The Great California Game l-14

by Jonathan Gash

  Japanese tourists are useful, going in clusters like they do. I found them a practical aid, and hopped from group to camera-loaded group like a child crossing a turbulent stream on stepping stones.

  And got taken forcefully just when I’d discovered the bus numbers, price, and worked out a policy to avoid the perils of passengerhood. Perhaps midday departure to San Francisco would be the best? Being trapped on a charabanc with a load of streetwise hustlers scared me. Or maybe these weapon-toting clutchers never actually went on the buses at all? “This way, man.”

  Three blokes grabbed me. I tried squawking for help, struggling, shouting for police, anything. I was yanked down some stairs, God knows where. Two prostitutes were having a wrangle on a landing while a bemused city dresser looked on. Four or five blokes were trading money for screws of paper, slick as light. The staircases were concrete. I got bruised against the handrails in the rush downward. A couple were fornicating in a doorway, the woman against the wall, nonchalantly smoking, gazing into space. The tunnels and staircases reverberated to the echoes of shouts, quite casual, distant thunder of traffic, people talking, cars starting up. My mind reeled backwards. Incongruity’s supposed to be the essence of humour, not chaos. Down here all rules vanished. We reached some level which stank of urine. My three captors were talking quite offhandedly among themselves, as if they weren’t hauling a struggling captive along dank concrete terraces. We seemed to be near an umpteen-tiered car park. The sweet smell of excess mingled aromatically with petrol’s thick scent. A man whooped as if in some echo chamber. I glimpsed some geezers around a trestle table under a naked bulb. “After you wit’ heem,” a bird called laconically, squeezing past going the other way and tutting in annoyance when they shoved her aside.

  “Hey, Lovejoy ma man!”

  We’d stopped in a concrete bunker of some style, the door not hanging off and a score of television monitors on the go round the walls.

  I was plonked in front of a desk—desk, if you please, in this warren. Numerous people sat about, several birds. They were talking, watching the consoles, professionals of a sort. I tried to get breath, but got giddier the more I inhaled. The fumes were literally intoxicating, sending my mind on a strange unplanned trip. A control room?

  “What you doin’ here, Lovejoy?” He pronounced it love-jo-a. “Why’ncha come ta me, man?”

  A little unused air happened into my lungs and I found voice. “For chrissakes, Busman!” I yelled. “What the hell you do that for? You scared the hell out of me, you stupid burke!”

  The place stunned into silence. Busman rotated his chair, smiling hugely at his people.

  “Ain’t he somethin’?” he demanded. “He ain’t crazy, jess sorta weird. Squat it, Lovejoy.”

  A chair rolled under me. I fell into it, sucking where my knuckles had scraped along the walls.

  “Silly sod.” I was really narked, mostly from having been terrified.

  He boomed a laugh from forty fathoms. I swear the ground vibrated. “Lovejoy’s the bad who got me shucked, people. Believe it.”

  They resumed talking, glancing between their consoles and me. The screens showed the concourses, departure points, ticket agencies, the nosh concessions. Even the stairwells were there, hustlers and activities in all their glory.

  “Is this where you work, Busman?”

  His amusement thundered out. He shook, his desk throbbed, his teams fell about. Typical. I was getting narked and said so. I’d thought I was being polite.

  “Love-jo-a,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “You is weird, an’ thassa fact. I don’t work here, man. I works.”

  More rolling in the aisles from all and sundry. I sat, nodding with a feeble show of interest. Whatever turns this lot on, I thought, then let me get out of here and I’ll go by train, canal, hire a yak. Anywhere’d do.

  “I controls, Lovejoy. You know control?”

  Who pays them to watch the concourse so fervently, I wondered idly. I didn’t really care. If I asked the question they’d only roar and shake their heads. Even the birds were eyeing me, tittering.

  “Lovejoy.” Busman came in to land, leaning forward. God, he was big. He’d make ten of me and have leftovers. “You sprung me. Why?”

  I brightened. A sentence I could recognize, at last. Berto Gordino must have got him out.

  “It wasn’t me, Busman. I just asked a lawyer to try.”

  He closed his eyes, shook his head, roused as if coming round from an anaesthetic.

  “You don’t work fo’ no Bethune, Lovejoy.” It was an accusation. I swallowed, nodded.

  “I lied, Busman. I was scared. I’m only a bar help at Manfredi’s. I did extra waiting for some society folk. It was Mrs. Aquilina in the car. Her lawyer —”

  “I got it, Lovejoy.” He beckoned a confrere, sounding mystified. ”See what I mean, Trazz? Anybody else’d claim serious. Lovejoy just says it like is.”

  “It was my idea, though,” I put in quickly, not wanting to be left out of any free praise.

  Trazz was a tiny man of skeletal thinness, warped by some deformity so he stood at an angle from his waist up. He had a cigarette between his lips, eyes crinkled against ascending smoke

  “He’s not so dumb,” Trazz said. It was a hoarse whisper so slight you had to strain to listen. “Not like today’s mob. See the screen, Busman? They’ve hacked the delivery. Makes two times, Busman. We godda move.”

  “They stupid they have, Trazz.” Busman rolled his chair across the floor, staring intently from screen to screen as buses disgorged passengers and bags. “Who’s the shipper?”

  “They’s Sarpi’s. Got hisself Miamis, Haitians, Jamaican.” Trazz crinkled, went tsss-tsss. I watched a second, scored it as wry laughter. “He knowed best, Busman, tsss-tsss.”

  “Hit his smurfs, Trazz. How many he got?”

  “Today? Sixty-eight, not counting Mexican.”

  People all about laughed at this sally. I tried to grin along but my face had gone tight. Hit?

  “Forty too much?”

  Trazz went tsss-tsss some more, said, “Forty twenny-eight short, Busman.” More hearty laughs. A jocular company.

  Trazz swayed away, pivoting on his right hip. Quiet and speed together, for all his deformity.

  “See, Lovejoy? N’York’s way.” Busman rose from his chair, darkening the known world, nodded me along with him. We walked the screen-studded walls. “We see the goods come, charge a percennage. Only small, nuthin’ spectacular.”

  “What’s a smurf, Busman?” I had to look upwards almost at right angles.

  Folk nearby chuckled. A girl snorted in disbelief, hurriedly composed herself when Busman idly looked round.

  “Smurf is a mule, Lovejoy. Carries the bag, see? Drugs, money fo’ washing in these clean white streets of ours, guns, anythin’ the man wants, see? Six cents on the dollar.”

  “Who’s this man, then?”

  He laughed so much he almost fell down, literally sagging helplessly. I had to try and prop the bloody nerk up. Nobody came to help, even though I cried out when my spine buckled, because they were all rolling in the aisles too. I got him to a chair at a screen showing the panel of long-distance arrivals and lent him my hankie so he could snort and wipe his eyes. What the hell had I said?

  “The man’s who-evuh, Lovejoy,” he said. “Poh-lice hack businesses, right? Then they the man, see? Canada goods hack mebbe four cents on the dollar by transport’s bossman. Broker man’s boys spread rumours some bank’s foreclosin’ so he makes a little zill, he’s the man, see? Who-evuh.”

  “Not just one person?”

  “You catchin’ own, man!”

  He strolled up deeper into the room. It was extensive. At the inner end a row of American pool tables. Trazz was there, allocating jobs to a small crowd of men, all sizes and shapes. We went through a doorway, along a corridor and into a comfortable living room. A woman about Trazz’s size came up smiling, got introduced.

  “How d’you do, Lorrie?” I gre
eted. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Busman loved that. “We gotta gentleman here, no mistake. He sprunged me last week, that big society mouthpiece. Give him a drink.”

  We rested in deep leather armchairs. I was given some hooch that made my eyes water. Lorrie was thrilled, seeing my gasp as evidence of sensitivity.

  Busman enjoyed himself telling her how I’d got myself almost dissected by the maelstrom in the concourse. I worked out that we were somewhere deep below West 42nd Street, the bus station heaving and churning away way above our heads. I didn’t like the sensation. I looked round. No antiques, which was a disappointment.

  “Is this all a part of…?”

  “Sure is,” Busman said. ”They don’t call for the rent, is all.” He laughed. Lorrie laughed.

  “Do they know this goes on?”

  “Sure do, Lovejoy.” He explained to Lorrie, “He don’t know frum nuthin’ Lorrie. Like a chile, so say everythin’ two times but start over part way in, see? Tell him it. I gotta check Trazz not too vicious this time.” He went into an inner room which had more screens projecting from its walls.

  She was fascinated, started to explain, repeating it slower as if I was gormless.

  “You really don’t understand,” she marvelled. “I think it’s kinda sweet, y’know? Like…” She dug for a word. “Like innocent, y’know?”

  Narked, I said I was following all right. She said hey sure, and went on telling me how Busman’s world worked. Cash defaulters had to be punished. Sarpi’s drug carriers arriving from the south today would be attacked, their merchandise seized. It was an illegal Customs and Excise.

  “Why don’t the police stop it?” I said at one point, which called for more repetition, slower still, Lorrie painstakingly mouthing the words as if I’d gone deaf.

  “Police got their own hack, see? Smurfers take care of them, like airlines, like property developers, building trades. Like merger capital, see? Like bullion mark-ups that happen of a sudden for no reason. Like movies that bomb, like million-dollar shows go turkey, a politician gets himself elected —”

  “Elected?” I’d heard Yanks had universal suffrage.

  “Sure. One’s elected, the others not paid enough, see?”

  “The man?” I guessed shrewdly.

  She was delighted. “You got it, Lovejoy! It’s always the man, see?”

  I said, “Lorrie, I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and patience. I’m grateful.”

  “Think nothing of it, Lovejoy,” she said shyly. ”It’s our pleasure.”

  We talked of homes for a while, me saying about my cottage in England and trying hard to remember the price of groceries and all that so she could be outraged at differences higher or lower. Busman returned, downing a couple of whiskies more and saying that Trazz was putting too savage and that he’d have to go. He was proud that Lorrie had finally explained the way life worked. “She bright,” he said. I concurred. She was ten times brighter than me.

  “Honey, Lovejoy in that shitty Benidormo,” she complained elegantly. “You not do something?”

  “Thank you, love, but I’d rather stay there for a couple more nights, if that’s all right. I do appreciate your generosity.”

  “You wants, you asks,” Busman rumbled benevolently. We went and I got an usher from Trazz to the upper world of life and pleasant New York skies. It was still a dream, but now tinged with dark-rimmed clouds.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  « ^ »

  FREDO was mightily soured by the news that I had messages to carry for Nicko and couldn’t work today. He complained, whined, appealed to the skies as he opened the bar.

  “I’ll stay, then. Can I phone Nicko?”

  “No!” he screeched, going pasty white. “Ya wanna get me… ?”

  Killed? I went my way.

  New York’s bus system’s so orderly it’s incomprehensible. You simply buy a ride, and get a permit from the driver entitling you to another ride on any bus whose route crosses yours. Get it? It all stems from this methodical crisscross system of numbering streets. I was baffled by its predictability, finally got a taxi.

  “Th’ain’t got this in England ’cos they dumb, man,” the driver sang, laughing. “Like, you live say 500 Fifth Avenue. Erase that zero, divide by two, okay? Add eighteen gives forty-three. You drops the fare 43rd Street and you’s home, man.”

  “How marvellous,” I said through a headache.

  “Sep you add thirty-five for Park Avenue.”

  Fantastically enough he dropped me right at the door. Where the commissionaire only reluctantly put a message through to the Brandau residence. I was told ten o’clock.

  That left me walking through lovely New York’s morning sunshine. I’d my Manhattan map, which showed these amazing streets. The shops were so varied, the traffic instant mayhem. I stopped just to look. The taller buildings caught sun against the blue. Even the deepest chasms were relieved by a distant sheet of sky, sometimes with an exhilarating stretch of waterway. A couple of times cars nearly ran me down—wrong side of the road, I remembered eventually. Manhattan was so wonderful it was a full hour before I caught myself wandering rather than aiming, called to mind Tye Dee’s chastisement and set about finding Mrs. van Cordlant’s address on Madison Avenue. The names thrilled me, from songs and films. I felt quite proud when I managed to say Madison without adding Avenue. A real New Yorker.

  My letter got me into the lift. It flung upwards like a shuttle, casting me out at altitude into a plush ballroom which seemed to function as a corridor. You could have held a concert in it. I was frightened by an instant screech as a lady I half recognized wafted to greet me.

  “It’s my lucky Libran!” She enveloped me. Perfume cut off my air supply. Something licked my face. I realized there were three of us in there, one a minute dog. “I’m so glad you could come, my dear. Chanel? Bring this gentleman his favourite drink this instant!”

  “Yes, Mrs. van Cordlant!”

  A maid in full fig—I didn’t say hello to Chanel—slicked the doors to and wheeled a tray of drink after us. The flat spread into the distance. Windows showed Central Park, a lake, the scaggy tops of edifices and expanses of lovely sky.

  Mrs. van Cordlant dragged me to a settee and shoved me down. She’d not been this decisive when I’d given her a cent to get rid of her on board the Gina. Then, she’d seemed driven to distraction. Now she was practically on top of me. Enveloping breasts seemed everywhere. I struggled to breathe.

  “Just tea, please.”

  Chanel almost staggered with shock, but was a game girl and left us to it.

  Mrs. van Cordlant eyed me eagerly. “How long have you been clairvoyant, my dear? Was it from birth?”

  “Er, well —”

  “I agree, Lovejoy! My astro-psychic—been with her years—had no notion! —until she was struck by lightning in South Carolina. Can you imagine?”

  “Good heavens,” I said gravely, thinking she was a right nut. The bloody dog, a King Charles the size of a shrew, was trying to hump my foot. I tried to disengage without booting it into the Guggenheim.

  She was eyeing me admiringly. I felt odd. Admiration hadn’t happened since I’d landed.

  “Do you want repaying now, Lovejoy, or shall we take care of the business in hand first?”

  “Repaying?” I brightened. Then I remembered I’d only given her a single cent. Repayment on that scale was out.

  I rose, frostier than her commissionaire, and toe-flicked her hound aside.

  “Mrs. van Cordlant,” I intoned. ”If you imply that I would demean myself by accepting repayment for the small service I did you, I’m afraid I must decline.”

  “But I —” Her features were quite appalled.

  I went all stern. “No, Mrs. van Cordlant. Thank you. But I gave you that coin in all good faith, knowing it would assist. Any compensation to me would instantly devalue your luck. I can’t accept money. The…” What were they? Star signs? “The forces of fortune are life,
Mrs. van Cordlant. They can’t be bartered, like commodities.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Lovejoy. I’d no idea!”

  “Please may I take my leave, Mrs. van Cordlant?”

  “Oh, please. I —”

  Melodie quickly mollified me enough to have me sitting down. We were frosty friends at opposite ends of the settee, a mere mile apart, while Melodie apologized repeatedly. I was aloof.

  “You hear that, Chanel?” she told the maid with brimming eyes while I looked soulful. “Lovejoy here—a true clairvoyant, though he’s Libran—refused twenty thousand, so’s not to spoil the luck he gave me! Isn’t that just beautiful?”

  Melodie choked, Chanel looked astonished. I almost fainted, and did a bit of choking on my own. I came to with my ears ringing disbelief.

  “Lovejoy,” the silly old bat said, emotion brimming from her eyes. “You are the most sincere person I have ever met. Do you know what it’s like to be rich in New York?”

  “No, Melodie,” I said with honesty. Or anywhere else.

  Her voice sank to a whisper. Chanel left, looking back in disbelief. “It’s punishment, Lovejoy. Purgatory.”

  “It is?” I tried more soulful, this time didn’t make it.

  “It’s people, Lovejoy. Mercenary, grasping.”

  Women are odd. I really mean that. A woman doesn’t know the effect she has on a man. Any woman affects every man with instant global tonnage every single time. But women all go out teaching each other it isn’t true, God knows why. They reach for doubt, where we blokes go for hope. This accounts for much of their behaviour. Here was Melodie, for instance, wanting some excuse to justify our evident valency, and finding approval for her desires in this mystic claptrap. I was glad, wanting desperately to get back to where that fortune had so briefly winked its golden eye.

  Chanel safely out of the way, I took her hand forgivingly. “Don’t, Melodie. You’re distressing yourself. Distress isn’t the way of, er, those psychic influences. We can keep ourselves mindful of truth, and love.”

  All that frigging gelt, my baser elements were sobbing. I could have been winging my way out on my own personal frigging jet.