Оливер Блик - The Highbinders

“Yes. In point of fact, a chap from the British Museum has been after me night and day. They seem to want it most desperately and this chap was even so cheeky as to offer me a thousand pounds for the thing.”

“A thousand pounds, eh?”

“I was tempted, if only to get rid of him. But I sent him packing, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Then there was this private collector who offered me five thousand for it. But he was Greek and you know what they’re like.”

“Damned rascals, most of them.”

“Well, I must be going. This American reporter wants to do a story for his paper — The New York Times, I believe — on my London. It’s, well, it’s the London that you and I know, of course. Most Americans don’t often see it.”

“No,” the old gentleman had said. “I doubt if they would. Or perhaps should.” He had chuckled at his small joke and so had Tick-Tock.

“But I’m afraid that the chap from the British Museum is going to be on my trail tonight. He simply won’t take no for an answer. He keeps telling me that the watch isn’t really priceless, but I don’t think that one can place price on sentiment, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“I say, I have an idea. I know I’m going to put this wretchedly,” Tick-Tock said, but he didn’t. He had put it as smoothly as any proposition I’ve ever heard. It was his idea that the old gentleman should keep the watch for him, but only for the night. Tick-Tock would drop round to get it the next morning.

The old gentleman had protested, of course, but Tick-Tock had already thrust the watch upon him. When the old gentleman had made his final feeble protest, Tick-Tock struck. He had said that if it would make him feel more secure, the old gentleman could put up a pledge of perhaps fifty pounds. Caught between greed and flattery, the old gentleman had agreed.

There had been an exchange of names and addresses and telephone numbers and then they had made their good-byes. I had rejoined Tick-Tock in the bar shortly thereafter. The old gentleman and his wife had just been leaving. Tick-Tock had raised his glass in salute. The old gentleman had nodded and smiled, but a little nervously, I’d thought.

Tick-Tock had tossed me a small card on which a name, an address, and a telephone number were written. “He gave me a wrong address, a phony telephone number, and a phony name.”

“How do you know?”

Tick-Tock had smiled at me and he had looked very much like Tyrone Power all made up to look like an Indian maharaja. “Because that’s my business, mate,” Tick-Tock had said. “To know.”

As I mentioned, Tick-Tock had changed in the more than ten years since I had last seen him. He didn’t look like Tyrone Power anymore. He looked more like Gandhi.

“I know you,” he said. “I remember you. You’re Saint-something-or-other.”

“St. Ives.”

“Yes. St. Ives. What do you want?”

“Maybe he wants a party, Tick-Tock,” the girl said.

“Shut up,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Information.”

He stared at me with dark eyes that had lost their flash and sparkle. All that remained in them was a kind of dead cunning. He had been not quite plump when I had last seen him, with quick and graceful movements, but now he was stick thin and when he moved, he jerked. He no longer wore a turban and what little hair he had left was egg-shell white and his dark skin, once smooth and supple, was dry and stretched with tiny deep wrinkles that gave him the tight, drawn look of a poorly done mummy. Tick-Tock was a mess and he was not quite forty.

“Information, is it? Well, come in.”

We went into a sitting room that opened onto a primitive-looking kitchen. The sitting room was furnished with some old chairs and couches that seemed to have been rescued from a rescue mission. There was a four-color print of Jesus on one wall and in two of the chairs were sprawled two more young girls, one a blonde, the other a brunette. They both wore see-through blouses. The blonde wore a short skirt. The brunette wore pants. They smiled at me professionally.

“If you want one of these cunts, it’s five quid for short time upstairs,” Tick-Tock said in a mechanical tone. “Or you can have all three of them for a tenner.”

“No thanks.”

“Get out,” he said to the girls. The two blondes and the brunette shrugged and left through the door that led to the kitchen.

“Want a drink?” he said.

“All right.”

“Whisky?”

“With water.”

“Whisky’s seventy-five pence.”

“All right.”

He went over to a chest, took out a bottle of whisky, poured some into a smeared glass, and added water from a pitcher. He handed it to me. I gave him a pound. “Thanks very much,” he said and made no move to give me the change.

“Want anything else?” he said.

“What have you got?”

He shrugged. “I’ve got hash and I’ve got pot. I’ve got cocaine. I’m fresh out of heroin.”

I shook my head. “What the hell happened to you, Tick-Tock?” I said. “I thought you were into gold.”

“What happened to me?” he said. “Two years in Dartmoor is what happened to me. And a cunt. God, I hate cunts. When was the last time I saw you?”

“Almost a dozen years ago.”

“I remember now. It was in the Ritz, right?”

“Right.”

“That was the night I quit the watch business.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the week after that my partner and I went to Paris and we spent almost every penny we had buying gold. We bought 1,280 ounces for forty-five thousand dollars U.S. A good price then. And we brought it back here with no trouble. No trouble at all. Then I went on a diet and lost two stone. It took me two months and I damn near starved, but I lost it. Then we had it all set. These two cunts and I would fly to Goa.”

“With the gold,” I said.

“That’s right. With the gold. You know how much gold was bringing in Goa then?”

“No.”

“Ninety-four dollars an ounce. Christ, it’s more than that now, but do you know how much our profit would have been? Seventy thousand dollars. Net. For a plane trip.”

“What happened?”

“My partner and I got greedy. We decided that since I’d lost so much weight, we could rig a special girdle so that I could carry fifty pounds with no problem. Originally I was going to carry forty pounds and the two cunts were to carry twenty each. But with me carrying fifty pounds, we only needed one cunt. She could carry thirty and look a little bit preggy, you know. It was what is known as an economy move. You want another drink?”

“You’ve watered the Scotch,” I said.

“What did you expect?”

“Watered Scotch. I’ll take another.”

He fixed me another drink. “That’ll be a pound,” he said. I paid him.

“So what happened?” I said. “The girl you left behind blow the whistle on you?”

He nodded glumly. “She blew it all right. We barely stepped foot in Heathrow before they were swarming all over us. You asked what happened to me. Well, prison is what happened to me. Two years of it. Have you ever been in prison?”

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

“I couldn’t stand it. I went crackers. I lost even more weight until I was nothing but skin and bones — just as I am now.” He held out a thin arm for me to inspect. “My hair fell out. I developed ulcers. My teeth went. And when I got out after two years I looked just about as I do now and who would buy a gold watch from somebody who looked like me?”

“Nobody,” I said.

“You’re right. Nobody. So now I’m into brothel-keeping — on a small scale, of course. I push a few drugs, because if I didn’t, I couldn’t keep the cunts. I run an after-hours boozer with watered-down spirits and I sometimes peddle information for a fair price and what is it that you’re after?”