“Known to us, major players, half a dozen.”
“You could let me have the names?”
Jackie Ferris pursed her lips and exhaled. “You know how it is, Charlie. These days especially. Nothing for nothing. But, yes, I’m sure we could do a deal.”
The girl in gold leggings talking to Eddie Snow was so thin you could have sucked her up through a straw. Grabi-anski stood there for several moments watching, sharing the corner door-space of the Market Bar with a tall black guy sporting silver and lime green. The black guy looking out, Grabianski looking in.
Eddie Snow was sitting on a stool pulled up to the bar, the girl standing close beside him, Eddie’s forefinger easing its way along the cleft of her behind. Above their heads, what looked like several generations of wax cascaded down from heavy iron candle holders. Today Eddie was wearing his black leather trousers with a black roll-neck top, the sleeves pushed back along sinewy arms.
The room was shaped like an L, high-ceilinged, tables ranging along both outside walls beneath windows opening out on to the street. Not late enough to be really crowded, the space between tables and bar was thick enough with drinkers that Grabianski had to excuse himself to pass through.
The old man in the corner aside, the mouth of whose white beard was stained ginger with nicotine, Grabianski thought he and Eddie Snow were the oldest in there by at least ten years.
“Eddie.” Grabianski held out his hand but Snow ignored it, patting the matchstick girl proprietorially instead. “Later, babe.”
Without giving Grabianski a second glance, she stepped away on the slenderest of high heels, and Grabianski leaned forward to order a pint of Caffreys at the bar.
“You know the kind of money she can get,” Snow said, eyes following the girl, “few times down the catwalk, couple of fancy turns? You just wouldn’t believe.”
The bartender held Grabianski’s twenty up to the light.
Snow readjusted his position on the stool. “I’ve been asking questions about you.” He was drinking Pernod with a splash of lemonade.
“I should hope so.”
“Word is, you and Vernon Thackray are like that.” Snow cradled his long fingers together and squeezed tight.
Grabianski slipped his change down into his pocket; the cloudiness was slowly disappearing from his beer, leaving it light and clear. “I suggest you ask again.”
“You saying it’s wrong?”
“I’m saying it’s stale news.”
“Thackray, he’s not interested in these Dalzeils?”
“Once upon a time.”
“Oh, yes, how’s that story go?”
“Look,” Grabianski said, “never mind all that. Do you want to do business or not?”
Snow put on a show of being surprised. “Why all the sudden urgency?” he said.
Behind them the general conversation lulled and Grabianski recognized the music that was playing without being able to give it a name.
“Clapton,” Eddie Snow said, “‘Tears in Heaven.’ Poor bastard. How d’you hope to get over a thing like that?”
“Let’s just say I’d like to realize some profit, move on.”
“Not anxious, then?”
“Anxious?”
“These friends of yours, police, not nosing uncomfortably around?”
“I don’t have friends in the police.”
“Not what I’ve heard.”
Grabianski leaned closer toward him. “I’ve already told you, you’re hearing wrong.”
Snow caught the bartender’s eye and another Pernod appeared. “Unnecessary chances,” he said, “it’s what I can’t afford to take.”
Grabianski drank some more of his beer, set the unfinished glass back down, and turned around. Snow detained him, a hand on his arm.
“No call to take offense.”
“Offense nothing. Have you got a buyer or not?”
“Thackray and myself crossing swords, conflict of interest, I should want to avoid that.”
“So you have?”
“Thackray …”
“Forget him.”
“I might have, yes. Overseas, of course. Percentages’ll be high.”
“But you can do the deal?”
Snow nodded. “I shall need to see the paintings, of course. And the buyer, he’ll want verification. In writing. Too many forgeries about these days by half.”
“So arrange it,” Grabianski said. “Whatever’s needed. I’ve done my part.” The bar was more crowded now, jostling up against him where he stood.
“If I can look at the paintings tomorrow afternoon, bring someone with me, someone I trust. Long as that goes okay, I can start setting things up, putting out feelers, you know the way it goes.”
Grabianski nodded. “Tomorrow then. I’ll call you first thing.”
“Right.” Suddenly Snow was standing, fingers tight round Grabi-anski’s wrist, the smell of aniseed sharp on his breath. “But if I find out you’re setting me up …”
“Tomorrow,” Grabianski repeated. “First thing.”
Back out on the street, Grabianski could feel the sweat, slicked over his body like a second skin.
Resnick had called Hannah three times and each time got her machine. Bored, he watched fully fifteen minutes’ television in the hotel where he was staying, one of several fending off dilapidation close to Euston station. A bus took him through the low-rent ravages of King’s Cross to the Angel, where Jackie Ferris had recommended a restaurant near Chapel Market. Cheapish and good.
It turned out to be French, the cooking done behind the counter in a space no bigger than a half-size snooker table. He settled for the onion soup, then lamb’s liver, which was tasty and tender, a nice pinkish turn of blood drifting into the accompanying rice and courgettes.
The names Jackie Ferris had given him, printed out neatly on a single sheet, were folded inside the smart new notebook he had requisitioned from the stationery manager that morning:
Hugo Levin
Bernard Martlet
Maria Rush
Martin Sansom
Edward Snow
Vernon Thackray
David Wood
All with London numbers save Martlet, who lived in Brighton, and Thackray, whose address was in Aldeburgh. But Resnick knew that already: it was Thackray who had called on Miriam Johnson, offering to buy the paintings; Thackray whose line was now, seemingly, disconnected.
He struggled to say no to crème brûlée, accepted losing with a brave face, and asked for a double espresso and the bill. According to Jackie, the club he was going to was only a short walk away and he didn’t want to miss the first set.
There was no way Resnick could have known, but Grabianski’s grandmother-not the Polish one, but the English-had brought him here, to Chapel Market, on her rare trips north of the river. Cheap vegetables, stockings, birthday cards, and cheese, off they would go, staggering home, weighed down with bargains and with young Jerzy struggling to keep his string bag from dragging on the ground. But not before they had shuffled into the eel and pie shop for steak and kidney pie and mash, Jerzy’s head just level with the counter and the edge of his white china plate.
The street that Resnick walked along was thick with refuse from that day’s market, crates and boxes interlaced with bright blue paper, rotting oranges, grapes, onions oozing pus.
The Rhythmic was on the left-hand side, beyond where the market proper ended. The main room was large, larger than Resnick had anticipated, the half immediately facing him set out with tables for dining. He had time to buy a bottle of Budvar and find leaning space along the side wall before the lights dimmed and, after a brief announcement, Jessica Williams came on stage.
Tall, red-haired, and wearing a long, loose flowing dress, she sat at the piano and for a moment fidgeted with the height of the stool. Even before she began playing, fingers hesitating above the keys, Resnick had noticed the size of her hands. Then, without introduction, she launched into “I Should Care.” Almost deferentially at first, brushing the tune around its edges, feeling her way freshly into a melody she must have played-and Resnick heard-a hundred times. Ten minutes later, when she had exhausted every variation, left hand finally rocking through a stride pattern that would have made James P. Johnson or Fats Waller beam with pleasure, she finished to a roar of disbelieving applause.