Castle in the Air Read online

  Rosa jumped with fright, nearly falling out of the boat. "Oh! Angelo! You startled me."

  "No doubt," said Angelo.

  Quickly recovering, Rosa said, "I changed my mind about the truck."

  "So I see."

  "I thought I might as well go ahead and load all this while waiting for you to come back."

  "Yes, indeed."

  Rosa, rather nervous, looked past Angelo up the steps: "Where's Vito?"

  Angelo smiled. "Would you like to wait for him?"

  Rosa hesitated, considering the options. Angelo continued to smile down at her, until at last she returned his smile, saying, "Vito can catch up with us later."

  "Of course," said Angelo, as he stepped down into the boat.

  21

  Vito, at the head of the narrow steps on the lie St. Louis, gazed forlornly down at where the boat and the wall of loot had so recently been. Words, even in Italian, failed him, and at last he turned away, just as Charles and Renee came smiling and hurrying around the corner.

  Bump. Stare. Mutual understanding.

  Charles pushed past Vito, staring down at the water at the foot of the steps. Behind him, Renee's agonized voice said, "Charles? Is it-?"

  Instead of answering, Charles turned and grabbed Vito in both hands, shaking him and yelling in his face, "Where is it? What have you done with it?"

  Maintaining as much dignity as possible while being shaken like a mariacha, Vito declaimed, "Unhand me, you big crook."

  "Don't speak Italian at me, you miserable worm!"

  "Charles!" wailed Renee, from the top of the steps. "Charles, they've taken it all!"

  Still clutching Vito, Charles said to Renee, "He'll tell me, or by Heaven-"

  Struggling in Charles' iron grip, Vito yelled, "Release me, you baboon!"

  "He doesn't have it," Renee said. "He wouldn't be here if he did."

  Charles frowned, thinking about that.

  "Let me go," Vito announced, "or I shall be forced to strike you!"

  "But if this old turd doesn't have the goods," Charles said, "who does?"

  "The other Italians," suggested Renee. "Rosa and Angelo."

  Recognizing the names out of the gabble of French, Vito jumped up and down excitedly in Charles' hands, yelling, "Yes! Yes! Rosa and Angelo! They robbed us all!"

  Nodding, releasing Vito, turning away from him as though he'd ceased to exist, Charles said to Renee, "Yes, you're right. They must have followed us, the way we followed the Germans."

  "And doublecrossed Vito along with the rest of us," said Renee.

  Vito now clutched at Charles, trying to re-attract his attention, saying, "Rosa. Rosa and Angelo, we have to find them."

  Distractedly pushing Vito off, Charles said, "We have to find them."

  "Yes, Charles," Renee said. "Think. Think."

  The three of them moved slowly away from the steps, Charles thoughtful, Renee watching Charles, Vito darting around them like a frantic puppy.

  22

  Andrew, Sir Mortimer and Jean walked back to the taxicab, now parked on the Quai Saint Bernard on the Left Bank. Andrew and Sir Mortimer were both gloomy again, and Jean was also trying to simulate gloom. Jean it was who said, as they reached the taxi, "Well, we seem to have lost them for good."

  "Most unsporting," Andrew said. "Most unfortunate."

  "I did not come all this way," Sir Mortimer said, "to be made a fool of by Germans."

  "I know how you feel, Sir Mortimer," Jean said, "but what are we to do?"

  "Keep searching!"

  "I'm afraid," Jean said, with a gallic shrug, "I don't have your English sinew. I am prepared at this point to abandon all hope."

  Suddenly suspicious, Sir Mortimer frowned at the Frenchman: "You're giving it up, are you?"

  "I'm afraid so," said Jean. "It has been a pleasure working with all of you, gentlemen, and only unfortunate that our high hopes have been dashed, but now that the inevitable hour of parting has come upon us-" And he extended his hand for a round of farewell shakes.

  "Just one moment, there," Sir Mortimer said.

  Affable, innocent, Jean said, "Beg pardon?"

  Andrew was also now frowning at Jean. To Sir Mortimer he said, "There's something amiss about this Slyboots."

  "Precisely what I was thinking," said Sir Mortimer.

  Backing away, Jean continued his friendly smile as he said, "Well, I must be off. Au revoir. You needn't offer me a lift, I have friends quite close by-"

  Sir Mortimer and Andrew moved after Jean, who back-pedalled more rapidly. "Here!" said Sir Mortimer. "Stop a moment there!"

  "Hold on, now," Andrew said.

  Abandoning smile and all other pretense, Jean turned and ran. Sir Mortimer and Andrew pelted after him.

  ***

  Having fruitlessly crossed Ile St. Louis, Eustace and Bruddy and Lida were now looking fruitlessly riverward from the Pont St. Louis, the bridge between the two islands. "Nothing," Eustace said bitterly, and turned to see Vito and Charles and Renee trotting in his direction. "Vito!" Eustace cried in astonishment. "What's happened?"

  Racing toward Eustace, while Charles and Renee exchanged a nonplussed glance in the background, Vito cried out, "Where's Rosa? Where's Angelo? Have you seen them?"

  "More Italian!" cried Eustace.

  Meantime, seeing no point in fleeing, Charles and Renee had also approached, and Charles said, "What are all you people doing here?"

  "And more French!" cried Eustace.

  The multiplicity of languages apparently caused something to snap inside Lida, who abruptly shouted out in Spanish, "The people's money has been stolen!"

  Simultaneously, Bruddy, in his version of English, was asking, "Where'd you lot come from?"

  And now, briefly, everyone spoke at once, in a variety of tongues, until Eustace screamed, "Stop!" They all stopped, startled by the scream, and Eustace told them, "I've had enough! I can't stand it any more!" Panting, struggling to regain control of himself, he said, "All right. Now we'll find out what's happening." To Vito, speaking slowly and carefully and loudly, with elaborate hand gestures, he said, "Where's Rosa? Rosa!"

  And Vito replied with terrific excitement, "Yes, yes, Rosa! She stole everything!"

  Eustace waggled his hands, crying, "Wait, wait, wait! Go slowly."

  "You idiot," Charles said, "can't you understand? The Italians stole it all!"

  To Charles, Eustace said, "Will you wait? I'm having trouble enough not understanding Italian, without having to not understand French. Do you mind?"

  Lida said, "Perhaps I could try in Spanish."

  "We're standing here," Vito said, "having a tea party, and our money's gone!"

  To Vito, Eustace said, "Will you wait?"

  "French and Italian and Spanish are all very close," Lida pointed out, "so perhaps I could-"

  "Ah!" said Eustace, clutching at straws. "Try it! Ask Vito, uh… What do I want to ask him?"

  Bruddy said, "Where the flippin' Germans are."

  "Yes," Eustace said. "Exactly. Where are the Germans?"

  To Vito, in her South American Spanish, Lida said, "Where are the Germans?"

  In some astonishment, Vito said, "Are you talking to me?"

  "The people from Germany," Lida said.

  "That's not Italian you're talking," Vito told her. "Even in Sicily that wouldn't be Italian."

  Eustace said, "What's he saying?"

  Shaking her head, Lida said, "I'm sorry. I don't know."

  "If you people," Charles said, "are deciding something, I want to know what it is."

  Pointing at Charles, Eustace said to Lida, "Try it on him."

  "All right." Approaching Charles, Lida said in Spanish, "The Germans. They stole the people's money."

  Appalled, Charles said, "Good God, what a noise."

  Renee said, "I think it's Spanish."

  To Lida, hopefully, Eustace said, "What are they saying?"

  "Something in French."

  "I know it's in French!"
r />   Becoming more excitable again, now that no one was talking to him, Vito cried, "We must do something! Stop all the talk and do something!"

  Renee said to Charles, "They're deciding something behind our backs."

  Glowering at everybody, Bruddy said, "I'd like to take up a stick and just start laying about me."

  Vito then started yelling at Eustace while Charles started talking tough in the general direction of Bruddy. Eustace and Bruddy replied in kind, while Renee shouted alternatively at Charles and Bruddy. Lida appealed to everyone in a combination of Spanish and English. A general ruckus developed, in which all six shouted and nobody listened, and none of the six noticed the flat-bottom boat piled high with building blocks as it eased slowly around the end of lie St. Louis and moved underneath the bridge on which they pranced and danced, heading now north toward the Right Bank.

  It was Lida who first saw the boat, with its two cheerfully oblivious occupants, moving away northward from the bridge, but it was quite some time before she could attract the attention of all the other screaming combatants. She caught Renee's eye first, then she and Renee captured Eustace and forced him to look at the departing boat, and at last the other three gave off insults and imprecations, and a great silence settled on them all as they watched the boat glide on.

  It was Eustace who broke the silence, with sudden efficient determination, saying, "Right. We've got it now. We'll follow them. Bruddy, you take the Frenchmen and go along the Right Bank. I'll-"

  "Oh, no, you don't," Bruddy said. "We don't split up, not any more."

  Impatient, Eustace said, "You can trust me, Bruddy, I'm the one who organized this scheme. We have to split up. What if we all stay on the island, and they off-load the lolly on the Right Bank?"

  "We'll hurry over," Bruddy said. "All together-like."

  "And we'll be too late," Eustace pointed out. "They'll slip through our fingers."

  As Bruddy thought that over, frowning, Renee said quietly to Charles, "Can we at all get away from these people?"

  "Not yet. We'll need them to help with the Italians. Later, though."

  "All right," Bruddy finally decided. "We split up, for the nonce. But you try a fast one, my lad, and you'll be ever so sorry."

  "I've been sorry most of the day," Eustace told him.

  23

  Dejected and footsore, Andrew and Sir Mortimer returned to the London taxi, having failed miserably in their attempt to overtake the fleet-footed Jean. "I must say," Andrew commented, limping, "I'm not the runner I used to be."

  "I never was," Sir Mortimer said, grumpily. "I have always despised athletics."

  They reached the cab, and as Andrew's hand touched the door handle three caped gendarmes were suddenly among them; all around them, in fact; surrounding them, in fact. Andrew and Sir Mortimer, startled out of their funk, gaped at the gendarmes. "Yes?" said Sir Mortimer. "May I assist you?"

  One of the gendarmes, at least, spoke English. "This is," he asked, "your autocar?"

  Irritable, Sir Mortimer said, "Yes, of course it is. Just give us the ticket and we'll move on."

  "Ticket?" With a sad smile, the gendarme shook his head. "We do not talk about a ticket," he said. "This, as it happens, is a thieved autocar."

  Sir Mortimer and Andrew looked blankly at one another. Then they looked blankly at the London taxicab. Then they looked blankly at the gendarmes.

  "No," said Andrew, "I'm afraid not. I couldn't run another step."

  Forcefully Sir Mortimer told the gendarmes, "There is an explanation."

  With sudden wild hope, Sir Andrew looked at his confederate: "There is?"

  Politely the gendarmes waited. Slowly the stern expression on Sir Mortimer's face crumbled into despair. "But I'll be blowed," he said at last, "if I can find one."

  24

  On the Quai Megisserie, on the Right Bank of the Seine, Bruddy and Charles and Renee leaned on the railing and looked across the sparkling water to the Ile de la Cite, where the walled boat had just come to a stop at another narrow flight of stone steps. Rosa and Angelo, tying the boat in place, seemed to be involved in a not-entirely-friendly debate, though they were too far away for Bruddy and Charles and Renee to hear their voices.

  "Now we've got you, sweethearts," Bruddy said. "If only that bloody Eustace gets there in time."

  "Our friend," pointed out Renee, "is speaking English again."

  "It seems habitual with him," Charles said. "But pay no attention; he will soon cease to be a nuisance to us."

  Frowning at them, Bruddy said, "What are you two plotting? You're up to something."

  Across the water, the debate seemed at last to have resolved itself; Rosa and Angelo climbed the steps together, leaving the boat tied up behind them. Half a dozen steps, and they were out of sight.

  "Good," said Charles. To Bruddy he said, "Come along, before your friend Eustace doublecrosses us." And he trotted off in the direction of Pont Neuf, the nearest bridge to the island.

  Bruddy, not having understood what had just been said to him, was startled and not at all pleased when first Charles and then Renee took to their heels, running away from him. "Here!" he shouted, haring off after them. "Hi! Come back! What you trying to pull?"

  Very quickly Bruddy overtook the trotting Charles, grabbed him by the arm, and began to wrestle with him. Charles, bewildered and angry, naturally defended himself, shouting, "What are you doing? We've got to get over there!"

  Bruddy had a good grip, and wasn't about to let go: "Try to run out on me, will you?"

  Renee ran in little circles around the combatants, screaming, "Stop! Stop! Have you gone crazy?"

  "We've got to get the loot!" Charles yelled. "They'll get away with the loot!" he repeated, at the top of his voice, and only then did he become aware of the three gendarmes standing at the curb, attracted by the fracas.

  The change in Charles' reaction alerted Bruddy, who looked over his shoulder and also saw the gendarmes; smiling, calm, observing, patiently awaiting their turn to enter the conversation.

  "Um," said Bruddy, and released Charles, and stood there smoothing down his jacket and shirt.

  The gendarmes approached. Pleasantly, one of them said to Charles, "And what is it we are fighting about, on such a lovely day?"

  "Um," said Charles, in French.

  " 'Loot?' " quoted a second gendarme. "Was there a reference to 'loot'?"

  "Alas," said Charles.

  25

  Eustace, Vito and Lida, prowling the Ile de la Cite, had first discovered Rosa and Angelo in the process of stealing a truck. Themselves remaining out of sight, they had followed the truck thieves back to the Quai de l'Horloge, where the boat was tied up, and now from a nearby vantage point they watched their two former allies unload all the building blocks from the boat, carry them up the steps, and load them into the back of the truck. Eustace observed all this with the purest of pleasure, Vito with extremely mixed feelings, and Lida kept looking about in apprehension, finally saying, "Where are the others? Renee, and Charles, and Bruddy?"

  Delighted as much by their absence as by the blocks' presence, Eustace smiled and said, "I really couldn't say."

  "Perhaps something has happened to them."

  Trying without success to look sad, Eustace agreed: "It is possible." Continuing to look around, Lida suddenly lit up, saying, "Oh, look! Here's Jean and Rudi!"

  Startled, anything but pleased, Eustace whipped around, and, by God, it was true. Here came Jean and Rudi, an unlikely couple at the best of times, both smiling. Lida echoed their smile, but Eustace and Vito both looked rather glum as Jean and Rudi joined them, Jean saying, "We meet again."

  "How lucky," Eustace said sourly. "I was afraid we'd lost you."

  "And look who I found," Jean said, with a gesture at Rudi, whose fierce smile seemed to indicate that he really didn't mind at all if no one spoke a language he could understand.

  "I see him," Eustace said. "And you brought him along."

  Jean's smile turned rue
ful. "He more or less insisted."

  "You can talk all you want," Rudi said, in German, smiling like a swordsman in all directions, "but I'm here."

  Muttering in Italian, observing his countrymen and listening to all these other people, Vito said, "I've never felt so alone in all my life."

  "Look," Lida said, pointing toward Angelo and Rosa. "They're finishing."

  "Good," said Eustace. "Time for us to take over."

  ***

  Angelo put a block in the half-full back of the truck, then trotted down the steps to Rosa, struggling upward with a block in her arms. "This," she said, "is the last of them."

  "Good." Angelo took the block from her, carried it up to the truck, and was about to put it in when Rudi reached from inside the truck and took the block, saying, "Thanks. You're a sweetheart."

  Angelo was to astounded he let Rudi take the block, then stared at Jean and Vito, also in the back of the truck.

  "Au revoir," said Jean.

  "Go back to Italy, you bad people," Vito said, and shook his bony old fist at them.

  "Angelo!" cried Rosa. "Stop them!"

  But it was too late. Eustace, in the cab of the truck with Lida, pressed the accelerator and the truck drove away, bouncing on the pavement, turning out of sight on the Rue de Harley and driving on around the Palais de Justice.

  Rosa actually ran after the truck for half a block, yelling and shouting, but the effort was so patently useless that she quickly gave it up and turned back to yell at Angelo instead. "They're getting away!" she screamed. "They're going off with our money and you're just standing there!"

  Angelo, expressionless, stood on the narrow sidewalk, arms folded, and let Rosa rave on. She yelled, she screamed, she tore her hair, she beat her breast, she kicked parked cars, and at last she wound down and merely stood there panting, staring at Angelo, who continued to watch her as though she were a television set. "Well?" she finally gasped. "Well? What have you to say for yourself?"