The Great California Game

CHAPTER TWENTY

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THE bar was a walk-in, more like a shop than anything. The windows were skimpily curtained. Lights were on, shedding gold onto the pavements. And the music was a delight—at least, I’d have thought so if I’d not been scared.

I’d chosen a seat where I could look out. Everybody in the place seemed to smoke. The band was into melodious action. The mugginess meant all doors stood ajar, all sounds mingling. I didn’t want to miss Magda and Zole. Almost as if they were a lifeline.

That’s the trouble with the confidence trick, especially the extortion kind. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes—it only takes some nerk to point out that he’s got none, and all barriers are down. I’d tried phoning the hotel, but Tye wasn’t available. Prunella was inexplicably out.

First time on my own. Why now?

Anxious, I scanned the gathering dusk. What I’d seen as a harbour front was a river. America’s rivers are so vast I can never tell if they’re the sea or not.

New Orleans is built in a loop of the Mississippi, between it and a lake, I remembered from Prunella’s maps (where was she for Christ’s sake?). I could see ferries toing and froing to the south side. A few small power boats zipped around. A place on the front advertised boats for hire, but they were shutting up shop. The entire city isn’t all that big, not for the US. Say, seven miles by four, with its Lake Pontchartrain only the size of an ocean. Across the Mississippi the land fritters away into swamps and islands. I’d seen it on our approach to Moisant International Airport. Nice for a holiday, not for escape. Except two men had been looking down at me from a balcony as I’d left Hirschman’s courtyard, and I was already seeing at least one every few minutes among the people.

A cluster of tourists—so what was I?—went by, calling to each other. I went among them, walking towards the river as they went. A charter boat, Dixieland music stomping from an upper deck, with fairy lights and a spurt of water from the ship’s side. The gangway was manned by two pretty lasses who wanted me to sign on for the voyage, or at least have a brochure.

“I’m waiting for my friends,” I said.

They laughed. “Won’t we do?” and all that. Any other time, I thought.

Then I saw him. It was one of the two men, no mistake. He was walking slowly along the front, staring into each cafe, bar, restaurant. I wasn’t wrong. I looked about for his oppo, found him. A steady double act, one strolling into each honky-tonk, the other scanning the crowds. Methodical, gradually advancing, eliminating possibilities. Which meant… Oh, Jesus. The other side too, from the ferry concourse. Two more, doing the same, just as anonymous, just as implacable, only they were in jeans and sneakers.

“Here, miss. I’ll have one, please.”

“Sure it’s not three?” Mischievous with the smile. I could have thumped her.

“Eh?”

“Your friends.”

Magda, Zole and the dog Sherman arrived, all breathless.

“Ah, just in time!” I babbled. “Cancel the ticket.” I grabbed Magda’s arm, pulled her across the road and into an alleyway, Zole expostulating.

“Where the hell’ve you been, you lazy bitch?” I gave her.

“Hey, stay cool, ma man,” from Zole. I clipped his ear to shut him up.

“There’s some people after me,” I stammered, trying for calm and failing. “They’re here, on the riverside. I want you to go and phone Tye now. Not tomorrow, not next week—now. Understand?”

Magda was so sad. She stood there, filled with sorrow. Sometimes women are so frigging useless. I almost knocked her down in my terror. It was bubbling up into my brain, blotting all thought.

“He checked everybody out, Lovejoy. You too. Gone. And Al and Shelt.”

“Gone?” I stared at her. Al and Shelt, the peanut eaters? A kitchen hand frightened me to death by suddenly bursting out of a raucous interior and rattling a dustbin into place. He slammed back inside. The alley darkened, the light extinguished. “Gone where?”

“Just gone, Lovejoy. Everybody.”

“Didn’t he say where?” I glanced towards the lights. The gleaming river looked a barrier now, not an escape. But Magda’d promised me she wouldn’t phone him, and she had.

“Sheet,” Zole said. He was carrying Sherman. The dog looked knackered. Why do they always gasp when they’ve done nowt?

“I had to come, Lovejoy, in case you…”

Fight or flight? Always the latter, for Lovejoy Antiques.

“Come on. We’ll try to hire a boat and go…”

“Sheet, man,” Zole was saying over and over. I realized why when I made to drag Magda towards the riverside lights. A man was standing against the glow, in silhouette. He was the one with a snappy hat, rakishly angled, and a suit of many stripes’. I’d never seen such huge white cuffs, spats even.

“Mine,” he told his left shoulder, and his mate faded away round the corner. “I say mine, man,” he told over my head. The two sneakers-and-jeans were deep in the alley.

“Okay,” one called, laughing. “But he looks real mean, okay?”

They emitted hoarse huh-huhs of laughter. I wanted the loo, a hang-glider, anything. We were left with our killer. I mean my.

“Okay, lady,” the man said. He was about ten feet away when he finally stopped strolling forward. Where the frig was that kitchen hand now, when I wanted him? I could have dashed through the kitchen… ’You and the kid take off.”

“Magda,” I pleaded weakly. I was quivering, my voice pathetic. I’m disgusting at the best of times.

“Come on, Sherman,” Zole said, treacherous little traitorous bastard reneger, betrayer of a friend who’d helped the corrupt little sod.

Sherman. The dog. They’re supposed to guard us, right?

“Kill,” I said weakly to the stupid hound.

“You got it,” Zole said.

I don’t really know what happened next, only that Zole dropped Sherman to the ground as the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a weapon. There was a crack, but near me, not near him. A second shot came from the man into the ground with fragments of stone pavement flying everywhere. Magda yelped, I whimpered, Sherman screeched, any mixture of the three. In that same millisec Zole had gone flying backwards, spinning and hitting the ground. The man was sagging, slowly sinking to the ground, as if trying to pick something up at a party without being noticed much. He seemed preoccupied.

I picked Zole up, tears streaming down my face.

“Zole. I’m sorry. I thought he’d just do me —”

“Let me down, silly fucker,” Zole said, wriggling. “Where’s ma gun? I gotta finish the motha fucka —”

He escaped, searched for something on the ground. Sherman was howling, shivering worse than me. Magda was shouting, holding my arm, pulling, trying to get me to run past the kneeling man who had stilled, slumped ominously against the wall.

“Hang on,” Zole was calling. “I gotta find ma gun an’ finish him—”

Sherman howled and Magda screamed for Christ’s sake to come on, the others’d be back. Zole was stumbling after, Sherman’s lead round his legs, the mongrel howling and whining. And bleeding, I saw as we stumbled up the alley towards the street lights, from a scratch near its nose, presumably a splinter… And Zole was fiddling with a gun as he followed, grumbling at the thing. He shook it like a rattle, listened hard to its sound as he tried to work the trigger.

I snatched it off him and flung the thing into the alley. We ran towards the boat, the pretty girls waiting for the last trippers to climb aboard. We joined them. Thank God for New Orleans music. It deafens you to everything else. I paid, and though the girls looked at us a bit oddly, Magda was talking breathlessly to them and I was paying money over, and all was peace and light and safety as the boat pulled away from the mooring and we glided away up the lovely broad flowing Mississippi.

WATCHING the paddles turn water on a steamer is hypnotic, even a new and utterly phony side-paddler. The trippers seemed to be some sort of convention, fez hats with tassels and secret songs bawled into the universe. Beer flowed. Some other passengers were like us, normal and very, very glad to be there.

Normal? For that read abnormal.

I stood watching the shore line. I had only a few dollars now. Rescued by a homicidal child, supported by a prostitute. And now leant on by a dog that was still trembling with fright. The cut on its face was about a tenth of an inch, the worm.

Tye had gone. Prunella had gone. All right, Magda lied—she’d told me she wouldn’t try to contact Tye. But she’d come to warn me.

Zole came, threw Sherman some unspeakable protein, and passed me a glass. I tasted gingerly. Wine.

“Hey, ma man. Whyn’t you ball Magda? See, ifn you stick each other, we’s team animals, right?”

I turned to inspect him, leaning over the glittering dark river. He was hardly out of nappies, and listen to his language.

“Where’d you get the automatic, Zole?”

“Bought it. Cheaper’n N’York.”

“There could have been another accident. What if the safety catch hadn’t been on?”

He snorted scorn. “Ain’t no safeties on revolvers, Lovejoy. On automatics, sure. This wasn’t no ’matic magna.”

I scrutinized him. “You ever shoot anybody before, Zole?”

“Nope. ’Cept a numbers drek near East 43rd one time.” He showed a scar on his shoulder, pulling his shirt down for me to see. “Got cut bad bad, man. Dee bee recoil, y’know?”

He reached down and embraced Sherman, now wolfing the meat. Drinkers whooped by, yelling something about going fishing.

“Lovejoy? Tye comin’ after us?”

That hadn’t occurred to me. Leaving me to face Hirschman’s hoodlums was one thing. But would Tye hunt me down? Zole saw clearer than I.

“Dunno, Zole.”

“Then what’s the plan, ma man?”

“Yes, Lovejoy. What’s the plan?”

Magda. Another tour boat creamed out of the darkness with lights and music, paddle wheels splashing. People waved and shouted, and our lot waved and hollered. Zole took a bead on the bridge and went, “Pow-pow-pow!” I almost clipped his ear as correction but thought better of it.

“I’ll tell you the story, love. See if you know.”

Zole went and brought drinks for us both while I told my tale, every detail, including the phony scripts, how I’d tried to bring in a number of fake pages to prove to Gina I’d combed the kingdom for the Sherlock grailer. I explained that would expose Moira Hawkins as a fraud, so allowing Gina the chance to eliminate Moira from the gamesters. I spoke with grievance. I’d done well by Gina. And now Tye makes a mistake like this, almost gets me killed.

“Why, Lovejoy?” Magda asked when I’d done.

“He dumb, Magda,” Zole said.

“Well, see, Magda, it’s like this…” Like what? Nothing came to help. “It’s complicated, see? It’s raising millions from antiques and art —”

“So?” She lit a rare cigarette and smiled wrily when I moved to windward. “So why her people let you get killed when you raisin’ so good?”

“Wastin’ yo’ time, Magda. He but dumb.”

“Shut your face. Magda, I think she said something about…”

Magda shook her head slowly. “I’ll say for her. She’s the hots for Denzie Brandau, right? Along comes Moira Hawkins with the big dig, the dream scheme. Dumb Denzie falls for Moira’s play — that president crap—leaving Gina washing the coffee things. See? So she minds to wreck Moira Hawkins’s gran’ plan.”

“But…” But that wouldn’t explain Tye’s failure to come and protect me from Damski Hirschman’s goons, would it?

“Gina Aquilina gets your pages, like you sent. She has them tested. Sure, they’re dud. She’s all the evidence she needs to confront Denzie Brandau and Moira Hawkins. So out goes Moira. And guess who that leaves to pick up Denzie’s daisies?”

“So Gina withdraws Tye Dee… ?”

And the peanut eaters, and the plane from New Orleans. And the bank credits I was using. And Prunella. And the rest of my little circus. A dead man wouldn’t need helpers. Yet I’d been successful. If Gina was sure that she and Nicko would win the California Game, she’d be sure of snaffling Denzie Brandau as well once he ditched the shadowy Moira. Plus his big run at the presidency, with Gina his First Lady, perhaps after Sophie had bought some tragic but convenient accident?

“Lovejoy,” Zole said. “How you get to grow old, ma man? I don’t believe him, Magda.”

I counted out my few dollars, watched by them both. “That’s it. I’ll understand if you cut and run.”

“See how dumb he really is?”

“Stop talking, Zole,” Magda said evenly. And the lad subsided. I didn’t believe it. Never listens to a word I say, but heeds her matter-of-fact shush. “I haven’t got much more, Lovejoy.”

Zole rebounded. “Me too.”

Dog? Gun? Magda’s expenses made more sense than any of mine.

“You got your list of places, Lovejoy. Maybe we try shaking them down?”

“No, Magda. I wrote them to Gina, places, dates, names, everything. If she’s the one who marked me down…”

“You aren’t thinking of California, Lovejoy?”

“We know where the Game is, love. We know when, who’ll be there. Fancy running for the rest of our lives?”

Running’s dumb, man, from Zole.

“Zole’s right, love.”

“Hey, Lovejoy! You’m learnin’!”

We went to join the party, Magda sitting close to me as we spent our last on drinks and food. The old saying is, your last bite lasts longest. It transpired that we were heading upriver on an all-night paddler party, destination Baton Rouge.