The Great California Game

“Eh?” He’d just said something momentous.

“I’m going to have you silenced, Lovejoy.” He sounded friendly, thoughtful. “But first, I’m going to do you a favour. I’m going to explain why.”

“Silenced?” I said stupidly.

“As in terminal.” He was at pains to seem reasonable. “Do you know what I’d give for your power to divine, to divvy genuine from fake? Everything. Instead, that power is vouchsafed to an oaf like you. A drifter, on the make for a few miserable dollars.”

“I’m not like that —”

“Instead, I lack totally that extraordinary power which you have in abundance. It isn’t that which I find unforgivable. It’s you. You, Lovejoy, are a gargoyle not to be tolerated. There’s one point more.”

I licked my lips, looked for escape.

“Don’t worry. I’ve more sense than execute you here, in my own home. I’ll have it done before you leave the city, parts of which can become very fraught and dangerous.”

“I’ll call the police,” I threatened feebly, wondering why I’d told Tye to stay away the only time I needed him.

“The other reason is, I’ve come from nothing, Lovejoy. I’ve risen by the exercise of my own brain, astuteness. Triumph of the will.” He smirked at the aptness of the phrase. “Ironical, no? I’m not going to have you coming in here and talking my — my — possessions back into public ownership — ownership of dolts and fools who couldn’t look after them as they deserve to be looked after. They forfeited them. They deserved to. I tried the fools in Holland, the idiots in France, before the jury of my own mind. And found them guilty.”

“So you transferred ownership?”

“And shall do more, Lovejoy. Without your assistance.” He smiled beatifically, spent by the effort of revelation.

“You were the barrister for the defence, Lovejoy. You must pay the price for having lost the trial. Goodbye, Lovejoy. Start running.”

Shakily I rose and went towards the patio, through the french windows expecting gunshots any minute. Then the street, through the squeaking wrought-iron gates, into music and flowers and people.

And the lowering dusk.

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?”