hear him lighting a cigarette. “So—this guy phones.”
I described the chest-on-chest. “Happy to email a photo. The distinctive feature is the phoenix carving on the top. All you need to tell him, if he calls, is that the piece was up at your place in Maine until your mother sold it to me a couple of years back. She will have bought it from a dealer out of business you see, some old guy who passed away a few years back, can’t remember the name, darn, you’ll have to check. Though if he presses—” it was astonishing, I’d learned, how a few tea stains and a few minutes of crisping in the oven, at low temperatures, could further age the blank receipts in the 1960s receipt book I’d bought at the flea market—“it’ll be easy enough for me to provide that bill of sale for you too.”
“I got it.”
“Right. Anyway—” I was groping around for a cigarette which I didn’t have—“if you take care of things on your end—you know, if you commit to backing me up if the guy does call—I’ll give you ten percent on the price of the piece.”
“Which is how much?”
“Seven thousand dollars.”
Platt laughed—an oddly happy and carefree-sounding laugh. “Daddy always did say that all you antiques fellows were crooked.”
xiii.
I HUNG UP THE phone, feeling goofy with relief. Mrs. Barbour had her share of second and third rate antiques, but she also owned so many important pieces that it disturbed me to think of Platt selling things out from under her with no clue what he was doing. As for being “over a barrel”—if anyone gave off the aroma of being embroiled in some sort of ongoing and ill-defined trouble, it was Platt. Though I had not thought of his expulsion in years, the circumstances had been so diligently hushed up that it seemed likely he’d done something fairly serious, something that in less controlled circumstances might have involved the police: which in a weird way reassured me, in terms of trusting him to collect his cash and keep his mouth shut. Besides—it gladdened my heart to think of it—if anyone alive could high-hand or intimidate Lucius Reeve it was Platt: a world-class snob and bully in his own right.
“Mr. Reeve?” I said courteously when he picked up the phone.
“Lucius, please.”
“Well then, Lucius.” His voice had made me go cold with anger; but knowing I had Platt in my corner made me more cocky than I had reason to be. “Returning your call. What’s on your mind?”
“Probably not what you think,” came the swift reply.
“No?” I said, easily enough, though his tone took me aback. “Well then. Fill me in.”
“I think you’d probably rather I do that in person.”
“Fine. How about downtown,” I said quickly, “since you were good enough to take me to your club last time?”
xiv.
THE RESTAURANT I CHOSE was in Tribeca—far enough downtown that I didn’t have to worry too much about running into Hobie or any of his friends, and with a young enough crowd (I hoped) to throw Reeve off-balance. Noise, lights, conversation, relentless press of bodies: with my fresh, un-blunted senses the smells were overwhelming, wine and garlic and perfume and sweat, sizzling platters of lemongrass chicken hurried out of the kitchen, and the turquoise banquettes, the bright orange dress of the girl next to me, were like industrial chemicals squirted directly into my eyes. My stomach boiled with nerves, and I was chewing an antacid from the roll in my pocket when I looked up and saw the beautiful tattooed giraffe of a hostess—blank and indolent—pointing Lucius Reeve indifferently to my table.
“Well, hello,” I said, not standing to greet him. “How nice to see you.”
He was casting his glance round in distaste. “Do we really have to sit here?”
“Why not?” I said blandly. I’d deliberately chosen a table in the middle of traffic—not so loud we had to shout, but loud enough to be off-putting; moreover, had left him the chair that would put the sun in his eyes.
“This is completely ridiculous.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. If you’re not happy here…” I nodded at the self-absorbed young giraffe, back at her post and swaying absently.
Conceding the point—the restaurant was packed—he sat down. Though he was tight and elegant in his speech and gestures, and his suit was modishly cut for a man his age, his demeanor made me think of a puffer fish—or, alternately, a cartoon strongman or Mountie blown up by a bicycle pump: cleft chin, doughball nose, tense slit