Gilded Edge, The (47 page)

Leonard had sat DeVane down at one of the three chairs gathered around a card table positioned in the antechamber just before Asprey’s office. DeVane was left there for a full ten minutes. As anxious and antsy as he looked, he didn’t get up to have a pace about, or even fetch himself a stiff drink. He obediently sat at the table, contrite and consumed with anxiety, like a naughty schoolboy who had been told to wait outside the headmaster’s door until a fitting punishment could be thought of and meted out.

‘Fancy a game, old boy?’

Vince realized an old silverback gorilla had just sat down opposite him. He weighed about 300 lb, was put together like a sumo, and huffed and puffed as he laid out the backgammon board in front of him.

‘Of course, no gambling tonight. Aspers is quite insistent. And if Aspers insists, we merely follow.’

Vince recognized this old silverback gorilla. The full-face furry gorilla mask he was wearing was now pulled up to his forehead, exposing the jowly countenance and whisky-river proboscis of Sir Peter Benson, the newspaper proprietor.

‘But what do you say to a pound a point, just for some interest? Sod the monkeys and lions! I puts me money on the human race when it comes to charitable causes.’

‘Why not,’ said Vince with a wolfish grin. Not much of a backgammon player, just like he wasn’t much of a chess player. Steeped in philosophical and war-like strategic ponderings as the games were, he held them in much the same regard as he did snakes and ladders. What attracted Vince to this game was the fact that the old Fleet Street gorilla provided him with perfect cover. He just hoped that whatever happened would happen fast, for the silverback was a sedentary old beast who looked as though he could hardly put one gout-ridden foot in front of the other, but could move around a backgammon board in a fashion as swift and assured as a chimp up a tree. No sooner was the board laid out than one of the Montcler’s liveried footmen was at Sir Peter’s elbow, brimming his crystal tumbler with something aged and alcoholic from a silver-cuffed decanter. Sir Peter took it upon himself to start the game. He threw a three and a six.

Vince’s peripheral vision was taken up by what was going on in the antechamber. Two men had now come through. They weren’t wearing masks. They were wearing scowls. James Asprey and Simon Goldsachs.

The silverback threw a five and a four.

Asprey and Goldsachs sat down at the table opposite DeVane, and well and truly faced him down. Vince watched as the photographer’s slight frame got smaller and smaller in his chair, squirming, diminishing. You didn’t need to be a lip-reader to work out that DeVane was getting it in the ear, up the arse and just about in every other available orifice. And, all the time, James Asprey and Simon Goldsachs were taking turns to speak. And as one spoke, the other held DeVane gripped in a commanding glare. Vince was reminded of the interrogating double act of Philly Jacket and Kenny Block, a formidable pair who had it down cold. He was then reminded of the two mackintosh men, another cold and deadly double act. It seemed bad news was travelling in twos these days.

Asprey was a study of invariable disdain, measured and systematic. As his wide mouth let forth a calm yet sustained torrent of abuse, the rest of him remained coldly and pitilessly unmoved by the obvious distress he was causing DeVane. It was like watching the autopsy of a lifeless corpse slowly being taken apart limb by limb, organ by organ, dissected and discarded. And when Asprey’s deliberating and detached beasting had abated, there was no respite for the dapper snapper in the gold lamé suit that must have now seemed about as cool as a clown’s outfit.

The silverback told Vince to pay attention. He threw a one and a three, and cursed.

Goldsachs then took over. And it was a hostile takeover. It was a different approach from Asprey’s. Goldsachs got right in DeVane’s face: leaning across the table, he looked as if he was going to eat him. But it was those eyes that did it for him, those terrible eyes emitting tractor beams of indignant disgust. Goldsachs finally waved him away with a dismissive hand as though he was swatting a fly from a sandwich.

The silverback roared. Something had happened in the game that he was very pleased about. Vince looked pleased for him, too, although he had absolutely no idea what had happened because he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention.

He turned quickly to see the hot glow of Nicky DeVane’s lamé suit making its way out of the drawing room. Vince stood up.

‘What’s going on?’ asked the old silverback.

‘Sorry, Sir Peter, nature calls. And much as I’d like to cock a leg and take a piss on the carpet, this is only fancy dress.’

Sir Peter chuckled heartily. ‘Oh, yes. Rather! Rather!’

Vince picked up the pack of Montcler playing cards from the table and pocketed it. He then followed DeVane as he proceeded down the stairs, shakily, as if he’d aged fifty years in five minutes. Without picking up his two models, who were now in conversation with a couple of horned rhinos, he then headed for the spiral stairs that connected the Montcler to Jezebel’s.

Vince followed. He didn’t need to keep a distance, because DeVane was preoccupied, and mortified, and clearly everything was just a sickening blur to him. Once downstairs, he headed straight for the bar and took up residence on a stool, ordering up a cocktail called a Long Island ice tea. Vince watched as the bottle-spinning barman created this highball of hard liquor: rum, gin, vodka and tequila all went into the mix.

‘Poor Nicky,’ said Isabel. ‘He looks like a man whose world has just caved in on him, and he’s been pulled out from under the wreckage and given a blood transfusion – but they forgot to put any fresh blood back in.’

Vince agreed. They were seated on a couch that had a clear view of DeVane propped at the bar. Vince had already told her what happened upstairs, and Isabel had described it as a ‘mobbing up’. In light of what he’d witnessed, it didn’t need that much explaining, but explain it she did. ‘It’s an Eton term. It’s what happens at school when your friends decide to turn on you.’

Vince reached into his jacket pocket and took out the pack of cards, broke the seal and took the cards out. They were the same as any other pack of cards, just customized with the Montcler seal and house colours on the back: red and green. And with something else that set them apart, made them just that tad more classy, that little more special. The cards had a gilded edge, so when piled up and viewed from the side they looked like a little block of gold, like an ingot. Vince allowed himself a cautious smile at this observation.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Playing patience.’

They didn’t have to be that patient, as Nicky DeVane wasn’t nibbling his drinks; he was sucking them down. He was now on his fourth highball of the powerful firewater that was meekly, and misguidedly, called a Long Island ice tea. The inhabitants of Long Island must have been a pretty raucous crowd, making Vince wonder what they put in their morning coffee: nitro-glycerine and TNT?

At the bar, Nicky DeVane began to talk. Loudly. And the talk was of James Asprey and Simon Goldsachs. Before long, DeVane was up on his feet, digging in his heels, and complaining to all those around him about his treatment at the hands of those bastards. Who the hell did they think they were? DeVane made it clear that he knew things, he knew things about them, things that could bring them to their knees! The bartender attempted a quiet word with him, but DeVane volleyed with some more loud ones. The bartender put through a call.

Within minutes, Leonard was down from the gaming club and at DeVane’s elbow, an elbow that was still hoisting more booze down his throat. He told DeVane that he had to leave the club, and he had to leave now. A taxi was waiting to take him home.

Vince reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys and handed them to Isabel. ‘I’ll meet you back at my place.’

‘Where are you going?’

Vince nodded towards DeVane, whose tight little frame was surging upwards with rage and remonstrating with pointed fingers at the dead-eyed, immovable, implacable Leonard.

Isabel looked at her old friend, with his booze-mad eyes and his angry spittle-propellant of a mouth, and got the message. If she felt any pity for him, she wasn’t showing it. She was all business and on with the programme. She took the keys, collected her coat from the cloakroom, and left the club as stealthily as a cat slipping out the kitchen door.

Nicky DeVane was meanwhile being ejected from the club by Leonard, and Vince followed. As he stepped out from under the club’s striped canopy, he saw Nicky DeVane negotiate both the kerb and the waiting cab. Leonard stood watching too, and the two men glanced at each other. Vince could almost hear him wondering,
Who is that masked man?

Then Leonard’s cold eyes caught fire and he said: ‘Goodnight, Detective Treadwell.’

‘Goodnight, Leonard.’

Leonard, no doubt in a hurry now to inform his superiors about-faced and went back into the club. Vince made his way over to DeVane, who was just about to close the cab door when Vince jumped into the taxi beside him.

‘Shift up, Nicky,’ he said to DeVane with the reassuring conviviality of an old friend. And, in the conspiratorial tone of a kidnapper, he instructed the taxi driver: ‘The Criterion.’

‘Good idea!’ said DeVane. ‘I could use a drink!’

‘I’m right ahead of you, Nicky.’

‘Who are you? The big bad wolf? Well, I’m no little Red Riding Hood – or the three little piggies for that matter, or . . . Who are . . .’ Vince then took off his mask. ‘Ah, the detective. I’ve got some bloody stories to tell you!’

Vince smiled. ‘Again, Nicky, I’m right ahead of you.’

The bar of the Criterion International Hotel was big, badly lit, modern and very anonymous. If there were other people in it, they didn’t register any more than the plastic palms, the innocuous piped lounge music or the velour décor. Once seated at the long bar, DeVane ordered up another Long Island ice tea. Vince slipped the barman a folded five-pound note and told him to keep them coming, but keep them light on the spirits and heavy on the Coke and soda. He didn’t want DeVane living up to his reputation as a lightweight and taking a nap in the bar nuts, just as he had done at the Imperial.

‘Ahhhh,’ Nicky said, taking his first sip as if he’d just sailed through the desert using his tongue as a rudder. ‘Now, do tell me, Detective, what can I do for you?’

Vince took the pack of cards out of his pocket, split the pack and gave them an expert shuffle, folding them into each other one way, then making them arc and fold into each other the other way. He then fanned them out like a choreographed troop of Busby Berkeley dancers.

‘Oh, bravo, maestro. I see you’ve done this before.’

‘I’m not much of a card player,’ said Vince. ‘To be honest, I find sitting around waiting for your luck to show up rather dull. But I did learn a couple of tricks. It impresses the girls, eh, Nicky?’

‘Quite so, Detective.’

‘That time I went to your studio, I saw you doing a neat little card trick, too. The girls looked impressed.’

Nicky smiled at the thought, then quickly looked around him, as if he had mislaid something. ‘Where are they?’

‘The girls? You left them at the Montcler. It’s okay, we don’t need them now.’

DeVane discharged a town-drunk hiccup, then said, ‘What on earth were
you
doing at the ball?’

‘I have high friends in low places. Tell me about the card tricks you know.’

‘Card tricks? I’ve forgotten most of them. I used to do magic at school. Never much of a lad for sports, but I was one of the youngest to gain entry into the Magic Circle. At school it was a marvellous way to avoid bullying and buggery. And, eventually, as you say, Detective, a way to get the girls. Vince, isn’t it?’ Vince nodded. ‘May I call you . . .’

‘I’d be offended if you didn’t.’Vince handed him the playing cards. ‘Show me a trick, Nicky.’ DeVane, happy to be asked, picked up the pack of cards and gave them a confident shuffle.

Vince then said: ‘Show me the trick Johnny Beresford was pulling with Billy Hill.’

On hearing this, DeVane fluffed his shuffle, and the cards cascaded from his hands and the smile fell from his face.

‘I know all about Beresford and Billy Hill, and the card scam. You lied to me, Nicky. You lied to me under police questioning, which is a bit like lying under oath. You told me that you didn’t know Bernie Korshank, that you’d only met him once, briefly, at the Imperial. You lied, because I know he came to your studio and you took his picture. You were so proud of your work, you even signed your name in the corner.’

DeVane looked flushed, but not in a good way. ‘Yes, I’m sorry, I did know him. I met him through Johnny. Silly of me to lie, but I panicked, you see. I didn’t mean to—’

‘Yeah, you panicked, Nicky, because Bernie Korshank works for Billy Hill, and that puts you in the frame with him.’Vince watched as a big tear bellyflopped into DeVane’s drink. He almost felt sorry for him. It was a bad night for the dapper snapper, and it was getting progressively worse. Vince felt so very sorry for him that he upped the ante. ‘I spoke to Billy Hill. He came round to see me, and we chatted. Affable fellow. Even reasonable, up to a point.’

‘What did he . . .’

‘I know you were in on the card scam with Johnny Beresford.’ Vince
didn’t
know, but he suspected. But now he
did
know, because there was no denial from DeVane. ‘I could haul you in right now for card cheating at the Montcler, and let’s see where it leads us. You think you’ve been ostracized now? Wait until that shit hits the fan – and the papers.’ Nicky looked up at Vince with sodden and quizzical eyes. ‘I saw what happened, Nicky, with you and Asprey and Goldsachs. I saw them
mobbing up
on you.’

‘I’m finished with them,’ he said, sniffing back more tears.‘They can go to hell.’

‘But it’s not
them
you have to worry about, Nicky. It’s Billy Hill.’Vince let that sink in, then watched as the anxiety and selfpity on the man’s face turned into unbridled fear. ‘If I put you in the frame with Billy Hill, maybe he’ll dispense his own justice. He’ll shut you up just like he did with Johnny Beresford.’