“You got what you wanted,” Angela said stonily. “But I didn’t.”
“My God, you had millions.”
“It’s gone. I gambled. I made bad investments.”
Peter glanced briefly at Francois. “Yes, I see.”
“I don’t mind your being unpleasant,” Francois said. “It may be the other way round soon. Let me remind you again, we are deadly serious.”
“And so am I. Let me repeat: My answer is no.”
Francois looked surprised. “You don’t want to know the details? The amount of money involved?”
“I most certainly do not. Angela, I won’t insist on squatters’ rights to Spain. Since you are here, I shall leave. That will reduce the danger to both of us. I shall come back in a month or so. In my absence, I trust you will do the decent thing and go elsewhere. Far elsewhere.”
He gave them unsmiling nods and turned resolutely towards the door. As his hand touched the knob, he heard what he knew he would hear, Angela’s voice: “Peter dear, don’t go just yet. I want to show you something.”
Of course, he thought hopelessly, she would be holding aces.
“I’m rather rushed for time.”
“This won’t take long. Francois, draw the curtains.”
The room became dim. Peter squared his shoulders: The darkness seemed to him a symbolic blindfold, the initial formality accompanying his execution.
“Would you like to sit beside me, Peter?”
“I’m quite comfortable, thank you.”
“You once liked to stroke my ankles. Remember? It amused you that you could circle them with your thumb and forefinger.” In the gloom her teeth flashed in a smile. “And you said once that my body must have been created by magicians and glassblowers.”
“A pretty speech,” Francois said judiciously.
Peter stood mute, thinking black thoughts. He had come through, but only to this: to be baited by jackals.
Francois turned on the projector and the screen flickered to life.
The scene that came imperfectly to view was vaguely familiar to Peter: a wide and busy avenue in a large city; pedestrians hurrying along sidewalks; policemen at intersections stopping and starting thick sluggish lanes of traffic; a slanting rain falling over everything.
Francois made an adjustment; the images became sharper.
“Now that’s much better,” Angela said. “I was sure my films weren’t so poor. Do you remember this, Peter?”
“Indeed I do.” He smiled faintly. “Lisbon, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
They looked at a large and formidable building, with barred doors and massive intricacies of ironwork guarding its windows. Near the doors, set into the stone walls, was a sturdy bronze plaque; the letters on its surface were obscured by the fuming rain.
“Can you read what it says, Peter?”
“I don’t need to.” He experienced a pang of nostalgia, as he recalled the challenge of this fortress; the problems it had presented; the risks it had involved; and the rewards it had given them in the end.
“September, 1958, wasn’t it? The Banco Commerciale?”
“But of course.”
“How brave we were—”
“You were brave, Peter. The rest of us followed like trusting children. But look. The fun starts.”
They were inside the bank. In the gloom the steel doors of the vaults gleamed like an altar in a cathedral raised to Mammon. God, how formidable, Peter thought, as he studied the cone of light that surrounded the vaults. Four figures appeared abruptly, against this wall of illumination. Peter’s excitement mounted; the figures became clearer as they crept stealthily towards the vaults.
“Easy now,” he said quietly.
As it had been then, so it was now; tension pulled painfully at the muscles of his back while he watched the four men commence their work on the doors of the vaults.
Their figures became larger; their faces dominated the screen.
“Oh, how I loved to watch you work,” Angela said. “I’m practically looking over your shoulders now.”
“Don’t come any closer,” Peter said tensely; he was lost in time now.
“I had nothing to do on that job. So I took these pictures.”
She had got the action wonderfully. There was the Irishman, lean and functional as a whip, examining the surface of the vault as an artist might a palette, wielding braces and drills like delicate brushes.
While Bendell and Canalli poured liquids into test tubes, drop by drop, watching the rising vapours with narrowing eyes, their faces graven as master chefs.
Good old Bendell, Peter thought fondly. Forever worrying about trifles. Had the rain spoiled his new hat? Where were his cough drops? Did anyone remember to tip the cab driver last night? And Canalli!
With the face of a gargoyle and the strength of a bull, forever in love, forever forsaken, forever forgiving. Taking the children of his mistresses for walks while the women entertained slim, boyish men who stole their money. Ah dear!
On the left side of the screen a younger Peter stood apart from the group bunched at the doors of the vault, his hands moving in gestures of encouragement, his head tilted critically, his eyes studying every move, organising and controlling the operation like a conductor with a symphony in full cry.
The holes were punched; Bendell and Canalli moved forward, tilted their test tubes. They streaked away from the vault, merged with the darkness. Peter stared tensely at the massive doors, watched streams of vapour curling langurously from the holes circling the combination.
He began to count. “Five! Four! Three! Two...”
He snapped his fingers. The vault doors buckled; a puff of smoke shot upward.
“I wish I could have got the sound,” Angela said.
“There was very little,” Peter said. “Just an innocent sort of thump, as a matter of fact.”
The figures raced back to the vault doors. The younger Peter bent over the combination dial, his body a carving in competence. He twirled and fiddled; then with a silent cry of triumph, he pulled at the doors.
They swung open. The four men dashed into the vault.
Angela cried, “Bravo!”
The four men reappeared in what seemed a twinkling. They carried valises so stuffed with banknotes they couldn’t be strapped shut: in their hands were more banknotes, thick wads of then, with satisfyingly long rows of zeros after the numerals.
Angela stretched sensuously. There was a dull, sluggish flush in her cheeks, a glaze of sweet agony in her eyes. “Mother of God, look at the money,” she said. “Look at it, Francois. Look what miracles Peter can perform.”
The four men filled the screen. They held packets of banknotes aloft, and their grins were wide and merry.
Peter inspected his image critically, but with an over-all sense of satisfaction; he stood behind Bendell and the Irishman, not hogging the limelight, so to speak, letting them have their share of the applause.
That was gracious of him, he thought, since all they did was hit their marks like well-schooled actors. Holding up the money in that fashion was a callow gesture, but on the other hand his smile was modest and his manner nearly apologetic, disclaiming, as it were, complete credit for the triumphant success of their venture. Francois turned off the projector and threw back the curtains. Peter blinked at the sunlight, re-orienting himself in time; he had been out of focus for a moment, drifting in a blur between past and present.
“What are you thinking of, Peter?”
She would never understand, Peter knew, so he only smiled and shook his head. Francois took a can of film from the projector and went into the bedroom. Peter was thinking fondly of his friends. They had come through, too; they were intact. Free to face whatever it pleased them to call the violet fields of peace. The Irishman in the North Counties mounting his devious, quixotic raids against the British. And Bendell, in Liege, with his flower shops, creating worlds of colour and fragrance to replace those which had been destroyed for him in the war.