He wanted to give a little skip as he walked down the corridor. He couldn’t remember when last a woman had turned him on so; and tomorrow she was surely coming away with him for five glorious days, and next week he was going to be millionaire! And he had Nathan’s cheque to bankroll the expedition, and he probably had Julie to dispose of the loot. Absolutely everything was going right! But what was he going to do with this hard-on until eight o’clock?
It was probably too soon to telephone Nathan but he did so nonetheless. ‘Any information?’
‘Bloomers says he’s reliable. A bully, gets his pound of flesh, but reliable.’
‘And his business is antiques?’
‘And there’s a lot of money in antiques. He imports and exports all over the world. I’ve got his business address, so we can go and look at it from the outside this afternoon, get an idea.’
‘But can we trust him receiving payment on our behalf?’
‘No way. I’ve put up twenty grand for that merchandise and I’m going to stick with it. He’s just the agent, the merchandise stays at my factory until it’s sold and price received. I’ve got twenty-four-hour security guards, dogs, the works.’
McQuade liked that. ‘But maybe he’s got to export it to show it to the customer.’
‘Then I go with it. The factory can survive without me.’
McQuade liked that too. ‘I’ll go with it, too. What about his thirty per cent? I say he gets fifteen.’
‘Ten is max! Start at five! My boy, my life, leave the bargaining to your Uncle Ivor already.’
‘Okay. But, he wants to come on the trip with us. I don’t like that. I don’t want anybody knowing the whereabouts of that machine.’
‘Right. Maybe you’re not such a schmuck.’
‘He wants to make sure I don’t steal it, and that he gets all the business, not half of it.’
Nathan mulled that over. ‘Maybe we should hold back half of it to sell elsewhere, hedge our bets? And we needn’t tell him we’re leaving next weekend. We could just present him with a fait accompli.’ He added: ‘That’s a fancy Yiddish expression meaning “Fuck you, Julie, I’ve done it”.’
McQuade smiled. ‘Anyway, let’s take a look at his premises, then tell Bloomers to arrange a meeting this afternoon at the Turkish baths.’
‘The Turkish baths. Why?’
‘For the simple reason that it’s hard to conceal a tape-recorder on your person in a Turkish bath!’
The premises of Goldstein International Limited were impressive. Gold lettering on the big windows announced the company’s speciality as antiques, objets d’art, fine paintings. Subtle lights lit up piles of artistically arrayed carpets, impressive paintings and fine old furniture and pottery.
‘Looks solvent,’ Nathan remarked.
‘But what’s a guy like this doing in IGB?’
‘Maybe that’s how he got solvent.’
‘Okay, tell Bloomers to arrange the meeting for six o’clock tonight. I’m going back to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep. But at the Turkish baths you are going to interview Julie. I’m just going to observe, from a distance.’
‘Why am I taking all these orders?’ Nathan complained.
‘Because you’re Uncle Ivor who knows how to do the bargaining, and because I don’t want the guy to know what I look like until we’ve made a decision.’
Things were looking better and better. A guy with an outfit like Julie Goldstein’s obviously did good business. With rich customers.
The Turkish baths had white tiles like a railway lavatory and rooms of different temperatures arranged around a small icy pool. Nathan sat in the coolest steam-room, a towel wrapped around his beefy loins, the sweat running, looking thoroughly discommoded. McQuade sat across the room, his head down, revelling in the booze oozing out of him. Julie Goldstein sat beside Nathan, sweating profusely, looking almost exactly as McQuade had imagined: large and bulbous, hairy and saggy, balding pate glistening, a fleshy, petulant face with Middle Eastern eyes. He said sotto voce to Nathan:
‘I have no objection to Turkish baths – I do a lot of business in Istanbul – but what I find thoroughly objectionable is firstly your insistence that we meet in this unusual environment, and secondly the absence of your principal! If I’d known I wouldn’t have come!’
Nathan wiped his sweaty brow. ‘Tough, Julie.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, Tough, Julie. This is where the boss wants me to meet you.’
‘And where is this boss?’
Nathan shrugged his hairy, sweaty shoulders. ‘Maybe I’m the boss. But then maybe I’m not.’
‘You don’t sound like the man who telephoned me!’
‘Maybe that was me in disguise.’
‘How do you know Bloomberg?’ Julie demanded.
‘Never heard of Bloomberg. I heard of you through Rubenstein.’
‘Which Rubenstein.’
‘Rubenstein, Finkelstein, Hazeltine, Valentine, what does it matter? You’re here and I’m here.’
Julie stood up, his flabby pectorals hanging. ‘I’m leaving.’
Nathan propped his sweaty chin in his sweaty hand. ‘Goodbye, Julie. Goodbye to your five per cent.’
Julie Goldstein glared. ‘Five?! I stipulated thirty!’
Nathan long-sufferingly wiped his brow, then flicked the sweat away like a martyr. Julie slowly sat down again.
‘I won’t take a point less than twenty-five.’
Nathan wearily flicked more sweat away. Across the steamy room, McQuade watched in admiration from under his sweaty eyebrows. ‘Supposing you start by telling me what business you’re in?’ Julie whispered. ‘At least you’re Jewish, that’s a point in your favour.’
Nathan rolled his big eyes at him. ‘How about ninety-five percentage points in my favour? Supposing you tell me your business; and what makes you think I’m Jewish already so soon?’
Julie stared at him angrily. ‘Wealth,’ he said fleshily. ‘I deal in wealth. The magic and mystique of it. I sell wealth to the wealthy. And I’m the best salesman there is.’
Nathan raised his sweaty eyebrows. Julie went on pompously: ‘There are three stages in material life. First comes money. Second comes riches. Thirdly, and finally, comes wealth.’ He held up a podgy finger. ‘First, we start by working for money, to feed and clothe ourselves. Secondly, after we have sufficient of that, we work to buy riches with our excess money: nice cars, better houses, jewellery for our women, stocks and shares to provide growth and security. But very, very few of us proceed onto the third stage, where we have excess riches, and can make the final, magic investment in true wealth: masterworks of art, wonderful gold ornaments, glittering ensembles of diamonds, magnificent ancient pottery, magnificent Persian carpets. Why do we do it? What is a masterwork but some paint on a canvas? What use are gold and diamonds? There is little practical application for them. What use is fragile ancient pottery – you cannot cook in it? What is a Persian carpet but knotted wool?’ He looked at Nathan, then leant towards him. ‘It is their magic that makes them pricelessly valuable! The aura of them. The beauty of them. The mystique of them! The reverence we bestow upon them …’ He held up a fleshy finger again, his big eyes bright: ‘And that magic … that value … endures. It remains when the stock market crashes and money goes through the floor. So the wealthy stay wealthy while the rich get poor …’ He waved his hand grandiloquently, ‘It endures for centuries! For millennia!’ He glared at an enraptured Nathan; then ended with a Levantine whisper. ‘I sell that magic … I advise princes and potentates and captains of industry all over the world on what magic they need, on what magic I can get for them … and they are happy. That’s who I am…’
McQuade got up with a happy sigh and left Nathan to deal with the magician.
He took a taxi back to his hotel. He was feeling wonderful, rested and steam-cleaned. And everything was going right! He hurried into the bar and drank a cold beer, down, down, down, and it flooded his dehydrated system beautifully. Then he hurried to his room and changed into fresh clothes. He brushed his teeth thoroughly and combed his hair carefully. Just then the telephone rang.
‘Nathan,’ Nathan sighed.
‘Well?’
‘Twenty-five per cent,’ Nathan sighed.
‘You schmuck! You seemed to be doing so well!’
‘Yeah, but the man’s a magician. When he speaks flowers bloom, seas roll back, doors open onto crystal palaces, you smell frankincense and myrrh …’
‘But how does he physically dispose of the merchandise?’
‘He waves his wand. He flies his magic carpet … He arrives by parachute in the palaces of the mighty and flogs it to them, cash.’
‘But we go with him?’
‘Nothin’ easier, we will be borne along on the wings of cherubs, we will sleep on beds of roses, we will wallow in perfumed womanflesh while he does the haggling in a dozen languages. Yeah, we can go with him.’
‘But has he got an organization?’
‘My friend, he has telexes and fax, computers and catalogues, he has a hundred and ten outlets in fifty-one countries and accounts in sixty banks. His name is revered from Sotheby’s to the Baghdad bazaar.’
‘For Christ sake, Nathan!’
Nathan sighed. ‘He’s a bullshitter. But he’s got an organization all right.’
McQuade said emphatically, ‘He’s not coming with us next weekend.’
‘He doesn’t know we’re leaving next weekend. Indeed he doesn’t want to come – refuses, my dear fellow – until he’s met you, brought his exquisite judgment to bear and sussed you out.’
‘But he knows nothing about me?’
‘Nor about me. My name is Smith.’
‘And what’s your assessment, Smith?’
‘We’ll go for him,’ Nathan said. ‘That guy could sell central heating in the Congo. He impressed the shit out of me.’
McQuade was feeling positive as he strode down the corridor to Sarah’s room. Everything was going well and fast! He felt wonderful, and yes he also thought they’d go for Julie Wonderful, and oh my he was looking forward to Sarah Wonderful. He rapped jauntily on her door.
She was radiant, refreshed, groomed, her hair shining, her eyes bright. She wore a simple red dress that clung around her breasts and flowed away over her hips. She wore stylish red high heels. She was smiling widely, screwing an earring onto her lobe. ‘Hi …’
‘You look beautiful.’
‘You look pretty good yourself. Come in.’ She turned to the dressing table and picked up the other earring. The dress plunged midway down her back and her skin was golden brown. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Are you?’
He thought, What lovely legs.
She asked, screwing on the other earring: ‘Did you sleep?’
‘Yes. Did you?’
‘Like a child. Ready!’
He put his arms around her. She leant back in his arms, smiling. He looked at her ardently, and then gently kissed her.
And her wide soft mouth was sweet and her breath quivered, and he felt himself harden against her belly. She broke the kiss, and her green eyes were intent. Then she said softly:
‘No … No, I’m not hungry …’
And her eyes were suddenly smouldering, and his heart seemed to turn over, and he slowly slid his hand down over her back and around her hips and up to her breast, and she took a sighing breath and closed her eyes. And, oh, the warm sweet fullness of her body, and he felt her nipple harden, and she came against him. Her arms slid around his shoulders, feeling him, and his hands were sliding over her hips and her thighs and over the warmth of her loins and the sweet soft swelling between them, and her tongue searched into his mouth, and his fingers peeled the dress down over her shoulders. She leant back in his arms again, and her fingers went to his tie and pulled the knot undone, then they were plucking at his shirt buttons, her eyes fixed smouldering on his, and he peeled the red dress away from her hips. It fell at her high-heeled feet. Her breasts stood perfect and naked, the nipples stiff with excitement, her soft flat stomach tapering out into the roundness of her hips in her scanty panties. She stood there, glorious, her lips parted, her long legs a little astride, and she took McQuade’s breath away. And, oh, it was the most beautiful compelling feeling in the world, and he stooped down and took her breasts in both hands and buried his face into their full softness, the most fundamental of fulfilments, then he dropped to his knee, in a classic attitude of need, and his mouth slid down over her soft belly and his fingers pulled her panties down her rounded hips.
Afterwards, lying on the bed, in the exhausted minutes of after-love, deliciously at the beginning of something new and tremendously exciting, she whispered:
‘Yes …’
‘Yes, you’re hungry?’
‘No. Yes, the Kruger National Park can wait …’