The Gondola Scam (28 page)

Cesare had sobered by the time we
hauled into port. He of the bloodshot eye and bleary gaze no longer believed
the tale of my invented lottery. During our dash southwards he'd sussed that I
was still laboring in some criminal vineyard. That put him in a foul mood. I
was really pleased about that. It meant Cosima was being as distant with him as
she'd been with me. Served him right, surly sod. Cosima had judged him to a
nicety, even if it was odd how little she trusted me. He hovered us off the
wharf while I gazed at the lovely vessel and schemed.

"Park down the canal, okay? Be in
that cafe."

"Moor," he groused.
"Cars park. Boats moor. Any more orders, Lovejoy?"

"It's all in Cosima's
interests," I explained sharply.

"It had better be, Lovejoy. What
are
you up to?"

"Look, mate. If you won't help
..." I stamped ashore and marched along the narrow
fondamenta
. Why the hell people aren't more trusting I'll never
know. Just because I'd nicked his girl, ruined his happiness, tricked him about
a lottery, wasted his day, and conned him into assisting my criminal enterprise
was no reason to get narked. I ask you Where's trust gone?

Here in Chioggia the
Eveline
assumed a wholly
disproportionate grandeur, a cathedral visiting a shantytown.

Stooping with reverence I walked its
ridged gangway and knocked politely. Ship doors always looked misshapen to me
but I suppose shipbuilders know what they're doing.

The cabin was hangar-sized after
Cesare's titchy boat. I'd never seen such floating opulence. Modem gauge, apart
from an expensive small Malayan dancer carved riskily from stained meroh wood,
but all of it costly and therefore full of messages to the world's poor. Malaysian
meroh wood's usually reserved for the planks from which those Red Sea dhows are
still built, so it took a particularly skilled ancient carver to tackle that
length of grain.

"Tonio! Darling!" Feet
clattered and Caterina practically tumbled into the cabin. She'd been washing
her hair and was wet and turbaned. And astonished, and then furious. Her female
mind instantly blamed me, because she was the one who'd misunderstood.

"Well, not quite darling. Only
me." Even messy she was beautiful.

She hated me, as usual. "What are
you
doing here?"

I had to make something up, now I
suddenly knew everything. "Erm, is Colonel Norman with you, please?"

Her lip didn't quite curl. "He
stayed home, like the little piggy in the nursery rhyme." She toweled her
hair, thus casually stating that appearances didn't matter for the likes of
Lovejoy.

"And Mr. Pinder?"

"Granddad's too old to come out
much anymore. I want to know why you're here, Lovejoy."

"I came with a message for anybody
who . . . represents Mr. Pinder's interests."

That spun her, stopped the toweling. It
put naked alarm into her eyes.

The fear was clearly for Tonio.

I thought. Well, see if I care, and
said, "I've been working for Mr. Pinder's scam, night shift. I called
round at. . . Signora Norman's palazzo." To hide my near mistake—I'd
nearly said Lavinia—I crossed the cabin and peered at the wharf. "You see,
Caterina, I think your granddad's being fobbed off with inferior stuff.
Deliberately. I told your mother that."

"What did she say?" Still
frightened. The picture was becoming clearer. Hardhearted vicious nympho
Lavinia was looking purer by the minute.

"She didn't believe me. Slung me
out."

She smiled then without fear, resumed
toweling her head. "So you came to tell me."

"Naturally," I lied, now just
wanting to get the hell out. "I can give you proof."

"You would." She stood before
a mirror fluffing her wet rat-tail hair off her nape. "Has it ever
occurred to you, Lovejoy, that you're an arrogant pig? You always right,
everybody else always wrong?"

"Be at the island about
midnight," I said through a throat suddenly gone thick. First time I'd
told any enemy I knew where it was. "It'll be empty then. Tonight's our
night off. I can show you what I mean about the antiques."

"Why me?"

"Nobody else I can trust, is
there? But come alone." Dangerous to look into her mirrored eyes, in case
she spotted that I'd guessed her sudden new plan, so I moved towards the cabin
steps. "It wouldn't be any use telephoning Mr. Pinder. He wouldn't believe
me. And I've not enough money to stay here any longer. Your mum's lot hasn't
paid me yet." I spoke the last bit with honest bitterness, which pitched
everything safely at a proper level.

"I might come." Her mind was
going like a racing pigeon. Tonio had a real ally.

"Want me to call here for
you?"

"No," she said quickly.
"Somebody can boat me over—if I do come."

"Right. I'll have everything
ready. You'll see." I made the steps to the outside world.

After a quick check to confirm that
Cesare's boat was really and honestly moored outside the canal cafe where I'd said
I'd meet him, I trotted off in the opposite direction. Now back to the opposite
direction. Now back to Venice, leaving him stranded and completely out of the
picture. About time Cesare'd done something right for once.

Gerry and Keith were in a fine old sulk
when I got to their place. They'd rented a garret straight out of
La Boheme
, not quite as tidy. It was
only then, seeing them arguing, that the penny dropped, and Cosima's faint
blush whenever they came up in conversation tipped off my stupid mind. I looked
at the two fuming Aussies, thinking. Well, well. The row was something about
painting.

“It was a perfectly
innocent
remark, Gerry." Keith
pushed me to a chair while Gerry broke out the wine. Neither said hello. I said
wotcher, and sat there feeling an interloper.

"No remark's innocent! Is it,
Lovejoy?" Gerry demanded, white as a sheet and glaring at his mate.

"Erm," I quavered. I was in
crossfires of my own.

"That's right! Side with
him
." Gerry fetched a glass,
pointedly leaving Keith's on the tatty sideboard.

"I wasn't," I said quickly.
"Honest."

Keith's turn to go all frosty.
"Oh? So
I'm
in the wrong! Is
that it?"

I began to get a headache.
"Honestly. I don't even know what it's all about—"

Gerry went all dramatic. "
He
said I should paint engines instead
of butterflies. Would you stand for
that
poisonous remark, Lovejoy?"

"I said nothing of the
kind
, dear—"

"You
did!
I distinctly
heard
you."

Christ. People say they're worse than
women, don't they? "Keith can't have meant it like that, Gerry," I
said in an inspired moment.

"Then how
did
he mean it?"

"Erm, probably, erm, that your
talent should, well, conquer new fields."

"Lovejoy’s right, Gerry. You
know
you're better than you think."

Gerry was mollified. "Am I?"

"'Course you are," Keith
said. "Plain as silly old day."

"Really? Honestly?"

Keith rushed the bottle over to us, and
it was the end of World War III, thank God. We drank to Gerry's new career as
engine artist and chatted amiably about the merits of oils and egg-tempera.
Gerry was impressed, once we got talking, because I knew how to transfer Old
Master oil paintings to new canvases. We all finished up slightly merry, which
suited me because I was keeping a frantic eye on the wine and the time and
working out how to get round to the all-important question of doom.

"I'm so glad we met up
again," I confessed eventually. "Cosima's glad, too."

They were pleased. "She is?"
Keith popped another bottle. "Nice little thing. Wrong clothes, of course,
and scandalously thin feet for wearing cage heels. Be sure to tell her that
having no dress sense isn't her fault."

"I like her, too," Gerry
added. "You've made an absolutely marvelloso choice, Lovejoy. Remember you
don't actually have to look at her dreadful blouses. Somebody said she cooks,
though women can't. Can she do kibbeh?"

“Think so,” I guessed hopefully.
Sounded like swimming.

"We must try them." Gerry
gave a beatific smile. I'd have to warn Cosima to be on her best culinary form
that night. Nobody gets criticized like the cook at the best of times.

"It's a date," I said.
"Not too soon, though. I've an engine problem." So much for tact.

"Engine?" Keith unglazed.
"What engine?"

"Somebody I know wants to, erm,
borrow a powerful boat." I scraped together a little circumspection.
"Any idea where I, er, he could get one?"

"Of
course!
" Gerry nudged Keith into a reply.

"How fast does it have to go,
Lovejoy?"

"Not speed. Strength. Like those
stone lifters."

"A working dredger?" Keith
really lit up. His subject.

"Something like that, I
suppose."

"Funny. I've just been giving two
of those a good going-over," Keith said.

"Astonishing coincidence," I
agreed gravely.

Gerry refilled Keith's glass, giggling.
"Know what I think? I think naughty old Lovejoy didn't come just to see
us. He was only after our dredgers."

Keith was looking wary, mistrustful
swine. "Hire, Lovejoy? Borrow? Or . . . ?"

I cleared my throat and peered into my
empty glass, but Gerry stood there holding the bottle. Both were watching me,
exchanging glances. No good mucking about.

"This friend of mine was wondering
where he could, well, get onto one that's, well, moored. Just interest. No, er,
need for anybody to spot him. Like the two near the Sacca Serenella, in
Murano."

"See what I mean, Keith?"
Gerry relented with the plonk. "Watch him."

Keith nodded, still suspicious.
"They're blocking the wall near the Canal of the Angels. Istrian
limestone."

"Look, Keith. How strong are they?
Pulling."

"Depends what you—your friend I
mean—wants to pull. Suppose this glass here is a pile of Istrian pine, like
they use ..."

He was off, frowning with
concentration, moving crockery and matches about the coffee table and muttering
lunatic technology. I settled back with relief. These amateur enthusiasts are
great. No, really. I mean it. Daft as brushes, every single one, and boring as
algebra, but great. All I wanted to know was if there was a night watchman and
how to work the damned thing.

"Paying attention, Lovejoy,
dear?"

I looked up into Gerry's sardonic gaze.
"Of course," I said, at my most innocent. "I'm really quite
interested m i| engines."

"Don't you mean your
friend
is?"

"Erm, sure. My friend."

Gerry tapped Keith's wrist. "If
you lend Lovejoy one of those filthy machines, dear, make him promise to put it
back, won't you?" He smiled roguishly. "We don't want the police
calling here spoiling our breakfast." Keith fell about at that. Some private
joke.

Yet it is an important point. Keith
must be well known as the keen amateur who had been dissecting the bloody
dredgers, and police jump to nasty conclusions.

Keith abandoned his gear ratios.
"Would tomorrow do, Lovejoy? Your, ah, friend could come over with me. The
foreman's a sweet bloke."

"My friend hasn't much time,"
I said. "It'd have to be tonight."

Keith ended the long pause by saying,
"You—he— can't see much of the engine in the dark, Lovejoy."

"He'll manage."

'There's an
acqua alta
."

Suddenly apprehensive, Gerry sat beside
Keith. "The sirens will go soon, during the night. The radio said."

"Dredgers don't work on, in a high
water?" Keith was asking a question.

"But one could, right? And
nobody'd see."

Gerry suddenly said, "Don't ask Keith
to go with you, Lovejoy."

"Go where?" I demanded
indignantly. "Look, Gerry. Have I said anything about Keith going
anywhere? Well? Have I?"

Gerry had a hand on Keith's arm. He'd
gone white. "Send Lovejoy away, hen. For his own sake. He's a bad
dig."

I said disgustedly, "Keith. Just
tell me how to move one of the damned things, and I'll do the best I can."

Keith tried. "Don't get upset,
Lovejoy. Gerry only meant—"

Hamming away, I kept it up, all brave
and quiet and hurt. "Honestly, there's just no trust anywhere nowadays. I
didn't come here to drag you into my troubles. Tell me quick. Is there a guard,
and how do I switch the bloody thing on?"

Over Gerry's protestations Keith began
to explain, gradually submerging in his subject. Gerry glared all sorts of
despair at me, but I ignored the silly nerk. I wish I'd been cerebrating,
because things might have turned out different, but all I could think was, if
Keith won't nick a dredger and bring it to the island dead on time then I'd
have to do it myself. None of it was my fault. God alone knows why people keep
blaming me.