Дональд Уэстлейк - Castle in the Air

“Now,” Charles told her, “we reload the boat.”

The white Renault racing south along the Quai de Valmy beside the Canal St. Martin had already passed the black Volkswagen — abandoned for the second time today — when Rosa at the wheel slammed on the brakes, causing Angelo to stuff much of himself into the map compartment under the dashboard and Vito to ricochet around the back seat like a captured firefly in a bottle. While Italian imprecations filled the Gallic air, Rosa shifted into reverse, slammed the Renault backward, and pounded it to a quivering halt beside the Volkswagen. Out bounded Rosa and Angelo. Out crawled Vito, shaking his head, counting his teeth.

Urchins nearby listlessly kicked a soccer ball in various directions. They listened to Rosa’s Italianate French with a kind of passive bemusement, as though she weren’t asking questions at all but were merely attempting to entertain them, until in a sudden fury Rosa grabbed the soccer ball and threatened to throw it in the canal; then it turned out that these urchins were capable of answering questions after all. Satisfied, Rosa kicked the ball a block away and, as the urchins ran screaming after it, turned to pass the information on to Angelo and Vito: “The Germans floated into that tunnel in a flat-bottomed boat stacked with building blocks. The Germans walked out and took a taxi away. Our French friends walked in, and didn’t come back out.”

“On!” cried Angelo.

“I’ve been a good man all my life,” Vito mournfully announced, as the other two stuffed him back into the Renault. “Why am I being punished this way?”

In the reeking tunnel, the refilled boat floated placidly southward, the way illuminated by Charles’ tiny flashlight. Her voice echoing, Renee said, “Are you sure you’re sure where this tunnel goes?”

Shrugging, Charles said, “It has to come out sometime.”

“You mean you aren’t sure?”

“I’m sure,” Charles told her. “Of course I’m sure. We’ll come out just below the Place de la Bastille, I know that for a fact.”

Renee sighed. The echo of her sigh circled the boat. “Stealing from hotel rooms,” she said, “is much more pleasant than this.”

“After today,” Jean told her, encouragingly, “you’ll be able to live in a hotel.”

She looked at him in astonishment: “And be robbed?”

Peering ahead, Charles said, “I think I see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Renee squinted: “Where?”

“Turn off the light,” Jean said, “so we can see.”

“Right.”

Charles switched off the flashlight. There was utter blackness, total ebony, midnight, thorough going Stygian dark. Great furry gobs of black, in which the miasma of the water seemed to roll up around them, as though only the feeble flashlight had so far held horrors and evils and catastrophes at bay.

“Turn it on!” Renee screamed.

The light flicked on, pale, uncertain, but at least real. “Sorry,” said Jean. “I thought I saw light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Don’t do that again,” Renee said.

Beside the doubly abandoned Volkswagen stood the motorcycle and the London taxi. Beside the motorcycle stood Eustace, obstinately clutching the soccer ball while engaged in frantic, furious sign-language converse with the urchins.

Charles switched off the flashlight. “There, you see? Light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Thank God,” said Renee.

The boat floated toward the arched exit. Beyond, sunlight gleamed on the water of the Gare de l’Arsenal, the last step in the canal journey before the Seine.

“I told you I was sure,” Charles said. “That’s the Boulevard Bourdon over there. We’re passing right under the Place de la Bastille.”

“Just so we’re coming out,” Renee said, and out they went, and sunlight gleamed on their faces.

Leaning over the railing on the south side of the Place de la Bastille, Rosa and Angelo and Vito looked down at the sunlit faces of Renee and Charles and Jean, who failed to recognize their Italian friends silhouetted against the sky above them. “We could drop something on them,” Rosa said, conversationally. “Like an airplane, like a bomber. We could sink them from here.”

“No, no,” Angelo said. “We don’t want to sink our profits.”

Vito said, “Why couldn’t they get the bathtubs? It isn’t fair.”

In their hotel room, the triumphant Germans poured more drinks, but while Herman actually gulped his down, both Otto and Rudi were more circumspect about their alcoholic intake, Otto surreptitiously emptying his glass into a long-suffering plant and Rudi just as surreptitiously emptying his out the window. What a waste of good liquor.

Within the tunnel lately occupied by Renee and Charles and Jean and the loot from the castle there was a mighty roaring , preceded by a stabbing, prying white light. The roaring advanced and became the motorcycle, without its sidecar, racing along the narrow path beside the wall. A grim-faced Bruddy clung to the handlebars, while a white-faced Eustace on the seat behind him clung to Bruddy’s waist. Quick, urgent, determined, loud , the motorcycle roared on.

Andrew, in terror of the French traffic, steered the London taxi timidly southward along the busy Boulevard Richard Lenoir. Sir Mortimer and Lida sat in back, a large map of the city spread out on their laps. “For God’s sake, Andrew,” Sir Mortimer cried, while Lida tentatively moved her fingers this way and that on the map. “get some speed up!”

“I’m not a driver,” Andrew said, quailing away from several blatting little deux chevaux. “Bruddy’s the driver.”

“Get your hands out of there!” Sir Mortimer cried, slapping at Lida’s fingers. “I can’t see! ”

“But I think we’re here,” Lida said, her fingers all over the place again.

“Out! Out! Away!” Successfully repelling Lida’s fingers, Sir Mortimer peered at the map, saying, “The only other bit of water I see is down here by the Place de la Bastille. Are you on Boulevard Richard Lenoir?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion,” Andrew said. “Frankly, I think I’m in hell.”

“Young woman,” Sir Mortimer said, “would you kindly keep your hands to yourself?”

“I’m sorry, I’m only trying to—”

“Make yourself useful,” Sir Mortimer suggested. “Find a street sign.”

“If only,” Andrew said forlornly, “I had used my talents for good.”

Herman and Rudi and Otto, (apparently) done in by schnapps, sat sprawled and (apparently) asleep in their hotel room. Slowly, Rudi’s left eyelid raised, his left eye scanned back and forth like a TV monitor. Slowly he lifted his head, cautiously he surveyed his companions. Slowly he got to his feet, slowly he crept from the room.

On the comparatively broad waterway of the Gare de l’Arsenal, the loot-laden boat flowed serenely toward the Seine. Renee and Charles and Jean, much more cheerful and optimistic now that they were free of the reeking tunnel, smiled happily at one another and at the busy, tooting, merry, ebullient life of Paris all around them.

“Well, Charles,” Renee said, basking in the sun, “what should we do now?”

“We’ll go to Ile St. Louis,” Charles told her, “We’ll hide the blocks there, and then we’ll lie low until all the foreigners go away.”

“We don’t have to lie low,” Jean said.

The other two looked at him. Charles said, “Why not?”

With a coy smile, Jean said, “ We didn’t doublecross anybody. The Germans did it all. We’ve been out looking for them, like everybody else.”

A slow smile spread across Charles’ face. “That’s nice,” he said. “That’s very nice.”