Four days later—three days sooner than he’d planned—Ike arrived again at 19 Vance Street in Greenwich Village. Unlike his first visit to the gallery, when he had fretted outside for a while, he strode in, this time—a portrait of calm and confidence. There was something bouncy inside him.
The difference was that the statue of Ngene weighed against his arm.
But his stride was checked momentarily by the stink in the gallery. It seemed more pungent than during his first visit, just days before his trip. It was certainly punchier than the smell in his apartment. He paused only for a moment or two, sniffing the air. Then he walked past the spiral staircase, hardly looking at the content of the showcases as he made for the counter.
Part of the reason he’d come to the gallery early was that he could no longer stand the stench in his apartment.
To compound matters, it was a mobile, restless stink. His first night home, it’d stayed in his living room. The next day, it had wandered into his bathroom. By the third day, it had completed its conquest by overpowering his bedroom. The more it spread, the more it took on a palpable character, as if some blacksmith’s bellows were blowing its fumes. The smell had kept gathering strength, at once penetrating everything and pulling everything into itself, until it seemed to waft out of the wall’s invisible pores.
The smell was unbearable, but that was not the sole reason he’d decided to make an early trip to the gallery.
There was the menace of insomnia, the nightmare that drove sleep away. Whenever he shut his eyes, his body drowsy with sleep, he’d visualize himself trapped in a valley, a raging flood plunging down a hillside, sweeping up rocks, and heading for him. He would awake with a start, drenched in sweat, too scared to fall back asleep.
But even that was not the main reason.
Then there was the question of his bills. The day after his return, he’d picked up his mail. It was a litany of bills.
He tore open one of three letters from the rental office. The word URGENT was printed in red ink at the top of the page. The letter reminded him of the delinquency of his rent for the months of March and April. It instructed him to immediately pay the sum of $3,000 plus $300 in late administrative fees. Another letter from the power company threatened disruption of his service if he didn’t pay a balance of $277.59 within five days of the notice. Next, he slit open an envelope from Visa. His credit card had a debit balance of $2,682. He gazed at it, brow knitted in a frown.
But those debts weren’t the main reason, either.
There was Usman Wai, his old friend who’d made him a loan of more than $1,250. He’d finally returned Wai’s repeated calls that had taken on the quality of a harangue. “It’s about the money I loaned you,” Usman had said after asking a few polite questions about his trip. “I have an emergency—and need it immediately. In fact, like yesterday.”
But paying Usman back was hardly the reason he hurried to Foreign Gods, Inc.
The major reason was a phone call just before 6:00 P.M. from his sister, Nkiru.
“THEY HAVE KILLED MAMA O,” his sister cried as soon as he took the call.
“Who have killed Mama?” he asked, impatient with her hysterical manner.
“Osuakwu the devil and his fellow worshippers of Satan. They have broken Mama’s legs o. She’s in the hospital.”
Shocked, he nearly dropped the phone. “Mama is in the hospital? What happened?”
Ike weathered Nkiru’s tears and tangents of holy denunciations to grasp what had happened.
On finding out that Ngene had disappeared, Pastor Uka had proclaimed it an act of the God he served. He had then scheduled a special all-night service to praise the true God that had vanquished a false idol. Uka and his congregants were in the delirium of celebration when, just after midnight, an army of idol worshippers stormed in. Pastor Uka was beaten to a near-comatose state. Ike’s mother, after taking several blows and slaps to the face, had dashed to the low-lying window and lifted herself over. She had broken a leg and badly bruised her hip in the jump.
“It’s the same Osuakwu you love who did this!” Nkiru shrieked in remonstration.
“Was Osuakwu one of the attackers?”
“Did he have to be?” she asked. Then she cried, “He arranged it!”
Ike grew dizzy. “So, how’s Mama?”
“How is she? As your uncle’s people left her! And now the hospital says they won’t treat her unless I pay a deposit of two hundred fifty thousand naira. Look at me, where will I find that kind of money?”
“I’ll send it,” Ike said. “I’ll wire two thousand dollars.”
“When?” Nkiru demanded.
“Tomorrow. Latest, the day after.”
“Don’t let Mama die o!” the sister implored, and then hung up.
THE NEXT DAY DAWNED with a dazzling face. The radiant sun lent a comforting warmth to the air, moved by the slightest breeze. Encouraged by the weather, Ike’s spirits were buoyant as he descended the steps of the subway at the juncture of Lafayette Street and Flatbush Avenue.
He entered a packed subway car. Legs spread apart, he leaned into a handrail, two women on either side of him, and in front a man with a silvery beard who continually nodded his head as if the very air supplied music. Ike held tight to the heavily padded statue as if to hoard its horrid waft to himself. Besides, he wasn’t about to risk slackened vigilance. Some daring thief might pry the quarry from his grip and dash away.
He stepped out at his final stop, ascended to the street, and beheld a rainstorm. For a moment, he thought to tarry under a shelter to wait it out. But he didn’t want to risk becoming agitated and fainting away under the storm’s spell. The gallery, two blocks away, seemed a safer bet.
He stepped out, the waddled statue clasped to his chest, and walked in long, hurried steps, as if it were possible to outstrip the storm. That instant, the storm seemed to change gears. Its roar deafened, muted every other sound. Ike felt lured out, entrapped by the storm’s sparking fury. Pelts burrowed down his hair, turned into crawly worms on his scalp, dribbled over his eyebrows and then down his face.
Halfway to the gallery, he realized that he’d become hopelessly drenched. Worse, water had soaked through the paper wrap that concealed the statue. His steps were brisk, no question. Yet he felt bogged down, like a man attempting a race in a pool. After a while, he had the sensation that something viscous, dark red, and warm seeped through the paper and dripped down his belly and arms. He raised his arms and peered at his shirt, completely wet and matted to his chest. There was no discoloration at all. But for that ever-present, dreadful fear of a capricious spell, he was fine.
As he adjusted the statue and extended a hand to push open the gallery’s door, it seemed to pull away from him. A woman stood on the inside, beaming.
“Gosh, you’re drenched!” she said.
“Thank you,” he said, and quickly stepped through the entrance.
He walked with deliberate slowness, as if it had become necessary to atone for his quickened pace out in the rain. With each step, his sneakers squeaked, leaving a track of wetness on the floor. His shirt and pants clung to his body, made him itch. He made circuitous loops, pausing to inspect other deities, his ears tuned to the rain’s doowah, doowah.
It took several minutes before he loitered near the checkout counter and stood, favoring now this leg, now that. A tall, slightly stooped man in a light green pullover shirt strolled toward him, eyes dully set on the gods in their glass-enclosed cocoons. There was about the man an air of inbred self-assurance, and he seemed familiar in a way that was at once vague and insistent. If he had to guess, Ike might have said he’d seen the fellow on TV or in one or another of those entertainment magazines whose star-studded covers stared at you from grocery store racks. Yet, the more he struggled to place the man, the deeper the impression of an encounter that was more intimate.
Well, Ike thought, giving up, freeing his mind to focus on the hope that burdened his arm.
Ike heard the crunch of shoes and looked up. Mark Gruels came into view, holding up a statue. A white woman with a roundish, confident face followed closely behind him. The statue blocked Gruels’s view, so that he brushed past Ike with no acknowledgment. The woman met Ike’s stare but showed little curiosity, her face tinted with rouge, thin lips softened by red lipstick. A curl of silvery hair hung over her left eye. As she walked past Ike, he saw, buried beneath her veneer of makeup, wrinkles that grooved the sides of her eyes. For a moment, her waft of perfume broke the gallery’s clingy stench.
“Peggy!” shouted the man whose face Ike had given up trying to place.
“Giles!” the woman shouted back. “I didn’t think you shopped here.”
“Well, because you didn’t bother to tell me there was such a great store. I had to find out by accident—literally days ago.”
“I fear you’re now going to raid all the good gods. It’s like you, isn’t it?”
The moment the man spoke, Ike’s consciousness had been jolted into recognition.
Gruels turned slightly and smiled at both the man and the woman. “Mr. Karefelis went on a binge the first time he showed up. Two weeks ago. He’s slowed down a bit.”
Karefelis grinned. He leaned forward and pecked the woman on both cheeks. “And how’s Mr. Lauter?”
“Paul’s in Paris.”
“I like the poetry of it. Paul in Paris!”
“He’s back in three days actually, and we’re having Charles Rosen and Cynthia Fisher over to dinner on Saturday. Would you care to join us—if you’re still in town?”
“Not on Saturday, I’m afraid. Some clients will be over from Japan, and dinner is planned with them. But so great to see you. You look dazzling as always. Paul—”
“No, Paul has nothing to do with nothing.”
“You’re full of poetry tonight.”
“And you’re the usual Giles, dependable dean of flattery.”
“And of bullshit!” Gruels added.
The trio’s laughter shook the air.
Gruels stood the statue on the counter and slapped his palms. Then he walked around the corner and positioned himself inside the enclosure that marked out the counter. Brows furrowed, his eyes concentrated on the cash register.
Ike stared at the statue, rotund and gargoyle-like, ocher in color, its face frozen in an expression of infantile glee. It flaunted a swollen belly, large hollowed-out eyes, and a stiff, massive phallus held up in two hands.
Standing on the same side as Ike, the woman unslung a brown handbag from her shoulder. She exhaled. “All right, Mark,” she said, “let’s go for it.”
Gruels lifted up a tag hanging from the statue’s neckless head and marked ON SALE. He raised his pair of glasses to his forehead, bent forward, and squinted at the back of the tag. He then punched in numbers.
“Four hundred thirty-five thousand six eighty—even,” he said.
The woman unclipped her handbag and brought out a checkbook. Gruels handed her a golden pen. Watching her from behind, Ike felt momentarily woozy. He’d known in some abstract way of the existence of the breed the woman belonged to, the rich who could write a check for half-a-million dollars or more without flinching. Now, he was witnessing such a transaction at close quarters! It was as if something was drawing him into a dreamlike state, as if he was being transported by sheer proximity to the magic. He imagined the incandescence of the life lived by this woman and by the likes of Gruels. And then he imagined himself living that life, albeit on a much smaller scale.
She tore out the check. As she held it out to Gruels, Ike felt his knees threaten to buckle. His body swayed, but he rallied and stood firm, anchored by the weighty bundle in his hand.
“Reminds me,” Gruels said, palming the check. “Can you look in early next week? Say, Tuesday? Are you in town?”
“I bet I am. Why?”
“I’m expecting a hot new deity. Something you’d like. It’d be here in three days. I expect it to go fast, too.”
“I’ll definitely stop by. See you Tuesday, then.”
“It’s a stunner. You’ll be rapturous.”
“And where’s it coming from?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise, but I can tell you. It’s a mountain deity from one of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Take my word: you’re going to be blown away. Absolutely!”
A young man in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with slightly wet armpits emerged from behind Ike, picked up the deity, and followed the woman outside.
“Can I help you?” Gruels asked.
Ike had turned to look at the departing woman, and so Gruel’s attention caught him off guard. Inside him hope and fear warred, constricting his throat. He smiled.
“Yes?” Gruels said, eyes sharp. His elbows rested on the counter, his shoulder thrust forward. His voice was now joyless, tinged with impatience. It was as if he’d observed Ike’s dawdling presence with mounting irritation, and now, his customer gone, he could vent.
For an instant, Ike was startled dumb. Could the man have forgotten meeting him just a few weeks ago? There was nobody else in sight. Even so, Ike looked about him, as if to make sure he was the addressee.
“Yes, can I help you?” the man said.
Ike took three steps toward the counter. “You remember me?” he asked. Then, noting a frown on Gruels’s face, realized he’d said the wrong first words. A fire, a pressure, assailed his groin, but he knew it was out of the question to interject an inquiry for the toilet at that point in time.
“I’ve met you?” Gruels said, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, I came two—three weeks ago.”
“Here?”
Ike nodded.
“Well, I talk to an awful lot of people. I can’t help forgetting a few faces now and then. Anyway, how can I help you?”
“It’s this,” Ike stuttered, lifting up the bundle. He heard the door to the gallery open, the crunch of shoes announcing an entrant. His bladder threatened to burst with pressure. “I brought this.”
Gruels frowned up again, eyes narrowed to small quizzical squints. “And what exactly is this?” He spoke hesitantly, each word momentarily imprisoned in his mouth, rolled around, before being uttered.
“It’s a god. We spoke about it. A god of war.” The words welled from an icy pit within him. He was surprised that his throat ferried words at all, for each word left a bruise as it thawed and tore out of him. “It’s called Ngene.”
Gruels scratched the side of his face with an expression of agitated lack of interest. For a moment, he sized Ike up.
“It’s a war deity,” Ike said again, filling the silence.
“A war deity,” Gruels echoed dubiously. “From where?”
“Utonki.”
“Otoonki,” he sneered, deliberately massacring the pronunciation. “Where’s that?”
“Nigeria. Southeastern Nigeria.”
Gruels hissed. Ike felt a violent pulse in his groin, then the private shame of a rogue drip of pee.
A few moments passed in utter silence. Then Gruels straightened and walked toward Ike.
“Another African god,” he said, then tightened his jaw. He wistfully shook his head from side to side. “Don’t know that I’m interested in another African god.” Ike was riveted by a sleek of sweat that ran from his armpit down the side of his body. He pressed his right arm against his body and let his shirt mop up the sweat. Gruels’s voice sounded peremptory: “Unwrap it—let’s see.”
Ike moved with haste. His shaky hands ripped the newsprint until the bare statue was revealed. He held it up. A vaporous whiff slapped his face. His nose itched, and he shuddered with a sneezing spell. Gruels approached to look but suddenly flinched, frozen in his tracks.
“Wow! Stinky!” he exclaimed, covering his nose. He colored and let out three massive sneezes. “Where again did you get this?” he asked, between eruptions.
“Utonki. My hometown.”
“This mother fumes!” he said. He held Ike in a suspicious stare. Ike felt hope yield place to fear. What if the man spurned the deity? What if he ended up stuck with Ngene—what would he do with it?
“Before I even talk to you, I need some documentation. Some literature about the deity.”
“I’ve got two,” Ike said brightly, thankful for the booklets by Manfredi and Okwudili Okeke.
“For this kind of product,” Gruels said, “I’d require three—three documents that authenticate the god.”
“I brought two,” Ike said again.
“Forget it, then. Two just won’t cut it.”
“It’s an authentic god,” Ike swore.
Gruels gave him a look that said, Take your word for it?
“Trust me,” Ike continued, his tone more assertive. “You’ll find several items on the Internet. Lots of pieces, even photographs. Just Google it. Ngene is spelled N-G-E-N-E. Utonki: U-T-O-N-K-I.”
Gruels’s cell phone began to ring, a chirpy tone. He pressed the phone against his ear and turned away. He said a warm “Hello!” followed by a litany of yeses, and then broke into deep laughter.
Left alone, Ike felt the grind of pressure in his groin begging to be relieved. Asking Gruels for the use of his bathroom, Ike conjectured, could prove a big mistake. Yet the pressure became fiery, nearing an unbearable stage.
His skin crawled with the touch of something like blown breath, moist and hot. A spasm racked his body. A single thought pressed on his mind, of grief-stricken gods.
The gods are bawling tears, he thought, as something as vague as the smell of tears tickled his nostrils.
“Why are you crying?” Gruels asked, intruding on Ike’s reverie.
Ike felt alarmed by the wetness streaking down his face.
“Are you okay?” Gruels pursued, fixing him with a confused look.
With the back of his right hand Ike swiped off the tears. Then he gave a wan, embarrassed smile.
“Anything the matter?” Gruels persisted.
Ike touched his face.
“Fine, then,” said the gallery owner, scratching at his jaw. “We better make this snappy. As a principle, I pay no attention to Internet stuff, but I’m willing to make an exception. I’d rather trust my sense of smell—and your stuff has a distinctive stink. Let’s see what you got.”
Ike stood the deity on the ground and pulled out the folded booklets. Gruels unfurled the first one, Manfredi’s, and then put on a pair of glasses that hung from a Velcro rope around his neck. He flipped through the pages, less reading than skimming. He opened Okeke’s booklet and went through it in the same cursory fashion. Turning the last page, Gruels leaned against a shelf and gave Ike a sidelong glance. He raised his head, biting his lower lip, a man lost in thought.
“How much?” he asked. His terse tone revealed a man whose habit was to get quickly to the bottom of things.
Confused, Ike grunted, “Huh?”
“What are you asking? Give me a figure.”
The abruptness knocked Ike off balance. He didn’t do well under such pressure.
“It depends on you,” he said. The moment the words passed his lips, he sensed their imprudence.
“Depends on me?” Gruels asked, scratching at his chin in that same irritated way. Then he looked agitatedly at his wristwatch. “You leave it up to me, I pay little for this. Or nothing.” He swept an arm in the deity’s direction. “Frankly, I’m not looking to add to my African inventory. Not at this time. African gods are no longer profitable. So, how much?”
“It’s a powerful war deity. In olden days, it helped my people in their battles. No deity equaled its power. No warriors stood up to my ancestors. None. We—they—crushed all their enemies. This deity was responsible. All neighboring armies feared Ngene. It was—”
Gruels dashed up, interrupting Ike. At proximity, Ike felt dwarfed. A palpable tension sneaked into the space between them. Ike’s groin burned with a bursting pressure. It worsened his fear, his dread of coming helplessly under another man’s physical and emotional power. Gruels gripped him by the shoulder, he saw the profusion of hair on the man’s arm, smelled the man’s cologne. The gallery owner’s gentle shakes belied the man’s discomfiting stare.
“I don’t take to a priest preaching to me about his god’s great prowess. I’m not going to fall in love with Nagini—or whatever it is you call it. I’m a businessman.” He paused, his grip tightening. With a stronger shake, he said, “Give me a damn figure—and let’s save each other’s time. If I like your price, I buy. Otherwise, I’ll shake your hand and wish you luck selling it elsewhere.”
“It’s you I want to sell to,” Ike said, and immediately rued his tactlessness, the impression of being willing to abandon other options.
“Then give me your fucking asking price.”
Ike’s groin pulsed with pressure. Two hundred thousand dollars? Two hundred eighty thousand? Four hundred fifty thousand? Each figure received its due of fleeting consideration before he fled from it, wary of selling short. He would be ecstatic with five hundred thousand—half a million. But what if he could get more? Obstinately, he said, “Give me an idea.”
Gruels glowered at him, then said, “You’re really wasting my time. Really.”
“Okay, three hundred and fifty,” Ike proposed.
“Three hundred and fifty what?”
“Thousand.”
Gruels looked at him askance, then burst out in laughter.
“Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for an African god? What year do you think this is? You’ve got to be kidding!”
Ike remained oddly calm, collected, unfazed by the tone of derision.
“I told you to make an offer,” he said, his tone slightly accusing. In his mind he radically scaled back his expectation. Maybe Gruels would offer something in the region of two hundred fifty thousand.
Gruels pulled at Ike’s shirt. “Come this way,” he said.
They rounded a corner and faced an area with a pile of small and tall showcases, some of them with two or more statues. For a moment, they stood in silence. Ike squirmed, muscles tensed to rein in the pressure in his groin. Still silent, Gruels began to pace back and forth, his eyes roaming, looking at the deities in the vitrines as if he were seeing them for the first time. The statues seemed to follow his restless movement, staring back, films of dust visible in the hollows of their eyes. The stink seemed ranker.
“You’re looking at my inventory of African gods,” Gruels said at length, spreading his arm. “You can see there’s hardly any room on the shelves. You know why?” He fixed Ike with hard, searing eyes. Ike looked away, irritated. “African gods are no longer in vogue, that’s why. Three, four years ago, they were all the rage. Even two years ago, they were still doing decent business. Every serious collector had to have three, four, five African gods. They flew off the shelf. Then things—tastes—changed. This is like any other business—it’s prone to shifts in tastes. It just happens that African gods don’t excite collectors as they once did. That could change tomorrow, but I’m looking at today—and it’s not pretty.”
Again, Gruels made a sweep of the hand as he spoke. “See? My entire African inventory’s been on sale going on three years, yet it remains slow-moving.” He pointed to an oblong statue: “That’s a Wolof god of fertility. It’s been marked down by eighty percent—and it’s still here. This one, a Bambara water goddess. Six years ago, it would have fetched half a million—easy. Now, take a look at the price tag. A mere eight thousand five, yet no buyers.” He touched a toothy statue. “This, a Fanti god. Been on the shelf for four years.” He touched another one, a scrawny-chested figure with shriveled scrotum and an erect phallus. “A Tiv god. Five, six years ago, collectors would have paid a handsome sum for it. Today, there are no takers, even though it’s going for five thousand.” He led Ike to a showcase at the end of the wall that held a rectangular object, a cornucopia of animal skeletons, bird beaks, straw ropes, chiseled bark, twigs, and raffia. “It’s a ritual totem used in funerals of warriors. Four years ago, I sold one for close to two hundred thousand. This one’s marked for eighteen thousand. No buyers.” He thrust a finger at a case that contained a wiry, spear-like figure. “That’s a Ligbi god of revelers—a deity I personally like. But guess what? Nobody’s looking at it.” Gazing up at a tall case with three sections, he said, “That one—on the top row, second from the right—it’s an Akan warrior god. I discounted it, first fifty percent, then seventy-five, but it’s still on the shelf. And it’s been on sale going on two years. Here, this oval-faced statue is a Luba patron god of clairvoyants and sorcerers. There’s a Malinke earth goddess, there’s a Baoule god of fire, and there’s a Shona mermaid.” He placed a right hand on the showcases as he named each statue. “This is from Togo—an Ewe guardian of magic.” He caressed the glass that held a mask with the flat horns of a buffalo, a hyena’s ears, and a crocodile’s huge jaws. “This is a Senufo funeral mask. Used to be I couldn’t get one in before somebody bought it. Not anymore.” He moved on to another, a statue that was half human, half beast. “This is a Chi Wara deity of farming. I once asked a hundred and eighty grand for one. Can you see the sale price? Twelve thousand—yet nothing doing.” He glided to another set of showcases. “Look at this one, an Efik rain god; this, an Urhobo canoe to heaven; this, Shango, the Yoruba god of thunder; this, a Fon earth goddess. Look, I’ve got inventory from all over Africa—the Kongo, Bamana, Bembe, Baga, Xhosa, Yaka, Dogon—you name it. I wish they did as well as they used to. I’ve offered huge discounts, but collectors simply aren’t interested. African deities are no longer in vogue.”
Gruels paused, entwined his hands, and set a rueful, faraway look on the lineup of African gods. Ike felt disheartened. A storm raged inside him, left him reeling. Some icy spear pierced deep. His flesh felt minced and sheared, as if lobs of it would fall away from the bone. He was uneasy and confused. His lips puttered, but his mind couldn’t fasten on any words.
“So what’s my point?” Gruels asked, breaking the silence. “African gods are not the inventory they used to be. They’ve gone cold. You want a great payday, then go get me an Asian god. They’re big, Asian gods are. There’s also a huge demand for Latin American gods. But African gods—they went cold several years ago, and they’re still cold. Anybody in this business knows that African deities are now at the bottom of collectors’ lists.”
Rolling off Gruels’s tongue, the word “cold” had the sting of a well-aimed punch to Ike’s gut. Cold. Cold gods!
He shifted from leg to leg. He thought about his mother lying in a hospital, broken to bits. “This is a powerful god,” he said.
“You don’t need to tell me. It has the stink of a great one—no question. Problem is, I have to look at market trends. And the odds are not in its favor.”
“It’ll sell,” Ike assured in a pitiful voice. “Trust me.”
“I can’t trade what I know for your trust. You can afford to be sentimental—it’s your ancestral deity, after all. But I’m not in the sentiment business. I buy and sell gods, period. Go to Asia and get me a god—any god—and I’ll make you a great offer for it. Or to Latin America. That’s what collectors are looking for. This one just isn’t it.”
Gruels shrugged, then stared at Ike with an attitude of shrewd distance. The air conditioner purred, punctuating the silence. Ike’s legs were cramping up. He asked, “So how much?”
“Am I offering?”
Ike nodded.
Ike cringed and let out a puff of breath. His right leg buckled, and he had to grab the edge of a showcase to keep from reeling.
“It doesn’t even cover my flight ticket,” he said in a carping tone, his voice quaky. He knew his sister would be calling later that day, tomorrow at the latest, asking for a transfer of twenty-five hundred dollars for their mother’s hospital care.
“A thousand bucks is about right,” Gruels said in a flat, unyielding tone.
“My flight ticket cost fifteen hundred dollars,” Ike said. “I then had to travel to my hometown. I spent more than a week there. Each day cost me a lot of money. On my way back, I was stopped by customs at the airport in Lagos. They nearly seized the god. I gave them eight hundred dollars to let me go. If they’d caught me, I would have been in big trouble. Years in jail. I would have been finished.” He glanced up at Gruels. As their eyes met, Ike swallowed hard. Then he continued: “It’s a powerful god, trust me. I’m sure it’s worth good money.”
“I’m the dealer here,” Gruels said sharply. “I know something about the value of stock.” The door creaked open, the sharp blast of a car horn and other street clatter slipped in. Ike and Gruels turned toward the door at the same time. A young petite woman with wavy blond hair loped in. Gruels brightened. “Amanda, thank God you’re back.” He glanced at his watch again, and turned to Ike. “I’m afraid I’ve got to run. Running behind for a meeting.” He scrutinized Ike’s face. “Listen, here’s a deal. I give you fifteen hundred. Take it or leave it—but it’d be a mistake to say no. Trust me, it’s a darn great deal. It’s on the generous side of the ballpark, I assure you. You don’t believe me, try other galleries. Or—this is another option. Leave the item on consignment. Tell me what you’d like to ask for it. I sell, I take my commission—twenty percent—and you get the rest.” He angled his face closer to Ike’s. “Matter of fact, it sounds perfect. Fair?”
“But I need money now,” Ike said with artless candor.
“Up to you, then. I’m happy to write you a check right away. Fifteen hundred. Or you put it on consignment. Your choice.”