By this time, he was convinced that Levine had called his boy off, and he was soaked with sweat and covered with grime, but he felt good, as if he was working again, as if he was in first-class gumshoe shape. He was psyching himself up; talking himself into it; going undercover, deep undercover.
He could see the boat-hire dock on the Serpentine from the deck of the restaurant. He sipped an iced coffee and waited. He had a good hour before Colin was supposed to show up. Time enough to check out the terrain, time enough to be ready if anyone was setting him up. Neal Carey wasn’t taking any chances.
“I cant swim, rugger,” Colin warned as he gently lowered himself into the little squat paddleboat.
“I’ll save you,” Neal answered. He watched Allie, Crisp, and Vanessa getting into another boat. Neal was having a good time, and taking a little spin around the manmade lake in the center of Hyde Park wasn’t a bad way to kill a sweaty afternoon. And he enjoyed Colin’s discomfiture.
They paddled out toward the middle of the Serpentine and then just let the boat drift. Neal placed his jacket on the bottom of the boat and lay down on top of it. It felt gloriously cool down there. He left Colin sitting up in the heat. In the distance, he could hear Crisp and Vanessa singing at the top of their lungs-some song he didn’t recognize but guessed was a butchery of Gilbert and Sullivan.
“So what is it, rugger?”
Careful, Neal lad, he thought to himself. This is it.
“My client is over here buying a book.”
“I hope you’re ‘avin’ me on.”
“The book is worth twenty thousand pounds.”
That got your attention, didn’t it, Colin?
“What book is worth twenty thousand quid?” Colin asked suspiciously.
“The Pickle.”
He went through the whole thing. About Smollett, the first and second editions, Lady Vane, the trip to Italy, the missing volumes.
When he had finished, Colin said, “So?”
“So our client, the guy I’m doing security for, just bought it for ten thousand pounds.”
“Ten in’t twenty, lad.”
“And I know someone who’ll buy it for twenty, Colin baby.”
And I have you hooked, Neal thought. Colin was only a silhouette at the moment, but the silhouette was leaning way forward, listening hard.
“You can get ’old of this book?”
“With your help.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Jesus Christ!”
The boat rocked suddenly. Neal saw a head bobbing in the water. Then the head came over the side of the boat.
“Alice, for bleeding Jesus’s sake…?”
“I felt like a swim.”
She hauled herself into their boat. “I was lonely,” she said. “I missed you. Besides, look what those assholes are doing over there.”
Those assholes Crisp and Vanessa were ramming their paddleboat into any other boat they could catch. They were at this moment in hot pursuit of a pair of Japanese tourists. Security guards at the dock were climbing into a rowboat.
“Jump back in, love. Me and Neal are ‘aving a business discussion.”
“Let her stay. It’s about her.”
“What about me?”
“I want you to ball a guy.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand pounds.”
“What, is he really gross or something?”
They barely outpaddled the water cops, who had picked Crisp and Vanessa up and wanted the whole gang. The Japanese couple had abandoned ship, however, necessitating a rather complicated bilingual rescue effort, which gave Neal and his crew time to paddle to shore, dump the boat in some bushes, and run out to Rotten Row. They hailed a cab at Alexandra Gate.
“Westminster Bridge,” Neal told the cabbie.
“I’m not balling anybody on Westminster Bridge,” said Allie.
“Ten thousand,” Colin said.
“Five, and there’s more to it.”
“I’m not balling anybody on Westminster Bridge.”
“Ten or forget it.”
“Forget what?”
“Where on Westminster Bridge?” the driver asked.
“No place,” said Allie.
“Just on the Embankment is fine.”
Neal paid the cabbie and started across the pedestrian walkway on the bridge. The view up and down the Thames was one of his favorites. It might be the best spot to see London, he thought, and he stopped about halfway across to take it in. Off to his right was a postcard view of the tower of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. To his right stretched Victoria Embankment. Right in front of him was Colin.
“Seven, then.”
Neal turned his back and leaned over the railing on the downriver side, “Thursday night, Goldman’s wife is going to a concert at Albert Hall. Goldman doesn’t want to go, says he hates that stuff and he’s going to the latest James Bond flick at the Odeon. But what he really wants is to get laid. I mean laid. He wants me to set him up. So I told him okay, I’ve worked it out. He’s going to go to my room to do it, in case the old lady gets bored, comes back early.”
“What-”
“Shut up and listen. He keeps the books in a locked briefcase in his room. While he’s making happy in my room, I’m going to be in his… guarding the briefcase.”
“They’re goin’ to figure out it was you.”
“No shit. The agency will send people. In fact, I know just the guy they’ll send. Guy named Levine. Very big, very tough. I’m going to need to disappear for a while. Can you handle that?”
“Sure.”
“If things get rough?”
“I’ll get rougher.”
Neal leaned farther over the railing, pretending to think it over. Let Colin see thousands of quid slipping away. “I don’t know, Colin. I’m taking a big risk here…”
“Take it.”
Neal turned around and rested his back against the railing. He took his time checking out the boats and barges in the river below him. He studied Waterloo Bridge as if he was thinking of buying it. He looked from Colin to Allie to Colin to Allie and back again. Allie could not care less. Colin would sell Alice to the gypsies for a shot at five thousand pounds. Neal knew a few things about scams. One thing was that you never talk anybody into a scam; you let them talk you into it. He ran his reluctant-virgin act for just a few more seconds.
“All right,” he said. “But it’s going to take some preparation.”
“One more time,” Neal said.
A collective sigh filled Colin’s flat. They’d already been at it for three hours and gone through it several dozen times, and fucking Neal had banned all alcohol, hash, pills, and smack from the planning session.
“Come on,” he repeated.
Crisp recited, “Colin and me wait outside the ’otel-”
“And-”
“An’ I try to dress like a human being. Neal points out missus goin’ as she comes ou’ the door. Colin and me follow ’er an’ stick to ’er like glue.”
“Good. Why?”
“Ya didn’t ask why before,” Crisp whined.
“Tell me why, you can have a pint.”
Four people instantly volunteered the answer. Neal hushed them and looked at Crisp. “Yes?”
“Because, if the missus gets bored a’ the concert-which personally I can’t imagine-she might decide to come ‘ome an’ that would fuck up the ’ole thing.”
“Correct.” Neal heard echoes of Joe Graham telling him to always fill his lies with lots of details. You have to keep Crisp and Colin out of the way for a while, so give them a mission and make them concentrate on it.
Neal took a bottle from his bag and dangled it in front of Crisp. “Then what would you do?”
“Get to a phone box and ring you.”
“Where?”
“Goldman’s room.”
“When?”
Crisp grinned proudly. “Right away.”
Neal tossed him the bottle and looked at Colin.
“I stay with the missus and find a way to stall ’er.”
“But…”
“I don’t ’urt ’er.”