Highbinders (14 page)

“I’m sure,” I said, handing over what was on the meter plus an adequate tip.

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t go in there, not if they paid me.”

“That’s because you’ve got good sense,” I said, but he was already driving off.

I suspected that the house at 13 Start Street had never been much of an address, not even when it had been built eighty or ninety years before. It had always been ugly, this cramped three-story structure that was far too narrow and built of dark and dirty brick that made it virtually indistinguishable from the rows of houses that had been thrown up on both sides of it.

What did distinguish 13 Start Street from its neighbors was that not all of its windows were broken out, or boarded up, as were the ones in the rest of the houses that lined the street. Across the way, old posters covered the vacant fronts of three shops that had once housed a dry cleaner, a butcher, and a tobacconist.

It looked like a condemned street, condemned by time and decay, or perhaps by speculators, or even by the ruling local politicians who may have decided that they should substitute another square mile of gloomy council flats for another square mile of gloomy slum dwellings. Everyone else on the street had moved, or fled, except Tick-Tock Tamil who appeared to be the lone holdout. I assumed that he was exercising squatter’s rights at 13 Start Street and that whoever owned the building was having one hell of a time getting him out. I understand that if you know the ropes, you can do that in London—squat. Tick-Tock would certainly know the ropes.

There was a bay window and to the right of it a short flight of steps. I went up the steps and knocked on the door. The bay window had curtains whose pattern of faded red and yellow roses was turned toward the street so that passersby could admire the occupant’s good taste. The curtain moved a little as someone peeked out. After a few moments a young blond girl, not much more than seventeen or eighteen, opened the door and let me look through her see-through blouse.

“Hello, love,” she said. “Like to come to our party?”

The blond hair had come out of a bottle or a tube, but she seemed to have spent a lot of time on it, and it hung down in carefully careless ringlets. Her face was pretty in a pinched sort of way, but she wore too much makeup, especially too much green eyeshadow. She took a deep breath so that I could have a better view of what lay beneath the see-through blouse. What there was, was fine.

“Tick-Tock in?” I said.

“I’m sure I don’t know who you mean.”

“Mr. Tamil,” I said.

“You a friend of his?”

“Of long standing.”

“You’re not the law.”

“No.”

“You know why I know you’re not the law?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you’re American, ain’t you?” The “ain’t you” came out more like “einchew” and the rest of her words had a strong London tang. She was, I decided, a native daughter.

“Why don’t you be a good girl and run tell Tick-Tock that I’d like to see him.”

She shrugged and turned her head. “Tick-Tock!” she screamed.

“What?” It was a man’s voice.

“There’s a Yank here who says he’s a friend of yours.”

He had changed. The last time I had seen him had been in the Ritz Bar and he had been wearing white tie and tails. It was one of his work uniforms then. On his head had been a white silk turban and in his pocket was a large, old-fashioned-looking watch, heavy enough to be made out of solid gold. Its back flipped open and there, in what appeared to be fine engraving, was inscribed, “To His Most Royal Highness from his Most Loyal Friend.” And underneath that was the single name: Curzon.

“I move nearly a dozen of them a week,” Tick-Tock had told me as we had sat there drinking our whiskies under the Ritz Bar’s swooping pink and cream ceiling. “They bring anywhere from twenty to fifty pounds each—the average is about thirty-five.”

“What do they cost you?” I had asked.

“Five pounds.”

“They look to be worth a lot more.”

“I have a chap in Hammersmith who runs them up for me. We use American insides and case. It’s called a Westclox Railroad Special. We tried using Swiss works, but they don’t tick quite loudly enough, if you follow me.”

“Sure.”

“Well, the engraving is not engraving at all. It’s stamped, of course. The face looks hand-painted, but it’s actually printed on special paper. And then we use a little lead here and there to give it weight.”

“What about the gold?” I had said. “I’d swear that it was real gold.”

“Oh, it is. But this chap in Hammersmith has his own method of electroplating. It spreads the gold so thin that if you just keep it in your pocket for a week or two, it will wear right through. I doubt that we use half an ounce on a hundred of them.”

“How do you work it?”

“You will change my name, of course, when you write it?”

“That was the agreement.”

“I really don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“Because you’re going into something else,” I had said.

“Yes. I suppose that’s it. But you wish to know how I work it?”

“That’s right.”

“I work the older, better educated types, the ones who might recall or even care that Curzon was once viceroy of India—from 1899 to about 1905, I believe. Take that one over there—to your left.”

I had looked to where an elderly type in a dinner jacket had been sitting for some time with a woman of about his own age.

“He’ll be off to drop his penny in a moment,” Tamil had said. “I suggest that you go first, sit yourself down, and then you can hear it all, even if you won’t be able to see it”

“Okay,” I had said and a few moments later I had found myself sitting on a toilet seat behind the closed door of a stall in the men’s room of the Ritz Bar.

Tick-Tock had started the conversation in his impeccable accent. “I say, aren’t you Sir John Forest?”

“No,” I had heard the elderly gentleman say. “I’m afraid I’m not.”

“Oh, I
am
sorry. There’s such an extraordinary resemblance, but I suppose you’re accustomed to it, being taken for him, I mean. I knew Sir John’s son at school. You do know Sir John, don’t you?”

“No. I don’t know him.”

“Extraordinary resemblance.” There had been a pause and then Tick-Tock had said, “Oh, damn. I wonder if I’m running late? Do you have the time?”

“Quarter past nine.”

Tick-Tock had chuckled. “Well, once more this old watch of mine is right and I’m wrong. But I don’t really think that it’s been more than a few seconds off since Lord Curzon gave it to Grandfather.”

“Curzon?”

“Yes. When he was viceroy, you know. There’s rather a touching inscription on the back, if you’d care to see it.”

“Well, yes, I’d rather like that.”

The elderly gentleman had read it out. “‘To his most royal highness from his most loyal friend. Curzon.’ Well. Your grandfather, you say. Then you must be—”

Tick-Tock had interrupted. “Yes, I am, although I’m trying to be incognito, for tonight, at least. But this American reporter has tracked me down and I simply can’t shake him. Perhaps you noticed him at the bar?”

“Can’t say I did.”

“Actually, the reason that I’ve gone to ground, so to speak, is not because of the American, but because of this blasted watch.”

“Oh, really?”

“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.”

A
S 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?”