Three macintoshed men on the sidewalk turned round.
“Hey, Henderson,” one of them called. “No problem. We got the car round the corner.”
Chapter Two
Peter Gint, Henderson thought, had singularly bad taste in shoes. The model he was looking at, some two inches from his eyes, was a heavy, brogued, two-toned orange and brown number. That was the left shoe; the right rested on the back of his neck.
He was lying on the floor in the back of a car, heading, as far as he could determine, south through Manhattan. In the front were Freeborn and Sereno. Gint sat in the back guarding him.
When he had emerged from Melissa’s apartment block the three men had surrounded him like friends and had jovially led him away. Gint had showed him a gun, a black, clenched, snub-nosed looking thing and Henderson had decided swiftly to do everything they asked.
Once inside the car Gint had produced the gun again and asked him to lie face down on the floor. No-one had said anything, with the exception of Freeborn who from time to time leant over the front seat and said, “Bastard. We got you, you dipstick bastard.”
Henderson stared at Gint’s shoe. Some safety device in his body was preventing him from being sick all over it. He felt frightened, all right — but for some reason it wasn’t overwhelming. Every time he tried to protest Gint would increase the pressure on the back of his neck and say ‘shut up’. Lying face down as he was, Henderson could see nothing of the city. He heard only the noise of the rain on the roof, the metronomic ticking of the windscreen wipers and the splash of the tyres on the wet streets. How had they caught up with him so quickly, he wondered? But then on reflection he realized it wouldn’t have taken brilliant sleuthing to have divined where he was heading — there were plenty of airports and plenty of planes to New York — and Bryant’s presence would indicate a visit to Melissa at some early juncture. Bryant’s address?…From her abandoned luggage, no doubt, or Duane.
He pillowed his head on his arms and waited for the journey to end. What would they do to him, he wondered? What did they want of him? The continued absurdity of his predicament had ceased to give offence. It seemed now, after everything that had gone before, an entirely apt and normal state of affairs.
Eventually, the car stopped. Henderson clambered out under the watchful eye of his captors. Glancing up and down the street he saw wet mean tenements, boarded shops, ribbed and battered garage fronts. He caught a glimpse of the twin thick legs of the World Trade Centre descending from the low haze of the clouds. Above a door in front of him a fractured plastic sign read ‘OK REFRIGERATION’. The rain drenched his hair. The sidewalk gutters were overflowing, flotsam sped by driven by strong currents. The raindrops rebounded six inches when they hit the stone and asphalt. Gint pushed him into the doorway where Sereno fiddled with a clutch of fist-sized padlocks.
“What is this place?” Henderson asked. “Your gallery?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Freeborn said.
Sereno opened the doors and Henderson was pushed through into a dark concrete lobby. A large industrial elevator faced him. The grille doors were slid open and they all got in. They went up two floors. When they emerged Henderson saw they were in a large white room, brilliantly lit and filled with the noise of light industry. In one corner sparks of molten metal flashed prettily around a man welding pipes together to form a knotted intestinal fist. Beside him another man filed down the edges of a sectioned girder, bright chrome, and mounted on a three foot high marble plinth. From the far end came the hectic buzz of a high-powered spray gun as a man rendered a tall canvas dull maroon.
Sereno stood in the middle of the room and clapped his hands for silence.
“OK, boys, take a break. See you tomorrow.”
The men stopped work. Henderson looked around him, astonishment momentarily displacing his fear. Large fresh abstract canvases were stacked in piles against a wall; a rubble of scrap metal filled a corner. Sereno talked to the men as they laid down their tools.
“I like it, Jose,” Gint said to the man with the spray gun. “You’re getting real good.”
“What is this?” Henderson said, looking at the painting. “What’s going on here?”
“We call it colour field painting,” Gint said equably. “Sorta kinda like a big field, you know? Coloured.”
Sereno came over. “Corporate art,” he said. “Know how many offices there are in this country? Know how many big empty lobbies they got? They need plants and they need art. Big good art, not too expensive.”
“Big good art.”
“That’s what you got here.”
A young Hispanic girl in a grubby jersey and a tight short skirt came out of a small office at the far end of the room.
“Hey, Caridad,” Sereno said. “Take the day off. We need to use your office.”
She had a piece of paper in her hand.
“Ben,” she said. “I gotta call. Two Rothko, one Kline—”
“Early or late?”
“Jus’ black an’ white, he say. Big one.”
“Good.”
“An’ one Sam Francis.”
“Who? Do we do Sam Francis? Is it in the catalogue?”
“I got it,” Gint said, emerging from the office with an art book. He held up the illustration.
“Can you do it, Jose?”
“Ow. Is difficult, this one.” Jose scratched his head.
“Try it tomorrow. See you tomorrow, guys.”
The men filed out. Caridad went back into the office for her raincoat. She came back and stood not far from Henderson, one arm sleeved, a small beaded bag between her teeth, as her other arm probed vainly for the empty sleeve. Henderson helped her on with her coat.
“These men are holding me against my will,” he whispered. “Tell the police.”
Caridad, coated, turned and belted him round the head with her beaded handbag, some rasping, spitting Spanish oath following swiftly.
Henderson rubbed his stinging hot ear.
Sereno looked pityingly at him as Caridad walked stiffly out.
“You’re a cool one, Dores, I’ll give you that. Always the ladies’ man, eh?”
Henderson cupped his burning ear, his eyes screwed up, riven with a sudden deep hopelessness. Breakers crashed on a distant beach. He watched Freeborn and Gint shift the furniture — desk, plastic armchair, coat-stand, telephone, small filing cabinet — from the office.
“OK, Dores, let’s take a meeting.”
Gently, Sereno propelled him towards the office. Inside Henderson saw that the one interior window was covered by an iron grille, diamond patterned. The room was completely empty apart from one wooden chair. A small opaque window in the wall overlooked a filthy alleyway. The floor was wooden, heavily scored and badged with old dark stains. Ink, Henderson hoped. He couldn’t hear I any traffic noise and for the first time began to feel genuine alarm. These men, he was sure, acknowledged no civilized restraints to behaviour.
“Now listen,” he began. “I’ve been very patient, but I warn you—”
Freeborn pointed at him and he stopped talking at once. He moved nervously to the window. Nothing out there, Freeborn had a swift whispered consultation with the other two, then he took a few paces towards him.
“OK. Get the clothes off.”
“Now just one minute—”
“We can tear ‘em off, man, if you want.”
Henderson shut his eyes. Slowly he undressed. He laid shirt, jacket, trousers and tie across the wooden chair. He stood in his underpants, socks and shoes.