The Goldfinch (105 page)

“You know him? Who is he?”

“Ah.” Hobie, uncomfortably, patted his breast pocket for a cigarette he wasn’t allowed to smoke.

“Do you know him?” I repeated more urgently, unable to stop myself glancing over at the bar in Havistock’s direction. Sometimes it was hard to get information out of Hobie on touchy matters—he tended to change the subject, clam up, drift into vagueness, and the worst possible place to ask him anything was a crowded room where some genial party was apt to wander up and interrupt.

“Wouldn’t say know. We’ve had dealings. What’s he doing here?”

“Friend of the bride,” I said—and received a startled look at the tone in which I’d said this. “How do you know him?”

Rapidly he blinked. “Well,” he said, somewhat reluctantly, “don’t know his real name. Welty and I knew him as Sloane Griscam. But his true name—something else entire.”

“Who is he?”

“Knocker,” said Hobie curtly.

“Right,” I said, after an off-balance pause. A knocker, in the trade, was a shark who charmed his way into old people’s homes: to cheat them of valuables and sometimes to rob them outright.

“I—” Hobie rocked on his heels, looked awkwardly away—“rich pickings for him here, that’s for sure. First-class swizzler—him and his partner as well. Smart as Satan, those two.”

A radiantly smiling bald man in a clerical collar was threading his way toward us; I folded my arms and tried to angle myself away from him, blocking his approach, hoping Hobie wouldn’t see and cut his story short to welcome him.

“Lucian Race. At least, that was the name he went by. Oh, they were a pretty pair. See—Havistock, or Sloane, or whatever he’s calling himself now, would chat up the old ladies and old gents too, get to know where they lived, drop in to visit… he’d hunt them out at benefit dinners, funerals, Important Americana auctions, all over the place. Anyway—” studying his drink—“he’d turn up to visit with his delightful friend, Mr. Race, and while the old dears were occupied… really, it was dreadful. Jewelry, paintings, watches, silver, whatever they could lay their hands on. Well,” he said on an altered note. “Long time ago.”

I wanted a drink so badly it was difficult for me not to keep glancing in the direction of the bar. Already I could see Toddy pointing me out to an elderly couple who were smiling expectantly at me, like they were about to totter over and introduce themselves, and obstinately I turned my back. “Old folks?” I repeated to Hobie, hoping to get a little more out of him.

“Yes—sorry to say it, but they preyed on some pretty helpless people. Anyone that let them in the door. And a lot of the old folks didn’t have much, they’d clean them out in one go but if there was real loot for the taking—? oh, they’d keep up the fruit baskets and the confidential talks and the hand-patting for weeks—”

The priest, or minister, or whoever he was, had seen that I was engaged and had held up a friendly hand—later!—as he edged past in the crowd, and I threw him a grateful smile. Was he the Episcopal bishop, Father What’s His Name, who was supposed to be marrying us? Or one of the Catholic priests from St. Ignatius that Mrs. Barbour had taken up with after Andy and Mr. Barbour died?

“Very very smooth. Sometimes they’d pretend to be furniture appraisers, offering free valuations, that’s how they’d get the foot in. Or, with the really dire cases—bedridden, daffy—they’d con the home health nurses, pretend to be family. Still and all—” Hobie shook his head. “Have you had anything to eat?” he asked in his changing-the-subject voice.

“Yeah,” I said, though I hadn’t, “thanks, but say—”

“Oh, good!” with relief. “There’s oysters over there, and caviar. The crab thing was good too. You never came up for lunch today. I left a plate of beef stew for you, some green beans and salad—you didn’t eat it, I saw it was still in the fridge—”

“What did you and Welty have to do with him?”

Hobie blinked. “Sorry?” he said, in his distracted way. “Oh—” nodding his head in Griscam’s direction—“him?”

“Right.” The holiday brightness of the room—lights, mirrors, fireplaces ablaze and chandeliers glittering—had given me a nightmarish feeling of being pressed in upon and observed from all sides.

“Well—” he looked away—they’d just brought out a fresh bowl of caviar; he was already half turned toward the buffet—and then relented. “He turned up in the shop with a load of jewelry and silver to sell, years back now, didn’t he. Family stuff, he claimed. Only, one salt-cellar—it was early, important, and Welty knew it because he knew the lady he’d sold it to. And he knew she’d been swizzled by a pair of knocker boys who’d conned their way in pretending to collect old books for charity. Anyhow Welty took the pieces on consignment and called the old lady and called the police. And me, well, on my end—” blotting his forehead with the flowered Liberty square from his pocket; his voice was so quiet I could barely hear him but I didn’t dare ask him to speak up—“eighteen months earlier I’d bought an
estate
from the guy, I should have known something was wrong, but—nothing I could put my finger on, not quite. Brand new building in the East Eighties—odd collection of Americana piled harum-scarum in the middle of the room, tea chests, banjo clocks,
whalebone figurines, Windsor chairs enough to start a school with—but no rugs, no sofa, nothing to
eat
from, no place to
sleep
—well, I’m sure you would have had it figured before me. No estate, no auntie. Just a flat he’d rented on the fly to warehouse his ill-gotten gains. And the thing was too, and this is what threw me, I knew him by reputation because at the time he had his own little shop, just a storefront, real little bandbox actually on Madison not far from the old Parke-Burnet, very pretty place, appointment only. Chevallet Antiques. Some really first rate French stuff—not my bailiwick. Every time I ever went by there, it was closed, always used to look in at the window. Never knew who owned it until he contacted me about this estate.”

“And?” I said, turning my back yet again, telepathically willing Platt to stay away from me with the head of his publishing house whom he was triumphantly leading over to meet me.

“And—” he sighed—“long story short, it went to court, and Welty and I gave statements. Sloane—the
delapidateur
as Welty called him—had vanished into thin air by that time—shop cleared out overnight, ‘renovation,’ never opened again of course. But Race, I believe, went to jail.”

“When was this?”

Hobie bit the side of his forefinger and thought. “Oh, goodness, has to be—thirty years ago? Thirty-five, even?”

“And Race?”

His brow came down. “Is
he
here?” Scanning the crowd again.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Hair like this.” Hobie measured it with a fingertip, down below the nape of his neck. “Over the collar. Like the English wear it. English of a certain age.”

“White hair?”

“Not then. Maybe now. And little, mean mouth—” he puckered up his lips—“like so.”

“That’s him.”

“Well—” He fished in his pocket for his magnifying light, before seeming to realize that the occasion didn’t require it. “You offered him his money back. So if it really
is
Race—I don’t understand why he’s pressing, because he’s absolutely in no position to cause trouble or make demands, is he?”

“No,” I said, after a long pause, though this was such a big lie that I could hardly force the word out of my mouth.

“Well then, don’t look so worried,” said Hobie, clearly relieved to be off the subject. “This is absolutely the last thing that should spoil your evening. Although—” clapping me on the shoulder; he was looking across the room, for Mrs. Barbour—“you should certainly warn Samantha. She shouldn’t be letting that scoundrel in her house. For any reason whatsoever. Hello!” he said, turning to find the elderly couple who had finally managed to dodder over and were smiling expectantly behind us. “James Hobart. May I introduce you to the groom?”

xxxiv.

T
HE PARTY WAS FROM
six to nine. I smiled, sweated, tried to make my way to the bar only to get waylaid and cut off and sometimes physically dragged back by the arm like Tantalus, dying of thirst while in very sight of relief—“And
here
he is, man of the hour!” “The beamish boy!” “Congratulations!” “Here, Theodore, you
must
meet Harry’s cousin Francis—the Longstreets and the Abernathys are related on the father’s side, Boston branch of the family, Chance’s grandfather, you see was the first cousin of—Francis? oh, you two know each other? Perfect! And here is… Oh, Elizabeth, there you are, let me steal you away for a moment,
don’t
you look delightful, that blue suits you beautifully, I’d very much like to introduce you to…” At last I gave up on the idea of drink (and food) and—hemmed-in amongst the ever-shifting press of strangers—stood snatching flutes of champagne from the waiters who happened by, every now and then an hors d’oeuvre, tiny quiche lorraine, miniature blini with caviar, strangers coming and going, locked-in and nodding politely amidst the crowds of well-born, wealthy, powerful…

(
never forget you arent one of them,
my junkie pal from Accounts had whispered in my ear when he’d seen me socializing among important clients at an Impressionist and Modern Art sale…)

… freezing and turning to smile with random groups when the photographer swept in, captive to ambient scraps of mind-numbing conversation about golf games, politics, children’s sports, children’s schools, third and fourth and fifth homes in Hyères and Hyannis and Paris and London and Jackson Hole and Jupiter and wasn’t it hideous how
terribly built up
Vail had become, remember when it was just a darling little village.… where do you ski, Theo?
Do
you ski? Why then,
definitely
you and Kitsey must come out with us to our house in the…

Though I had an eye out for Hobie and Pippa, I scarcely saw them. Playfully, Kitsey dragged people over to introduce to me and then vanished as quickly as a bird flying from a windowsill. Havistock, thankfully, was nowhere in evidence. At last things began to clear out, but not much; people had started moving toward the coat check and the waiters were starting to remove the cake and the dessert dishes from the buffet when—trapped in conversation with a group of Kitsey’s cousins—I glanced across the room for Pippa (as I’d been doing, compulsively, all night long, trying to catch sight of her red head, the only interesting or important thing in the room)—and, much to my surprise, espied her with Boris. Conversing with animation. He was all over her, loosely draped arm, unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. Whispering. Laughing. Was he biting her ear?

“Excuse me,” I said, and made my way quickly across the room to them by the fireplace—where, in perfect unison, they turned and held their arms out to me.

“Hello!” said Pippa. “We were just talking about you!”

“Potter!” said Boris, throwing his arm around me. Though he was dressed for the occasion, in a blue chalk-stripe suit (it had often struck me, the hordes of rich Russians in the Ralph Lauren shop on Madison), there was somehow no cleaning him up: his smudged eyes made him look stormy and disreputable, and though his hair wasn’t technically dirty it gave the impression of dirtiness. “Am happy to see you!”

“Same here.” I’d asked Boris never dreaming he would show—it not being in the nature of Boris to remember pesky things like dates, or addresses, or to turn up on time if he did. “You know who this is, don’t you?” I said, turning to Pippa.

“Of course she knows me! Knows all about me! We are now dearest of friends! Now—” to me, with a mock show of officiousness—“small word in private. You’ll excuse us please?” he said to Pippa.

“More private conversations?” Kicking my shoe playfully with her ballet slipper.

“Don’t worry! I will bring him back! Goodbye to you!” Blowing a kiss.
Then to me, in my ear, as we walked away: “She is lovely. God, but I love a redhead.”

“So do I, but she’s not the one I’m marrying.”

“No?” He looked surprised. “But she greeted me! By my name! Ah,” he said, looking at me more closely, “are you blushing! Yes you are, Potter!” he crowed. “Blushing! Like a little girl!”

“Shut up,” I hissed, glancing back for fear she’d heard.

“Not her then? Not Little Red? Too bad, huh.” He was looking round the room. “Which one, then?”

I pointed her out. “There.”

“Ah! In the sky-blue?” He pinched me affectionately on the arm. “My God, Potter!
Her?
Loveliest woman in the room! Divine! A goddess!” making as if to prostrate himself on the floor.

“No, no—” grabbing him by the arm, hastily pulling him up.

“An angel! Straight from paradise! Pure as a baby’s tear!
Much
too good for the likes of you—”

“Yes, I think that’s the general opinion.”

“—although—” he reached for my vodka glass and took a big slug before handing it back to me—“a bit icy to look at, no? I like the warmer ones myself. She—she is a lily, a snowflake! Less frosty in private, I hope?”

“You’d be surprised.”

His eyebrows went up. “Ah. And… she is the one.…”