Castle in the Air Read online

  "I'll be right back," Eustace told Lida, and exited, stage right.

  Renee smiled at Lida, saying, "You don't speak French, do you?"

  Smiling back, replying in Spanish, Lida said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak French. I speak Spanish and English."

  "But it doesn't matter, between women," Renee said.

  "But it shouldn't matter, between us," Lida said. "We are both women."

  Renee gestured at a comfortable-looking chair. "Do sit down. You know how men are, they'll be talking together back there forever." Back there, by the yellow boxcars and the locomotive, was a completely different world, the transmogrification here being from subway platform to warehouse. Crates and building blocks and odd pieces of furniture were stacked everywhere, with Jean and Charles hard at work with crowbars, opening the wooden crates and emptying out their contents.

  As they worked, the two men discussed potential futures. "Of course," Charles said, "if we do find the money, and if we take it away ourselves, we won't be able to stay in France."

  "Oh, no, I disagree," Jean told him. "The others would know right away that we'd taken it if we were to leave the country."

  Charles said, "But what's the good of cheating the others if we can't spend it? I'll go to the Caribbean, one of the French islands there, and open a bar."

  "They'll follow you," Jean told him. "All of them."

  "They wouldn't find me. Never in a million years."

  "Hss…" Jean said, "Here comes Eustace."

  "He doesn't understand French," Charles pointed out.

  "He understand the doublecross," Jean told him, "in any language. Caution, my friend." And turning to the approaching Eustace, he said, "Hello, mon ami. How goes it?"

  "Just fine," Eustace told him, and spread his smile to include Charles. "How goes it with you two?"

  "As you see." Jean gestured around at the goods piled up on the platform. "Some things of value, here and there, but not the major reward we've been promised."

  "We'll find it," Eustace said cheerfully. "No doubt at all. Keep me informed, my friend."

  "But of course, my friend."

  The two friends smiled upon one another.

  ***

  Eustace knocked sharply on the large wooden door of the abandoned warehouse beside the Canal St. Denis, and was rewarded by the door squeakily rolling open to reveal the round face of Otto, who looked at Eustace and Lida with impatience and said, in German, "Come in, come in. Quick. And don't make so much noise."

  "Ah, Otto," Eustace said, stepping into the warehouse. "Where's Herman? I take it you haven't found-" And he stopped, staring across the large empty floor. "Good God," he said.

  There, on the other side of the empty space, stood a castle; or that is, a castle segment. It was like something seen in some wayward corner of Disneyland, a castle wing all self-contained, unattached from reality, constructed of stone blocks, with a large wooden door and a couple of windows. Standing in front of this Gothic fantasy, looking stern and efficient, was Herman.

  Eustace approached him, gesturing vaguely at the castle-manque, saying, "Herman? What is this?"

  "We have nothing to report as yet," Herman told him.

  "But-" Eustace moved closer to the castle, peering at it. "But what are you doing? You're supposed to search the castle, not live in it!"

  The castle door opened and Rudi came out. He frowned at Eustace, then turned to Herman, saying, "What's the matter with that one now?"

  "He doesn't like our construction," Herman told him.

  "Oh, no? I'd like to see him do it better."

  Switching back to English, Herman told Eustace, "You can rest assured we have examined each and every element before putting it in its place. Neat work habits produce better results."

  Eustace dithered, unable to express any of what he was feeling. "But… but…"

  "As I told you," Herman went on inexorably, "we have as yet nothing to report. Excuse me, we have a schedule to maintain."

  "I-"

  "Unless you had something of importance?"

  "No, I-"

  "Very well, then," Herman said, and joined Otto and Rudi, who were carefully putting more castle pieces together.

  Eustace watched open-mouthed for a few seconds, then shook his head as though to gather his wits, spread his hands, shrugged, and said, "Well, if that's the method you prefer, I suppose, um, well… Do get in touch if you come up with something."

  "Of course," Herman said.

  Eustace seemed to want to say something more, but no more came out. After a few more seconds of indecision, he simply turned about and walked away, followed by Lida, going out of the warehouse and closing the door behind them.

  "I don't see what he's complaining about," Rudi said, fitting a block into place. "We have the angles right and everything."

  "The English just complain," Otto said, picking up another block.

  "It doesn't mean anything, they do it all the time. It's the weather they grow up with, it-"

  Otto turned the block, looking for its identifying number, and the block tinkled. A clinking sound, like coins falling. Or a golden necklace, perhaps.

  Rudi and Herman both froze. They turned their heads. They looked at Otto, who blinked and looked back and turned the block again.

  Clink-clunk.

  "Ah," said Herman. "Ah. Ah. Ah."

  14

  The Parc De Buttes-Chaumont, in the 19th Arrondissement, in the northeast quarter of Paris, is high and hilly and very untamed, with long wandering paths surrounded by thick shrubbery and proud, tall ancient trees. Having driven his motorcycle to the top of one of the hills in this park, Eustace could, if he wished, look west toward the hills of Menilmontant, or south toward the Seine, or even north toward the warehouse where Otto and Rudi and Herman were shaking blocks of stone at one another like castanets; but sightseeing was not his purpose here. Communication was. From this vantage point, the walkie-talkies gave the clearest and strongest signal, and from now on until the search was completed Eustace intended to use this hilltop as his command post.

  "Well, now," Eustace said to Lida, after he had switched off the engine, "just start handing me those walkie-talkies, my dear."

  "Yes, of course." The walkie-talkies were within the sidecar, down between her feet. She pulled one out and handed it to Eustace, who read the letter painted on it, pushed the button, and said:

  "Hello, Group D."

  Nothing. Eustace shook his head with annoyance; could they never get themselves organized on the communication front? "Hello, Group D," he repeated. "Are you there?"

  And Rosa's enraged voice snarled from the walkie-talkie, "Yes, I'm here! Where do you suppose I'd be?"

  Unruffled, Eustace said, "Nothing yet?"

  "We found a kitchen sink," said Rosa's savage voice. "Go drown yourself, Eustace."

  Handing the walkie-talkie back to Lida, Eustace told her, "Nothing there yet. Next, please."

  She handed him another and he spoke into it, "Hello, Group B?"

  And it was this time the cheerful voice of Andrew that came back, saying, "Yes, hello, how are you?"

  "I'm fine," Eustace told him.

  "And so am I," Andrew said. "By God, but this weather is magnificent. I may retire in France yet."

  "Yes, well," Eustace said, "that's all very nice. But have you found anything yet to retire with?"

  "What?" Andrew asked, then said, "Oh. The goods, you mean."

  "Right."

  "Not a glimmer; sorry, old man. But we're still soldiering on."

  "That's fine," Eustace said. "Over and out."

  Eustace was about to hand the walkie-talkie to Lida, but Andrew's voice came from it again, saying, "I beg your pardon?"

  Eustace pushed the button: "I said 'over and out.' That means I'm hanging up now."

  Andrew said, "Does it really?"

  "I believe so, yes."

  "Fancy. Well, ta."

  "Ta," Eustace agreed, and this time he and Lida did exchange walki
e-talkies again, and he said into the new one, "Hello, Group A." Nothing.

  "Group A?"

  Nothing.

  Eustace grimaced at Lida, saying, "They're too busy building the castle to make a report." Into the walkie-talkie he said, "Come along, Group A. Somebody speak up."

  Nothing.

  At last getting nervous, Eustace said, "What's wrong there? Where are you? Group A! Group A! Herman!"

  ***

  Drifting southward in a flat-bottom boat piled eight feet high with building blocks, nearing the intersection of Canal St. Denis with Canal De L'Ourco, smiling in contentment, were Herman and Rudi and Otto. In Herman's hand was the walkie-talkie, and from it came the continuing voice of Eustace, with increasing panic, crying, "Rudi? Otto? Herman! Come in!"

  Smiling, Herman extended his arm slowly out to the side, like a crane. He opened his fingers, and the walkie-talkie dropped from his hand into the canal.

  The boat drifted on.

  15

  The heavy wooden door of the abandoned warehouse crashed open and Eustace thundered in on the motorcycle, with Lida cowering in the sidecar. Behind them, the Renault came spinning in, the frantic faces of Rosa and Angelo and Vito all visible through the windshield as they clustered together in the front seat. The two vehicles slid and scraped and squealed to a stop in front of the completed castle fragment, and Eustace and Lida hopped off the motorcycle as Rosa and Angelo and Vito burst out of the Renault.

  "Herman!" yelled Eustace, uselessly. "Herman!"

  "Germans!" roared Rosa, shaking her fists at the castle. "You can't trust Germans!"

  Eustace looked at the orange truck, still in place on the other side of the warehouse, beyond the castle. "They left the truck," he said.

  "Yes," said Rosa.

  Angelo, who had run into the castle and then right back out again, joined them to say to Rosa, "They left the truck."

  "I see it," Rosa told him. "It's not that hard to see."

  Eustace, irritable with Italian being spoken around him, said, "What was that?"

  "Angelo says," Rosa told him, "that the Germans left the truck."

  "Oh."

  Lida approached, "Look," she said. "They left the truck."

  "So I'm told," said Eustace.

  Angelo, irritable with English being spoken around him, said, "What was that?"

  Rosa answered, "She says they left the truck."

  Eustace said to Rosa, "What?"

  "I was telling Angelo," Rosa said, "that Lida said they left the truck."

  Joining the others, Vito sighed and said, "To think I could be in prison."

  "Finally somebody says something I can understand," Angelo said, in deep annoyance, "and it's that?"

  Eustace, no longer trusting anybody, peered hard at Angelo and Vito, saying, "What's that? What are they saying?"

  Rosa said, "They're saying they left the truck."

  Meantime, Angelo told Vito, "You notice they left the truck."

  "But they didn't empty any blocks," Vito pointed out.

  "That's right," Angelo said, looking around.

  "What's that?" Eustace demanded. "That was something else."

  Sighing, shaking her head, growing weary with the whole thing, Rosa said, "Vito says they didn't empty any blocks."

  Eustace understood the import of that right away: "And yet they left the truck!" he shouted.

  "I'm going back to Naples," Rosa said. "I'm not going to talk about trucks anymore, I'm simply going back to Naples. That's it, that's all, I don't care, I'm going back."

  "No, wait," Eustace said. "Vito has a point."

  "I know, I know. They left the truck."

  "Not that," Eustace said. "The point is, they took the blocks."

  Rosa looked blank. "What?"

  "There are no empty blocks here," Eustace explained. "So they had to have another truck to carry off all those blocks. There must be too many to fit in that little Volkswagen."

  Rosa said, "But we don't know what the other truck looks like."

  "No," said Eustace. "But we do know what the Volkswagen looks like. And we know which direction they'll go."

  "East," said Rosa, looking grimmer. She was beginning to catch her second wind.

  Lida, who had been looking from speaker to speaker, now said, "Does this mean the sweat of the people's brow has been stolen?"

  "I couldn't have phrased it better myself," Eustace told her. "Wait in the sidecar."

  At that point, the London taxicab came roaring through the open doorway, narrowly managing not to hit either the Renault or the motorcycle, and braked to a stop. Bruddy and Andrew and Sir Mortimer all leaped out, Bruddy shouting, "What's up? They copped?"

  "No time for explanations," Eustace told him. "The point is, they're gone, and they've got the loot in some other truck, still in the blocks. Look for their Volkswagen, with some other truck. We'll all head eastward, on different roads. Hurry! There's no time to lose!"

  16

  Hovering dustmotes still hung in the warehouse air, in shafts of sunlight before the reconstructed castle segment, in mute memory of the hasty departure of Eustace and Lida and Rosa and Vito and Angelo and Bruddy and Andrew and Sir Mortimer, when once again the main warehouse doorway, left open in the rush of events, framed an arrival; the bicycle built for two, now bearing three. Renee peddled in back, Jean peddled in front, and Charles, morose as a brooding chimpanzee, was on the handlebars.

  A tricky question of balance emerged when the bicycle slowed to a stop, wobbling, pointing itself this way and that like a nervous bird-dog who's lost the scent, but no one actually fell down. Charles, however, did have to invent one or two new dance steps in his effort to get from handlebars to ground without tipping over.

  The three, freed of their bicycle, somberly surveyed the scene, and it was Charles who spoke first, the cigarette bobbing gloomily in the corner of his mouth. "So the Germans found it."

  "You might know," Renee said, "they'd take it all for themselves."

  Jean, already thinking ahead, pointed out, "They left the truck."

  "We can use it," Charles said. "Better than the bicycle."

  Renee looked more alert, her spirits lifting. "To follow them? Which way would they go?"

  Jean shrugged: "To Germany."

  "No," Charles said. "I don't think so."

  Renee had been nodding in agreement with Jean; frowning at Charles she said, "Why not?"

  There was a cold glint in Charles' eye now, a new lean toughness to his cheek. The professional thief was at work, all his knowledge and intuition brought into play. "If I were them," he said, more to himself than to the others, "where would I go?"

  "Well, you wouldn't go to Germany," Renee said, "but that's because you're French."

  Jean, his own expression becoming thoughtful, wandered away from the conversation, as Charles said, "Ah, but for the very reason that I am French, I very well might go to Germany. And for that exact same reason, I believe Herman and Rudi and Otto will remain right here in Paris."

  Renee didn't begin to understand: "Why?"

  "Consider the alternatives," Charles suggested. "Shall they go out on the highway and make a run for it, knowing we are all scant minutes behind them? Foolish."

  "But if they stay in Paris, these Germans," Renee said, "where will they stay?"

  "That's the problem," Charles admitted. "That's what I'm trying to comprehend, in my mind."

  "Here!" suddenly called Jean. "Here, look at this!"

  Charles and Renee looked around, to see Jean barely visible on the far side of the truck. "Something else?" Charles asked, and he and Renee walked around the truck to see the Volkswagen tucked unobtrusively under the truck's wing. "Well, well," Charles said.

  Unnecessarily, Jean said, "They left the car, too."

  "Well, well, well, well, well," said Charles. He frowned at the car, thinking. Jean and Renee frowned at Charles, waiting. Charles frowned at the truck. Then he frowned at the constructed castle segment. Finally, w
ith a more intense sort of frown, he frowned at the warehouse's rear windows.

  Renee, frowning at Charles' frowns, said, "Charles?"

  "Mmm," said Charles.

  Frowning encouragingly, Jean said, "Yes?"

  "Hmmmmm," said Charles, and crossed the dirty floor to the nearest window and looked out.

  Renee said, "Charles? What do you see?"

  Charles turned back to the other two, and now his frown contained a smile inside it. "I see," he said, "a canal."

  ***

  Zipping northeastward out of Paris on the N2, the Avenue Jean Jaures through the suburbs of Aubervilliers and La Courneuve, the Renault skidded and slipped through the other traffic like a Gypsy knife through a merchant's ribcage. Rosa drove, with the abandon of a woman who has been assured by the Holy Virgin herself that no harm will befall her, while Angelo beside her stared and strained at every truck, every Volkswagen, every vehicle at all that they passed. And in the back seat, munching on his cheeks, calculating, deep in thought, ignoring the outside world, sat Vito.

  "Bathtubs," muttered Rosa, slipping on two wheels between a Simca and a Citroen. "Bidets. Sinks. Toilets. And the Germans get the gold."

  "Not for long," declared Angelo, staring for a millisecond into the astonished face of a chic woman whose Lamborghini Rosa had just forced off the road. "We'll catch up," Angelo vowed. "We'll catch up."

  "Stop!" cried Vito.

  Rosa spun around a tourbus, and did not stop.

  "Stop!" repeated Vito. "Rosa, stop!"

  "Why?"

  "We have to go back!" Vito yelled, banging on the seat back. "Stop! Turn around!"

  Angelo stared at him in disbelief. "But they're ahead of us!"

  "No!" cried Vito. "They're in Paris!"

  Rosa took her attention away from her driving long enough to glance at Vito in the rearview mirror and just miss seven vehicles. "In Paris?" she demanded. "In Paris?"

  "Yes. When I know things," Vito said, "I know them, and I know I know this. They never left Paris. Turn around, Rosa. If you want to be a millionaire, turn around."