Дональд Уэстлейк - Castle in the Air

In the Renault, driving along the Boulevard Bourdon, Rosa and Angelo and Vito watched the progress of the flat-bottom boat. “Look at them smile,” Angelo said. “Just look at the bastards smile.”

“They’ll smile,” Rosa said. “But they’ll smile upside down, before this day is done.”

Otto, opening a cautious eye, looked at where Rudi wasn’t and in utter shock he jumped to his feet and stared around the room. Herman slept on. Rudi was gone.

So, a minute later, was Otto.

The walkway at the east side of the tunnel under Boulevard Richard Lenoir comes to an abrupt end where the tunnel empties into the Gare de l’Arsenal. Unfortunately, Bruddy didn’t know this until it was too late.

“Look, Mama!” cried a young child from Kuwait, tugging at its mother’s sleeve. But of course, adults never look in time, and so the mother failed to see the motorcycle come roaring and flying out of the tunnel, its headlight glaring uselessly in sunlight, its wheels racing uselessly in midair. She failed to see the motorcycle arch out high over the water. She failed to see the two men aboard the motorcycle frantically wave their arms and legs in their struggle to climb up sunbeams to safety. And she failed to see the motorcycle and its passengers knife down into the water and sink like a stone. All she saw, in fact, was a faint rippling of the heavy oily water. “You’re overtired, dear,” she told her child, as the child tried vainly to explain the sight that had just been missed. “Too much sightseeing,” the mother decided, and took herself and her child straightaway back to the hotel.

Along the Quai de Jemmapes, at the northern end of the water tunnel, strolled an innocent bystander, enjoying the day and the view and minding his own business, until all at once Rudi, enraged, came dashing out of the tunnel, thundered up the stone steps from the canal, grabbed the innocent bystander by the lapels, and screamed in German into the poor fellow’s astonished face, “You’ve got my blocks!”

“Help!” said the innocent bystander. “Help! Help!”

What might have happened to the innocent bystander next is conjectural, as this was the moment when a small taxi arrived on the scene and Otto hopped out, crying, “So!”

“You!” yelled Rudi, releasing the innocent bystander, who at once went home and locked himself in a closet, while Rudi transferred his lapel-clutching to Otto. “It was you! ”

But Otto was also clutching lapels; Rudi’s lapels. And Otto was yelling, “You would, would you? You think you’ll get it all yourself, do you?”

“What did you do with them?” Rudi demanded, shaking Otto by the lapels in exactly the same way that Otto was shaking him .

It was Otto who first noticed the discrepancy in their actions. As bewilderment overtook anger in his expression, he said, “Rudi? What?”

“You’ve got to split with me,” Rudi insisted. “I’m the one brought you into this.”

“Split with you? What are you talking about?”

“Where are the blocks?”

“The blocks?” Otto blinked past Rudi toward the canal and the tunnel. “ I don’t have anything. I just got here.”

“Then who did it?” Rudi demanded.

“Who did—” Blood drained from Otto’s face. “They’re gone? The blocks are gone ?”

“Of course they’re gone!”

“But... Rudi, are you sure?”

“Would I lie to you?” Rudi asked.

Rather than answer such a question, Otto tore himself from Rudi’s lapel-grabbing grasp and ran away down the steps and into the tunnel. Rudi, an instant later, followed, pulling his flashlight from his pocket.

Both men pounded into the tunnel, and came to a stop where last they had built the castle wall. Rudi shone his light: “There. You see?”

Otto stared, then in sudden fury turned and clutched at Rudi. “You! It’s you!”

“No, no, no!” Rudi shouted, fending him off. “Would I still be here? Would I be so upset? ”

“No one else knew about it,” Otto pointed out.

“Herman! It was Herman!”

Otto shook his head. “He was still asleep when I left.”

“Then,” Rudi said, “it has to be either you or me, and I know it isn’t me.

“But it has to be you,” Otto said.

A crunching sound behind them made both men look toward the entrance of the tunnel, where a bum had just come stumbling in, looking for a quiet place to nap with a bottle of wine. Otto and Rudi stared at him. The bum continued to mooch along for a few paces, then became aware of the two men so fervently surveying him. He gave them a drunken nod and smile, and started to bend in several places, preparatory to sitting on the path. Then he paused, shaped like a letter in the Arab alphabet, becoming dimly aware of the waves of menace sweeping in his direction. Trying to focus on Rudi and Otto, he slowly straightened again and, increasingly nervous, shuffled away.

“It’s him,” Rudi said, watching the bum retreat to sunlight. “I know it’s him, look how guilty his shoulders are.”

“No, Rudi,” Otto said. “If he’d taken everything away, why would he come back?”

“It’s him, I tell you.”

“No, it isn’t,” Otto said, and sighed. “But it’s somebody like him,” he said. “Someone saw us hide it all here, and waited for us to leave, and took it all away.”

With a defeated nod, Rudi said, “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

“So it’s gone forever.”

Rudi shook his head. “I was going to write such a beautiful will.”

“And we’d better be gone forever, too,” Otto added.

Rudi frowned at him. “What? Why?”

“Sooner or later,” Otto said, “Herman will come back here. Do you want to wait here and try to convince him you’re innocent?”

Rudi looked startled. “No,” he said. “Herman? No, I’m a bleeder.”

“Then let’s go,” Otto said.

Frightened, but grimly determined, Rudi said, “No. I can’t give up.”

“I can,” Otto said. “I’m going back to Germany.”

“Good luck,” Rudi told him.

“No,” Otto said. “All I need is a train ticket. You’re the one who needs the good luck. Say hello to Herman for me.” And with a small salute, Otto trudged away.

For a moment longer, Rudi stood looking around, shining his flashlight deeper into the tunnel. The boat was gone. The loot was gone. Rudi sighed, he shook his head, but his expression was still determined when at last he tramped away.

“Get on with it, man,” cried Sir Mortimer, from the back seat of the London taxi. “For God’s sake, get on with it!”

Into the traffic pattern of the Place de la Bastille, a somewhat smaller version of the Arc de Triomphe with only ten separate streets serving as spokes to this hub, wobbled the coughing black taxi, with Andrew still miserably at the wheel. “They’re insane,” Andrew babbled. “They’re all insane.”

“Turn the wheel!” cried Sir Mortimer. “Get us out of here!”

Traffic flashed by on all sides. Horns sounded, brakes squealed. Lida, on her knees on the floor in the back of the cab, prayed loudly to the Blessed Virgin in Spanish. And, more by luck than intent, Andrew steered the taxi away from the Bastille monument and onto the appropriate street for them, the Boulevard Bourdon, running southward down the west side of the Gare de l’Arsenal.

“Over there!” cried Sir Mortimer, pointing toward two sopping figures clambering up into view from the canal. “Stop over there!”

“Stop?” Andrew echoed. “Oh, if only I could!”

But he could, and did. The taxi hit the curb, slowed, stalled, and stopped. And Eustace and Bruddy, both dripping wet, came across the sidewalk and entered the cab, Bruddy taking the wheel as Andrew gratefully slid over to the other side, and Eustace joining Sir Mortimer and Lida in back.