“Sounds like a con talk. Why all the mystery?”
“Con? You mean... confidence man? Forget it, Clayton! Finish eating and I'll drive you back to town.” His handsome face was dark with anger.
“Cool it, Hank. How can I decide when I haven't the faintest idea of what I'm to do?”
“Merely decide to make more money than you've ever seen! You invest nothing, although there may be an element of risk.”
“Risk? Doing what?”
“Can't you understand—if I explain things to you, there's no backing out or... Let me put it this way: the risk involved is small compared to the risk if you refuse—once you know the details.”
“Well... I have to think... about whatever this is,” I said, confused.
“I've misjudged you,” Hank said, impatiently, puffing hard on his cigar. “Forget the whole thing... I was merely joking...”
“How did you misjudge me?” Staring at me hard, he said coldly, “I was certain you'd sell your soul—forgive the trite phrase—for a fat buck.”
I was so upset I couldn't eat. “You've got a hell of a high opinion of me. Henri, I thought we were friends?”
“We are, or I wouldn't be risking my life talking to you. Clayton, the world is full of hustlers, everybody has larceny in them—it's the intelligent man who admits it, isn't afraid to take it from there. I'm also in this for the fast franc. Honesty means facing up to life. Clayton, you're a snot-nose.”
“Thanks!” His eyes seemed to be grinning at me —although the thin mouth was a stern line—as if enjoying my hurt. The hell of it was: I knew I felt the way many of my girls must have—when I was brushing them off.
“A snot-nose kid is cute, or merely annoying, but to find a forty-year-old...”
“I'm only thirty-nine, louse!”
“Biner, you're a tramp. A painting bum is no better than any other kind of tramp. In your case, there's not even the excuse of talent. You've been a pimp with a brush, a small time...”
“You're blowing hard—for a smug old man with a bad ticker!” I cut in, showing him the check from the New York City gallery. “Even if you can't, they sold one of my abstracts! You've heard of this gallery—big time.”
Hank laughed in my face. “Clayton, remember who you're talking to! I can sell a piece of used toilet paper if it's framed right! One sale doesn't prove a goddamn thing.”
“I thought you liked my work? Hung it halfway back in your shop, so...”
“I didn't bring you here to discuss art. You've learned a little technique, have a nice feeling for color. Right now you're a primitive—but you'll never be another Grandma Moses, believe me! Best you can ever become is a bad commercial artist who... Clayton, since you've never done an honest lick of work in your life, don't act goddamn offended when I offer you a chance to turn a large trick!”
“As a gallery owner, living off the talents of others, you shouldn't knock pimping! And Hank, what the devil do you know of honest work? You think a season as second tackle on a pro football team was a piece of soggy cake? Sure, I left it because modeling was easier money, and if I've tried making it as an artist, so what? Just you damn well remember I've always been a working artist! I've kept producing, good or bad, working hard at my... Hank, as of this second you represent nothing but a sharp pain in my can!”
His charming smile turned gentle again as he held up a slim hand. “Arguing will not get us anyplace. Clayton, I offered you a good proposition and all you do is start playing things coy.”
“You've been beating around a fat bush, what did you expect me to say?”
“To shout yes at the chance to make quiet money, ask what it's all about later!” He started to stand. “Come, I shall drive you back.”
“Easy, Hank, old boy; I never said I wasn't interested. It's... How come you never mentioned this... eh... great deal before, during all the months I've known you? When I'm rushing to go home, after a hell of a rugged day, you pop off with a hazy offer.”
“Hazy?” Hank stared at me again, eyes angry. “You haven't been listening to me carefully: told you I'm risking my life talking about this! That's the kind of deal this can be—I can say no more. Are you interested or not? Yes or no!”
“Interested,” I mumbled, certain he was putting on some kind of act—his cracks about my work still steaming me.
“You clearly understand, once I tell you the details, there's no backing out—whether you like the deal or not? They'll see to that.”
“Who's 'they'?
Hank placed his palms flat on the metal table, shrugged. “Frankly, I don't know. But 'they' won't hesitate at murder. Be absolutely certain you want in, Clayton.”
I started eating again, and talking. “One second you're nagging, insulting me because I didn't jump through the hoop. Now, you seem to be discouraging me. Talk about playing it coy...!”
“Merely reminding you there's no turning back.”
“Okay. I'm in.”
“You're positive?”
“I'm in... in... in,” I told him, hamming it up, a trifle bored with his silly games.
Hank motioned for the waiter. “Finish your sandwich in the car, while I tell you the details.”
When I was sitting on the front seat, stuffing my fat trap with the last of the roast beef, Hank reached for a package on the rear seat. Unwrapping it, he held up one of the big, ugly glass cats he sold. “Clayton, tonight you will take such a cat back to New York City. Tomorrow you register at a certain hotel. Within a few hours a man calls for the statue. He will pay you fifty thousand dollars, take the cat with him. That's it.”
Brushing crumbs from my face, I waited for the punch line to this sorry gag. “Fifty big bills for carrying one of these crummy cats? What's it made of, gold?”
“The modern day gold, Clayton... inside the cat will be seven kilos of the purest heroin.”
CHAPTER 6
“... so many people enter the USA, or any other country, it's a physical impossibility for Customs to thoroughly check everybody. When they do bag a smuggler, it's the result of a tip-off, the reward for informing. Most smugglers work on a small scale, making regular trips—word gets around and they're caught. We're only doing it once—one big haul. Few people are in on our deal—no chance of anybody blowing the whistle. I myself don't know who's the top man, and no one can know you're the courier—I hadn't picked you until an hour ago, when I read you were being deported. There's no reason for you to be suspected: you'll have a bill of sale, dated last month, showing you bought the cat at a small shop in Cagnes, for 72 NF. The statue is perfect, cloudy crystal with the inside mirrored —to all appearances a solid piece of cheap crystal. In New York you go to the Hotel Tran, on West 46th Street, register and wait...”
“Not under my right name!” I cut in, hoping my voice didn't shake. Sitting beside Henri on the front seat of his car, I felt numb—unreal. I'd done many petty and lousy things, but never anything outright criminal... like this.