diners where I could, ducked out when the going got rough. One seemed to specialize in brawls. Eventually I risked a taxi, got dropped off where comedians talked jokes into a hang of smoke over tables populated by an audience who never laughed. The worst was, those comedians were the best I’d ever heard. It broke what was left of my heart.
Came dawn. I decided I’d risk visiting Mr Sokolowsky to check the details of the Game. I went by Metro, riskily joining the first commuters of the day, lighting at Christopher Street on the Broadway-Seventh Avenue line. I felt death warmed up, as my Gran used to say.
The view from the end of the old jeweller’s street kept me moving on. Ambulances and police and fire engines wah-wah about New York every hour God sends, so I’d not sussed the significance of a team tearing past as I’d headed that way. But outside his house a small crowd had gathered, and a covered shape was being gurneyed into an ambulance. I didn’t look back.
A suspicious mind like mine might conclude that old Sokolowsky had told his masters that I’d called. They’d possibly hunted, failed to find me, and exacted the ultimate forfeit. My mouth was dry. I was tired, lost.
But antiques beckoned. I went into a huge commercial building that claimed to be the centre of World Trade. I believed it. I submitted to a professional shave which started me imagining gangsters bursting in to do a routine assassination, had a headwash (exhausting), manicure (embarrassing), and shoeshine (most embarrassing of all).
The tonsorialist, he said he was, talked ceaselessly, praising Thomas Maynooth’s brilliant innovation — a midnight to midnight Law Day, which was the talk of the town because it seemed to be working. Grand Central to Tenth, West 34th to 48th, not a single mugging or killing yet, a whole ten hours!
I did my best with the accent. “Who’s this Maynooth genius?”
“Here.” He showed me a morning paper a foot thick, Maynooth being honoured by one Major J. Lister. “Tommy Maynooth maintains this foreign orphanage. He’s mad the papers found out.”
Good hearted, and modest with it.
I left, into Manhattan sunshine. I felt prepared. Let me die among antiques.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
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PLAYING antiques auction houses against each other is the ultimate. It’s the dealer’s fandango. Sooner or later we all skip the light fantastic, to their tune. The Big Two skip fastest of all.
I’d chosen Mangold, of Geneva, London, Paris, Monaco and everywhere else where money lurks. Nicko’s people—I supposed Tye Dee, Al, Shell—would be watching Sotheby’s and Christie’s, because the plan I’d formed with Gina included these. Mangold’s wasn’t big. I’d chosen it from many. The reason was its forthcoming lawsuit against the Big Pigs, as dealers call them.
I simply got a hire car—you can get these in America—and drove there in splendour. Remembering Oscar Wilde’s essential for the con trick, I smiled constantly, trying for an aura of wealth. I was Mr Dulane, of Geneva and London, I was also a lawyer. The head man saw me with all the readiness of the smaller company under threat.
We shook hands, some more amiably than others. I apologized to Simon Mangold for my appearance, claimed jet lag and airports. He said it gets everybody.
“You’re the son of the founder?”
“Dad died last year.”
His attitude announced that he was going to go down fighting. But that only tells everybody you’re going down anyway. It must be something about the antiques that does it, makes bravery ridiculous. We were in a panelled office, nothing old in it except a couple of beautiful Chelsea porcelains that warmed my soul. Here was a man who loved antiques, but whose love was the doom of his firm.
“That’s when your troubles started, I hear, Mr Mangold.”
“It’s in the papers,” he said bluntly.
“The Bigs are nothing if not acquisitive.” I went all sympathetic. “I’m here to give you information which may help you.”
He digested this. No fool he. “Give?”
“Give. As in donate. If you like the gift, I’ll suggest a course of action which will benefit us both. If you don’t you’re free to use the information for nothing.”
That fazed him. He excavated with a toothpick, examined his palms for buried treasure, stroked the surface of his desk. I watched, marvelling. We just ask to be researched by sociologists.
“That clear cut?” When I nodded, he asked to see my business card. I shook my head, said I was travelling light.
“Would you hang on a second, Mr Dulane?”
“Not that either,” I said, varying my smile to show no hard feelings. “Your secretary can check the International Business Directory, you won’t find us. I haven’t much time.” I was narked and shut him up. Hell, it was my prezzie. People want jam on it.
“I’ve chosen your auction houses, Mr Mangold, because my information will damage your competitors, please my principals, and enable you to survive. Ready?”
His mind clicked round. The large auction houses were trying to launch a closed shop, effectively eliminating Mangold’s from the antiques market. They’d both tried to buy him out for years. The price for survival was to vanish into either of the Big Two. Mangold’s was suing, despairingly trusting the law courts. Which showed how desperate
