the knack of building where others wouldn’t dare.
Affluence isn’t affluence at all. Hong Kong is the benchmark; everybody else’s affluence is mere tat. Until you’ve experienced that perfume-washed air as polarized glass doors embrace you into a luxury hotel’s plush interior, you’ve only had a dud replica of the real thing.
Steerforth said it was a hotel, but it fooled me. Palace, yes. But hotel? With serial chandeliers bigger than my entire cottage? With costly marble floors, and gold—that’s g-o-l-d, not merely gilded—fittings in the washbasins, and demure almond-eyed hostesses in ultra-costly hand-tailoreds, and genuine silk hangings and original expressionist paintings hanging in Reception, and the hotel’s logo in diamonds on the wall and backwards… it reeled my cortex. I was the cheapest item there, and this costly world knew it. I’d have hit Des Voeux Road with my shoulder had it not been for Steerforth.
He had a small leather case. He gave it to me as we entered the foyer, and murmured,
“Be subservient at all times, okay?”
“Er, what exactly—?”
In we swept, Steerforth abruptly squeaky-voiced and querulous, demanding information from the smiling beauties and commanding me to get the lift. Swiftly I got the idea: Clearly I must act the hired help, to boost his status in this pricey arena. I’ve served my apprenticeship in groveling, so bowed and scraped and let him go first and all that. He’d rescued me, after all. And we were entering a ballroom—
—with antiques.
I heard myself give out a yelp that made the nearest strollers turn sharply but I couldn’t help it. Even in this wealthy coolth my breath stopped. Steerforth made an angry gesture, come on and stop mucking about. With difficulty I obeyed. We progressed slowly round the layout. I was in heaven. The antiques were sumptuous.
“Lovejoy.” Steerforth said loudly, prodding me. “Take notes.”
“Eh?” The last time I’d taken notes I’d been nine. “Er, right, sir,” I gave back, but uneasily. He was a nut. Nobody in their senses says this sort of thing on viewing day, because it’s chucking money away. I accepted a pen and pad from a page boy and pretended to scribble. Steerforth, the nerk, breezed ahead, ostentatiously pausing to admire his reflection in the wall mirrors every so often. I clocked the room.
Furniture abounded, mostly European—Dutch, English. Ceramics flourished, Chinese and some Japanese.
Some Nabeshima porcelains were perfect, real prizes with their brilliant slices of color and miniature decoration. Clockwork mechanisms seemed big in Hong Kong, and Persian carpets were a feature. Marveling at where the hell they’d obtained the lot from, and goggling at a score of Victorian and pre-Victorian paintings, I was in a transport of delight.
The forty or fifty viewers were beautiful people. By this I mean they were pointedly exhibiting their wealth. About half were Caucasians, half Asian, Americans and Chinese predominating. Uniformed minions stood about. Closed-circuit cameras doing slow scans from the exit lintels. Ah well, theft never crossed my mind.
“Lovejoy.” Steerforth had paused beside an ornate rosewood bureau, Indonesian about 1905 or so. He whispered, “Look for something nobody’d spot for price. Know what I mean?”
“No, sir,” I whispered back, thinking, I don’t believe this. We were in the most beautifully lit, most carefully guarded, mass of exquisite antiques I’d seen for ages, and here we were like Bill Sikes and Fagin hatching plots.
“You know what I mean,” he said angrily. “Spot the real antiques. You did it in the fucking market.”
“Practically everything’s honest,” I whispered. Shoddy manservant or not, I was becoming narked. “And most of these viewers are in the know.” I’d already tagged one portly gentleman from a wealthy New York syndicate. I’d once seen him blithely overbid a quarter of a million for a tiny James I miniature portrait by a pretty ropy if unknown artist.
“They are?” He was thunderstruck and drew away to eye me. I knew what he was thinking: Is Lovejoy having me on, for his own neffie purposes?
“Of course.” I was impatient. “Just look at them. Everybody already has catalogs coded up. They’re pros. They’ll have reps, barkers, scouts in every major capital on earth.
They’re international rings, syndicates, decks, shedders, rollers. They could buy and sell both of us without caring if we’re tax- deductible.”
He wilted, and I mean really sagged, the jaw-drop and everything. I was suddenly sorry for him. I knew how he felt. I’d been there a thousand times. It’s worse every trip.
“Then what’s the good, Lovejoy?” he said, utterly broken. “I was hoping for percentage.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” I was relieved. “For a second I thought you were barmy.”
“What do you mean?” Poor chap. I smiled. Out there he was Hong Kong’s king survivor.
In here he was helpless. With me it was the reverse. In the hot streets I’d had a grim time lasting a bare two days. In here I was the natural.
I spoke kindly. “Tell me frankly what we’re up to, Steerforth, and I promise to do my damnedest. Honest to God.”
We retired from that opulent ballroom and went to sit on a velvet splendor where a pianist trilled perfect trills and fountains splashed. Steerforth ordered orange juice for me, a triple whiskey for himself. I’d already said my piece, so nodded for him to launch out. He waited until a couple of English floral hats strolled past, obviously heading for tea with the Governor, then cleared his throat round a quick gulp.
“There’s a ship, Lovejoy. A convention of antiquers is in, spending on antiques like there’s no tomorrow. The biggest syndicate is called Brookers Gelman.”
Aha, I thought, but did not say.
“Hong Kong lives on money, Lovejoy. One main trick is information. About anything.
Deals, contracts, visiting buyers. Legal or otherwise, HK doesn’t give a damn. As long as the money clock goes round.”
