Дональд Уэстлейк - Castle in the Air

“In US currency,” Eustace told him, “it would be between twenty and fifty million dollars.”

“All right,” Jean said, smiling, touching his tiny moustache with his fingertips. “Very nice.”

Herman said, “What’s the split?”

Eustace, with a meaningful look around the table, said, “Well, you know the arrangement with the little lady.”

They all looked at Lida, who responded with an expression that was at once embarrassed and determined and valiant, She looked like a figure on a piece of paper money, but without the shield.

“Yes,” Jean murmured, “we know about that... arrangement.”

“So,” Eustace said carefully, “we’re talking about the remaining half .”

“Of course,” said Herman.

“Well,” Eustace said. “I’m taking ten percent. From the top. Because I’m the one who organized it all in the first place, and I’m to be liaison.”

“Yes, yes,” Rosa said impatiently. “What about the rest?”

“Of the remainder,” Eustace said, “there’ll be one fifth for each of you. Out of that, you will pay whatever you think appropriate to as many assistants as you think you will require.”

Jean said, “Excuse me, Eustace. Permit me to ask more questions, numbers confuse me so. We are talking about, in my case, twenty percent of ninety percent.”

With another meaningful look in Lida’s direction, Eustace amended, “Of fifty percent.”

“Yes, of course,” Jean said. “I do apologize. Twenty percent of ninety percent of fifty percent.”

“A woman can’t deal with things like that,” Rosa said briskly. “Just tell me one thing. Will I make a profit?”

“God, yes,” Eustace said.

Herman said, “Another question. How do we make the split afterwards?”

“Part of Jean’s job,” Eustace told him, “will be to find a hideout in Paris. We’ll all go there once the job is done, and take our separate pieces.”

“But,” Herman said, “we’ll be in different parts of the city, with different parts of the castle. Only one group will actually find what we’re all looking for. How can we be sure there won’t be a doublecross?”

Eustace spread his hands, like Saint Francis. “We’re all friends here,” he said.

There was general skepticism on the faces around the table.

“Very well,” Eustace said, with a little sigh for the mistrustfulness of the human mind. “Look about you,” he said. “Which of us here would want to spend the rest of his or her life knowing that everyone else at this table was searching for him, with a grudge?”

They all looked around at one another. Now, each face became slightly abashed, as though each had been developing some sort of private plan and now all were having second thoughts. Jean was clearly speaking for them all when he said, “An excellent point, I’m afraid.”

“Yes,” Rosa said glumly. “It seems we can trust one another.”

“Our common interests,” Herman said, in a monotone, “must take precedence over selfish desires.”

“I hate England,” Sir Mortimer said, “but I wouldn’t want to have to leave it, not forever. Everywhere else is so much worse.”

“Good,” Eustace said, and looked around the table. “Any more questions?”

Herman asked, “How much time have we for preparation?”

“Lida tells me,” Eustace answered, “that the dismantling and packing, in far-off Yerbadoro, are nearly finished, and the shipping will begin in three weeks. The parts going by sea will leave first, with the airborne sections coming later. They want the entire castle to arrive in Paris at the same time, ready for immediate reconstruction.”

Herman said, “So we have three weeks to assemble our teams. Thereafter, you will supply us with intelligence as to routes and objectives.”

“Exactly.”

“With this young lady, Fraulein Perez, as your primary source of this intelligence.”

“Through her family and other contacts in Yerbadoro, yes.”

Jean, with a little bow in Lida’s direction, said, “I pray the young lady will forgive me, but how certain can we be of her information?”

“Years ago I sold guns to her father,” Eustace told him. “They’re a perfectly reliable family; I guarantee them.”

“Ah,” Jean said, and offered Lida a semi-tragic smile: “Do forgive me.”

Fiery, forceful, flaming, Lida announced, “My father fought the oppressors from the jungles! All his life!”

“Of course,” Jean said, taken aback. “Yes.”

Eustace looked around. “Anything else?”

The group waited, glancing at one another, but there were no more questions.

“Very well,” Eustace said. “You will be hearing from Jean as to our rendezvous point, and we shall meet again in three weeks in Paris, after you have assembled your groups.”

After the final guest had departed — Herman Muller, in his open-top black Volkswagen beetle — Eustace turned his eyes, his attention and his hands on Lida. “My dear,” he said, in a not quite fatherly way, patting her arm, holding her arm, “success is in our grasp.”

“It’s wonderful,” Lida agreed. “Someday, you shall be a hero of Yerbadoro!”

“But it isn’t — exclusively — for Yerbadoro that I’m doing this, my duckling,” Eustace said, drawing the girl a bit closer. “I think you know what I mean.”

“Oh, but, Eustace,” she said, drawing herself a bit farther away, “you know my gratitude can only find verbal expression. I am saving myself.”

“Lida—”

“No, please, you kind, generous, brilliant, wonderful, sweet man.” Now, disengaging his fingers one by one from her arm, she said, “I mustn’t tempt you any more with my presence. Good night, Eustace.”

Watching the girl go, Eustace continued to smile until she had left the room; whereupon the smile turned rancid. “Saving herself. For what, the Yerbadoroan Army?” Turning to the armoire in which he kept his sherries, he muttered, “Here am I, the premier professional criminal of Europe who can get into any safe, any bank, any locked room, any strongbox in the world. I can get into anything , in short, but her.”

Six black taxis muttered and growled at the cab stand just round the corner from London’s Dorchester Hotel. It was not raining, nor was the sun shining, and the strollers in beautiful green Hyde Park across the way mostly carried brollies, as did Sir Mortimer Maxwell, swinging his rather jauntily in the manner of a cane as he approached the line of taxis and squinted at each driver in turn. As all six drivers were deeply engrossed in studying the bikini photos in that day’s Sun , Sir Mortimer’s perusal went generally unperceived. Apparently content with what he had seen, Sir Mortimer strolled on to Park Lane and stood there making a lowercase “h” with his umbrella as he smiled across at the park and breathed deep of the bus fumes.

Brreeeeett! The Dorchester’s lordly doorman accompanied his blast upon the whistle with great vigorous wavings of his arm — a taxi was required, at once, no doubt for a Maharajah. The first cab left the cab stand, little diesel motor gurgling loudly, and curved around to present its right-hand door to the doorman and — a honeymoon couple from Liverpool, temporarily rich from the pools. Ah, well.

Sir Mortimer switched his umbrella to the other hand and made a mirror-image “h”.

Brreeett-breet-breet! Another taxi was most urgently under demand, and rapidly under way to answer the summons. Sir Mortimer, about-facing on his right heel at the instant of the sound of the doorman’s whistle, marched straight to taxi number three — which by attrition had become taxi number one — and entered the passenger compartment.