Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon Read Online Free Page A

here, Papillon? Where the hell have you come from, man? From the moon? Dropped by parachute? Come and let me kiss you!” A big guy, deeply sunburned, with a huge straw hat on his head, jumped to his feet. “You don’t recognize me?” And he took off his hat.
    “Big Charlot! I’ll be damned!” Big Charlot, the man who knocked off the safe at the Place Clichy Gaumont in Paris, and the safe in the Batignolles station! We embraced like two brothers. Tears came into our eyes, we were so moved. We gazed at one another.
    “A far cry from the Place Blanche and the clink, pal, huh? But where the hell have you come from? You’re dressed like an English lord: and you’ve aged much less than me.”
    “I’m just out of El Dorado.”
    “How long were you there?”
    “Over a year.”
    “Why didn’t you let me know? I’d have got you out right away, signed a paper saying I was responsible for you. Christ above! I knew there were some hard cases in El Dorado, but I never for a moment imagined you were there, you, a buddy!”
    “It’s a miracle we should meet.”
    “Don’t you believe it, Papi. The whole of Venezuelan Guiana is stuffed with convicts making a break. And as this is the first bit of Venezuelan territory you come across when you escape, there’s no miracle in meeting anyone at all between the Gulf of Paria and here--every last son of a bitch comes this way. All those who don’t come apart on the road, I mean. Where are you staying?”
    “With a decent fellow named José. He has four daughters.”
    “Yes, I know him. He’s a good man, a pirate. Let’s go and get your things: you are staying with me, of course.”
    “I’m not alone. I’ve got a paralyzed friend and I have to look after him.”
    “That doesn’t matter. I’ll send a donkey for him. It’s a big house and there’s a Negrita who’ll look after him like a mother.”
    When we had found the donkey we went to the girls’ house. Leaving these kind people was very painful. It was only when we promised to come and see them, and said they could come and see us at Caratal, that they calmed down a little.
    Two hours later we were at Charlot’s “chateau,” as he called it. A big, light, roomy house on a headland looking out over the whole of the valley running down from the hamlet of Caratal almost to El Callao. On the right of this virgin forest was the Mocupia gold mine. Charlot’s house was built entirely of hardwood logs from the bush: three bedrooms, a fine dining room and a kitchen; two showers inside and one outside, in a perfectly kept garden. All the vegetables we had at home were growing there, and growing well. Besides a chicken run with more than five hundred hens, there were rabbits, guinea pigs, two goats and a pig. All this was the fortune and the present happiness of Charlot, the former crook and safecracker, specialist in very delicate operations worked out to the second.
    “Well, Papi, how do you like my shack? I’ve been here seven years. As I was saying in El Callao, it’s a far cry from Montmartre and the clink! Who’d ever have believed that one day I’d be happy with such a quiet, peaceful life? What do you say, pal?”
    “I don’t know, Charlot. I’m too lately out of stir to have a clear idea. It sets me back a little, seeing you quiet and happy here at the back of beyond. As far as I’m concerned, you see, I don’t feel up to it yet.”
    When we were sitting around the table in the dining room and drinking Martinique punch, Big Charlot went on, “Yes, Papillon, I can see you’re amazed that I live by my own work. Eighteen bolIvars a day means a modest life, but one not without its pleasures. A hen that hatches me a good brood of chicks, a rabbit that brings off a big litter, a kid being born, tomatoes doing well... all these little things we despised for so long add up to something that gives me a lot. Hey, here’s my black girl. Conchita! Here are some friends of mine. That one’s sick; you’ll have