exploited nickname, heady stuff for an accountant. Except maybe he wasn’t just an accountant.
“I can explain, Vermilio, Coats.” Nicko spread his hands in appeasement. “This guy’s new in. We employed him to see if he could increase the contribution from antiques. He failed.” He smiled, calm personified. “We got Jim Bethune back instead.”
“But Nicko,” I exclaimed, indignant. “Mr Bethune’s figures were less than a twentieth of —”
“He’s a blusterer, Vermilio,” Nicko said. “We had to give him a try. But he couldn’t deliver —”
“I got the concession from Mangold’s auctioneers like I promised, Nicko!” Nicko tried to interrupt, but Vermilio silenced him by a look. “The percentage from Mortdex. God, Nicko. The hack from Louisiana alone is over three times what you had from all the art markets last year! The hacks from Maynooth, Gullenbenkian, bring it at least to eighteen times Bethune’s figures —”
“He’s insane, Vermilio. It can’t be done.”
Nicko was green. His eyes did their laser trick directly into me. I didn’t care. I was suddenly immune. Once a threat is diluted, it might as well go all the way.
“Let’s hear it.”
Vermilio stayed on his feet. Coats called in several tuxedo people from outside. They sat around me in a circle to listen. I was made to talk. The line of goons against the panelling didn’t move. Nicko stood beside Vermilio while I spoke quietly to show I wasn’t a madman.
“I was working in a bar,” I began. “I fancied a few antique items worn by a customer. Her sister noticed my interest, guessed I was able to recognize genuine antiques by instinct. It’s called being a divvy. Nicko Aquilina came to hear of me, took me on his payroll. I investigated Jim Bethune’s antiques firm in Manhattan. It was a front for fraud —”
“Fraud’s essential in the California Game, Lovejoy.” Coats, in reprimand. I didn’t respond. Let him dig my trench for me. “All our stakes are hacks.”
“It’s not fraud,” I said quietly. “It’s fair, legit legal.”
Coats was irritated, challenged on his own ground.
“You heard the announcement. Washington stakes an extra half billion this year, hacked from the Irish illegal immigrant levy. Houston, Texas, cuts in the same from the environment lobby. Hawaii brings in a new billion from glass pipes—very promising, now ice-crack’s on the mainland here. Chicago’s brung another half billion from Pentagon hacks —”
“Dull, dull,” somebody muttered. “What’s new? It shoulda been new.”
“Like fuckin’ Philly, uh?” somebody in a gaudy polka-dot bow tie shot back. The listeners brightened. I did, with the realization I was relatively small fry among this lot. “Still workin’ the fuckin’ Panama Bahama dirty dollar shunt? Jeech!”
“Atlanta’s new,” a smooth smiler put in conversationally. “Except a World Soccer Cup stadium hack only works one time. Once the stadium’s been built all over the fuckin’s place, that’s it, though maybe next time —”
“Lovejoy?” from Vermilio.
They shut up. I was back in the limelight. “Mine isn’t fraud. It’s legit.” My attempt at snappy speech was pathetic.
“Your antiques hack is legitimate?” Coats looked for help.
“Ring Mangold. Ask him if he’s agreed to chip in a percentage of the shifted auctions. Nothing illegal there, by any country’s laws. Check Gullenbenkian. It’s legit. Check that Maynooth’s input’s legal. Ask Verbane if the Mortdex contribution’s legal or not.” I waxed indignant, almost believing me myself. “That’s what I told Nicko, didn’t I, Nicko? And Jennie. Ask Tye Dee. He’ll tell you. He was with me all through when I arranged them. He’s got witnesses. I’ve a list of hotels, bedroom reservations.”
I was moving about, pleading for antiques now, not for me.
“The trouble is, people like you come to think of antiques as a commodity. They’re not. They’re people, the best things on earth. Can’t you see that, played right, the antiques world can chip in as much as the rest of an entire stake? Nicko’ll tell you. I worked it all out for him weeks ago —”
“A legit hack?” Coats almost reeled. “There’s no such thing.” He looked at the Atlanta man, appealed, “The World Cup building programme—the hack was twelve per cent of total. Massive!”
“I don’t like the word hack,” I protested. “Or fraud.”
Vermilio pondered massively. “Check his numbers,” he said. “Nicko? He’s right, you’re wrong, okay?”
“Sure.”
“It looks like the Alhambra stakers tried it on,” Coats the accountant said. “Risking less’n they hacked. Should they lose, they keep mosta the hack. If they win, then nice for them.”
Vermilio smiled, like a mountain parting to show worse mountains in the interior. “Compensation,” he announced. “A bet. Nicko’s on the line. He wins, he keeps his ass. He loses…”
The meeting dissolved in whoops and an exchange of bets. I looked at Nicko, but received nothing. He knew only what I knew. I was pouring sweat too, and the air conditioning was at maximum chill.
FARO’S said to be the oldest card game ever.
You pick a card, and chuck away the rest of that pack. Then you take a new pack, and deal into two piles. If the matching card falls into one pile, you win, If in the other, you lose.
Money, usually. Life, in Nicko’s case.
The Alhambra crowd assembled in silence away from the exit signs, when finally the galleries were crowded and rumours had settled into a steady hum of hatred. I’d tried to say hi there to Jane Elsmeer, but she’d managed nothing more than a reflex twitch of the lips. I’d even smiled at the scarlet lady to no avail.
