The Great California Game l-14 Page 13

  “Lovejoy. You a wiseass or dumb?”

  He’d obviously got out of bed the wrong side. I ogled the scenery. Small towns came and went. Connecticut’s pronounced with a load of Ds it hasn’t got. The sun lit hills. Trees shone a strange and lovely russet I’d never quite seen before, quite like Chinese amber. We drove less than two hours, to a mansion with porticos and white pillars, lawns which people hate you to call manicured. No gates, but a goon in seeming somnolence that fooled nobody. He bent, peered at Tye, me, the limo’s interior, shrugged us through.

  “Reckon there’s Civil War antiques here, Tye?”

  He sighed, made no reply. We alighted and Blanche, lovely as ever but even more distant, ushered me in to a drawing room whose very length tired the ankles. Gina was sitting writing letters at a pathetic rubbishy desk, fetchingly decorating a window alcove against sunlight and olivine curtains.

  “Lovejoy.” No sit down either. ”You found what?”

  “The grailer, Gina. I think.”

  She slowly ran her gaze from my scuffy shoes to my unruly thatch. I felt specimened, candidate for a museum jar.

  Her slender hands held the card I’d posted, and my scribble. She didn’t ask where, how, what. Just examined me. A reaming, draining inspection. Her eyes were bleak as a winter sea.

  “What did I order you to do, Lovejoy?”

  “Er, well, missus.” My voice quivers when I’m scared and my throat dries so it’s hard to get a conversation going.

  “What?”

  I jumped, stammered, “To, er, make up to Sophie Brandau, report what I learned.”

  She beckoned me gently. I went close, stooped when she crooked her finger. Her hand lashed my face. The silly cow nearly ripped my eye from its socket, missing by a whisker. My head spun.

  “And did you?

  “I’ve no money, except the marked stuff that’ll get me arrested.”

  She considered that.

  “Lovejoy. I’m no longer interested in whether you’re as innocent as you seem, or double shrewd.”

  She could have expressed slightly more enthusiasm. I’d saved her from kidnap, or worse.

  “Now I’m changing the rules. I give you orders day to day, understand? You start now.” Why do agitated women clutch their elbows when they march about? I dithered, not knowing if I had to follow her. She returned, halted, gorgeous. “Tell me about the Hawkins thing.”

  I did, speaking with utmost sincerity into her eyes and only occasionally losing my place. Whistling bravely past the graveyard, I said only what I’d rehearsed.

  “I spent every cent on phone calls to England. Dealers I know, who owe me, ones I could trust. And I kept it down to no-name stuff.” I fluttered my eyes, the best I could do for shyness. “A… lady I know. She’s married. We used to be, well, close friends. I got her to sift her husband’s reserve records. He’s a big antiquarian.”

  “So it’s true? This…?”

  “Manuscript thing? It seems so. She’s getting me a single sheet, day after tomorrow. I’ll divvy it.” I waited. “I thought it’d be what you’d want me to do.” I was pleased with myself. She wasn’t responding much, but I felt my tide turn. “See, Moira could tell me anything. In bed or out, I d have only her account to go on. I know me, see? I’m hopeless with women. I believe them.”

  Gina paced, stood looking.

  I took her raised brows as an invitation to speak on. “Moira Hawkins is a lady who wants much more than she has. Deep down, she’s ambitious. Look at me, Gina. I’m a scruff. I’m no Fauntleroy. Would she be seen in a restaurant in my company?”

  “There’s Rose.”

  “Or the Brandaus?”

  “You mention them together, Lovejoy. Why?”

  “They’re lovers, Gina. I’m not that thick.”

  Suspicions are meat and drink to women, so I kept going.

  “Sophie Brandau doesn’t want the scam to succeed. She knows it’s untrue anyway. Sophie’s frightened. It’s all got out of hand. She wants him to chuck it.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “It’s plain as a pikestaff. I think Sophie hocked her jewellery so she could maybe buy Denzie out of Moira’s scam.”

  “What did she use the money for?”

  “Buy the grailer?” I suggested, trying the American shrug. I tried it again, gave up.

  She stood at the window, fingers tapping her elbows. “How much is a grailer?”

  “Depends on the amps.” Her head shook minutely so I’d explain. “Amplifying factors. They work to tell you the price of an antique, anywhere.”

  I lifted a gilt silhouette sugar bowl from the low cornish. The poor phony thing was trying to be genuine Hausmaler work from Augsburg, about 1725. “This fake’s from Berlin—see how they tried to get the proper silhouette of these flying birds? They went mad for Chinese fashion in the eighteenth century. This doesn’t…” My words run out when I try to explain what happens. My chest should lighten and chime. I turned the lidded bowl over. Zilch.

  “It’s an 1880s fake. Price? Only two months’ wages. If it was genuine, that counts one amp. If you’d got an original bill of sale from Augsburg, that’s provenance and counts another amp. And genuine counts a third. Rarity, four. Is it of special material or mint? Five. Signature of the master, Johann Aufenwerth? Six. Then there’s the grail factor, last of all. Like, say this was owned by Abraham Lincoln himself! Makes seven. Seven times two is fourteen. Hence the lowest price you can afford to sell it at is fourteen times the average monthly wage. See?” I replaced the chinoiserie carefully. She was listening, saying nothing.

  “Some antiques have a base price—that’s only the same, but compounded of amps to get the unit. Pearls, say. Get the quality first, expressed as currency units. Our unit is one pound sterling. Say you’ve a pearl, right? You phone a jeweller: what’s this week’s unit base average for pearls, ma man?” I was embarrassed, caught out doing my dud accent. “He tells you it’s one. Before you do anything else, you weigh the pearl, in grains. It’s nine, a whopper.

  The cost is exactly nine times nine, equals eighty-one quid that day. The price fluctuates. Like, next week’s average unit base price might be two. Then your pearl’s zoomed to eighty-one times two, see?”

  I was suddenly conscious of a stirring behind me. Jennie and Nicko stood there. Malice was in the air.

  With one woman I’ve always the feeling I’ve a chance. With two, and a criminally-minded lover of one who was also the husband of the first, I was in irons.

  “You see what I mean, Nicko?” Gina asked, her job done. She went to her Victorian chaise longe, early repro but none the worse for that. She embellished it by just reclining. I envied it, quickly went back to being humble.

  “He’s a risk,” Jennie said. I disliked Jennie. She always sounded so bloody cold. I’d reported to her not Gina, about Bill. Then Bill was killed. Then Gina sends Tye to duff me up for not reporting. Aha.

  “Maybe worth taking,” Gina suggested.

  “For what, though?” Nicko lit a cigarette. “I can’t have any slip, this late stage.”

  “For the Game.”

  Jennie’s sharp intake of breath endeared her to me even less. Nicko stilled her worry with a shrug.

  “Where’s the gain?” he asked. He stared balefully past me with his black eyes.

  “We know Moira Hawkins is fronting something with Denzie Brandau, Nicko. We don’t know what. Lovejoy here knows values. You heard him. Okay, so he’s stupid—”

  “Just a minute, Gina.” They talked on over me.

  “—but that doesn’t mean he can’t be used.”

  I tried to look useful, effective, anything to prevent my being taken away pleading like Tony.

  “Used how?” Nicko asked.

  “Like I tried. A plant.”

  Jennie couldn’t control herself. “You tried that, dear.”

  Gina’s smile was cold. “I underestimated Lovejoy. He’s weird, but oddly effective. He’s latched onto the Sherlock t
hing.”

  “He says, dear.”

  Women can put malice into that innocent word. It splashed like malevolent oil.

  “He said himself it might not be the right one. But it’s a superb effort without any resources.”

  I liked Gina. She was brainy as well as beautiful.

  “He’d have got close to Sophie if we’d funded him from the start.” I wanted to give Nicko a reproachful glance to remind him of his marked money business, but bottled out. “We take him on staff, tell Denzie openly that Lovejoy rides with them as our informant.”

  “Have you thought of risks at all, dear?” from Jennie.

  “Wait.”

  Nicko sat staring into space. My attention wandered between the exquisite Gina and a piece of original Chelsea porcelain ceiling ornament above me. It was misplaced, of course, stuck there without any other decoration to support it on the walls, but it was exuding a lovely warmth that any genuine antique gives —

  People were talking.

  “Answer, Lovejoy,” Gina commanded. “What will you require?”

  “A small sum to send for the sample page.” I explained I was getting it on tick. “And to know enough to stop being scared I’m making mistakes.”

  That earned me a blast of black-eyed laser from Nicko’s eyes. To my disgust I found myself begging.

  “Well, for Christ’s sake. I’m on a tightrope every waking hour. I’m given orders I don’t understand, not knowing if I’m going to get myself topped or not, beaten up —”

  “The number he gave checked out,” Jennie said.

  “Right, Gina. Do it. Your can, okay?” Nicko rose and walked from the room. Jennie had to scurry to catch up before the door closed.

  Gina was smiling-not-smiling. “Allies, Lovejoy. Welcome to the team.”

  “Do I get the chance of a bath? Paid?”

  “Money, yes. But not the reward you’re holding out for.” She smiled genuinely now, sipped her drink, feline. “Plus one very very special benefit.”

  “What?”

  “You’re in the California Game, Lovejoy.”

  “Thanks, love.” Like hell I am, I thought. I’m off out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  « ^ »

  SHOPPING is hell. God knows what women get out of it, but for me it’s Doom City. Today, it was even worse, because I’d been sent out with Orly, who clearly hated me.

  “For a start,” I grumbled as we trekked from shop to shop, “everything’s new. Different with antiques.”

  “Lovejoy.” He stopped, right there in the middle of Fifth Avenue, arms full of parcels, and tried to stare me down. It didn’t work, because I was in the California Game too, whatever it was. “I don’t trust you. You’re a loose cannon. You’ll roll about the deck and sink our ship. I know it. Okay. But don’t try charming me. You’re today’s Fifth Column.”

  “Don’t hold back, Orly. Spit it out.”

  He didn’t smile.

  “There’ll be a comeuppance, Lovejoy. You’ll die the death. After you’re buried I’ll laugh all I want.”

  “Orly,” I said, riling him who was determined to be riled. “Did you think that silk tie was worth the money? Only —”

  He dumped the parcels in our limo—it was following us—and marched imperiously into the next store.

  “Orly,” I tried every so often. “How comes it that you and Gina, well, y’know? While Nicko and Jennie are… ?”

  “Stupid,” was all he said back.

  I noticed Zole ogling us from across the street. He saw me in a brand new off-the-peg suit, trendy shoes, striped shirt. His yo-yo almost froze in mid-air. He didn’t come across, though I waved. I wondered what they’d say in Fredo’s.

  I got into the car after him and tapped our driver on the shoulder. “Manfredi’s Eatery, mate.”

  “Orly?” the driver asked.

  “Bugger Orly,” I said. “I told you Manfredi’s.”

  We drove to Manfredi’s. I endured a few minutes of leg-pulling from Della and Lil, was congratulated by Josephus in a melodiously outdated rap, envied by Jonie, and caused Fredo moans of outright grief by resigning. No sign of Rose. I made them drop me off at the corner by Hawkins’s, and got a satisfactory ping! from the little bell over the bookshop door. Seeing Orly’s thunderous face as the limo rolled away was pleasant.

  Rose was at the desk, invoicing.

  “Lovejoy!” she cried, flushing red as fire, “I thought you’d left us in the lurch!”

  I bussed her cheek, looked round smiling. “Won a few quid on a, er, betting game.”

  “You look splendid! Moira’ll be thrilled!”

  “How’s Moira?”

  Her expression clouded. “Busy. She’s at a meeting.”

  As ever, I added for her. With Denzie Brandau. I did a stroll. No customers behind the stacks.

  “Listen, Rose. This money I’ve got. It could take you and me to Southsea. We could bring over the Sherlock!”

  “Uh-huh.” Another New York enigmatic, meaning anything you cared to read in. “Well, that’s great, Lovejoy!”

  Meaning I was to serve, not lead. Okay, but it wouldn’t do.

  “I’ll book our flights, okay?” I coursed over her indecision. “Tell Moira we’ll be there and back within a week.”

  “Wait, Lovejoy,” she tried desperately, but I’d already bussed her and was out of the door heading off down the street, calling that I’d be back about four.

  For a couple of blissful hours I delved into the public library, Fifth Avenue west side, looking up California and various people, with patchy success. Nice library, though the white marble and the smug lions by the steps cloy, and its marble candelabra are a bit much. I loved it. No sign of Zole at the corner, so I used the public phone. Still amazed by the cheapness of the USA phone system —ours in UK’s three times dearer.

  “Lovejoy. Locations, please. Moira Hawkins, Sophie Brandau.”

  “One moment.” And, less than five seconds I swear, the girl gave me both.

  “Ta, love. I’m going to the latter.”

  Moira at a hotel restaurant in which, surprise surprise, Denzie Brandau happened to be chairing a campaign fund-raiser. Sophie was at home, so I phoned her, asked her could I see her urgently in strictest confidence. I got a taxi to Park Avenue, where the doorman fawned. Flung to the penthouse by a lift that just managed to judder to a halt before crashing out into orbit, I rang the bell. Sophie herself came to the door.

  THE Theory of Sexual Understanding is mine. I created it. It works between a man and a woman. It’s this: everything’s up to her. I coined it years ago over a bird I fell for over some antique she said she owned. God, I slogged, broke my heart, agonized, plotted, just to get near her. Nearly four whole days. I finally gave it up as hopeless on a rainy Thursday at an antiques auction. She came in, offhandedly told me she’d brought along her Roman mosaic glass bowl, about 10 AD. (These small objects, astonishingly difficult to fake, are still pretty common.) I shrugged and went with her to the auctioneer’s yard.

  In her car, she practically raped me, whimpering and ripping at my clothes. The car windows mercifully steamed up and the auction was under way so nobody saw us. I hope. Her preoccupied husband was at the same auction. See what I mean? I’d set out to win her affections, against all odds, and failed. Then she decides on frontal assault, and it’s the halleluiah smile. Of course, the lying cow really hadn’t got a Roman mosaic glass anything, so my love didn’t stand the test of time and I ditched her for a vicar’s widow whose collection of Continental barometers came up for sale about then.

  My ToSU worked the second Sophie opened the door. I myself am never quite sure when a woman takes the decision. But I am certain it’s always up to her. We blokes just trot along obediently hoping the whim’s in the right direction. But I knew I was favoured. Not that she did anything to suggest she was about to. I mean, her reception of me was almost exactly the same as Gina’s, by which I mean an erg above glacial. She looked imperial, gowned a
s if for an evening do.

  No maid, I realized, but that incidental’s never more than half a clue, and open to misinterpretation.

  “No, thanks.” I declined the offer of a drink. “I didn’t come because of your antiques, Sophie.” I didn’t need to mimic hesitation. I was worried enough. “It’s that something’s really wrong. But I want to help, any way I can.”

  “I know.” She didn’t mind her hand in mine.

  “Look, love. I’ve been taken on the payroll by Gina, to advise on antiques. I’ve been told it’s to do with the California Game. I’m telling you this, well, because.”

  “What are you saying, Lovejoy?”

  Why ask me? I wasn’t really sure. “Anything I can do for you, love, I will. I promise.” Aghast, my brain shrieked caution, not to make frigging promises that might get it killed. I wallowed on just because of the way she was looking at me.

  “I need help, Lovejoy.” Tears welled in her eyes. She suppressed them, came to.

  “I don’t mean I’ll help Denzie. I mean help you.”

  Drive a harder bargain, you pillock! shrieked my brain in a panic. What’s she giving in return for lobbing us both in jeopardy?

  “Please, Lovejoy. He’s not a bad man. Honestly. I promise you. He’s just… wayward, driven by ambition. He’s a consummate politician, capable, kind. Everybody’Il tell you. He’s in line for the next presidential nomination. People don’t know Denzie. I don’t know which way to turn, not since Moira inveigled him into taking a half share in the Sherlock stake.”

  I let her talk through her exhortations, hopes, fears. I rose and went to stand, as if in deep tortured thought, before a decorative shelf of pewter tankards that pulled me like a magnet. I’d been dying to inspect them ever since I’d stepped into the flat. I was so excited by what I saw I almost shouted the joyous news to Sophie. In the nick of time I remembered I was in spiritual anguish, and just loved that dulled glowing metal. They were stupendous, the only complete set of Channel Isles tankards I’d ever seen. The giveaway is the measure, for obstinate old Jersey people still use the “pot”, which is a cool 69.5 fluid ounces. All six stood there, each with cunning little double acorns on the thumb catches. I stood, warmed with love. How many ancients had drunk from them in their two centuries? You don’t get love like that any more —