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The Great California Game

Lovejoy

Jonathan Gash

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Contents

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PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books USA Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in the United States of America by St. Martin’s Press

Reprinted by arrangement with St. Martin’s Press

Published in Penguin Books 1992

Copyright ©Jonathan Gash, 1991 All rights reserved

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGUED THE HARDCOVER AS FOLLOWS:

Gash, Jonathan. The great California game / Jonathan Gash.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-06363-6 (hc.)

ISBN 0 14 01.7224 6 (pbk.)

I. Title.

PR6057.A728G74 1991

813'.914—dc20 91-20653

also by Jonathan Gash

The Sin Within Her Smile

Paid and Loving Eyes

The Lies of Fair Ladies

The Very Last Gambado

Jade Woman

Moonspender

The Tartan Sell

Pearlhanger

Firefly Gadroon

The Gondola Scam

The Vatican Rip

Spend Game

The Grail Tree

Gold by Gemini

The Judas Pair

The Sleepers of Erin

For

Joan Kahn, with love

This book is respectfully dedicated to

the Chinese god Kuan Ti, patron saint of

wandering antique dealers far from home

Lovejoy

CHAPTER ONE

^ »

IN antiques, everything is women.

Everything else is America.

I’m a convert to America. Like a nerk, I’d always assumed the Olde Worlde was a cut above the Yanks. Now? Now, I can’t honestly see why they bother with the rest of us. They’ve got everything. Like beauty. Antiques. Wealth. And, strangely, innocence. So if you’re a confirmed Ami-hater, better swap tins quick for some improving literature, because this story’s how I fell in love with the place through the genteel world of antiques — meaning the hard way, via murder, robbery, fraud, larceny.

Antiques make you live that way. I’m an antique dealer, every breath I breathe.

I’d been in New York three days, and seen nothing but hurrying crowds. I worked in a bar eatery. From nothing, I’d already worked myself up to the lowest of the low.

THE Benidormo Hotel was as cheap as dinge could make it. The dozy bloke at the reception desk—a couple of planks flaking paint — made me pay a night’s advance. His job was watching quiz shows. I tried to sound American, wrote my name as R. E. Lee, didn’t tell him I’d just arrived from Hong Kong with nearly nowt, and found the right floor by trudging because I mistrust lifts.

A bird saw me in the gloomy corridor, a place for assassins. She was pleasantly laconic, overpainted. A little lad trailed her. I’m hopeless about kids’ ages. Seven, eight?

“Can I help?”

“No, thank you.” The key tag said this was it.

She followed, stood looking from the doorway. “I mean can I… help. Twenty dollars’ worth.”

I gauged her. This young, they should be at home worrying about term exams. “Unless you know where a job’s going.”

She appraised me more frankly than I had her. I felt weighed. “What can you do?”

“Anything.”

“That means you can do shit,” she said elegantly. I was trying to appear cool and streetwise, but women can always suss me. “How long’re you here?”

“Until I get enough to travel. I’m from California, studying in England.”

“Don’t give me shit.” She made up her mind. “I’m Magda, next door. No banging the walls when I’m working, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” That didn’t sound slick New Yorkese. “Sure,” I amended quickly. “Lovejoy.”

She nodded. “Whatever you say, Mr Lee. You’re weird, y’know that? Try Fredo. Manfredi’s. He kicked a counterman.”

“Fo’ crackin’ n’ smackin’.” The little lad rolled his eyes to show drug dementia.

How had a kid this young learned about ecstasy? Magda saw my shock and said, “Zole, meet Lovejoy. Short for Zola.”

“He’s soft sheet,” Zole said with scorn. “So’s Zola.”

Maybe her brother? “Howdy, Zole. What time does Mr Fredo open?

Her eyes widened. “Where you say you’re from?” She gave me one of those number sequences which are pinpoint addresses in this extraordinary country. “Get over there, Lovejoy. People’l! be standing in line.

I thanked her, locked my door and left. She too was leaving, would have held back but I dithered so we left together, Zole trailing and bouncing a worn tennis ball. I warmed to her. Considerate. I just didn’t like the way she had me down as a prude. We walked a little way then she stepped into a doorway and wished me luck with the job. It might have hurt her feelings had I wished her luck with hers, so I merely said so long.

“So long, Rube,” Zole called with derision. What did Zole do while Magda took her clients upstairs? A New York problem. Unsolvable.

“LOVEJOY? Take the bar.”

“Right, Fredo.”

“And that jerk’s a chiseller. Watch the bucks.”

“Right, guv.“ He meant a man at the end might try to evade paying. I didn’t know quite what a jerk meant, but it isn’t praise.

Manfredi’s was as crowded as I’d yet seen it. I’d been lucky: Magda’s name had counted; Fredo gave me a chance because some employee had Monday bottle sickness. That first night I’d worked until closing time, frightened by the sense of this big city. I’d got myself hired, and threatened about behaviour.

The drinks were a difficulty, contents I’d never encountered before, but at least I could clear tables and wash the bar counter.

Fredo watched all dozen of us workers like a hawk. The first day I’d seen him fire two of the blokes for fiddling money and general slowness. It taught me New York’s message: earn your pay, or else. By the evening of the second day I’d memorized every drink, their prices, was hired on a daily basis.

“Guv? What’s with this guv?” Fredo asked.

Fredo often looked at me, amused by my strange speech.

“Ah, it means boss, Fredo. Picked it up from the, er, Limeys.”

He chuckled, an amiable man. “Sir yesterday, guv this. We’ll talk English, yet!”

I chuckled along, grovelling being my strong suit when poverty’s trumps. I’d stuck to the story I’d told Magda: I was heading back to California after years of studies in London. Lies come naturally to an antique dealer. I hinted I had a girl in New York, which was why I wanted this job.