“What ho!” he said clearing his throat noisily. “Gahhh! Yuck,” and he flung back the blanket and sprung lightly to his feet, snatching the phone from the floor. He was dressed in some natty red jim-jams and a plaid dressing-gown.
“You … you all right?” I asked.
“Righter than a ninepence worth of right-handed, right-wing, right-thinking rain dear fellow,” he twinkled, slapping me on both shoulders. “Got to lie down. Affects the sound of the larynx. Henry not with you?”
“Here!” Henry yelled from the hallway, struggling in with a large cardboard box, his briefcase slung on top. “Cor, don’t ya think you’ve overdone it with the bleach? You can smell it on the street.”
“I’ll open a window or two,” Christopher said. “It should have faded just enough to be clinging by the time Grayson gets here.”
“I’m gonna say it again,” Henry sighed.
“Henry dear, it’s the only –”
“This is a very, very bad idea. Won’t you let me ask around, talk to – oof, give us a hand mate –” and I helped him stagger the box over to the kitchen worktop. “That’s it. Let me talk to some people? Find an empty place?”
“Grayson is all ready on his way.”
“You called him?”
“Just got off,” Christopher said, waggling his phone.
“Big mistake,” Henry muttered, brushing down his suit and heading off for another box.
Christopher and I unpacked the first one, piling starchy linen and rough grey towels onto the kitchen counter.
“Very surprised to hear from me was Mr Grayson. Very surprised. Crosser than Good Friday on Golgotha too, of course, but there we are.”
“That’s what Laura said. She called me last night. From some club.”
“Upper Grosvenor Street. Our Henry was three tables away. Quite a temper our American friend’s got.”
“Said he was going to track you down? Have you killed?”
“I certainly hope so,” Henry said, bustling in with another box, this one full of tubes and surgical tape.
“Henry’s right. His anger is vital to the plan after all,” Christopher smiled. “Henry dear, you bring the drip?”
Henry flapped out a tatty checklist and jogged back out, slamming down the staircase again.
“So what did he say when you called?” I asked.
“Well once I’d listened to him yell about tearin’ out mah eyebawls and fuckin’ with the wrong cowboy mister and other delightful family favourites, he calmed down long enough for me to explain my sorry situation. I admitted I was indeed a con artist, which of course he’d figured out already –”
“What with him getting his hands on your tricksy briefcase?”
“Quite,” Christopher said. “He resumed with verse two of his Tearin’ out mah eyebawls number for a bit, naturally. Anyhoo, I calmed him down, apologised for dragging him all the way from Kansas to buy a forgery. Explained it was nothing personal and what-not. And I admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that it had been I too who had been behind the underpant smash-and-grab yesterday.”
“How did he feel about that?”
“Understandably irked,” Christopher said. He began to break down the empty cardboard boxes, stacking them in the kitchen. “Especially as Pete did such a good job of pegging him as an accomplice. Anyway, I explained to him I’d been trying to kill two birds with one stone – meeting him at the shop for the exchange so I could take a gander at the security – but that I hadn’t foreseen getting clunked about the head by two acne-pocked borstal cases on the way.”
“Which I guess Grayson figured was no more than you deserved?”
“Quite-ola, dear chap. Here, let’s move this onto the sideboard there,” and we ferried the tubes and tape into the lounge.
“Henry said this is your flat?” I asked, peering about the … well, about the nothing very much really. Apart from a few starter pieces of Conran basics – couch, sideboard, bed, bin, broom – the place was bare. Not a single personal item to jazz it up a bit. No photos in the bedroom, no soapdish on the sink, no nick-nacks, bits or, for that matter, bobs. Minimalism schminimalism, this was perverse.
“I know, I know,” Christopher said, sensing my bewilderment. “Home is a place to rest one’s head. That is all. Once you start down the road of the thousand-pound couch and the two thousand pound hi-fi, you suddenly find you’re a smug little so-and-so, up to his Banana Republic khakis in insurance and paranoia. Just the kind of chappie people like me like to take for their bankroll in fact.”
“But it can’t be wise, can it? Bringing Grayson here?”
“It’s insane,” Henry interrupted, appearing in the doorway with a long steel drip, trailing tubes and tape, a green first-aid box under his other arm. “Goes against a cardinal rule. Never shit where you eat.”
“Ahhh, too true my antipodean chum. But you are forgetting another valuable maxim – don’t let incompetent Bloomsbury estate agents screw you out of the opportunity to fleece greedy fat Yanks out of half a million pounds. An oldie, but a goodie I feel. Now I explained to our man Grayson that I had every intention of taking delivery of the said underpants and selling them abroad – probably Japan. But poor me, if I hadn’t collapsed late last night in a pool of blood. Tch. Those borstal boys and their heavy handed thuggery. Done my poor skull more harm than we thought. Ahh, which reminds me. Corn syrup?”
“Check,” Henry said, tossing a heavy can from a box across the room to him.
“Splendid. This’ll give Grayson the impression I’m at death’s doorknob. Dripped up, croaky and dying. Stuck here with a fortune’s worth of stolen underpants. Doped up to the eyes. Unable to travel. Private nurses bleeding me dry. It’s no wonder I’m eager to halve the underpant’s price for a quick –”
The Archers began to rumpty-tump from Christopher’s dressing-gown pocket. He flipped out his phone while Henry and I fetched the last boxes from the van. We returned a sweaty minute later to find Christopher pacing and flapping in his gown.
“Henry, get your stuff together. Grayson’s on the move.”
“Now?”
“That was Julio at the Waldorf. Grayson’s just booked a cab for Brigstock Place. Leaving in thirty minutes.”
“Awww fuck it,” Henry spat, dumping the box with a thud and grabbing up his briefcase. He flipped the catches and began to double-check a load of yellow papers. “What’s his damned hurry?”
“Calm down, deep breaths. We’re prepared for this. Grayson asked me to give him a few hours’ grace to make a decision. He’s obviously going over to the shop to talk to Pete, make peace, find out if there’s any heat. Just earlier than expected is all.”
“Sounds like an act three beginner’s call for Mr Furious Insurance man,” Henry said, slamming his case.
“Exactly. So go, go, go,” Christopher flapped.
Henry went went went.
“And keep the van out of sight!” Christopher called down after him from the rusty window.
“Shouldn’t I … ?”
“No no, I need you here young man,” Christopher said, patting my arm in a fatherly manner. He led me back into the lounge where the garage-sale medical gear lay strewn about. “In about thirty-five minutes, if Henry does his job, Grayson will, ahem, accidentally overhear exactly how much our underpants are worth. He’ll realise that I, on my sick bed, out of the loop, in my dying desperation, have vastly undervalued the item and he’ll be over here like a shot to close the deal …”
“Before the nine o’clock news blabs about record-breaking Beverly Hills auctions …”
“And I double my price. Quite. Now give me a hand with these blood bags dear fellow.”
The next half hour or so passed as anxiously as I suppose you’d imagine.
Between minute-by-minute telephone updates from Brigstock Place, Christopher and I dressed the flat with the bottles, bandages and bric-a-brac of the recently pulverised, splashing a bit more Domestos X-tra Pungent about the mansion stairwell for good measure, a
ll in all giving the ‘store’, as I suppose I should put it, a convincing ambiance.
Whether it would be convincing enough to make Grayson believe a bed-ridden Christopher was a dying thief willing to part with his final touch at a knock-down price, we wouldn’t know until it happened of course. We could but cross our drip-feeds and hope.
“Are the rest of the guys from London too?” I asked, tearing off a strip of surgical tape and holding it out. “Lots of wealth around I s’pose. A lot of thingys. Marks.”
We were in the stark white glare of Christopher’s bathroom, getting a convincing-looking drip attached to his arm.
“I’m the only city slicker amongst us,” Christopher said, fiddling with a tricky tube. “More out of necessity than anything else. You saw those letterheads Henry ordered for me?”
“Letter – ? I heard you mention …”
Christopher clicked his fingers. “In the lounge.”
I scuttled through and found a plastic wallet on the side table. That strange feeling of teamwork, of camaraderie returned, just for a minute. Was I beginning to enjoy this? Being part of a team, a gang once again? I brought it back into the bathroom where Christopher was fiddling with his taped-up arm.
“Maurer & Fitzgerald Ltd,” I read aloud. “Insurance?”
“A useful method of obtaining an introduction. Offer a valuation, free appraisal. Gets one’s brogues in the door. The letterhead says Aldersgate as you see. I’ve found it gives it that little bit of credibility. But it does mean I need to be in town. As you are discovering, marks are a panicky breed. Always want a last-minute check, a last-minute review. Hence my need for this place. Cotton wool?”
I tugged off a handful of wispy fluff from the packet.
“Your big businesses are here of course, which is a plus. But then so is the savvy. Your city chappie is a clued-up fellow. Suspicious, switched on. Used to a little distrust. Makes things difficult. The home-counties, though? The major shires – Hamp’, Warwick’, Hertford’? That’s where the real juice is. Your mock-Tudor double-garages with golf bags and phoney Agas. Portly chief executives, rolling chins in cashmere cardies. There we go. How’s that?” and Christopher proffered a veiny left arm, plastic nozzle buried beneath cotton wool and tape.
“Very convincing.”
We moved back down the acrid hall to the lounge, among the rough towels and bleachy bedpans.
It all looked very convincing.
“Spending their weekends laying down wine and laying down nannies while dried-up wifey makes jam for the parish. Last twenty years in charge of some office or other. Never had a problem they couldn’t solve with the flick of a Duofold and a wave of a secretary.”
Very, very convincing.
“I sit down next to them in their local pub. Top up their pewter tankard, help ’em with a crossword clue in the Mail on Sunday and bob’s your uncle.”
The pills, the pyjamas, the props?
Uncanny.
“I mean there’s no way I can be smarter than them, right? No way I can be playing an angle they haven’t thought of? With all their wisdom? Hmm? Neil? You all right young man?”
“Huh? Yes. Yes just … just thinking that’s all,” I said.
Utterly uncanny. Boy, when these guys wanted to make you believe something …
“It’s okay old chap, just a few hours now. Pete should be calling aaaany minute.”
But Christopher’s voice was fading away. Becoming thick and muted. I could see his eyes shining and his mouth going two-dozen to the dozen, but I wasn’t hearing him. I was trying to stop the room spinning. To stop my knees buckling. My mouth from drying up, my hands from trembling.
“I …” a voice croaked. It didn’t sound like mine. But then I couldn’t really hear properly, what with the panicked slam of my heartbeat and the blood roaring in my ears. “I … I should go.”
“Go? No, no lad.”
They were in the shop. Pete. Henry. Julio. They were in my shop. They had keys. My keys. My shop. On their own. Right now.
Christopher keeping me here. Away from them. Away from whatever they were doing.
“Probably best you stay here, there’s a chap. Let the boys play their parts. Like I say, Pete should have spun Grayson his story. Bound to call aaaaaany minute now.”
Boy, when these guys wanted to make you believe something …
“Neil? Neil, where are you – ? Neil?” Christopher’s clipped voice hollered behind me as I took the concrete mansion steps three at a time.
“Okay mate?” the cabbie asked.
“What?” I said, palms cold and wet, sick stomach lurching as he grumbled through the bustle of Knightsbridge. “Yes. No. Sorry.” I sat back on the farty seat, feet tapping, slapping out an anxious rhythm on my knees.
Christ. What had I done? What had I done? Trusted these men? Handed over my keys, my property, my life? They would be clearing the shop. Clearing it all. How long had I let them alone with the keys? Think, think.
The cab swung around Hyde Park and up Piccadilly.
Yesterday? Yesterday afternoon, after closing. Five o’clock. I checked the cheap Rolex again. It was just after eleven. Eighteen hours. They could have been in there for eighteen hours. Filling a van. Two vans. A fleet. All hired under false names, all untraceable.
Step one, they’d said. Locate and investigate the mark.
Stock wise, perhaps an over reliance on Golden Age comic books and Superman memorabilia they tell me, but otherwise, pretty much exactly what I’m looking for …
Step two. Gain the mark’s confidence.
Shall we say Claridge’s? They do the most scrumptiful chocolate cheesecake.
I leant forward, cracking open the side window and letting a blast of drizzly air onto my face, breathing deep, breathing slow.
Who could I call? Jane? No no. The police?
Your character it turns out, Neil, is one who likes to fleece aged fellows out of their heirlooms for a quick buck.
Christ.
“Mate? Mate? I said I’ll take you up Shaftesbury Avenue, awroit?”
“Uhh, yes. Yes fine. Just … just quickly.”
Grayson. God, who was he? A genuine mark? I had been sent to meet him off the plane.
Not that I’d actually seen him get off a plane.
Shit.
But.
But no, Henry said Grayson had a suite at the Waldorf.
Henry said.
The grift is all about trust, Neil. No guns, no brickbats, no threats.
Trust.
We’re going to need a full set of keys, my poppety-poo. Each, I’m afraid.
“How far you want me to go mate?” the cabbie called.
I looked up hastily, eyes scanning the street. Souvenir shops. Gielgud Theatre.
Near enough.
I pulled out a handful of coins, shoving them through the scratched partition, some clattering to the floor and pushed out onto the busy street to a blare of horns and a yell of cabbie, moving fast up Wardour Street.
And it’s all right for you to skin this man out of his money because what? He’s stupid?
No. No please no Lord. Whatever I’ve done, whatever punishment this is.
And greedy. Terribly greedy.
Soho was at a busy standstill, the coughing grime of white delivery vans idling at litter-strewn kerbs, pigeons flapping and strutting. A distant siren.
I swung left onto Brewer Street, eyes wet with the cold London grit, running, body jiving and jittery, past coffee-bar tables and fluttering strip joint ribbons.
I was sorry. I was sorry. Just please, please don’t let it be me.
But why not? God replied silently, in that way of his. Werenst thou happy to see thy neighbour taken to thy cleaners big time?
He had me. Pinned me, like some celestial Paxman.
Jinking left, right and left again, I swung myself around a lamppost on the corner of Brigstock Place and slammed hard with a yelp into a black wallet.
A black wallet slung
about the chest of a fat American.
“Jesus felluh!” Grayson barked. I stumbled backwards, hands raised. “You in some kind’a … Hey. Hey, wait a secun’.”
I blinked up at him, mind reeling and spinning.
“Wait … wait, don’t ah know you?” and he narrowed his tiny eyes, pulling his fat head back an inch. I backed away, mumbling, stumbling. “Sure. Sure, ah know you,” and he clicked fat fingers. “Didn’ ah … At the airport?” he nodded, jowls wobbling, pointing a podgy digit.
I could only mouth and flap helplessly like a dying fish on a wet deck.
“You wuz talkin’ ’bout the auction, right? That why yur here too?” and he tossed a thumb over his shoulder at the shop front. “Well yur too late. Fellahs had ’umselves a robbery yesterday.”
“Robbery?” I croaked, mouth dry.
“Guys had the very jockies worn bah one Jerry Siegel. Made in Cleveland. Ones he wore when he was posin’ for his buddy. Ah saw ’em. Apparently matchin’ tablecloth juss went in auction in LA three hours ago. Two million dollars.”
“Two mill – ?”
“Two million,” Grayson whistled. “Some movie star bought ’em they say. Anyhow, ah wouldn’t go in there if I wuhz you,” and he began to straighten his shoulder bag, fat eyes glistening. “Owner guy has his insurance fellah there. Weeeooo-eee!” and he chuckled a dry chuckle. “Reckons the jockies would’a gone for near the same amount. All hell’s broken loose.”
“That so?”
“Anyhoo, ah got mahself somewhere ah need t’be. Hey, you know where …” and he began to fish awkwardly in his black bag, tugging out a greasy post-it. “You know where Beeth-nail Green is? That far? Cab take me there?”
“Beth – ? Uhm, sure, sure,” I nodded. “It’s a few miles north of here. Any cab.”
And with a nod, Grayson waddled off around the corner and away.
I staggered across the empty cobbles. Empty specifically of vans, trolleys, stolen stock or double-crosses. Head thudding, jittery with nervous energy, I peered through the wirey glass of the shop door. Pete was behind the counter, Henry in front, waving his arms. A briefcase lay open on the desk. Voices raised.
Conman Page 17
