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Peter came out of the dim landing and into the luminous setting of Neal’s apartment. Even now, he thought of it as June’s, but of course it wasn’t. If Neal had been conning the lovely lady, all those years ago, it had paid off handsomely and, as was quite common with his marks, she loved him, anyway! He wondered what the place was worth, even in the very depressed after-the-war-of-the-worlds market.
He had dropped by to see if El was there. Gone were the days of easy cell-phone access. It was awkward in some ways, and in some, such as this, it was a blessing. He could say he thought El might be here and use it as an excuse to see what Neal was up to. Not that Neal was up to much, these days. He seemed incredibly dedicated to El’s dream of rebuilding the art-world of the old New York.
Peter found it unsettling and oddly sad. He missed the mischievous, fire-cracker Neal that always had too much energy and too many zany and often illegal ideas all at once. Not that he could tell Neal that without being subject to some sort of horribly embarrassing forfeit for pure hypocrisy. Might be worth it, just to see Neal’s eyes light up.
Neal was just working too hard. At present he had three canvases on the go. He had always been capable of doing a great deal in a short time and it had seemed to agree with him. But this long-haul slog seemed to be enervating him. Peter carefully walked into Neal’s view, and Neal glanced up and said,
“Hey, Peter.”
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Don’t look. Picasso. You won’t like.”
“No, sorry, never did get him after he stopped being ‘blue’.”
“You asked me once if there were no frauds in art…well, I wouldn’t say fraud, but in some portraits of Picasso as an older man, he certainly had an impish expression that may have meant he was getting more fun out of his work than any serious artist has the right to do! Or the money it was worth…. I like the fact that if someone brought him a really good forgery, he’d sign it! Or so I’m told….
“Hey, I’m nearly done here, or perhaps I’m just nearly done! Make some fresh coffee, would you? I’ll clean up.”
He sauntered out onto the patio, and Peter looked up from pouring. Obviously, the cleaning had been brushes and things, because parts of Neal could have been sold as a Pollock without too much chicanery, Peter thought. (Had he been consulted, Neal might have argued for Twombley, had he not been too tired to care.)
Neal plopped down on an old sheet folded over the cushions on his favourite lounger.
“What are you living on, other than Mozzie’s Italian roast?” Peter asked, then remembered. “And – er – have you seen El? I wondered if she was here.”
“No, haven’t seen her. Well, she collected my last three offerings yester- no, sorry, day before yesterday.”
Peter had known him far too well for far too long not to notice the deflect. Though it could actually just be tiredness.
“When did you last eat? I looked in the dishwasher for a mug, and there wasn’t anything in it. I know you store things in it, now that it doesn’t work. But there’s nothing in the rack either.”
Neal blinked at him as though he’d fallen asleep for a few seconds while Peter was talking.
“Neal! Focus! Food!”
“What do you want?” Neal asked, puzzled. They were all used to sudden shortages of almost anything, since the war. “I’m not sure exactly what we have…”
“Get up. I’m taking you out to eat. And El, too, if I can find her…use your phone?”
“Sure.”
By the time Peter came back, finding that El was home but not ready to go out yet, Neal was fast asleep. Peter sighed, covered him with a travelling rug, and sat down to drink his coffee.
Peter did look at the canvases, but Neal was right. These were all Picasso’s, of the sort that looked as though the man had cut up magazines photographs of demented people into irregular polygons and stuck the pieces on his canvas at random. At least to Peter.
He went back and relaxed, watching Neal sleep. He saw the dark circles, the tension. Neal had always had a boyishness, always looked fifteen years younger than his (supposed) age. Obviously Peter had been wrong: Being a hard-working, upright citizen didn’t suit Neal very well at all!
One of the advantages of their new life was that money really wasn’t a problem. They didn’t have as much as they used to, but all the prices were down, too. Also, Neal was being paid, and the people of New York seemed happy to pay their law enforcement and other essential service people a better wage relative to the cost of living than before the war.
So when Peter finally rounded up three of his family…Jones and Diana and their partners and June were all busy…they went to one of the newer restaurants. Not that there was a large selection, but more were popping up. El said that this one had been recommended to her so, though Neal had insisted that he’d rather just shower, eat ‘something’ (unspecified) and sleep, the two of them had almost dressed him in his non-artist, non-alien rat-pack attire (almost everything he wore was like something out of one comic or another! Peter thought) and shovelled him into the car, a slightly dilapidated old Toyota. No computers. Peter liked it…he could fix it. He could even understand it!
The place was small, done all in red, green and white, red gingham table clothes and candles in raffia-covered wine bottles with red, green and while ribbons in bows around the top. Waiters wearing very white aprons and hopeful expressions hovered. About half the tables were occupied.
Neal immediately perked up, to Peter’s surprise. It looked a little tacky, and he’d felt that Neal would be all scorn.
“It’s clever!” he hissed at El. “Nothing’s real, but the impression is true…”
“What? What’s not real?” Peter asked.
“The table cloths aren’t gingham…must be something else that’s hard to get. Someone has found old sheets and potato-printed squares. Lots of work. The bottles are plastic, with sand in the bottom for weight, don’t know from what…bath-oil? And someone – probably the same someone – has made faux-raffia coverings out of something…reeds? Sea-grass?”
“You approve?”
“Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to produce an effect, and considering the amount of money that didn’t go into it, it’s working!” Neal grinned. “Up-scale New Yorkers would have died before eating here, before the alien war! I think it’s a good thing.”
“You? Neal Caffrey, who disdained cubic zirconium and anything but the best of the best wines and coffee…?”
“I’m not saying it’s authentic Mediterranean décor, it’s not trying to be, I’m saying it’s fun and innovative…I think a good con should be acknowledged! You know, it’s nice when one has all the latest gadgets…oh, let’s restart that sentence!…It used to be nice to have all the latest gadgets and purchased, accurate uniforms and access to the mark’s computer and accounts and passwords, perfectly forged papers and identity-tags and get away…allegedly …with three million in uncut diamonds without leaving a trace.
“But it’s far more fun when one gets away with the uncut diamonds …or so they say…when all one has is a uniform made up of bits found at the thrift store and dyed to match, with painted badges anyone could spot at less than twenty yards and a slingshot and a rope and a magnet.” Neal was smiling as the waiter handed round menus, also hand-written.
Peter frowned a little. Neal’s smile was the smile of someone who had personal knowledge and pride in making off with…damn! He really must get over worrying about Neal’s now effectively non-existent past. And Neal was probably just trying to get a rise out of him, anyway!
They ordered – Neal had to show off and do it in Italian, and the waiter grinned at him, a sultry, camel-eyelashes Latin grin, collected the menu’s and left.
“Enough energy to flirt,” Peter murmured.
“I don’t get to practise my Italian very often, Peter.”
“Did you get away?” El asked, leaning her chin on her hand.
“The two purported thieves did, in fact, get away …they actually ran away, being chased by three Rottweiler’s, a bearded collie and two security guards with large metal shooting things I don’t like at all! …luckily for them, shall we say, there was a very large and vocal gay-rights march through the next street. Shedding the uniforms down a drain and changing the walk and joining the march was a good strategy.”
“What were you…sorry, sorry, the ‘purported thieves’? – what were they then wearing?” El demanded.
Neal laughed. “Leather underwear. And feathers.”
“So not as much luck as planning, then.”
“It might be what he always wears,” Peter suggested, and Neal raised an eye-brow at Peter, muttered, “Wouldn’t you like to know,” then smiled at Peter’s wife. “Didn’t want to brag, Elizabeth!”
“Where did you put the diamonds?” Peter asked. “I mean, where did the…you know…the alleged thieves put the alleged diamonds?”
“Peter, dear, sweet, innocent Peter, do I have to answer that? It was a gay parade, dear. A quite high proportion of the – um – participants, shall I call them – are there to protest inequality and, on the side, a little self-advertising doesn’t go amiss amidst an appreciative audience?”
“But – ” There was a pause as El and Neal grinned identical expectant grins at Peter. Then Peter said, “Oh,” and studied the pleasant murals of Italian scenes painted over rough plaster.
The food and wine arrived, and they said nothing while savouring the food.
“Oh, this place will not have fake gingham for long!” El said.
“This is some of the best…mmm…since I was last…oh, takes me back…you have got to try…” Neal leaned over and offered El a shrimp slathered in sauce on a fork. “What’s the hint of a sweetish ingredient, is it angelica? Too delicate and fragrant for lovage…it’s angelica! Where are they getting fresh angelica leaves!”
“Perhaps a touch of sweet cecily? No, you’re right. Angelica!”
Peter, who liked food as well as the next man, was not up to a half-hour in-ridiculous-depth discussion on these recipes that his companions could enjoy at a time when he wasn’t there. So he asked, “But the dogs, they wouldn’t care that you’d changed clothes?”
“Cougar spray,” Neal said, sipping the wine, nodding at the dusky waiter, who left the napkin-wrapped bottle.
“What?’’
“It’s actually cougar urine in a spray. Dogs hate it. Probably another thing that’s hard to get now.” Neal seemed disappointed to consider that fact.
“But how do you get cougar urine?” Peter demanded.
“First catch your cougar,” Neal murmured. “Very large paper bag would work. Make sure you have a bucket. Then give it lots of coffee…”
“What?”
Neal laughed at him. “You could buy it over the internet.”
“For thieves who want to join a gay parade without three Rottweiler’s as fashion accessories?” Peter demanded in that incredulous tone his voice so often had when talking to Neal!
“No, hunters, people with coyote problems. Or raccoons.”
“Raccoons buy it?”
“No, but some raccoons get used to coyote urine, so cougar is a good substitute.”
Peter was about to give up. Neal sighed and said, “Raccoons can apparently be very annoying, sneaky little thieves that break into roofs and things, so people need to deter them…hey, you’re the country-kid, you should know these things! I just learnt them while researching for other uses!”
“Mmm. We had big dogs. Never had a raccoon problem. And who are you to malign annoying, sneaky little thieves?” Peter wondered how he could get the conversation back on an adult, sane footing. “So, what’s it like being a paid employee? Wage slave!” He couldn’t help teasing Neal.
“Firstly, Peter, I am a willing slave – or perhaps bond-servant - to another master on another planet somewhere! I am no-one’s slave here, I can stop at any time, and I am not an employee, not on a wage…Mozzie worked out a very nice common-law contract between me, my agent and managers,” he tipped his invisible hat at El and the absent June and Mozzie, “and between them and all the galleries, museums and private individuals willing to pay for my services. The necessary taxes are paid at the end of the fiscal year instead of throughout, which is when they are due, by law.”
“Taxes! Neal …whoever you are now! – paying taxes!”
“I don’t mind,” Neal shrugged. “It’s not much. Mozzie was right all those years, and I never really listened, you know. I don’t mind paying taxes for services I use, or other people use. Income tax is non-existent, now, and I rather like paying towards roads, firehalls – LEO’s, at least when they aren’t chasing me or my friends - and schools, and I even pay some towards hospitals – don’t tell Mozzie – because sometimes he isn’t around and someone breaks a leg or something.”
“He was right,” Peter nodded, shame-facedly. “I didn’t realise the level of corruption there must have been, but we are doing very well with no income tax and no Federal Reserve.”
“I suppose,” El pondered, thoughtfully, licking her fork with delicate elegance…which shouldn’t be possible, thought Peter, besottedly, “that facetted diamonds would be even less comfortable than rough ones.”
Neal shuddered visibly. “Don’t even think about it! To be honest, I was at the time categorically thankful that the original owner only collected the best of the best, because less-valuable stones would have been a lot bulkier for their value.
“Come on, I have to speak to the chef! That was excellent!”
“You go,” El smiled. “We’ll just finish our wine. Have coffee at your place?”
Neal waved over his shoulder and disappeared into the kitchen section. Soon noisy voices could easily be heard, declaiming in Italian.
“I can never work out how Italians can tell if they’re being happy or angry…it always sounds like an altercation to me!” Peter said, lazily. “How do their children learn the difference?”
Neal, mixed up with a small crowd of over-excited people in various forms of restauranting dress, all waving their hands and talking at once, boiled out into the dining area. They all patted him on the back, they traded multiple kisses and El said, “There you are. After, or even during the talking, either kisses or shots are exchanged. That’s how you tell with Italians!”
Peter scoffed and Neal escaped the clutches, none the worse for wear and bearing a package, tied up in a napkin of potato-printed fabric.
“Dessert!” he smiled. “A selection for our delectation.”
“There’s only one thing that might improve this,” El said, later, on Neal’s balcony.
“What’sat?” Peter mumbled.
“I’d like to be able to turn the lights off and see the stars,” El said. “The city lights are quite gorgeous, though there are a lot less of them now, but just now and then….”
“Careful what you wish for,” Neal said, coming out with a fresh pot of coffee and the restaurant’s offerings prettily arranged on a gorgeous plate. “I said that to Mozzie once and he overdid it and blacked out the whole Eastern seaboard!”
“You lie like a rug,” Peter said, sitting up.
“The trouble with you, Peter, is that you can’t tell the difference between a lie, a shaggy dog story, an elaboration, a tall tale and a joke!” Neal grinned.
“With the two of you, admit it, almost any story could be true…and you’ve spent the better part of your life confusing them for me!” Peter countered. Neal cocked his head and shrugged, the nearest he ever came to an admission of guilt.
“Thank you, Peter, for your pushiness earlier. I’m glad you took me out, I enjoyed it, the food was wonderful and I needed it,” Neal said. He’d already discarded his jacket, waistcoat and tie and now undid his shirt buttons before lounging back, barefoot.
“Where is our little hero?” Peter asked of Moz.
“Europe somewhere,” Neal said, vaguely. “He became a little bored with my industry, I’m afraid. He visited Steel, brought back cute little paintings from all my students – they’re on the fridge – and when I was still working, he huffed, made pointed remarks about Venice and Paris, London, Vienna and Rome, and left.”
“Steel’s well? He’s okay you staying here this long?”
Neal’s expression softened, as it usually did when he thought of Lord Steel. “Yeah. Every now and then he sends a ‘Come over for a while’, and if I can, I go. He’s being very patient with me.”
“Good guy, Steel,” Peter remarked.
“You didn’t think so at first!”
“Well, it had been a hellava summer!”
“That’s the truth!”
“Fresh-baked is always so superior, isn’t it?” El said, her eyes shut, licking crumbs off the corners of her mouth and then sipping the delicious coffee. Peter had a sudden urge to lick her lips clean himself.
“They’re good people,” Neal said. “I’m so glad I didn’t have to lie to them about their chances in the cut-throat restaurant industry.”
“You have an aversion to lying, all of a sudden?” Peter demanded, his mouth full of something he couldn’t identify, but which tasted gorgeously of some kind of nuts, cream and honey. “Did George Doubleya – the original – use a chain-saw on the cherry-tree? Are all my illusions to be shattered by you?”
“Sooner or later, Peter,” Neal smiled, lazily. “Just jettison them! They were all too hide-bound and restrictive!
“I am just glad they’re going to be around…I am going to talk them up to everyone, and I said that I’d do a mural on their new, much larger place when they got one, if they wanted. Hence free dessert whenever we visit.”
“I don’t get free anything and I keep them from being persecuted by the criminal element!” Peter griped.
“You dragged him in there, tonight!” El chuckled. “Oh, and so those two alleged, possibly fictitious diamonds-of-the-first-water thieves, Neal? Did they get away with it? Did they – what’s the word – liquidate the ice and live happily ever after?”
“Liquidate the ice? Seriously?” Neal laughed with her.
“Come on, tell us the rest of the alleged lie about them, even I am, probably due to an excess of good wine, coffee and food, feeling a vague interest.” Peter yawned.
“It was reasonable wine. Probably should set them up with Moz…. Well, since you put it so nicely,” Neal glittered across El at him, “they realised, with a little patience and the right contacts, fifty-five cents on the dollar for most of their haul and so far, with the odd unfortunate interlude, have lived very happily.”
“And…” El’s voice oozed out of the gloom, hinting at unrestrained prurience and awakening Peter’s dozing libido, “…you don’t still have the leather underwear, do you?”
Neal instantly turned and stroked her cheek with a single finger. Then he sighed a deep sigh and said, “I swore, dearheart, that I’d never wear it ever again. Except possibly for 150 million, and even then…”
El laughed. “Not a good experience?”
“Well, it was…er…it was impossible to know exactly how large the package...if you’ll excuse the expression…would be. It wouldn’t do for the clothing to be too loose and perhaps…um…lose something. As it turned out, we – they – underestimated the size and by the time they returned to their temporary place of abode, they could hardly walk, the leather was squeaking, and removing it was their only real desire at that time.
“Peter, however much this story inspires El to goad you into buying some, don’t.”
“Wasn’t even thinking of it, Neal,” Peter told him. “I was wondering if you – sorry, they would have got fifty-five cents on the dollar if the fence, or whatever, had known the mode of transport.”
“Completely washable, diamonds. Advantage over pearls,” Neal murmured back, sounding more than half asleep.
There was a thoughtful silence and then he finished,
“Seldom, though, have I ever wanted to get home and get my rocks off as I did that night.”
There was another long pause and then Peter burst out, “That whole thing was a set up?” just as El and then Neal burst out laughing.
“But Peter, I told you it was a shaggy dog story right at the beginning! The bearded collie, remember? Who has a beardie as a guard-dog? They’re amazingly friendly!”
“Okay, okay, I fell for it.”
“You're wonderful! You are so much fun to tease!”
“Thank you,” Peter muttered. “Glad I’m good for something. We should get going.”
“Don’t sulk, Hon,” El said, sweetly.
“I’m going to use the bathroom.”
“I’m glad that things are back to normal between you two,” he heard El say to Neal behind him, and smiled, not waiting for Neal's reply. For a while there….
Peter washed his hands. looked at the little paintings on the fridge door which he could tell were from Steel Keep, and wandered back, putting on his jacket while waiting for El and Neal to come in from where they were still lying in comfort and finishing the last of the dessert. His eyes wandered over the room and he realised that he probably would never stop wondering what Neal was up to, and looking, consciously or subconsciously, for evidence.
Tossed on Neal’s bed, just visible by the soft glow from the intricately carved alabaster night-light to a trained and observant eye of a Special Federal Agent, was a pair of ridiculously small leather shorts.
Fin
Just for fun, this one...