“Mine, unfortunately, are already gone. Expenses and such. I had a tab, you see.”
“Oh, I bet you did. How about you, Ralph? You got any of those bills left?”
Ralph reached into this pants pocket, pulled out a gold money clip with some sort of a medallion on it, drew out the wad, unfolded it.
“Aw, man,” said Joey, “you been holding out on me. Didn’t I just ask you for a tenner?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have it,” said Ralph as he plucked from the wad two hundred-dollar bills.
The bills he handed me were new and crisp, like they had been dealt from a thick stack fresh from the mint. I waved them below my nose, taking in the newly printed scent of the inks. And something else. I sniffed them again, more deeply this time. Something flowery, something precious. Son of a bitch.
Lavender Hill.
24
“Victor Carl here.”
“Hello, Victor. How pleasant to hear your sweet voice. You left a message on my cell?”
“Lavender?”
“’Tis I.”
“Lav, dude, you’re killing me.”
“Oh, Victor, let’s be clear about a few things. First of all, I am not and never have been a dude. Put the skateboard away and remember that you are on the far side of sixteen. As for the second part of your execrable sentence, the part about my killing you, rest assured it could be arranged.”
“Not amusing.”
“How gratifying, because it is not my goal in life to amuse you. Those we find amusing are not taken seriously, and let me caution you, Victor, I may twitter and chirp, but you need to take me, my offer, and my concerns, very seriously. There have been inquiries about my person in the city of my current residence. I find that quite distasteful.”
“You didn’t think I’d check you out?”
“I had hoped you’d show a bit more discretion. But it was almost as if your man doing the inquiries wanted word to get out that I was being looked at. Victor, there is an element of public humiliation in such an inquiry that sets my teeth to grinding. Tell your investigator to cut it out, boy, or I’ll find something else to cut.”
“You know, Lav, you’re a lot less genial over the phone.”
“I am not happy with you, and it is too much of strain to be genial when one is not happy. Bad for the skin.”
“Well, color me unhappy, too, Lav, dude. Because I met up with Joey and Ralph today. Remember them? The two old guys you collared one night and gave a couple hundred each, in hard cash that smells suspiciously of your precious scent?”
“How impolitic of them to show you the bills, and how clever of you to notice. I suppose I’ll have to do something about that.”
“The two old men left me with the impression that you were trying to bypass my client and buy the painting from them.”
“What did you expect, Victor? I’ve been pining for you, and yet there was no word, no message, nothing. I have been feeling ever so unrequited.”
“I haven’t been able to talk to my client since our meeting. He’s on the run, he’s not easily accessible.”
“Try harder.”
“You’re making everything more difficult.”
“Making life harder on lawyers is nothing I trouble myself about. As for your client, I’m merely giving him options. He can decide to take the money himself or to share it with his friends. And if those old comrades put pressure on him to make the right decision, so much the better.”
“What you’ve done is made it more difficult for him to return the painting to the museum.”
“Exactly, dear boy.”
“Making you the more attractive landing place for Mr. Rembrandt.”
“Yes, yes, you have seen through me like a ghost.”
“You negotiate like a shark.”
“I negotiate like a hyena, Victor, with a modicum of hilarity. But I close like a shark.”
“I bet you do, Lav. How did you find those guys anyway?”
“Are you underestimating me, Victor? I hope so. It makes everything easier. Now, be advised that I have many virtues, a certain compassion for small animals and a talent for the rumba among them, but patience, I’m afraid, is not included. I am not a patient man, and neither is the man I represent. Move quickly, Victor, or I’ll be forced to move myself.”
“To Cleveland?”
“No, to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
“Staggeringly unpleasant.”
“VICTOR CARL HERE.”
“Hi, Victor, it’s me.”
“You?”
“Yes, me. And I was just sitting here thinking about you.”
“About me?”
“Of course you, silly, and I thought I’d give you a call.”
“That’s nice, I suppose.”
“So how are you doing?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“Did you see the game? The Phillies lost today. I’m always a little depressed when the Phils lose.”
“I don’t think they make enough Prozac.”
“I used to date a Phillie. A middle reliever.”
“With the state of the bullpen the last couple of years, that must have been hard.”
“God, yes. Every time he blew a lead, I’d hear about it from everyone at the club. ‘Yo, your boyfriend sucks.’ Like it was my fault his slider didn’t slide. But then they traded him to Seattle, so that was that.”
“Too bad.”
“Well, he really wasn’t very good. On the other hand, he signed a two-year, $4.7 million contract, so he had that going for him.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Who are you?”
“Mon.”
“Excuse me?”
“Monica. Monica Adair. Remember?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Monica. Yes. Right. Monica. From Lola’s whatever. The one with the missing sister. Okay, now I get it. How’s it going?”
“Well, the Phils lost.”
“And why did you call?”
“Most guys, when they take me out on a date and it goes well, the next night they show up at the club. At least to get another look. So I expected to see you sometime soon, but you haven’t been back.”
“We didn’t have a date, Monica.”
“We ate together.”
“You did most of the eating.”
“At a restaurant.”
“A diner.”
“And you paid.”
“I was being mannerly.”
“That wasn’t a date?”
“No.”
“Wow. I kind of missed those signals, didn’t I?”
“Sorry about that. We were just discussing your sister. You seemed to want to talk about her, so I agreed to listen.”
“You brought her up.”
“No, just the name. It was obvious pretty early on that we were talking about two different people. The Chantal Adair I’m looking for is not your sister.”
“You sure?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why are you looking for her anyway? You never told me.”
“It’s not important.”
“You want to keep it private, I understand.”
“It’s no big deal. But, Monica, really, though it’s nice to talk to you and all, I have to go.”
“Is your girlfriend calling for you?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“So you’re married?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Pause. “I see. It’s like that, is it?”
“Like what?”
“You don’t date strippers.”
“Well, I haven’t as of yet.”
“Don’t worry, we get that a lot. You’d be surprised how many men go to the club to let us rub their bald little heads with our breasts but wouldn’t think of dating one of us.”
“I’m not one of those guys.”
“Like you’d have no problem taking a stripper home to Mommy.”
“With my mother, actually, no. Pump enough vodka into her and she’d join you on the pole. But that’s not what I meant. I meant I don’t go to those kinds of clubs.”
“But you went to Club Lola that night.”
“To see you, to ask about the name, that’s all.”
“Why again did you ask about the name?”
“Really, Monica, I have to go.”