The Vatican Rip l-5

by Jonathan Gash

  'She hardly eats anything,' I corrected.

  'Only people! In her grand villa!'

  Which told me a lot. For one, Anna obviously didn't trust me. For another, she had some means of knowing where we dined each evening, and about my visit to Adriana's villa.

  Now we'd done the Colosseum I needed a little money and a chance to finish in the workshop. Then it would only be a question of checking the van. But first we had to welcome the great man himself.

  Carlo carne home like a wounded hero, groaning in a taxi, over-acting and being brave but in pain. Sickening. It was all the same to me, but you couldn't help being really peeved at the fuss Anna made over him, snatching everybody else's cushions to make sure he was comfortable. For once she'd bought in a load of provisions and made him a tantalizing mound of unrecognizable food. He managed to force it all down, the greedy pig, while I sweated my guts out over the photographs and sketches. I've never seen anybody look so sorry for himself, the pillock.

  No use asking Anna for a loan after the argument we'd just had, though I wouldn't need much. I'd have to work on Adriana, which was a nuisance because being a bird she'd be as mistrustful as Anna. But there was another problem, just as serious and far more urgent. What did Lovejoy do now hubby was home? So far there hadn't been a single bad vibe—not more than usual, anyway— but it had to be faced.

  'Look,' I began when Carlo mournfully started on his second bottle of wine. (Naturally, I'd been offered none.) 'Do you think Carlo's up to it?' As is the way with invalids present I spoke over Carlo's head to Anna.

  'Of course he is.'

  Carlo straightened up briskly. 'You questioning my ability, Lovejoy? You can't do without me.' Well, I'd been told that by indispensible allies, and they'd been just as wrong as Carlo.

  Nastily I demanded, 'Has he ever done anything before?'

  'Tell him, Carlo.'

  He got up to stride the room, obviously full of beans. Clearly a good recovery. 'I've ripped off every film crew which has ever come to Rome.'

  'Great,' I said drily. That meant pinching a plug or a bulb and selling it back to the cameramen. 'Anything with cars?'

  'I can drive faster—'

  'No,' I told Anna flatly. 'You tell him he's to drive like a fifty-year-old, not Fangio. Get that into his thick skull or it's off.'

  Anna smiled, but I could tell she was annoyed. 'It's not off, Lovejoy. You know it. I know it. Carlo will do anything you say.'

  'He'd better.' I moved towards the door.

  'Hey,' Carlo called, now mirror boxing and admiring himself. 'You've not said what the plan is.'

  'If we get it right, Carlo, you'll never know.'

  'You going back to work, Lovejoy?' from Anna.

  'Yes.' I hesitated to give Anna time to follow me into the gloomy passageway. 'Erm, what's the arrangement for tonight, Anna?'

  'Arrangement?' she was honestly puzzled.

  'Well, now your bloke's back…“

  She pealed laughter and clapped hands. 'You mean… Carlo?

  'Yes,' I said irritably. 'What's the joke?' Women like Anna nark me.

  'He's my brother.' She fell about some more. 'He sleeps on the folding camp bed.“

  'Oh, right.' I felt even more of a nerk and backed out into the alley. 'See you tonight, then.'

  'Ciao,' she called, slamming the door on me. 'Cretino!' I heard her laughter as I walked the uneven alley towards the Castel.

  * * *

  That same day I had luck, which was important. By nightfall I had become practically independent in Adriana's business. A trustee instead of a convict.

  The antiques game's the queerest on earth. Some days—weeks, months, even years—

  you come across nothing worth a second glance. Then they roll in, and everywhere you look there is some genuine wonderment, preening its lovely feathers and shrieking to be bought.

  We hit a purple patch. Adriana had reluctantly agreed to visiting a small antiques bazaar about a mile away. I'd felt vibes almost like never before while passing on a bus.

  The dazzling spiritual glow from beyond Piazza Argentina all but blinded me. I was almost certain I'd glimpsed a monk's chest—neither a chest nor for a monk—being unloaded in a small street. The funny thing was I could have sworn I'd seen its photograph in one of Adriana's catalogues where a great deal of miscellaneous items, arranged as job lots, had been listed. (This in itself is a serious mistake and argues a cataloguer too idle or inexperienced.) I persuaded Adriana to come and see if they had picked up any of these items as well as the monk's chest. It turned out like Christmas.

  It was a small quickie business run by three lads and their birds, You know the kind of place, everything for speed. They had bought indiscriminately, and hadn't even unpacked the smaller stuff. So eager to display their larger pieces, they let me go through and buy four small cardboard boxes of stuff practically without doing much more than unwrap a couple of top items in each. I made out I was in a great hurry, wanting stuff to trade for period reproductions in Turin the very next morning. It was a steal. Of course it cost Adriana more than the same pieces would have done had she attended the auction itself, but that was okay.

  Adriana waited round the corner in Piero's car with him while I did the deal. She'd collected enough money for me to buy outright, and I came haring across the Piazza Argentina practically crowing with delight. I was so chuffed I nearly downed a fat bloke ambling across the road. The youngsters had been hugely pleased—we always say the first profit is the best, and best means fastest—but I'll bet they weren't as pleased as me. I swear I'd felt the clamouring of the eighteenth-century malachite green decorative jewellery inside among all those newspapers, and nobody could help feeling that ringing emanation from the Chien Lung agate-tiled silver box. The only William IV

  lead funereal marker I've ever bought was among them,— and you know what's happened to the price of those. Ten years ago these flat lead pieces were thrown out with the beer bottles. Practically everything was worthwhile, and some pieces—like the little box of early model French soldiers—would pay for the rest.

  She took the receipt while I hugged the stuff to me on the way back to the Emporium.

  Unbelievably, there was a travelling dealer waiting with Fabio. He was a pleasant but tatty little Milanese bloke and had with him a collection of miniature early furniture, probably used for display in some furniture maker's in the 1830s. We call these geezers

  'sweepers' in the trade because they do 'sweeps' through the country trying to gather up anything and everything which could be regarded as antique. They're the blokes who come knocking at your door on dark nights. (Take my tip: always send them packing. No bigger crowd of rogues exists on earth, and I should know. I was one for years.) The BBC and Sotheby's do 'sweeps' too—respectable ones, and at least as honourably, I'm sure.

  I urged Adriana to buy the stuff. When the sweeper had gone we all looked at each other. It was only half past six, and I'd made the Emporium a fortune.

  'We overpaid the sweeper,' Piero said sourly, the miserable sod.

  I wasn't having that. 'We'll make twice the cost on his stuff.'

  'Of course, we still have to sell them,' Fabio said waspishly, another ray of sunshine.

  'And as for buying those little balls—'

  I'd bought two balls of compressed feathers wedged inside a small fraying leather case the size of a shaving stick.

  'We paid the price of two beers,' I said gently. 'We'll sell them for the price of a car.

  They're early golf balls. Rare as hen's teeth. I'll bet you—'

  'You haven't a bean to bet with, Lovejoy,' Fabio countered waspishly, sweeping back to his accounts.

  I felt myself go red but Adriana said quickly, 'You were very astute, Lovejoy. Thank you.'

  'Not at all, signora.' I hadn't meant to sound bitter but it came out different from what I'd intended. The workshop was clearly the place for me, though I was itching to go through the rest of the job lots to see what oth
er brilliant stuff we'd got.

  Time was getting short, though Adriana's rent table was coming along fast. It would soon be finished and good as new. Better still, good as old. One difficulty was not having the sketches of the Vatican Museum's period piece with me, but I'm not that daft. If Piero or Fabio found drawings like that they'd smell a rat. So I worked in the old way, from notches cut in sticks. Every morning at Anna's I tied the sticks to my calf inside my trouser leg. Once I was at the workshop an extra stick or two went unnoticed.

  Another difficulty was assembly. The reproduction rent table I was making for Adriana to put on display had to be ready fairly soon or they'd be wondering what the hell I was doing down here, especially after they'd all commented, each in his pleasant little way, on my working speed. So I did a zillion test assemblies of every drawer and every joint, and never put it all together. The outer surfaces of her table I copied precisely using light plywood but giving them the same kinds of finish. These were the pieces I'd told Piero were my patterns for copying.

  Like hell they were.

  Somehow I made room for the two cafeteria tables, scattering bits of wood about on them to show how useful they were being. The third one I left out in the yard, allegedly ready to be returned.

  A further stroke of luck came about thirty minutes before we closed for the night.

  Signor Gallinari phoned us to say he was ready for swapping—we were doing a trade of chairs to make up complete period dining sets. Piero and Fabio went off in the van grumbling and sulky. I immediately put the metal saw across the tubular steel tips of one of the cafeteria table's legs. I put the four tips in my pocket, wrapped in a hankie so as not to clink, and stepped off to look. Nobody could tell. I was whistling happily and splitting some thin dowelling when Adriana came in.

  'Here, Lovejoy.' She held out an envelope.

  'Thank you, signora.' It was thicker than usual.

  'Open it, please.'

  There was money inside, besides the invitation card. I drew breath. I needed money badly, but not that bad.

  'No, thank you, signora.' I kept the card and held out the notes.

  'Why not?'

  'We've agreed what the rules are, signora.'

  She avoided my eyes. 'It gives you the choice, Lovejoy. Where to dine, what to do in the evenings.'

  I tried to make light of the whole thing. 'With all this gelt I might streak off.'

  'No, Lovejoy.' She sounded listless. 'Not you. You do what you want. You're here for your own reasons.'

  So she'd realized too. 'But signora—'

  'No more, Lovejoy. Please.' All the day's successes were forgotten. 'No more hypocrisy.

  I don't ask why you stay. From now on you won't be forced into anything. I'll see you are paid money each day.'

  Her eyes were wet. I was lost. 'What about Fabio? He'll realize…'

  'I'll find some way. Take it out of the petty cash. He won't know.'

  That seemed odd, almost as if she was apprehensive about Fabio. She was the boss, after all, and Fabio was only a hireling, like me.

  'Am I to be at the restaurant?'

  'Only if you wish.'

  I hesitated while Adriana dabbed at her eyes. Women get me mad because you never know where you are. 'Did Signor Albanese say anything? He had me taken to his office.'

  She looked merely resigned as I told her about it, word for word. 'I made up some cock-and-bull story about having fallen for another bird and wanting to stay here to work it out.'

  'What woman?' she asked immediately.

  I had a hard time convincing her there was no such woman, that she was a figment invented on the spur of the moment. 'The signor thought it hilarious.'

  'I see,' she said, finally convinced. It was more than I did.

  'The only thing is, he seemed to know that, erm, you and I, erm, at your villa…'

  The others came back at that moment, so we got no further.

  When we locked up later Piero was unusually affable while Adriana was still there, and walked with me as far as the corner. I wondered if this was it. There were plenty of people about, but he was such a bloody size.

  'Lovejoy.' He'd made certain the purple Rolls had floated off. 'Time for you to go away, no?' He tried a wintry smile. It wasn't a patch on Arcellano's, but he was quite patient, and that disturbed me because, calm fighters always do. They've seen it all before.

  'Why now, especially?'

  'Before, I didn't mind you too much. You were… incidental.' He meant insignificant, the pillock. 'But now, Adriana begins to take you seriously. You're a good antiques man, the best I've seen.' He shrugged. 'A divvie's special. Okay—so you're good for her business.

  But I won't be displaced by a bum that's planning some crazy rip, and using her for camouflage.'

  I gave a hollow laugh. 'Rip? You're off your head. It's my hobby.'

  'You joke.' He nodded gravely, eyeing me. 'Though everything you do is serious, Lovejoy. Deadly serious. You're a driven man. So I'll make a deal: go tomorrow.'

  'Where to?'

  'Anywhere, Lovejoy. Name the place and you'll receive money, a passport and ticket.'

  'And what's my part of the deal?'

  'I save you from gaol, Lovejoy.' He picked his teeth, wrinkling his eyes against the fading sun. 'I've got your fingerprints, your photograph. Fabio will provide evidence of pilfering. The Rome police are serious about antiques, Lovejoy. Whatever the rip they'll have you. You've got till tomorrow. Ciao.'

  I watched him go, working it out. Now I had to leave, to stay, to do the rip, not to do the rip, chat up Adriana, leave her alone…

  And that evening we dined together in the Gold Season, just the three of us: me and Adriana, and her husband. I felt between the devil and the deep blue sea because I was now sure I was being followed. The fat bloke I'd nearly knocked down in the Piazza Argentina was shown to a corner table five minutes after we arrived. A different digit, but definitely Arcellano's finger.

  That wasn't all. After a couple of hours' nosh and one-sided chat—Signor Albanese was in fine form, with Adriana unresponsive and me demented—we rose and departed, and this time a Jaguar waited for Adriana. Beside it was the purple Rolls, with a familiar figure standing peevishly by, handbag on the swing.

  Adriana resolved all doubts by passing me her keys quite openly. 'Drive, please, Lovejoy.'

  'Erm-'

  Signor Albanese gave me effusive thanks for my company and said he would not rest until we dined so pleasantly once again.

  'Come on Emilio!' Fabio shouted petulantly. 'I've waited hours!'

  'I'm hurrying!' Albanese called.

  I stood while Adriana slid into the Jaguar. Emilio Albanese waved to us once and joined Fabio at the Rolls. I watched it glide away before getting in beside Adriana. I drew breath to say something and then thought better of it. Adriana was looking away.

  Evidently that was the other surprise Anna had promised me, the night I learned about Piero and Adriana. Piero and Adriana because of Signor Albanese and Fabio? And now Lovejoy and Adriana because of…? I gave it up.

  'To the villa, darling,' Adriana said. She sounded a hundred years old.

  CHAPTER 21

  It had been an uptight morning, with Fabio and Piero giving smouldering glances at the clock to warn me I should be gone by nightfall. I trotted home to Anna's eating pizza on the hoof.

  I could tell Carlo was already there from the blaring transistor echoing pop music down the alley. Sure enough he was dancing sinuously before the mirror, admiring himself while Anna was removing her make-up. Ominously, he looked sloshed. Three empty wine bottles projected from the waste basket.

  'Get your knickers on, troops,' I said from the door. 'And turn that bloody thing off.'

  'Miserable man.' Carlo glared sullenly at me while Anna flicked the tranny, and slumped on his camp bed, obviously ready for a hard afternoon's kip.

  I said, 'It starts, lad,' and toed him beneath the canvas. 'Up.'

  'What does?' Carlo
propped up on an elbow.

  I leaned down, smiling. 'The rip, comrade. Now.'

  'This instant?' from Anna, suddenly pale, her lovely face rimmed by those theatrical bulbs.

  'Finish your make-up, Granny,' I said heartlessly. 'Carlo's going to show me the ambulance van.'

  'It's ready,' he was saying, insolently starting to lie down again, when I tipped him out and heeled his knife hand. The knife fell clear. 'He thinks I'm a kid.' he complained, staggering up.

  'Kid, no. Stupid and drunk, yes.' I yanked him into the corridor. 'Anna. You be here at four.'

  The van was in the smallest garage in the world half a mile from St John Lateran. We got the Metro, Carlo paying—obviously in blood—and leering at women. That journey was a record: he only combed his hair a couple of dozen times. Pests don't come more pestilential than Carlo. He was doing his spy theatrical all the way out of the Metro and crossing the road. We got more attention than Garibaldi's entry. I still don't believe it—

  he gave eight significant raps on the garage door, looking cloak-and-dagger as he hissed a secret code word through the gaping slats, even though the door was half off.

  Bloody fool. Wearily I pushed it open and stepped through while Carlo was still at it. He swaggered after me undismayed, narrowly failing to light a cigarette. That was because I took his matches and fags off him and dropped them underfoot. He was standing next to a petrol pump and a drum of waste oil.

  'Patrizio.' Carlo leaned against the garage wall, flicking a coin. The nerk was unbelievable.

  A tubby cheerful bloke in trousers and singlet emerged from the engine of a derelict one-tonner. He was glad to see me and smeared me with oil in an effusive greeting.

  'Patrizio, this is the boss,' Carlo rasped, his eyes hooded. He missed his coin which plopped into an oil puddle.

  'Ah, signori! You like her, eh?'

  'Like who?' I looked about.

  'You want the van tomorrow, no?' Patrizio slammed a hand on the ancient relic—it nearly fell apart—and grinned enthusiastically. 'Big rip, eh?'