The talk round the Floridans was causing some attention.
“Are you particularly interested in old jewellery?” she asked, taking hold with a gamekeeper’s grip.
“My life’s first and only lovelust,” I told her pleasantly. “Though if I’d met you earlier I’d revise my career moves. Hardly any woman can wear genuine antique gems, love. It’s a delight to find one who has the class.”
Not true, of course. Antique jewellery draws any woman’s glory. God knows why they buy expensive modern crud, when antique decoratives are cheaper. It always amazes me —
He saw me. Across the arena, in through the sloping tinted glass opposite, Fatty Jim Bethune saw me. The growing noise, now practically arguments, round the Floridans was attracting attention. It had attracted his.
I waved, smiling. No good shouting round the balcony, but the arena lighting struck upwards, picking those faces nearest the glass.
“It’s him,” Jane Elsmeer was saying, closing. She had a woman’s second dearest wish, total attention. People were following.
“Hello, Jane,” I said. “Do you get to play?”
“Lovejoy. Upped by twenty. He told me.”
“At least that,” I said modestly. “Though I can’t claim to be in on the totalizations finalizationwise —”
And that was that. My feet hardly touched the ground.
THE room felt like a medieval Inquisition chamber. Some houses, even rooms, have an aura as if evil intentions were ingrained by a malevolent hand. In fact, it was to guard against such forces that ancient builders buried holy relics—and sometimes the architect —in the walls. Still done today, except we make polite social occasions of laying the foundation stone.
The man Vermilio watched me come. He was standing by a desk. He was the only bloke I’d ever seen not use a desk for extra authority. The plum-tuxedo accountant was beside him. Nicko was there, staring ominously past me.
Plus a line of goons standing along the panelled walling. Everybody looked at me.
“Lovejoy, huh?”
“Yes.” I advanced, smiling, hand outstretched. “I don’t believe I’ve had the —”
I was stopped by a gesture. “No games, Lovejoy. Talk.”
“What about?” I waited, asked Nicko anxiously, “Nothing wrong, Nicko, is there? I did everything you said. ”
“Mr Vermilio wants that you tell him what you told the Elsmeer broad.” The plum-tuxedo man said the words with an accountant’s terrible pedantry. People come, people go, accounts go on for ever.
“Mrs. Elsmeer? We were talking about the Game. She said she hoped they’d get in, their stake was special. I said ours was twenty times up on last year’s, so we were sure to play.”
“Twenty.” Vermilio sounded like asking for a gun. “Coats?”
“Nicko declared a little over twice last year’s stake for his Alhambra team, Vermilio.” Coats might well be an exploited nickname, heady stuff for an accountant. Except maybe he wasn’t just an accountant.
“I can explain, Vermilio, Coats.” Nicko spread his hands in appeasement. “This guy’s new in. We employed him to see if he could increase the contribution from antiques. He failed.” He smiled, calm personified. “We got Jim Bethune back instead.”
“But Nicko,” I exclaimed, indignant. “Mr Bethune’s figures were less than a twentieth of —”
“He’s a blusterer, Vermilio,” Nicko said. “We had to give him a try. But he couldn’t deliver —”
“I got the concession from Mangold’s auctioneers like I promised, Nicko!” Nicko tried to interrupt, but Vermilio silenced him by a look. “The percentage from Mortdex. God, Nicko. The hack from Louisiana alone is over three times what you had from all the art markets last year! The hacks from Maynooth, Gullenbenkian, bring it at least to eighteen times Bethune’s figures —”
“He’s insane, Vermilio. It can’t be done.”
Nicko was green. His eyes did their laser trick directly into me. I didn’t care. I was suddenly immune. Once a threat is diluted, it might as well go all the way.
“Let’s hear it.”
Vermilio stayed on his feet. Coats called in several tuxedo people from outside. They sat around me in a circle to listen. I was made to talk. The line of goons against the panelling didn’t move. Nicko stood beside Vermilio while I spoke quietly to show I wasn’t a madman.
“I was working in a bar,” I began. “I fancied a few antique items worn by a customer. Her sister noticed my interest, guessed I was able to recognize genuine antiques by instinct. It’s called being a divvy. Nicko Aquilina came to hear of me, took me on his payroll. I investigated Jim Bethune’s antiques firm in Manhattan. It was a front for fraud —”
“Fraud’s essential in the California Game, Lovejoy.” Coats, in reprimand. I didn’t respond. Let him dig my trench for me. “All our stakes are hacks.”
“It’s not fraud,” I said quietly. “It’s fair, legit legal.”
Coats was irritated, challenged on his own ground.
“You heard the announcement. Washington stakes an extra half billion this year, hacked from the Irish illegal immigrant levy. Houston, Texas, cuts in the same from the environment lobby. Hawaii brings in a new billion from glass pipes—very promising, now ice-crack’s on the mainland here. Chicago’s brung another half billion from Pentagon hacks —”
“Dull, dull,” somebody muttered. “What’s new? It shoulda been new.”
“Like fuckin’ Philly, uh?” somebody in a gaudy polka-dot bow tie shot back. The listeners brightened. I did, with the realization I was relatively small fry among this lot. “Still workin’ the fuckin’ Panama Bahama dirty dollar shunt? Jeech!”
“Atlanta’s new,” a smooth smiler put in conversationally. “Except a World Soccer Cup stadium hack only works one time. Once the stadium’s been built all over the fuckin’s place, that’s it, though maybe next time —”
“Lovejoy?” from Vermilio.
They shut up. I was back in the limelight. “Mine isn’t fraud. It’s legit.” My attempt at snappy speech was pathetic.
“Your antiques hack is legitimate?” Coats looked for help.
“Ring Mangold. Ask him if he’s agreed to chip in a percentage of the shifted auctions. Nothing illegal there, by any country’s laws. Check Gullenbenkian. It’s legit. Check that Maynooth’s input’s legal. Ask Verbane if the Mortdex contribution’s legal or not.” I waxed indignant, almost believing me myself. “That’s what I told Nicko, didn’t I, Nicko? And Jennie. Ask Tye Dee. He’ll tell you. He was with me all through when I arranged them. He’s got witnesses. I’ve a list of hotels, bedroom reservations.”
I was moving about, pleading for antiques now, not for me.
“The trouble is, people like you come to think of antiques as a commodity. They’re not. They’re people, the best things on earth. Can’t you see that, played right, the antiques world can chip in as much as the rest of an entire stake? Nicko’ll tell you. I worked it all out for him weeks ago —”
“A legit hack?” Coats almost reeled. “There’s no such thing.” He looked at the Atlanta man, appealed, “The World Cup building programme—the hack was twelve per cent of total. Massive!”
“I don’t like the word hack,” I protested. “Or fraud.”
Vermilio pondered massively. “Check his numbers,” he said. “Nicko? He’s right, you’re wrong, okay?”
“Sure.”
“It looks like the Alhambra stakers tried it on,” Coats the accountant said. “Risking less’n they hacked. Should they lose, they keep mosta the hack. If they win, then nice for them.”
Vermilio smiled, like a mountain parting to show worse mountains in the interior. “Compensation,” he announced. “A bet. Nicko’s on the line. He wins, he keeps his ass. He loses…”
The meeting dissolved in whoops and an exchange of bets. I looked at Nicko, but received nothing. He knew only what I knew. I was pouring sweat too, and the air conditioning was at maximum chill.