I drew her to one side as the chatter reasserted itself. We were by the rail, landward side. “A few more linens, Blanche, please,” whittled the gathering down.
That left Sophie Brandau and myself. Fussing like I imagined a meticulous waiter would, I blotted the brocade. It was near the hem, and took a few minutes. During it, I passed comments on the surroundings. Which made me notice the man in the motor opposite the pier. He didn’t look much like a photographer, but the motionless Wildlife Internations van nearby with its odd black-sheening windows could be full of them. He was talking into a car phone. So?
On board, however, Mrs. Brandau and me were no longer the centre of attention. I placed everything on the tray, and happened to notice her face with a start of astonishment. Overacting, of course.
“Good heavens!” I said. “I remember you now! That beautiful sautoir, wasn’t it?”
The diamond chain was there, worn as it should be from both shoulders (I hate the one-shoulder sur l’epaule style so popular in nineteeth-century France, because what the hell’s the pendant to do?) The pendant was there, tassel shape, four compound strands. Diamonds genuine as genuine is, and antique old. The central diamond was huge, bigger than the poor lumbering zircon she’d substituted for it. Seventeen carats? Nearer twenty, and brilliant-cut, which was good going for that kind of date.
“You noticed,” she said, quiet and pale.
“Did I stare? I apologize, Mrs. Brandau.”
You have to feel sorry for any woman caught out in deception. It’s routine for a man. Okay, when some bird rumbles you it’s uncomfortable for a few weeks—well, ten minutes—but then you get over it and life’s rich pageant rolls on. “I said nothing, about the pendant.”
“I guessed from the way you looked at it,” she said. ”You’re Lovejoy? The one Nicko had the trouble with over the furniture?”
That sounded nasty. “I’m the one who advised Nicko how not to ruin his antique,” I corrected stiffly.
“You’ve become quite a joke,” she said, not even near laughing. “Facing Nicko down over a wine stain.”
I said, narked, “We don’t deserve the antiques we’ve got. The moron you got to dock your sautoir pendant and substitute with zircons wants locking up.”
“You’re good at antiques?” Her eyes were so sad, but still wearing that calculating quality women find hard to forgive themselves for. “Can you do valuations?”
“Accurately. But…” I hesitated. Her eyes were lovely, brown, deep and broad in a slender face. She looked out of place among this lot. “But sometimes people don’t like the truth. Antiques deserve it.” Well, hang veracity. I’d got orders.
“And restorations? Antiques firms give such conflicting opinions.” She said it like lines in a rehearsal. She’d been as glad of the spillage excuse as I. Maybe she had orders, too.
“They would,” I said with feeling. “Valuation companies are on the fiddle. I do everything free—for genuine antiques, that is.” I don’t, of course. Never have. But my life might be at stake.
She thought a second. A gust of laughter rose from the party over something political.
“Tell one of the waitresses to get me a bitter soda, Lovejoy,” she said quickly. “The Game starts soon. When it’s quiet, bring me a drink to my cabin. It’s zero two zero.”
American for twenty. “Right. What drink, exactly?”
She stared at me, shook her head as if having difficulty. “Anything convincing, Lovejoy.”
What drink was convincing, in Long Island Sound?
“Will there be a stain?” she was asking pointedly as people started drifting from the canopied arena. I recognized feminine obfuscation at work, and loudly played along.
“Certainly not, Mrs. Brandau.” I felt like telling her it hadn’t been wine, only water, another of my deceits, but I needed all my honesty in reserve. One of the guests was now in a military uniform, I saw as I made my way back to Bill. I hadn’t noticed any general arriving. What was it, fancy dress? But ranks above corporal are where the Mysterious Orient begins, as far as I’m concerned.
“Here, Bill. What’s three stars mean?”
“They mean you saw nuttin’, Lovejoy.” Bill was flipping a last-minute cocktail for Kelly Palumba, who was now sloshed. She giggled.
“Hey, Lovejoy! Tell this hunk I’m gonna get some work outa him real soon…”
Epsilon was pouting. “I have to go, Kelly. See you here in an hour.” What card game lasts exactly an hour?
“That’s time enough,” Kelly told Bill. A woman leering is not a pretty sight. I was glad when she started to slide.
I caught her as her knees buckled. Blanche and two waitresses flew up, hustling her out of sight with that concealed anger they reserve for a transgressing sister.
The party was thinning. Seeing nuttin’, I didn’t notice Denzie Brandau smoothing Moira Hawkins’s bottom as they strolled off together. Nor did I notice the covert sign the Monsignor made to the General, fingers tapping palms in the universal let’s-cut-percent-ages plot. Nor the unconcerned way Nicko indicated his watch when Jennie started rounding up the strays like an eager sheepdog.
But I did notice the way Bill rearranged my clean glasses which I’d placed on the counter. And the glint of the low sun showing the people on shore. You don’t hide a watcher among trees, nor conceal him behind a window sill. You put him in a motor, where shoppers park their cars. Like the man Bill had continually checked on with a casual glance now and then ever since the party had started. Still, all was normal.
Except it all wasn’t. We were under surveillance. Bill was in on it, with his signalling glasses and his flashy tricks with cocktail shakers. I was anxious to warn him about Gina’s questioning, but got interrupted by a last-minute matron, one who’d had more face-lifts than Tower Bridge. She was a born gusher, had fawned continuously on the Monsignor, and now swigged her sixth martini like medicine, grimacing as it took effect.
“Wish me luck, honey,” she said, pondering whether to go for another. I decided to get shut of her.
“Luck? Here. Take this.” I took out a cent. “It was my first ever American coin. You know the old saying, your first penny buys an hour’s luck.”
“I never heard that one.”
She couldn’t have. I’d just made it up. Women who doubt really nark me. “It’s true. Here.” I passed it over with a discreet smile, which mercifully got rid of her.
“Is that proverb straight, Lovejoy?”
“Certainly!” Now even Bill was sceptical. I hate mistrust in other people. We started to clear up.
“Do a deal, Bill?” The deck arena was clear of guests. Gina Aquilina drifted through—changed again, exquisitely sheathed in a risky purple, silver chain accessories—with Orly prattling amusing prattle. He’d changed too, a smoothie’s white tuxedo. I waited until they’d strolled inside.
“Could I afford it?”
Witticisms gall me, when they’re at my expense. “Watch your back, that’s all.” Zole’s words.
“My back?” He laughed, but eyes alert and wary.
“Gina asked about you. I said you were a great barman.” I glanced over his shoulder at the shore, made sure he knew where I was looking. “I could have dropped you in the clag, Bill. That means you owe me.”
“How much, Lovejoy?”
“The ten dollars Tony owed. I could have said you were hopeless, got you the sack.”
“I didn’t figure you for a mercenary, Lovejoy.” He brought out a ten-dollar bill, placed it on the serving basin. He was puzzled now, and even warier.
“I’m working my passage up, up and away. I need every groat I can get. Thanks.” I slid the ten dollars back to him, finished wiping the glasses. The bar might be wired for sound, vision, heaven knows what. Just like the party area, or the rails where I’d attended to Sophie Brandau.
Bill looked at the money. He finally recovered it, said nothing more, except gave a curt nod of recognition. We wound up the bar.