Florian's Gate (6 page)

“My girlfriend broke up with me last week because of it, so it's still on my mind a lot. She said she was tired of trying to make a go of it with someone who was never satisfied. I tried to tell her that the problem wasn't with us, but it didn't make any difference. Not to her, anyway.”

Kantor released a long thin plume of smoke toward the ceiling. “If it is any consolation to you, young man, I learned a lesson about dissatisfaction some time ago that has brought me great consolation over the years. Shall I share it with you?”

“Sure.”

“It is quite simple really. Dissatisfaction tends to lift one's eyes toward the horizon. Those who are comfortable rarely make the effort to search out something better. They may yearn for more, but they do not often receive it. They are too afraid of losing what they already have, you see, to take the risk. And there is always risk involved, Jeffrey. Always. Every major venture contains a moment when you must step off the cliff and stretch your wings toward the sky.”

Jeffrey watched the man across from him and was suddenly struck with a feeling so solid it arrived in his mind already cemented into certainty.
He wanted that job
. There was no question, no need to doubt or consider his possibilities or salary or benefits or anything. Every mundane detail paled into insignificance beside the utter appeal of working with such a man as this. He
wanted
that job.

“A moment ago I mentioned a need to adapt,” Kantor
went on. “This cannot be stressed too highly, young man. The greatest failure of most intelligent people is a false confidence in what they already know. If you are going to succeed in this game, you must begin by assuming that you know nothing. Nothing at all. It is essential to your success.”

Struggling to keep his eagerness from touching his voice, Jeffrey replied, “I understand.”

“I am not sure you do,” Kantor responded gravely. “I am not speaking solely of your knowledge of antiques and the related businesses. That in itself is only a small part of what is required. You must begin by assuming that you know
nothing
. Not how to dress, nor how to stand, nor how to greet a client, nor what to read, nor in some cases even what to think.”

Kantor paused to draw on his cigar and gauge Jeffrey's reaction. He in turn kept his face carefully blank as he felt the words sink deep.

Clearly pleased with this silent response, Kantor went on. “You are about to enter an entirely different world, young man, one totally alien to anything you have ever experienced before. It has rules all its own. To assume that all people everywhere are basically the same, and thus you can get by on what passes for etiquette or correct prejudices or current wisdom here in your American existence, will doom your efforts to abject failure.

“This does not mean that you must affect a false attitude. I personally loathe the catty pettiness that pervades such people's lives. No, what I mean is that you must learn to adapt while remaining true to yourself. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” he replied solemnly.

Kantor examined him carefully, and in time appeared to reach a decision. “Splendid. Now tell me, Jeffrey. What would you think of a ninety-day trial period in my London business?”

Resisting the urge to jump up, run screaming around the restaurant, kiss the frowning maitre d', he responded with
a simple, “That sounds fine.” Then he gave the game away with an enormous face-splitting grin.

Kantor replied with a small smile of his own. “Excellent. Ninety days will grant us ample time to see whether or not you have the ability to learn the required lessons and adapt to the new world, I am sure. Now I think it would be proper to offer you a small gesture of congratulations for this decision. Have you ever flown first class?”

“No, but I'm sure I could adapt to it very quickly.”

“No doubt. It doesn't make long flights enjoyable. Nothing could go quite that far. But it does enliven the time considerably. When can you leave?”

The grin would just not stay down. “I have to give a month's notice.”

“And I must take care of a few items in Canada before returning to Europe, then travel on the Continent for a week or so before arriving in London. Let us say that I shall expect you on the first day of June. That gives you fifty days to prepare. Is that sufficient?”

“Great. Just great.”

“Splendid.” He reached back into his coat pocket, extracted two folded sheets of heavily embossed paper, handed them over. “I prepared these in hopes of finding you a worthy candidate. On the first sheet you will find various addresses and telephone numbers for my residences and the London business. I must tell you, however, that when I am on a buying trip I am rarely in a position to be contacted. The second sheet contains a list of books I would like you to commit to memory before your arrival. There are fifteen in all, and should give you a basic overview of some of the more important areas in which my business trades. You will find them quite expensive. They are all extensively illustrated with color plates, which should assist you in understanding the finer points. Bring the receipts with you. At the bottom of the page is the name and address of my New York travel agent.
He will be sending you a plane ticket and the address of your temporary London residence.”

Jeffrey looked up from the pages, said gravely, “Thanks a lot, Mr. Kantor.”

“You are quite welcome, young man.” He signaled to the waiter and rose to his feet, extending his hand to Jeffrey. “I shall look forward to seeing you in London. Until then, good afternoon.”

CHAPTER 3

As Jeffrey was ushering Betty back through the front door, the phone rang. It was the assistant chief of Christie's furniture section. “Sorry to bother you like this, Jeffrey, but I've had a rather strange call this morning.”

A year in the place had not diminished Jeffrey's enjoyment of the fruity way Britain's upper-crust spoke, though it left him feeling the uncouth country cousin. “No problem. What can I do for you?”

“It seems that we have an official from the German government coming in for a bit of a snoop.”

“The chest of drawers?” Jeffrey guessed.

“Precisely.”

“It sat in our front window for almost a month, you advertised it all over the world and then put it on the front cover of last week's auction brochure. Why do you think he's shown up now?”

“If the German bureaucracy is anything like our own, perhaps because they just heard of its existence,” the Christie's man replied. “In any case, I understand you were planning to attend today's auction. I was wondering if you might be willing to pop by afterward.”

“Why me? The piece is sold.”

“It appears that this chap has the power to block the sale, or at least make trouble for our buyer. You are aware that it is a German industrialist who placed the high bid.”

“I was at the auction.”

“Of course you were. Well, it appears that our caller intends to apply some rather crude pressure. Tax reviews covering the buyer's previous five generations, or something of the sort. Very nasty, really.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“From the sounds of it, this chap intends to claim the
high bid as his own. I suppose from our perspective, it's not quite so important as it will be for our industrialist friend. At least somebody will be paying us.” He hesitated, then went on. “The gentleman asked some rather pointed questions. I thought it might be nice if you would help me clarify the matter.”

“There's not a lot I can say besides the fact that Alexander found the piece and brought it here.”

“Yes, your man Kantor does attach a great deal of mystery to most of his pieces, doesn't he? Still, it would be nice if you could come in and meet this chap.”

Jeffrey glanced at his watch. “My assistant should be here in about fifteen minutes. I'll need to leave immediately, as my painting is one of the first lots. When is this guy showing up?”

“In about two hours.”

“Why don't I meet you upstairs as soon as my item has sold?”

“Splendid. That really is most kind.”

He hung up the phone, and reflected that it would not be difficult to keep the antique's origins a secret. Jeffrey knew very little about Alexander Kantor and even less about where his furniture came from. Almost nothing, in fact. Yet the mystery was somehow part of the man, and he liked Kantor intensely.

And the freedom—he liked that too. It was the sort of freedom that he would have dreamed of back when he had been working for McKinsey if only he had been able to imagine it. He had known several friends who had made the major move, risked it all and gone out on their own. They had all spoken of yearning for a freedom they did not have and
could
not have so long as they worked for someone else. Jeffrey had nodded and agreed and secretly envied them.

In the evenings spent watching traffic speed by in endless urgent streams beneath his high-rise Atlanta apartment window, Jeffrey had wished that he too had possessed the money and the ideas and the
desire
to go for broke. But nothing had
called to him with an urgent tug of the heartstrings, challenged him sufficiently, or spoken to him with that sense of utter certainty,
this is it
.

Nothing, that is, until now. He did not own the business, but in many respects was already coming to claim it as partially his. Especially when Alexander took off on one of his unexplained tours.

The first such disappearance had occurred nine months before. After three months of working virtually day and night with Alexander, the gentleman had announced that he was leaving the next day on a buying trip.

“For how long?” Jeffrey asked.

“It is terrifically hard to tell about these things,” Alexander had replied. “But I would guess about three weeks.”

Three weeks alone. Jeffrey looked around the shop. The retail value of their stock at that moment was approaching four million dollars.

Alexander showed his usual perceptiveness. “It's all yours.”

“What does that mean?”

“This will not work if I give it to you only halfway,” Alexander replied. “Clients will refuse to close a deal with you. They'll assume you won't have the authority to set prices. And three weeks is too long to leave the business without a signatory present.”

Jeffrey felt as though he'd been pushed over the cliff-edge. “What if I do something you don't like?”

“If I felt there were even a slim chance, I would not be making this journey,” Alexander Kantor replied. “But if the unforeseen does occur, I assure you that it will only happen once.”

Jeffrey spent the time waiting for Katya to arrive, going through the morning mail, dusting furniture, doing anything to keep from thinking about the mystery that surrounded this strange young lady.

Katya had begun working at Priceless about a month
before, when the regular shop assistant was called away by a family emergency. Jeffrey remained delighted with the arrangement, yet found it to be an exquisite torture. He loved the hours they spent alone together in the shop—she with her classwork, he with his catalogues and books—loved teaching her the rudiments of his newfound passion and profession. But it was so difficult being so close to her for so long, and having to resist the constant desire to hold her, caress her, tell her the thoughts that continually ran through his mind like a never-ending song.

He had met Katya on a bitter-cold November night, in the student's canteen beneath the University of London's central library. He had been granted temporary access through providentially meeting a librarian whose passion for antiques had known no bounds. In return for occasional guided tours of his shop and invitations to all the major antique fairs, Jeffrey had been given a visitor's card—a boon slightly less common than a passkey to the Tower of London's chambers for the Crown Jewels.

Jeffrey was not permitted to check out books, but within the library's confines he had virtually unlimited access to a treasure trove of reference materials. He spent many a happy hour lost in richly pictured tomes, tracing the development of patterns and styles and inlays and jewelry and art.

That particular evening he remained hunched over his book on early Biedermeier furniture for so long that it had taken both hands to unclench the cramp in his neck. His kneading and silent groans were stopped by the realization that two of the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen were holding him fast.

Her face was formed around cheekbones so pronounced and upraised as to give her eyes an almost Oriental slant. Yet the eyes themselves were a startling grayish-violet, with irises whose depths seemed to invite him in, drawing him further and further still, until before he knew what was happening he was on his feet and walking over to her table.

She greeted his approach with neither smile of welcome
nor frown of refusal; rather she watched him with a look of utter vulnerability, a helplessly open gaze that had his heart pounding by the time he stopped and looked down and said, “May I join you?”

Her voice was as light as a scented summer breeze. “I was just going back upstairs.”

“May I walk with you?”

“To get my things, I mean. I have a bus in fifteen minutes.”

“I've been sitting too long anyway. May I accompany you?” He sounded so formal, so silly to his own ears. His usual well of casual banter was sealed off by this unblinking gaze of vulnerability. He had the impression that if he held out his hand, this strange young woman would have been forced to take it, a victim of whatever left her unable to hide her heart. Instead he was content to stand above her, gaze down into the endless depths of two star-flecked eyes, and know that he was lost.

They left the smoky student din behind them, stopped to pick up her coat and books, and entered the startlingly crisp coldness of early November dark. From time to time Jeffrey searched a blank and empty mind for words and came up only with the fear that once they reached the street, this spell would be broken, this moment lost, this woman forever gone. His heart hammered with a fury that left his legs weak and his tongue stilled.