away from his online game and Tom Newman away from his mobile phone, on which he had been making arrangements to meet some girl called Mirella at the Antica Osteria dell’Arenella for dinner the following evening. Tom had been speaking Italian, but Martin’s passive command of the language was increasing by leaps and bounds. Too bad his ability to speak it lagged behind, otherwise he could dispense with his translator altogether. But he had plans for doing so just as soon as a deal was struck, so he didn’t comment on Tom’s evident intention of taking tomorrow night off. In fact, it rather suited his purposes.
He finally got all the players assembled. Martin himself was wearing his usual Islamic fundamentalist outfit: a black lightweight woollen suit over a grey clerical-style shirt tightly buttoned at the collar and tiny, highly polished slip-on shoes. Jake sported a baseball cap turned backwards on his shaven skull, a T-shirt that read ‘AWGTHTGTTSA???’, faded jeans artfully torn at the knee and thigh, and basketball shoes that must have cost more than Martin’s whole ensemble. Tom had gone native in pigskin loafers, khaki cords, check shirt open half-way down his chest, a yellow lambs-wool pullover draped off his shoulders like a scarf, and aviator shades perched way up in the nest of blue-black curls above his broad and unfurrowed brow. Only Mantega and Alecsandri could have passed unremarked anywhere. Well, almost anywhere, because the Italian was clearly strapped, an automatic pistol peeking out of the shoulder holster he had left just sufficiently visible for his purposes.
Martin gestured to Nicola Mantega, who proceeded to unpack a large golden plate and dish from the cardboard box he had brought with him and lay them down on the long table of some faux wood. Everyone clustered around, but there weren’t enough chairs for them all to sit down.
‘You go here,’ Martin told Jake. ‘George, over there please.’
He himself remained standing, as did Mantega and Tom. Jake picked up the plate and tilted it this way and that.
‘Tableware,’ he said. ‘You ever meet Rob?’
The question was directed at Martin.
‘We worked together on NT?’ Jake went on. ‘He bought his dishes at Costco, like in a crate, hundred a time, then threw them in the garbage when he’d done. Said it was cheaper than running the dishwasher.’
‘And more environmentally friendly, no doubt.’
Martin felt furious at Jake for revealing to these foreigners that he, Martin Nguyen, worked for a moron.
‘What do those letters on your shirt mean?’ he snapped.
Jake returned one of his unfathomably shallow glances.
‘Are we going to have to go through this shit again?’
Martin realised he’d screwed up.
‘Hey, Jake, I’m sorry! Didn’t know I’d asked you before.’
‘You didn’t. That’s what it means.’
He stretched the T-shirt out tightly, his nipples poking through the cotton in a pubescently girlish manner, grinned hugely at the assembled company, then resumed fingering his wispy goatee. Gheorghe Alecsandri had meanwhile been studying the two artefacts on the table with the aid of various instruments which he took out of the bulky overnight bag he had brought up with him from the sales rep’s cubicle into which he had been checked for the night. He examined each at considerable length, first by the naked eye, then under a series of furled magnifying glasses, and finally a small microscope that fitted away neatly into a leather case. He entirely ignored the massive silence which had formed in the room since Jake’s exchange with Martin. He replaced the two pieces on the table, sat back in his chair and sighed deeply.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘They’re the real McCoy?’ prompted Martin.
The Romanian gave him a look that he understood better than Jake’s, but definitely didn’t appreciate. It was time to make enough money to buy his way out of being looked at like that, the same way you could buy your way out of living in a walkup by the freeway, if you won the lottery.
‘I can’t see what Scotch whisky has to do with the matter,’ Alecsandri replied.
‘Answer the question!’ rapped Martin.
‘They are quite certainly genuine, probably executed by a Greek artisan, or one familiar with that tradition, for a Roman patron.’
Martin looked at Jake, but he was staring at the blank screen of the TV and didn’t appear to be listening.
‘You’re sure of that?’ he insisted.
‘It is impossible to be absolutely sure. Gold is a metallic element. It cannot be carbon-dated unless it contains organic impurities, which I doubt very much is the case here.’
‘When were they made?’
‘That is conjectural. On stylistic evidence, my best guess would be the second century after Christ. Certainly no later than the third.’
He began to pack away his instruments.
‘I might add, if this aspect of the situation is of any interest to you, that they are exquisite and show very little sign of wear. It is probable that they were used for display purposes, the actual food being consumed from cheap oven-fired dishes which were eventually discarded in the manner of your friend’s colleague Rob in one of those landfill sites that have proved so useful to archaeologists in the past, as they doubtless will to those who investigate our quaint social customs in the future.’
He took one last look at the two golden objects and then stood up.
‘Quite unique and inexpressibly precious,’ he said. ‘Were they offered for sale to the institution for which I work, I shouldn’t have the slightest hesitation in advising the directors to proceed with the acquisition.’
He looked at Martin and grinned coldly.
‘But I am not such a fool as to imagine that there is any chance of that happening.’
‘Nice doing business with you, George!’ Martin replied. ‘Run along and get some sleep. My driver will take you back to the airport in time for your flight home tomorrow. Thanks for coming. We sure appreciate your input.’
When the door had closed and been locked behind the Romanian, Martin turned to Nicola Mantega.
‘Okay, this stuff’s good. What else you got?’
After listening to Tom’s translation, Nicola Mantega gave an oddly feminine shrug.
‘I’m just the negotiator. They haven’t shown me any more than what’s on the table now. But if there’s anything in particular that you’re interested in…’
‘There is. Just one, in fact. If your friends are unable to supply it, then no deal.’
‘They are not my friends, signore, but I can certainly make enquiries. Discreetly, of course, given the highly sensitive nature of the transaction. Please provide further details of the item in question.’
Jake shot Martin a Greta Garbo look and shambled off into the bedroom, mumbling to himself in Leetspeak. Taking the hint, Martin Nguyen slapped the startled Mantega on the back.
‘Hey, it’s past midnight! Let’s all get some sleep and then talk it through over lunch tomorrow.’
The three of them trooped out and headed for the lifts. Tomorrow, thought Martin, it was going to be time to try out his rudimentary Italian on Nicola Mantega. He didn’t trust himself to handle the detailed negotiations involved in the purchase and handover of the menorah, but there was another matter that he had to communicate privately to this sleazy notary public. One of Martin’s principles in life was never to leave his personal security in pawn to third parties with everything to gain and nothing to lose by revealing — or threatening to reveal — the truth. So Tom would have to be disposed of. Calabria struck Martin as a suitable place for this to happen, and Nicola Mantega as the kind of operator who might well know someone prepared, for the going rate, to take care of this chore.
A hawk was being harassed by a pack of crows. To gain altitude, they beat their wings like drowning swimmers thrashing about, then swivelled and dived as if to ram their opponent, squawking madly but always deliberately missing their target. At each feigned assault, the hawk adjusted the angle of its outstretched wings and glided on, surfing the currents of hot air rising from the rock and scrub beneath. It could easily have turned on its tormentors and gutted them with its great claws, but killing on the wing was alien to its species. For their part, the mob of crows might have attacked this competitor on their territory in earnest, flustering it enough to give one of them an opening to drive its spiky beak into the intruder’s body, but neither was such behaviour programmed into their genetic code. It was thus a confrontation that neither protagonist could win decisively, and would go on and on until one or the other tired of the game and gave up.
