William Boyd - Stars and bars

“He’s inside,” Beckman shouted from the pickup and drove off round the drive and back out of the gates again.

Inside the house or the trailer, Henderson asked himself? He removed their cases from the car.

Bryant was peering in a curtained porthole punched through the ribbed aluminium.

“There’s people inside,” she said.

There was a call from the house. “Mr Melhuish, is that you?”

“Oh God,” Henderson said weakly. “Let’s go.”

He and Bryant climbed up a dozen or so steps to a wide wooden verandah which appeared to circle the house. A small man stood outside double front doors.

“Mr Melhuish,” he said, and shook Henderson’s hand vigorously. “A pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure. I’m Loomis Gage.”

“My name is Dores,” Henderson said apologetically. “Didn’t Mr Beeby explain I was to come?”

The small man laughed cheerfully.

“Dores, Melhuish. Who gives a rat’s rump? It’s all the same to me. Come on in.”

They stepped through the doors into the hall to be greeted by a considerable blare of noise. From somewhere above them came the thump and twang of rock music, and from a room on the right a television boomed.

“This is my stepdaughter!” Henderson said, obliged to raise his voice. “Bryant Wax! Stepdaughter to be, that is!”

Bryant looked around her with mild curiosity. “Hi,” she said.

“You do business with your family?” Gage shouted back.

“Well…!”

“I like that!”

“What?”

“I said, I like that!”

“Rarely!”

“Excuse me one moment!” Gage took some steps up the stairs.

“TURN THAT DAMN MUSIC DOWN!” he roared.

He paused, ear cocked. The volume was reduced. He descended and opened the door of the room that contained the TV. It was quite dark, apart from the bright colours on the screen. Gage turned the noise off but left the picture flickering. He switched some lights on.

“That’s better,” he said. Loomis Gage was small and plump, and clearly very old, though he seemed sprightly enough. His face had its full quota of tucks and dewlaps and his eyes were watery. Yet he had a shock of pure white hair, as dense and springy as a teenager’s, which seemed at odds with his advancing years. His nose was noticeably snub too, Henderson saw, and thought it a curiously indecent feature on a man as venerable as this. Gage wore a short-sleeved yellow sports shirt and khaki trousers. His neat pot belly pushed against an engraved silver buckle the size of a side plate.

“Please sit down,” he said. “You too, Brian.”

“T,” said Bryant. “Bryantuh.”

“You’re a girl, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I knew it.” He glanced proudly at Henderson. “I may be an old man but I can still recognize females — even if they’ve got men’s names.”

Henderson looked around. No pictures on the walls. The room was large and wood panelled. Twin ceiling fans stirred the warm night air. The furniture was old, worn but comfortable looking. Nowhere was there any sign of ostentatious wealth. He felt a brief twinge of unease.

Bryant was engrossed in the silent TV.

“Can I offer you a drink, Mr Dores? Bourbon, Martini?”

“A beer would be very welcome.”

“A beer would be very welcome,” Gage chuckled to himself. “I like that.” He pressed a bell push on the wall.

“So you’re the man who thinks he can sell my paintings for me.” He looked Henderson up and down. “How old are you?”

Why was there so much speculation about his age these days? “Thirty-nine,” he said. He heard a car pull up outside.

“Thirty-nine,” Gage repeated. “How old do you think I am?”

“Sixty-five?” Henderson guessed, and was rewarded with a bleat of sardonic laughter.

“I’m as old as the century, my boy. But I’m as healthy as my sons. Hell, I’m healthier.”

Henderson didn’t know what to say.

The door opened and a dark, big man came in. He wore a tight embroidered denim suit and had a scalloped warlock’s beard.

“Sorry, Dad. Didn’t know you had company.”

“Come on in. This is Mr Dores. His daughter, Bryant. This is my son, Freeborn.”

“Very pleased to know you, sir,” he said sincerely to Henderson, shaking him vehemently by the hand. “And you, Miss Dores.” He took some paces backward. “If you all will just excuse me I won’t derange you further.”

He had glossy, springy hair like his father, Henderson saw, except it was black. He looked like a professional wrestler or an amusement arcade proprietor: someone on the very fringes of the entertainment business. He had heavy gold-coloured rings on several fingers. He smiled at everybody and left.

A dull-looking middle-aged woman came in. She looked tired and hostile.

“Alma-May,” Gage said, “will you make up Cora’s old room for Mr Dores’s daughter. We have an extra guest.”

“What?” The outrage was genuine. “No way!”

“Alma…”

“God sakes.” Muttering, she left.

“Don’t go to any trouble,” Henderson said quickly, “we were planning to stay in a hotel.”

“Well, abandon your plans, Mr Dores. I won’t hear of it. Damn. Forgot to ask her to bring your beer. I’d better get it myself.” He went out through a door at the far end of the room. Outside, Henderson heard Alma-May’s voice raised in passionate argument.

“Now see what you’ve done,” he said accusingly at Bryant, but she ignored him.

“Mr Dores?”

He looked round. Freeborn’s bearded face smiled at him from the doorway.

“May I have a word, sir? If it’s not too much trouble. In private.”

“Of course,”

Henderson followed him out through the front door onto the porch. Freeborn, he noted, was not only large and tall but also very fat. But it was all held roughly in place by the strength and tightness of his shirt and trousers.

Freeborn smiled and scratched his beard. At last, Henderson thought, somebody sane.

“Excuse me asking, sir, but am I right in thinking you are the man from the New York auctioneers which wants to sell my Daddy’s paintings?”

So there were paintings. “Yes, that’s right,” Henderson said amiably. “We have the privilege to—”

“I think, to be fair, that I should inform you of a certain fact which has a bearing on your business.”

“What’s that?”

“That if you don’t get your fuckin’ ass out of this house by noon tomorrow I’m gonna bust yo’ fuckin’ head with it.” His voice was still reasonable, the smile still in place.

Henderson felt something slip and slide in his intestines.

“Look here—”

“You gonna be one sorry fucker if you ain’t gone. Know what I mean? Sorry.”

Henderson nodded. Freeborn patted his shoulder.

“You got the idea. Nice meeting you, Mr Dores.”

Henderson stood alone for a couple of minutes breathing very shallowly in an attempt to restrain the trembling that suffused his body. The last time anyone had threatened him in such a direct, virulent and intimate way had been at prep-school. Nothing in his experience as an adult had prepared him for such seemingly disinterested aggression.

He walked carefully back inside. Gage and Bryant sat side by side on a couch watching TV.

“There’s your beer,” Gage said, unconcerned by his absence. “Relax. We’ll talk business in the morning.”

Henderson sat down docilely and sipped his beer. His head seemed to be full of clamouring voices all shouting competing instructions and plans of action. This must be what it’s like for Ike on a busy morning in the diner, he thought aimlessly, feeling a new admiration for the man’s expertise…He concentrated. Should he tell Gage of his son’s unprovoked menace and threat? But how could he? He’d barely been in the Gage mansion for five minutes. “Excuse me, Mr Gage, but your son says he’s going to bust my head with my ass.” No, it wasn’t on. He had to speak to Beeby, that was what, and at once.