Greywalker - Kat Richardson [40]
Will took another short break just before the surgeon’s cabinet came up and resumed the podium a couple of lots afterward. No one was interested in the crusty thing but me, and I got it for twenty dollars.
About six thirty, the final gavel rang down on a massive bronze propeller and the auction was over. I’d acquired a client’s chair with rotted upholstery as well as the surgeon’s cabinet. I wandered over to the table at the back to pay for my lots and wait for a word with Will. A man in a raincoat got into line behind me.
Will had just stopped by the table when the lady who’d bought the deck prisms stormed up and shoved her way to him.
Her voice was carbide-tipped. “I’d like a word with you, Mr. Novak!”
Michael took my check and looked up at her. “Which word would you like?”
She shot him a withering look. “Not you! That one!” she spat, jabbing a red-tipped finger at Will.
Will stepped forward but kept the table between them. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Fell?”
“You know there is, William Novak! You know I was tricked into overbidding on that glass,” she shouted. “And you did it! You—you massaged me into going that last bid!”
The raincoated man tried to butt in. “Excuse me, I think I’m next. . . .”
Will shot him a pleading look but stayed with the woman. “Mrs. Fell, no one forced you to bid. You know it’s part of my job as the auctioneer to get the best price I can for the client, and encouraging faltering bidders is part of that job. If you felt the bid was too high, you could have dropped out whenever you wanted. Now, we have other customers to—”
“I was going to drop out! You tricked me! You—you tantalized me, like a fish on a hook!”
Will started to answer, but the man in the raincoat leaned forward. “I believe I am next!”
“Sir, I know you are, but—”
The second auctioneer stepped up behind Will. Up close, he had broad shoulders and an incipient paunch. He was approaching sixty, not entirely without grace, but his dark gray eyes were chips of flint over his Irish nose and tight mouth.
His voice was much less bland now. “What’s going on over here, Novak?”
Will spread his hands. “A small misunderstanding, Brandon. Mrs. Fell is unhappy about her bid—”
“I can see that.” He looked at the man in the raincoat, who pouted and began his lament again.
“I am next!”
“Of course, sir. Mr. Novak will assist you.”
Brandon shot a black glare at Will, then turned to face Mrs. Fell. As he turned, his face flicked into a soft smile and his voice dropped half an octave and several decibels. Downright Svengali of him.
He slipped his hand under her elbow, easing her close to him and away from the table. “Hello, Jean. Always a pleasure to see you. What’s the trouble?” He bent his head down over hers, looking straight into her eyes with warm sincerity.
She whimpered like a puppy. “Well, I—I think Mr. Novak finessed me into overbidding. I’m very upset. It just isn’t fair.” She didn’t seem to notice that Brandon was moving her to the end of the table, out of traffic flow.
I looked at Will and Michael with an incredulous expression. They made identical shrugs and Will turned to the man in the raincoat.
Two more customers had come and gone before Brandon returned. Mrs. Fell was nowhere to be seen. Brandon hooked Will’s arm with a much rougher grip than he’d used on Jean Fell.
A few feet from my end of the table, the men stopped. Being a professional eavesdropper, I listened. Brandon’s profile had no trace of warmth or charm now.
He growled at Will. “Do not—ever—argue with a customer like that, Novak. What do I pay you for? And when I tell you to take over a customer, you do so! You are not a customer here. You are not a partner here. You are an employee, and when I say ‘Do this,’ you do it! Do you understand me?”
Will remained cool. “We have an agreement, Brandon—”
“That agreement doesn’t mean squat if I say it doesn’t! Get it?” He glowered at Will.
Will said nothing. I could see his jaw tighten as Brandon continued to bore his furious gaze through him.
“Yes.”
“Good.” Brandon turned and stalked back to a glossy blond woman