Conman (4 page)

“No, but he was a … provider. All that Viking, Nordic, outdoorsy hunter gatherer … stuff.”

“
You’re
a –”

“Big shoulders and that long flowy hair that all the girls tried to play with. Mr Sensitive New Man with the wounded soul. That bloody … Arran sweater and his save the seal cubs. You could have had him if you’d wanted him, y’know?”

“
Andrew Benjamin
?”

“If you’d wanted
him
. Instead. He had a crush on you.”

“Andrew? He got us together. There was no … We were
friends
.”

“Did you know about the poems?”

“Oh he didn’t have –”

“Those red spiral notebooks he used to always carry.
I
shared a room with him.”

“Then why didn’t he … ?” Jane flapped and then stopped, shrugging the memories off, sweeping thoughts away. “Look, what’s brought all this on suddenly?”

“Nothing, I … Nothing.” I shook myself, chugging a little more beer over the sick ache in my stomach. “I’m being stupid.”

“You are. He and I were friends. We all were. A team,” Jane said. She suddenly remembered something. “Oh, talking of Dad, there’s a letter from his accountant I think. On the desk there. Came this morning. And something from the bank it looks like.”

“Bank?” I squeaked, covering it with a belchy cough. I spun the chair. There were two envelopes propped against the silver photo-frame.

“Shall I do your back?” Jane said, standing, waggling the jar of oil. “It’ll help you relax.”

“Uhm, no. No I’m … er fine. Should we look in on Lana?” I stood shruggily, edging around to block Jane’s view of the desk, wiping my oily hands and ruining another towel in exactly the way Jane had told me not to.

She gathered the pillows and gave me a kiss. I smiled weakly and watched as she plucked the monitor from the floor and ambled in her loose tracksuit bottoms, cooing down the short hall to what was now either a study with a cot jammed in it or a nursery with a computer jammed in it.

Ignoring the pink cardboard ‘
£
15’ star Blu-tacked to the desk, I lifted the bank envelope. Plain and business-like, my name peeked guiltily from the little window. Heart thudding, I tore it open and scanned through it, throat tight.

Oh Christ.

“Everything all right?” Jane said, appearing in the doorway, Lana on her hip.

“Oh, just a statement. Everything’s fine,” I lied, stuffing it in my jeans. “Everything’s just fine.”

Half an hour later, by the dim glow of a plastic caterpillar
night-light
, I was skulking in the nursery. Hunched over the rickety,
flat-pack
computer desk in the corner, another beer thudding about my temples, a freshly changed Lana dozed contentedly in her cot behind me. Fists closed, mouth open, her small room smelled of brushed cotton and nappies.

What the hell was I doing, dragging up old university
memories
to pummel Jane with? It was all getting out of hand. The fear, the worry. Knowing it was only a matter of days before our world was picked up, turned upside down and had everything we knew shaken out of it by men in overalls.

Pushing thoughts aside, I fetched the
Overstreet
guide from the bedroom, picking up my satchel from the hall on the way back. In the lounge I could hear Jane on the phone with her dad,
promising
we’d get his accountant guy over by the end of the week.

Returning to the sanctum of the nursery once again, I shut the door behind me and tugged out my paperwork.

Sotheby
’s, it turned out, were right. The valuations matched. I didn’t know if this was what I wanted to hear or not. Whether it just made things more confusing, having
two
experts telling me I had an unboardable lifeboat out there. Pulling the buckled bank letter from my pocket, I took another long look at it. Volume four in a long line of statements, adding up all the bank charges and missed direct debits. You don’t want to know how much it all came to.

I tore it up and buried it at the bottom of the bin under a scented nappy sack, concentrating instead on the stiff envelope containing the day’s ill-gotten prize. Untacking the lip, I eased the faded photograph free and laid it on the computer keyboard, sliding the night-light a little nearer, shadows shifting.

Two men. Teenagers. Felt hats and shirt-sleeves, side by side in a boxy office. Smiling the guilty, awkward smiles of the suddenly famous. On the right, the artist, a pencil behind his ear and drawing pad clamped under his arm, no doubt at the behest of some unimaginative publicity hack. On the left, his partner, writer and occasional model sports a knotted tablecloth about his neck, a typewriter under his arm and – pulled over his suit trousers, causing them to ride and ruck – a huge pair of absurd underpants.

Best wishes – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

I eased the crumbling paper over carefully. A date on the reverse. 1933. Plus an inky stamp: image copyright Detective Comics Inc. 480 Lexington Ave NYC.

I set the photograph aside and booted up the computer.

Fifteen pounds I’d paid. A quick click and drag across a webful of collectors’ sites moments later told me I should be slapping it on the
Heroes Inc
website for twenty times that amount. Did I feel guilty? Was Jane right?

Gor dear, fuckin’ amateur hour this place. New to the game are you, ya fuckin’ fairy?

Screw it. He’d had it coming.

As my old scanner whirred and stuttered, I tried to focus on the job in hand. Opening up a file, I spent a moment banging out a suitably gushy description – mint, must see, collector’s item, perfect gift, offers in the region, bing bang bong, all that. The
photo was taking a while to download so I took a quick surf across to eBay to check out Cheng’s story.

Sure enough, there it was.
Action Comics
, issue 4. September 1938. Four thousand pounds. I didn’t know the seller but it was getting a lot of attention, mostly from a collector in the US called Grayson, topping everyone’s bid.

Me? Ha, what do
you
think.

No, I just sat there in the glow of a plastic caterpillar, watching the screen fill with tablecloths, underpants and fedoras, half listening to Jane next door on the phone with her dad.

They seemed to be discussing private schools.

Heart hammering, I was gripped suddenly with an urge to tell her. To come clean. Get up, march into the lounge, sit down, take her hand, look her in the eyes and just tell her. Blurt it out. Own up. The trouble I’d got us in. What was about to happen.

But –

Well I didn’t. I couldn’t. Her dad –

I just couldn’t.

Instead I just sat there, not blinking, eyes on my screen. Feeling them getting sore. Worry, slithery and black, coiling about my gut. Tasting fear, coppery in my mouth. Praying,
praying
, silently, it would be okay.

That everything would
somehow
sort itself out.

Ha. Look at the state of me.

What do
you
think?

Oh by the way, before we go on – you got that, did you? Jane’s little dig about Dad? The ‘
neither would yours
’ thing?

Yes. It’s … a little complicated.

Let’s just say, so you know, I didn’t quite enjoy the family life that Lady Jane did.

Not that my father and I weren’t close, you understand. We were. In our own strange way. Closer than Jane and her father are even now in some respects. But it was a closeness that had nothing to do with annual trips to the Seychelles. Nothing to do with ponies, private school or party shoes.

Dad and I had what you might call a Saturday-afternoon
closeness
. A movie and a comic closeness. Through everything. Arguments. Hangovers. Casualty wards. Court appearances. Come Saturday afternoon, he was there.

Movie and a comic. Without fail.

Explains a lot, I suppose.

“
I’m afraid there isn’t a lot you can do sir.
”

“Not a lot I can – ? That’s it? That’s your 24-hour help-line’s helpful line? The bank are about to … I mean do you know how serious this is?”

“
I can put you through to a customer policy care supervisor.
”

“Isn’t that you?”

“
Er, yes. I mean I could put you through to … another one.
”

“Who’ll tell me something different?”

“
Uhmm, no.
”

“Right. Look … I just need to know if there’s some chance that, well … that maybe you might pay it this time?”

“
Sir
–”

“And I-I increase my premiums, y’know, from now on?”

“
That’s not how your policy works sir , I’m afraid. We do have a new 
Emergency 48 Hour Valuables Cover Plan that is along those lines though. Would you like me to put you through to sales sir
?”

“Well that depends doesn’t it?” I said through gritted teeth. “If your sales department is located within a worm-hole in the
spacetime
continuum, enabling me to buy this policy three weeks ago when I needed it.”

“
I’ll put you through to sales,
” she said and either Hank Marvin abruptly turned up at her call centre playing Handel’s
Water Music
or she’d put me on hold.

Yes, it had been an unbelievably long shot, I admit. But when you’ve spent half a late-October Thursday morning crouched trembling and dripping in a pool of black gunk behind a
water-damaged
cardboard Chewbacca while a large, goateed,
memorabilia-salesman
called Maurice, with Judge Dredd on his lapel badge and spit dribbling down his pyjama top, kicks your shutters with steel-toed motorcycle boots, hollering both your name, how much of a ‘feckin’ faggot’ you are and what his lawyers are going to do with you when they find you, lengthiness of shot often ceases to be of any relevance.

Hank moving on to a twangy version of
Moonlight Sonata,
I looked up at the sound of my bell tingling softly. A figure stood framed in the doorway.

“
Good morning, sales
?” the phone crackled. “
My colleague says you’re concerned about worm-holes? Our Standard Homecare covers all damage to gardens, including lawns and fences.
”

“I-I’m sorry, what?”

The figure began to wander up the shop towards me, unpeeling his ratty scarf.

“
We do have a new Emergency 48 Hour Valuables Cover Plan which we’re telling our customers about. This covers items in your care that you are not the owner of. For example, if you were looking after something for somebody else and it was accidentally –
”

I hung up.

“
Mr Cheng?
” I hissed out of the side of my mouth. “
Mr Cheng, pssssst.
”

Cheng, on his usual morning spot, peering and humming at Robert Redford through Perspex and pursed lips, turned.

“You rea to may a dea? You tay fye hundreh?”

“
What?Yes, yes all right, I’ll take the five hundred. Just … just keep an eye on this guy. He was in yesterday. He might make some trouble.
”

The man got closer. His woollen hat was the same. As was the greasy coat. His shoes, however, were considerably smarter. Brown half brogues. Polished. Leather laces. They didn’t go with the look at all.

“Truhb?” Cheng said far too loudly and turned to look at the visitor, now at the desk, peeling off his gloves. He had small, surprisingly clean, neat hands.

“Hello a-again,” I said, flapping nervously about the desk.

“Indeed. Right, as it were, back at you,” the man said. His voice was different. More clipped. Straight out of a Gieves & Hawkes display case. Maybe he’d got it as a free gift with his new shoes. I didn’t know.

The three of us stood there for an awkward moment.

“I goh go,” Cheng said finally, slipping off his spectacles and heading back out of the shop. “I come bah on Sundah wih the fye hundreh. You be heeh, yeh … ?”

“
Wait
.”

Cheng left, leaving the shop in an eerie silence.

“Ahh, but if you love him, set him free, Mr Martin,” the man said, unbuttoning his coat and revealing a leather belt struggling with a pot belly. He whipped his scarf over his head. “Gahh, this wool gets in my throatlet. Would a glass of water be treading on the toes of your hospitality slippers?” The man placed his scarf on the desk and swept off his hat. A dark, oily fringe fell back over his face, which he tidied away expertly. He was younger than I’d first thought. Mid forties? His eyes, droopy and kind, had a wet twinkle to them. He was ruddy cheeked and chubby but
something
about him sparkled lightly like a panto finale.

With a
hmnn
on my lips and a
what-the-hell
? on my mind, I went and splashed water into the least grimy mug I could find.

“Ahhh, god bless you and your kin,” he smiled and took a tiny sip, smacking his lips. “London tap. Sewage and mud. Still, nothing quite like it for infecting the blood. Now then, to beeswax,” and he produced a pipe from inside his coat, a pouch of tobacco from his corduroy trousers and fixed me with those twinkly eyes of his. “Mr Martin. How are you fixed for tomorrow?” He was filling
his pipe expertly with small delicate movements, a smile lurking somewhere beneath his expression.

“I’ll be wading about in the basement all day I expect.”

“Mnyess,” the man said, wrinkling his nose a little. “I noticed that yesterday. A mite
pongy
.”

“Is this about yesterday? The photographs you sold me? Because –”

“Fiffle. Fret ye not, young man,” he smiled, a warm, crooked smile, showing half a mouth of neat teeth. He had the
disconcerting
way about him of an unsigned Valentine’s card. “Would thou be willing to usher the baying hordes from your emporium for a hundred and twenty minutes? Say betwixt one and three? What do you say?”

Popping his unlit pipe into his mouth, he undid his overcoat and reached inside. I caught a glimpse of tweed, club tie and fine check as he produced a packet of Dunhill cigarettes, a silver Zippo, a box of matches and finally with a small “a-ha”, the object of his search – a black Moleskin notebook. He slid a silver pencil from its elastic binding and held it poised over the page.

“I would very much like to stand you lunch,” his pipe bobbed. “Shall we say Claridge’s? They do the most scrumptiful chocolate cheesecake. Say you’ll pull on your Friday shoes and join me?”

“Uhmm, can I ask, y’know … can I ask why?”

“A proposition, Mr Martin. Or dare I presume to be at the
Neil
stage?”

I gave a stilted nod.

“Splendiful. If it fails to interest, then we depart with tummies full of cheesecake and the warm glow of port and camaraderie. What do you say? Hmm? What do you say?”

“Business? You’re what, a dealer?”

“Everybody is a dealer in something, Neil. Anyhap, I’m pencilling in one o’clock?” This done, he lit his pipe with matches and a soft sucking sound, sweet smoke beginning to plume into the shop and then extended a powder-dry hand. I shook it because it would have been odd not to.

“Until tomorrow then.
Affretando
,” and with a bob of his pipe and a twinkle of the eye, he gathered his things, turned briskly and walked towards the door. As he did so, it gave a jangle and
Laura wandered in, cigarette in her lips, a cardboard tray of coffees in her hand and a bulge of a greasy paper bag in her apron pocket. “So sorry about your toe,” the man said as he passed her. “Not too throbblesome I hope?”

Laura’s mouth fell open, cigarette wobbling on her lip like the bus at the end of
The Italian Job.
The man reached the open door and then turned.

“Oh and Neil, I took the liberty of perusing that webular site of yours. The signed Siegel & Shuster snap you relieved me of yesterday? It’s worth double what you’re asking for it,” he said with a wave. “Make yourself a tidy sum. Call it an advance.
Toodle-oo
.”

Laura proceeded to unpack elevenses with a fuss of questions and lids and napkins and more questions as I hauled a sopping split black bag up the cellar steps and dumped it dripping by the bins out back. When I returned to the shop floor, she had undone her apron, tossed it onto a rack and was perching on the corner of the desk, crossing her legs and straightening the thick black seam of her stocking. She was in a sleeveless dress today. Grey wool it looked like. She had a single red flower in her hair and red ballet shoes.

“But you’re not going to
have
lunch with him, right? The guy’s clearly a fruitcake. I mean, what business? And what sort of
businessman
sets up meetings like that anyway?” She took a long draw on a fresh Lucky and held my look.

“Uhmm,” I said, and pulled a handbrake on the world.
Was
I going? I didn’t remember agreeing. But then I definitely didn’t recall telling him to sod off either.

Laura was right, the guy was definitely a cake of the fruitiest variety. Toys in the attic, no question. And that voice?
Usher the baying hordes from my emporium
? Was he a vagrant pretending to be Little Lord Fauntleroy? Or some eccentric peer having topping larks posing as one of the plebs, fwarr fwarr, Rupert you’re a
thcream
!

“I should listen to what he has to say at least,” I said. “I’m not in any position to start turning away business, whatever it is.”

“But he said
toodle-oo
. Who goes to lunch with people who say
toodle-oo
?”

Well, twenty-four hours later,
closed
sign swinging on my door, half out of bewilderment, half out of guilt and let’s say a lot out of the fact it meant I would be out of the shop should a summons arrive, it turns out that
I
did.

Claridge’s foyer is a huge light room, tall and pale. Embroidered chairs, chandeliers and dark wood tables set around a massive floral display. As I was escorted among the other well-to-do diners the following afternoon, I bowed my head a little, attempting to blend in with the carpet. But as the carpet was a dark flowery thing rather than a pattern of short, badly dressed men in misjudged ties, I didn’t do as well as hoped.

My host was sitting at a corner table, back to the wall. Thankfully, he seemed to be out-cognito this time, sporting a pale pink shirt, paisley cravat and the glint of cufflink. A clear glass of something and an open newspaper sat at his elbow. He caught sight of me and bobbed his eyebrows, reaching up quickly to pop out two small Walkman earphones.

My jacket was taken and we were left to our introductions.

“My dear sir,” the man said as I sat down, slipping his earphones into his pocket. “May I make so bold as to address you with some polite conversation? For although you are not in a condition of eminence, experience tells me you are a man of education,
unhabituated
to the beverage.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I said. A blond, waistcoated waiter came and sighed at my order for a glass of house red, returning with a wine list. My lunch date hadn’t stopped.

“I personally have always respected education, united with the feelings of the
heart
and am, if I may so inform you, a titular
counsellor
. Marmeladov, such is my name.”

“Right,” I said. There was an awkward pause. “Is that
Russian
?”

“Indeed, my dear Raskolnikov,” he said with a twinkle, and then seemed to drop out of character smoothly. “I apologise. Silly habit. That the pop list?”

“Pop? Oh, uhh yes.”

Marmaladov
?
Pop list
?

The waistcoat was sent off for a ninety-nine Latour and some more water.

“Neato li’l diner they got here, huh?” my host said in a half decent New York drawl, throwing a look about the room.

“Yes,” I nodded like a schoolboy. “Yes it’s very swanky.”

“Swankity swank chequebook and pen, I’d say. First time?”

I nodded.

“Me too. Your glamorous assistant keeping her beadies on the store for a mo is she?” he said, the waiter returning with the wine and water.

“Assistant? Oh Laura. No, she’s just a-a … just someone I met recently. Works nearby. Popped in, that’s all.”

“Ahh. Someone you
met
,” he said, and suddenly with a flap of elbows, his black moleskin book was open on the table and he was licking his silver pencil nib, jotting. “
Met
… I see.”

Seemingly happy with his notes, the man nodded to himself with a tiny
harump
noise and sat back, his chair giving an antique creak. He sipped his water and smiled.

“So. Neil Derek Martin. Oh do tuck in by the way,” and he pushed a plate of exotic breads at me. “Let’s have it lad. Curriculum vitae. Births, deaths, marriages?”

“Me?”

“A name I call myself. Fa, a long, long way to hop. Tell me all.”

“Er, look sorry,” I said. If he was just some inbred gent who liked to wine shop assistants who took his fancy, then I thought it was best we got that out in the open. “You said you had some business for me, is that right? Is that what this is about?”