A Prince Without a Kingdom

  Vango glanced away, but the woman was now standing right opposite him.

  “He wants me to go home. They’re talking business, and I’m bored. He says it’s private. Will you take me home?”

  Vango could feel his head pounding. He opened his mouth to speak, when a voice right next to him answered.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll bring the car around.”

  Vango’s neighbor stood to attention, holding a black-and-gold cap in one hand. Now it all made sense. The man was her chauffeur, and her words had been directed at him.

  The woman left first, followed by the chauffeur with the watery eye.

  Vango let out a long sigh and sank back into his seat.

  So Viktor’s lawyer was also working with the Irishman. This was the only piece of information he had gleaned from the evening. Vango saw a table become free just next to them. He hesitated. Would it be dangerous to move any closer? The lawyer wouldn’t recognize him. He might look after Voloy Viktor’s business affairs, but he was unlikely to be familiar with the faces of each of his client’s enemies. Vango signaled to the Breton peasant girl.

  “I’d like to have dinner after all. Could you get that table ready for me, in the corner? I’ll be over in a moment.”

  She nodded, aloof. The boy didn’t look like the kind to leave tips in double figures.

  At last, Vango stood a chance of hearing something. For two months, he and Zefiro had been distant spectators. They had merely tossed a piece of meat into the anthill, then watched to see what happened.

  The piece of meat in question was the promise of a huge contract.

  It was Zefiro’s great ruse to catch Viktor. He had forged a letter in which he had passed himself off as an intermediary, writing on behalf of the Nazi regime, to offer Voloy Viktor the most important armaments contract in history. The factories would be established in Germany, and Viktor was tasked with finding investors from across America to finance them. It looked set to be a highly lucrative deal, and the figures were astronomical. Madame Victoria had probably counted out the zeros on her ten polished nails many times over.

  For every ten billion dollars’ worth of investment, Viktor would be entitled to two, making this the greatest scam of all time.

  The offer, which was completely fictitious, had been invented by Zefiro. Through their binoculars, he and Vango had been able to observe the fever that had taken hold of Voloy Viktor’s penthouse suite in the Plaza Hotel. The anthill was humming. Visitors came from far and wide to this private club. Viktor showed his guests the letter of patronage accompanying the proposal. It was signed by Hugo Eckener, director of the Zeppelin Company, an irreproachable figure who was acting as guarantor for the contract. The Hindenburg-headed notepaper inspired everyone’s confidence.

  Around Viktor, glasses of bourbon clinked and checks circulated. But perhaps the guests were also talking about their Christmas holiday plans for the family, or how fast their children were growing up. They might have been talking about hare hunting and their country houses on Long Island. As they signed the contracts on the baize of the bridge tables, each of them conveniently forgot that they were dealing in tanks, guns, and the graveyards of the future as big as polo fields, planted with white crosses beside the sea.

  As for Zefiro, he was trying to forget that he had used the signature of his friend Eckener, without asking him and in the knowledge that he was severely compromising him.

  Just as Vango was about to stand up and go over to his table, one of the two Napoleonic grenadiers entered the restaurant. He scoured the room and spotted Vango.

  “There’s a gentleman outside who’d like to have a word with you.”

  “Me? I think there must be some mistake.”

  “He said ‘the young man sitting by himself.’ He doesn’t want to come in.”

  “Did he give you his name?”

  “He didn’t give me his or yours.”

  Vango glanced at the two men who were talking at the other end of the room. He was about to miss his chance.

  “Tell him he’s got the wrong person,” Vango said, standing up.

  “I think it’s urgent,” said the grenadier.

  “But who is it?”

  “That’s him.”

  And Vango saw a very pale Zefiro appear, his head sunk into his shoulders, and proceed to sit next to him, in the place vacated by the chauffeur.

  “Sit down,” he whispered.

  Vango did as he was told. Zefiro held himself very stiffly. The soldier had disappeared.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said the padre.

  His lips barely moved. An accordionist had joined the pianist, and together they were playing a soporific rendition of a French cancan.

  “I’ve understood,” Zefiro went on. “I’ve finally understood everything.”

  Vango, on the other hand, was completely baffled.

  “When you left . . .” Zefiro trailed off.

  “Yes . . .”

  “I climbed back up the tower to keep an eye on Viktor’s bedroom through the binoculars. There was a window cleaner at work, and I suddenly had a suspicion. I went back down and telephoned the Plaza Hotel.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I asked for Madame Victoria’s room. I let it ring for a long time.”

  “Did he answer?”

  “No,” said Zefiro, even more quietly. “He couldn’t answer.”

  “Why not?”

  There were beads of sweat on Zefiro’s nose.

  “Because he’s sitting right opposite us.”

  Vango looked up.

  He was staring at the lawyer’s neck.

  The mysterious man who went away when Viktor went to bed, the man who reappeared briefly first thing in the morning, who seemed to wake up Voloy Viktor before disappearing again . . .

  That man was Viktor.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said Vango.

  “I know that,” echoed Zefiro in a voice from beyond the grave. “Our faces are etched in acid in his mind. I am the man who betrayed him fifteen years ago when I was his confessor. I am the man who tried to deliver him to Boulard. He hasn’t forgotten me. He would recognize us even in a crowd, even in a stadium. If he turns around, we are —”

  “Why did you come in here? You should have stayed outside.”

  “Because four cars heaving with men just pulled up and parked outside while I was waiting for you by the door. I know that they’ve all got a photo of the two of us in their wallets. They’re by the exit.”

  Vango felt a shudder run down his body.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Thanks to someone I couldn’t have done without: my friend, young Tom Jackson. He followed you.”

  And, majestically, as if waiting for his name to be announced in order to make his grand entrance, Tom Jackson stepped out from behind the curtain by the door. He was holding the hand of the exasperated sapper grenadier.

  “Sir, you left your child outside; he’s had a fall. He’s crying, he’s bleeding, he’s asking for you, and I don’t know what to do!”

  Zefiro’s eyes bulged. Tom leaped into his lap. Vango kept his eyes trained on Viktor’s back.

  The soldier clicked his heels and set off again.

  “Take me in your arms,” whispered Tom, “and leave, hiding your face in my neck.”

  “Jesus,” breathed the padre.

  He had never picked up a child before. And Tom had never been held. Just the idea of burying their faces in each other made them feel embarrassed. They stared at each other in a state of shock. Two of Viktor’s men had just walked into the restaurant.

  “Do as he says,” muttered Vango. “The three of us can’t leave together. I’ll manage.”

  The padre stood up with Tom in his arms, hugging him close as they walked toward the door.

  The lawyer hadn’t moved. The Irishman was listening to him.

  When Tom and Zefiro had disappeared, Vango surveyed the premises.


  The kitchens were at the back, next to a painting of some clams on a beach in Normandy. He could have gone that way, but he was suspicious of kitchen exits, emergency exits, and back exits, which were always under as much surveillance as the main exits. To the right of the pantry was something more interesting: a stairwell disappearing into the gloom could be glimpsed behind two drapes. For Vango, escaping always meant moving upward.

  He stood up very gently, as if he didn’t want to wake anybody, and tiptoed toward the curtains.

  “Your glass of water, young sir.”

  Vango turned around.

  “You need to pay for your glass of water.”

  The waitress was staring at him with both hands on her hips, her Breton headdress rocking backward and forward. Viktor’s men were up at the bar, just behind her.

  Vango jangled his pockets and held out some change.

  “You said you were going to have dinner,” she grumbled.

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Well, in that case, the exit’s the other way.”

  “I thought —”

  “It’s private, over there. That’s for the boss.”

  “Ah, yes, the boss.”

  With her finger, she pointed somewhere behind him. He turned around and saw the Irishman bent over a plate of pasta. Vango could see only his wide forehead. So he was the boss. Vango’s gaze slid across that forehead to meet the eyes of a man who appeared to be sitting next to the Irishman on the banquette, but this was in fact the reflection of Viktor in the mirror just behind the Irishman.

  Voloy Viktor was staring hard at Vango in the mirror.

  He even smiled at him, like an old acquaintance you stumble on somewhere unexpected. Then in one movement, Viktor took out a silver pistol from his belt, politely excused himself to his host, turned sharply around, and aimed at Vango.

  Zefiro and Tom were already some distance away when they heard the gunshot.

  “Was that him?” asked Tom, stopping under a street lamp.

  Zefiro remained in the shadow. He didn’t want Tom to see his distraught face.

  Silence.

  Zefiro gave the wall a few violent kicks. He took his head in his hands. If that really was the case, he would never forgive himself.

  Tom went over to him.

  “Padre?”

  There was a final bang.

  “Come on, little one,” the monk said without turning around. “I don’t know what it was. Come on now.”

  Vango tried the doors on every landing, but they were all locked. He could hear the commotion down below as he climbed the stairs.

  As soon as the first shot was fired, Viktor’s men had appeared, half-crushing the Napoleonic security guards and their bearskins in the scramble. The customers had shrieked as they crouched down on the restaurant floor.

  Voloy Viktor was already outside, safely in the back of a car with darkened windows. His instructions were terse but calm, delivered through gritted teeth to his henchmen: “That’s Vango Romano. Don’t kill him.”

  But underneath, Viktor was seething. By aiming to wound Vango rather than kill him, he had missed. He’d had no choice: the kid was a link in the chain that would lead to Zefiro, the man who had betrayed him and who still wanted him dead. More pressingly, because of Vango, Viktor had just compromised his conversation with the most important business partner he had ever approached.

  The Irishman had long since disappeared, siphoned off toward the kitchens by two burly men who had been dining three tables away. Another car was waiting for him in the street at the back of the restaurant. The banker’s security arrangements had for some time been worthy of President Roosevelt.

  The men giving chase lost precious minutes from the outset. A first door, behind the curtains that opened onto the restaurant, had been locked by Vango. That door cut off access to the stairs and could be unlocked only from the inside. It took a while for the men to smash it down with a fifty-kilo block of wood on which whole suckling pigs were usually butchered. With each blow, the headwaiter protested, but he was under strict instructions not to interfere.

  Next, the pursuers forced their way in tight ranks through what was left of the door. The stairwell wound around a brick column, scaling a modest seven-story building. Like Vango before them, the men tried opening the doors to the first few rooms. Fortunately, the wooden block wouldn’t fit in the stairwell.

  “He couldn’t have gone in anywhere,” the headwaiter called out. “All the rooms are locked, and I don’t have the keys: it used to be a hotel. You’ll need to look for him higher up.”

  Sure enough, there was a skylight above the top landing. And, despite its inaccessible height, it was wide open. Two men lifted a third man, while a fourth availed himself of this human ladder to reach the roof. After a few seconds, his head reappeared in the window frame.

  “He came this way. . . . Look!” he exclaimed, holding out the brown cap he had just found.

  “The rooftops are flat and adjoining, so he could have gone in any direction.”

  More men started to climb up in turn.

  “We won’t get him!” someone declared.

  The others stopped and stared at him.

  It was Dorgeles. His head bowed, he was already predicting Viktor’s wrath when he reported back to his boss.

  “Everyone back downstairs!” ordered Dorgeles. “I want you out of my sight.”

  The man on the roof wasn’t sure what to do.

  “As for you,” said Dorgeles, “you can stay up there another hour, just in case.”

  Next, he turned to the headwaiter, who was about to follow everyone else.

  “Hold on a moment.”

  Once they were alone, Dorgeles explained how matters would be handled.

  “Tell the Irishman that our men will put everything back in order. A joiner is already on his way to repair the door. What time is the first sitting for lunch?”

  “Midday.”

  “It’ll be fixed before midday. What about the police?”

  “They won’t be coming,” the headwaiter reassured him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’ve asked them not to.”

  “And the customers?”

  “They won’t talk.”

  “Why not?”

  “The same reason.”

  Dorgeles nodded in silence.

  “Above all,” he added, “you can tell your boss that my boss doesn’t want these events to jeopardize their discussions. This was a personal matter, and it won’t happen again.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Dorgeles gestured, thinking that he had heard something.

  “Are you sure he couldn’t have gotten in there,” he whispered, pointing to a door.

  “Positive. Everything is barricaded up. Look at the locks. Nobody’s been inside those rooms for fifteen years. It’s like a museum.”

  The headwaiter started walking down the stairs, with Dorgeles following. Their voices grew fainter.

  “I don’t know what that boy’s done to you, but I suspect it’s in his best interests to get as far away from here as he can.”

  No, thought Vango, who was very close by.

  Sooner or later in life, it’s good to stop running away.

  Having made it up onto the roof, Vango had climbed down the outside of the building and entered one of the locked bedrooms via the window. He had gone over to the door to listen. Through the thick wood, he had kept track of his pursuers’ indecisiveness.

  When calm was restored, he turned around and took a good look at the room. It was a museum piece . . . like a tomb, with a layer of dust on the furniture and a bitter smell in the air. The ghosts of spiders’ webs seemed to tether the bed and the bedside tables to the floor. The decor was illuminated by the light from the street. Vango took a few steps in this hotel bedroom outside of time. There was a calendar on the wall from 1922. Above the washbasin, the mirror no longer reflected anything. The contrast with the luxury on the ground
floor was striking. A swish restaurant had been opened up on the site of a former seedy hotel.

  An hour later, Vango heard the thud of someone taking a tumble onto the landing by the stairwell, followed by a groan of pain. He had been expecting this. It meant that the man on the roof had left his post. He had been left all alone up there, so dropping down was his only means of escape. Vango listened to the sound effects as the man dragged himself downstairs. Then the path was clear.

  He waited a little longer. Then, securing a foothold on the windowsill, Vango climbed all the way back up to the roof. There, he picked up his cap and took in the view of the city by night. The landscape was the color of ash and earth. Even on this raised terrace, he felt as if he were at the bottom of a pit, because the buildings towered above him. Smoke escaped from the chimneys. A few windows were still lit up, holding out against the night. Voices could be heard high up on a balcony, and there were songs wafting from a small basement window in a courtyard.

  Vango headed off along the rooftops.

  At dawn, he found Zefiro on the scaffolding of their tower. The padre was a terrifying sight as he leaned against a section of wall, his face drawn and haggard. All night long he had been afraid for Vango, and ashamed of having led him into the trap. He had just sent Tom Jackson away with a two-dollar redundancy package. Zefiro no longer wanted to involve these kids in his madcap scheme to take the law into his own hands. It was a matter for him and him alone. He had pleaded with the heavens all night long, begging for Vango to come out alive. The knees of his trousers were as worn out as a child’s.

  The padre greeted Vango as awkwardly as ever, because he didn’t know how to express his relief at seeing him alive. He tilted his hat over his eyes.

  “Take your belongings. I never want to see you here again. I don’t need you anymore.”

  Vango stared at him. For the second time in his short life he was being thrown out by Zefiro.

  “Get out. Now.”

  Vango gathered his belongings into a bag, leaving one of the precious stones in Zefiro’s breviary, on the page for the evening prayer. He walked back toward him.