Дональд Уэстлейк - Castle in the Air

But Vito hadn’t finished speaking Italian: “I was dragged out of retirement for this,” he said. “To become a stevedore in my old age.”

Nor was Angelo: “And to be driven on,” he said bitterly, “like a mule, by a harridan of a woman.”

“So that’s the way you talk about me, is it?” Rosa demanded, flaring at him, hands on hips. “In front of foreigners?”

“He doesn’t understand,” Angelo said. “He doesn’t understand anything.”

“Well, I understand,” Rosa told him, “and I—”

“Rosa, Rosa,” Eustace said. “Please, Rosa, speak to me and speak in English. I take it you’ve had no luck yet.”

“Luck?” Rosa echoed. “Oh, we’ve had luck. Wonderful luck. We have enough bathrooms here for a Hilton hotel. That’s the kind of luck we have.”

Eustace peered into the back of the truck, saying, “You still have a chance. It’s almost half full.”

Gesturing disdainfully at Angelo and Vito, Rosa said, “ These weaklings had to stop for a nap.” Then, turning to the men under consideration and switching to Italian, she yelled, “A nap you had to stop for!”

“If I ever get back to Italy,” Angelo told her, “I will hire a woman to kill you.”

“Oh, yes, you’re full of talk,” Rosa said. “All you do is talk.”

Coming close to Eustace, looking him in the eye and opening his mouth to show his old, stained, cracked, broken teeth, Vito said, “You led us on this Children’s Crusade, Englishman. Are you pleased with yourself?”

Smiling amiably in the teeth of those teeth, Eustace said, “Yes, we’re all doing our best. But I have to go now.” And he retreated from the teeth, hopping once again onto his motorcycle, giving Lida a bright and meaningless smile.

“Perhaps,” Angelo said with grim cheerfulness to Rosa, “this lunatic will run you down with his motorcycle.”

“Yes, you’re doing just fine,” Eustace told Angelo. He waved, he started the motor, and he cycled away.

One end of the platform of the unused Metro station had become a kind of stage set, a sort of living room without walls, completely — perhaps overly — furnished with sofas, chairs, lamps, carpets, tables and so on. A few of the lamps were even lit, increasing the effect, and the final touch was the beautiful Renee, seated on a sofa with a bright lamp beside her, feet curled under her lovely bottom as she leafed through a copy of Elle .

Eustace and Lida entered, stage left, looking around in disbelief. Renee, the proper hostess, got to her feet to welcome them, tossing the magazine onto a coffee table. “Ah,” she said. “Our first guests. Come in and sit down.”

Eustace didn’t need to understand French to comprehend the gist of what she’d said. “Incredible,” he responded, shaking his head. Then he said, “Where’s Jean?” He repeated the name three times, with three different approximations of a French accent. “Jean. Jean. Jean. Where — is — he?”

With a careless wave toward the far end of the platform, Renee said, “The men are at work.”

“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.”

“Hst,” 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, my friend. 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-manqué, 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.