Florian's Gate by T. Davis Bunn Page A

been preserved. In the relative quiet of his early morning walks, he imagined himself transported back to a time of top hats and morning coats and ballooning skirts and hansom cabs.
    Jeffrey was in love with Mayfair. All of London held him enthralled; for that matter, the fact that he slept and ate and worked and played on an island perched at the upper left corner of Europe filled him with sheer explosive delight. But he loved Mayfair.
    To Jeffrey Allen Sinclair, Mayfair had all the makings of a magical land. There were so many hidden nooks and crannies and tales and characters that he could spend a dozen lifetimes within its confines and never drain the cup of adventure.
    Jeffrey crossed over Curzon Street, walked the narrow footpassage, and entered a collection of streets never intended for car traffic. Shepherd Market lanes were fifteen feet wide or less, and lined with tiny cottages housing a variety of cafes and shops and pubs and restaurants. Jeffrey’s own favorite was a corner cafe with hand-drawn glass panes, warped as though pebbles had been dropped onto their still surface and then frozen in place. The cafe’s ceiling and walls were plaster framed by ancient uneven beams, its tables set so close together that a diner who ate with elbows extended was simply not welcome. Jeffrey had long since learned to fold his morning paper into sixteenths.
    ----
    Once Jeffrey returned home for Ling and arrived at the shop, he barely had time to settle in before the electronic chime announced his first visitor of the day. From the safety of his office alcove Jeffrey glanced up, smiled, tucked the little bird into its new bedding, put on his professional face, and walked forward.
    He swung the door wide with a flourish. “Good morning, Mr. Greenfield. Morning, Ty.”
    â€œHullo, lad,” Sydney Greenfield said. “I’ve always wanted to be your height when I walk into a bar. Isn’t that right, Ty.”
    â€œGets him proper switched on, it does.”
    â€œCome in, gentlemen. Come in.”
    Sydney Greenfield, purveyor to the would-be’s and has-been’s of London’s Green Belt, entered with his normal theatrics. Behind him walked Ty, his shadowy parrot. Jeffrey did not know him by any other name, did not even know if he had one. Ty he had been introduced as, and Ty he had remained. Jeffrey truly liked the pair. They were a part of what made the London antiques trade unique in all the world.
    The Green Belt was an almost-circle of suburbs and swallowed villages that stretched through four counties. They were linked to central London by an extended train service and road system, allowing those who could afford it to livesurrounded by a semblance of green and still make it to work more or less on time.
    Sydney Greenfield described himself as a contact broker extraordinaire, and survived from the hand-to-mouth trade of bringing buyer and seller together. He had somehow attached himself to Jeffrey and the shop during Jeffrey’s early days. They had actually brought him one sale, albeit for the cheapest article in the shop at the time. Nonetheless, following that maneuver Sydney Greenfield had treated Jeffrey and the shop with a proprietary interest, as though their own success were now inexorably linked with his.
    Sydney Greenfield was a florid man with thin strands of gray-black hair plastered haphazardly across an enormous central bald spot. Even at ten in the morning his cheeks and nose positively glowed from the effects of too many three-hour pub lunches and liquid dinners—an integral part of the finder’s trade. He wore a tailored pin-stripe three-piece suit made from a broadcloth Jeffrey had long since decided came from the inside of a Sainsbury’s chocolate box, it was so shiny. Beneath it bunched a wilted white starched shirt and an over-loud tie. A large belly strained against his waistcoat.
    â€œWith regard to the cabinet,” Sydney Greenfield said.