Then me. And Tye Dee, who makes her a spy. Next, they’re running like hell because of me.
On the same deck, a sleepy trio of conventioneers were talking about fishing. Music wafted from the big saloon. Women laughed. Occasional shouts. The wheels shooshed and thumped. The warm night felt like heaven. Sweat trickled down my neck, but for once I didn’t mind. Even Sherman looked content, having extracted maximum sympathy for his nose scratch from a hundred cooing women, crafty canine. He’d fed like a lord. And he snored.
The shore lights glided past. A couple of late boats strung with fairy lights heading downriver passed close enough for us to hear their music, see the dancers waving. Our drinkers and dancers crowded the rails calling good wishes. You can’t help thinking how wrong preconceptions are, can you? I’d thought America was all plastic food, angry motorists, no history. Okay, I thought ruefully, people sometimes hunt you, but that was partly my fault—I should have run the instant Rose Hawkins spotted my lust for antiques.
The boat went junketing musically on under stars through American velvet. No wonder the world and his wife wants to come. That notion finally set me thinking about the plight I was in, the road out. The California Game. Because if I wasn’t dead from Hirschman’s goons and Gina’s betrayal, I was still in.
By the time dawn shimmered into the eastern sky I’d got a plan of sorts. I’d need luck, a little money to start with. Plus a hell of a lot of other people’s money to finish with.
BREAKFAST found me the money to start with, in the form of Magda. She looked surprisingly fresh and level of eye. The main cabin had magically become a dining room — musical still, the Dixieland players pleased as Punch with a capitive audience. Zole stoked his boiler faster than me, almost.
“Lovejoy.” Magda passed me a bulky serviette. “Don’t unwrap it here.”
“How much d’you get, Magda?” Zole demanded through a mouthful. “These dudes’re good for plenty —”
Money. Magda had earned money. During the long exquisite night while I’d thought mystical thoughts, Magda had been… I cleared my throat.
“What’s this, love?
“We need money. We got none. I got some.”
“He’s but dumb.” Zole fed Sherman a load of ham.
My headaches always try to tell me something. I’m too slow to realize things until afterwards. I’d stopped eating which, in a woman’s presence, always bodes ill for me.
Magda picked at her food, the way they do. She was deadly serious. “They that serious, they’ll know we’re headed for Baton Rouge. They’ll be waiting, see?”
Jesus. I’d not thought of that. I’d assumed it was just a matter of booking a flight.
“We separate, Magda.” At least half of me was thinking. Without Magda, Zole and a Scotch terrier I’d travel faster, maybe stand more of a chance. This was no time to feel guilt.
“Split up, Lovejoy? You on your own?” I don’t think she’d ever smiled a wintry smile in her life. Every smile was warm with understanding. I’m not sure I liked it. “Without us you’d not be here.”
They make you sound helpless, women. I was narked. “Look, Magda. I’m the one that matters. Let me tell you that a divvy’s the rarest frigging creature on earth. Without me…” I tried again. “Without me, the whole…”
Hang on. Without me what?
Without me, the antiques staker would have still been old stickyfingers, Fat Jim Bethune, the antiques stake maybe a tenth of what I’d made it.
Without me, Moira would have Denzie hooked on her daft Sherlock scam, and Gina and Sophie would both be in the lurch. Which was the opposite of what Gina wanted, if Magda’s interpretation was right. Meanwhile, I had Busman as an ally, back in that warren. I’d never needed a library so badly.
“How long’ve we got, love?”
“The boat docks Baton Rouge at ten.”
Difficult. Zole must have seen my face fall. He snickered. “He dumb.”
“Call me that once again and I’ll —”
“What, Lovejoy?” He noshed on, taunting. “You can’t even —”
“We get off before Baton Rouge,” Magda said. “Get a car. I’ve spoken with the man.” She looked out at the gliding scenery. “There’s a smaller place across the other side. He’ll set us down in a boat.”
Legit. I’d noticed the lifeboats in the davits, of course, had all sorts of mad plans brewing. She’d simply arranged it. I didn’t need to ask how.
AN hour later we were on dry land, hired a car and bowled north on US 61. Magda drove while I slept with the dog sprawled over me. When I awoke, we’d passed Natchez, filled up at Vicksburg, and were coasting due east on US 80 with intermissions for Sherman to have a pee.
“Magda,” I said once. “Shall I drive a bit? I mean, you’ve not had much sleep…” I dried. “Where’d we stop?”
“Atlanta, Georgia.”
I like the way Americans never say a name but what they make a doublet, Memphis, Tennesse and that.
“We’ve missed out a lot of places,” I observed. “Why?”
“He but dumb,” from Zole.
“Stop calling him that,” Magda said before I could draw breath.
Zole looked across at her, and not a word. He gave me a look over his shoulder. Silence. We pulled into Atlanta on the main route 20, and found a smallish hotel equidistant between the State Capitol, Cooks, and Emory University. Zole got me every newspaper and magazine under the sun, and I started reading like my life depended on it. Magda vanished, Zole vanished, the world vanished.
ANTIQUES are the norm of my life. For most others, it’s time—like how did the Tokyo Exchange perform overnight, how will Wall Street do today. Yet even that isn’t constant. I mean, time varies in America—now isn’t now in New York if you’re in Atlanta, and it’s different again in Los Angeles. Fashions are never the same two minutes together. This year’s colour’s not tomorrow’s. Governments roll over and die, and new bums come rioting in.
But antiques are. I’m told some mountaineers and astronauts share the same feeling: whatever else happens, there’s always Everest or Jupiter. Ambition rules us all, from dreamy starlet to maniac billionaires. But I see life against a backdrop of lovely things —furniture, paintings, jewellery, porcelains, candlesticks to Constables—which older folk made with the love of their hands and left to move us to tears with beauty.
Except everybody isn’t the same. Some people would walk past the Mona Lisa without a glance. I used to know a woman like that. Used to sit up all night culling news of investment bonds, yet she had a Turner painting on her wall. Barmy.
My point is that everything valuable has its doppelganger, its fake counterpart. The general rule in antiques is, the pricier the antique, the more serious are the contenders for its throne. This means the fakes are taken more seriously.
And fakes are everywhere.
The list of fakes is enough to stop the average person getting out of bed in the morning. Aircraft parts, cardiac pacemakers, antibiotics for death-dealing infections, even blood transfusion equipment, vie with precious Old Masters, priceless jewels, documents, bonds, share certificates, family records. Everything’s up for grabs. Equally so, too. Nothing is sacred to the faker. That children will die from the wrong drug doesn’t matter a damn to fraudsters. Nor that helicopters will fall from the sky when some dud bolt shears in flight. Fraud is the achiever’s religion.
By four in the morning I’d found the sort of man I was looking for. I put on the television news channel for an update. Quickly I decided I’d move in two stages. I made a transatlantic call to tell a retired Major Lister in Rutland exactly how I wanted him to have his photo taken. I told him exactly what to do and why. I wanted them at the office of a multi-billionaire who was in deep trouble. Then I rested, asking to be roused at six o’clock.