Still Waters

Thirty-six

“Thirty thousand the pair?”

“That’s the going price.”

“Bullshit!” Grabianski said, his voice louder than intended.

“Take it or leave it.” Eddie Snow shrugged as if he didn’t care.

They were sitting in a pub in Camden, one of those places that had been fashionably stripped back to bare boards, tat and clutter peeled away, a large room lit by candles and a few tastefully concealed ceiling lights, guest beers, a menu that included samphire and lemon grass, scallops and black pudding served on mashed potato.

The rest of the place was more or less empty at that time of day: a couple of thirtyish men in bad suits dragging out their last beer over the remains of a business lunch; an upmarket mum sitting outside with her two kids, waiting for them to sit back down and finish their fruit sorbet.

Grabianski was drinking a large tomato juice with Worcester sauce, Tabasco, ice, and lemon. He needed a clear head.

“I thought you wanted to get rid?” Snow said.

“So I do.”

“And fast?”

“Fast doesn’t mean throwing them away.”

One of the children outside was crying; the men in suits were preparing to haggle over their bill. Round the corner on Arlington Road, a car alarm sounded and then was still, sounded and was still.

“Clearly,” Grabianski said, “someone’s heard of him in Dubai.”

“Bahrain, actually, but who’s counting?”

“I am.”

Fast enough to take Grabianski by surprise, Snow covered one of his hands with his own and squeezed. “Jerry, don’t be such a hardass all the time, know what I mean?” When he let go his grip, save for several bright red marks, Grabianski’s knuckles were white.

“What’s your cut on this?” Grabianski asked. “What do you call it, finder’s fee?”

Snow leaned back and crossed his legs, signaled to the barman for a fresh glass of wine. “Forty percent and cheap at the price.”

“Okay. All I’m saying,” Grabianski said, conciliatory, “if you can push a little, without putting the whole thing at risk, get a few thousand more, where’s the harm?”

The barman lifted Snow’s glass away and set another in its place.

“When we first started talking about this,” Snow said, “you were coming on like you was Linford in the Olympic Games. Couldn’t wait to get on the move. Now all of a sudden, ‘Yeah, Eddie, no rush, take your time, let’s get the best deal we can.’” Snow was looking at him, direct. “What happened?”

Grabianski shrugged impressive shoulders.

“Only,” Snow said, “if I thought you was back in touch with that cunt Thackray, playing us off, one against the other, I’d see you lived long enough to regret it.”

Thackray had left his car where Grabianski had suggested, not in the car park directly behind Kenwood House, but the one farther along toward Jack Straw’s Castle, left it there and walked back down to where Grabianski was waiting, seated near the faded rhododendron bushes either side of Doctor Johnson’s summer house. It was early in the evening and the breeze carried with it a certain chill now the sun had dipped behind some wavering cloud. Wearing a sheepskin car coat, Thackray looked like a man expecting winter.

“We’ve hit,” he announced, “something of a problem.” As yet, he had barely stopped walking. “My buyer in Japan, he only wants the one piece. The Departing Day study, of course. The other,” Thackray sighed, “he claims it’s not worth the price of air freight. Never mind the insurance.”

“How much,” Grabianski asked, “is he prepared to pay?”

“Twenty-five thousand sterling, dollar equivalent, of course.”

Grabianski moved along the bench and Thackray, tugging at his trousers so they didn’t bag unnecessarily at the knees, sat down. Grabianski caught himself wondering if there was anyone born after 1955, any male, for whom that was still an automatic gesture.

“You know,” Thackray said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to push him any harder on this.”

“That’s fine,” Grabianski said. “If that’s the best deal there is …”

“Excellent.” Thackray sealed the bargain with a sheepskin-warm handshake. “Now, if you’d care to join me, I thought a quick look round Kenwood House here before closing. There’s a lovely little Vermeer.”

Grabianski made a show of glancing at his watch. “Better not.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll be in touch.” And Grabianski stood watching Vernon Thackray walk along the narrow, jinking path and across a small diagonal of lawn. Whatever risk there was of being seen with Thackray, best, especially now, to keep it to a minimum.

There was a steady roll of traffic coming off Spaniards Road at Whitestone Pond and turning down toward the Heath. Grabianski pushed his phone card into the slot and waited for the little illuminated message telling him it was okay to dial.

“Faron,” he said, recognizing her flat, nasal tone, “Jerry Grabianski. I’d like to talk to Eddie.”

She told him to wait and he heard the receiver being set down with a soft chunk. There was music in the background, none of the three or four things Grabianski might have recognized: music never his strong point.

Whatever it was, it rose in volume as Faron came back on the line. “He says is it important?”

“Probably. Tell him it’s to do with what we were discussing earlier today.” Grabianski could hear other voices now, something of a party, warming up, he guessed, for the night ahead.

“What?” Snow’s voice was unnecessarily loud, pitched against the noise.

“The deal you mentioned. I’ve been thinking about it and what you were saying makes sense. If this is the best deal we’re going to get, let’s take it now.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure.”

“You know we’re not talking the day after tomorrow, right? Prob’ly not even next week. There’s always money to be moved around, transportation, na-de-na-de-nah.”

“That’s okay. I know you’re not going to hang about. I’ll leave all that up to you.”

“Great. Oh, and Jerry …”

“Yes?”

“Not right now, but there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about, okay? Piece of business I might be able to put your way. Your line, know what I mean?”

Oh, yes, Grabianski thought, maybe he did; in the small square of mirrored glass, he watched his face brighten into a smile.

Table lamp shining, chilled glass of Stolichnaya close at hand, Grabianski shuffled through the cards he had bought at the exhibition, deciding which to choose. It had to be The Millinery Shop, the vividness of that lime green scarf not so striking in reproduction, but she would remember all the same. He uncapped his fountain pen, a silver-inlaid Waterman’s with gold nib he had come across in a seventeenth-century-style writing desk which had proved disappointingly fake. He wanted to be careful what he wrote.