The Great California Game

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

« ^ »

YOUR mind plays tricks. I can see myself running, scrambling up when I fell among vegetation, hauling myself along on all fours when the terrain suddenly let me down. It was some old serial I’d seen when little, funny man at antics to make laughter. Except this one was bleeding, clothes anywhere. And it was me.

Finally laying himself down, spent and stunned, among rocks with a curtain of flames ascending the hillside, something from a biblical epic now, roaring with a terrible grandeur and a massive building’s turrets silhouetted against the orange-scarlet. So many colours, so much to see, if only the man’s eyes could see. They couldn’t quite focus. And people were screaming and shouts coming closer among scrub. And, oddest of all, whole trees suddenly exploding like they’d been fragged by grenades as the heat reached them and their aromatic perfumes caused the night to quiver in a death thrill as they sucked the flames into each burst of spark.

And the wahwahs, flicking their reds and yellows and blues in feeble simile while the mountainside erupted in roars and the fire moved through the vegetation like savage ascending lava.

The helicopters came, and police, and lights shone from the sky throughout the land, and it was all fireworks and spacecraft and people jumping down.

In one last feeble frame, me looking down from some great flying thing onto the forecourt of that great palace, where uniformed people, very like police, were taking orders from a dapper figure standing there in the mayhem and disorder as vehicles and helicopters moved stately all about him, the centre of that swirl. Except it couldn’t be him, because he was surely dead, wasn’t he? He’d lost the Game. And in any case he was the instigator of the crimes, and the deaths. Hadn’t he ordered two people killed, not counting me? And I sank and let the frigging world get on with it. I should have stayed with Irena, and left things alone, let them take their course. Or maybe I ought to have run back in for her after the explosion? Better to have stayed making love, even if it was on that fake antique banquette.

At least I’d have finished something.

“MR SHAMOON? Joe?”

Somebody was tapping my face, like nurses do when you’re coming round from the anaesthetic, the swine.

A policeman was sitting by the bedside. Mine. Why mine?

He had a brewer’s goitre, the beer belly hauled in by an ineffectual belt hung about with firearms and ominous leatherette cases. All that blubber was presumably paid for. But why is adiposity threatening in uniform? A thin geezer would have seemed friendlier.

“Eh?” Who was Joe? I wasn’t up to discussing people yet. I watched the cop. He chewed, more threat. A nurse swept in, swept out. Should be paid by the mile.

“Where were you when the fire started at the Revere, Joe?”

“The fire?” I was Joe?

My mind cranked slowly into gear. A hospital of some kind. Should I recover, or stay slightly delirious? I’ve been concussed before now. This didn’t feel quite the same.

“I remember a fire,” I said slowly. It seemed to take years to get the words out. “A sort of blast, people running, screaming, helicopter, fire up a hillside…”

“You got it, Joe.” He seemed pleased, told a hand recorder the time, place, date. “What were you doing at Revere Mount?”

Not what you think, officer. “Waiting for the boss. Some sort of charity…”

“Uh huh. You see the fire start?”

“No. I was with a… I think there was a broad.”

“Okay, Joe. I’ll be back.”

He left. Joe lay wondering why he wasn’t Lovejoy.

The jacket? It was surely mine, the one I’d grabbed up. Or was it? The neighbouring alcove had held the moaning couple. They’d been further into reality than Eilen and me. I couldn’t quite remember if the bloke had shed his jacket. But I could recollect how I’d had to shuffle obliquely across the corridor to the window, snatching up a jacket as I’d hopped, trying to haul up my pants with one hand while…

Good old Joe Shamoon. Hope he made it. Or maybe he was still back there, into bliss?

I slumbered, woke and had a drink. Orange juice.

When I woke it was night. I clambered erect, steadied my dizziness against the wall, checked I wasn’t bleeping from any wires into one of their infernal machines or being dripped into.

There was a light switch. I put it on, stared at myself in the mirror. Yes, Lovejoy all right. For a fleeting second I’d had a horrid vision of seeing some other bloke’s face, as on corny telly re-runs. I looked almost a picture of health.

My clothes were in a small wall cupboard, but no sign of any wallet. I brooded and dozed until dawn, then got hold of the first nurse I could and asked for my valuables, please. She brought them quickly, openly assuming I wanted to arrange payment for hospitalization. I almost choked on that, but it seems to be their system.

“Sure this is mine?” I checked shrewdly.

“Positive, Joe.”

Still Shamoon. I had Joe’s wallet, billfold of money, credit cards with signatures, two sets of keys, driver’s licence, spectacles. I didn’t need the specs, but took them anyhow, and two chequebooks. Joe did all right for himself. I wondered what Mrs. Joe Shamoon was like. Maybe I could finish what naughty old Joe had started so vigorously, when I found the addresses. The two addresses were in L.A.. Both had phone numbers.

With many a groan and wheeze, I asked the desk girl to hold the completion papers steady while I signed my credit-card gelt over to the hospital. The sum made me gasp, but I disguised it as a sudden twinge. I sent down for new casual clothes, billing it up to good old Joe Shamoon.

Then I left hospital, after a health check with a registrar. They called him a resident intern, as if he was an old-age prisoner. Funny language. He said I’d got off okay, but prescribed a ton of pills for me. I put them in a dustbin as I left.

One thing, I bet Joe Shamoon was having a hell of a time if he was trying to get treatment on Lovejoy’s credit in there.

“What’s the joke?” the taxi driver asked, surly.

“I just got better in hospital,” I said.

“That’s a joke?” He snickered. “Hell, L.A.’s the joke, man.”

REDONDO Beach was the second of the two addresses. It was a low condominium block alongside the seafront road. Joggers were scooping their feet the way they do when finally the taxi dropped me by the sand. Sunshades and the weirdest collection of parasols adorned the coast in numbers I’d never seen before.

I tried dialling both of Joe’s homes, in case he should answer and I’d get myself arrested. Also, I was suddenly more worried about turning up, a strange husband for an alarmed wife, maybe a set of babes all wondering who the new geezer was. No answers.

One thing about California, you can wait on a beachside without giving rise to suspicion. It’s what the ocean’s for. I sat in a line of reminiscing geriatrics from the Bronx and New Jersey and Brooklyn all saying how they’d like to go back but who the hell wanted snow and better get mugged occasionally in sunshine than in an alley filled with ice and falling masonry, huh? Some, especially the old birds, had reflectors shooting hot sunshine up from below under their chins. They wore false white paper noses and a ton of cream. They all agreed retirement was great. I said I could see that, listened until the guard in the condominium block got up from his stool under the awning and went inside. I said so-long to my gang and quickly entered, fiddling with the keys, then climbing to the third floor.

The doorbell brought nobody. I worked the three keys—no flies on Joe Shamoon—and let my breath out slowly as no dogs, pets, families came forward with fast-fade grins.

It was a small place, as America goes. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living space with a view of the seafront, and quite a pleasant small balcony with chairs bleaching contentedly in the sunshine.

And Nicko.

Behind me the outer door opened gently, letting the verandah curtains waft out, then closed sibilantly. Tye Dee and his goons, doubtless. I was suddenly so tired. All for nowt, my exertions of last night—or the night before last? I’d lost a day somewhere.

“Wotcher, Nicko.”

He laid aside his book, Moss’s The Pleasures of Deception, I noticed with curiosity. He nodded, painstakingly lit a pipe. I watched, the old craving coming as always. I once gave a pipe up, still hanker after the ritual. The swine drew in, pocketed his pouch, stubbed the bowl, did the whole, what did they say hereabouts, enchilada?

“Wotcher, Lovejoy.” He managed it, with the vicious shark grin of a born killer. “We gotta change words.”

“What’s the point?” I couldn’t help being bitter. I should have taken my chance, let the pig die instead of blowing the damned thing to smithereens. Served him right, the murdering —

“You got work to do for us, Lovejoy. Antiques.”

Well, maybe his killer’s grin was friendly.

“Eh?” I might spin the talk out and make a dash for it, hide out somewhere among my geriatric pals on the waterfront.

“We’d no idea about antiques, art, that kinda stuff, being the scale you showed.” He leaned forward, the pipe smoke driving me mad. “Deal, Lovejoy?”

“Deal, Nicko.”

“You work for us three months, okay? Then you go.”

His features were affable, but knowing. What a pleasant bloke, I thought after quick revision.

“Hang on.” I dredged up a score of suspicion. “How’d you know where to find me?”

“We planted Joe Shamoon’s stuff on you. Easy. Poor Joe’s in surgery. He’ll make it—until his wife learns the circumstances of his, uh, accident.”

In some helicopter. I remembered being lifted, flying, people cutting my clothes, lights swirling.

“Nicko.” My head was aching. I’d had no rest except for hospital, and their idea of quiet’s to clash cymbals all bloody night. “Who’s this we?” He’d just been slain by the Game-syndicates for losing. I’d heard it called, while Esmerelda and I’d been making smiles. Optimism’s not got staying power like pessimism.

He waited, smiling at the people behind me. “Got it?” he asked at last.

“Gina?” I said.

She came round, smiling, sat across from me with the sun-filled verandah window playing her advantage. She looked good enough to eat with honey, except you wouldn’t need the honey.

“Gina.” I make it a non-question.

“In one, Lovejoy. Well, in a coupla hundred, give or take.”

“You’re police? Or crooks who turned coats?”

“You got it. Federal switchers. We got watchdogs, so we play ball.” He was wondering what I’d guessed. I helped him.

“Why’d you pull Tye and the hoods, let me get killed?”

“You did too good, Lovejoy. We want control of money routes, not new shark routes everywhere.”

So I was to be part of their control. At least I’d be alive. Except that wasn’t enough.

“It started with drugs pure and simple, Lovejoy.”

“Not pure, not simple.” Gina was gentler but more implacable. “Ice, heroin for the post-crack sinks, anything to double on, at any cost.”

“The Drug Enforcement Agency started us in, Lovejoy. The Game was dominated by them and the junk bonders and Savings-Loan defrauders. It used to be little old currency swappers.”

“Days of innocence,” Gina said. She could arrest me any day.

“You showed us a new line, Lovejoy.” Nicko went slowly to the window, gestured for somebody to come, but take their time. “Though we’d learned plenty of other new lines. Property, hacks on harbours, airports, commodities, information tapping, computer miking, showbiz, religious flakes, lotsa old stuff. You showed us the power of antiques.” He turned, curious. “How come we didn’t see it before you came, Lovejoy?”

“You trusted reputations, Nicko. like famous auction houses —you think the great Fake exhibition at the British Museum could have come about without them? Or that Echt Vals Real Fake Exhibition a decade ago in Amsterdam? Or that terrorists aren’t a part of the antiques game, robbing simply to sell or ransom. You should read about Istanbul’s go-betweens.” My tone was growing bitter, hating the way antiques get it every time, treated like dirt except when money gets quoted.

“We don’t miss much, Lovejoy,” Gina said.

I rounded on her. Somehow I was standing. “Much you know, you stupid bitch. You miss the nose on your face. Can’t you see that in antiques there’s no suck thing as theft? Oh, there’s fraud all right, tricks a-plenty. But theft? Antiques laugh at it.”

“Prove you weren’t just a lucky bastard, Lovejoy!” Nicko was pointing at me.

“Shall I?” I yelled, in fury now it was all falling into place. “Shall I, you legalized murdering sods, the pair of you? Shall I? Seeing you let poor old Sokolowsky get crisped just to stay in with the syndicate? Shall I? Seeing you let Bill get run down for the same reason? Seeing you were willing to have me shot down, when they missed burning me in the Benidormo hotel blaze?”

He backed down, with an effort. “Some things have to be, Lovejoy. It’s a war we’re in. People get killed in wars.”

“Aye, you murderous pig, but not always the right ones.” I was so mad I couldn’t see for a sec, just stood there shaking. Magda and Zole could have died in that alley. Worse, so could I. Just like that Tony off the Gina, during my introduction to the whole rotten business. I just didn’t know who was right or wrong any more. Both sides played as dirty. I was so frigging tired, worn out.

“I’ll tell you,” I said dully. “Think back. That Gardner Museum theft in Boston—what was it, quarter of a billion, yesterday’s giveaway prices? They stole Vermeer, Rembrandt, ultimate antiques. Tot up the thefts of antiques for that and the previous four years, it comes to four billions, yesterday dollars.”

“And there’s no such thing as theft?” Nicko scoffed. The curtains wafted out. This time I didn’t hear the snick of the latch. I was past caring.

“You think you’ve proved me wrong? The Japanese Yakuza, the Mafia, all the terrorists and extortionists in the world know different. Heard of such a thing as the Statute of Limitations? Most countries have one. Time has a habit of passing. In a couple of years Monet’s Impression Sunrise, stolen from the Marmottan Museum, Paris, will emerge. The thieves can market the damned thing, immune by law. It’s legal now anyway—Japan’s statute of limitations is only two years.”

Gina asked, “Hasn’t it been recovered?”

I stared. I honestly don’t believe these people. “Aye, love. Fourteen times! Each time’s the one true genuine one.” I explained to ease their perplexity, “You see, love, once a special unique porcelain, bronze, ancient vase, piece of one-off furniture, painting, is stolen, there’s very little to go on to tell if what’s being offered for ransom is the one true original. Or a fake.”

“They do that?”

“The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911. Half a dozen fakes were sold for underhand fortunes—until the genuine one walked in, years later. It’s routine.

“Ninety-five per cent don’t even get recaptured. Ransom’s a cool ten per cent of value. Your own Foundation of Art Research admits that only one twentieth ever come home anyway.” I smiled, hoping it was as wintry as Nicko’s. “But then the statute declares the robbers immune, and out they come. If there’s any hassle, they simply add some small blemish—slightly change a hue of the sky in one corner, enlarge the canvas perhaps. You law people make me frigging laugh. You think because an antique’s catalogued somewhere that nobody’ll buy?”

“But they will?”

“Give me the money and a month, mister. I’ll buy you any antique or art work stolen in the past two decades.”

“What about the ones heisted before that?”

“Advertise. Orly and Jennie’ll tell you. It’s quite legal.” I turned, made way for them to enter the conversation. “Antiques are the one currency that survives inflation, flood, financial panic.”

“Or fund laundering?” Jennie asked.

“Ideal. It’s all the better—you don’t have to give the artists their cut. They’ve already starved to death yonks ago.”

“No moral sheet, Lovejoy,” Orly said. He still hated me.

I turned, gave him my bent eye. “I hated you less when you were only a murderous crook, Orly.” I shook my head at Nicko. “No thanks, Nicko. No deal. Do your own dirty work.”

“He’s the one, all right,” Nicko said. “Book him.”