Death on the Installment Plan (62 page)

I took a hundred francs off her once … and fifty another time … But that was very exceptional …

Jean Marin Courtial des Pereires wasn’t so cocky anymore … In fact he was downright morose … He was scared of the oddballs and lunatics from the contest … He got anonymous letters that were no joke … The meanest and crankiest of the lot threatened to come back some time sure as shooting … and knock the shit out of him … flatten him out once and for all … so he’d never be able to swindle anybody again … Avengers! … So under his frock coat, over his flannel vest, he’d taken to wearing a coat-of-mail made out of tempered aluminum … one of the
Genitron’s
patents that was still on our hands, “extra-light and bulletproof.” But even that didn’t reassure him completely … Any time he lamped a character that wasn’t looking too well … that didn’t seem to be entirely happy … coming in our direction with a scowl on his face, he ran straight down to the cellar … He didn’t wait for the details …

“Open the trap, Ferdinand! Let me through quick. It’s one of them! I can tell! … Tell him I’m gone … left the day before yesterday! that I’m never coming back! … to Canada! That I’m spending the whole summer there! Hunting weasels! sables! The great hawk! Tell him I never want to see him again! Not for all the gold in the Transvaal! Tell him to go away! … evaporate! … scatter! … Blow the bastard up! … Explode him! … Christ almighty Jesus!” Hermetically sealed in the cellar, he felt a little easier in his mind. It was empty now that we’d sold what was left of the balloon, all the gadgets … He could roam around from wall to wall as he pleased … He had plenty of room … He could do his gymnastics again … In addition he’d built himself a “blockhouse” in one corner … absolutely impregnable … where he couldn’t be seen at all … in case of invasion … in among the crates and clothes racks … He’d stay there for hours on end … That way at least he didn’t bother me … His disappearing act was all right with me … I had my hands full with the old cutie … she was spending all her time in the shop these days … She stuck like granulated glue … She was determined to run everything her way … the paper and the subscribers …

At two in the afternoon she’d breeze in from Montre-tout … She’d settle down in the shop in full battle dress, with her hydrangea hat, her veil, her parasol, and her pipe. You couldn’t fool with her! She was all ready for the enemy … It gave them quite a shock when they came in and found her staring them in the face …

“Sit down,” she’d say. “I am Madame des Pereires … I know the whole story … I wasn’t born yesterday! Speak up! I’m listening! But be brief! I haven’t a moment to lose! I’m expected at the dressmaker’s …”

That was her routine … It threw them off almost every time … The brutal tone, the powerful voice … a little hoarse maybe, but cavernous and not easy to shout down … They’d stop and think a minute … standing there in front of the old bag … She’d lift her veil a little … They’d lamp the moustaches, the paint, the odalisque’s eyes … And then she’d frown … “Is that all?” she’d say … And they’d pull out trembling … half the time backwards … As meek as Moses … “I’ll call again, madame … I’ll call again …”

So one afternoon she was giving her audience … She was finishing up her dish of compote on the corner of the table … it was about four o’clock … that was her afternoon snack … it was part of her diet … I remember the exact day, it was a Thursday … the fateful day when I had to go see the printer … It was very hot … The audience was drawing to a close … Madame had already bounced out a whole gang of jokers from the contest … the whole crowd of spluttering argumentative bellyachers … she’d punctured them in record time … nothing to it! … when in comes a priest … That was nothing so unusual … We knew a few … Some of them were faithful subscribers … and delightful correspondents …

“Won’t you sit down, Father …” Right away she puts on her company manners. He appropriates the big armchair … I look him over carefully … I’d never seen the guy … Definitely a neweomer … At first sight he seemed reasonable enough … or maybe even reserved would have been the right word … Perfectly calm and well behaved … He was toting an umbrella in spite of the weather, which was conspicuously sunny … He goes and leans it in a corner … He comes back, he gives a polite little cough … He was on the pudgy side … not the least bit emaciated … We were used to freaks … Nearly all our subscribers had tics, they made terrible faces … This one seemed mighty quiet … Then suddenly he opens his mouth … the words begin pouring out … and right away I could see the lay of the land … Some tripe! He’d come to talk about a contest … He read our
Genitron
, he’d been buying it at the stands … for years … “I travel a good deal! yes, a good deal!” He spoke in long bursts … You had to catch his words in full flight, the sentences came out in tangled bundles … full of knots, garlands, and throwbacks … and loose ends that went on forever … In the end, though, we made out that he didn’t care for our perpetual-motion line … He didn’t even want us to mention it! On no account! It would make him very angry! He had something very different in mind … It left him no peace … He wanted us to go in with him … Take it or leave it! … If you weren’t with him you were against him! … He gave us fair warning! We should consider the consequences! Perpetual motion was out … An absurdity! A hoax! … Not for him! … His obsession was a horse of a different color … We finally found out … little by little … after thousands of circumlocutions … what was eating him … Submarine treasure! … A noble project! … The systematic salvage of all the ships that were ever wrecked … Of all the galleons and armadas lost beneath the waves since the beginning of time … of all the glitter … strewn and scattered over the bottom of the sea … Well, that was his craze in a nutshell … That’s what he’d come to see us about … He urged us to get started … there wasn’t a minute to lose … to organize a contest! a worldwide competition … for the best method … the most reliable, most efficient way of raising all those treasures … He offered us everything he had, his own little fortune, he was prepared to risk it all … He’d give us a thumping advance that would cover all our initial expenses … Naturally Madame and I were kind of leery … But he kept at it … This crazy sky pilot had his own idea, a diving bell that would go way down deep … say 6,000 feet … It would be able to crawl into the hollows … grab hold of objects … hook on to metal and disintegrate it … it would absorb safes by “special suction” … As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was perfectly simple … Our job would be to attract competitors through the paper … In that department we were supreme … unrivaled … He was trembling with impatience for us to get started … He didn’t give us time to raise the slightest objection … or even the shadow of a doubt … Plunk! He lays a wad of bills right smack on the table … Six thousand francs! … He didn’t even have time to look at them … I had them in my pocket! … Grandma Courtial let out a whistle … I decided to strike the iron … No shilly-shallying for me …

“Stay right where you are, Father … just a second … Half a second … while I go get the director … I won’t be a minute …”

I run down to the cellar … I yell for the old man … I hear him snoring … I head straight for his hide-out … I shake him … He lets out a scream … He thinks they’ve come to arrest him … He was scared shitless … he was shaking in his boots …

“Come on,” I say. “Get up. This is no time to swoon.” In the trickle of light under the transom I show him the lettuce … Hell, this is no time to lose your voice! … In two words I fill him in … He takes another look at the wampum … He tolds it up to the light … He looks at the mint leaves one by one … He pulls himself together quick! He yawns and stretches, he sniffs at the bills … I clean him up! I pick the straw off him … He primps up his moustaches … He’s ready. He emerges into the daylight … he makes a brilliant entrance … He had his outline all ready … absolutely eloquent and resounding! … On the subject of divers he had us dazzled in two seconds flat … He dished up the history of every system from Louis XIII to the present day! Dates and places, the first names of those precursors and martyrs … the bibliographic sources … the research that had been done at the School of Arts and Trades! … It was a dream … He had the sky pilot burping, jumping up and down with joy … His highest hopes were fulfilled … He was so delighted that just like that, in addition to his previous offer—we hadn’t asked for anything—he guaranteed us two hundred thousand … cash on the line! … for the expenses connected with the contest! … He didn’t want any skimping on the preliminary studies … the drawing up of estimates … No pettifoggery … No swindling … We agreed to everything … We wrote in our initials … we closed the deal … Now that we were all buddies, he pulled an enormous map of the ocean floor from under his soutane … So we could see right away where all the treasures were located … where all that staggering wealth had been swallowed up … twenty centuries ago or more …

We closed up the shop … We spread out the parchment between our two chairs and the table … That treasure map was a marvel … It really made you dizzy just to look at it … Especially when you consider when this cock-eyed Saviour turned up … the trouble we’d been having! And he wasn’t kidding! … All that dough hidden in the drink was exactly marked on his map … It was a sure thing … And right near the coast … with the longitude written in … It was a cinch that if we found a bell that would go down to even 2,000 feet, we’d be rolling in clover … It was in the bag … We’d have all the treasures of the Armada right in our laps … We’d only have to bend down to pick them up … Literally! Only three nautical miles off Lisbon, in the mouth of the Tagus … there was an enormous cache! … That was an easy job … for beginners … If we put some gumption into it and perfected the technique a little, the thing would take on entirely different proportions … In three shakes of a lamb’s tail we could expect to raise the treasure of “Saar Ozimput,” swallowed up in the Persian Gulf two thousand years before Jesus Christ … Several rivers of unique gems! Necklaces! Emeralds of inconceivable splendor … worth a billion at the very least … The priest had marked the exact position of that shipwreck on his map … It had been established by hundreds of soundings made over the centuries … No mistake was possible! … Expenses aside, it was only a little question of oxy-hydrogen drills … They’d need perfecting … Well, yes, we might have a little trouble raising the treasures of the “Saar” … We thought about it all one day … And certain “imponderables” of Persian legislation had us stymied for a minute … But we had other jobs that were perfectly within our reach, accessible, pure velvet … in more clement seas, absolutely free of sharks! We had the divers to think of! Gracious! No tragedies, please!

The truth of the matter was that all the ocean bottoms in the world were full of inviolate coffers, of galleons stuffed with diamonds … Few were the straits, coves, bays, roadsteads, or river mouths that did not, on the map, harbor some colossal booty … only a few hundred feet down and perfectly easy to raise … All the treasures of Golconda … Galleys! Frigates! Caravels! Luggers! full to bursting with rubies and Koh-i-noors and “triple effigy” doubloons … The waters of Mexico in particular appeared to be positively indecent in this respect … The conquistadores seem to have literally filled them in and plugged them up with their ingots and precious stones … If you really put your mind to it and went down 3,000 feet, diamonds were a dime a dozen … Off the Azores, for instance, to mention only a single instance … the
Black Stranger
, a steamer from last century with a mixed cargo, a Transvaal courier, had more than a billion francs’ worth of them on board … all by itself (according to the most conservative experts) … She was lying overhung on a rocky bottom at a depth of 4,472 feet … already split in two amidships … All you had to do was rummage through the hull! …

Our padre knew of plenty more, the choice was staggering … He knew all the salvageable wrecks … all of them perfectly simple to clean out … several hundreds actually … He’d riddled his chart with holes … those were the places to prospect in … It showed the most urgent salvage jobs … to the tenth of a millimeter … They were marked in black, green, or red, according to the size of the treasure … with little crosses …

It was only a question of technique, of ingenuity, of flair … It was up to us to demonstrate our talents … Odds bodkins, we didn’t dawdle! … In a fever, before he had time to cool off, des Pereires seized his pen, a ream of paper, a ruler, an eraser, a blotter, and right there in front of us, accompanying himself in a loud voice, he wrote a regular proclamation … It was vibrant! … It was sincere! … And at the same time it was meticulous and honest! … That was the way he worked! … In less than five minutes, in a flurry of inspiration, he’d formulated the whole problem! It was a first-class job! … “Let’s not put anything off until tomorrow! … This article has to appear at once … we’ll make it a special number!” Those were his orders … The padre was delighted … jubilant … speechless …

I ran off to the rue Rambuteau … I took all the dough in my pocket … I left only fifty francs for the old cutie … Hell! … I’d had trouble enough! … If I’d left it in the till, I knew I’d never see it again … The old man looked pretty glum … He owed Formerly a pile … He’d already dreamed up a bet … He couldn’t resist … It was better I should be the treasurer … Less risky … We’d spend very gradually … and not one cent on the ponies, I’d see to that … I’d pay the bills … First Taponier, top priority, and the special number! … That printer was on his last legs … When he saw the cash, he could hardly believe his eyes … He took a good look at the bills though … he held them up to the light … Hard cash! He was absolutely groggy … He didn’t know what to say … I paid him six hundred francs on our back debts and two hundred more for the special number and publicity for the contest … He moved fast all right … Two days later we received the papers … shipped, banded, pasted, stamped … the works! … I took them to the main post office in the pushcart with Courtial and Madame …