome to Paris. Delighted to have you." And Eustace too exited, in as dignified a manner as possible, closing the door quietly.

  7

  Alone in Lida's room, early next morning, Manuel sat blinking on the edge of Lida's bed, not knowing what to do next. He had slept, he had awakened, he had dressed himself, and now he was sitting here, hands dangling between his knees. He had not eaten for some time, and he was hungry, but if he left this room would he ever see Lida again? On the other hand, if he stayed in this room would he ever see her again? Those were very strange people, those new friends of hers. The presence of the loud woman with the impressive bosom had reassured him somewhat as to the sexual respectability of the relationships, but they were still very strange people. And they all seemed to drink a great deal.

  A knock at the door.

  Manuel looked at the door. He squinted at it. Another thing these people did a lot of was knocking at doors. Never had Manuel met such people for knocking at doors. If he were around these people for very long he would no doubt develop unpleasant symptoms from all this knocking on doors; a tic, perhaps, or a tendency toward hunched shoulders.

  Another knock at the door.

  Possibly the most sensible way to live among such people would be to keep all doors open at all times. Or would they knock on the doors anyway? Manuel had seen motion pictures made in North America in which people-usually the "secretary" of the "boss," whatever any of that meant-knocked on open doors as an indication of their intention to cross the threshold. Possibly these people would do the same. Possibly they were all secretaries.

  A third knock at the door.

  Manuel sighed; he practically groaned. Getting to his feet, he crossed the room and pulled open the door merely to stop that person out there from knocking on it any more, and LIDA WALKED INTO THE ROOM!

  "Lida!"

  "Manuel," she said briskly. She was all business this morning.

  Manuel wasn't. Manuel was all lust this morning, at least toward Lida, just as he had been last night. "My love!" he cried, and slammed the door again, regardless of future knockers.

  "At last we can talk," Lida said.

  "At last we can make love!" Manuel cried, trying to crush her in his embrace.

  Pushing him away in a distracted, inattentive manner, she said, "I'm serious, Manuel."

  "So am I," Manuel said, the words and expression heartfelt.

  But Lida was simply too involved in her own thoughts and plans to notice. Glancing worriedly toward the door-afraid, no doubt, of more knocking-she said, "I don't know how much time I have."

  Nor did Manuel. "Lie down," he said. "Hurry."

  "Manuel, listen to me," Lida said. "These are dangerous people." Ready to crack up, his hands trembling, Manuel said, "I can be dangerous too, my love."

  Would nothing attract the woman's attention? She said, "I don't trust them."

  "You can trust me," he said. His fluttering fingers stroked her cheek, her arm, the swell of her breast.

  Annoyed, distracted, baffled, Lida pushed his hands away: "What are you doing?"

  But Manuel would not be stopped. The bed was behind her, and he was moving inexorably forward, struggling, puffing, muttering low: "I was-lost in the jungle. I thought I'd never-see you again."

  "Why, Manuel! Do you-? My dear!"

  At last, he had attracted her attention.

  ***

  Once again, Lida's mind was on business. Naked, beautiful, but all passion at least for the moment spent, she strode back and forth past the foot of the bed in the small room, while an exhausted Manuel sat propped against the headboard. "We have to make a plan," she said.

  Manuel nodde
d his weary head: "Yes, my love."

  "I don't trust these people."

  "Yes, my love."

  "They've promised me half the money, but I don't believe them."

  "They're crooks," Manuel said, trying unsuccessfully to rouse himself to indignation.

  "Well, I had no choice in that," Lida said, reasonably enough. "Crooks were the only people who could help me."

  "That's true," Manuel said.

  "But we have to watch them," Lida said. "All the time, every second, until we regain the people's money."

  Manuel nodded again. "Yes, my love."

  "Alert at all times," Lida said.

  "Yes, my love," Manuel said and, still nodding, he fell asleep.

  "We must be prepared for treachery at any instant," Lida said, then noticed that Manuel's eyes were closed, his body relaxed, his mouth open and his breathing regular. She frowned at him. "Are you asleep?"

  Manuel gave the only possible affirmative answer to that question-none.

  "Oh, Manuel," Lida said. "I need you. I-"

  A knock at the door.

  Manuel opened bleary eyes. "It's the secretaries," he said. "The secretaries are back."

  "Hush," Lida told him, and stood silently looking at the door.

  And now Eustace's voice sounded through it: "Lida? Are you in there?"

  Lida hesitated, then called, "Yes. I'm here."

  The doorknob rattled, but just before their lovemaking Lida had locked it. Eustace called again: "It's time to go."

  "Just one moment," Lida called, then turned to Manuel. "You must help me, Manuel," she whispered urgently. "You're the only one I can trust."

  "Oh, you can trust me," Manuel said. His thirty-second nap had refreshed him, and a gleam was returning to his eye.

  "Later, Manuel," Lida said. "We'll have… time. Later."

  8

  Driving up the Boulevard Raspail toward the Pont de la Concorde, in a new white Renault freshly stolen by Vito Palone, were Vito himself with Rosa Palermo and Angelo Salvagambelli. Rosa was driving, with Angelo in the passenger seat beside her and Vito in back, grumbling. "I was happy in my retirement," Vito was saying.

  "You were in jail," Rosa reminded him.

  "I was in retirement," Vito insisted. "I had my flowers. I was writing my memoirs."

  Interested, Angelo half-turned in his seat, asking, "Memoirs? Am I in them?"

  Spiteful, Vito shrugged, saying, "A footnote, only."

  Hurt, Angelo said, "After all we've been through together?"

  Rosa, glancing in the rearview mirror, said, "What was this footnote about?"

  Vito said, "That Greek sailor we kidnapped from the British lord."

  "What?" Angelo stared. "You put that in the book?"

  "Of course."

  "Don't!" Angelo cried. "Take it out at once!"

  "Now you don't want to be in the book."

  "If you put me in the book like that," Angelo told him, "you'll put me in jail."

  With an offhand wave, Vito said, "So you're out of the book."

  Heartfelt gratitude in his expression, Angelo said, "Thank you, Vito."

  "Think nothing of it."

  Rosa glanced at her companions, seemed to have it in mind to say something, and then seemed to think better of it. She shook her head, and steered the Renault across the Pont de la Concorde, around the Place de la Concorde, and northwest up the Champs Elysees.

  ***

  On the Boulevard Peripherique, the elevated highway ringing the city line of Paris, Herman Muller stood at an overpass, looking south along Avenue Gallieni, watching the endless traffic rolling northward toward the city. From time to time he looked at his watch, and betrayed his impatience only with a slight frown.

  Similarly, when at last he saw the two large orange trucks coming his way, his reaction was no more than a thin smile, quickly gone. He walked at an easy pace to the on-ramp, watching the trucks grind heavily up the ramp, and showed another brief thin smile when the Volkswagen appeared behind it, top down, Rudi driving and Otto sitting next to him. The Volkswagen stopped at the top of the ramp and Herman vaulted over the side and into the back seat. Pushing a walkie-talkie out of his way, he settled himself as Rudi drove out onto the highway, following the orange trucks.

  "Hello, Major," Otto said.

  "Corporal. Any difficulty?"

  "None," Otto said.

  "Good." Herman leaned back, permitting himself yet another smile. "A fine day," he said. "An excellent day for a tactical exercise."

  As he finished speaking, the walkie-talkie on the seat beside him piped up, in a tinny approximation of Eustace's voice: "Group A? Come in, Group A."

  Herman glanced at the walkie-talkie, first in surprise, and then in some amusement. "Group A," he repeated. "That's us." Picking up the walkie-talkie, he pressed the button on its side and said, "Yes, yes, here we are."

  The tinny voice said, "Where are you, Group A?"

  "In the automobile," Herman said, with exaggerated exactitude. "On the Boulevard Peripherique. Behind the trucks."

  "Are you on schedule?"

  "As a matter of fact, no," Herman said. "But then, the drivers of those trucks don't know about our schedule, do they? I would say we are approximately twenty-five minutes late."

  "Well, it can't be helped," said the tinny voice, in a brave manner. "Very true."

  "Well, anyway," the tinny brave voice said, "I'm in position now. Keep in touch."

  "Without a doubt," Herman said, and put the walkie-talkie down as though it were a three-day-old fish.

  ***

  In Menilmontant, in the London taxi parked on a narrow side street, Sir Mortimer and Bruddy and Andrew were having a discussion concerning a number of profound subjects: loyalty, finance, personal security. Bruddy was saying, "The rest of them would bloody well take the whole thing, if they found it."

  From the walkie-talkie on the front seat next to Bruddy came the same tinny voice that had spoken to Herman. This time it said, "Group B. Come in, Group B."

  Bruddy, ignoring the interruption, went on talking: "If we find the lolly," he told Andrew and Sir Mortimer, "I say we do the lot of them just the way they'd do us."

  "Group B? Come in, Group B."

  Bruddy picked up the walkie-talkie, apparently considering the discussion at an end, but Sir Mortimer said, "Wait, now, Bruddy. Don't answer that yet. Let's sort this out first."

  "It's sorted," Bruddy told him. "Far's I'm concerned it is."

  "Group B? Can you hear me, Group B?"

  Thoughtfully, slowly considering each separate word, Andrew said, "I must admit, Sir M, I do lean toward agreement with young Bruddy."

  "I do not intend," Sir Mortimer said firmly, "to spend the rest of my days in hiding. I like Maxwell Manor."

  "Then take it with you," Bruddy suggested, "like this bloody twit's castle from South America."

  The tinny voice, clearly becoming desperate, sounded again from the walkie-talkie: "Group B, what's wrong? Do come in, Group B."

  "I'd better answer this thing," Bruddy said, picking up the walkie-talkie, "before the bloody man has a stroke."

  "This discussion," Sir Mortimer said, "is not over."

  "Right, right," Bruddy said carelessly.

  "Group itee-eee! Where are you?"

  Bruddy pushed the button on the side of the machine, and spoke. "Keep your trousers buttoned, here we are."

  The tinny voice expressed delight and relief: "Bruddy! There you are!"

  Bruddy, his voice dangerously soft, said, "The idea of the group numbers was, we wouldn't be mentioning anybody's name."

  "Oh!" said the tinny voice. "I am sorry!"

  "Aff a mo," Bruddy said, and turned to the two in the back seat.

  "Time for you to hop it."

  "Right you are," said Andrew.

  "This discussion," Sir Mortimer insisted, "is still open."

  "Right, right," Bruddy said.

  The two older men got out of the cab, as the tinny voice, ner
vous again, said, "Bru-uh. B. B? Group B?"

  "You almost did it again," Bruddy said, watching Andrew and Sir Mortimer walk off in different directions.

  "Oh, no," the tinny voice assured him. "No, I won't. I wouldn't."

  "That's good," Bruddy told him, and added, "We're all fine here."

  "That's fine, then. Fine. Signing off."

  "Right," said Bruddy, and released the button. "Twit," he said.

  ***

  Jean LeFraque, leaning against a boxcar in the freight yards behind the Gare de la Chappelle, heard his jacket pocket speak to him, in a tinny voice. "Group C," it said. "Come in, Group C. Are you there?" From his pocket, Jean took the walkie-talkie, and replied: "I am here. My group has not as yet arrived."

  "They haven't? Is something wrong? Shouldn't they-"

  "Wait," Jean said. "Something coming in now."

  A switching engine was approaching, bringing a long string of cars, including several wagons-lits. If all had gone well, Renee and Charles would still be in one of those wagons-lits, having hidden while the other passengers made their departure. Farther down the long string of cars were two bright yellow freight cars.

  "Hello?" asked the tinny voice. "Group C? Hello?"

  "Yes," Jean said. "Here they come now. My group, and the objects of our attention."

  "Ahhhh," said the tinny voice. "Superb."

  "You echo my sentiments," Jean told him, and smiled as he watched the wagons-lits go by.

  ***

  In the compartment in which the reborn Charles had been opening his soul to Renee, the bunks were now both closed into their recesses in the wall, and yet from the bottom bunk the voices still rose, as in a ghost story. The voice of Renee was saying, "Then, when my affair with my uncle came to an end-"

  "Wait," said the voice of Charles, and the closed bunk opened slightly. "Isn't that the freight yard?" asked the now-louder voice of Charles.