The Golden Pig Read online

  “Pounds sterling?” he asked deliriously.

  Yet, even as his conscious mind was rapidly descending into euphoria, some nagging doubt at the back of it wouldn’t quite let him be. Outside his flimsy office walls, the real world was clamouring to get in.

  The heavy tread of size-twelve boots on the stairs heralded the arrival of two burly six-footers in ill-fitting suits. They pushed past Janis with her outraged protestations but hesitated on the threshold of his inner sanctum, unaccustomed to seeing him in a business meeting. They glowered through the glass at him.

  It was all the opportunity he needed.

  “I was afraid of this, Sarah. Some business rivals have been showing a keen interest in JP Confidential of late and they must have got wind that other bidders of your calibre were making overtures. Rather than have you facing any unpleasantness, perhaps we can adjourn this meeting for the time being. I promise I won’t do anything rash until I’ve had chance to consider your offer. You have my office number, but here’s my mobile number just in case.” He handed her a card.

  Before she even knew what was happening, Ms Chandar found herself whisked out of her chair and politely but firmly shown the door. The last words she heard as she descended the staircase were Goldman’s entreaties to his “business rivals” not to broadcast their latest offer to HM Revenue and CustoMs She supposed he meant herself. He was clearly a tricky customer to do business with.

  The bailiffs seemed to be enjoying the cabaret, but were reluctant to drop their guard, having been left in the lurch so often before. Goldman regularly claimed to have suffered a family bereavement or to be traumatized by a terminal illness and they suspected that it was only a matter of time before he would claim insanity. Although it was increasingly uncertain whether he had anything worth lying about, old habits died hard. They marched into his newly vacated office and started eying up the contents of the room, with a view to a quick sale, Janis following at their heels like a terrier.

  Having seen off his guest with his usual old-world charm, Hymie sauntered back to his office with little evident pleasure.

  “I did ask them to wait, Mr Goldman.”

  “It’s okay, Jan, it’s only a social call; there’s nothing left for them to take. So, what can I do for you two, eh?”

  They stood in the doorway like two gorillas on day-release, knuckles dusting the lino.

  “You know the procedure, Goldman; we hand you the warrant, you make a big song and dance about it, and then we walk off into the sunset with whatever we can find. Usually zippo. Can’t we just cut to the chase today? I have a lunch date,” said the burlier bailiff, with the joined-up eyebrows.

  “Say, maybe you’d like to buy a stake in the business too?” suggested Hymie, chirpily.

  “He has me in stitches. Buy a stake in your business? Do we look like we’ve just escaped from the zoo?” asked the second bailiff.

  “Well, now you come to mention it...”

  “Button it, Goldman,” they snapped, in unison.

  “But seriously, gents, I do have something of value.”

  “On the level?” they enquired reluctantly, like dupes invited onstage by a magician.

  “Certainly on the level,” added Hymie, as his strategy miraculously dropped into place.

  “But is it worth hard cash?” persisted Harry, the burlier one.

  “Oh, bundles of it. You take my advice; put your shirt on Devil May Care in the 12.10 at Uttoxeter. It can’t lose.”

  The other bailiff, Larry, reached into his coat pocket. Hymie was half expecting him to produce a banana, but he merely retrieved the usual paperwork and thrust it insistently on him with the practiced ease of a man used to giving bad news. He would have made a good politician, thought Hymie.

  “Seriously though, gents” he added, “if the horse doesn’t win, I’ll be a Dutchman’s uncle.” Those flamin’ bailiffs had been taking away his stuff for years, it was about time they lost their shirts, he thought.

  Larry, who evidently thought that any tip was worth backing, if only each-way, retrieved a notebook from his other pocket and scrawled down the name of the horse in large infantile handwriting, while his colleague, Harry, simply looked on with disdain.

  “It was a tip from inside the stable,” said Hymie.

  “Who from, the horse’s mother?” responded Harry, sardonically.

  “It was at twenty to one last night, surely that’s worth giving my premises a miss for a few weeks? I know you gents seem to have a problem believing me, but I was actually in negotiations to offload, ahem, to sell the business when you came barging in.”

  “Well, you’re right there, mate,” resumed Harry. “Believing you isn’t easy. We can always tell when you’re lying: your lips are moving.”

  “Nice one, Harry,” added Larry, somewhat redundantly.

  “Okay, Mr Goldman, go on, how much was the Indian princess offering for your business empire? Don’t tell me…all the jewels of the orient…or, say, fifty pence?”

  “Put it this way, enough to allow me to retire to the country.”

  “Which one? Bangladesh?”

  “How much do you want, anyway?” asked Goldman, irritated. “A tenner? Twenty quid?”

  “No, mate, try £5,000 in unpaid rent,” said Larry.

  “What, for this flea-pit? Would you pay it, gents?”

  “That’s neither here nor there, is it, Goldman?” said Harry. “You see, you signed the lease, not us. It beats me how someone called Goldman can be such a worthless tick.”

  Hymie reached into his back pocket for a dog-eared chequebook.

  “Will you take a cheque, lads?”

  They smiled. “Not in a million years, mate. We’ve got enough meaningless paperwork as it is; we’re part of the EU paper mountain scheme,” observed Harry, regretfully.

  “Fine. I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, but I’d be lying. Help yourselves; you’re welcome to anything you can find, but I’ll tell you now, the only things not on hire purchase are the collection of stress-relief toys, the fake marble ashtray, and Janis.”

  “You can prove that, I dare say?”

  “I dare say,” smirked Hymie. “Sadly, I have pressing business to attend to elsewhere. So, if you’ll excuse me gentlemen, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of my apprentice, Miss Turner.”

  He winked conspiratorially at Janis, grabbed his army-surplus trench coat from the stand in the corner of his office, and headed for the congested streets of North London.

  “Don’t forget, guys, Devil May Care in the 12.10 at Uttoxeter. If you hurry, you may just catch it.”

  “You’ll catch it one of these days, Goldman!” called Harry, after Hymie’s retreating back.

  Part Two

  It was midday by the time he arrived at the park. He’d had to walk, owing to the increasing unreliability of his car. Just after he acquired the car phone he’d spilt hot coffee into the CD player, while overtaking on a hairpin bend, and driven through a hedge. Fortunately, no one had been injured and he’d managed to borrow the money to spring his car from the local garage, but it had never been quite the same.

  “Here ducks! Here ducky ducky! Here ducks!”

  He threw a low-carb, high-fibre Atkins bagel into the centre of a small gang of ducks, rendering one or two unconscious. He often visited the park, finding it cheap, therapeutic and a good way of killing time between cases. By now he knew every blade of grass in the place.

  Eventually he managed to find a bench that was both dry and free from obscene graffiti; no small task in London. He sat and gazed across the vast expanse of mud and dog turds that aspired to be a football pitch. The posts had been used for spare fuel last Bonfire Night and no-one had played there since the Barnet Bulldogs were decimated by a drug-dealer’s dobermanns.

  Hours passed as he paced the footpath, trying to come up with a foolproof plan for selling the business to Ceefer Capital. If only one of the cases he had made up on the website had been t
rue, he’d be home and dry. As it was, he would probably have to actually solve an investigation before they would take him seriously. No-one went around giving out half a million quid for a nice website, surely? He would also need to get some accounts from somewhere; whatever they were. What had she asked him for? Cash flow forecasts? His cash had been flowing out for years and he could hardly bring himself to read anything from the bank any longer. Clearly, he would have to be economical with the truth for a while longer.

  “Ritzy’s” was the kind of nightclub that used to stand on the corner of every main street in every decent sized town in the 1970’s; grotty and crying out for demolition on the outside, tacky and full of kitsch on the inside. The local council had left it standing to avoid having to erect slums or whatever social housing project their planning department was championing that month. Even slums cost money.

  Hanging around outside in the pouring dark, he felt purple: marooned in the urban jungle; too scruffy, disillusioned and old to either fit in or care less. He pulled up the collar of his coat, unfolded the “Evening Standard” which he had retrieved from the bin in the park and settled down to wait. He turned to the horoscopes page and looked up his stars; March 31, Aries, “Beware blonde bombshells bearing gifts, they are not all they seem. Sunny spells later.” It must be that new astro-meteorologist.

  He flipped through the remaining pages until he caught sight of something in the racing results. “Well, of all the…Devil May Care won by a head; those jammy b…ailiffs!”

  Suddenly a taxi pulled up at the kerb and a vision of loveliness emerged, paid off the driver, and sashayed across the pavement towards him. To call her stunning would have been to cheapen the word; tall, blonde and drop-dead gorgeous with an hourglass figure and a smile that would stop a man dead in his tracks at a hundred paces. She didn’t even have to begin to try to impress Goldman.

  “You must be the detective.” she said, her voice as smooth as velvet.

  “Ye…ye…yes, Gymie Holdman” he yammered. He had never been a success with women, but like most men never gave up hope.

  “Follow me.”

  To the ends of the earth of course, but he was dreaming, surely? She led him around the corner to a parking lot, opened up an immaculate black Porsche and they sped off into the encroaching night.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” he said, fidgeting nervously with his seat belt.

  “I didn’t throw it at you, but its Lucretia, or rather, Lucy…Lucy Scarlatti.”

  A strange name; probably an alias, but by now he was already along for the ride.

  Her manner was brusque and business-like. Nothing more was said as they screeched through myriad backstreets, finally arriving at journey’s end; a newly refurbished warehouse conversion. Once ensconced inside she became more communicative.

  “Take a seat. Would you like a drink?”

  “I’d rather hear about the job first.”

  “So sit down.”

  He sat.

  “It’s a family matter really. It all began with the death of my father a month or so ago…”

  “I’m sorry to hear…” It seemed the only thing to say.

  “Don’t be, he was a terrible man. When he died there was nothing left…nothing but debts…and the statuette. You might almost call it a family heirloom; a golden statuette of a pig.”

  “Is it worth much?” asked Hymie.

  “It’s mainly of sentimental value.”

  That much! He thought.

  “In his youth my father travelled the world with the Merchant Navy. I think he bought the figurine in the Far East; China or Japan.”

  “Where do I come in?”

  Hymie was getting the distinct impression that this was yet another case for his “Unsolvables” file. The file couldn’t have been much thicker had he been investigating the Marie Celeste, the Abominable Snowman and life on Mars.

  “Under the will he left me everything. My sister, Steffie doesn’t even get a mention.”

  “And your sister has the pig, right?”

  “Yes, the bitch! She’s always been jealous of my success in lingerie modelling, so she persuaded one of her lovers to steal it. Can you get it back for me?”

  “Why not call in the police?” he asked.

  “As I said, it’s a family matter.”

  “It could get messy,” he said. He didn’t like the sound of it, but needed the money.

  She sized him up and took the measure of him in a glance. “A hundred pounds a day, plus expenses?” she suggested.

  “When do I start?” asked Hymie, resisting the urge to add “How about last Tuesday!”

  Lucy left the room briefly, returning with a thousand pounds in used notes. “I’ll expect a phone call every few days and a full progress report each week,” she said. Hopefully, you should have something concrete within the week.”

  ‘As long as it’s not an overcoat’, he thought.

  She passed him a page from a notebook with a handwritten address scribbled on it and her business card.

  “Those are her last known address and my contact numbers. There’s a photo of the pig attached. Call me.”

  “Certainly, now about that drink?”

  “Maybe some other time. Find my pig, Mr Goldman.”

  It was a long walk back to 792A Finchley Road, but time flies when you’ve got a grand burning a hole in your pocket. His only regret was not having had the presence of mind to ask for a larger advance, but he had simply been struck dumb at the sight of so much hard cash. It would have been churlish or foolhardy to quibble with a woman so clearly used to getting her own way.

  Back at the office everything had gone AWOL except the telephone and the hot-oil stress-relief lamp. How a lamp could relieve stress had never been adequately explained to him, but he’d always liked Day-Glo orange, and since he’d bought it with the proceeds from his first case he couldn’t bring himself to part with it. The bailiffs had dismissed it as worthless junk, which it was.

  He rang for a pizza; the biggest, with extra everything. Only when his stomach was full could he think at all clearly.

  Leaning against the window sill he gazed out into the empty street below. “Benny’s Unbeatable Bakery” flashed in neon lights from the opposite side of the Finchley Road. Benny had been baking the best pizzas in North London for longer than Hymie could remember, maybe a year even.

  The phone rang from its new home on the floor of his office. It was partially illuminated by the garish orange glimmer of the lamp and cast a distorted shadow on the wall. He wondered who could be calling at this time of night. Some desperate, friendless character, that was for sure. He lifted the receiver.

  “Hello, Mr Goldman, it’s Sarah Chandar calling.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. How are you Sarah? I was sorry you had to leave so suddenly.”

  “Fine thanks…but you asked me to leave, don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, it was essential. I couldn’t risk your safety with those two thugs on the loose.”

  “Who were they?” Sarah asked.

  “Just a couple of longstanding business rivals: hardened, cynical men operating beyond the outer fringes of the law; men who would stop at nothing to get my business. After you left, they tried to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “So, what happened?” she asked, in a breathless whisper.

  “I declined, of course. After all, hadn’t I just promised you first refusal?”

  “Yes, but I thought you were just bluffing to drive the price up.”

  He fell silent, as though he had been mortally offended and could no longer find the strength to continue with the conversation. It worked a treat.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Goldman. Can we meet to talk over my ideas for the business?”

  “We can meet, but with a business this good, you can’t afford to hang around. I’m not going to change anything until we’ve reached a deal on the price.

  I believe you said JP Confidential was worth around a million po
unds and that’s my price,” bluffed Hymie, the tough-negotiator.

  “I said half a million,” Sarah corrected him, “and even that depends on the satisfactory completion of due diligence.”

  She might just as well have been speaking Greek.

  “You can do all the diligence you like, but the price is a million quid. Take it or leave it.”

  She left it.

  “Sarah? Sarah? Let’s not be hasty. How about nine fifty?” He was talking to himself.

  She’d be back, of course; businesses like JP Confidential didn’t grow on trees.