"Heirloom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'No, I don't,' I said firmly. 'Come on, Mr Grant, be serious.
l'm dealing with customers who live in condos and seaview apartments with strictly limited room-space. They want their furniture on a particular scale, in a particular style. Light, spindly, and elegant, that's what they go for. But this thing...
it's amazing, I admit... but it's like someone blowing the Trump of Doom right in the middle of a piccolo concert.'
'Mr Delatolla,' said Mr Grant, 'if you buy this chair, I'll throw in everything you see around you. Everything.
Even that cheveret. Even that tea-kettle stand, and that's Chippendale.'
I glanced at Sara and Sara glanced back at me. There was a cool breeze blowing across the driveway and both of us communicated a feeling that there was something terribly wrong about all of this.
'Is any of this stuff stolen?' I asked Mr Grant, directly.
'Stolen? What are you trying to say?'
'I'm not trying to say anything. You seem awful anxious to get rid of it, all of a sudden.'

Mr Grant took off his sunglasses. His eyes were bulgy and pale, and were as unmemorable as his face. Sometimes I recall that they were dark, or that one of them was milky and blind.
Sometimes I can't remember them at all.

'Listen, Mr Delatolla,' he pleaded, 'all of this stuff is honestly and genuinely mine. I swear it. But I have to get back to Santa Barbara tonight, and I don't want to take it all with me. That's the only reason. I mean, you're right. What I said before was just sales talk. It's not very good stuff. So what's the point of my carrying it all the way back up the coast? I might just as well offload it here for whatever I can get.'
I narrowed my eyes. No house-clearing agent had ever spoken anything like this to me before. Mr Grant was actually begging me to take all of this furniture off his hands.
'How much do you want?' I asked him, cautiously.
'Ten thousand, and that doesn't even cover my expenses.'
I paused. The chair alone had to be worth $2,500, or even more. None of the rest of the stuff was very good, but I bad plenty of contacts in downtown San Diego who could sell it off for me. I stood to make $5,000-$20,000 clear profit, all for the sake of a house-clearer who couldn't wait to get home to Santa Barbara.
'Do you have a card? Any form of identity?' I asked Mr Grant.
'Sure,' he said. 'Here.' And he handed over a card that read 'Henry E. Grant, Antique Dealers, Houses Cleared, Antiques Bought & Sold. Member of the Association of California Antique Dealers,' There was an address near the beach in Santa Barbara.
'I'll have to think it over,' I said, turning the card over and over between my fingers. 'I mean, this chair, there's no way to put an accurate price on it. No way to compare it with anything. It could be worth half a million, or five dollars.'
'Eight thousand,' said Grant. 'And that's as low as I can go.'
Sara said, 'Ricky ... do you really want all this junk?' She knew like hell that I did, especially at eight thousand, but she was playing her usual game of beating other dealers down just by pretending to talk me out of whatever it was they were selling. I've had dealers end up by ignoring me completely, and haggling hysterically with her.
'I wouldn't say no to one or two of the pieces...' I mused.
'But, well, I don't know . . . if you don't think it's a good idea . . .'
'Seven-five, but no lower,' put in Grant. His voice was very whispery now.
'Seven thousand five hundred? For all of this?' I asked him.
'Just take it,' he said. 'Send me a cheque in the mail.'
'Hold on one minute,' I asked him. I leaned over and murmured in Sara's ear, 'Make sure he doesn't leave.' Then I walked quickly into the house, and into my library. I leafed through the North San Diego County telephone directory until I found 'Jessop, Samuel F., San Miguel, Escondido'. I punched out the number and waited while the ringing tone went be - be - be...
'Jessop residence,' said a wary voice. A woman, maybe sixty years old or older.
'Oh, hallo,' I said. 'You may not know me - in fact you probably don't - but my name's Delatolla. Rick Delatolla. I'm an antiques specialist, in Rancho Santa Fe. No, an antiques specialist.'
'I'm sorry,' said the woman. 'We don't want to buy anything, and we have nothing to sell.'
'No, please - this isn't a sales call. I just want to tell you that a man called Grant is around here at my house this afternoon with some items of antique furniture - some tables and secretaires, things of that kind, some dining-room chairs - yes, that's right - and, well, he says he got them from the Jessop house at Escondido.'
There was a lengthy pause. Breathing. Then the woman said, 'Yes, that's true. A man called Grant did come around last week. He cleared one or two pieces of furniture from old Mr Jessop's study, and from some of the guest rooms. We're having that part of the house restyled.'
'I see. So Mr Grant's genuine.'
'Oh, yes, he's genuine. No question about it. I believe he was known to one of old Mr Jessop's business partners, and that's how we came to use him. He comes from Los Angeles, I think.'
'Santa Barbara,' I corrected.
'Well, whatever,' said the woman.
'Is it possible you can tell me anything about the chair?'
I asked. 'I'm having a difficult time pricing it, and I was wondering if you - '
'Chair? What chair?' asked the woman.
'There are several, actually. But the one I'm particularly interested in has carving all the way up the back, and a kind of a beast's face on the crest. You must know the one I mean. It's not exactly the kind of chair you can overlook, is it?'
'I don't know what you mean,' said the woman. 'We have never had a chair of that description anywhere. Not in this house, nor at San Clemente.'
'Are you sure?' I frowned. 'Mr Grant certainly gave me the impression that he'd gotten it from you.'
'I expect you were mistaken.'
I held the receiver away from my ear. 'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, I expect I was.'
'Is there anything else?' said the woman's voice, tinnily.
'No, no, thank you. You've been very kind. I'm sorry I disturbed you.'
I set down the phone and stood thinking for a moment.
I was sure that Grant had told me the chair came from Escondido. Hadn't he told me that old man Jessop had brought it back from Europe? But even if he hadn't, the woman had betrayed something in her voice. A hurriedhess.