Castle in the Air Page 8

  Oh, no. Up he jumped, and looked around, and his truck was moving away!

  "Hi! Hi!"

  The former driver of the departing truck started to run after his machine, and was promptly nearly run down by a black Volkswagen convertible beetle. Then the damn Volkswagen continued to block him, because the driver insisted on stopping and making no-doubt-disparaging remarks to the former-truckdriver-now-pedestrian in German. The last straw, a German.

  And his truck was gone.

  ***

  Checking his watch, Andrew put the delivery van in neutral, released the emergency brake, and stepped out to the steep cobbled street. Slowly, then more quickly, the delivery van rolled away alone down the street.

  Checking his watch, Sir Mortimer walked around the corner, gave the baby carriage a slight shove, and stood observing the carriage's trajectory as it bounced and trundled down the long steep hill.

  Checking his watch, Bruddy accelerated the cab, angled out, rapidly passed the still-climbing silver-garbed truck, and then braked to a stop at the curb half a block farther up the hill; not far from an intersection. (A dirty white delivery van could be seen coming downhill, his way.) Bruddy climbed out of the cab and watched the silver truck slowly approach.

  ***

  "Why, no," Renee said, her smile glazing a bit, "the coffee isn't too strong at all." She sat on a desk, swinging her crossed leg, smiling and smiling and smiling.

  Across the room, Jean watched out the large plate glass windows as a small yard locomotive trundled away out of the yards, bearing behind it two gleaming yellow boxcars.

  The smile on Jean's face was much more realistic than that on Renee's.

  ***

  Unaware of the awful twist of fate which had befallen his friend and co-worker, Jacques, the driver of the first orange truck, continued his frustrating, enraging but unstoppable circling of the Arc de Triomphe until, just about opposite the place where his cohort had come a cropper, Jacques, too, was forced to suddenly stand on his air-brakes; alas, too late. The stout German tourist looking so intently into his viewfinder gave out a sudden hoarse cry of despair, threw up his arms, and in a flurry of cameras he dropped beneath the wheels of the truck.

  "Sacre!" cried the driver. "Merde!" And he leaped from the truck to run to the tourist, who sprawled moaning on the pavement next to the huge left front tire of the vehicle which seemed to have finished his career in amateur photography. "Are you dead?" cried the driver. "Do you yet live?"

  "Aaaaiiiiiiiiiyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeee," said Otto.

  The driver sank to one knee beside his victim. "My poor friend," he said, "I fear you have given your life for your art."

  Otto reached upward, feebly clutched at the driver's lapels. "Ooooooooooh," said Otto, tugging at the driver's lapels.

  "You want to tell me something?" The driver leaned close to Otto's mouth. "Yes? Yes?"

  Just behind the driver now was the big left front wheel of his truck and as he listened very carefully to Otto gulp and swallow and gasp, the big left front wheel began to turn. It moved, it rolled, it went away, shortly to be followed by the left rear wheel of the truck cab.

  "Glug," said Otto. "Gil gll. Glug "

  "Yes?" the driver asked. "Do you want me to notify someone?" The driver tried to look around for help, but Otto gave a sudden spastic tug on his lapels, and gulped ever more dramatically and impressively. The left front wheel of the truck trailer went by.

  The left rear wheel of the truck trailer went by.

  "Yes?" The driver, though remorseful, was also becoming impatient. "You wish to say something? Say it, please, say it!"

  "Help me up," said Otto, in a clear and distinct voice.

  "Are you sure you should be moved?"

  "Oh, yes," Otto said. "Absolutely. Help me up."

  A frown of bewilderment creased the driver's face. He reared back, the better to look at Otto, but Otto continued to clutch his lapels and therefore came along with him. The driver kept rearing back, trying to get away from this suddenly healthy-looking face, and in that manner both the driver and Otto finally came erect, at which point Otto released the lapels and said, "Thank you very much."

  The driver gaped. "Aren't you-?"

  "I feel much better now," Otto said, and turned away, and reached out his hand. Providentially, it would seem, a black Volkswagen convertible beetle screeched to a halt right next to them, in such a manner that the VW's doorhandle nestled in Otto's waiting fingers. Otto opened the car door, entered the VW, and was driven away.

  The truckdriver stared. Horns honked all around him, to indicate that he was standing in the middle of impatient traffic. Shaking his head, he turned around, reached out his own hand for the handle of his truck door, and stopped, frozen, staring.

  His truck was gone.

  ***

  The driver of the silver-garbed truck struggling northward up the hills of Menilmontant tapped his brakes when he saw the dirty white delivery van bouncing down the street toward him, veering left and right on the uneven cobblestone street. "He'll cause an accident, that one," the driver muttered to himself, and then watched with horror as a baby carriage, alone and unattended, all at once appeared from the side street, rolling out directly into the path of the oncoming delivery van.

  Which didn't stop-didn't even slow down. "Look out!" the driver of the silver-garbed truck screamed, and released his wheel to clutch at his temples as the delivery van crashed into the baby carriage, reducing it to a model of the Beaubourg Museum. Several pieces of something flew up and out of the baby carriage, red and juicy, and splatted onto the cobblestones.

  "My God!" cried the driver of the silver-garbed truck. Slamming on his hand-brake, he jumped out of the truck and ran forward, staring at the horror spread across the street.

  The delivery van, its path altered by the accident, had bumped up over the tall curb and come to a stop against a shop window, which was still shimmering from the impact but which had not quite broken. The baby carriage, reduced to modern sculpture, lay twisted in the middle of the street. And the red juicy stuff?

  The driver went down on one knee. He picked something up and stared at it. Meantime, shopkeepers and pedestrians and coffee-drinkers and aperitif-drinkers of the arrondissement were running forward, clustering around, staring and clucking and looking sick to their stomachs.

  The driver was reduced to stuttering. "Passe-passe," he said, displaying the red sticky juicy stuff to revolted onlookers; but "passe-passe" means conjuring, magic, sorcery, which was surely not what he meant. Onward: "Passe-temps," he stuttered next, which had to be another error, as "passe-temps" means in English pastime, game, foolery. And at last the driver got it out: "Pasteque!" he cried, and to all those who thought he was still babbling, he was absolutely correct, because the word "pasteque" in English means "Watermelon!"

  "Honk!" said a vehicle, and the driver with his hands full of watermelon moved to one side, and a truck labored on past him and up the hill. A large heavy truck, its cargo sheathed with silver tarpaulins, and its wheel manned-though the driver couldn't know this-by Bruddy Dunk.

  "My truck!" The driver pointed the watermelon he held. "They have my truck!" And he ran forward, only to have his way blocked by the sudden appearance across his path of a black London taxicab.

  A London taxicab? In Paris? What foolishness? "Out of my way!" cried the driver. "They have taken my truck!"

  The passenger of the London taxicab, who happened to be Andrew Pinkenham himself, lowered his window and spoke in oblivious unconcern (and in English), asking the truckdriver, "I do beg your pardon, but can you direct my driver to Calais?"

  The truckdriver didn't speak English even when life was calm; at a moment like this, he barely spoke French. "My truck!" he yelled, pointing the watermelon he held over the taxi roof at the vehicle in question, which was now just cresting the top of the hill and disappearing down the long straight rapid slope of the other side.

  "No," Andrew said, unruffled and unheeding, "Cala
is. I'm afraid my driver is lost."

  Whereas the truckdriver went berserk: " My truck! My truck! Out of the way!" And he kicked ferociously at the side of the taxi.

  "I don't believe he knows," Andrew said, and leaned forward, calling to Sir Mortimer at the cab wheel, "drive on."

  "Right, guv," Sir Mortimer said, in a terrible attempt at a Cockney accent (but what do the French know about Cockney accents anyway?), and the London taxicab rolled serenely away.

  The former driver of the silver-garbed truck, completely out of his mind, stood throwing pieces of watermelon at people in the middle of the street until the gendarmes came and sympathetically hit him on the head with their sticks and carried him away.

  10

  Eustace was going crazy. Everything was organized, everything was in motion, but was everything going the way it was supposed to go?

  What Eustace wanted, what Eustace needed, was for the entire city of Paris to suddenly be magically reduced to the size and aspect of a model train layout, with himself on a high stool overlooking the whole thing. Then he could see if the English contingent was doing its job in Menilmontant, he could see if the French contingent was successfully performing its task in the Gare de la Chappelle, he could see whether the Italians and the Germans were performing profitably at the Arc de Triomphe. Instead of which, here he was on this windy hotel roof, seated in this wobbly folding chair at this rickety folding table, holding down all his maps and charts and memorandums with these damn walkie-talkies, and trying to get somebody somewhere to tell him what in hell was going on?

  Eustace picked up a walkie-talkie at random, then slapped his palm down on the two maps and the diagram before they could blow away. Into the walkie-talkie he said, "Group-" then hesitated, frowned, turned the walkie-talkie over, and read the white letter painted there: "-C. Group C, come in. Come in, Group C." Then he held the walkie-talkie close to his ear, and listened to several people laughing in French: "Rire, rire, rire, rire, rire," they were saying.

  "Oh, really," Eustace said, slapped the walkie-talkie down, yanked up another, grabbed for the memos too late, watched them blow off the roof, swore in English, read the letter on the walkie-talkie, and yelled into it, "Group D! Say something, Group D!"

  Shrill voices gabbled in Italian.

  "Stop it," Eustace said, very sternly, into the walkie-talkie. "Now, just stop all that. I'm serious about this. This is a serious business."

  Gabble-gabble-gabble.

  Gabble. A different gabble, different in tone, different in language, and different in place. A live gabble, in fact. Baffled, Eustace turned his head and saw Lida's cousin standing there, looking as stubborn as-and less intelligent than-a mule. "Not you again," Eustace said.

  In Spanish, Manuel repeated his gabble, which was simply, "What have you done with Lida?"

  "I don't have time for this now," Eustace told him. "I have all these other idiots to contend with."

  "I demand to see Lida," insisted Manuel.

  Eustace chose another walkie-talkie, spoke firmly into it: "Group A, I wish a report, and I wish no nonsense, no foreign tongues, no conclave-of-nations, nothing but a progress report concerning the progress of our present operation!"

  "In Munchen steht ein Hofbrauhaus," sang the walkie-talkie, with two badly-assorted voices, "eins, zwei, gsuffa!"

  Manuel had plodded around in front of Eustace, and was standing just the other side of the table. Ignoring the singing walkie-talkie, he said, "You tell me where Lida is."

  Bewildered, appalled, Eustace was asking the walkie-talkie, "Are you all drunk?"

  Manuel pounded the table; all the walkie-talkies hopped. "Tell me where Lida is!"

  Eustace glared at him. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

  "I don't trust you people. I want Lida. Lida! Lida!"

  Eustace picked the familiar name out of the gabble. "Oh, Lida, is it? Your cousin, eh, that's what you want?"

  "Lida," agreed Manuel, sullen and implacable.

  Eustace waved an airy hand-made somewhat less airy by the fact that it was still grasping a walkie-talkie-out over the city: "Lida," he said, "is out peddling her bicycle around Paris. Go away now."

  "Lida," said Manuel.

  Eustace reared up from his folding chair, shaking the walkie-talkie under Manuel's chin, yelling at him, "You go away! You're one idiot too many, one language too many! I don't have the time or the patience for you! Go away, or I'll, I'll-" Eustace gabbled a bit himself, waving both arms. "I'll throw you off this roof!"

  Manuel might not speak any language but Spanish-and a rather bedraggled form of South American Spanish at that-but he could read faces and tones of voice pretty well, and he was smart enough to back away from Eustace and those waving arms, saying as he did so, "You'll regret this. You'll be sorry about this!"

  "Go!" screamed Eustace. "Go, go, go, go, go!"

  Manuel went, muttering in Spanish. Eustace flung down the still-singing-in-German walkie-talkie, grabbed up another one, and yelled into it, "Somebody say something in English!"

  And the voice of Bruddy, angry and belligerent, came immediately back, saying, "What do you bloody well expect, Hindustani?"

  "Thank God," Eustace said. "A friendly voice, where are you?"

  Bruddy's voice said, "In the flippin' truck, you twit. Where are you?"

  "Where am I?" Baffled at such a question, Eustace looked around before answering, "I'm on the roof."

  "Good place for a pigeon like you."

  Belatedly, Eustace realized what Bruddy had said earlier, and he cried out, "In the truck? You mean, you've done it?"

  "Bloody twit," responded Bruddy.

  Before Eustace could continue this suddenly-invigorating conversation, one of the other walkie-talkies on the table suddenly said, in Jean LeFraque's French-accented English, "Hello. This is me. Is that you?"

  "Wait, Br… Uhh, Group…" (quick reading of painted letter) "… B. Don't go way, just wait." And Eustace dropped that walkie-talkie, picked up another one and said, "Is that you, Group C?"

  The walkie-talkie squabbled, in Italian.

  "Arrgh!" Eustace flung it down, looked at the others, found the one with the "C" painted on it, picked it up, and cried into it, "Group C? Is that you?"

  "I don't know," answered Jean. "Am I Group C?"

  "Yes, of course you are."

  "I can never remember."

  "You wanted something?" In his desperation, Eustace was squeezing the walkie-talkie with both hands. "Is something wrong? What's gone wrong?"

  "Mission accomplished," said the happy voice of Jean LeFraque.

  For a few seconds, Eustace couldn't grasp the import of Jean's message; he was too prepared by now for calamity. "What?" he said. "Isn't it work… What? You've done it?"

  "Absolutely. That's how you say it? Absolutely?"

  "Absolutely!" responded Eustace, a huge smile crossing his face. "Absolute-ment!"

  "What a charming accent you have," Jean said drily, but Eustace had already dropped that walkie-talkie and was lunging for another, shouting into it, "Br… B. Group B. You're in the truck?"

  "Same as ever," came Bruddy's surly voice.

  "It's working!" Eustace cried. He jumped to his feet, grabbing up the walkie-talkies and dancing with them. Gusts of wind flipped and blew his maps, his charts, his diagrams; Eustace in his dancing kicked over his folding chair. Somewhere in the distance a red balloon rose up into the blue Parisian sky. The walkie-talkies sang and snarled and squabbled at one another, and Eustace danced on the roof.

  11

  The construction business is booming in Paris, and has been for the last several years. Office buildings, apartment houses are shooting up everywhere, within the city limits and just beyond, steel and concrete and glass creating cell after cell as Paris expands and expands, ever upward.

  But in times of boom there are always those who boom a little too enthusiastically, who over-extend their capacities, their finances, their resources, and who suddenly find themselves in ban
kruptcy court, surrounded by no-longer-smiling faces. People are never understanding in such situations, just never understanding.

  And when such mishaps occur, unfinished buildings inevitably moulder roofless, wall-less, worker-less, hopeless, awaiting a new owner, a new builder, a new infusion of hope, vision and capital.

  Just such a structure was the incomplete apartment house just off the Boulevard Berthier in the 17th Arrondissement, in the northwest corner of the city. Behind a tall rickety wooden fence languished the pale white concrete skeleton of what might someday be a finished building but which at the moment looked most like a cubist version of a museum's dinosaur skeleton. The white concrete walls, with gaping rectangular holes, jutted up from yellowish mud, giving every evidence of failure and despair. Who would come to such a place, unless forced by circumstance?

  Rosa Palermo, that's who. And Angelo Salvagambelli. And Vito Palone. Angelo having driven orange truck number two through the wooden gate in the wooden fence, followed by Rosa and Vito and the little white Renault, Vito had re-closed the wooden gate and now the Italian mob was considering the results of its depredation. They were, in point of fact, getting down to cases.

  Shipping cases. Great huge wooden shipping cases now lay jumbled beside the orange truck, and here came Angelo and Vito staggering out of the back of the truck with yet another. They dropped it off the rear of the truck, hopped down into the mud next to it, and paused to lean against the case and mop their brows with their sleeves.

  "Well," Angelo said, "nearly empty. We'll put this one over there."

  "No," said Vito, "I must rest."