A Prince Without a Kingdom

by Timothee de Fombelle

  “How did you find me in the dark?” whispered Madame Boulard.

  “You wear the same perfume as my mother. I saw it on the chest of drawers in your sitting room.”

  “What? You’ve been inside my apartment?”

  “Certainly not. I spotted it through the window.”

  “Heavens above! On the sixth floor?”

  “Look, we’ve got to get a move on.”

  Madame Boulard’s head was spinning.

  “Tell me what I should do.”

  Very gently, the Cat put down the iron bar, which she had caught in midair.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you were intending to do?”

  “I wanted to make him fall down a hole.”

  “A hole?”

  “Yes, a hole.”

  The Cat smiled. A hole. A good old technique from the Stone Age. From her perch up on the roof, she had seen the comings and goings of Madame Boulard and the concierge, and she had guessed that they were up to something. But a hole! She would never have expected that.

  “Brilliant. And where is your hole?”

  “Right here. In front of me.”

  Just then, a door could be heard opening at the top of the stairwell. It closed again. The sound of footsteps on the stairs followed.

  “We’ve got to block off that hole,” whispered the Cat.

  Vlad was already on the fifth floor.

  “It’s too heavy.”

  The Cat groped her way toward a trembling Madame Boulard.

  “Come on!” she coaxed as she felt the giant lid beneath her hands.

  The stairs creaked with each step of the Vulture.

  He stopped on the second landing. The rest of the staircase was in darkness now. He continued his descent, but more slowly. Vlad was muttering something. He couldn’t see anymore.

  By the time he set foot on the ground floor, the trapdoor had been closed up again and two shadows had tucked themselves under the stairwell just in time.

  Phew! thought the Cat.

  The carpet! thought Madame Boulard.

  Vlad took one step before going headlong.

  He let out a raft of Russian swearwords, then stood up slowly. He kept cursing as he hunted for the exit, putting one foot gingerly in front of the other. Vlad suddenly realized that he was no longer wearing his hat. He let out another torrent of unrepeatable words and started groping around in the dark.

  The Cat felt her elderly accomplice squeeze up against her, with something in her hands: the Vulture’s hat had rolled as far as Madame Boulard. Seizing it from her, the Cat tossed the hat toward Vlad. He wasted no time in finding it, and was soon crawling off again on all fours toward the exit.

  The light was stronger by the main entrance. Vlad stood up in a dignified manner and walked toward his reflection in the concierge’s glass door, where he began to straighten up his clothes. His nose was bleeding from the fall. He wiped it clumsily, then dried his hands on his beard.

  Invisible behind the glass, Madame Dussac was pointing her gun at him from the gloom. They were opposite each other, separated by a pane of glass and a net curtain.

  As he leaned forward to adjust the angle of his hat on his head, Vlad thought he could see the ghost of a woman with a bayonet.

  His first reaction was to take a step backward, but then he pressed his eyes to the pane. He wanted to make quite sure. Madame Dussac was horrified at the spectacle of the Vulture’s huge face crushed against the glass. Blood trickled down the pane. She was about to scream when the sound of giggling could be heard coming from the street outside.

  “The lovers,” whispered Madame Dussac gratefully.

  The main door swung open, and the couple appeared. The Vulture peeled himself off the glass and turned his head.

  There they were, arm in arm. The husband had a flower behind one ear; the young wife was singing. Madame Dussac made the sign of the cross. God bless the lovers.

  Vlad turned around and hesitated a second before making for the exit. He crossed paths with a couple whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. The young woman curtsied, holding her shoes in one hand. They walked past the concierge’s lookout. The Vulture disappeared.

  The lovers nearly tripped on the rolled-up carpet. When their sweet nothings had faded away on the staircase, Madame Boulard and the Cat rushed into the concierge’s lodgings. They found her sitting at the kitchen table, deathly pale.

  Up on the sixth floor, the superintendent had fallen asleep, crushed by the Vulture’s latest threats. Vlad had given him one month to find Vango.

  Down in Madame Dussac’s lodgings, the night was spent preparing for the future. The Cat had convinced both women that Vlad’s grip on Boulard was through his mother.

  “Through me?”

  “Yes. Boulard fears for your life.”

  “My little darling!”

  By taking his mother out of the picture, everything would be easier. Madame Boulard shivered.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You must vanish.”

  Madame Boulard rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

  “Vanish? Heavens above, but where to?”

  The Cat had an idea. She couldn’t be sure about it yet and would have to make some arrangements. She knew somebody abroad.

  “Abroad?” Madame Boulard balked, already imagining herself in the jungle, eating insects. She had never been abroad.

  The Cat arranged to meet the women two weeks later.

  On the agreed day, thanks to an excellent program on the wireless, all three of them convened again. The music covered their voices. To the tune of “You Who Pass By Without Seeing Me,” sung by Jean Sablon, the Cat explained her idea. Madame Boulard heard her out and was clearly both won over and delighted to discover that she would also need to assume a new identity. It was her idea to become the Princess of Albrac in exile.

  One Sunday at the end of the month of August, the superintendent woke up at ten o’clock in the morning. He leaped out of bed. His mother hadn’t come in to wake him up for their weekly trip to the market.

  “Mother?”

  He stumbled toward the kitchen.

  “Mother!”

  On the table, he found a few words that, after a little advice about warm winter clothes (scarf, hat, woolen socks), concluded with:

  Superintendent Boulard bit his fist. He had done the same thing one morning in September 1879, when his mother had left him all alone at the gates of a boarding school in Clermont-Ferrand.

  Boulard deliberately tore up the message and gathered a few belongings. How had his mother managed to understand?

  He got dressed and put on his coat in front of the dining room mirror.

  Yes, it was time to become the redoubtable Boulard once more. But he couldn’t do it by himself. Still, he knew the person he could count on. The faithful of faithfuls.

  An hour later, he knocked on Augustin Avignon’s door.

  New York, November 1936

  At the foot of the tallest tower in Manhattan, a small red van, boasting THE BEST DOUGHNUTS IN THE NEW WORLD in yellow letters, was permanently parked. An arrow pointing at a right angle indicated the direction of the shop, two streets away.

  Gordon’s Bakery, which had nearly hung up its oven mitts the previous summer, had doubled its customers in a matter of days. A mysterious donor had provided this free publicity, as well as paying for the parking place on Fifth Avenue. The baker and his wife had recruited three apprentices to meet the demand for doughnuts.

  Zefiro licked the sugar from his fingers. He was polishing off his third doughnut of the evening.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Vango and Zefiro were hidden inside the red van, opposite the Empire State building.

  “Nothing.”

  Vango’s eye was pressed against a hole in the middle of the first O of Gordon’s. He was sitting on a box of doughnuts.

  Zefiro was behind the second O, spying on the main entrance on the other side of the street. They’d had the idea
for the van after trying to follow one of Voloy Viktor’s visitors. By the time they had rushed down every story of their tower under construction, the man had vanished into thin air.

  So they now spent half their time in the new hideout. Zefiro had a notebook on his lap and a flashlight attached to his forehead.

  “You can go up for a rest, Vango.”

  Vango didn’t answer.

  “I know you didn’t sleep last night,” Zefiro went on. “Where did you go this time?”

  “Out for a walk.”

  “The man you’re looking for is dead; you know that.”

  Vango took his eye away from the side of the van.

  When he had visited Sing Sing prison, several months earlier, he had been told that Giovanni Cafarello had just been executed. Vango had asked to sit down in a chair. He had remained speechless for several minutes in front of the old guard, who had offered him a glass of water.

  “Bad timing, my boy.”

  Gradually, Vango had perked up. He had explained that he wished to collect the prisoner’s personal effects. He had come on behalf of his father, who lived in Sicily. The guard had entrusted him with a small parcel of clothes and an empty wallet. This was the sinister luggage with which Vango had left the penitentiary of Sing Sing.

  As he was crossing the road in front of the prison, he had heard a voice calling out after him. He had turned around to see a short man whose double chin was propped by a stiff collar. The man had walked up to Vango and glanced at the clothes tucked under his arm.

  “You haven’t wasted your day,” remarked the man, chewing a piece of gum.

  Vango didn’t know what to say.

  “At least you’ve come out of this with a three-piece suit,” the man went on. “You needed that to make the trip worthwhile.”

  “Who are you?” asked Vango.

  “Lewis Lawes, warden of Sing Sing prison. I won’t shake your hand. The prisoner had no family when he was in court. And no family in the visiting room. But now that he’s dead, he’s got family popping up all over the place. Are you the same person who came by yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “A man came to collect his belongings. He’d gotten the wrong day. He didn’t even want to speak with the prisoner — just said he would be back.”

  “I see.”

  “Some people are that impatient. . . .”

  “I’ve come on behalf of his father,” said Vango, “who lives on an island, in Sicily.”

  “You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” declared Lawes through gritted teeth. “He needed you six months ago when his attorney did an appalling job of defending him. The worst attorney in the world, I’d say.”

  “I’ve come from Sicily,” Vango explained in a thick accent.

  “Cafarello didn’t even know how to say hello in English. He only ever repeated the same words. So, tell your brothers, your uncles, and your distant cousins that I never want to see them at my door again.”

  Vango stared at the ground. Lawes spat out his gum.

  “I’ve got a better idea now of why he kept saying what he said. I understand why he denied all of you right up until his final breath. Peace be upon him. And dishonor to grave pillagers.”

  Lewis Lawes turned on his heels and headed for the walls of his prison.

  “Mr. Lawes!”

  The warden spun around to discover that Vango had followed him.

  “Mr. Lawes, just tell me what he kept saying against his family.”

  Lewis Lawes came to a stop.

  “‘I am not Giovanni Cafarello.’ That’s what he said, over and over again.”

  And, fixing Vango with his stare, the warden of Sing Sing prison had added, “He was ashamed of his name.”

  In the gloom of the van, Zefiro put his hand on Vango’s shoulder.

  “Your Cafarello is dead, Vango.”

  “He’s not my Cafarello.”

  Zefiro sighed.

  “Go and rest. I don’t need you right now. The lawyer won’t come out again tonight.”

  Acting as if he hadn’t heard, Vango resumed his surveillance duties.

  For several weeks now, the man they both referred to as “the lawyer” had been the main focus of their attention. Zefiro noted down his comings and goings in a black notebook. This log of his movements gave some odd results. The padre had noticed that when the lawyer appeared each evening in Voloy Viktor’s sitting room, he had not been seen, a little earlier, passing through the revolving door at the bottom of the tower. Zefiro had concluded from this that there must be another passage to gain access to Voloy Viktor’s fortress.

  Discovering the secret entrance was of paramount importance to Zefiro. Not only that, but according to the padre, the lawyer was Viktor’s closest confidant. He arrived in the evening and very early in the morning, but never in the presence of other visitors. And during their meetings, Viktor gave him free run of the office while he remained screened from view by the bedroom curtains.

  With the flashlight on his forehead, Zefiro was examining his notebook again.

  “He’s coming out!” Vango suddenly signaled.

  Zefiro put on his hat.

  “I’m off.”

  “No, Padre. Don’t move. They know you too well. I’ll follow him.”

  He half opened the rear door of the van.

  “Vango!” whispered Zefiro, already having misgivings.

  But Vango had disappeared.

  Despite the late hour, the district was still busy. Nobody noticed the boy slipping out of the Gordon’s Bakery van.

  Vango immediately saw the lawyer turning down the second street. He quickened his step to catch up, staying discreetly on the opposite sidewalk. A chilly autumn wind gave him the perfect excuse to wear his collar up around his face.

  The lawyer, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be cold. He was wearing a long coat in gray cashmere with a hat to match. His patent leather shoes glided over the dead leaves. He walked briskly past all the night owls. Some were smoking in front of darkened shop windows. Others sauntered in groups of two or three. These were the last few nights when it was still possible to step out, before the first snow of winter arrived.

  Vango didn’t really know what he was looking for. He just wanted to find out more about the man. His name, his address, anything he could get hold of. Was he even a lawyer? Above all, Vango was determined not to let this character out of his sight, because he wanted to observe him entering the secret passage to Viktor’s suite the following morning.

  A hundred paces back, a small shadow was following Vango. It clung to the walls, not wanting to be noticed. It belonged to Tom Jackson, the young street urchin from midtown, and Zefiro’s employee.

  At eleven o’clock that evening, the lawyer walked into a restaurant on the corner of a square. Vango stayed outside for a little while. It was a French establishment, La Bohème, where, despite its frugal name, a glass of wine would set you back the price of a barrel of oil. Two porters guarded the entrance, subtly dressed as sapper grenadiers from Napoleon’s army.

  Vango was only fifty meters from the main entrance to the restaurant, but he still hailed a taxi.

  “Are you going far?” inquired the driver.

  “To La Bohème, on the other side of the square.”

  The man stared at him as if Vango had taken leave of his senses. But the young man held out a bill. He guessed that it wasn’t the done thing to arrive on foot at this sort of eatery. The taxi drove on for another few meters, did a U-turn, and proceeded to park in front of the two Napoleonic soldiers, who opened the doors.

  Vango thanked the taxi driver in a French accent. He walked in as if he were a regular. Someone was playing slow numbers from light operas on the piano. Over at the back of the restaurant, Vango spotted the lawyer from behind: he was sitting with a couple. Vango particularly noticed the young woman, who seemed to be daydreaming rather than listening to the others.

  Vango made his way over to a low table set to one side. A
waitress, in a traditional peasant’s costume from Brittany, was already trying to take his coat. He resisted.

  “I’d just like a drink,” he said.

  He sat down on a long upholstered seat at the low table, next to a man who was asleep. The Breton peasant girl relaunched her attack. What did he want to drink? Vango pointed to his neighbor’s glass.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.”

  The waitress scowled and headed off.

  Vango was pretending to listen to the music. He tapped the arm of the sofa in time to the rhythm, prompting the man to open an eye. Vango seized his chance.

  “Do you come here often?”

  “If it’s required.”

  His response did little to encourage conversation. The man seemed rather unsociable: his face was expressionless and his right eye was weeping. But Vango persisted. In order to strike up some kind of connection, he pointed to the glass that had just been brought to him.

  “I ordered what you’re having.”

  “It’s tap water.”

  Now Vango understood why the Breton girl had made a face.

  “Tell me,” he persisted, “the man who’s got his back to us, over there, under the mirror, isn’t that Wallace Bridges?”

  Vango had made up the name on the spot. His neighbor’s eye began weeping a bit more as he glanced in the direction of the lawyer.

  “Don’t know him.”

  “And the couple?”

  “It’s the Irishman and his wife.”

  “The Irishman?”

  Vango had never seen the Irishman. He knew he owned the tower that was being built, and which Zefiro was occupying in order to keep Viktor under surveillance. The man was a banker, but there was no limit to his business interests: he was rumored to own a ranch in New Mexico and vineyards in California. For all Vango knew, he might even own the water Vango was about to drink.

  “His wife looks very young,” Vango remarked.

  The man turned to face him, grabbed a napkin, and wiped his right eye, without taking the other eye off Vango.

  “D’you want her address?”

  “No,” Vango replied. “I just thought —”

  “Don’t think.”

  And then something odd happened. The woman they had been talking about stood up and stared straight at Vango. She picked up her handbag and, without saying good-bye to her husband or the lawyer, walked slowly toward Vango’s table. She looked annoyed.