PearlHanger 09

by Jonathan Gash

  At ten-thirty I nipped into the Lamb and Flag. It was almost empty. Morning's too early for drinking so I gave symbolic sips to a pint in a window alcove. Dealers were still arriving in all sorts of cars. Ten minutes and here came Big John Sheehan. I thought, Oh, Jesus.

  Two of his men stood with ominous patience on the pavement. Big John descended in a fawn-tan overcoat, shoes gleaming and hair slicked down just as I remembered him. He stared about. Go in, you bastard, I urged mentally. Get in and buy the bloody thing. He took a full statuesque minute sussing out the street, the peelers, the traffic. He even stared across directly at my leaded glass. He couldn't see through, but his gaze shrank me. My mouth was dry. Some muscle quivered in my neck. Abruptly Big John decided, stepped inside. One of his goons waited outside facing the street. His Rolls Royce wafted away.

  Action.

  There isn't a lot you can do when you're deprived of antiques. The worst pain in the world when gorgeous silver, antique jewelry, porcelain, and Sheraton and Hepplewhite and Chippendales are being whisked away before your very eyes by the undeserving.

  Eleven o'clock. Montwell isn't much of a place, but it had mustered enough shoppers and cars for my purposes when I guessed the lot numbers must be nearing 150. Big John must have looked his fill at the jewelry by now. He'd be standing in that immobile pose I knew so well. Even expert bidders are sometimes daunted into silence when his

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  rumbling voice begins to bid. He always calls the same, "Here, sir." No eyebrow-twitching theatricals from him. John Sheehan's not a bad bloke, as homicidal psychopaths go, but I wouldn't fancy being in the way when he's moving. He isn't as gigantic as all that. He actually gets his name from dealing in "biggies," those high value one-offs that set our dark trade aglitter.

  Time to go and get caught. I rose. My half-empty pint fell. I didn't even pause as the annoyed barmaid tutted. Out into the windy street. Cross between two slow cars hunting for parking space.

  To the right of the auction rooms runs a wall, with the big double gate carrying the legend "J. & S. Tierney." A fresh-faced bobby stood in front of the postern gate as if it were a Victorian fireplace.

  "Morning. I'm due inside," I told him.

  "Not this way, sir. Through the auction room entrance."

  "I'm in the vendors' list," I explained, beaming. "So I'm allowed. A last-minute lot. I have to see to the details. Late listers never get documented up front once an auction's begun."

  The constable hesitated, pulled out a communicator, and blurted crisp syllables. The postern door opened. I stepped inside with a smile and a word of thanks, and froze between two grinning constables.

  "Morning, Lovejoy," said Chandler. Nobody else in the yard but Tierney's security man. "Stand still, Lovejoy. Lads, remove that forgery from his person." Why is it that happiness make some people repellent? The bobbies set about me.

  "Forgery, Sergeant?"

  "Don't play the goat, Lovejoy. Of a certain Siren-design antique." He stood there, never moving his eyes. God, he was hateful. Thank heavens they're not armed.

  They were very personal and increasingly discomfited as they found nothing and more nothing.

  "He's got a dirty comb and two quid, Sarge."

  "The lining, laddie."

  One bobby slit the cloth and extracted a button and a penny among fluff. Chandler was puzzled. He'd been so certain I would be carrying a fake. While Chandler's cortex tried to reactivate I said' "If I can have my shoes back. Ta." I said my say about a late entry, and shuffled toward the office steps. I dressed on the move with a clumsy attempt at dignity, but it's difficult with your clobber trailing.

  "Lot one sixty," Tierney's voice squawked. They have a tannoy.

  Chandler called, "Stay with him, Perry. Woolfson, go and join Keeling. Stick by that apprentice tart of his." The Keystone Kops were out in force all right. Burglars all over East Anglia must be thinking it was Christmas.

  "Knock, knock," I said, smiling up the stairs to the Tierney guard. "Late entry registered at ten o'clock. Name of Lovejoy." The guard opened the door without a glance at it, his gaze fixed on me, memorizing like mad.

  Olivia was staring as I crossed the office, an odd expression on her face. A portly whizzer stood guard by the door that opened into the crowded auction room. Constable Perry cleared his throat for a husky greeting and positioned himself to block my retreat.

  "Lot one six one," Tierney squeaked. Here it came. The crowd hushed. Dealers focused alcohol-shot eyes on catalogs. "Antique Italian pearl and gold pendant, of genuine Siren pattern and by the same maker as the famous . . ." tra-la, tra-la.

  "Showing here, sir!" The whizzer's traditional cry rose.

  "James!" Olivia said in a strangled voice.

  "Why, yes," I said, smiling pleasantly. "I'm a late lister. Jewish canopied marriage ring. Under the name Lovejoy." My admission shook her. She stared, nodded, worked on at the console. Michaela French's Jewish ring lay on the office table, with three other last-minute entries. "Ah, there it is. Nice piece, isn't it?"

  In the hall the bidding for Deamer's fake began. Lydia was hovering, now so pale she looked transparent. And Donna. And Chatto. Birds of a feather, Chandler had said. Constable Woolfson joined another peeler, pushing through the mob. They muttered together, helmets nodding, glancing into the office with meaning.

  "Here, sir." That was Big John's voice bidding. I experienced a new feeling twice as sinking, twice as fast.

  "Never seen such a big crowd at an auction," I said to Olivia. "Don't let me interrupt."

  She was busy with the printout, tapping the computer keys, by now completely thrown. Giving my real name had told her I knew I'd walked into Chandler's trap. Her face was on fire. She didn't look up at me.

  A buzz from the crowd. Deamer's fake was sold. Some fool actually clapped, a high price. The hatch crashed and a tray came through. A tiny green point of reflection from the console screen caught my eye.

  Cameras. Four. One at each top corner of the office. All on me. Upstairs must be like Fighter Control. Clearly this was a police operation. They were going to get me no matter what.

  "Lot one six two," the auctioneer bleated. I saw Big John Sheehan's head turn. He'd won the bidding. One of his men would be coming to pay.

  "Here, Lyd." I beckoned to Lydia through the doorway. She turned in the crowd. "Our ring that you entered. Did you check the stone?"

  She got the message. "Er, yes. Just now."

  The door guard stepped between Lydia and me. For a ghastly second whole wars struggled on her face. Sin battled truth. Morality assaulted loyalty.

  I looked at her. "You sure?"

  "Why, yes." Lydia decided, fumbled in her handbag. The two police moved to watch her. "It's as described. Here."

  "Quiet during the bidding," Tierney called.

  I reached over the guard's shoulder and took the loupe from her. Not much bigger than a thimble, and transparent. I showed it casually on my palm to the guard, peered quickly at the ring. "Mmmh. I suppose it's okay . . ."

  The hatch crashed open. A tray slid through onto Olivia's desk. The hatch slammed.

  "This that famous pendant?" I said, and bent for a quick peer as Olivia exclaimed and boots clumped closer. They'd be breathing faster upstairs, Universal Studios on audit day.

  The pendant on the tray was bonny, even if it was fake. The forgers had done a great job for Deamer. It was held immovably under the grid. No chance of lifting it without permission. Like touching a woman's knee through a hole in her stocking.

  "Watch me, Constable," I joked warningly. The mermaid's golden body swam into my vision as I peered at her through the eye glass, monocle-style.

  "Please don't touch," Olivia said.

  "I won't. Hold on, though."

  I murmured as if spotting something rather worrying,

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  holding the rim of the eye glass as if inspecting some minute flaw.

  Old Denny Jackson from Clacton had shown me how to defac
e stuff this slick one-handed way. Actually it isn't a bad method of engraving. Once, jewelers used an engraver's needle projecting from a microscope's objective lens. Nowadays it's easier to clip the point from a record player's stylus and Araldite it to an eye glass. They're small enough to go unnoticed. It's not a well-known technique, and it's certainly underrated. Except for me I've only ever seen Denny do it properly, and he's a rogue. "No-o-o," I said slowly, still apparently examining away. "I'm still unsure about it." I straightened up, pretending disappointment for the cameras' sake. "Thanks, Lyd." I made to pass the eye glass and dropped it. Nine out of ten times they fall on their cylindrical sides and get picked up by their edges. The whizzer warded me off with his arms. He too was waiting for the police to close in. He stooped, passed the loupe to Lydia.

  "Thank you," Lydia said faintly, and moved off.

  "About my Jewish marriage ring, Olivia. No reserve price, please." I placed myself in front of her desk and touched her hand on the computer keyboard. "Are you all right?"

  "Of course," she said. My apparent innocence was rattling her. I should have been arrested by now, and nothing had happened, yet still she kept up the act.

  Sometimes I wonder if women aren't incapable of having friends. Maybe by nature they can only make lovers and haters. Olivia had been told everything, leading me on to have me caught. The ultimate of a lifetime, sinning to do right.

  I went to the exit door where Constable Perry waited. "Another search, or can I go, Constable?"

  "Lot one six one, lady," a goon was saying behind me in that cold voice I remembered from my phone calls. Big John's nerk had come to pay and collect.

  Perry and the guard searched me outside on the steps, but it wasn't the breeze that made me shiver. The first thing Sheehan would do would be get some expert to check the pendant's authenticity. Any jeweler worth his pay would find the sign scratched on it. It was my very own mark: Ly ft, Lovejoy fecit. Then the heads would roll, including maybe mine. But as long as they included Deamer's and Donna's and Chatto's I wouldn't mind. Much.

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  22

  Ever gone through a period when stress suddenly ends? I staggered across to the Lamb and Flag.

  "I can remember," I told the barmaid scathingly as I paid her, "when a pint cost a groat."

  "You seen the price of groats lately?" she said. A know- all. In her job she must know more about the antiques trade than anyone on earth.

  I came over all of a do and sat quivering overlooking the road until Lydia came over. She'd collected the money we'd got from the Jewish marital ring.

  "Not a bad price," I praised, except La French would kill me for not having the gelt to pay her for it.

  "Is it all done now, Lovejoy?" Lydia asked.

  "Somebody'll tell us that, soon," I said. "Let's go."

  We traveled to my cottage in serene safety. No bands of Indians lined the bypass. The old Ruby clattered unmolested into our village.

  Lydia brewed up for us, then got down to repairing my clothes, huffing angrily. Of course she was going to report it to the Home Secretary, the ombudsman, and God knows who else. She actually does this. She's got a file, ever growing, of complaints about ignored complaints. I read, rested, went over past auctions.

  She said nothing about the auction, but 1 could tell she'd been as frightened as I was. As the afternoon wore on she got me to try and make up with Sandy and Mel. I knew it was her way of wanting the world sewn together again. About five o'clock, with the sky leaden and winds rising, I phoned. Sandy screamed, "Oh, Mel, dear! It's him! The one who said those things about our lovely motor," and slammed the receiver down. Lydia rang and talked for twenty minutes to no avail. I was in the dogbox right enough. I tried to please her by phoning Margaret Dainty and a few of the others, even asking after Tinker. No use either.

  By six o'clock the Assyrian still hadn't descended like a wolf on the fold. I was beginning to feel rather chirpy. If Big John didn't send his militia, I thought in my optimism, then he'd guessed what really happened and gone after the real villains, the gang of four. Every second that passed meant that Deamer, Chatto, et al were probably strapped to a table while Big John's laser beam crept near and nearer.

  By seven o'clock I'd decided on a celebration nosh. There's a new Italian place not far, just near the castle. Lydia protested about wasting money. She's got one of those electronic calculators that frightens me to death, but tonight I was having no ethics. There's a time and place. We drove in grandly and got the Frascati going in a corner table where the candlelight hurts your eyes.

  Curiously, it was a celebration even though during the pasta bit Lydia got an attack of anxiety and the calculator appeared on the tablecloth between symbolic mounds of noodles. She reproachfully lectured me about the state of

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  Lovejoy Inc.'s finances. I didn't care. I've handled better reproaches than that. Electronic gadgets are no experts in the human condition, and I am. Two gentlemen, perhaps lawyers hatching a double fee, were engaged in tranquil debate. One day maybe I'll look that educated, I wished enviously.

  "1 think we've made it, chuckie," I told Lydia by the dregs of the Barolo. "We've won." And I was bragging how brilliantly I'd pulled it all off as we left. That was when our two solicitors finished their repast and courteously stepped aside to let us proceed out of the door. You can always tell real gentlemen, I was thinking as they came after through the trellised arch into the dark street and kidnaped us.

  "Keep going, Lovejoy," one said amiably. "Big John Sheehan needs you."

  "How dare you," et cetera, et cetera, from Lydia.

  They drove us to the Coach End Motel, five miles out of town. "Why here?" I asked. "Big John wouldn't be seen dead in this dump."

  "It is Mr. Sheehan's," one of the smoothies announced. Closer to, in the garish lights of the forecourt, he looked cadaverous.

  "Nice place," I said, swallowing. I hadn't known. Watching the Rolls recede toward the bypass was the loneliest feeling on earth. Many parked cars, the sound of a band, the hubbub of bars. If Ledger's police had followed they'd be daft enough to trail the Rolls into London, leaving me in Big John's hands.

  "Does she never stop rabbiting?" the goons asked me as we climbed stairs. I'd looked about for doorways, crowded saloons, a dance hall, but we went in through a side entrance. The ascent was steep, the walls bare. Lydia was shoved one-handedly onto a corridor chair. I couldn't

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  help being interested. Maybe if I lived he'd show me how to do that. I was hauled through a door and faced a roomful of violence. The atmosphere was thick with potential assault.

  Five blokes played cards in one corner, four others talked quietly. One played patience. He hadn't noticed a red nine on a black ten. Big John was in his favorite ocher, a pricey worsted. Prize thoroughbred cattle had gladly laid down their lives to provide skin for his hand-crafted tan shoes. Troglodytes had hewed the gemstones that glittered on his cravat, his rings, his facer watch, his wristlet charm. He'd been pacing the floor. You could practically see where the carpet still smoldered. Two of the morose cardplayers showed signs of a recent battering. Their eyes were multiple purples, lips negroidal under brown crusted blood. Big John had expressed displeasure.

  "Wotcher, John," I said. He stood and stared.

  "Shtum, you," one of the goons told me, and said to John, "Him and her went home to his rubbishy pad in the sticks ..."

  I'd have complained, but democracy had closed for the night.

  "They did nothing," the goon added. He had one of those carrying voices would-be Hamlets pray for. "Phoned friends, nothing. Rang them two queers, nosh at the Ro- magna Mia. She talked about cooking and stuff, though we waited all the meal."

  "Right," Big John said. I actually saw his gold-capped teeth gleam as he walked and belted me a backhander across the face. I went over, ruining the cardplayer's patience, and fetching up against a sofa. A bloke snickered, extended a leg, and toed me away. Big John stepped across and k
icked the bloke's legs once, twice, again, again, until

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  something cracked, then strolled back to the ornate mantelpiece. He snapped his fingers. The bloke who'd kicked me was bundled out. Somebody gave Big John a thin cigar, lit it. He hadn't smoked at all, once.

  "Funny tart you got, Lovejoy. You dun arf pick 'em." He shook his head, mystified.

  "They pick me, John."

  He grinned, blowing smoke. "Sure, boyo. I remember. The CO's wife. I owe you one for that."

  We were in the same khaki mob once. I'd accidentally come forward for something when he'd been wrongly accused. It hadn't been my fault, and a woman who chats you up in a lonely railway station can be anybody from anywhere, right? I went with her once or twice—well, all right, continuously—on a forty-eight hour pass. She'd said she was divorced. How could I know?

  "You owe me two, John. You hit me for nowt just now."