"Is this just a vacation for you, Emile, or is there something special you're looking for?"
"Just a holiday," he said. "Although, if I came across a silver tetradrachm or two from ancient Carthage, I wouldn't mind, now, would I? seeing as how they're selling at auction anywhere in the range of fifteen hundred to twenty thousand dollars these days. Rather more than enough to cover my expenses on this tour. But this is, as I say, a holiday, and something of a homecoming. I was born in Tunisia, actually. Haven't been back in forty years, so it will be interesting to see how it's changed, or at least how wrong my youthful memories of the place are." He winked at me through the little round wire-rimmed spectacles that gave him a rather scholarly appearance. "I hear you and Clive are back together," he said, changing the subject. "Professionally speaking, of course."
"Professionally only, I can assure you, Emile," I said, rather tartly. "Why don't you come along and meet the rest of the group? I'm sure they'll be interested in hearing stories of your youth in Tunisia." While I do know that it is a complete waste of time to contemplate such things, I could not help but idly wonder, as I led him over to the group, where I'd be if I'd chosen coins twenty years ago, instead of furniture. The kind of prices he was mentioning left me breathless. You wouldn't think there'd be that kind of money in coins, but Emile was the living proof there was. He'd had his ups and downs, though. At one time I'd heard he owned homes all over the world, including a spectacular apartment overlooking Central Park in New York, and an equally wonderful villa near Nice, and he'd gotten out of coins for a while. Then he'd lost all his money in some business scheme. His return to the coin business about three or four years earlier had created quite a stir at the time. I took his presence here as a good sign, that he was well on his way to a full economic recovery.
"I teach," Ben was saying at Susie's prompting, as Emile and I approached. "Harvard. Classics. Greeks, Romans, that sort of thing."
"And your friend?" Susie said, glancing Ed's way. The woman was going to know everything there was to know about everybody before we even hit Tunis.
"I'm a parasite," Ed replied. Susie looked taken aback.
"He means he's temporarily unemployed," Ben said, glaring at Ed.
"Oh, I see," Susie said. "Well, I'm sure it's not your fault, honey. It's those politicians."
"You can say that again," Jimmy exclaimed. "Should take the whole lot of them out back and shoot them."
"And what do you do, Jimmy?" Susie asked.
"Chicken parts," he replied.
"Chicken parts?" she replied dubiously. "You mean . . . ?"
"Feet, necks, gizzards. I sell to the Chinese."
"The Chinese," Susie repeated. "Oh," she said, then brightened. "Chicken feet. Dim sum, right? You sell to Chinese restaurants in Buffalo!"
"China," he said. He looked at her. "I sell to the Chinese in China."
"From Buffalo?" she asked incredulously.
"Sure, why not?" he replied. "The rest of us don't want the stuff. Good business, actually. Helps to keep my bride here in style." The bride smiled and self-consciously patted her hair. She reminded me of nothing so much as a TV mom from the fifties.
"Oh," Susie said. "Isn't that sweet. How long have you and Betty been married?"
"Thirty years," Jimmy said.
Susie thought about this for a moment and then wisely decided to move on. "And you are?" she said to Emile.
"Emile St. Laurent, at your service," Emile said, bowing slightly.
"And what do you do, Emile?" she asked, rather coyly, I thought. He was an attractive man.
"I just dabble in a few things," he replied.
"Like what?" she prodded. There was no stopping this woman.
"Coins, that sort of thing," he said.
"Oh," she said. "Then you should meet Ed here. He doesn't do anything either." Emile had the good grace to look amused. I gave him the title of group diplomat on the spot.
"How much longer do we have to wait?" Chastity pouted, looking balefully in my direction. "I'm just miserable," she added.
I could kill Clive, I thought. Although I would never admit it to Clive, up until that moment I had been warming to this idea of his. Determined to make the tour a success in a more tangible way than Clive's rather sketchy notions of publicity value, I was aided, unwittingly on his part, by a film star who had recently purchased a huge house in Rosedale, a Toronto neighborhood that many aspire to but few attain. He called on McClintoch Swain to furnish the place.
"I want to make a statement," the actor had said, pulling at his short and spiky bleached blond hair. "Something that expresses the real me."
I'd taken him sketches, swatches, and photos of Thai-style, Indonesian, and Greek decor, Tuscan farmhouse, Provencal villa, and just about everything else, but nothing appealed to him. Then, almost in desperation, I called him one last time. "North Africa," I said.
"Way cool," he'd replied. The house had ten bedrooms, six fireplaces, and a living room the size of a football field. Way cool, indeed. Clive and I made up a list of furnishings I was to locate during the tour. My plan was to get the group to Tunisia, hand them over to the local guide and the archaeologist we'd hired, then undertake the one activity that might actually keep us in business: scouring the country for the rather lengthy list of antiques and carpets needed for the Rosedale home. There are few activities I enjoy as much as hunting down the perfect antique for a client. From my perspective, the chase is as much fun as the purchase, and finding something really unusual for a good price is positively exhilarating.
"I'm hungry," Chastity said.
"Have a potato chip," Ben said, thrusting a bag in front of her. The girl eyed it, and him, suspiciously. "Okay, don't have a potato chip," Ben said, reaching into the bag to help himself to a handful. Ben, I could already tell, liked to eat. I hadn't seen him for even a moment without some food in his hand. Keeping him from getting hungry on this trip might be a challenge.
I turned my attention to finding the last member of the group to meet us in Frankfurt, one Richard Reynolds, another last-minute addition to the trip. The only thing I knew about Reynolds was that he was a stockbroker and had flown in from Montreal. I found him right away, though. He was the only person in the bar talking in English on a cell phone. I had no idea who he might be talking to, it being 2 A.M. back home, but they say the market never sleeps.
I had a minute or two to look him over while he talked away on his phone. His entire outfit was brand-new, right down to his belt and the carry-on bag at his side: new denim shirt, with the folds still showing, Reeboks so white they hurt my eyes, and a just-purchased khaki jacket. I knew that, because one of those nasty plastic price-tag clamps that require garden shears to remove was still protruding from the edge of one sleeve. I debated whether or not to point it out, but decided I wasn't his mother, just the tour guide, and anyway, given the self-important way he was leaning against the bar and talking loudly on his phone, I wasn't sure his ego could stand it. I hadn't seen his luggage yet, but I had no doubt it would be absolutely pristine, too, minus the usual wear and tear of the transatlantic flight. If I wasn't mistaken, this was the first trip of its kind Reynolds had ever taken. Whatever had possessed him, I wondered, to take an antiques and archaeology tour to Tunisia instead of, say, a sun, sand, and sex excursion to the Caribbean.