The Great California Game

CHAPTER EIGHT

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THEY started coming aboard about mid-afternoon. I watched them from the rail, a mere bystander like the crew.

Glamour isn’t simply something in the eye of the beholder. It’s a kind of heat, emanating from the glamorous. But it’s cold, heat that doesn’t warm. Which I suppose is one way of saying it’s radiation, the stuff that eventually kills. This thought struck me when I recognized a familiar elegant lady ascending our gangway from a small power boat. Good old Moira Hawkins was accompanied by Sophie Brandau and her politician husband. My head didn’t quite spin off, but my breathing went funny. Was I the link? I hated this notion, because chains have a tough time. A score or more arrived, laughing and full of that strange chilled charm only the rich exude.

Long Island is, well, sort of a long island, if you follow. Everything tends to astonish me, so America had it made. But why should I be dumbfounded by the Atlantic’s proximity? And by Long Island’s enormity, its beauty? Glamour is America’s par, wealth an incidental. Everything’s so vast that your eyes run out of vision. Tye Dee was supervising the welcomes—which probably meant seeing they all arrived unarmed—so I’d nobody to ask. Old Sokolowsky had vanished. How strange that he was along, on a fantastic cruise like this. Mind you, the same went for me. Except the old jeweller and me were two of a kind; different bookends, same purpose. Sokolowsky was the experienced gelt merchant, techniques to his fingertips. I was the… the what? Neither Gina nor Nicko had mentioned antiques, which is basically what I’m for. Sole purpose in life. Tye Dee was simply a trusted bouncer, with his thick holster bulging his chest lopsidedly. Orly was Mrs. Aquilina’s “friend” again today.

It was a pleasantly open day, light breeze, rich thick American sunshine. Innocent, fresh.

The little boats shuttled between the shore and us. A small township, its streets open and the traffic casually undeterred by the growing aggregate of Rolls-Royces and lengthy American cars I couldn’t name. How pleasant to live in such a place, I was thinking, when I saw Jennie alighting from a limo with a fat man. They made quite a pair, him flashy and corpulent and Nicko’s lassie slender and pert. Wasn’t I thinking a lot about gelt? Something in the climate.

Fatty and Jennie were the last, the occasion for much jibing from the party on the after deck.

“Hey, Jim!” one voice yelled through the growing music. “Antiques doin’ okay, keeping you late.”

“Don’t hold your breath, Denzie!” the fat man bawled as his boat slowed. “You politicians ride on my back, man!”

Desperate needling, it seemed to me, but it earned a roar of laughter. You can say anything in America, as long as you grin. Orly’s shoulder tap made me turn. I wished he’d stop doing that. Worse, he prodded my chest.

“Lovejoy, go help Bill in the bar. You know how?”

“Yes.”

“Tell Tye to close the rail. Mr Bethune’s always last.”

Antiques, Jim Bethune. Busman had asked about some art dealer, Bettune… Orly shoved me so I almost stumbled.

“Move ass, Lovejoy.”

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying.”

Correction: almost everybody in USA is charming. If Orly prodded me once more I’d break his digit, in a charming sort of way of course. I sprinted to obey, fuming but silent.

THE pace of the Aquilinas’ party was sedate, compared to Fredo’s in full spate. It was noisier, and the grub went almost untouched. I was astonished at the transformations the guests had undergone. They’d changed, instant butterflies, even Jennie emerging gorgeous from the cabins.

Bill the barman was twice as fast as I’d ever be. He was tall, lean, tanned, wavy-haired, the sort I always think must be every woman’s heart-throb, straight off a surfboard. Blokes like him evoke archaic slang.

“Handle the ladies when two come together, Lovejoy,” he ordered. He didn’t tap or prod. I warmed to him.

The women? I went red. Barmen the world over hate women customers. Men are more decided, can be served fast. Women take their time, change minds, negotiate. That’s why sluggardly barkeeps get the slowest jobs. And me a veteran of Fredo’s famed happy hour! I swallowed the insult.

In spite of being narked I slotted in, doing my stuff, trying to remember to maintain that wide American smile. The crowd swelled to thirty, as guests already on board before the influx made their colourful entrances amid hullabaloo. Quite frankly, I admire people who put on a show of style. I mean, it’s something I could never do in a million years. The women were bonny, slim, slick. I’d never seen what I call evening dresses worn during the afternoon before. Jewellery gleamed genuine gleams and antique settings bonged into my chest, but I kept my mind on my job, trying to please. It was a pretty scene. I avoided Mrs. Brandau’s eye, didn’t look at Jennie, tried my damnedest not to lust too obviously after Gina when she queened into the deck arena amid a storm of applause. The men were not my concern.

Denzie Brandau was smooth, suave, your friendly politician. He was perfectly attired, cuffs mathematical and suit impeccable, his manner subtly saying that he was slumming but was too polite to say so. Power anywhere is a threat, very like glamour.

“Hey, Bill,” I said in sudden thought as the bar slackened. Other serfs started circulating with trays of food to encourage the starving. “Am I replacing Tony?”

“Sure are, Lovejoy.” He was shaking a cocktail. I watched enviously.

“I can’t drive.” A lie at home, but true in America.

“Drivers we got. Only here in the bar.”

“That Tony owes me ten dollars,” I invented.

Bill dazzled the ocean with a brilliant grin. “Then you are strictly minus ten, Lovejoy. Like for evuh.”

We chuckled, me shaking my head at the vagaries of fortune. I tapped my foot along with the music, smiling with the peasant’s pride as Fatty Bethune staved off his anorexia by wolfing all the grub within reach. Oh, I was so merry. And my soul cold as charity. Tony was extinct. My fault? I leapt to serve as Sophie Brandau and Gina drifted to the bar asking for Bloody Marys. But a lone neuron shrieked outrage. What the frigging hell did it matter whose fault it was? I get narked with myself. I don’t run the frigging universe. I only live here.

“Lovejoy tends to ignore the ice,” Gina said mischievously. ”Something in his background, I suspect.”

“Is he new?” Mrs. Brandau was distantly bored by serfs.

“Practically.” The hostess took her drink. ”On probation, you might say.”

“I aim to please, madam.” Grovelling’s pathetic, but my job.

The ladies drifted. I turned. Bill was watching me. He wore his professional smile, and spoke softly.

“Lovejoy. Don’t look murder. It shows.”

“Ta, Bill. It’s er, all that grub.”

“Hungry? We get ours during the Game.”

“Will it be long?” I noticed Blanche undulating past, mingling merrily with a tray of edibles. I love seafood, as long as the poor creature’s unrecognizable. I mean, shrimps that need beheading and lobsters looking like they’ve just clawed over the gunwale make me run a mile. To eat, something has to die even if it’s only a plate of chips.

“An hour or two.”

God, would I survive? I served Mr Brandau while he talked with the dark Simon Bolivar lookalike who’d exchanged secret glances with Sophie at Nicko’s. They talked of percentages, cut-ins and shut-outs. Was this the yacht’s secret, a clandestine investment company? Or was there simply no secret, except a bit of body-rodding? La dolce vita was hardly tomorrow’s news.

“Who needs cut-ins, Charlie?” Brandau was saying. “I can be bored in the Senate!”

The swarthy Charlie laughed, joked his way out of some dilemma. Sophie Brandau’s face tightened and she floated over, lovely as a dream.

“Mr Sarpi shouldn’t think that politics bores you, Denzie. Think of the effect on the electorate!”

I caught Bill’s glance warning me not to listen. I whistled, being busy.

“Hell, Sophie,” her husband joshed. “I’m gonna buy the electorate!”

Moira Hawkins was being introduced to Jim Bethune. The podgy man would have fondled, except Jennie did a neat interception. I noticed Gina Aquilina watching me. I raised my eyebrows in mute appeal, and asked Bill if I could cadge some of the buffet food on account.

“No, Lovejoy.” He had a marvellous delivery, not a decibel misdirected. He should have been a spy.

“Okay, okay.” I carried on serving, smiling, giving out pleasantries.

Charlie Sarpi and Denzie Brandau drifted away, mingling with Nicko’s group. Sophie Brandau hesitated by the bar, then did a simulated start of surprise to notice a restless young blonde who was definitely on the toxic twitch. She had the look of a luscious plumpster who’d slid the snake to become skeletal in a matter of months.

“Why, Kelly Palumba! I didn’t even see —!”

“Hey, Sophie —!”

The party was so glad the jittery lass and Sophie were glad that even I felt glad, and served Miss Palumba her brandy sour with a beaming heart. Gladness is contagious, I find, even where something murderous is beginning to scratch your spine.

“Beg your pardon, miss.” I was baffled. The blonde had leant close and asked for something. “Bill?”

He was cool. “Sorry, Miss Palumba. We’re right out.”

“Sheet,” she said distinctly, swigging her drink and replacing the glass with a commanding tap. I poured. And encore. And twice more, to the brim.

She had said “to lift my drink”. Lift where? To her lips? Or was it Americanese for strengthen? But with what? It was already as potent as distillers could make it. I shrugged as Sophie Brandau edged the girl away into the socialite press with the “How’s the family, Kelly… ?” kind of prattle. I tried not to look at the blonde, but when you see somebody screaming so silently it’s difficult. Tap on my shoulder. I turned. Prod. “Hi, Orly.”

“Mrs. Aquilina wants you, Lovejoy. Main cabin.” I heard Bill’s warning, nodded, wiped my hands and went.

THEY were setting out a long table. I would have called it lovely but for its newness. Gina was supervising flowers and suchlike. Blanche was scurrying, two other serfs placing chairs. Somebody was changing a picture, a Philip Steer painted in a milliard divisionistic dots, two girls running on a waterside pier. I smiled, then frowned to show Orly and Mrs. Aquilina I was all attention.

“Blanche. A tray of hors d’oeuvres in the anteroom. This way, Lovejoy.”

An archway led through half-drawn curtains to a slender cabin, more of an alcove. She reclined on a chaise longue and gestured me to sit opposite.

“That’s all, Orly. Go check the arena.”

He gave me a lethal glance and left me to be dissected by this smiling lady. She said nothing. My feet shuffled as usual under this treatment. I found myself reddening slowly. I cleared my throat, tried to look offhandedly through to see how the other kulaks were managing. Surely not laying for another nosh? But the table was bare, almost. Just small boxes of playing cards. And a couple of computer screens coming to life with that irritating come-hither bleep they make. Like a boardroom. Who cared?

“Thank you, Blanche.”

A silver tray of food. My mouth watered. Blanche returned to her task. I dragged my eyes from her receding form, tried not to ogle the grub, failed on both counts.

“I’m not usually taken in, Lovejoy,” Mrs. Aquilina said.

Now what? I was suddenly so homesick. In a new country I find I return home a lot more than I arrive, if you follow.

“I’m sure you’re not, missus.”

“Gina, please. Do have something…”

I fell on the tiny things. There’s not much in one, so I had to take a few at a time. You get famished in sea air. “Sorry, er, Gina. But it’s been hours since breakfast.”

“Of course it has,” she said. She was carefully not laughing, the way they do, but really rolling in the aisles.

“Want some?” I can be charming, too.

She tasted one small biscuit with a fractionated sardine balanced on its rim. It really beats me how women survive half the time. Some biochemistry we haven’t got, I suppose. I didn’t like that “taken in” bit, but it’s a wise prophet who knows where his next meal will come from.

“Lovejoy. You seem to be troubled. All eyes and ears.” She smiled. “Then I saw where your attentions really lay.” She indicated the shrinking victuals and shot an appraising look to the preparations in the long cabin.

“Look, Gina. I can’t help being hungry. I can’t stop women from walking past, either.”

“Of course not.” She gave a sign and Blanche’s mob withdrew. “Tell me about Bill, Lovejoy.”

“Bill?” She was full of surprises, this one. Did she fancy him, or what? “Nice bloke, good barman. But something’s wrong.”

She stilled with a woman’s scary tranquillity. “Explain.”

“Well, I think he’s a thick. I tried asking him about antiques. He wasn’t interested. Hadn’t even heard of your 1760 Goddard-Townsend cabinet makers from Rhode Island—when a single one of their mahogany secretary’ desks goes for zillions.” She stared back at me. Obviously she was thick too. Annoyed, I gave it her in detail. “Furniture that exquisite’ll never come again, never on this planet. It’s all made of mahogany we call grand, natural unforced trees, not this spongiform crap — sorry, love — which they force grow nowadays.”

She was still blank. I found myself up, walking about. “For Christ’s sake, love,” I cried, exasperated. “Can’t you see? That’s why the values increase faster than the National Debt! It’s like a Gainsborough, irreplaceable.”

“You’re telling me Bill’s odd because he isn’t interested in antiques?”

Give me strength. I’d thought all Yanks were fascinated by antiques, but here I was having a hard time telling them about the treasures on their own doorstep.

“Look, love. You know that Manhattan building somebody sold for, what was it, zillions? On the news two days agone. Remember it? Well, the secretary desk I mentioned could buy two such buildings, and leave change. You follow?” She nodded slowly. God, she was beautiful, yet gorgeous women drive me at least as mad as the lesser lights.

“I see.”

“And a small Philadelphia pier table —” I held my hand less than a yard above her carpet “— could buy the very next hotel.” I was yelling down at the numbskull. “You can’t criticize Bill for not being interested when you’re stupid as him —”

“Sit down, Lovejoy.”

Her tone chilled me. I sat, suddenly less narked. Her brain was clicking, her gaze distant and venomous. I wished I was back at the bar. We sat for a full minute. She stirred.

“Lovejoy. Sophie Brandau. Her jewellery today.”

“Looked genuine, Gina.” Safe ground?

“Was everybody’s?”

“What do you think I am?” I said indignantly, “I was behind the bar. All the tom—er, jewellery—I saw was genuine, far as I could tell. I liked that eighteenth-century Milanese brooch Miss Palumba was wearing, though some nerk had tried to restore it with platinum.” Silence. “You see —”

“Lovejoy.” She meant shut up. Then why had the stupid cow asked me to speak? I tried not to sulk while she did more of her long-range venom. When she spoke it was muted, sibilant.

“Make up to Sophie, Lovejoy.”

We’d not had a row. “Beg pardon?”

The curtain glided open, some electronic trick. Nicko was sitting alone at the long board table, reading his endless printouts.

“Become special to her.”

I checked my hearing against memory, decided I wasn’t hallucinating. “Er, exactly what is it you’re —”

“Do it!” she spat. I shot to my feet, edged away.

“Do you mean…?”

“Into Sophie Brandau. And report her pillow talk.”

“Look, Gina.” I retreated, babbling. “That’s something I can’t —”

“Nicko?”

Her husband spoke, still flicking along those lists. “You opened a packet of money, Lovejoy?”

“From Tye Dee?” Maybe they wanted it back.

“Your prints are on it. The money’s traceable. It was stolen from a Pittsburgh bank. A guard was killed. The bullet matches the gun in your hotel room.”

My voice went faint. “Pittsburgh? I’ve only just arrived in the US. It’s marked on my passport…”

“Illegal migrant worker? Criminal history? Now a lethal bank robber?” Nicko brought out my passport. ”No record of any date stamp in this, Lovejoy.”

I’d seen the Immigration man stamp it at the airport. I sat. Gina was suddenly impatient.

“You’ve your orders, Lovejoy. And keep me informed of the Hawkins project.”

The what? Why didn’t she just ask Moira Hawkins? She was only yards away, swanning around the deck arena with Fat Jim Bethune. And why did this megabuck outfit worry about a cheap dream in a cheap bookshop?

“It’s just some loony scheme about a missing manuscript.”

“Realistic? A practical proposition?”

“Well…”I felt it was time to splash over the side, somehow jump ship and make a run for it. Less than a few hours ago my only worry was being late at Fredo’s diner. “Her sister’s the grailer. That’s a nickname for crets who waste their lives chasing a rainbow. The Holy Grail, see? The Hawkins daftness is only a Sherlock Holmes novel. It went missing in the Victorian postal system. Every nation has its loonies,” I said apologetically, in case Gina or Nicko took umbrage. “We have folk who’re chasing two of the Virgin Mary’s milk teeth, supposedly in a pot in Syria. Fakes are life’s real trouble.”

Gina said softly, “That’s so, so right. Go now.”

I decided to play along as ordered but to cut out first chance I got. So whatever I promised now would be superfluous, since I wouldn’t be here to be checked on. I’d smile my very best at Sophie Brandau, tell Gina the gossip, then exit pursued by bear.

“How often do I report?”

“Nightly,” she said, making my mouth gape by adding, “You come to my cabin.”

And Nicko sitting there, deep in his numbers, while his wife tells a stranger to come tiptoeing into her boudoir in the candle hours? “Er, wouldn’t it be best if I —?”

“Out!”

I crept away like a night-stealer. Just in time to get pinned against the nearest bulkhead by Orly. He was ten times tougher than he looked.

“Lovejoy. You keep away, capeesh? Gina’s not switching, hear? Not to you, not anyone.”

“Okay, okay!”

It was Tye who prised Orly off. I recovered my wind while Tye shook his head and lowered Orly to the deck. He’d lifted him one-handed with barely a grunt of effort. At least I’d one ally. That’s what I thought then.

“Leave Lovejoy, Orly,” Tye said. “He’s taking orders, same as the rest of us. You want changes, you ask Jennie, okay?”

Ask Jennie? Not Nicko, Gina? I watched Orly hate me out of sight, and followed Tye towards the sound of the music and glam shambles. I’d be sorry to land Tye in it when I ran for it and shook the dust of New York off my shoes.

Tye paused at the foot of the gangway. “A tip, Lovejoy. This is big. Nobody gets outa here less’n he’s allowed. ’Kay?”

“I’ll ask first, Tye. That’s a promise.”

He gave me the bent eye for a moment.

“I can’t tell ifn you’re stoopid or clever. Know that?” He sighed and started to climb to the upper deck. “Trouble is, it’s the same thing.”

With ignorance born of idiocy, I ignored that warning too.

As I rejoined Bill behind the bar the tannoy was announcing that the opening game would commence in one hour. O’Cody, portly grey-hair in the magenta silk waistcoat of a monsignor, chuckled when Jennie joked there was still time for a quick prayer. Others laughed along. Puzzling, because I hadn’t seen a cleric come aboard, though somebody very like him had. I shelved the oddity, smiled, located Sophie Brandau in the glittering throng, whispered to Tye to have somebody spill a little vino rosso on the lovely Sophie’s dress, caught up a silver tray—gadrooned, my favourite style—and briskly went to start my compulsory courting.