Highbinders

by Ross Thomas

  “Nor would I,” Deskins said. He turned the cards face up and then face down. He moved them around a few times. “Where’s the queen?” he said. “For gratis.”

  I tapped one of the cards. He turned it up. It was the jack of spades. “You’re good,” I said.

  He turned all of the cards up, showing me the queen again, turned them face down, and started moving them around. I kept my eye on the one that I thought was the queen.

  “Some of the lads had a little game going today in Shepherd Market just off Curzon. Know it?”

  “I know it,” I said and tapped a card. Deskins turned it up. It wasn’t the queen. It was the jack of spades.

  Deskins began moving the cards about again. “They had a nice wood box set up, a couple of shills, and as you say, a lookout. They were working the luncheon crowd, you know.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “That one,” and tapped a card. It was the jack of hearts.

  Deskins flipped the cards back over and began moving them around some more. “Who should come by but a busload of tourists.”

  “Well, Shepherd Market’s pretty interesting. Sort of quaint. That one.” I tapped a card and he flipped it face up. It was the jack of hearts again.

  Deskins rubbed his hands together and started moving the cards around once more. “These were Bulgarian tourists,” he said. “We don’t get too many of those.”

  “That one,” I said, tapping a card. He flipped it over. It wasn’t the jack of hearts or the jack of spades. It was a photograph of me, the knave of nothing, standing in front of Karl Marx’s tomb, holding a cloth sack that clearly read “Roosevelt Hotel,” and wearing a silly smile that displayed most of my teeth.

  “When you rubbed your hands together,” I said.

  “Mmm,” Deskins said. “One of the Bulgarian chaps bet twice, won twice, and tried to walk away with his winnings. He’s now in the hospital. Nothing broken, but possible internal injuries. He was still wearing his camera around his neck so we developed his film for him. You take a good picture, Mr. St. Ives.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I tend to freeze up.”

  Deskins turned from the dresser and crossed over to the window. He left the photograph of me where it was. “Nice view,” he said.

  “Pleasant,” I said. “Especially this time of year.”

  He turned from the window. “Too bad about poor Billie Batts, wasn’t it?”

  “Was it?”

  “They found poor Billie at Highgate about half past seven this morning, all curled up in a stone piano with his throat cut. Poor lad.”

  “You knew him?” I said.

  “Yes. Didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, Mr. St. Ives, I did know him—in a professional way, one might say. That’s why I’m here now, because I knew poor old Billie. But you say you didn’t?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t.”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t know him by name, but only by sight. Take a look at this.”

  He crossed the room and laid another photograph on the dresser. It was a larger one, about five by seven inches, black and white, and it showed Billie Batts curled up underneath the open lid of the marble piano, wearing his tweed coat with the leather patches, his gray eyes open, his gray teeth showing, and his throat cut.

  “You still say you didn’t know him?”

  “I didn’t know him.”

  “I knew him for years,” Deskins said. “He was always on the edge of things, poor Billie was. He pimped a bit, shilled when there was nothing better about, wanted to be a con man, but had neither the class nor the brains. He was too lazy to steal, Billie was, but got into porn in a small way for a while. He was a bust-up man for one of the protection rackets for a couple of years. Carried a razor, but I don’t think he ever used it, except maybe once on one of his birds, but we could never prove it and she wouldn’t talk. So really no one’s too upset or even too surprised now that Billie’s bought it.”

  “I didn’t know him,” I said, for lack of anything else to say. “I don’t think I would have wanted to.”

  Deskins nodded, never taking his eyes from my face. “You play poker, don’t you, Mr. St. Ives?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You’ve got a good poker face. I’ve been watching it. I can’t tell whether you’re lying or not.”

  I shrugged. A shrug is as good a way to lie as any.

  “Well, as I said, they found poor old Billie Batts about half past seven this morning. It was getting on for one before the Bulgar made his little mistake down at Shepherd Market. After the punch up and him landing in hospital, we developed his film on the chance that he might have taken some pictures of those who’d done the beating. You know how tourists are.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they brought the prints in to me and who should be standing there in front of Marx’s tomb large as life but Mr. Philip St. Ives of New York. So I laid on a translator and we went to see the Bulgar. He was conscious by then. He said that you were a very kind gentleman who had just happened to be strolling down the path at Highgate Cemetery at seven this morning and who’d been willing to take his picture. And then he took yours, as sort of a souvenir.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “And then, to the best of the Bulgar’s recollection, you strolled on down the path—down toward where poor old Billie Batts lay dead with his throat cut. Is that right?”

  “I went on down a path.”

  “What were you doing at Highgate at that time of morning, Mr. St. Ives?”

  “My ex-wife and I used to picnic there,” I said. “It was a long time ago. You might say I was making a sentimental journey.”

  “What was in the cloth sack?”

  “My lunch.”

  Deskins sighed. “You know, Mr. St. Ives, I talked to the lads at the murder squad about you and we weren’t at all sure whether I should come and see you or whether they should. They’re not nearly as polite as I am.”

  “Most homicide cops aren’t,” I said.

  “You’ve known a few, have you?”

  “A few.”

  “Well, the lads at the murder squad had a preliminary report on Billie and it seems that he was done in about two o’clock this morning, give or take an hour or so. We decided we’d better find out where you were around that time.”

  “I was playing poker.”

  Deskins nodded. “At Shields. It seems that you won in one night more than I earn in a year.”

  “It hardly seems fair, does it?” I said.

  “But you’ll lose it back, won’t you?”

  “Next week,” I said. “Or the week after. I stay about even.”

  “Yes,” he said, running an appraising glance over me. “You haven’t quite got what it takes to be a professional gambler.”

  “It takes hard work,” I said and before he could think of something to say to that the phone rang. I answered it and the voice that I had last heard at six o’clock that morning said in its mid-Atlantic tone: “Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Then just listen. You won’t have to ask any questions.”

  “All right.”

  “Tomorrow morning buy yourself a pram. A large one.”

  “All right.”

  “I suggest Harrods. They have excellent ones there.”

  “All right.”

  “At three o’clock sharp enter the small church park that’s just off South Audley Street between Mount Street and South Street. Do you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you might. Most Americans do. At three o’clock push your pram down to the section where it narrows and comes out on Carlos Place. There’s a bench on the left. If you’re in doubt about which bench, there’s a small plaque on it that says that it’s a gift from an American woman who spent many happy hours there. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have the money in the pram. Sitting on the bench will be a young woman dres
sed as a nanny. She, too, will have a pram. In it will be the sword. You may bend over and inspect the sword for two minutes. She meanwhile will inspect the money in your pram. Is this all quite clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “After two minutes, you will wheel the pram with the sword back up toward Audley Street. The girl will go in the opposite direction. Incidentally, dear man, do have the money in something a trifle more convenient this time, will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “As for trying something clever, such as taking a picture of the girl, or finding out who she is, don’t bother. She will be hired for the afternoon and she will know absolutely nothing. Oh. One more thing. You will be watched, of course. Now is everything quite clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” said the man on the phone and hung up.

  I put down the phone and turned back toward Deskins. “Three all rights, one no, and five yeses,” he said. “Your telephone conversations aren’t too informative, are they?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  He stared at me for a long moment and then said, “Eddie Apex.”

  “What about him?”

  “You’re up to something with Eddie, something that smells, but I don’t know what.”

  “Why don’t you ask Eddie?”

  “I already have. This afternoon. I asked him about you and I asked him about poor Billie Batts.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said you were an old and good friend of his.”

  “What’s he say about Batts?”

  “He said he’d never heard of him and you know what I thought?”

  “What?”

  “I thought he was lying both times.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE CAB DRIVER DIDN’T like Tick-Tock Tamil’s address on Start Street in Paddington and he didn’t think that I should either.

  “You sure you got the right address, sir?”

  “I’m sure,” I said, handing over what was on the meter plus an adequate tip.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t go in there, not if they paid me.”

  “That’s because you’ve got good sense,” I said, but he was already driving off.

  I suspected that the house at 13 Start Street had never been much of an address, not even when it had been built eighty or ninety years before. It had always been ugly, this cramped three-story structure that was far too narrow and built of dark and dirty brick that made it virtually indistinguishable from the rows of houses that had been thrown up on both sides of it.

  What did distinguish 13 Start Street from its neighbors was that not all of its windows were broken out, or boarded up, as were the ones in the rest of the houses that lined the street. Across the way, old posters covered the vacant fronts of three shops that had once housed a dry cleaner, a butcher, and a tobacconist.

  It looked like a condemned street, condemned by time and decay, or perhaps by speculators, or even by the ruling local politicians who may have decided that they should substitute another square mile of gloomy council flats for another square mile of gloomy slum dwellings. Everyone else on the street had moved, or fled, except Tick-Tock Tamil who appeared to be the lone holdout. I assumed that he was exercising squatter’s rights at 13 Start Street and that whoever owned the building was having one hell of a time getting him out. I understand that if you know the ropes, you can do that in London—squat. Tick-Tock would certainly know the ropes.

  There was a bay window and to the right of it a short flight of steps. I went up the steps and knocked on the door. The bay window had curtains whose pattern of faded red and yellow roses was turned toward the street so that passersby could admire the occupant’s good taste. The curtain moved a little as someone peeked out. After a few moments a young blond girl, not much more than seventeen or eighteen, opened the door and let me look through her see-through blouse.

  “Hello, love,” she said. “Like to come to our party?”

  The blond hair had come out of a bottle or a tube, but she seemed to have spent a lot of time on it, and it hung down in carefully careless ringlets. Her face was pretty in a pinched sort of way, but she wore too much makeup, especially too much green eyeshadow. She took a deep breath so that I could have a better view of what lay beneath the see-through blouse. What there was, was fine.

  “Tick-Tock in?” I said.

  “I’m sure I don’t know who you mean.”

  “Mr. Tamil,” I said.

  “You a friend of his?”

  “Of long standing.”

  “You’re not the law.”

  “No.”

  “You know why I know you’re not the law?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’re American, ain’t you?” The “ain’t you” came out more like “einchew” and the rest of her words had a strong London tang. She was, I decided, a native daughter.

  “Why don’t you be a good girl and run tell Tick-Tock that I’d like to see him.”

  She shrugged and turned her head. “Tick-Tock!” she screamed.

  “What?” It was a man’s voice.

  “There’s a Yank here who says he’s a friend of yours.”

  He had changed. The last time I had seen him had been in the Ritz Bar and he had been wearing white tie and tails. It was one of his work uniforms then. On his head had been a white silk turban and in his pocket was a large, old-fashioned-looking watch, heavy enough to be made out of solid gold. Its back flipped open and there, in what appeared to be fine engraving, was inscribed, “To His Most Royal Highness from his Most Loyal Friend.” And underneath that was the single name: Curzon.

  “I move nearly a dozen of them a week,” Tick-Tock had told me as we had sat there drinking our whiskies under the Ritz Bar’s swooping pink and cream ceiling. “They bring anywhere from twenty to fifty pounds each—the average is about thirty-five.”

  “What do they cost you?” I had asked.

  “Five pounds.”

  “They look to be worth a lot more.”

  “I have a chap in Hammersmith who runs them up for me. We use American insides and case. It’s called a Westclox Railroad Special. We tried using Swiss works, but they don’t tick quite loudly enough, if you follow me.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, the engraving is not engraving at all. It’s stamped, of course. The face looks hand-painted, but it’s actually printed on special paper. And then we use a little lead here and there to give it weight.”

  “What about the gold?” I had said. “I’d swear that it was real gold.”

  “Oh, it is. But this chap in Hammersmith has his own method of electroplating. It spreads the gold so thin that if you just keep it in your pocket for a week or two, it will wear right through. I doubt that we use half an ounce on a hundred of them.”

  “How do you work it?”

  “You will change my name, of course, when you write it?”

  “That was the agreement.”

  “I really don’t know why I’m doing this.”

  “Because you’re going into something else,” I had said.

  “Yes. I suppose that’s it. But you wish to know how I work it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I work the older, better educated types, the ones who might recall or even care that Curzon was once viceroy of India—from 1899 to about 1905, I believe. Take that one over there—to your left.”

  I had looked to where an elderly type in a dinner jacket had been sitting for some time with a woman of about his own age.

  “He’ll be off to drop his penny in a moment,” Tamil had said. “I suggest that you go first, sit yourself down, and then you can hear it all, even if you won’t be able to see it”

  “Okay,” I had said and a few moments later I had found myself sitting on a toilet seat behind the closed door of a stall in the men’s room of the Ritz Bar.

  Tick-Tock had started the conversation in his impeccable accent. “I say, aren’t you Sir John Forest?” />
  “No,” I had heard the elderly gentleman say. “I’m afraid I’m not.”

  “Oh, I am sorry. There’s such an extraordinary resemblance, but I suppose you’re accustomed to it, being taken for him, I mean. I knew Sir John’s son at school. You do know Sir John, don’t you?”

  “No. I don’t know him.”

  “Extraordinary resemblance.” There had been a pause and then Tick-Tock had said, “Oh, damn. I wonder if I’m running late? Do you have the time?”

  “Quarter past nine.”

  Tick-Tock had chuckled. “Well, once more this old watch of mine is right and I’m wrong. But I don’t really think that it’s been more than a few seconds off since Lord Curzon gave it to Grandfather.”

  “Curzon?”

  “Yes. When he was viceroy, you know. There’s rather a touching inscription on the back, if you’d care to see it.”

  “Well, yes, I’d rather like that.”

  The elderly gentleman had read it out. “‘To his most royal highness from his most loyal friend. Curzon.’ Well. Your grandfather, you say. Then you must be—”

  Tick-Tock had interrupted. “Yes, I am, although I’m trying to be incognito, for tonight, at least. But this American reporter has tracked me down and I simply can’t shake him. Perhaps you noticed him at the bar?”

  “Can’t say I did.”

  “Actually, the reason that I’ve gone to ground, so to speak, is not because of the American, but because of this blasted watch.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. In point of fact, a chap from the British Museum has been after me night and day. They seem to want it most desperately and this chap was even so cheeky as to offer me a thousand pounds for the thing.”

  “A thousand pounds, eh?”

  “I was tempted, if only to get rid of him. But I sent him packing, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then there was this private collector who offered me five thousand for it. But he was Greek and you know what they’re like.”

  “Damned rascals, most of them.”

  “Well, I must be going. This American reporter wants to do a story for his paper—The New York Times, I believe—on my London. It’s, well, it’s the London that you and I know, of course. Most Americans don’t often see it.”