Iachimo frowned and shook his head; clearly, it worried him that he hadn"t heard of it. Giovanni, meanwhile, had sat down in front of one of the consoles and was tapping keys. After a while, he looked round.
"Lads," he said, "I think I"ve sorted it out."
The others looked at him.
"It"s pathetically simple, really," Giovanni said, with a grin.
He tapped a key, and a dazzling display of little twinkling figures appeared on the screen in front of him. He paused for a moment and read them. "Getting us out of here is going to be no trouble at all. Iachimo, what"s the sort code for our bank in Geneva?"
"7865443," Iachimo said promptly. "Why?"
"Because," Giovanni replied, "I"m going to pay us into our deposit account there. By telegraphic transfer. A doddle, really. Hold tight."
He typed in 7865443, then a couple of codes, and then their names. A moment later, they had vanished.
They stayed vanished.
"Giovanni!" Iachimo screamed. It was dark and cold and he had the sensation of falling and he couldn"t feel anything -anything - with any of his limbs or senses. "What"s happening? Giovanni?"
"Sod it," came Giovanni s voice, drifting in nothingness. "We must be after business hours. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have put us on hold."
"What does that mean?"
"Means we"ve got to stay here till the bank opens for the next day"s trading," Giovanni yelled back. "Means we"ll lose a whole day"s interest. When I get out of this, somebody"s going to get sued."
As if in response, there was a deafening crackle and the three brothers felt as if they were being squeezed, like toothpaste, through some sort of nozzle. Then there was a crash, and they fell, head-first, through a computer screen.
"Giovanni," Marco said, "you"ve got a bar code printed all over your forehead."
"So have you," Giovanni replied. He picked himself up, dusted splinters of broken cathode ray tube out of his hair, and smiled at the terrified computer operator in whose lap he had landed. She stared at him and then, without removing her eyes from his face, started to fill in an Input chit.
"Right then," Giovanni said. "Come on, you two. Mademoiselle," he asked the girl, "je vous prie, ou sommes-nous, exactement?"
The girl replied that they were in Geneva, and did he want to be taken off deposit? Giovanni confirmed that he did, and the three brothers walked out of the bank into the open air.
"Quick thinking, that, on my part," Giovanni said, "wouldn"t you say?"
"We should have offered to pay for the broken machines," Marco replied. "They aren"t cheap, you know."
They found a cafe and had a drink. They could afford it, after all; Marco"s lucky silver three-penny bit, which he kept on his key ring, had just acc.u.mulated 10,000 Swiss francs interest. Accordingly, it was adjudged to be his shout. He paid.
"The next thing on the agenda," Giovanni said, "is to find Blondel."
Iachimo shook his head. "Can"t do that," he said. "That man said he"d been destroyed, right? Blown up in a Time Archive. Means he never existed."
Giovanni put down his gla.s.s, wiped his lips on his tie and sighed. "Don"t be a prawn, Iachimo," he said. "If he never existed, how come we both know who I"m talking about?"
"Who are you talking about?" Marco asked. They ignored him.
"Stands to reason," Giovanni went on. "If we both remember him, it follows that he must have existed. Thus he can"t have been killed in the Archives. Furthermore, if we can remember him here, Topside, then he must have got out of the Archives somehow. In which case he"s still here somewhere. Capisce?"
Iachimo wrinkled his brows, thought about it and then nodded enthusiastically. "That"s brilliant," he said. "How do we find him?"
Giovanni shrugged. "There," he said, "you have me. That"s a difficult one. I mean, we had enough trouble finding him last time."
"You could try the phone book," Marco said.
"I suppose," Giovanni went on, "we could try going back to all the gigs we set up for him which he never actually did and see if he"s done any of them yet. Then we could sort of work backwards, and..."
"There"s a phone book here," Marco said. "Look."
"Alternatively," Giovanni continued, "we could hire an enquiry agent. There"s Ennio Sforza, only he"s semi-retired. Or maybe we could try Annibale Tedesci; I know he really only does cross-temporal divorce work, but he might be prepared to stretch a point ..."
"Here we are," said Marco. "Blondel. Blondelle Cash & Carry, Blondella Hydraulic Systems, Blond Elephant Night club..."
"Do you know how much Annibale Tedesci charges per hour?" Iachimo replied. "We"d have to do extra gigs just to cover the fees. How about if we did a credit search? We could go back in time, issue him with a credit card, and then..."
"Blondel," Marco said, "32 Munchenstra.s.se."
His brothers turned and stared at him.
"32 Munchenstra.s.se," he repeated. "Here, look for yourselves if you don"t -"
His brothers examined the entry. They read it again. Giovanni said something profane under his breath, and grinned.
"Now that," he said, "is what I call landing on your feet. Marco.
Marco smiled, preparatory to preening himself. "Yes?"
"Get them in, there"s a good lad," Giovanni said, indicating the empty gla.s.ses. "And while you"re at it, see if anybody"s got a street map."
La Beale Isoud tapped her foot.
"Mr Goodlet," she said, "enough is enough. I can take a joke as well as anyone, but this is getting silly. Either you open that door this minute, or -The door opened, and Blondel crawled through. "h.e.l.lo, Sis," he said. "Is supper ready? I"m starving. You"ve met Guy, haven"t you?"
"Mr Goodlet!" said La Beale Isoud. "Come back here at once.
Guy, halfway back down the coal-cellar steps, froze. Like an exhausted stag turning at bay, he knew when he"d had enough. He smiled weakly.
"We have met, yes," he said. "Blondel ..."
But Blondel wasn"t listening; either to Guy, who was trying to explain in a loud and urgent whisper, or to La Beale Isoud, who was providing a different version of the same basic facts in a much louder voice. He waved a hand placidly and walked through into his study, leaving Guy and La Beale Isoud together. He probably thought he was being tactful.
"Mademoiselle, er de Nesle," Guy said, "I think we really ought to..."
La Beale Isoud swept past him and locked the coal-cellar door with a little silver key, which she then dropped down the front of her dress. It must have been cold, because she winced slightly. "Now then, Mr Goodlet," she said grimly, "I think we most certainly ought to get a few things straight, here and now. First, if you think for one moment that I want to marry you, you couldn"t be more wrong."
"Oh," Guy said. He felt like a boxer whose opponent has just punched himself forcefully on the nose. "Well, I ..."