Dylan had been the recipient of that pout numerous times in their frenetic, brief marriage. That didn't do anything to stiffen his resistance to it. Goering, he reflected, had known when the RAF and American bombers were coming across the Channel. That foreknowledge hadn't given him the power to stop their raids any more than Dylan's was able to prevent him from melting under Marjorie's pitiful little-girl expressions.
'All right, all right. But it better not be too far.' He checked his watch. 'I'd like to get home before midnight.'
'Thanks, honey.' The pout vanished faster than a starving hummingbird. 'We're not far.' She studied a slip of paper thick with hieroglyphics. 'It's just south of Colorado, near Lake.'
'Pasadena.' They were already passing Covina off ramps, he noticed. They were close, and it was on the way out of LA. Time for him to take credit for sane involuntary magnanimity. 'Sure, sugar. No reason we can't stop and look for a few minutes.'
But it took him longer to locate the store than he'd thought. The car made several passes in front of the right street numbers before Marjorie spotted the little sign set in among the brickwork, an identifying afterthought.
They parked nearby. Impatient to be on its way, the car grumbled when he turned it off. They didn't have far to walk. A Goodwill store, one dealing liquor, another pornographic books and magazines and FILMS, CHANGED EACH WEEK, ZSC.
A dim stairway to the right of the sign led up into the building, a narrow throat lined with flaking plaster. 'Either it's a very old, exclusive store or else another secondhand store masquerading as an antique shop.' He studied the stairwell warily.
'Why do you say that?'
He started up the stairs. 'He's on a second-floor walkup in a run-down neighborhood. They have an old-line, class clientele that knows the location or else he's upstairs because he can't afford a street-level location.'
'Think you're pretty smart, don't you?' She squeezed his arm affectionately, and he grinned back at her.
The door was the first one they saw at the top of the stairs. To the right and left, dark hallways ran off into silent oblivion. They could have run into other doors, other shops, or into the fourth dimension for all Dylan could see:
A name on the door: Harry Saltzmann. There was no bell. Several knocks produced no response.
'Nobody home.' He hoped his relief didn't show. Three days of traipsing around the megalopolis had tired him out, and he didn't share Marjorie's fanatic fondness for antiques. He was disgusted with breathing the effluvia of industrial civilization. It was time to go home.
'It's Tuesday. How can they be closed on Tuesday?' Marjorie sounded puzzled. 'There're no posted hours, though. Damn.'
'You'll find another antique store someday, Marj,' he assured her. 'You can smell 'em.'
The door clicked, moved inward slightly. Eyes peered out and up at them. They were green as a young kitten's, the youngest feature of an old face. They formed an informal boundary between the narrow, tower face and jaw and the bulging oversized skull. The latter was fringed with white hair, the whole fleshy basilica seemingly too large' to balance on the sunken cheekbones and thin jaw below.
'Oh, you're open.'
The man's voice was reassuringly firm, the accent southern: somewhere between Dallas and Nibelheim. 'Mebbe, young lady. Who're you?'
'I'm Marjorie,' she replied with her usual charming directness. 'This is my husband, Dylan. He's a writer. Are you Mr. Saltzmann, the owner?'
'Not much use denyin' it,' he mumbled. He looked resigned. 'You want to look around? I haven't got much time.'
'Not if you're closed. We don't want to cause you any trouble.' Marjorie never wanted to make trouble, Dylan reflected wryly. She was the type to apologize to the tax collector for not being able to give the government more money.
'No, no trouble.' The top-heavy face seemed to soften slightly. 'You folks from out of town?'
'Yes. How can you tell?'
'You look happy. Whereabouts?'
Dylan was growing annoyed at the inquisition, but Marjorie threw him a sharp look, and he hung on to his retreating sense of courtesy. 'Up the coast. Little town called Cambric. It's near San Simeon. You know, where the Hearst castle is?'
'Sure I know. They got a few nice pieces.'
A few nice . . . either the old man was putting them on, or else the first of Dylan's suppositions was correct and the inventory within would not be cheap.
The door rode back on its hinges. 'Come on in, then.'
The shop was as organized as a Pacific tide pool. Furniture, clothing, and brie-a-brae were scattered about the high-ceilinged old room with an awkward yet eye-pleasing efficiency. One had the impression that whenever anew assortment was added to the melange it would spread itself like a wave across the existing stock, disturbing nothing, adding another layer of ancient creativity to the store's sedimentary deposits.
Light came in off the street through an old, high window. In the darker recesses of the nowhere-bright chamber, isolated small bulbs shone with feeble fluorescence, like fat fireflies in an Ohio forest.
Masterworks and gutterworks crowded together, competing for scant display space. An old city garbage can held dresses that must have been over a hundred years old. In a scratched glass case junk jewelry lay heaped in piles of gleaming paste. There was also an old-style tiara sparkling with suspiciously genuine-looking emeralds and diamonds. One faceted green pool was as big as Dylan's watch face.
Curious, he called the proprietor over. Saltzmann peered down over his belly to where Dylan's finger was pointing.
'The necklace? That's seven dollars.'
'No, no. The tiara, next to it.'
'Oh, that one. That's three hundred thousand.'
Dylan missed a breath, stared at the slim, delicate filigree of gold and gems. 'You're kidding, of course.'
'Too much? Oh, well, if you really want it, I suppose I can let it go for two hundred and fifty. Belonged to Josephine . . . Bonaparte's gal.'
Dylan tried not to smirk. 'We'll keep it in mind.'
There was a call for help from the far side of the shop. Marjorie was buried back among the old clothes there, running centuries through her fingers, trying on one era after another. Saltzmann waddled over to assist.
That left a bored Dylan to wend his own way deeper into the depths of the store. The long room seemed to run clear through the building. A ship's figurehead smiled down at him, and he admired it, tried to imagine it breasting the waves of the seven seas. He passed barrels stinking of long-drunk whiskey, kegs of railroad spikes, old cast-iron toys. There were baked and cracked horse collars and rusty farm tools dangling overhead that whispered of droughts and bad crops.
A corner led him to a back room, slightly better lit than the main store. Several pieces of furniture lay taken apart on floor and benches. He was just realizing that he'd stumbled onto the old man's workshop when he saw the chair.
It squatted off in a dim corner of its own, unadorned with antique Coke bottles or limp fur capes or power tools. To a writer of travel and adventure stories it was as irresistible as a guided tour of eighteenth-century Arabia.
Still, he paused long enough to peek back into the shop proper. Marjorie was holding a long black Victorian gown in front of her, dickering with the owner. The gown seemed to fit the nips and tucks of her Junoesque figure well. Somewhere an equally lovely form, the original wearer of that dress, was now dust. Quickly he drew back into the workroom and walked over to stare greedily at the chair.
It was straight-backed, with four legs, two straight arms, and a curved seat all hewn from some heavy, dark wood. Probably oak or walnut, he mused. In addition to the fairly standard clawed legs and swirling decorations there were more flagrant examples of the wood-carver's art.
Each arm ended in the head of a peculiarly anthropomorphic fish. At each upper corner of the straight back a deeply sculpted lion's skull, fangs agape, glared back at him. But it was the back of the seat that drew most of his enraptured attention.
