The Great California Game l-14 Read online

  “Gone?” I stared at her. Al and Shelt, the peanut eaters? A kitchen hand frightened me to death by suddenly bursting out of a raucous interior and rattling a dustbin into place. He slammed back inside. The alley darkened, the light extinguished. “Gone where?”

  “Just gone, Lovejoy. Everybody.”

  “Didn’t he say where?” I glanced towards the lights. The gleaming river looked a barrier now, not an escape. But Magda’d promised me she wouldn’t phone him, and she had.

  “Sheet,” Zole said. He was carrying Sherman. The dog looked knackered. Why do they always gasp when they’ve done nowt?

  “I had to come, Lovejoy, in case you…”

  Fight or flight? Always the latter, for Lovejoy Antiques.

  “Come on. We’ll try to hire a boat and go…”

  “Sheet, man,” Zole was saying over and over. I realized why when I made to drag Magda towards the riverside lights. A man was standing against the glow, in silhouette. He was the one with a snappy hat, rakishly angled, and a suit of many stripes’. I’d never seen such huge white cuffs, spats even.

  “Mine,” he told his left shoulder, and his mate faded away round the corner. “I say mine, man,” he told over my head. The two sneakers-and-jeans were deep in the alley.

  “Okay,” one called, laughing. “But he looks real mean, okay?”

  They emitted hoarse huh-huhs of laughter. I wanted the loo, a hang-glider, anything. We were left with our killer. I mean my.

  “Okay, lady,” the man said. He was about ten feet away when he finally stopped strolling forward. Where the frig was that kitchen hand now, when I wanted him? I could have dashed through the kitchen… ’You and the kid take off.”

  “Magda,” I pleaded weakly. I was quivering, my voice pathetic. I’m disgusting at the best of times.

  “Come on, Sherman,” Zole said, treacherous little traitorous bastard reneger, betrayer of a friend who’d helped the corrupt little sod.

  Sherman. The dog. They’re supposed to guard us, right?

  “Kill,” I said weakly to the stupid hound.

  “You got it,” Zole said.

  I don’t really know what happened next, only that Zole dropped Sherman to the ground as the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a weapon. There was a crack, but near me, not near him. A second shot came from the man into the ground with fragments of stone pavement flying everywhere. Magda yelped, I whimpered, Sherman screeched, any mixture of the three. In that same millisec Zole had gone flying backwards, spinning and hitting the ground. The man was sagging, slowly sinking to the ground, as if trying to pick something up at a party without being noticed much. He seemed preoccupied.

  I picked Zole up, tears streaming down my face.

  “Zole. I’m sorry. I thought he’d just do me —”

  “Let me down, silly fucker,” Zole said, wriggling. “Where’s ma gun? I gotta finish the motha fucka —”

  He escaped, searched for something on the ground. Sherman was howling, shivering worse than me. Magda was shouting, holding my arm, pulling, trying to get me to run past the kneeling man who had stilled, slumped ominously against the wall.

  “Hang on,” Zole was calling. “I gotta find ma gun an’ finish him—”

  Sherman howled and Magda screamed for Christ’s sake to come on, the others’d be back. Zole was stumbling after, Sherman’s lead round his legs, the mongrel howling and whining. And bleeding, I saw as we stumbled up the alley towards the street lights, from a scratch near its nose, presumably a splinter… And Zole was fiddling with a gun as he followed, grumbling at the thing. He shook it like a rattle, listened hard to its sound as he tried to work the trigger.

  I snatched it off him and flung the thing into the alley. We ran towards the boat, the pretty girls waiting for the last trippers to climb aboard. We joined them. Thank God for New Orleans music. It deafens you to everything else. I paid, and though the girls looked at us a bit oddly, Magda was talking breathlessly to them and I was paying money over, and all was peace and light and safety as the boat pulled away from the mooring and we glided away up the lovely broad flowing Mississippi.

  WATCHING the paddles turn water on a steamer is hypnotic, even a new and utterly phony side-paddler. The trippers seemed to be some sort of convention, fez hats with tassels and secret songs bawled into the universe. Beer flowed. Some other passengers were like us, normal and very, very glad to be there.

  Normal? For that read abnormal.

  I stood watching the shore line. I had only a few dollars now. Rescued by a homicidal child, supported by a prostitute. And now leant on by a dog that was still trembling with fright. The cut on its face was about a tenth of an inch, the worm.

  Tye had gone. Prunella had gone. All right, Magda lied—she’d told me she wouldn’t try to contact Tye. But she’d come to warn me.

  Zole came, threw Sherman some unspeakable protein, and passed me a glass. I tasted gingerly. Wine.

  “Hey, ma man. Whyn’t you ball Magda? See, ifn you stick each other, we’s team animals, right?”

  I turned to inspect him, leaning over the glittering dark river. He was hardly out of nappies, and listen to his language.

  “Where’d you get the automatic, Zole?”

  “Bought it. Cheaper’n N’York.”

  “There could have been another accident. What if the safety catch hadn’t been on?”

  He snorted scorn. “Ain’t no safeties on revolvers, Lovejoy. On automatics, sure. This wasn’t no ’matic magna.”

  I scrutinized him. “You ever shoot anybody before, Zole?”

  “Nope. ’Cept a numbers drek near East 43rd one time.” He showed a scar on his shoulder, pulling his shirt down for me to see. “Got cut bad bad, man. Dee bee recoil, y’know?”

  He reached down and embraced Sherman, now wolfing the meat. Drinkers whooped by, yelling something about going fishing.

  “Lovejoy? Tye comin’ after us?”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. Leaving me to face Hirschman’s hoodlums was one thing. But would Tye hunt me down? Zole saw clearer than I.

  “Dunno, Zole.”

  “Then what’s the plan, ma man?”

  “Yes, Lovejoy. What’s the plan?”

  Magda. Another tour boat creamed out of the darkness with lights and music, paddle wheels splashing. People waved and shouted, and our lot waved and hollered. Zole took a bead on the bridge and went, “Pow-pow-pow!” I almost clipped his ear as correction but thought better of it.

  “I’ll tell you the story, love. See if you know.”

  Zole went and brought drinks for us both while I told my tale, every detail, including the phony scripts, how I’d tried to bring in a number of fake pages to prove to Gina I’d combed the kingdom for the Sherlock grailer. I explained that would expose Moira Hawkins as a fraud, so allowing Gina the chance to eliminate Moira from the gamesters. I spoke with grievance. I’d done well by Gina. And now Tye makes a mistake like this, almost gets me killed.

  “Why, Lovejoy?” Magda asked when I’d done.

  “He dumb, Magda,” Zole said.

  “Well, see, Magda, it’s like this…” Like what? Nothing came to help. “It’s complicated, see? It’s raising millions from antiques and art —”

  “So?” She lit a rare cigarette and smiled wrily when I moved to windward. “So why her people let you get killed when you raisin’ so good?”

  “Wastin’ yo’ time, Magda. He but dumb.”

  “Shut your face. Magda, I think she said something about…”

  Magda shook her head slowly. “I’ll say for her. She’s the hots for Denzie Brandau, right? Along comes Moira Hawkins with the big dig, the dream scheme. Dumb Denzie falls for Moira’s play — that president crap—leaving Gina washing the coffee things. See? So she minds to wreck Moira Hawkins’s gran’ plan.”

  “But…” But that wouldn’t explain Tye’s failure to come and protect me from Damski Hirschman’s goons, would it?

  “Gina Aquilina gets your pages, like you
sent. She has them tested. Sure, they’re dud. She’s all the evidence she needs to confront Denzie Brandau and Moira Hawkins. So out goes Moira. And guess who that leaves to pick up Denzie’s daisies?”

  “So Gina withdraws Tye Dee… ?”

  And the peanut eaters, and the plane from New Orleans. And the bank credits I was using. And Prunella. And the rest of my little circus. A dead man wouldn’t need helpers. Yet I’d been successful. If Gina was sure that she and Nicko would win the California Game, she’d be sure of snaffling Denzie Brandau as well once he ditched the shadowy Moira. Plus his big run at the presidency, with Gina his First Lady, perhaps after Sophie had bought some tragic but convenient accident?

  “Lovejoy,” Zole said. “How you get to grow old, ma man? I don’t believe him, Magda.”

  I counted out my few dollars, watched by them both. “That’s it. I’ll understand if you cut and run.”

  “See how dumb he really is?”

  “Stop talking, Zole,” Magda said evenly. And the lad subsided. I didn’t believe it. Never listens to a word I say, but heeds her matter-of-fact shush. “I haven’t got much more, Lovejoy.”

  Zole rebounded. “Me too.”

  Dog? Gun? Magda’s expenses made more sense than any of mine.

  “You got your list of places, Lovejoy. Maybe we try shaking them down?”

  “No, Magda. I wrote them to Gina, places, dates, names, everything. If she’s the one who marked me down…”

  “You aren’t thinking of California, Lovejoy?”

  “We know where the Game is, love. We know when, who’ll be there. Fancy running for the rest of our lives?”

  Running’s dumb, man, from Zole.

  “Zole’s right, love.”

  “Hey, Lovejoy! You’m learnin’!”

  We went to join the party, Magda sitting close to me as we spent our last on drinks and food. The old saying is, your last bite lasts longest. It transpired that we were heading upriver on an all-night paddler party, destination Baton Rouge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  « ^ »

  THE night was idyllic. What better way to spend a balmy warm night, than sit on the deck of a pleasure steamer on this great river of midnight velvet, watching lights go dreamily by?

  At least, it would have been, if I wasn’t the quarry of hunters. If the little lad asleep on one of the boat’s benches with his dog hadn’t shot and possibly killed a man. If the prostitute who was his… what? Pal? Mother? I’d not asked… if she wasn’t probably sick of the sight of me. I mean, before I’d hove into view her life was plain and ordinary, right? Well, not quite those, but certainly ordered. She’d hook a client, charge him the going rate, repeat the process, while Zole stole. Together, a living.

  Then me. And Tye Dee, who makes her a spy. Next, they’re running like hell because of me.

  On the same deck, a sleepy trio of conventioneers were talking about fishing. Music wafted from the big saloon. Women laughed. Occasional shouts. The wheels shooshed and thumped. The warm night felt like heaven. Sweat trickled down my neck, but for once I didn’t mind. Even Sherman looked content, having extracted maximum sympathy for his nose scratch from a hundred cooing women, crafty canine. He’d fed like a lord. And he snored.

  The shore lights glided past. A couple of late boats strung with fairy lights heading downriver passed close enough for us to hear their music, see the dancers waving. Our drinkers and dancers crowded the rails calling good wishes. You can’t help thinking how wrong preconceptions are, can you? I’d thought America was all plastic food, angry motorists, no history. Okay, I thought ruefully, people sometimes hunt you, but that was partly my fault—I should have run the instant Rose Hawkins spotted my lust for antiques.

  The boat went junketing musically on under stars through American velvet. No wonder the world and his wife wants to come. That notion finally set me thinking about the plight I was in, the road out. The California Game. Because if I wasn’t dead from Hirschman’s goons and Gina’s betrayal, I was still in.

  By the time dawn shimmered into the eastern sky I’d got a plan of sorts. I’d need luck, a little money to start with. Plus a hell of a lot of other people’s money to finish with.

  BREAKFAST found me the money to start with, in the form of Magda. She looked surprisingly fresh and level of eye. The main cabin had magically become a dining room — musical still, the Dixieland players pleased as Punch with a capitive audience. Zole stoked his boiler faster than me, almost.

  “Lovejoy.” Magda passed me a bulky serviette. “Don’t unwrap it here.”

  “How much d’you get, Magda?” Zole demanded through a mouthful. “These dudes’re good for plenty —”

  Money. Magda had earned money. During the long exquisite night while I’d thought mystical thoughts, Magda had been… I cleared my throat.

  “What’s this, love?

  “We need money. We got none. I got some.”

  “He’s but dumb.” Zole fed Sherman a load of ham.

  My headaches always try to tell me something. I’m too slow to realize things until afterwards. I’d stopped eating which, in a woman’s presence, always bodes ill for me.

  Magda picked at her food, the way they do. She was deadly serious. “They that serious, they’ll know we’re headed for Baton Rouge. They’ll be waiting, see?”

  Jesus. I’d not thought of that. I’d assumed it was just a matter of booking a flight.

  “We separate, Magda.” At least half of me was thinking. Without Magda, Zole and a Scotch terrier I’d travel faster, maybe stand more of a chance. This was no time to feel guilt.

  “Split up, Lovejoy? You on your own?” I don’t think she’d ever smiled a wintry smile in her life. Every smile was warm with understanding. I’m not sure I liked it. “Without us you’d not be here.”

  They make you sound helpless, women. I was narked. “Look, Magda. I’m the one that matters. Let me tell you that a divvy’s the rarest frigging creature on earth. Without me…” I tried again. “Without me, the whole…”

  Hang on. Without me what?

  Without me, the antiques staker would have still been old stickyfingers, Fat Jim Bethune, the antiques stake maybe a tenth of what I’d made it.

  Without me, Moira would have Denzie hooked on her daft Sherlock scam, and Gina and Sophie would both be in the lurch. Which was the opposite of what Gina wanted, if Magda’s interpretation was right. Meanwhile, I had Busman as an ally, back in that warren. I’d never needed a library so badly.

  “How long’ve we got, love?”

  “The boat docks Baton Rouge at ten.”

  Difficult. Zole must have seen my face fall. He snickered. “He dumb.”

  “Call me that once again and I’ll —”

  “What, Lovejoy?” He noshed on, taunting. “You can’t even —”

  “We get off before Baton Rouge,” Magda said. “Get a car. I’ve spoken with the man.” She looked out at the gliding scenery. “There’s a smaller place across the other side. He’ll set us down in a boat.”

  Legit. I’d noticed the lifeboats in the davits, of course, had all sorts of mad plans brewing. She’d simply arranged it. I didn’t need to ask how.

  AN hour later we were on dry land, hired a car and bowled north on US 61. Magda drove while I slept with the dog sprawled over me. When I awoke, we’d passed Natchez, filled up at Vicksburg, and were coasting due east on US 80 with intermissions for Sherman to have a pee.

  “Magda,” I said once. “Shall I drive a bit? I mean, you’ve not had much sleep…” I dried. “Where’d we stop?”

  “Atlanta, Georgia.”

  I like the way Americans never say a name but what they make a doublet, Memphis, Tennesse and that.

  “We’ve missed out a lot of places,” I observed. “Why?”

  “He but dumb,” from Zole.

  “Stop calling him that,” Magda said before I could draw breath.

  Zole looked across at her, and not a word. He gave me a look over his shoulder. Si
lence. We pulled into Atlanta on the main route 20, and found a smallish hotel equidistant between the State Capitol, Cooks, and Emory University. Zole got me every newspaper and magazine under the sun, and I started reading like my life depended on it. Magda vanished, Zole vanished, the world vanished.

  ANTIQUES are the norm of my life. For most others, it’s time—like how did the Tokyo Exchange perform overnight, how will Wall Street do today. Yet even that isn’t constant. I mean, time varies in America—now isn’t now in New York if you’re in Atlanta, and it’s different again in Los Angeles. Fashions are never the same two minutes together. This year’s colour’s not tomorrow’s. Governments roll over and die, and new bums come rioting in.

  But antiques are. I’m told some mountaineers and astronauts share the same feeling: whatever else happens, there’s always Everest or Jupiter. Ambition rules us all, from dreamy starlet to maniac billionaires. But I see life against a backdrop of lovely things —furniture, paintings, jewellery, porcelains, candlesticks to Constables—which older folk made with the love of their hands and left to move us to tears with beauty.

  Except everybody isn’t the same. Some people would walk past the Mona Lisa without a glance. I used to know a woman like that. Used to sit up all night culling news of investment bonds, yet she had a Turner painting on her wall. Barmy.

  My point is that everything valuable has its doppelganger, its fake counterpart. The general rule in antiques is, the pricier the antique, the more serious are the contenders for its throne. This means the fakes are taken more seriously.

  And fakes are everywhere.

  The list of fakes is enough to stop the average person getting out of bed in the morning. Aircraft parts, cardiac pacemakers, antibiotics for death-dealing infections, even blood transfusion equipment, vie with precious Old Masters, priceless jewels, documents, bonds, share certificates, family records. Everything’s up for grabs. Equally so, too. Nothing is sacred to the faker. That children will die from the wrong drug doesn’t matter a damn to fraudsters. Nor that helicopters will fall from the sky when some dud bolt shears in flight. Fraud is the achiever’s religion.