There were five faces visible in the window of ‘R. Grey – Antiques’ when Isadore parked in front of it that morning. One was of a Siennese madonna, the perfect oval of her face outlined by her black hood, the hood set in a golden halo. The wings of joyous seraphim touched her shoulders as she ascended to heaven.
On the other side of the window was a Florentine banker captured in all his intelligent avarice. A rich fur hat mimicked the hands that weighed gold coins, and a greyhound’s luminescent eyes watched the glittering money. In a corner was the inscription in red ‘Bottega del Ghirlandaio’.
Next to the sixteenth-century banker was another who could have been his brother, except that this head was set on shoulders of Dunhill pinstripe, and it was alive. Isadore recognized the senior member of the board of the American Stock Exchange as the man ran his hand tenderly down the carved frame. A look of anxiety was in the senior member’s rimless glasses, and Isadore got an inkling of the painting’s value. The fourth face was Roman’s, and it was as Byzantine and mysterious as the madonna’s. The fifth was that of Beng, Roman’s solid black cat that paced from one painting to the other.
The stock market was down. Isadore didn’t know how much until Roman put his arm around the broker’s shoulders the way a sweetshop owner would put his arm around a penniless boy. Beng disappeared from the window, a sign that the bargaining was over. If it had been any other Gypsy, Isadore would have been alert for a traveling wallet. With Roman he knew the customer would end up signing a check eagerly another day, and in the meantime Isadore couldn’t help enjoying the tableau. The Gypsy was one of his few indulgences.
When the broker had left with one last lingering pause in front of the window, Isadore gave himself a second to erase the smile from his lips. It wasn’t a funny day. He got out of his car, slowly, for once not wanting to talk to the dealer, taking in the narrow, expensive East Side street with its picture townhouses where newsboys delivered the Times and Woman’s Wear Daily in foyers.
The door to Roman’s shop did not have an automatic lock, making it a curiosity in the New York antique trade.
‘Sarisban,’ Roman said. ‘I saw the long arm of the law skulking across the street, so I put some tea on.’
He was in the back of the shop barely visible past a Chinese screen, but Isadore could see him grinning as he set two cups and saucers beside a teapot.
‘Morning,’ Isadore replied. He wasn’t in the mood to reciprocate their usual greeting. Roman came to the front of the store with the cups. He had an exaggerated frown.
‘Official business again. I never knew police work was so dull until I met you, Sergeant.’
‘Hot tea, Christ,’ Isadore muttered. ‘On a day like today. It’s already eighty out there.’ Just holding the saucer made Isadore sweat.
‘You’re turning into a dilettante on me,’ Roman told him, taking a healthy sip from his cup. He pushed a chair over to Isadore with his foot.
‘Incidentally, what are those paintings worth?’ Isadore asked. He refused to sit, another compromise with his job. He would have put the cup down on the table next to him, but he didn’t want to leave a ring.
‘Whatever I can get. Michelangelo’s teacher may have done the portrait if that gives you an idea.’
‘And you just leave them in the window?’
‘I put them there so the customer could see them in daylight. I don’t usually handle paintings, so I don’t have any place to hang them.’
‘Yeah.’ Isadore looked around the interior. It had the haphazard jumble of a pawnshop; but he’d learned the prices of some of the pieces, and Roman had explained the salutary effect of the mess on the clientele’s imagination. Inlaid chests lined the walls under suspended side chairs, partially unrolled tapestries and showcases of Oriental porcelain. It always reminded him of a museum tilted on its side.
‘These paintings just sort of came into hand like everything else?’ he asked.
‘Is that all it is?’ Roman said. ‘You want to see the bills of sale? Why didn’t you say so when you came in?’
‘No.’ Isadore sighed and sat down. He rested his cup on his lap. ‘Look, what was Nanoosh Pulneshti doing for you?’
Roman tried to read the cop’s face, but Isadore was staring at his tea.
‘Nothing. Nanoosh is a friend of mine, you know that. What’s the matter, is he in trouble?’
‘Not anymore. He’s dead.’
Isadore looked up, trying to catch Roman’s reaction. It was too late; all he saw was brown mask calm. If it had been another Rom bringing the news, Roman would have cried openly. For a callous moment Isadore found himself resenting the limits on friendship between Rom and gajo, but he went on.
‘He died in a car accident. Witnesses say he was trying to get onto the exit ramp for the George Washington Bridge the same time as a van. You know what happens: Neither one wanted to give way, so they’re both dead now.’
‘Nanoosh was a good driver.’
‘Maybe the other driver was at fault. So what? The thing is, we found another body in Nanoosh’s car. A girl, she’d been murdered. Brunette, pretty, I don’t think she’s Gypsy. Young, blue eyes.’
‘What are you driving at?’ Roman asked. Isadore kept his face averted to keep from clueing him.
‘You might know who she is. I want you to take a look at her; it’s as simple as that.’
Roman shrugged. Beng threaded his way through a set of Meissen.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sergeant. Besides, how do you know the girl wasn’t killed in the accident?’
‘Take a look at her and you’ll know. The bastard was carting her around the whole day, Roman. Maybe he was a pal of yours; but Nanoosh didn’t have a driver’s license, the plates on the car were bad, and he had a knife.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘They’re wrong to me. I’m not trying to pin this on him just because of that, though. We found a whole bunch of stuff from his car all over the road. Silver plates, candlesticks, statues. And the girl. His Cadillac was split open like a beer can.’
‘Then you didn’t find her in Nanoosh’s car.’
Beng had settled beside a ceramic view of the Rhine and glared at Isadore.
‘Not in it, no. You don’t put a seat belt on a corpse.’
‘And the other car?’
‘It was a small truck, a U-Haul. That was open, too, but no luck. It was checked from top to bottom right before the crash by an insurance examiner. That’s the problem, Roman; no insurance examiners are around when your friends are delivering antiques to you. You operate differently.’
‘There were antiques in the van?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s interesting. You don’t think so?’
‘No. Damn it, Roman, this isn’t a game. I came here to tell you that the delivery boy in your little operation has killed somebody. I know how you got that chandelier over there and that tapestry. I haven’t been able to prove it; but I know, and maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough because it was only a matter of you milking a few snobs. This time it’s murder. Nanoosh was bringing his cargo to you, body and all.’
‘There are over a thousand antique dealers between Wall Street and Eighty-sixth Street.’
‘But you’re the only Gypsy. He was coming here, this shop.’
‘The only Gypsy,’ Roman repeated. He looked at Isadore with some sorrow. ‘That’s why you came here. Are you going to arrest me because I’m the only Gypsy?’
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Do you deny that you operate outside the law for the stuff you sell? Come on, be honest with me.’
‘As a friend? No, I won’t deny I operate outside your laws. As a suspect I deny everything. Now I get a question. This accident didn’t happen in New York. It happened in New Jersey – didn’t it? – while Nanoosh was getting on the bridge for the city. What have the New York police and you got to do with it?’
It took a moment for Isadore to answer, but there was no chance of evasion. Roman already knew the answer.
‘They gave it to us because I’m the Gypsy expert,’ Isadore said. ‘They thought you’d talk to me.’
Roman left without a word and went to the rear of the store. Isadore sat in his chair feeling angry and foolish. The shock of Nanoosh’s death hadn’t worked, and the threat about the merchandise had failed as miserably as the first time he tried it when Roman opened the store years ago. Beng leaped from the porcelain to the top of a secretary desk. The cat looked at Isadore complacently, then shut its eyes and went to sleep. Its whiskers looked almost white against its fur. Isadore, the Gypsy expert, remembered that Beng was named for the devil of the Ganges. Otherwise, he knew as much about the cat as he did about its owner. Roman came back and dropped an ice cube into Isadore’s cup.
‘You should have told me before you wanted your tea another way,’ he said. He wiped his dark hands on a handkerchief.
‘If you want some help, here it is,’ he went on. ‘Nanoosh was a Gypsy, just like me. He broke laws. He stole cars, and he liked girls, too. Gypsy girls. But he was no killer. You have my word.’
A Gypsy’s word, Isadore thought. That was like a contradiction. On the other hand, Roman Grey was a contradiction.
‘That’s not enough.’
‘That’s all you’re going to get. Nanoosh didn’t waste his time with gaja; he trusted only Gypsies. As for gaja women, he despised them; he said they were milk, and a gaja man was a thief who made his own rules. He wouldn’t touch either of them. If you want to find out who killed the girl, you look for her kind of man.’
‘So far as I know, you’re an accomplice to murder,’ Isadore said. He was out of his chair, and his face was flushed. He looked for some place to put the cup down.
‘I don’t have anything left to say to you, Sergeant. That’s a Hancock Worcester you have in your hand, try not to break it.’ He took the cup from Isadore.
‘I could pull you in right now. You’ve already admitted dealing in unregistered antiques.’
‘That’s too bad,’ the Gypsy said. ‘You were one gajo I trusted.’
Isadore’s hand had reflexively gone to his chrome cuffs for the arrest when the shop door opened. A girl came in. She was dressed in Saks’ version of a fringed Indian dress, and she wore a beaded headband around her brown hair. She was beautiful and vaguely familiar. It wasn’t just that Isadore had the sense he’d seen her on a dozen television commercials. She was what all his son’s dates tried to look like.
‘Roman, did you know how many calories there are in goulash?’ she demanded.
Roman winced and relaxed slightly. He leaned on the secretary.
‘Thousands,’ she said, ‘literally thousands. If I had any, it would be dry toast for a month. That’s what they feed prisoners.’
‘Dany, it was your idea,’ Roman said. ‘You wanted to cook a real Hungarian dish.’
‘But goulash?’ the girl asked Isadore. ‘Have you ever seen those Hungarian girls? No wonder they all look like sausages. You never see French girls eating goulash.’
‘I don’t think my friend is interested in your peculiar view of nationalities,’ Roman told her.
‘A friend?’ The girl’s attitude changed from distress to pleasure. She seized Isadore’s hand. ‘I’m so glad to meet you. Roman never introduces me to any of his friends. He thinks they’ll disapprove,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘I never would have thought you were a Gypsy.’
‘He’s not,’ Roman said. ‘Dany Murray, meet Sergeant Harry Isadore. He’s a policeman.’ Her attitude went back to distress. She retracted her hand.
‘I haven’t said anything wrong, have I?’ she asked Roman.
‘Nothing they can send me up for, unless there’s a law against consorting with gibbering clotheshorses.’
‘Maybe I’ll be going,’ she suggested.
Roman nodded. She kissed him quickly on the cheek and just as quickly wiped it off with her hand.
‘He hates lipstick,’ she told Isadore. On her way out the door she stopped long enough to say, ‘Poached eggs,’ and was gone before Roman could answer.
He rubbed his face and turned back to the policeman. He could see that Isadore had thought of something new.
‘Well, Sergeant, aren’t you going to arrest me?’
‘No. It’s just that there’s another gaja girl I want you to meet.’