William Boyd - Stars and bars

“Teagarden! Eugene, over here! Over here!”

Teagarden trotted over and looked down at him.

“Well, Mr Dores. What a surprise.”

Henderson clambered out of his basement well. His Mary Mount Maxi-Pad box was now the consistency of porridge. With every step part of it fell away.

Teagarden looked at him.

“Yeah…” he nodded. “Pretty good.”

Henderson shrugged. “Well…”

“Told you you shouldn’t ought to have gone down there. What happened?”

“Long story, Eugene.”

“I’m sure.”

“Going to the gym?”

“Yes.”

“Saved my life, Eugene.”

They strolled across the street to the gym. Teagarden unlocked the door and switched on the lights. Henderson sat down opposite his locker with a squelch. He suddenly felt like crying. He also felt like telling Teagarden that he loved him, so abject was his gratefulness, but he refrained.

“Whew,” he said. “Quite a night, one way and another.” Now that it was over all the emotions he had pent up overwhelmed him, like a football crowd invading the pitch. For a few moments his brain succumbed to the mindless violence.

“Like some coffee?” Teagarden said.

“Please.”

The gym was quiet and cool; it seemed like a sanctuary, a holy place. Teagarden went off to boil a kettle. Heh-derson stood up. With both hands he ripped away chunks of his Maxi-Pad box. A shower. A meal. A change of clothes…

“Well hello there, Mr Dores.”

He looked up. Freeborn, Sereno and Gint stood at the end of his file of lockers. Gint was pointing his gun at him. “Quite a dance you’ve led us, Mr Dores,” Sereno said. “Luxora and back in twelve hours. Quite a dance.”

“Shoot the fucker,” Freeborn implored. “Off him, Peter.”

“First he has to tell us where the paintings are.”

“How did you…? I mean…”

Sereno waved his address book. “Not many New York addresses, Mr Dores. Peter spent the night in your apartment. We’ve just been there. Missed you by minutes at Ms Stien’s.”

“Blow him away, Peter! Waste the bastard!”

Sereno glanced suspiciously at Freeborn.

“Where are the paintings, Mr Dores?”

“They’re burnt, destroyed. Duane burned them on Loomis Gage’s instructions. Ask Freeborn.”

“Give me the fuckin’ gun!” Freeborn leapt for Gint’s hand but was elbowed easily away. Then Gint went very still.

“Don’t move,” Teagarden said. “Or else this thing’s gonna be stickin’ out your mouth.”

Teagarden held a sabre to the back of Gint’s neck, the point on his hairline. Gint stood like a man who has just had an ice-cube dropped down his shirt, back arched, chest out.

“Drop the piece and kick it over to Mr Dores.”

Gint did this. Henderson picked the gun up. It was somehow much heavier than he imagined. He pointed it vaguely at Freeborn.

Teagarden walked round Gint keeping the point of his sabre at his neck.

“OK, shitbrains, beat it.”

Freeborn turned and ran. Sereno watched him go.

“So the paintings are burnt,” Sereno said. “Making sense, at last.” He and Gint backed off.

“Duane burned them. Look at the bottom of the garden behind the Gage mansion.”

“Shame,” Sereno said. “I never really wanted the house. But beggars can’t be choosers.”

He and Gint turned and left.

“Very impressive, Eugene,” Henderson said weakly. “Thanks a lot. Here, you can keep the gun.”

When Henderson next appeared on the streets of Manhattan he was slightly better dressed. He wore his whites — poloneck, knickerbockers, socks and gymshoes. Teagarden had lent him a green windcheater and ten dollars for a taxi. In gratitude, Henderson had signed up for a two-week crash course in epée .

He hailed a taxi and it drove him to his apartment. On the way he wondered what Sereno and Gint would do to Freeborn when they caught him.

At his apartment he picked up his mail. The doorman handed him a parcel.

“Special delivery,” he said. “Just arrived from the airport. Your friend was here earlier, but he said he couldn’t wait.”

Henderson ascended in the elevator. The whole ghastly adventure was now, he hoped, over. He pressed the buzzer on his door. Sereno and Gint had his clothes, wallet, address book, keys. Minor inconveniences.

Bryant opened the door.

“Hi,” she said. “ God . What are you wearing?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I can’t take it any more at home, Henderson. Mom, those fucking dogs—”

“Bryant—”

“Sorry.” She paused. “Henderson, can I stay here? I don’t want to go back. Please?”

“Yes, by all means, of course.” He went in. She seemed to have forgotten Duane.

Shanda sat on the sofa.

“My God, what are you wearing?” She got up and waddled over. “Hi.” She pecked him on the cheek. “That Peter Gint was here all night. Boy, is he off the wall…Then Freeborn and Ben came by real early. Freeborn messed the place up a bit. I was cleaning up when Bryant arrived. You know what?”

“What?”

“Freeborn took his denim jacket back. Can you believe that?”

Henderson sat down heavily in his ransacked sitting room, dumping the parcel on the coffee table. He shuffled his mail: catalogue, bill, bill, catalogue, letter. He ripped it open.

Dear Henderson,

Enclosed is a bill for cleaning. $13.50 for removing oil stains from my jacket sleeve. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked. The suit cost $175.00. We can settle up when you get back. Too bad about the Gage pix. But it’s an ill wind…Remember the man in Boston with the Winslow Homers? Ian Toothe went up there last week. It seems he also had two Pissarros and a Renoir and Ian persuaded him to sell them all. Good old Ian — saved our bacon, as you guys say.

Yours, Pruitt.

§

“You want some breakfast?” Bryant asked.

“Some, uh…Coffee, please.”

Bryant went into the kitchen. Shanda came and sat on the arm of his chair, her belly at eye-level, her musky farinaceous smell filling his nostrils.

“Freeborn’s throwed me out. He says you can keep me.”

“Oh really? Very big of him.”

“Could we get married, Henderson? I’d kinda like for the baby to have a daddy.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

He got up, went into the bathroom and ran a bath. He locked the door, stripped off and soaked for twenty minutes or so. He thought distractedly of the last few days. He got out, shaved and went through to his bedroom. He fell asleep almost instantly. When he woke it was midday. He changed into clean clothes.

Back in the sitting room the air was blurry with cigarette smoke. Shanda scrambled some eggs and brewed some coffee. As he was eating, the telephone rang. Shanda answered.

“No,” she said. “My name is Shanda McNab.”

Pause.

“Yes, I am staying here. Who is this please?”

Pause.

“No, I’m Henderson’s fiancée. Oh.” She looked round. “She hung up.”

“Who was it?” Henderson said with sudden alarm.

“Bryant’s mommy. She says you’re a cheap bastard and she never wants to see you again.”

“Typical,” Bryant said. “Hey, are you guys getting married? Congratulations.”

Henderson opened another letter. It was from his car rental firm. The letter informed him that the car he had hired in New York had been written off during a car chase after a bank robbery in Biloxi, Mississippi. Could he throw any light on the matter? The cost of the car was $18,750.00.

He asked Bryant to make him some more coffee. Shanda sat opposite him smoking a cigarette. He wondered what he was going to do. He leafed through his mail. Circular, bill, bill, airmail.