Snatched (16 page)

‘Everybody doesn't fucking know it,' Simberdy replied.

‘No, but everybody could,' Passow said.

Simberdy hadn't wanted to come to the club, and particularly so late at night. The Blague lay very close to Julia Chakely's jacket potato kiosk in Bray Square. Vince wouldn't like the Director's partner to spot them entering a villainous dump like the Blague at near midnight. But Wayne had insisted the telephone wouldn't do, and said he couldn't make it earlier owing to commitments. So, now, they sat in the club, drinking surprisingly excellent champagne and doing their best to get a hold on what Nothing Known might tell them. Simberdy and Olive had arrived by taxi and scuttled fast into the club's grimy, faded-red, bouncer-dense doorway. Simberdy recognized that his scuttling might be distinctive, but had tried to blur this image by holding his waist in through breath control and quietly repeating to himself over and over a line from a Cary Grant film, ‘Think thin.'

Sighing modestly, Passow leaned across the foul table again and murmured: ‘I got to say this to start – cards on the table; that's always my way. All right, then: I think maybe I didn't get the greatest price available for that first sales object.'

‘The Monet?' Simberdy asked.

‘Values are very subjective,' Olive said.

‘I listen around,' Passow replied. He lowered his lowered voice. ‘Thirty grand is very uplifting, but is it uplifting enough? You get what I'm saying?'

‘You've had an eye-opener somehow, have you, Wayne?' Simberdy said.

‘You've hit it, Fatman. I was taken for a bit of a ride. Never mind: the lad who advised me – that London dealer – he's not going to be doing nothing similar for a long time, I can tell you.'

‘What?' Olive said, obviously troubled. ‘Why not?'

‘I heard he took very sick,' Wayne said. ‘Not terminal, but disabling for a while. How can he visit customers or galleries in that state?'

‘Oh, God,' Simberdy said.

‘But don't you worry, Fatman. I found somebody so much better for us.'

‘Yes?' Simberdy said. ‘You sure?'

‘This is a different dealer, also from London way, but straight, so straight. Well, he soon gave me inside stuff on that previous one, I can tell you,' Passow said.

‘How do you know?' Olive said.

‘Know what?' Nothing Known replied.

‘That he's straight,' Olive said.

‘This one, he's not just in London. He's been to Paris, Florence, Madrid, the whole scene,' Wayne said.

‘Oh, God,' Simberdy said. ‘Didn't you say the other one had been to Paris as well?'

Redvers said: ‘Do you know what I hate, Wayne?'

‘Well, you'd hate an ocean if it was where Asia ought to be,' Passow replied.

‘Yes, but more than that,' Redvers said.

‘This opens up a big field,' Wayne said.

‘But it's obvious,' Redvers said. ‘I hate to see a party of three – like you and your two friends. It don't seem to balance right, like things wouldn't be balanced if we had too much sea because of no Asia. It's a couple, plus one, and that one is you – a bit spare.'

‘I'm all right with it,' Wayne said.

‘How to put it right is if that nice piece from the kiosk you're in here with some nights came in now,' Redvers said.

‘Red means it would even things out,' Crispin said.

‘From the kiosk?' Simberdy said. ‘Which kiosk?'

‘No, she won't be here tonight,' Nothing Known said. ‘This is just business. It don't matter only three.'

‘If you say so,' Redvers replied.

‘The spud kiosk in Bray Square?' Simberdy asked. Could this be? Did women move from someone like Lepage to someone like Passow? To that, Simberdy knew the answer was very much yes: women transferred from here to there and maybe back again, or elsewhere. Nobody could tell why, not even other women; maybe not even the woman doing the transferring herself. But, all the same, to Nothing Known, for God's sake? Mind, he was younger and a lot more refined looking than Lepage.

Passow switched back to the main topic, speaking quietly again, to exclude Redvers and Crispin. ‘What I got to tell you both is gloriously re them other paintings.'

‘The “El Grecos”?' Olive asked.

‘Now, I hear from the way you say it, Olive, like “El Grecos”, not just El Grecos –' he got suspicion and sarcasm into his voice for the ‘El Grecos' – ‘yes, the way you say it makes it clear you think there could be something wrong with them, that right?'

‘Me, I love them,' Olive answered.

‘No, not much wrong with them,' Simberdy said, ‘just they're phoney through and through, and the man who bought them for the Hulliborn is the jerk of jerks, that's all. You're hawking a load of rubbish, Wayne.'

Passow gave that pained, saintly smile again. ‘Of course, I knew there was a bit of uncertainty.'

‘A ton,' Simberdy said.

‘I didn't try to hide this rumour from the new contact of mine – the second dealer,' Passow said. ‘In any case, he'd heard it. Something like that gets all round the art world, only natural.'

‘But?' Olive asked, excited.

‘Yes, “but”,' Nothing Known said, chuckling. ‘
But
we – that's you, Olive, you, Fatman, my dealer and me – yes, we got a buyer. That's the message. Why we're here tonight. Fruitful talks are in progress.'

‘Who? Where?' Simberdy asked.

Another patient smile. ‘Always questions, Fatman. But why not? Who? Someone with the real stuff. Where? Let's say abroad, shall we? Who, again? Someone who knows about art and money and who knows about El Greco, and who is sure these are real with what's known in the art game as “provenance”, meaning OKness, and to hell with what anybody says against. Someone who knows it so strong and who is into that provenance so deep, he's willing to pay a very jolly price. He thinks they're worth millions and will come across.'

‘Yes, Wayne?' Olive said. ‘How many millions?'

‘Under particular discussion, as you'd expect,' Passow replied. ‘Detail.
The Vision
is smaller than the other two, but that don't necessarily mean cheaper. It's not the amount of paint or the space on a wall it could fill. Other matters to consider in the price. Of course. This is the mystery of art.'

‘That ponce Youde got it right?' Simberdy cried. ‘Is this what you're asking us to believe, Wayne? How the hell do you know this middleman, this dealer, is straighter than the last?'

‘Quieter, Fatman. They'll think you're a headbanger and have you chucked out. This place got a reputation to think of now and then.' Passow looked about slowly, smiling non-stop to signal everything was serenity despite appearances and the din moments. The man behind the gilt and glass bar seemed to accept Passow's unspoken assurance. Wayne gave Redvers and Crispin a thumbs-up and special, personal smile. ‘How do I know he's better, straighter, and that the El Grecos are for real? I feel it, that's all. Wayne Passow feels it.'

‘Oh, God,' Simberdy replied.

‘You're poisoned by jealousy of Quentin Youde, Vincent,' Olive said. ‘Haven't I told you this whole value thing is so arbitrary?'

‘Now
you've
hit it, Olive,' Passow said. ‘Exactly. Arbitrary. Does that mean millions? And then that other word you came out with, “subjective”. What's that one about?'

‘It can mean anything,' Olive said. ‘That's the whole point.'

‘A word and a half, yes?' Passow replied.

In the taxi on their way home, Olive said: ‘Wayne is banging George Lepage's Julia?'

‘There might be other kiosks,' Simberdy said.

‘Yes?'

In the house this time, rather than the gym, Penelope was having one of her talks to Butler-Minton. Kneeling on a seedy old bit of Persian rug, her head stretched forward, Penny chatted into a cupboard under the stairs. A photograph of Eric hung on its rear wall, and whenever she opened the doors and switched on the little interior light, she chewed over a Hulliborn topic or two: the kind of things she knew would have interested him. She felt a kind of duty to keep a photo of Eric, but didn't want it in an open, prominent part of the house where she'd have to see it every day; see it perhaps unintentionally, and with an unpleasant shock at times, when looking for something else. She liked to make a conscious, planned decision to gaze at the photograph, and to have in mind a very precise duration. By keeping the snap in this hidden-away recess she could carry out her obligations to the memory of Eric, without making over much of them. The other advantage was that people calling would not see the photo in one of the rooms and feel obliged to talk about him. She would have gone to the cupboard occasionally anyway, because it was where she stored old copies of
Sporting Life
. She worked a horse-race betting system that required a lot of reference back. On account of Eric in there, though, she went to the cupboard more often than her punter research demanded.

The picture showed Butler-Minton receiving an honorary doctorate at Ibadan University, Nigeria, in about 1982, and trying his hardest to look wholesome under that big, academic pancake hat, the mark of a bite she'd given him lately very evident high on the cheek, like a mange patch. Rainbow-robed black professors surrounded him, most of them offering warm, brotherly smiles, though a few gave signs of galloping panic, as if just starting to wonder what the hell they were doing letting someone like Flounce get more deeply associated with the institution.

Except for the bite scar, it was a photograph Penelope loathed, the only one of him she'd kept when disposing of his stuff after the funeral; and even so it stayed out of sight most of the time. She knew she could not bear to have anything around that recalled Eric at his best, and might force her to realize in full again what had gone from her life. For instance, she had systematically burned all the pictures which caught Butler-Minton in situations where his normal, cheerful arrogance and loud, bullying and bullshitting dynamism screamed out at her. This meant nearly all. Likewise, she destroyed every photo where he figured wearing one of those seven or eight gloriously lopsided, loony-stitch, Dominican Republic lounge suits. He'd brought them back solely to cause affront, or, at the very least, bowel-troubling edginess to H. de T. Timberlake and other people from the Museums Board in London. The suits themselves finished in the incinerator, having been turned down huffily by both Oxfam and the Salvation Army. So, this starchy Ibadan photograph and the Egyptian boatman's paddle in the sauna were about the only mementoes she allowed herself. Although now and then she regretted having got rid of so much, and could feel quaintly starved of Flounce, she would tell herself, OK, she
ought
to feel starved: he was dead. Yes, she did tell herself that, but didn't always listen.

‘I had my doubts about Lepage, as you know, Eric, but second thoughts: he might be able to handle matters after all. Perhaps he's tougher than he seems. At the Founder's he gave a speech fizzing with fuck-all, but brilliantly the right kind of fuck-all – not the sort of self-advancing, flesh-creep stuff
you
might have given, getting everyone's goat and prosing about the agonies of your retread soul. The two Japanese seem to like him. That's important. And, of course, he doesn't carry any of that potentially awkward stuff from the Wall period – the haversack straps and Mrs Cray.'

She heard a car draw up sharply on the drive outside and then stand with its engine turning over. Headlight beams had swung swiftly across the hall ceiling as it arrived. ‘Oh, shit, Eric,' she said, ‘this will be poor Falldew again, looking for you and the past. Well, I must help, up to a point. Things are at crisis level with Nev at present. One must be supremely caring.' She stood, switched off the cupboard light and closed its doors. The motor outside had been cut. A car door was slammed, and quick footsteps came towards the house. The bell rang. She opened up. It was D.Q. Youde, agitated and purposeful in a cloak. ‘Quentin,' she said. ‘You know I don't like you coming to the house to see me.'

‘You're a single woman now. It's not as when
he
was alive.'

‘I still find it strange.'

‘I think of you as a friend, and, naturally as more than friend,' he replied.

‘Yes, yes, of course.' She closed the door and took him into the living room.

‘Penny,' he said, in a terse,
fait accompli
tone, ‘we must go away at once.'

‘Quent, dear, what is it?'

‘For good,' he said.

‘What for good?'

‘Go away for good.'

‘Go away? What about the Hulliborn and Art?'

‘
Because
of the Hulliborn and Art.'

‘I'm baffled.'

‘I can't take any more. Please, Penny.'

‘Relax, Quent. You look terrible, love.' She knew this would get him concerned and perhaps more controlled. She watched him glance in the mirror and then ferociously try to reassemble his features into the Degas face, not taking his eyes off the process for more than a minute.

‘Forgive,' he said. ‘But you were the only one I could think of.'

‘We'll sort something out.'

‘You're looking at a laughing-stock.'

‘Who is laughing?'

‘Many. Some unrestrainedly, viciously.'

‘Why?'

‘The El Grecos. The fucking “El Grecos”. I've brought contumely on the Hulliborn at a time of its greatest need. Only flight is left.'

‘Let's sit down, shall we? I'll bring drinks.'

He took her arm. ‘Yes, but first tell me you'll do it. Please, tell me, Penny.'

She hated being gripped in that desperate way, as if a banister in an eventide home, but generously killed off the urge to throw him against the living room wall. Like Falldew, he seemed in true want, and she must let him talk his troubles.