Moonspender (23 page)

"Tinker," I said joyously. "Today we do our friends
a favor." And our enemies, though I didn't say so.

He nearly swallowed his fag. "You off yer bleedin' head,
Lovejoy?" Sometimes I wonder about Tinker's cigarettes, those he rolls.
They start off as twiggy scraps. So how do they finish up ash a foot long?
Spontaneous generation or something.

"It's unlike us. Tinker, I agree. But it's in the script,
see?" I was walking round, upending tables, sliding drawers to see the
wear, touching brooches,
everting
hems of so-say
William IV frock coats and Victorian dresses. Among other tricks, always feel
in pockets. It's astonishing

how often vendors overlook documents, coins, rings even, jewels,
love tokens, keepsakes. I once found a child's amber pendant in a lady's
reticule, down
Maldon
way. It wasn't mentioned in the
catalog, so I offed it and Lived on the proceeds for a fortnight. Sold it to a
local museum.

Nothing free today, though, and the whizzers—auctioneers'
assistants who haunt these gatherings like woodworm—seemed especially vigilant,
so I got us a cup of tea. We watched the auction blunder on and chatted. An old
Victorian harmonium looked likely, so I told Tinker to try a bid. Like I keep
saying, buy old and wise.

"Bid? Where'll I get the money, Lovejoy?"

Irritably I gave him the bent eye. "Shut up about bloody
gelt. I'm fetching it from the bank or something, our usual tale. You've done
it often enough, for God's sake." Some days folk lose all sense. I let my
eyes roam, checking distances, as if I didn't want any skulking barkers
overhearing the next bit. "And let go that I've landed a local bronze,
genuine Roman."

He gaped. "You clever bleeder, Lovejoy. Where'd you get
it?"

"We haven't really got one. Tinker." I thought, give me
strength. "We're pretending, see?"

He cackled, nodding. "What's it like?" Give the old
devil his due; once he's grasped an idea, however abstract, he's hundred
percent.

"It's a leopard. Six inches long. Foliage-pattern base."

"Lovely," he said, admiring it. "Any inlay?"

Good point. "Yes. Silver. Don't be more specific than
that." I'd try for vine leaves.

"Do we take layers on it?"

Difficult, this. "Let me think a mo."

While Tinker rolled another fag to cough himself senseless I
worked out pros and cons. In antiques there's a thing known as a
"layer," a provisional deposit. It can be real cash, an IOU, or a
simple promise. If I said yes to Tinker, he'd start taking layers for our
mythical Roman bronze from dealers, a dozen if he liked, until I told him to
stop. And all this with no price as yet fixed for the prized object. Sooner or
later, though, I'd have to produce the valuable piece, and negotiate with those
who'd dropped layers on it. It's first come first served. Unscrupulous dealers
make a living out of these penciled deposits. Seeing that rogues outnumber us
honest souls by infinity to one, the layer system is fraught with hazards.
Whole wars break out when a dealer layers on a desirable antique, then finds
that some rival has gone and "bought under"—that is, actually honored
his deposit and paid in full, the scoundrel.

"Better not," I said reluctantly.

Tinker's face fell. "Shame. Oh. I fetched Fixer Pete."

"Eh?" My memory couldn't blip so I asked what I'd wanted
Fixer for.

"Dunno. Happen that new tart of Big Frank's?"

"Hell. Where is he?" The wedding. I'd forgotten.

"The Ship. Any message?" Tinker's face was wistful at
the thought of Fixer getting sloshed unaided.

"Aye. Tell him to fix cars, photographers, nosh, cards, and
that for a Saturday wedding. And a vicar who doesn't count divorces." I
slipped him a note as he stared. "Not for me, you silly old sod."

"How many for, Lovejoy?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Frocks as well? And what's to go on the invitations?"

I gave him one of my most malevolent gazes and pointed a finger.
He went, coughing and chuckling. I felt really worn out. I mean, here was I
with an antiques auction going on before my very own eyes and people were
always wanting me to wave a magic wand over the entire frigging universe.
Weddings. I ask you.

Momentarily free of the world's cares I went to Joe Quilp, more to
calm him down than in response to his frantic signaling. Joe claims to be
George I to IV furniture and continental porcelain. His trouble is that he
possesses—I use the term loosely—Varlene. Mrs. Quilp is of stupendous beauty,
and sails through life with a cool disregard for bank balances and marriage
vows. She drives Joe to distraction. Varlene was just arriving outside in a
grand hired Daimler.

"Yes, Joe?"

"Just look at her, Lovejoy." His lips go purple when he
sees Varlene sowing debt for yet another thirty-day harvest of manila
envelopes. "That motor 
costs
"

"I'm not into marital counseling, Joe."

"Sorry," he whispered as Varlene swept in. "That
wheel thing. Scientific, is it?"

The door clanked its ancient bell. Even that sounded randy as
Varlene adjusted her mink and strolled with voluptuous languor among us,
silencing the auction. She flounced closer, all of her on the go and only old
Mr. Spurrier not noticeably lusting force ten. I wonder if opposites attract in
people, like magnets. I mean, here was Joe, a drably thin scarecrow. And here's
Varlene, linked to him till death do them part, a luscious pneumatic
spender-bender.

"Lovejoy darling!" she shrieked, embracing me in copious
mounds of undulant fur-covered flesh. Freud would have loved her, a mine of
symbolism. I sneezed the fur from my nostrils. "And helping my darling
Joesy-Woesy
!"

Joe goes all soppy when she's in range. This is what I mean by
women sending you mental. He blinked adoringly. "Hello, Varlene."

"Be a pet,
Joesy
," she gushed.
"Pay the car. I'm 
exhausted
."

With blown kisses she swept through to the auctioneer's office.
Joe bleated, "Er, don't buy anything, dearest, until I . . ." Gone.

"That wheel, Joe," I said in an undertone. "It'll
go for a song. Buy it." It resembled a slender cartwheel, with two brass rods
joining its short axle. A rocking-horse handle and a dial at the join completed
it. "It's a Victorian pedometer, a distance gauge. Cartographers and the
military used them. You push the thing Like a wheelbarrow. That
mechanism'll
be marked in miles."

"It's a clock," he said obstinately.

"It's not got twelve numerals, only ten.
Ramsden's
manufacture, at a guess." I couldn't stalk across to have a closer look or
others would leap to conclusions.

"Ta, Lovejoy." He sounded miserable as sin. "But I
can't now. I'll have to pay that bloody car off."

"I'll postpone it for you, Joe. Good luck. Oh." I
paused, clumsy theater. "Keep it quiet, Joe, but I'll have a Roman bronze
in the next auction. Nod as good as a wink, eh?"

He said a pathetically optimistic so-long as I went and got into
the great Daimler.

"Dogpits Farm, please," I told the chauffeur, adding,
"Mrs. Quilp will just have to catch up. This is the second board meeting
she's made me late for."

"Very good, sir," he said. Now if he'd been an ordinary
taxi he'd have told me to get stuffed because taxis are mostly straight. It's
the self-drive firms that are always corrupt. I Like people who're deep in
deception. I sat back, pleased. My loyal old Ruby might as well corrode on East
Hill as anywhere else. I wished Sir John could see me now.

Meanwhile, Joe Quilp trying to form a secret syndicate for a
valuable

Roman bronze was a real laugh. As secret as a three-column spread
in 
The Times.

The Daimler reached the restaurant forecourt. I signed the
chauffeur's paper with a forger's flourish, and stood awestruck at the
spectacle. Sandy came trotting.

"Lovejoy!" he squealed. "I'll 
not
 have
it!"

"Lovejoy?" The foreman also came, smoking an urn of
black shag. I moved upwind. "I'm Gorham, Ryan's builder. Get this poofter
off my neck. I've wagons of brickwork hauling in from six o'clock tonight. And
I won't have bleedin' pansies chucking tantrums."

The restaurant was gutted. Even some of the windows were gone.
Doors were
slabbed
up against trees. Plasterwork,
bricks, rubble, those absurdly pretentious aluminum struts, all lay in heaps.
It looked bombed. Inside, hammers sounded. Concrete mixers battled with
trannies. Workmen sang, called, bawled. Planks were everywhere; why? They never
use the damned things, only have to burn them when they leave. For the first
time in my life I felt nearly sorry for a modem building. It had lasted a day.
Served it right for being new, mind you.

"Lovejoy!" Sandy was near to another collapse.
"Your barbarian lout is threatening me!"

"Lovejoy." The foreman builder had a voice that suited.
It carried like a color sergeant's. "This queer's in my way. My orders are
to exterior this place in ornamental brickwork. Forthwith."

I wondered if exterior was a verb. "Look, lads—"

Sandy shrieked, pointing to a van, all windows. Two men sat at
drawing boards. One was on the forecourt with a theodolite. A girl was making
rapid sketches of the restaurant facing. "See, Lovejoy! He's already
started!"

"Lovejoy!" A bark from Gorham. "I'm warning you. My
men've
orders to reface whoever gets in the
way." He strode ahead of his smokescreen to the van.

Sandy started to sway. "I just can't go on. It's . . . over,
Lovejoy." He staggered, stretched out an arm. His voice became a whisper.
"Today is the end of civilization. Is this how life ends. . . ?" Et
tiresome cetera. It's actually from a silent film, Lillian Gish or somebody.
Sandy runs them on an old
moviola
in his barn,
mouthing their words. I wonder why he didn't take up melodrama as a
career—though maybe he has. I had to nip this in the bud because this
particular speech lasts an hour and ends with a near-fatal coma.

Lies to the rescue. "Doesn't Mr. Gorham conceal his real
feelings well!" I heard myself exclaim. "You'd never think he was so
keen."

"Keen?"

I got up steam. Lies do a lot for eloquence. "Gorham asked if
it really was you two who designed the minstrel gallery at the Tolbooth before
he agreed to do this job."

Sandy's fury evaporated in the warmth of self-esteem. "He
did?"

"
Mmmmh
. You know how it is, Sandy.
A leader of workmen. He won't allow himself to be seen as sensitive, with high
aesthetic values . . ."

"He 
liked
 my gallery? 
Really
,
Lovejoy?"

"Would I lie? He raved. Out of this world."

"Of course," Sandy said sweetly, "it was
mostly 
me
. I mean goodness to gumdrops Mel was hardly 
there
 while
I sweated absolute 
serum
 everybody said
Michelangelo'd
have absolutely 
rejoiced
 —"

"Aye, well," I interrupted. "Mr. Gorham is a real
fan of your work." I became furtive. "Not a word, though."

"Naturally!" Sandy squealed, "
I'm exactly the
same!
 I mean I'm soft as putty under all this real butch showiness.
... So it's all a front?"

"He has an artist's soul, Sandy," I said, profound.

Sandy was in tears of self-compassion. "So much to do. So
little time." He tittered suddenly, did his eyes in his handbag mirror.
"I'll just pop over and tell Mel."

Relieved, I crossed to the van. I was sweat through. Gorham smoked
in a glower. "Have you got that bloody pansy into line, Lovejoy? Or is it
a dustup between his decorators and my
brickies
?
Because—"

Honesty seemed called for. "I've talked him round. Told him
you admired his minstrel gallery."

"That fucking monstrosity at the Tolbooth?" He spat on
the gravel. "So he's the pillock, is he?"

"Gorham," I said wearily. "Pretend, eh, mate? It
costs nowt."

Mrs. York was inside, in a pink costume with raised 1948 shoulders
and high heels. She looked lovely. Pearls for pink,
fashioneers
say. She had baroque pearl earrings, my favorite if they're done right. She
seemed extraordinarily glad to see me, little girl at a party.

"You heard about the
gothicky
brickwork?" I asked.

"Amazing, Lovejoy! It's absolutely thrilling!" Her
lovely eyes were

shining as she drew me by the hand, showing me how the flooring
would be replaced tiered, where floodlights would dangle and sprout.

"Great," I said. "I'm not big on technology,
love."

"But you are on finance?" Major Bentham came beside us,
spoiling my day. He was in his benign phase again. Really odd. I'd met him four
times: one attempted horsewhipping, one prayerful talk, one attempted rundown
in a Land Rover, and today's casual chitchat. What motivated the bloke?