Paid and Loving Eyes

CHAPTER TWENTY

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Lovejoy.”

Here he came, Narval the Throttler, plonking himself down opposite, extermination in mind. God, but he had the most electric eyes you ever did see. Killer’s eyes, staring, seeing only their own madness. She stood hands on hips, looking for a surfboard and a beach. Why did she have marks on her arms?

“Kee.” I had a mouthful. “What sort of a name’s that?”

“G.U.Y.” The girl was cool, languid in a warning kind of way. Bored witless. She’d be at least as much trouble as Kee. I spelled the name to myself. Guy. He was Guy, say Kee. “Guy Solon. S.O.L.O.N.”

“Up and come, Lovejoy. Now.”

“Right.” I seized a fragment of grub, and upped and went.

“You’re in trouble,” Guy said conversationally. “Veronique’ll explain.” This made him laugh, a whine interrupted by giggles that never made it. I felt in sore need of allies. Mercy Mallock?

“Trouble,” she said, laughing too. We were so cheery.

“Who from?”

“A high-ranking officer.” Veronique looked at me. I was shocked. Her eyes were a vigorous blue, so bright they seemed illumined from within. Standing beside this pair of clones as Guy unlocked his motor I felt like the coalman. I’m never well turned out at the best of times. After my climbing efforts, no wonder Veronique’s gorgeous radiant orbs scored me as a tramp.

“Someone with standards, eh?” I prompted. They only laughed. Their brittle merriment was getting me down. I hoped it wouldn’t last. I longed for Lilian’s seductibility, even Gerald’s anxious friendliness. (No, cancel that. No hunters, please.)

We took off in a Grand Prix start. Whiplash Willie hit the road like he had seconds to live. Veronique yabbered into some phone while I tried to find the seat belt, seemingly a triumphant account of their recapture of some wayward nerk. I tore my eyes off her. She sat in the rear seat. I was lodged perilously beside Guy. No wonder he was on a permanent high, with a bird like her. But how to keep such a creature? You’d have to be the world’s greatest powerhouse of excitement, handsome, constant dynamite, rich. I glanced at Guy and sighed. He seemed all of those things. We ripped through France, two deities and a scruff.

And made Troude, and the place we were going to collect the antique silver from. Sometimes, absolutely nothing is true. Ever noticed? This was one of those times.

It was a garden party. I was astonished, then embarrassed, then mortified. Talk about wealth.

“Welcome, Lovejoy!” Troude greeted me with such calm pleasure I could have sworn it was nearly genuine. He advanced across the grass beckoning waitresses and acolytes. “So glad you could make it!” He did his merry twinkle. “Your wanderlust is cancelled, Lovejoy. Henceforth, adhere to the schedule.”

“Henceforth I shall, thither,” I promised. He said schedule the English way, sh, not the American sk.

The enormous mansion wore lawns like skirts extending in all directions. Groves, garden statues, pools, small summerhouses, it looked a playground. Primary colours everywhere. The house itself was regal, symmetrical, balustrades, wide stone steps up to a magnificent walk. I’d thought Versailles was somewhere else. Or maybe France has a lot of them knocking about.

The guests were even more ornate. They looked as if they’d brought summer with them. No rain on their parade, thank you. Cocktail dresses the norm. From there, every lady zoomed upward in extravagance, Royal Ascot without the horses. I looked at a statue of a discus-thrower. I could have sworn he was breathing, put it down to imagination. I was nervous in case I was going to cop it for going missing.

“Now, Lovejoy! None of your famous bashfulness!” he chirruped. A glass appeared in my hand, cold as charity, moisture on the bowl. Ancient Bohemian glass, too. Beyond belief. (Watch out for modern Bohemian fakes—they are our current epidemic. The best are vases, costing half a year’s average wage if genuine, the price of a railway snack if fake. Sixteen inches tall, ornate damson-coloured vases engraved with forests and deer, they’re basically a tall lidded cylinder on a stem, such a deep colour it’ll look almost black. Sinners buy these fake Bohemians, then sell them at country auctions as genuine.)

“Come and meet some of our visitors!” Troude was saying. “You’ve already met Veronique and Guy, I see!” He chuckled, introduced me to a charming couple from Madagascar who had a yacht. “Lovejoy hates sailing,” Troude told them. “Though his next movie’s about a shipping disaster.” He glanced at me in warning. “That wasn’t confidential information, Lovejoy, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t.” It also wasn’t information.

“Lovejoy’s company has four wholly-owneds in LA,” Troude said, smiling. “He changes their names on a weekly basis!”

The couple from Madagascar laughed. Troude laughed. God, but I wished we’d jack it in and stop laughing. Even Monique, among a crowd of admirers, was laughing. I looked again. That discus-thrower really had actually breathed. Laughing too? Here came Paulie and Almira. How close were they, really?

“Lovejoy.”

“Wotcher.” God, I hated Paulie’s name, the swine. I couldn’t help scanning the garden party for Katta. Difficult to hide anybody that fat. “Almira.”

“Hello, darling,” from Almira, on edge but laughingly. “Sorry I had to dash. But you got here!” She was exquisite in a stunning flared dress of magnolia, usual among this slender clique. And she was getting away with high heels, when the other women had gone for less rakish footwear. I’d have been proud of her, if I hadn’t noticed her husband Jervis Galloway, MP, deep in conversation among a gathering of colourfuls. Nobody introduced me. It was Diana’s paramour Jay, all right. When I drifted his way I got deflected. The statue breathed again.

“Come, Lovejoy!” Troude was affability itself, steering me round, introducing me, saying I was here to finance movie deals with Italian money. I kept my wits about me, saying the deal was for five movies and all that. I clammed up when people asked who’d star in them, said that was still being negotiated.

“He’s cagey!” Troude laughed. The people laughed. Even I laughed. And now a statue of The Three Graces, naked women embracing, breathed. And a zephyr gently moved their hair.

“The movie industry’s crazy,” I laughed, to laughter.

Talk, chatter in the golden sun, Veronique and Guy being delightedly admired strolling in their magnificent world, everybody loving or lusting after Monique—more sedately dressed than the others, dark green with silver jewellery. And Marimee there, looking not quite at attention. An orchestra played soft airs in a wrought-iron pagoda. Lully? Something that way on. Everything was superficial, no digging deep for motive or disgorging woes. It was so beautiful it troubled me. . I sought out my Madagascar couple. They looked ready for the Olympics. Everybody was gold and gorgeous. I felt sick. They wanted to talk about yachting, sails and motor engines, races I’d never heard of. He was a friend of the Algerian couple, the man explained, brought into this syndicate by the Mexican couple. I wondered, was it one per nation? If no, I was superfluous, seeing Almira’d fetched hubby J for Jervis. They liked the idea, they told me, surreptitiously lowering their voices. I said I did, too. They asked me how long it would take. I asked from what to what. From start to finish, they asked. I liked their intensity—first time anybody had stopped laughing—but said it depended on how soon we got started.

“Can I take him away?” Troude begged, just as I’d noticed that the shadows cast by the sun hadn’t moved, though the trees in the distance had glided quite a foot or two along the background of the orchestra’s summerhouse. How come?

“See you later,” I smiled, going with him. I looked at the grass. It was non-grass. Pretty good fake, but definitely bud.

We headed for the house. Was this whole dump some sort of film studio? A set? I looked forward to getting inside to see if it was real or just a giant doll’s house that turned continually to face the sun just like its garden. A mansion house that stays put while its gardens swivels is in deep trouble.

The house felt real, lovely and genuine. I keep saying how a house responds when you step in through the door. It susses you out and thinks, who’s this newcomer? If it likes you, it welcomes you. If not, then you’ll never be happy there. It’s a person, is a house. Be polite to it. I silently commiserated with it for losing its real garden, in exchange for a look-alike turntable phoney lawn plonked on top. Maybe their antique silver was here.

Marimee was there before us. “Lovejoy did well with the cover story,” he said. “Lovejoy will receive sanction for the default.”

Default? Sanction? He meant mistaking my—no, his—assistants. I nodded, received a grateful glance from Troude. Monique came with Guy and Veronique. We reached a conservatory facing a walled yard with roses and trellised arches.

“Nice.” I broke the ice. “If only it’d stay still.”

Troude smiled. No laughs now, tension in the air. Maybe they too were to be sanctioned for letting me escape?

“Why did you return, Lovejoy?”

“Ah.” Why? I’d got clean away, then come back to find my pursuers. I should have thought this one out, quick. “I’d no passport. I owed it to the memory…” I caught myself, cleared my throat. Start again. ”I promised somebody I’d help.”

Marimee nodded, one curt sharp depression of the chin to signify approval. For him that was a flag day.

“It is safe to speak here,” he said. He stood facing, legs apart, back to the window. “Here we plan the robbery. Here we decide the fate of the valuables. Here we allocate duties.”

“Here we will say what you’re up to?” I put in. Troude did an appealing look, the sort he was now starting to nark me with.

“Silence!” Monique said. It cracked like a whip, shutting me up. What fascinated me was it also clammed Marimee.

She walked to face us. I noticed Marimee made way for her, and it wasn’t politeness. She boss, him corporal.

“The brigandage is already decided,” she said. Bland’s the nearest I can come to, for her attitude. Nobody could possibly dispute the number of the Number 7 bus, her tone informed us. “The projet is fixed. There will be two rehearsals only.”

“Here?” I asked again, thinking of those statues and the rotating gardens. “Only, isn’t it a simple export job?”

“That silver story was a lie to get you here, Lovejoy.”

Cool. It had worked. I was undeniably here.

“You have objections?” Like asking if I had a coat somewhere.

“Yes. Ignorance, mainly. What do we nick, and where from?” Note that I didn’t ask why. “And who’s in the way?”

“Details,” Monique said, with a smile like an ice floe. “Others see to details, Lovejoy.”

And she walked off. Veronique stepped aside, proving to be in the way, taut, her hatred glinting like distant spears. Not all friends, then, amid this much laughter.

Leaving us. “There will be three stages,” Marimee clipped out. “Stage Three the robbery. Stage Two rehearsal. That is all.”

“Eh?” I was blank. “Two from three leaves one. You missed out Stage One.”

Marimee’s moustache lifted in what might have been incipient mirth. “That is you, Lovejoy. You buy.”

“Buy what?”

“Antiques.” He made me sound thick.

The others were looking. Troude was trying to elbow me gently from the conservatory.

“What with? From where? What sort?” I got mad, yelled, “I’ve no frigging money!”

Marimee paused, eyed me with utter disgust. “Imbecilic peasant,” he said scathingly, and strutted grandly on his way.

“Come, Lovejoy,” Troude said gently. “Let’s go.”

“Where to, for Christ’s sake?” I was so dispirited. I wanted to go home.

He patted my shoulder. “You’re the antiques divvy, Lovejoy. Wherever you say, but mostly Paris. Guy, Veronique.”

On the way out I saw Katta, demurely waiting on in black waitress garb beneath an awning. I looked her way, waved once. She smiled. I swallowed, thinking of her luscious wet mouth in action, managed to smile back. Paulie and Almira were talking near the orchestra. Pity Cissie wasn’t here too, I thought without a single pang. This was the sort of do she always enjoyed, as long as she had somebody to ballock for doing the wrong thing In Company, a terrible crime in her book. Maybe she was here? In spirit, some people might say. Not me.

Jervis looked away when I passed quite near him. As we left the eating-drinking-laughing cheeriness, I glanced back to see if Katta was just watching Paul or actually doing something. And saw the house from a new angle. It stayed in my mind. I’ve a good memory for pictures. I’d seen it before, or some place very like it. And it wasn’t any country mansion, not then. It was heap big business, the sort a low-grader like me would never even get within a mile of. In some advert? Yes, sort of definitely.

Until then, I’d not known what to believe. I mean, soon I’ve got to tell you about international antiques robbers, and I will. But so far I’d been thinking along the lines of, well, those dozens of St Augustine’s sermons, AD 400 or thereabouts, discovered in the Mainz public library. Priceless, easy to nick, pass them off at any customs border post as boring old committee minutes, and make a mint. Especially apt, since that French historian uncovered them on that dusty German shelving in 1991. Something like that. Now, though? Now I knew it was no bundle of ancient “crackle”, as parchments are known in the trade.

“Shall I drive, Guy?” I said. “Race you to the scam, eh?”

“Merde!” he said rudely. “I cross the border in one hour! You’d take a week!”

“Only joking.” Which meant Switzerland, of course. I’d been too dim to work it out. We were going to do the Freeport International Repository.

Inside I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Some jokes are too good to ignore.