The Great California Game l-14

by Jonathan Gash

  She was filling up again. We were both awash. She raised my hand to her lips, gave it a sucking kiss. “Oh, Lovejoy. I knew we’d bond. No wonder Gina values you.”

  “Please, Melodie.” I moved away, thinking what to say. In the grief of losing all that gelt, I’d forgotten this bird was a pal of the Nicko mob. “There’s something I have to say.”

  “Yes, dear?” She came to stand with me, looking over the city. I put my arm round her waist.

  “I have a psychic obligation to you, Melodie. It came to me right…” How the hell did psychic obligations come? “… out of the ether.” I grasped her hands. They were a mass of rings I could hardly get my fingers round. “I had to guide your actions, transfer my luck to you.”

  “You did?” she breathed.

  “Had to, love. But there’s a psychic condition.”

  “What condition, Lovejoy?” She withdrew slightly, eyes narrowing. I recognized suspicion.

  I gazed into her eyes, deeply sincere. “I want a promise, Melodie. Just your word that you’ll not breathe a word of our friendship. This psychic, er, thing is solely between us. Is that understood?”

  Her expression cleared.“Oh, yes, Lovejoy!”

  “Can Chanel be trusted?”

  “Perfectly. Her family’s served mine for two generations.”

  Two generations? That was only her and her dad. Didn’t she mean ten, twelve? I shelved the problem, bussed her, disengaged when she clung.

  “Oh, Lovejoy.” She broke down, weeping. “I have a terrible confession. A moment ago, when you said you wanted something…”

  “I know, love,” I soothed. “Don’t forget I am psychic. Mercenary considerations crossed your mind, didn’t they?”

  She nodded, sniffing. The miniature hound started whimpering

  “Never think of money between us.” I swallowed, almost blubbering myself at our profound emotional depths. Thoughts of all that money helped my sorrow along.

  “Thank you, my dear,” she said.

  “Then all’s forgiven.” I led her gently to the settee. “And you can tell me…” Brainwave! “… about how you carried it off, on the Gina.”

  We held hands. I stayed her from ringing for Chanel to pour, bravely said I’d manage. It was a modern scrolled silver, rubbish but worth its weight in, well, silver. The porcelain was crappy modern stuff. Unbelievable.

  “Oh, Lovejoy. It was marvellous!” Her eyes were shining now. There’s nothing voluble as a woman telling a triumph. ”I’d never felt so confident! It was your penny!”

  Smiling, I corrected her gently. “Not the penny, love. The forces act through it.”

  “That’s it!” she cried. “I felt the forces act through it. I slipped it under my third ring—you’ll know we’re all searched. I took quite a risk, Lovejoy.”

  Her face was solemn now, serious.

  “Risk?” I frowned. “Not with the force?”

  “Oh, no! But I suddenly knew I should stake bullion profits. Out of the blue!” She was so thrilled. We were so close. “You know what I staked?” She tutted at herself. “Cool as you please! Two per cent! Can you believe it?” She gave a naughty-girl giggle.

  I chuckled, shaking my head. “I’d have loved to’ve seen you, Melodie You have such natural grace.”

  “Oh, d’you think so?” She fluffed her hair the way they do. “Their faces! Especially Charlie Sarpi’s. After the failure of the Japanese gold commemorative fakes from Europe, he thought his cartel was in the driving seat.”

  “I was only sorry Kelly Palumba was unwell.”

  “Such a shame, poor dear. Epsilon tried, but I swear that young man’s sometimes quite deranged. Really made a hash of poor Kelly’s stake. He simply knows nothing of property values. She’ll be so mad. He got in, though. Did all right with his silly TV stations.”

  “Well, his home ground.” I spoke as if I knew what we were talking about.

  “Sarpi didn’t even come close, darling,” she told me mistily. “Only the Commissioner. Jim Bethune’s always in at the finish of course these days. Antiques is a crazy world.”

  She was telling me that? I hesitated. “You know, love, I feel as if I’ve known you in at least two previous incarnations.”

  “Lovejoy, I feel it too. Deeply. We’ve known each other a lifetime. Is that silly?” She went shy.

  “Of course it is.” You have to deny a woman’s suspicions to confirm they’re true, but gently. “If we’d been, well, lovers in a former incarnation, surely we’d probably… ?”

  Confusion set in, especially when she agreed with me. I wasn’t too sure I wanted to associate with her, not without a single antique in the whole rotten dump. Sophie Brandau on the other hand said she’d got several.

  “Will it last, Lovejoy?” We’d migrated to the middle of the vast settee. “For the Game itself, I mean.”

  “No, Melodie. I’ll have to divine for you, explore the, er, ether. That way I’ll reinforce fortune.”

  “You will?”

  Gold rings clamped on my hands. “Melodie, Melodie,” I chided softly. “You think I’d desert you, now we’ve found each other after all this time?” For a moment I floundered. How long did reincarnation take? Was it like a frog shedding its skin, ten minutes flat? Or was it something to do with the Egyptians?

  “I know it! Look what happened last time, darling! That horrible Monsignor O’Cody cleaned up. Seven massive Church debts rescinded. You know what that is in dollars, darling?”

  “Yes,” I lied with gravity, sighing. ”Amazing.”

  She snorted angrily. “I don’t want to seem a sore loser, Lovejoy. It cost me, like it did the others. Costs hurt.” She gave a thrilled moan. I recognized the woe-filled ecstasy of the gambler. You see it every day in auction houses the world over. “But I think O’Cody’s a nerve. His line bid one point nine per cent of total funds last fall, and lost. Know what? He tried all sorts of persuasion. Indulgences, the Faith, every whining excuse you can imagine —”

  “I wasn’t here then, Melodie.”

  “You should have been, Lovejoy! You know what he tried to do? Reschedule diocese loan flotations. Jim Bethune appealed to Nicko, got that stopped. I ask you!”

  “Good heavens! Did things go that far?” I was completely lost now.

  “They did! How could anybody look the De Beer hackers in the eye after that? Jim’d staked his usual three per cent auction levy. Kelly had some new theme park in the pot. And, I mean, diamonds are diamonds, Lovejoy!”

  “True, Melodie. Long faces everywhere, I’ll bet!”

  “And the rest! Of course, this time there’ll be none of that. Nicko’s had to get quite firm. That’s why I think Gina’s so worried about this manuscript business. Fell like a damp squib when Denzie staked it. I mean, he talked it up—the Second Coming! Worth quite a bit, I suppose, but nothing compared to, say, the Commissioner’s police hack.”

  I sighed. “But you try telling them!”

  “One default, that’s all it needs, darling. One default, and the whole house of cards falls apart.” She had her arm round me. Her eyes filled my view.

  “And antiques, Melodie, er, love.”

  “Of course! Jim Bethune could see his whole hack vanishing!” She was stroking my face. “You know, darling, I could easily —”

  A distant buzzer sounded. The hound yelped, flew under the settee. Melodie moved away quickly, smoothing her hair. “Look at the time!” she said brightly.

  I recognized all the signs of a returning husband. Time to go.

  I raised Melodie’s hand to my lips with maximum sincerity, hoping I was doing it right. “Until the next time, love.”

  She hurried me to the door. “When, darling? Quickly!”

  “Tomorrow? Same time?”

  “Yes! I’ve no visitors tomorrow. Take the stairs until the elevator’s gone.”

  The lift whirred, on its way. As Melodie’s door closed, I ignored the stairs and scooted along the corridor, guessing doors. A faint clatter guided me
. I can always sense the servants’ entrance, my natural habitat. Chanel was doing the coffee mystique as I ghosted in.

  “Lovejoy!” Instantly down to whispers, with her woman’s instinct for subterfuge. ”What the —?”

  “Shhh!” I made myself more frantic than I felt. ”It’s her husband!”

  She laughed silently. “Dumb, Lovejoy. She ain’t got a husband, just four exes!”

  Four divorces? Melodie wasn’t young, but her turnover rate seemed excessive. “Chanel. I had to see you.”

  The kitchen had two closed-circuit monitors mounted above the inner door, and a small wall panel. One showed the downstairs foyer, the other the penthouse corridor.

  “Me?” Her surprise melted slowly into a smile. “You outa your skull, Lovejoy? You passed up a fortune there.”

  “When can I see you, love? I wanted to, er, date you on the Gina.” A faint buzzer sounded. She reflexively pressed an I’m-coming button. “She wants me back tomorrow.”

  “Horny bitch,” she scolded angrily. “You watch her, Lovejoy. Come an hour earlier. My room’s down the hall.”

  The consol showed the lift gate opening. Two men strolled into view, one lighting a cigarette. The doorbell buzzed, its proximity making me jump. Chanel gestured me to stay and quickly left to answer, smoothing her dress. I waited until the screen showed Denzie Brandau and Jim Bethune admitted, then slid out into the corridor. I fled, the one thing I used to be good at.

  Outside, New York’d never have known I’d been up to no good with Mrs. van Cordlant. Everything seemed so normal. Traffic poured about. People tried to jump the red. Pedestrians survived by the skin of their teeth. Shops traded. A siren wailed the American song.

  Hack? What stakes, exactly? Kelly had mentioned a game. What game was played by a Church? Police Commissioner? Silver bullion heiress? Property magnate? And on down the queue of wealth. Right down to the Brandaus with their miserable little stake of a supposed manuscript, supposedly now appearing after a century or so, in a manner as yet unidentified.

  Thinking, shallow as ever, I posted off Bill’s card to Gina with a note saying it was the phone number I’d reported the night before.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  « ^ »

  AMERICA’S phones are bliss. Their habit of actually working is very disconcerting: put in a coin, dial and speak to whoever answers. I truly hope it catches on elsewhere. In little over half an hour, I made ten transatlantic calls to East Anglia and London. Cost me an arm and a leg, but I was over the moon. In East Anglia, a public phone is a dangling flex.

  “Get through, Lovejoy?”

  “Eh?” I wished Zole wouldn’t keep doing that, suddenly being there with his bloody yo-yo. Hearing my name in this exotic paradise was queer enough. “Oh, aye.” I’d told Boyson’s pal I’d ring in an hour. If he wasn’t home and waiting I’d…

  “Stay cool, Lovejoy.” Zole was whizzing his damned yo-yo past my ear. It sounded like a mosquito, the sort that wakes you up slapping at air. “Cool’s no fool.”

  “Why do you Yanks talk so?” I asked, starting across the traffic with the sudden rush of pedestrians as the green WALK light showed. I didn’t particularly need to cross, but in New York you seize any opportunity. “Gossip’s a trash flash, honesty’s a sleaze freeze.” I’d noticed this as soon as I arrived. A dim actor of notable physique was a punk hunk, a crosstown journey a side ride. All catch phrases.

  “You mad ’cos you cain’t talk, Lovejoy.” Whizz, whizz.

  “Maybe true, Zole. Coffee?”

  We went into a shop I’d never seen closed, perched on stools overlooking the tormented traffic. Zole ordered numerous hamburgers. How had he survived until he’d acquired teeth?

  “Lovejoy, you stupid.”

  I grabbed him by his tee-shirt. “Listen, you arrogant little sod. Call me stupid again and I’ll —”

  “I’m doin’ you favours here, man!” He dusted himself down with dignity. “This is N’York, Lovejoy. You gotta do like N’York, see? Or you don’t make it.”

  “Make what?”

  He sighed, wading into his grub. Seeing him eat made me hungry so I went and bought two of the nearest things they had to a pasty.

  “Like, I say you cain’t talk, you don’t agree, man. That’s the stupid. I say you cain’t talk, you gotta say the same back, but real mean.”

  “I have?” I was curious.

  “And don’t pay the fuckin’ phone. You works it. Then you gets the call free, understand? You think Magda pays when she calls Tye ever’ night?”

  Magda, phoning Tye? “It’s illegal,” I said, to keep him going. I was learning.

  “Legal’s stupid, Lovejoy. Legal’s jess N’York puttin’ you down. I’ll show you.” He looked about for a second, then appalled me by yelling, “Hey, lady! Where’s the ketchup?”

  I went red. “Shhhh, you little —”

  “Comin’ ride up,” somebody called, quite unconcerned. I smiled apologetically as it arrived. Zole noshed on, mollified.

  “See?” he said eventually. “I hollers no ketchup, you says you’re sorry. They thinks you stupid. They knows I’m not. Like that book you buying.”

  I stilled. How much of my phoning had the little sod overheard? “Book?”

  “Don’t send dollars less’n you get it first, see? Stupid.”

  I smiled at the obnoxious little nerk. “Ah. That’s just some money I owed him.”

  “He don’t squeeze, you don’t pay, Lovejoy. That’s smart.”

  “It is?” I wondered if he had any leanings towards being an antique dealer. With his instinct for fraud, he’d do a bundle.

  “Get the whole book, Lovejoy. One page is stupid.”

  He’d heard everything. “But what if—”

  He glared at me in fury, yelled, “Who’s doin’ the buying, man? You or him? You? Then don’t pay’s smart. Lemme talk to him.”

  We discussed this proposition until we’d finished. I said I’d follow his advice, meaning I’d make sure nobody was listening next time, meaning Zole. I just hoped he wouldn’t say anything to Magda. With her circle of clients I’d be done for in a day.

  BRIAN Tarnley can’t be trusted either, but that’s because he’s an antiquarian bookseller. The important thing about him is he owns a dingy upstairs room near Floral Street, Covent Garden. There, Easy Boyson works rent free.

  It’s a strange partnership, founded on two things. First is that Easy Boyson’s daughter is Brian’s wife. Second is that Boyson’s on the run, has been these five years. He was unbelievably a major, as in rank. His august old regiment was understandably vexed when the regimental silver vaporized. The peelers failed to find Boyson, or the tom. Which was lucky for Brian, who’d married Easy’s daughter and could provide the scarpering major with a safe nook. Investigations revealed gaping holes where the military’s bulging bank accounts should have been.

  Neighbours occasionally query the two Tarnley children’s tales about a grandfather who lives in their attic and isn’t allowed to come out and play. Brian tells everybody that Alice’s dad’s poorly.

  Which is great for Brian, because Easy Boyson’s a forger. And the police are still unravelling the handwriting on withdrawal forms in Glyn Mills, bankers of Pall Mall.

  Zole followed me to the phone, eager to show me how to defraud the phone company. I declined, and told him I was phoning a lady and my talk was not for little boys. He went off disgusted.

  “Easy Boyson? Wotcher. It’s Lovejoy.”

  “Where the hell are you, Lovejoy? A tank exercise?”

  Brisk, military. I warmed to him. He still rises at six, spick and span by seven, ready for action.

  “Conan Doyle, Easy. Do me a Sherlock Holmes page. You’ll find examples of his handwriting in —”

  “Leave recce to me, Lovejoy. Degree of authenticity?”

  “Complete,” I said. Another fortune down the nick.

  “Excellent!” Forgers love perfection. ”Continuation?” He meant was there a chance the
buyers would want the whole thing later on.

  “Possibly.”

  “Right.” He pondered a moment, named a price that staggered.

  “Fair enough.” I told him. “I’ll have it collected.”

  “Good luck, Lovejoy. Regards to New York.”

  And rang off. I supposed it was the traffic or something gave my location away. But Easy Boyson was an officer and a gentleman. Word his bond. Thank goodness for standards.

  Then I used my last dollars to do something truly momentous. I scribbled a note to Mrs. Gina Aquilina, saying I didn’t quite know where I stood, but had faithfully followed her instructions, and had striven to identify the source of the Hawkins grailer. A sample page would soon be on hand, when I would send it. I signed it, put it in an envelope, and got a cycle courier to come to the coffee shop. He was there in an unbelievable space-age time of two minutes, and hurded off on payment of my last groat.

  Nothing for it. I walked all the way back to Fredo’s, signed in for the remainder of the day, and started my cheery greetings to all comers. Until the fire touched the fuse.

  Middle of the midday rush it happened, one o’clock and every seat in the place occupied, people arguing sports and politics and prices and traffic in the way I was growing to love, all peace and racket.

  “Lovejoy? Take a break.”

  “Wotcher, Tye.”

  “Hey, what about my order?” a customer called angrily from along the counter as I doffed my apron. I shrugged. Zole had taught me how to yell, but not what to reply. Fredo tore out of his office in a state.

  “Glad to catch your visit, Lovejoy,” he groused.

  “Not be long, boss.”

  Tye gave me a look that sank my spirits, conducting me to his car. It was misparked, but without a parking ticket.

  “I don’t know what it is about you, Lovejoy,” he sighed, opening his passenger door. “But you’re sure attracting Gina’s attention lately.”

  When you need a light quip, none comes. Ever notice that?

  THE road north from New York splits into a frond of motorways. We bent right, and distantly I recognized a stretch of water. “Hey, Tye!” I went, excited. “That’s where we sailed!”