Дональд Уэстлейк - Castle in the Air

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 noncombatant 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 behind himself.

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 nodded 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.”