The Robber Princess

Chapter 20. Just in Time to Be Too Late

Chapter 20

Brickelstein's good mood was gone by the next morning. Aside from dreading having to sit in an uncomfortable airplane seat for another eleven hours, he also had had a distressing dream. He and Regina were children. He had picked a bunch of Alpine asters and after considerable effort, finally had gotten them arranged perfectly. He presented the arrangement to Regina but she just folded her arms, turned up her nose, and turned away. She had never forgiven him for tattling on her for stealing a classmate's apple, even though that had been years in the past. Regina stomped off and Brickelstein crumpled on the ground sobbing violently. He looked up and Heike, Waltraud, and Antonia surrounded him, all grinning haughtily. He burned with shame. The three smug witches pointed at him and laughed—and Brickelstein woke to the blare of the hotel room's clock radio, his face wet.

He sat glumly in his seat for the entire plane ride, wishing that the seat next to him were vacant so he could dwell on the unpleasant task before him in some semblance of privacy. He wanted the Eidelstein necklace returned to the Queen, but arresting its thief was going to be very unpleasant, for doing so would lose him the only love that had ever been requited. The sooner that painful task was executed, the better.

Unfortunately that was not meant to be. His flight did not arrive in Quito until nearly four in the afternoon on a Saturday. Once settled in his hotel room, there was nothing to do except wait. General Obregón and his staff would not be back in until Monday morning. The apparent devotion of the Ecuadorian National Police to their weekends irritated him and the intensifying desire to just get Regina's arrest over with gnawed at him. Only the fact that Regina's plane was under guard and not going anywhere kept him from throwing something against the wall. The one piece of good news: Folkering had called him from Houston to report that he had a possible lead on Angelica in Rio de Janeiro and that he would be there the following day.

For the next forty hours, Brickelstein had to content himself with taking in the view and sampling the local cuisine. Being native to a mountainous country himself, he found that the mountain views and cool air agreed with him. The high altitude, however, did not agree; by Sunday morning he was feeling the flu-like symptoms of altitude sickness. The inability to taste his otherwise well-prepared Sunday luncheon sapped all joy out of eating it. He had genuinely wanted to try several Ecuadorian dishes (though drawing the line at guinea pig), but the thin air had drained his appetite as much as it had drained his enthusiasm and energy. Another hurried phone call from Folkering did little to lift his spirits. He had not realized until this point how much he depended on his friend for venting his frustrations. Well, at least Folkering would get to see a bit of Asia for the first time.

*****

"Please, Zhake, say some-sing," said Angelica. But Jake had withdrawn his hands to his lap and he simply stared into space, at a complete loss for words. "Eet eez not important what my name is or what country I come from—only zat I love you and zat you love me. You ... love me, yes? And you said you want to 'elp me, yes?" Angelica looked at him pleadingly.

"Yes," Jake said finally, still looking down.

"I am Swiss, from Geneva. My name is Mireille Ardouin-Giroux."

"So, yer not 'Angel'."

"I like very much zat you call me 'Angel'. Please, you still call me zat name." Jake nodded cautiously.

"My sistair Marie is an important person in ze Banque Privée Cornavin." Jake pulled out his smartphone and Angelica could already tell what he was about to do. "Eet eez a private banque, very private, very ... comment se dit ... see-cret. No website." Jake repocketed his phone.

"I was nevair part of ze banque. I studied ze littérature and I lived at 'ome. But my muzzair was ... méchante"—Jake, having learning that word only the day before, nodded in understanding—"and I did not like to live zair. Marie flies ze air-plane and I wanted to travel wiss 'air." Jake looked up at her finally. "But aftair, I 'ave learned zat Marie works wiss ze ... criminelles, and we 'ave passed much time running from zem."