The Vatican Rip

CHAPTER 15

The next three days I worked like a dog, had a terrible row with Fabio and a worse one with Anna, and nearly killed the bloke who was following me. At least, I think I nearly killed him. I may have done worse, but I'm not going back to find out.

I explained the barest essentials.

'Just a single table?' she had asked incredulously.

I'd told her yes, then lied like a trooper. 'I go for systems, not singles.'

'Explain, Lovejoy,' she demanded.

A gleam in Anna's eye told me she'd developed that basic mistrust so natural to all womankind. I tried to speak with a sneer. 'Tell me this.' I strode about the room belligerently, Marlborough on campaign. 'What is the perfect rip, eh? Ever thought?'

'Where you get clean away.' She was fascinated, but doubtful.

I was emphatic. 'No, love. The perfect rip's the undetected rip. And why?' I paused to poke a finger towards her. She was all gleaming from the shower and sat mesmerized by my act. 'Because you can do it again. And again. And —'

'— And again!' she breathed.

'Right! You have a system. See?'

'System, not singles!' She was radiant. 'Lovejoy,' she murmured, 'that's beautiful.'

We shook on it. I saw from her manner that she had taken a deep decision.

'Now we're partners, Lovejoy, she said, primly sitting opposite me, 'who's the man following you?'

'Eh?'

'He's outside now. To and from the Emporium. He watches from the pizzerìa rustica opposite Albanese's.'

'Oh, I'll look into it,' I said airily. 'I know of him. Spotted him within the hour.'

I hadn't and was badly shook up, but I didn't dare let Anna think her new partner was a complete imbecile. She gave me a look, said nothing.

That was our deal. Me to run the rip, Anna to suss plans and teach me all she knew about the Vatican, the tourist trade, the guides and couriers and hawkers which abounded in its vicinity.

At the Emporium Adriana and I did the tray dodge a couple of times. Rested and fed as I was—and blissfully back in my natural element at last—I was in top form. Not only that, but on the way there I'd spotted a genuine Jacobean hanging bread-hutch in the side window of a small antique shop called Gallinari's, did a promising deal for a song and raced the last few hundred yards to catch Fabio just reopening. Twenty minutes later I had it safe in Adriana's.

I crowed like a mad thing as I wiped the lovely thing down with a dry cloth. 'Look, folks! We're in the presence of a genuine Jacobean period refrigerator!' Untrue really, but it was the nearest they had to it. The whole thing is a cunning wooden bread-airing device, and positively mouse-proof. It's pierced everywhere, cornices and straights.

Lovely. 'And,' I sailed on, 'it's not a modern mock-up.' No nasty pale edges to show where the staining's worn off and exposed for the horrible trick it always is. They make them from old church pews. My babbling left them unaffected. There were tears in my eyes from trying to get them to understand the immensity of the find, but there's no telling some people.

'About money, Lovejoy,' Adriana said.

'Oh, no!' I shook my head vigorously. This kind of crappy talk gets me.

'No what?'

'Look. Signor Gallinari made a deal. It's his expertise against mine. Don't dare suggest giving him a higher price. That'd insult this antique.'

I don't go for this rubbish about sharing profit, or owning up before you buy.

Remember the antique has feelings too. That's what caveat emptor means.

A few times, as I prepared the lovely thing for sale, I caught Adriana's quizzical gaze on me. She never would meet my eye, glancing away whenever I looked up. And Fabio was sulking, earning himself a rebuke from Adriana for rudeness to customers. And Piero was in on it, pursing his lips and doing his silent-screen act. All we needed was a set of eyebrows and we'd have been music-hall naturals. Their attitudes were beyond me. As if I cared.

The row with Fabio erupted just before we closed. Adriana had this ritual which required each of us to come before her, report we'd locked up, and list our completed jobs. I went last.

'There's one point,' I said pointedly to her. 'If anybody damages that Jacobean bread-hutch like they did that early American candle screen—'

'Damaged?' she asked quickly.

I held the candle screen up to show the circular fruit-wood base was scored in several places. The scratches were new.

'—I'll break their hands.' I smiled at Fabio. 'Off. Okay, Fabio?'

His eyes were bright with venom. 'Thinking to take over here, Lovejoy?'

'Stop it!' Adriana pointed. 'Did you do that, Fabio?'

'Maybe Lovejoy was careless.'

'I see.' Adriana appraised him. 'You resent our new assistant.' That was a step up. I'd always been called a handy-man before.

He said sweetly, 'Of course I'm aware Lovejoy can do no wrong, Adriana—'

'Good night,' I put in, and left them to sort it out. Through it all Piero had said nothing, just watched. But I knew I'd made an enemy of Fabio, and that Piero always went about armed from the way he stood and positioned himself when stormclouds threatened. As I left I wondered if Piero was the follower Anna had spotted. There was only one way to find out.

* * *

That night on Adriana's instructions I was seated at the restaurant by twenty to nine.

The staff fawned over the Albaneses the minute they arrived. I was stuck on a corner table near the kitchen entrance but by now I was so hungry I was past caring. I hadn't spotted my tail on the way, which only proved how valuable Anna might actually turn out to be.

I only had half a bottle of wine, and ate carefully but well, keeping one vigilant eye on the exits and the other on the lovely Adriana. I'll remember her all my life, if I live that long. Her clothes were different again, I noticed, which was a real feat. She'd had less than an hour. She wore pearls—a short chain of baroques, which shows taste, restraint, and something called style because each one is deformed and relatively inexpensive.

And her dress was an improbable combination of bodiced looseknit and bishop sleeves.

The obsessional slob opposite her might have been a trillionaire for all I know, but he was too thick even to notice her loveliness, the bum. Most of the time he dabbled with his food and referred to his paper. Adriana again ate like a sparrow, hardly a mouthful.

The bill was collected from me and taken to Signor Albanese who was too busy reading and picking his teeth even to notice it had numbers on. I left like a stray, without even a friendly serf to hold the doorhandle.

Dusk was settling swiftly on the streets as I sauntered out to be followed. Last night Anna, tonight one of Arcellano's creeps.

The Via Arenula leads down to the River Tiber at one end of the Tiberina, a small island. Over nosh I'd worked it all out. I took my time because I knew exactly where I was going and I didn't want the tail to get lost.

This ship-shaped island's supposed to be where Aesculapius the God of Medicine landed when introducing doctors to the civilized world. He has a lot to answer for. There's a small sloping square on the island and a lovely old church at the downward side where the old Aesculapius temple used to be. I'd already been inside to see the woodwork on its confessional. The island has a few cramped buildings, including a pizzeria and a shop.

By the time I ambled on to the central bridge it was all very quiet. Over in the city cars were flowing in relentless streams. Buses were making their last runs. Here on the dark island an occasional car bounced over the bridge, lights on now. The Fatebene-fratelli Hospital windows were shining, and a light mist was beginning to envelope the island.

Three cars remained parked on the piazza's slope. Nobody walking, and the tourists all gone home.

Still slowly, stopping every so often to look idly at the water, I wandered across the top of the square and picked up one of those polythene bags that blow about streets everywhere these days. Then I waited for him to come into view. My heart was belting along in spite of my outward calm, and my blasted hands were damp and cold. He was there, being at least as casual as I was, strolling over towards me.

My cue. I drifted down to the San Bartolomeo with its Romanesque tower, glancing in the artificial light into two of the cars. One was a French thing with a gear lever like a cistern's ballcock, the other a Fiat. I ignored the vintage Talbot over by the wall. I was in enough trouble.

At first I'd had some lunatic notion of hiding behind one of the ancient columns in the church's candle-lit gloom. There's a veritable avenue of them leading to the great tomb at the high altar. The trouble is he might be armed and what could I do then? He knew I knew he was following me, and even had the bloody gall to light a fag on the bridge.

That's nerve. The worrying thing was, he looked vaguely familiar.

Finally I could stand it no longer and strolled in. The second I was inside the doors I slid along the left side of the nave towards the north transept. There were steps up at the chancel, which baffled me for a horrible second. Luckily there was the priest's door on my left, leading outside as I had guessed into that crummy little priest's garden you can see from across the river, with the world's worst statue of Christ looking utterly lost.

Emerging, I felt exposed, really prominent. The lights of all Rome were visible, the Palatine and the Capitolino looming over there in the gloom and the great floodlit avenue of the Marcello Theatre sweeping down to the water. Rome was about its busy nocturnal business—and I was about mine.

Doubling back sounds easy. On the side of an ancient church, with inhabited multistoreyed dwellings stuck on the side, it's not so easy as all that. I guessed the bastard would wait outside in the Piazza. Short of swimming in the river there was no way out. I clambered over the wall to the church stonework and groped upwards.

There was some guttering, but I'd never wanted Protestant Gothic so badly in my life—

the easiest churches to rob by a mile, incidentally. I swung on the crumbling stuff for five interminable yards before managing to clutch hold of a luscious slab of stonework and pull myself onto the ledges. After that it was less of a problem, but you can't help blaspheming a bit at the thoughtlessness of some ancient architects.

There's an archway to the left of the square, where lovers can stroll down and inspect the travertine marble of which the island's 'ship' prow is made. Nobody there on a chilly night with a watermist helping the honest do-gooders of this world, people like me. I dropped off the arch like a thunderclap and stood shaking in case he'd heard, but no.

He was still there when I peered round. Smoking, every so often looking at the San Bartolomeo to see I'd not emerged. I was out, and he still thought I was in. The distance to the two cars on the uphill side of the Piazza was only about thirty or forty yards. I waited until he'd just glanced round, then slipped silently along the wall into the shelter of the Renault.

My polythene bag was easy to twist into a string. I pushed it between the rubber join of the driver's side window. Make sure it's doubled as you do it, then push in a bit more, and drop the loop over the button lock. A simple pull, and the door's unlocked. Why they make them so easy to burgle I don't know.

I eeled in. My keys and bendable comb were good enough to unlock the steering.

Another minute. Gingerly, I raised my head. He was still there, silhouetted against the reflections from the water. He turned again to glance at San Bartolomeo, looked at a watch—doubtless the sort which gives the winter equinoxes and tidal times in Kyoto—

and I undid the handbrake.

There's something horrible in setting forward to kill. I honestly meant only to scare him, show Arcellano I was no pushover. Something like that. But once I got the car rolling silently down the Piazza's slope I swear something—somebody, maybe, for all I know—

took over. Perhaps Marcello, to be fanciful about the whole business. The wheel seemed to settle in a position, hard over. It was still unlocked, but wouldn't straighten up. And I tried, honest to God.

Anyhow it was too late to think any more. The car rolled down and he was in the way.

Simple as that. Only when the bumper was a few feet from him did he realize something was wrong. He whipped round, mechanically throwing away his cigarette.

Then his face appeared, puzzled at all this sudden motion and the mass heaving out of the dark mist. The silence was broken by a screech as the grille ground him against the parapet, sliding along the stonework and leaving a blackish stain. I can see his open mouth as reflex slammed his face down against the bonnet with a faint clang. Once the car connected my common sense evaporated and I sat in total stupefaction as the car scraped and bumped with that poor sod getting life smeared out of him against the stone. The metal screeched again. The car shuddered to a stop. I got out shakily, looked about. Not a soul in the little square. Not a sound from the church. Then I looked at him.

I made certain my polythene 'string' was uncoiled and dropped it into the river, of course not looking at the car. Then I carefully shut the door and walked away.

* * *

Any alibi in a storm, I always say. The German lady was in her hotel when I rang from the main railway station, just back from a play. I wasn't exactly at my chattiest, but she didn't seem to mind when I said I'd like to call round.

As it turned out she was one of the best alibis I've ever had. I got back to Anna's at three in the morning. Anna was in her alcove with the curtains drawn back. She clicked the light on and told me to wipe that smile off my face. It was a nasty little scene, straight out of marriage. She played merry hell, wanting to know where I'd been. I said for a walk, and like a fool said down by the river not knowing that one of the riverside walks is a knocking-shop, and had to endure an hour's unrelenting abuse while she reminded me I was in Rome to do the Vatican rip, not to whore about the city all night, which was a bit unfair seeing what I'd gone through. Her invective was a lot worse than I've managed to make it sound. She was a world expert. What I didn't know was a worse eruption was impending.

I undressed as usual beneath my blanket, as usual. And as usual she didn't rape me during the dark hours.

Next morning she'd got a paper at breakfast and looked at me in silence while I cleared a whole bag of fresh rolls. The news was of a fantastic accident which had occurred the previous night. A man innocently standing on the Tiberina had been crushed by a car.

Its handbrake had unaccountably slipped.

I'd honestly have felt sorry for him if he hadn't been one of Arcellano's goons, the one who had pressed me down in the chair when Arcellano did me over. And it honestly was an accident, almost completely one hundred per cent accidental. That's the truth. I hadn't realized the wheel would lock that way once I'd released the car and set it rolling. Hand on my heart.

What gave me heartburn was the headline. The newspaper described him as a Vatican guard. Museum detail.