McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (10 page)

 
          
 
Although she lived several blocks from Harris
and his mother, she firmly refused to let me give her a ride. It was obvious
the engagement would be off in a second if Mrs. Harisse should happen to see
her disembarking from a car like mine.

 
          
 
Actually I felt a little better about my
chances already. If Mrs. Harisse was worth her salt—and why wouldn't she be?—it
would only be a matter of time before she penetrated Cindy's disguise. Even
demurely dressed she didn't look much like a
New England
virgin.

 
          
 
Precisely an hour and a half later I met her
at her shop and we spent a pleasant afternoon pricing her newly acquired
cowboyana. Then we went to a Chinese restaurant and Cindy put away an amazing
amount of shrimp fried rice. I tried to get her interested in scouting by telling
her stories about Zack Jenks, the world's greatest Coke-bottle scout, one of
the simplest and most amusing men I knew, but it didn't work. Cindy wasn't
interested in scouting. She was interested in eating a lot of rice, having a
normal amount of sex, and getting her sleep, which is exactly the order in
which things occurred.

 
          
 
When I woke up for the second time in her bed
she was already up and dressed, ready to bop off for the day to
New York
to buy some dresses for her dress shop. She
looked beautifully organized and also beautiful.

 
          
 
Once she was ready, she came over to the bed
and scrutinized me thoughtfully, in the way that she had. She had a newspaper
tucked under her arm and an elegant little Fendi briefcase in her lap, all
ready to go.

 
          
 
"What are you gonna do all day?" she
asked.

 
          
 
"Scout," I said.

 
          
 
"Okay," she said, "but don't go
too far away. Just buy things around here. I’ll be back on the
four o'clock
shuttle."

 
          
 
I've always been a little intimidated by women
who wake up early. It may have been why I got along so well with Coffee. Not
only did she not wake up early: It could truthfully be said that she was seldom
fully awake.

 
          
 
Cindy Sanders was fully awake. "Did you
hear me?" she asked.

 
          
 
"Okay," I said, willing to agree to
anything. "I heard you."

 
          
 
"There's a party at the Iranian embassy
tonight," she said. "We might go.
Check in with me
at the shop about five-thirty."

 
          
 
The minute she went out the door I felt the
need to be immersed in my own element again, my element being objects.

 
          
 
Thirty minutes later I was downtown, in the
thick of an auction, arriving just in time to buy the best quadripartite icon I
had ever seen.

 
          
 
When I say the thick of an auction I mean it
literally: Nothing short of an execution will pack a crowd tighter than the
chance to buy something.

 
          
 
When I walked in the crowd was balled up around
the auctioneer like Italians at a meat counter.

 
          
 
As usual—though it was just a normal junky
auction, of the sort held regularly in the estate-clearance rooms of big city
auction houses—every conceivable kind of person was represented in the crowd.
Perhaps there were no grandes dames of the ilk of Harris' mother, but excepting
the crustiest of the upper crust, all
America
was there: ghetto mothers, hoping to get a
wobbly table or a secondhand coat

 
          
 
for a buck or two; lawyers in pinstripes,
tired of lawyering; and bankers in camel's hair coats, bored with their banks;
junk dealers; antique dealers; scouts and hustlers of every description; pimps
and whores, killing a little time before hitting the streets; young
stockbrokers hoping to find a good sporting print to go over their fireplaces;
old ladies in raggedy furs, with their eye on a demitasse service or a nice
footstool covered in needlepoint; finally, wives—wives of all ages, weights,
and shades of chic, from suburban mothers in down vests and parkas, looking for
a serviceable baby bed or a set of Swedish carving knives, on up to elegant
matrons from Georgetown or Chevy Chase, each of them hoping to find something
decent to spend their husband's money on.

 
          
 
Mixed in with the wives was the usual heavy
concentration of doctors, the world's most persistent bargain hunters,
restlessly pawing through the junk in the hopes of finding something worth a
hundred times what it would cost them.

 
          
 
As a regular of such gatherings, I might
detest the doctors, but the group I feared was the wives. The doctors, however
rich, seldom had the courage of their instincts when the bidding got hot; but
the wives, however dumb, bid with the absolute courage that accompanies
absolute boredom. Wives are the bane of every scout: They welcome challenge and
will pay any price for something they have decided they want.

 
          
 
Actually, they just like the thrill of
bidding. The crush and competition of the auction turned them on: All that
greed is sexy. Their eyes would glow with passionate lights when they triumphantly
secured, for five or six hundred dollars, some object any competent dealer
would have sold them for
two twenty-five
.

 
          
 
If there was anything about this particular
crowd that bespoke
Washington
it was all the pasty-looking civil servants, wandering around like
newly risen zombies. They wore beige trench coats and cheap little woolen hats,
and there were dozens of them, GS-5s to however high GSs go, men so
circumscribed in their styles as to seem neither dead nor alive. They stared at
the assembled junk without interest, lacking the fever of the doctors or the
passion of the wives. So far as I could tell they were only there because they
had to go somewhere on their coffee breaks or lunch hours.

 
          
 
Possibly one or two of them collected
something exotic: the chess sets made from Ecuadorian Twaia beans, for example,
but if so, whatever they were turned on by wasn't there and they mostly just
stood around in front of the worn-out armchairs or the indifferent chinaware,
watching the bidding dully, as if it were a sporting event whose rules and
purpose eluded them.

 
          
 
Somewhat to my surprise, Brisling Bowker, the
owner of the auction house, was doing his own auctioneering when I walked in.

 
          
 
Brisling Bowker was a huge man, with a
permanently pained demeanor not unlike Jackie Gleason's.

 
          
 
I nodded hello to Tuck Tucker, Bowker's
amazing floor manager. Tuck was certainly one of the most formidable talents on
the popcorn auction scene. When I walked in he was at the pay phone, taking one
bid in his left ear while an old lady in a mink coat whispered another into his
right ear. In the course of an all-day sale he would take and execute hundreds
of bids, on everything from lawn mowers to verdure tapestries, gliding through
the crush of the auction like a surfer who's just caught a wave.

 
          
 
His job was to cover the floor, making sure
the various hustlers and auction rats didn't stuff a camera or an ivory or some
other valuable object into a two-buck box of junky bric-a-brac. He flicked his
bids with the eclat of a world-class Ping-Pong player, bidding with a wink, a
whistle, a snap of his fingers, the lift of an eyebrow—and he always hit his
lot, whether it happened to be a cracked tea service some little old lady had
decided to go to $20 on, or a diamond bracelet a lobbyist thought might impress
his girl friend.

 
          
 
Boog, who played auctions like some people
play horses, reposed more trust in Tuck than he did in the President, the Chief
Justice, and the leaders of both houses of Congress. Over the years Tuck had
bought him everything from Amberina punch cups to Owo masks.

 
          
 
I would have dallied an hour or two in
Bowker's auction just to watch Tuck, but as it happened I had no immediate
chance to do that. The icon came under the hammer just as I walked in.

 
          
 
The sight of it affected me like a big squirt
of adrenalin. Brisling Bowker had just finished selling a couple of rusty push
mowers and a barrelful of rakes and shovels to two hillbilly junk dealers who
were probably planning to take them back to West Virginia and parlay them into
a fortune.

 
          
 
Their lot sold for $4, and the lovely
quadripartite icon was sitting there next to it, propped up between a worn-out
washing machine and a pile of snow tires.

 
          
 
I would have liked a moment or two in which to
try and figure out if it could be a fake, but I wasn't going to get one.

 
          
 
"All right, now we have your icon,”
Brisling intoned, in a voice replete with boredom.

 
          
 
Part of the boredom was real—selling push
mowers and snow tires is not inspiring work—but most of it was calculated.
Brisling looked ponderous, but he knew his work. He had been moving the junk
along steadily, at the rate of three or four lots a minute, and it was plain he
hoped to dispose of the icon without missing a beat

 
          
 
"Do I hear forty dollars for your icon,
now?" he asked, just as he happened to glance my way.

 
          
 
"Forty dollars," I said loudly,
tipping my hat

 
          
 
Quadripartite icons, I should point out, are
extremely rare. The few that turn up are normally auctioned at Sotheby's or Christie's,
on a stand covered in velvet, to a crowd that will include most of the great
dealers and collectors in
America
and
western
Europe.

 
          
 
Seldom indeed will one be lotted between a
barrel of rakes and a pile of snow tires. Moreover, it was early in the
morning, when most of the serious antique dealers weren't even there yet.

 
          
 
Obviously Brisling was hoping nobody would
notice the icon.

 
          
 
My arrival spoiled that little game, but
Brisling, who had been an auctioneer for forty years and seen his share of
icons come and go, didn't so much as blink.

 
          
 
"Forty dollars I have," he said.
"Forty-five dollars for the icon here."

 
          
 
Thirty seconds later it was knocked down to me
for $1,300. The game had had no chance anyway: Somebody else was onto the icon,
if not several somebodies.

 
          
 
The figure stunned the crowd, most of
whom
had not noticed the icon and were caught flat-footed
when the bidding took off.

 
          
 
The GS-12s looked slightly less blank, the
sound of money being spent bringing a tinge of life to their pallid cheeks.
Many of the wives looked puzzled and a little troubled, and several doctors
looked mad enough to bite themselves, at the thought that some treasure had
escaped their attention.

 
          
 
Naturally they assumed that if a cowboy would
pay $1,300 for the icon it must be worth $50,000.

 
          
 
I would have liked to try to get a fix on the
competition, but the bidding went from $40 to $1,300 in thirty seconds, bids
darting in so rapidly that I didn't dare take my eye off Brisling Bowker, who
then calmly proceeded to sell the snow tires, bringing the hillbilly junk
dealers to life again.

 
          
 
I walked over to pick up my icon. Before I had
gone two steps with it a doctor in a green overcoat was at my elbow, squinting
at it.

 
          
 
"It could be Byelorussian," he said.
"I'll give you two thousand for it, right here."

 
          
 
"Sorry, got a customer," I said,
although I didn't. So far as I could remember, Boog didn't have any icons,
although he could have been bidding on this one, through Tuck. I had no reason
to think so, other than the fact that Boog is usually to be found, in person or
in proxy, when the best things are being sold.

 
          
 
Then I noticed someone who took the bloom
right off the morning: Schoeffer Schedel was leaning against the Coke machine,
wearing his usual malign grin.

 
          
 
Schoeffer, known as the Baltimore Blinker, or
simply Blink—after his manner of bidding—was the acknowledged king of American
auction rats. He was small, bald, and bulletheaded, seemed to subsist on cigar
stubs, and was always dressed in a dirty green suit, a white belt, multicolored
shoes, and a blue tie whose knot was as big as an apple.

 
          
 
Blink was not noted for his amiability. He
favored everyone with the same malign grin. You felt he was only grinning
because he knew you were about to be run over by a truck.

 
          
 
This was indeed always a possibility, since
the mysterious interests Blink represented owned a fleet of trucks. The trucks
raced all over
America
, carrying the antiques Blink bought to mysterious warehouses in north
Jersey
. He seldom bothered with single items, but
whenever possible bought estates or whole stores. I had encountered him as far
afield as
Tallahassee
and
Seattle
, not to mention
Harbor
City
, just south of
L.A.
, where the single largest commercial flea
market in the country operates practically full-time, like the casinos of
Las Vegas
.

 
          
 
So far in our careers Blink and I had not
exchanged a single word, but it was well known, to ourselves and others, that
we were arch rivals. Why this was so I don't know, since our methods were
diametrically opposed. One icon, for example, would not have titillated him,
but if he could have found a collection of five or six hundred he would have
whipped out a grimy checkbook and scribbled in as many thousands of dollars as
were required, after which the trucks would arrive to whisk the icons away to
north Jersey. There they apparently would go into vast warehouses, to be fed
back onto the antiques market through a complex system of veins and
capillaries.

 
          
 
Who the interests were that
supplied Blink with the loot to write his smudged but perfectly cashable checks
no one knew.
All that was known about him was that he lived in a
one-room apartment over a cathouse on
Charles Street
, in
Baltimore
. According to reliable witnesses, the
oldest thing in the apartment was a television set dating from the late
sixties.

 
          
 
At the moment he had every reason to hate me,
since I had just bought the centerpiece from a collection of facon-de-Venise
goblets owned by a retired general in Hilton Head.

 
          
 
Taking one piece out of a collection doesn't
bother me. Collections are as numerous as clouds, and like clouds they form,
break up, disappear, and form again. Blink immediately breaks the collections
he buys, and in any case, nothing needs to stay in Hilton Head forever.

 
          
 
While I was casing the bric-a-brac in the
front window I happened to notice a young woman standing with Tuck. She had her
hands shoved deep in the pockets of a puffy blue down-filled jacket, and she
was staring at me hotly. Either she was very angry in general, or she was very
angry with me. If the latter, it could only be because of the icon tucked under
my arm. The heat of her disapproval was so unmistakable that I looked away and
spent more time inspecting a pewter beaker than was really necessary.

 
          
 
But when I looked her way again, she was still
glaring at me, just as hotly. Tuck had his arm around her and seemed to be
using all his considerable charm to get her out of her pet. For once, his
considerable charm seemed to have no effect.

 
          
 
She was short and rather pretty, in a workaday
way. So far as I could remember, a woman had never got mad at me over an icon,
and I was curious. Perhaps her family had owned it and she had hopped to buy it
back, in which case a deal could probably be struck.

 
          
 
I put on a mild look and strolled over to chat
with Tuck.

 
          
 
"Howdy," I said, smiling at the
young woman as I shook his hand.

 
          
 
Before either of us could say another word,
she blushed, stopped looking angry, and merely looked disappointed, hopeless, and
confused. Then she burst into tears, gulped a time or two, and ran out the door
of the auction house, almost bowling over two astonished GS-12s, who had been
standing there staring solemnly at a couch.

 
          
 
Tuck nodded in a bid on a rusty
exercycle
. He was evidently relieved that the storm had
broken.

 
          
 
"You just bought the only thing she
wanted," he said. "I got news for you.
too
.
The fat man aint gonna buy it."

 
          
 
Boog likes to think he is as smooth and
sinister as Sydney Greenstreet, a fantasy Tuck and I went along with, to a
certain extent.

 
          
 
“The fat man has changed his mind before
,:
I reminded him. “Who was that girl?"

 
          
 
"A new dealer," he said. "Her
name is Jean Arber. She's got a little store, out in
Wheaton
.

 
          
 
"My, my," he added, in tones of admiration.
"That girl wants it when she wants it!"

 
          
 
I had the unhappy sense that I had just
managed to bruise a kindred spirit.

 
          
 
Probably the young lady was just like me. When
I see something like the icon, I want it. Sometimes the mere sight of such an
object causes me to hyperventilate, out of fear that it will somehow slip out
of reach.

 
          
 
I left the icon in the keeping of one of the
floormen and stepped quickly outside, hoping to find the woman and make amends.

 
          
 
Sure enough, she was leaning against the
window of a carry-out sandwich shop, heaving deep sighs and attempting to dry
her cheeks. Her puffy blue coat rose and fell like a bsdloon, just from the
sighs she was heaving.

 
          
 
When she saw me step out of the door she
quickly turned away, but I didn't let that stop me.

 
          
 
"Miss Arber," I said, "could I
talk to you for a minute?"

 
          
 
"Mrs.," she said, turning her face
but not her body. It was an intelligent face, but dwarfed by the ridiculous
puffy coat.

 
          
 
"Mrs. Arber," she added,
"although I'm taking my own name back as soon as the divorce goes
through."

 
          
 
"What's the name you're taking
back?" I asked.

 
          
 
She looked at me solemnly. What makes my name
any of your business, the look
said.

 
          
 
I tried a smile. "Never be afraid to
ask," I said. "It's a rule I try to live by."

 
          
 
Actually I was afraid to look at her for fear
she'd start crying again, overcome by the memory of the icon. But I did look,
that being another rule I try to live by. Women may get annoyed with you for
looking at them, but they distrust you if you don't.

 
          
 
"Tooley," she said, with a last
snuffle. "Jean Tooley."

 
          
 
"Jack McGriff'," I said, holding out
my hand.

 
          
 
She looked at the hand as if she'd never seen
one, but after a moment she shook it.