AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm not here to argue the future of antiques. Shall we go?"
"Not a chance."
"Perhaps you might curb your obstinacy if I were to tell you I'm here on behalf of the President."
Pitt's expression had turned to stone. "Big goddamned deal. Why is it every punk who goes to work for the White House thinks he can intimidate the world? Go back and tell the President you failed, Mr.
Moon. You might also inform him that if he wants something from me to send a messenger boy who can demonstrate a degree of class."
Moon's face turned pale. This wasn't going the way he'd planned, not at all.
"I . . . I can't do that," he stammered.
"Tough."
The auctioneer raised his gavel. "Going once . . . twice for three hundred and sixty thousand." He paused, scanning the audience. "If there is no further advance . . . sold to Mr. Robert Esbenson of Denver, Colorado."
Moon had been cut down, coldly, unmercifully. He took the only avenue left open to him. "Okay, Mr.
Pitt, your rules."
The Mercedes was driven off and a four-door, two-tone straw-and-beige convertible took its place.
The auctioneer fairly glowed as he described its features.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, number fifteen on your program. A 1950 British-built Jensen. A very rare car. The only model of this particular coach work known to exist. A real beauty. May we open the bidding at fifty thousand?"
The first bid came in at twenty-five thousand. Pitt sat in silence as the price climbed. Moon studied him.
"Aren't you going to bid?"
"All in good time."
A stylishly dressed woman in her late forties waved her bidder's card. The auctioneer nodded and ordained her with a smile. "I have twenty-nine thousand from the lovely Ms. O'Leery of Chicago."
"Does he know everybody?" Moon asked, showing a spark of interest.
"Collectors form a loose clique," replied Pitt. "Most of us usually show up at the same auctions."
The bidding slowed at forty-two thousand. The auctioneer sensed the peak had come. "Come now, ladies and gentlemen, this car is worth much, much more." Pitt raised his bidder's card.
"Thank you, sir. I now have forty-three. Will anyone raise it to forty-four?"
Ms. O'Leery, wearing a designer double-breasted wool checked jacket and a slim taupe flannel skirt with a revealing front slit, signaled for an advance.
Before the auctioneer could announce her bid, Pitt's card was in the air. "Now she knows she's got a fight on her hands," he said to Moon.
"Forty-four and now forty-five. Who will make it forty-six?"
The bidding stalled. Ms. O'Leery conversed with a younger man sitting next to her. She seldom showed up with the same consort at two auctions. She was a self-made woman who had built a tidy fortune merchandising her own brand of cosmetics. Her collection was one of the finest in the world and numbered nearly one hundred cars. When the ring man leaned down to solicit a bid, she shook her head and then turned around and winked at Pitt.
"That was hardly the wink of a friendly competitor," observed Moon.
"You should try an older woman sometime," said Pitt as though lecturing a schoolboy. "There's little they don't know about men." An attractive girl maneuvered down Pitt's aisle and asked him to sign the sales agreement.
"Now?" asked Moon hopefully. "How did you get here?"
"My girlfriend drove me down from Arlington."
