The Great California Game l-14 Read online

  Good old Mr Sokolowsky, not as sleepy as he’d seemed. And who was this us?

  “Guesswork.”

  “Could you repeat the test, Lovejoy? On other items of our choosing?”

  She spoke with authority greater than that of the usual serf. Jennie was big medicine. In fact, I bet that she and Nicko… I tried a disingenuous smile, little boy found out—

  I said offhand, “Sometimes guesses work.”

  “Life or death on it, Lovejoy?”

  I swallowed. “Er, look Jennie. I, er…”

  “Just tell me the truth.” She was simply asking, perhaps even a little sad. “If you aren’t a divvy, that’s fine. Nicko wouldn’t blame you, for a skill you haven’t got. If you are, that’s fine too. Just don’t lie.”

  Her voice had gone hard. I nodded a yes.

  “Only for antiques, Jennie.”

  That made her think. She started to speak, cut out, reached inner agreement.

  “Very well. Be here two o’clock tomorrow. Nicko has an idea.”

  “I’m sorry, but I…” Her expression changed to a light sleet. I smiled my most ingratiating smile. “Right, right.”

  She paused on her way to the door. “Good luck, Lovejoy. Mrs. Aquilina is very… strict with all employees.”

  “Meaning what?” I asked, but the door wafted her away into New York, leaving me alone.

  Lovely lass, worried sick and living on her nerves. Nicko her lover, yet she warns me about Nicko’s wife’s fearsome nature. I could do without all those implied threats. But that tip about Mrs. Aquilina unsettled me.

  I put the telly news on to get the time, and coming back from the washroom with my one towel I caught sight of a face I recognized. It was Brandau, his wife Sophie beside him. That was why I couldn’t decide why it was one face or two. I switched off and went out to get a taxi, smiling at the irony. Maybe they’d be in some newspaper tomorrow—if newspapers in America did what newspapers do all the time back home, simply filch their scoops off the nine o clock news and pretend.

  “SORRY I’m late.”

  Rose let me in, more flustery than usual. I’d have said edgily excited, had I known her better.

  “I’m pleased you came, Lovejoy.” She smiled me into a chair, sat with an intent frown.

  “Do you know anything about Sherlock Holmes, Lovejoy? Conan Doyle?”

  “Nothing. I remember the Basil Rathbone films, though.”

  She winced. I sighed inwardly. Was she one of those truly boring fans who dress up?

  “Not quite the same thing as Dr Watson’s accounts, Lovejoy.”

  She made it a reprimand. I mmmhed to show I thought the same, though quite honestly these nerks who forever delve into fictional characters as if they were real people annoy me. She spoke as if Dr Watson was real, which tipped me the wink that she was one of those loons who’d come to believe the writer’s fantasy. It’s a danger we all skate near.

  “Dr Watson didn’t write the stories, love,” I said clearly, to nip delusions in the bud. “He was fictitious. The real-life physician was Conan Doyle.”

  “Lovejoy. My sister has made a lifelong study of the Holmes literature.”

  “Good.” I waited. Rose was acting on Moira’s instructions.

  “I’ve a proposition, Lovejoy. Your antiques expertise convinces me you are the right person.”

  My newest new job loomed. I donned a pleasant you-can’t-mean-me smile. “I doubt it, Rose. You need an antiquarian if you’re making a collection of Sherlockiana.”

  “Let me tell you a story, Lovejoy.” Rose was hovering, tidying piles of papers, quietly placing books. “It’s the most valuable of all modern manuscripts.”

  “Not that old joke about some beautiful?”

  It was honestly meant as a quip, but I saw her face set in anger, suddenly suppressed. She knew instantly what I meant. A “beautiful” in the antiques trade is a long-lost treasure. Captain Kidd’s chests of gold, King Solomon’s Mines, Chippendale’s secret warehouse in Wapping, that ton of priceless pearls hidden under Birmingham, the whole dustbin of burdensome fable which troubles us antique dealers night, day and dawn. I’m not being unromantic. It’s just that the public ought to grow up. George Washington’s secret treaties with the Emperor of China, King George or Napoleon are so secret they never existed at all. See what I mean? Getting close to myths is dangerous. You start believing.

  She calmed, with effort. “Lovejoy. I expected better from you. It’s a matter of simple record that Dr Conan Doyle wrote The Narrative of John Smith about the time he married Louise Hawkins. His first novel! The manuscript was lost in the post.”

  Well, what’s in a name? Though I should talk, with a name like Lovejoy. I tried to remember. Conan Doyle? It’s one of those names which slip in and out of consciousness like sparrows through your headlights, gone unremarked. I’d better own up.

  “I know nowt about him, love.”

  “My father’s people came from Southsea. Where Dr Conan Doyle practised. Where, in fact, he wrote it.”

  “This being the Sherlock beautiful? The John Smith novel?”

  “Of course.”

  Pity. I decided that the USA was now a terrible disappointment. America should have done better. What about all those ancient land deals with the Red Indians? The lost deeds to whole silver mountains? Columbus’s long-lost maps, Captain Henry Morgan’s treasure from sacking Panama? If I started starving here I’d have to fake a few Eric the Red mementoes…

  “Thanks for the offer, Rose. I’d best be getting back. Big working day tomorrow.”

  Rose watched me rise. I hesitated, but what claim did she have on me? I mean, okay, Rose had befriended me. And I’d welcomed it. But that didn’t mean I had to listen to her barmy ramblings.

  “See you,” I said cheerfully.

  I was making my way to the door when Rose spoke. “Moira?”

  The elegant woman stepped into the room. I’d assumed the little door led to a closet, toilet, some nook. Careless old Lovejoy.

  “My sister, Lovejoy,” she explained apologetically.

  “You’ll help us, Lovejoy.” Her voice was as melodious as she looked, but with added threat.

  “Not me, love.”

  “Lovejoy,” Moira said, perching on the desk with such style that like a fool I stopped to gape. “Late of Hong Kong. Before that, East Anglia.” She even gave the address of my cottage. “Divvy, wanted by your own police. By antique dealer syndicates. In debt to seventeen antique dealers, two finance houses, three mortgage companies. All that plus six lawsuits, Lovejoy—as soon as I have you deported as an illegal alien.”

  Rose was pale as her sister spoke. I dithered, returned, cleared my throat, looked at the time. Nigh midnight, and me being blackmailed into balderdash.

  “You’ve got the wrong bloke, Moira,” I tried for the record.

  “Rose?”

  “Yes, Moira.” Rose passed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. Taking them, my mind went: My career was documented pretty well, but with that bizarre slant with which libel uses truth. “We are associated with antiquarians in England, Lovejoy. It took only an evening’s phoning. People didn’t even have to look you up. They already knew you.”

  See how falsehoods spread? I was indignant with the sly bitch, but swallowed my ire. Why was deportation such a threat? Maybe America deports illegals to wherever they want to go! I could try for Australia, if they’d let me. Yes. That was clearly the way. Resist this attempt to blackmail me into helping the loony women. Bluff and double bluff. Be strong, show defiance. The American Way!

  “All right,” I said weakly. “What do I have to do?”

  BEING in the greatest of all lands is all very well, but antiques are antiques. And money rules. I was fast learning that America knew money. It is very, very dear to the US of A’s big beating heart.

  In my time as a dealer I’ve seen all sorts of legend about priceless antiques. Every dealer has. Crazy, daft, loony—but they’ve generated fortunes, liaisons a
nd affairs that have led to multiple murders, robberies galore. I’ve seen a million ancient charts to Lost Cities, King Solomon’s Mines, Merlin’s magic wands, Beethoven’s missing symphonies, and extinct species of plants living on under the Cotswold Hills. All pure imagination, maybe nothing more than wishes formed of faded sorrows. But—remember this—all confidence tricks have a basis in greed. And cons make money, right?

  So I did a little diligent spadework using New York’s phones. And after a fortune in coins so minute I kept dropping the damned things, I got through to Thurlough in Buxton, Derbyshire. It felt really strange talking with somebody on the other side of the Atlantic but who sounded within reach. I had to shout over the night traffic.

  “Thurly? Lovejoy. I haven’t got long.”

  “Lovejoy? Do you know what frigging time it is?”

  “Sod the time, Thurly. Look. A Sherlock Holmes bookseller…?”

  “The best?” He took time off to complain to his missus that Lovejoy was ringing at this hour. They sounded in bed. “That’ll be Brian Cheeryble.”

  Cheeryble, opposite the British Museum, up those rickety stairs. I got Thurly to find me the number, and when he tried to suss me out told him I had a chance of an earthenware bust of Conan Doyle, probably a modern fake. He rang off still grumbling, old misery. Brian Cheeryble. He’d know about any Conan Doyle grailer, if anyone would. I’d not contact him until I’d learned what I was really contacting him about.

  CHAPTER SIX

  « ^ »

  THE commonest question is, how can you stay poor yet recognize antiques a mile off, by vibe? The answer’s pretty grim: imagine having responsibilities to every antique you ever met. A divvy has exactly that. It comes with the gift. Like being Dad to all the children on earth, you never know where you are, what to do. Even the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe only had forty kids. She had it made. She should have been a divvy, and learned the hard way.

  Plus this thing called crime. Tell anyone that you’re a divvy, and you can see evil thoughts flit through their minds. And they aren’t innocent good-heavens-how-interesting thoughts. They’re greedy how-can-we-use-this-nerk-for-sordid-gain thoughts. I’ve seen it a hundred times. And don’t pretend you’d be any different. You wouldn’t be. Why am I so certain? Because avarice rules, that’s why.

  Antiques equal treasure, yes indeed. But some are more equal than others.

  Look at your average newspaper. In one week the Greeks re-excavate a temple to the God Poseidon in Corinth, and Boston University architects date it a sensational 665 BC; the Chinese find their earliest known celestial map—painted on a tomb’s vaulted roofing over twenty-one centuries ago; and two new living species of fly are discovered in Wales. I’m thrilled by the first two, because they’re antiques. But the flies are a yawn. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m all for conservation. Flies have to manage as best they can, and have wings and whatnot to do it with. But antiques can’t. They have nothing except soul. And they can only become fewer and shoddier, as we batter and revarnish and “mend”them whenever we think we’ll have a hamfisted go… See? Somebody has to be on their side. So far, I’ve only found me.

  TWO o’clock I went to my crummy hotel, and found Zole in the lobby trying to lever open something under the desk.

  “Hi, ma man. Watch yo back, Lovejoy. Tye’s waitin’ n’ baitin’”

  The greetings alone are enough to wear you out. “Hello, Zole.”

  I warned him in passing that the desk dozer was coming back down the corridor, and saw him ease silently out into the street. A minigangster, that one. What had he said? Watch my back? Tye Dee was waiting in my room, talking with Magda. He turned from her the instant he saw me, cutting her dead. It seemed odd at the time, but not later. I gave her a wave, got one in return.

  Quarter past, we were in a skyscraper’s lift rising in grand style. We shared the lift with a suave bloke wearing an antique stock pin in his tie, the cret. Can you imagine? It had the true zigzag stem —I could actually see its shape—projecting slightly from his idiot modern tie. Well, I’m used to these Flash Harrys back home so I just glared a bit when he got out on the eighteenth floor in a waft of expensive aftershave.

  On the nineteenth floor Mrs. Aquilina was waiting. Not Nicko, not Jennie.

  Sumptuous was the only word. I stood in the doorway being searched for concealed ironmongery by Tye while she strolled and blew cigarette smoke towards the vast expanse of windows. She wore a confining black dress, scallop neck, and looked half as young as before.

  “Clean,” Tye announced in his gravelly bark, and closed the doors as he left.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Mrs. Aquilina avoided smiling, gestured me to sit opposite, a callous trick to play on someone undergoing enforced celibacy. A log fire seemed genuine. The air hummed coolth. The vast flat was dull as ditchwater, everything modern and expensive and thoroughly objectionable. Tastefully decorated, but who cared?

  “Today I’m going shopping, Lovejoy.” She had aloofness, but not her husband’s terrifying knack of speaking to distant planets.

  “Yes?”

  A pause. She didn’t drum her fingers, but was impatient. She returned my gaze, squared. “You’re going to buy me some jewellery.”

  “Sorry, missus,” I said apologetically, “I’m not well up in modern stuff. You’ve got some good tom shops in New York —”

  “You proved your worth with gems, Lovejoy.”

  “Spotting Mrs. Brandau’s jewellery was accidental, Mrs. Aquilina.”

  “Sokolowsky gave you full marks. Yes, Blanche. Martini.” A bonny maid appeared and vanished. I wasn’t offered any revelry. “One hour, Lovejoy. Go and dress. Be in the foyer. Dee will show you.”

  Dress? I was already clothed. I rose and like an idiot thanked her. For what?

  “One thing, Lovejoy.” She ground out her cigarette. “I will not tolerate any more insolence. Last warning.”

  “Right. Thank you, Mrs. Aquilina.” I almost nutted the carpet making an exit bow. Blanche’s glance avoided me as I left, but it felt sympathetic.

  EXACTLY an hour later I was in the foyer, standing like a lemon with Tye Dee. I kept wondering how I’d been insolent. I’d done my maximum grovel, agreed with everything she said, not complained when she’d not offered me any victuals. I’d been for a shower, shaved again in case I’d missed a chin patch. I was hungry as hell, not having had time to snatch a bite while hurrying down the New York canyons.

  Tye Dee had inspected me doubtfully when I arrived. “You okay like that?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  Kind of him, I thought in my innocence. He looked monolithic, even bigger in daylight. I felt as if I were standing beside a gasworks. I watched people come and go through the foyer.

  “Lookin’ at people?” he said after a while, suspicious rather than interested. ”

  “Eh? Oh. I try to guess what they do.”

  The foyer was marble and brass. A modern desk was set out for the receptionist, flowers and notepads and console, a couple of couches for waiting serfs. Except Tye had told me to stand beside him at the windows. A doorman in comic opera regimentals strode about marshalling taxis and leaping to serve. Mostly ladies, one or two with the tiniest dogs you ever did see. Fantastic. One was no bigger than a mouse, and wore a collar worth me twice.

  “Rum world, eh?” I said conversationally.

  “Uh?”

  “Rum world, Tye.” I nodded to indicate the diminutive hound being passed to a liveried chauffeur. “Bet that dog’s got more servants than —”

  He did an odd thing. He spun me round to face him. It took hardly any effort on his part, but I was held in a vice, completely immobile. I’d never seen anybody move so fast. His face lowered and he spoke softly.

  “You say nuthin’, Lovejoy, less’n you’re spoke to. Got that?”

  “If you say so, Tye,” I got out, throttled.

  “No names. We’re not here, see? Gina’s our total responsibility.”

  He lower
ed me to the ground and let go. I straightened and recovered my breath. Don’t speak. Don’t mention names. Protect Mrs. Aquilina. Do as you’re expected to do, which meant be invisible and anonymous. Take the money and do the job, in whatever order either comes. I sighed inwardly as the lift went and sundry serfs leapt to fawn on Mrs. Aquilina as she emerged. Okay America, I thought, you’re the boss. I too advanced, smiling the anxious smile of the abject ingrate.

  She swept by me without a word, doors parting and kulaks bowing and scraping. I trotted after, a humble ninth in the entourage. Except there was something wrong. And it wasn’t that Mrs. Aquilina also seemed mad at me. It was that a bloke stepping forward in the morning coat of a hotel manager had a luscious eighteenth-century stock pin, ruby head and zigzag stem, in his lapel. Lovely stone, glamorous design, gold mount all just the same as earlier. I’ve only seen about six in my life. Now two on the same day, in one building? Were there scores in New York? And he’d grown a moustache—in an hour?

  “Excuse me,” I said, plucking Tye’s sleeve as our lady stopped and we all collided up against each other.

  “Shtum.” It was more than a hiss, not proper speech. I only wanted to explain about the bloke with the tiepin, ask why a stylish gent in sunglasses and suave gear would want to change into serf’s uniform. Was he too one of us hirelings, on perpetual guard against New York’s unknowable mayhem? If so, it was overdoing things a bit. This Nicko lot seemed to live on its nerves… Then I saw Tiepin look at a dark blue motor down the street, surreptitiously raise his hand. Two men. Tye was facing the other way, though he scanned the traffic closely as we left the foyer for the pavement.

  Mrs. Aquilina got into her limo. I recognized the driver. Tye said, “Hi, Tony,” so that was all right. I made to follow her into the motor. She rounded on me from the interior.

  “Out!” she snapped. I’d never seen anybody so furious. “You look like a hobo! Out!”

  Tye hauled me back onto the pavement, saying desperately, “Wait, Gina —”