Castle in the Air by Donald E. Westlake

Author:Donald E. Westlake [Westlake, Donald E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785657238
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 2021-03-29T21:00:00+00:00

10

Eustace was going crazy. Everything was organized, everything was in motion, but was everything going the way it was supposed to go?

What Eustace wanted, what Eustace needed, was for the entire city of Paris to suddenly be magically reduced to the size and aspect of a model train layout, with himself on a high stool overlooking the whole thing. Then he could see if the English contingent was doing its job in Ménilmontant, he could see if the French contingent was successfully performing its task in the Gare de la Chappelle, he could see if the Italians and the Germans were performing profitably at the Arc de Triomphe. Instead of which, here he was on this windy hotel roof, seated in this wobbly folding chair at this rickety folding table, holding down all his maps and charts and memorandums with these goddamn walkie-talkies, and trying to get somebody somewhere to tell him what in hell is going on.

Eustace picked up a walkie-talkie at random, then slapped his palm down on the two maps and the diagram before they could blow away. Into the walkie-talkie he said, “Group—” then hesitated, frowned, turned the walkie-talkie over, and read the white letter painted there: “—C. Group C, come in. Come in, Group C.” Then he held the walkie-talkie close to his ear, and listened to several people laughing in French: “Rire, rire, rire, rire, rire,” they were saying.

“Oh, really,” Eustace said, slapped the walkie-talkie down, yanked up another, grabbed for the memos too late, watched them blow off the roof, swore in English, read the letter on the walkie-talkie, and yelled into it, “Group D! Say something, Group D!”

Shrill voices gabbled in Italian.

“Stop it,” Eustace said, very sternly, into the walkie-talkie. “Now, just stop all that. I’m serious about this. This is a serious business.”

Gabble-gabble-gabble.

Gabble. A different gabble, different in tone, different in language, and different in place. A live gabble, in fact. Baffled, Eustace turned his head and saw Lida’s cousin standing there, looking as stubborn as—and less intelligent than—a mule. “Not you again,” Eustace said.

In Spanish, Manuel repeated his gabble, which was simply, “What have you done with Lida?”

“I don’t have time for this now,” Eustace told him. “I have all these other idiots to contend with.”

“I demand to see Lida,” insisted Manuel.

Eustace chose another walkie-talkie, spoke firmly into it: “Group A, I wish a report, and I wish no nonsense, no foreign tongues, no conclave-of-nations, nothing but a progress report concerning the progress of our present operation!”

“In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus,” sang the walkie-talkie, into badly assorted voices, “eins, zwei, gsuffa!”

Manuel had plodded around in front of Eustace, and was standing just the other side of the table. Ignoring the singing walkie-talkie, he said, “You tell me where Lida is.”

Bewildered, appalled, Eustace was asking the walkie-talkie, “Are you all drunk?”

Manuel pounded the table; all the walkie-talkies hopped. “Tell me where Lida is!”

Eustace glared at him. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I don’t trust you people. I want Lida. Lida! Lida!”

Eustace picked the familiar name out of the gabble.

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