"Is it?" Rustling sounds ensued, and then Renee's voice again. "So it is."
The voice of Charles said, "I'll never forget this journey with you, Renee."
"Nor I with you. I, too, am reborn. It was-wonderful, Charles."
"Wonderful."
"Wonderful."
"But now-" The sigh of Charles was heard. "Life calls."
***
The white Renault circled the Arc de Triomphe. Then it circled it again. Then it circled it again. A thousand cars a minute came roaring and beeping and skidding and racing into the Place Charles de Gaulle, entering from the Avenue Kleber or the Avenue Victor Hugo or the Avenue de la Grande Armee or the Avenue Foch or the Rue Lauriston or the Avenue Carnot or the Avenue MacMahon or the Avenue de Wagram or the Avenue Hoche or the Avenue de Friedland or the Avenue des Champs Elysees or the Rue Vemet or the Avenue Marceau or the Avenue D'Iena or the Rue Laperouse. Then they all went dashing and spinning around the Arc de Triomphe, only to shoot away again down any one of those fifteen avenues and streets, leaving only the white Renault continuing to circle. And circle. And circle.
Rosa, with the wheel locked in a permanent half-turn to the left, spoke through gritted teeth: "I can't stand this much longer. They're half an hour late."
"They'll be along," Angelo said. "We knew it wasn't a matter of split-second timing."
"I should have had you drive," Rosa said, "regardless of how bad you are at it."
"Bad? I?"
"Ptchah," Rosa said, for answer.
The walkie-talkie in the storage space under the dashboard suddenly spoke: "Calling Group D. Are you there?"
"And now him," Rosa said. Keeping one hand on the wheel, maneuvering through the crazy flow and flash of traffic hurtling around the Arc de Triomphe, she picked up the walkie-talkie and said, "Yes, we're here."
But the walkie-talkie was not reassured. "Group D?" it asked. "Where are you? Are you there?"
Push the button; now she remembered. Pushing the button, she said, "Where would I be? Of course I'm here."
"There you are!"
"But where's everybody else, that's the question!"
"On their way," the tinny voice promised. "I spoke to them, and they're on their way."
"Good," Rosa said, as a Simca cut too sharply in front of her, and she only avoided an accident by cutting too sharply in front of a Morris Mini. Horns sounded, as usual.
So did the walkie-talkie. It said, "Are you all right there? Is everything all right? Everything running smoothly?"
Utterly ensnarled in fast-moving traffic, Rosa had neither the attention nor the patience to go on chatting with a walkie-talkie. Dropping it in Angelo's lap, she said, "Here, you talk to him."
***
Eustace was on the hotel roof, alone, seated in a folding chair at a folding table. On the folding table were several maps, various sheets of paper, a thermos jug of tea, some pens and scratch pads, and four walkie-talkies, each boldly lettered in white paint: A-B-C-D. A and B and C were on the table now, but D was in his hand, and the voice that came from it was suddenly not Rosa's voice at all, but an entirely different voice, speaking an entirely different language.
Eustace didn't know it yet, but the new voice belonged to Angelo, and what he was saying, in Italian, was, "What do you want now?"
"Who's that?" Eustace demanded. "Who's talking there?"
"Why don't you leave us alone," the walkie-talkie asked him, in a language he didn't understand, "and let us do our work?"
Fiddling with the walkie-talkie dial, Eustace muttered, "What is this? What have I here, Radio Free Europe?"
"Why don't you talk Italian," demanded the walkie-talkie, in Italian, "like a civilized man? Like Michelangelo. Like all the Popes."
With sudden suspicion, Eustace said, "Angelo? Is that you?"
And now Rosa's voice came back, harsh, irritable, impatient, saying, "Go away, Eustace! We're busy!"
"No names!" Eustace shouted. There was no response to that at all, so more gently he said, "I'm only trying to keep things organized." Still no response. Sadly, he shook his head and put the walkie-talkie down on the table with the others. "We had the empire such a long time," he said. "You'd think someone out there would have learned English."
9
Three men were on duty in the freight yard switching office behind the Gare dela Chappelle when their door opened and Jean LeFraque entered, his arm around the charming shoulders of Renee Chateaupierre. Renee was exquisite in flowing scarves and loose blouse and full slacks, while Jean was thoroughly distinguished in his dark vested suit and narrow black tie and narrow black hat. Beyond the three workers were the large plate glass windows with their panoramic view of the freight yards, including-just to the left; see them?-the two yellow boxcars.
There's a reason why confidence men are called confidence men; they exude the stuff, as did Jean now, approaching the three workmen, smiling with absolute self-assurance, saying, "All right, men, carry on. This isn't an official inspection."
The three men hadn't thought it was. They had, in fact, assumed that Jean and Renee were merely tourists, civilians, lay persons who had inadvertently gone through one of those No Admittance-Authorized Personnel Only doorways with which all of our lives are so thoroughly circumscribed. But clearly this was not the case. If this self-assured and confident gentleman in a three-piece suit and narrow black tie was telling them his presence was not an official inspection, the inference was clear that his presence could be an official inspection. Meaning that he must be an official. Which while it was not exactly an explanation of his presence-and certainly not an explanation of the beautiful lady's presence-did more or less soothe the three workmen's minds with the idea that some sort of explanation was possible.
And forthcoming. Jean went on, "I'm just showing the young lady around." Hugging Renee even tighter, smiling down on her fondly-and a bit lecherously-he added, "Let her see how things work."
Wide-eyed, Renee looked at the three men. "The trains are so big," she said, in the tiny sexy-innocent voice of the utterly depraved little girl.
And now the three workmen understood; or at least thought they understood. Armed with this information-or misinformation-all three relaxed and began to smile, both in complicity with Jean and in pleasure at Renee.
***
The usual state of the traffic entering and circling and leaving the area of the Arc de Triomphe is perilous in the extreme, but the situation was just about to get much worse, hard as it was to believe. Nevertheless, it was true, and it all began when the two orange trucks we have seen before growled and slouched their way amid the Simcas and Citroens, up from the south and out onto the dizzy circle surrounding the Arc. Little did the drivers of those trucks know, but their presence was the cue for several other actions to commence.
The first of these was that Rosa Palermo took her foot off the accelerator. "And there they are at last," she said, ignoring the banshee wails of horns behind her prompted by the Renault's loss of momentum. "Thank God, I can stop circling this stupid letter 'n.' " And she angled across the traffic, intending to get into a lane to the right of the two slow-moving, smoke-belching orange behemoths.
"We should have had Vito do this part," Angelo said. "He likes being in one place all the time."
"In jail," Rosa commented.
"I don't think it matters," Angelo said. "Just so it's the same place every minute."
"There he is," Rosa said, cutting off a Peugeot and coming up beside the orange trucks on their right.
Yes, there was Vito, looking even older and wearier and sicker than usual, all bundled and blanketed inside a motorized wheelchair, tentatively and nervously driving his fragile little vehicle right out into all that traffic. He looked terrified, and he'd never been known for his acting ability, so he probably was terrified.
"On second thought," Angelo said, as they flashed past Vito, "I'm just as happy to be here and have him out there."
"The Germans," Rosa said, lookin
g in the rearview mirror.
Angelo looked around: "Where?"
"Behind us. Where they're supposed to be."
And so they were; or at least two of them were. The black Volkswagen had fallen into line behind the white Renault, Rudi at the wheel and Herman in the front seat beside him. As for Otto, why, there was Otto over there, the Boche near the Avenue Hoche-Otto was on foot, his chunky torso festooned with cameras, another camera ready in his hands. And Otto was backing away from the sidewalk directly into the line of traffic, ignoring all those cars and frowning instead at whatever it was over by Avenue Hoche that he had decided he must at once permanently record on film.
Meantime, the driver of the first orange truck, having entered the Place Charles de Gaulle from Avenue Kleber and desiring to continue his northward journey by exiting onto Avenue de Wagram, and seeing Avenue de Wagram nearing up ahead, attempted to flow across the traffic rightward, thus leaving the busy circling rush of cars; but a little white Renault was in his way. Nestling against the truck's huge right front fender, the Renault seemed as happy with this propinquity as a baby chick under the wing of its mother. The driver of the truck tapped his brakes, intending to ease in behind the white Renault, but all of a sudden a black Volkswagen convertible beetle was also in the way. And the Renault had slowed down, just as a baby chick might when discovering it had rashly leaped out from under its mother's wing.
Avenue de Wagram; it was right there. The truck driver braked even more, sounding his horn, edging over rightward as far as he dared, but the Renault and Volkswagen both seemed utterly oblivious of him. No matter how slowly he traveled, both were right there, next to him. He couldn't come to a dead stop, could he?
Too late. Avenue de Wagram was behind him. The damn Renault and the s.o.b. Volkswagen were still next to him. And he would have to go all the way around the Arc and exit onto Avenue de Wagram on the next circuit.
Hell!
***
Grinding slowly up the hilly streets of Menilmontant came a very large, very long truck, its contents covered with a series of silver tarpaulins all tied down with thick ropes. It was a distinctive truck, and Bruddy, looking at it in the rearview mirror of the parked cab, smiled and muttered, "And there you are, right on time." He and Andrew and Sir Mortimer had watched this truck loaded this morning, out at Le Bourget: all the crates and cartons and anonymous packages from the Yerbadoroan plane being shifted onto this truck, then covered with the tarpaulins. A little us-drivers-together conversation between Bruddy and the truck's driver had elicited the man's planned route and expected timetable, and the fellow's estimates had been exact; he was where he'd said he would be, at the time he'd guessed.
Bruddy let the big silver truck grind by, struggling its way up the steep hill, then eased the cab into gear and slowly followed.
Meantime, much farther up the hill, Andrew stood leaning against the side of a large dirty delivery van, trying to look like a loafing French workman and managing only to look like an English civil servant dressed for gardening. Checking his watch, looking downhill, Andrew sighed and shifted position. Waiting was always the hardest.
Even farther up the hill, Sir Mortimer was purchasing watermelons; half a dozen big juicy ones. He had equipped himself with a baby carriage, sans baby, and while the vegetable peddler watched in frank bewilderment and curiosity, Sir Mortimer gently placed the six watermelons inside the baby carriage. Noticing the vegetable woman's expression, Sir Mortimer told her, "I am English, Madam, which explains everything. Eccentric, you see."
"Ah!" said the vegetable woman, her brow clearing, a smile of understanding glowing on her face. "L'eccen-trick!"
***
Renee, apparently unaware that one too many buttons of her blouse was undone, leaned forward and pointed: "And what is this, with all the lights?"
The three workmen assigned to the freight yard switching office reluctantly diverted their attention from Renee's front to the machine under question: "This tells us," one of the workmen said, smiling at Renee's breasts, "where our locomotives are."
Of those in the switching office, only Jean, over by the window, was at the moment aware that one of their locomotives was in motion down there in the freight yards, with Charles at the controls. Rapidly the locomotive was backing toward the track containing, among others, the two yellow boxcars. Jean surreptitiously moved a lever, while Renee continued to distract the three workmen, and down in the freight yard a switch shifted position just before the locomotive reached it.
***
The driver of the second orange truck had no idea why they just kept going around and around the Arc de Triomphe; was Jacques lost up there? How can you be lost at the Arc de Triomphe? The driver of the second truck tried honking his horn, to attract his compatriot Jacques' attention to the fact that Avenue de Wagram was going by yet again, over there on the right, like an unattainable brass ring at a merry-go-round, but so many other horns were being honked in this area (including the lead truck's, though the second driver couldn't know that) that it had no effect at all.
And there was the girl again. The driver had noticed her the last time around, a very good-looking dark-haired girl on a bicycle, very obviously in terror of her life amid all this traffic. A very good-looking girl. The driver smiled at the sight of her, and followed his friend on around the Arc yet again.
The beautiful Lida, for indeed she was the girl, had drawn the attention of most of the drivers in her general vicinity, but not all of it favorably, since her motion combined the slow and tentative with little spurts and jerks at oblique angles, as though she were riding a bicycle without training wheels for the first time. The effect of Lida on her bicycle, combined with that of Vito nearby in his motorized wheelchair, was not only to fray tempers and risk accidents in an increasingly widening area, but was also to force a slowing of the traffic flow, an unwonted braking and deceleration leading to an increasing backup of traffic disgorging from the surrounding streets. Add Otto to the mix, obliviously backing into the very heart of the traffic while staring intently into the viewfinder of his camera, and you had the makings for possibly the world's worst traffic jam.
***
Checking his watch one last time, Andrew roused himself from his resting position, leaning against the large, dirty delivery van, and a bit awkwardly climbed up and into the van, seating himself with no air of familiarity at all behind the wheel. He started the engine, pulled gracelessly out into the traffic, and drove haltingly around the block, coming to a stop facing downhill on a long narrow, steep street.
On another street farther uphill, Sir Mortimer strolled with his baby carriage, into which the occasional tourist gazed with an expression that swiftly shifted from expectant pleasure to thorough bewilderment. Sir Mortimer stared down all potential inquiries, and continued slowly on his way, checking his watch.
Farther down hill, the silver-covered truck continued to struggle slowly upward, followed by the London cab containing Bruddy, who alternately tapped his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel and checked his watch.
***
Having shunted the freight cars that had been ahead of the two yellow boxcars onto another nearby track, Charles now manipulated the locomotive through the maze of tracks, watching the switches open and shut along his path, trusting in Jean and Renee to do their part up in the switching office. Looking up there, Charles occasionally caught a glimpse of Jean through the large windows, but Renee was out of sight. Undoubtedly she was distracting the employees at the farther end of the room, permitting Jean to get on with his task.
Which was taking too long, but there'd been no help for it; a lot of shifting and shunting had to take place before Charles could even get at those two yellow boxcars.
But now everything else was out of the way, the yellow boxcars were exposed at last, and speedily the little yard locomotive backed along the track-slide-slide, went the switches along the way-toward their destination.
***
Wer
e they going to miss Avenue de Wagram again? "Jacques!" yelled the driver of the second truck, in useless rage and frustration. "Jacques, Jacques, what's the matter with you?" And the driver was just starting to accelerate, determined to come up on Jacques' left and remonstrate with him via the medium of obscene hand gestures, when all at once, directly in his path, a wobbly girl on a bicycle crashed into a doddering old man in a motorized wheelchair. The whole kaboodle collapsed virtually under his wheels, and the shocked driver stood on the air brakes, so that the truck, with every wheel locked, did two heavy, loud, bone-jarring bunny hops forward and came to an abrupt stop.
Ignoring the shrieks of horns and squeals of metal scraping metal from behind the truck, and unaware of the white Renault stopping on the right side of his truck just long enough to disgorge a passenger-Angelo-the driver opened his door and leaned out to see if the girl and old man were still both sufficiently alive to be yelled at. They were; in fact, both seemed to have been revitalized by their mishap, since the motorized wheelchair was suddenly zipping away like a LeMans racer and the girl on the bicycle had abruptly learned everything about balance and speed, to judge by the manner in which she was hastening away. The driver released the open door in order to shake a fist at the departing miscreants, but all at once he found himself in midair. Someone-Angelo, in fact-had entered his truck cab from the right, and had given him a huge shove.
Truckdrivers were not meant by God to be airborne; at least not for long. This one soon found himself earthbound again, in a discouragingly hard and abrupt manner, and as he rolled over, shocked and disoriented, he discovered that his head was down amid a lot of automobile tires. Moving automobile tires.
Castle in the Air Page 7
