The Great California Game

Without me, the antiques staker would have still been old stickyfingers, Fat Jim Bethune, the antiques stake maybe a tenth of what I’d made it.

Without me, Moira would have Denzie hooked on her daft Sherlock scam, and Gina and Sophie would both be in the lurch. Which was the opposite of what Gina wanted, if Magda’s interpretation was right. Meanwhile, I had Busman as an ally, back in that warren. I’d never needed a library so badly.

“How long’ve we got, love?”

“The boat docks Baton Rouge at ten.”

Difficult. Zole must have seen my face fall. He snickered. “He dumb.”

“Call me that once again and I’ll —”

“What, Lovejoy?” He noshed on, taunting. “You can’t even —”

“We get off before Baton Rouge,” Magda said. “Get a car. I’ve spoken with the man.” She looked out at the gliding scenery. “There’s a smaller place across the other side. He’ll set us down in a boat.”

Legit. I’d noticed the lifeboats in the davits, of course, had all sorts of mad plans brewing. She’d simply arranged it. I didn’t need to ask how.

AN hour later we were on dry land, hired a car and bowled north on US 61. Magda drove while I slept with the dog sprawled over me. When I awoke, we’d passed Natchez, filled up at Vicksburg, and were coasting due east on US 80 with intermissions for Sherman to have a pee.

“Magda,” I said once. “Shall I drive a bit? I mean, you’ve not had much sleep…” I dried. “Where’d we stop?”

“Atlanta, Georgia.”

I like the way Americans never say a name but what they make a doublet, Memphis, Tennesse and that.

“We’ve missed out a lot of places,” I observed. “Why?”

“He but dumb,” from Zole.

“Stop calling him that,” Magda said before I could draw breath.

Zole looked across at her, and not a word. He gave me a look over his shoulder. Silence. We pulled into Atlanta on the main route 20, and found a smallish hotel equidistant between the State Capitol, Cooks, and Emory University. Zole got me every newspaper and magazine under the sun, and I started reading like my life depended on it. Magda vanished, Zole vanished, the world vanished.

ANTIQUES are the norm of my life. For most others, it’s time—like how did the Tokyo Exchange perform overnight, how will Wall Street do today. Yet even that isn’t constant. I mean, time varies in America—now isn’t now in New York if you’re in Atlanta, and it’s different again in Los Angeles. Fashions are never the same two minutes together. This year’s colour’s not tomorrow’s. Governments roll over and die, and new bums come rioting in.

But antiques are. I’m told some mountaineers and astronauts share the same feeling: whatever else happens, there’s always Everest or Jupiter. Ambition rules us all, from dreamy starlet to maniac billionaires. But I see life against a backdrop of lovely things —furniture, paintings, jewellery, porcelains, candlesticks to Constables—which older folk made with the love of their hands and left to move us to tears with beauty.

Except everybody isn’t the same. Some people would walk past the Mona Lisa without a glance. I used to know a woman like that. Used to sit up all night culling news of investment bonds, yet she had a Turner painting on her wall. Barmy.

My point is that everything valuable has its doppelganger, its fake counterpart. The general rule in antiques is, the pricier the antique, the more serious are the contenders for its throne. This means the fakes are taken more seriously.

And fakes are everywhere.

The list of fakes is enough to stop the average person getting out of bed in the morning. Aircraft parts, cardiac pacemakers, antibiotics for death-dealing infections, even blood transfusion equipment, vie with precious Old Masters, priceless jewels, documents, bonds, share certificates, family records. Everything’s up for grabs. Equally so, too. Nothing is sacred to the faker. That children will die from the wrong drug doesn’t matter a damn to fraudsters. Nor that helicopters will fall from the sky when some dud bolt shears in flight. Fraud is the achiever’s religion.

By four in the morning I’d found the sort of man I was looking for. I put on the television news channel for an update. Quickly I decided I’d move in two stages. I made a transatlantic call to tell a retired Major Lister in Rutland exactly how I wanted him to have his photo taken. I told him exactly what to do and why. I wanted them at the office of a multi-billionaire who was in deep trouble. Then I rested, asking to be roused at six o’clock.

Magda returned our car, and I spent three hours in the splendid public library while she and Zole rested. I’d been on tenterhooks in case either had got caught or didn’t show up, or simply vanished having decided they’d had enough of me as a non-paying passenger. They should have done. I’d have ditched them if I’d had half a chance.

She booked us on different flights from Hartsfield Atlanta, she and Zole to Los Angeles, me to New York. It was an awkward leave-taking. She checked me over as if I was a child going to a new school, spotless shirt, briefcase, suit pressed, shoes glittering, tie sober yet crisp.

“Your hair never stay down, Lovejoy?”

“Not really.” I was embarrassed. She’d gone to so much trouble.

“You know to get them to radio ahead?”

“Yes, ta. I’ve got the list, love.”

“If you need something doing Lovejoy, remember you can hire. You’re in Big A.”