The Very Last Gambado Read online

  I went cold. “That frigging balloon?”

  Hank fell about. “No. Actors don’t fall, tumble, hang on high. They neither crash nor do they die. It’s my people, me, who do that. We dress so we’ll look the same and do the stunts.”

  Not me, then. “Praise be.”

  Pal added, amused, “When you’re caught in the crossfire, Lovejoy, it’s Hank will tumble off the gallery.”

  Tumble? From on high? “Off u/hat gallery?”

  “Isn’t there some tall gallery railing running round the museum room where Lancelot Lake does the robbery?”

  “Round the King’s Gallery, yes. Not the temporary exhibitions place.”

  “How high is it?” Hank asked. “That influences the price.” “There’s a running shoot-out.” Pal was pleased. “I hate single handgun stuff. No real interest. And those bloody sprayguns everybody uses since Viet Nam are a real yawn.”

  I wanted to get this really clear. “So no ballooning? No rope climbing?”

  “You run across the floor.” Hank was amused at my fear. Such merriment. “Check the script Lorane'll give you.”

  “Dinna fash, Lovejoy,” Pal added. “You’ll find you’re superfluous. Like the rest of these pillocks, truth be known.”

  Before dinner was called, I edged into Lorane’s charmed nove- nary of admirers and humbly asked for a word. She looked attractive, but slick rather than pretty, and hard as if beveled-edged in her long gold lame dress. Not a patch on Lydia.

  “What’s this about me acting, Lorane?” I asked.

  She was not smiling as she turned, hugging herself. It wasn’t that nonsmile smile women have perfected over the millennia. It was the cruel secret no-smile, which they’ve also perfected but which is a very different thing. Lydia sometimes does the former, which means I think she likes me deep down. She’d never smile like Lorane in a million years. “Oh. It’s Lovejoy. Yes. Ray wants you one of Lancelot’s baddies.”

  “Me? What for?”

  “Dunno. I’ll find out if you like.” She looked me up and down. “Don’t worry, Lovejoy. Your elegant features won’t be noticeable. You’ll be encased in a hooded black assault suit.”

  "Maybe he’ll act us all off the screen,” some pill warbled, laughing. He had a severe tan and was in a cream dress suit with a gold bow tie.

  “Maybe he’s worried about his sartorial image, Baz,” Lorane added. I was red and stuck to the floor, wanting it to open.

  An arm slipped through mine. “So sorry to interrupt, Miss Lorane.” Lydia to the rescue. For once I was glad. “But can I borrow Lovejoy?” She stayed there, though I was ready to hurtle into the multitude for safety. “It’s only a small question, Lovejoy. One of Ray Meese’s lady guests has heard that you were here in person, and has asked me about some German-silver alloy statuette—”

  Safe ground. “Paktong's its proper name. So-called white copper. Actually Chinese. You sure it’s an alloy, love? Zinc, copper, and nickel alloys like those come pretty rare these days.”

  “Could you explain in person, Lovejoy?” Lydia smiled apologetically at Lorane’s camarilla, somehow managing to omit Lorane herself. “She’s so eager to meet you, having heard of your amazing feat in the Vatican.”

  And drew me away. Lorane’s admirers’ admiration trailed after Lydia. Lorane was decidedly put out. Even I could tell.

  “Which is she, Lyd?” I whispered when we’d eeled clear.

  “Lydia, please.” She stood before me in the loud press, eyes downcast. “I’m afraid it was subterfuge. There isn’t a real problem question, Lovejoy.”

  “Why?” What was going on?

  “Lorane was being deliberately vindictive. I suspected she would.”

  “Oh.” I looked at her. No spectacles, eyes deep and blue. You could go for a swim in those. “I was glad you . . . subterfuged. Thanks.”

  “The least an apprentice could do.”

  “Did you hear I’m to be in this film?”

  “Yes. Your Equity card’s arranged.”

  We’d had many a stilted conversation since I’d taken her on, but I’d never found myself struggling for words before.

  "I don’t do much, apparently.”

  Halt. Tongue-tied. I felt like an awkward kid, simply ridiculous. I mean, my apprentice, right? And I’m shuffling and embarrassed. But what for? A waiter broke the spell, hawking me out to find one of MacAdam’s nerks in the foyer just as places were called for dinner. It wasn’t anything important, just routine inquiries. It only took a minute. I rejoined the party, sat beside Lydia. “Nothing, love,” I said. “Somebody burgled that Russian exhibition in St. Edmundsbury.”

  “Did the police catch the criminals?”

  "Not yet. The Old Bill came to check I was still here. I explained I’ve been with the film people all day, including the noon meeting. They’ll check with the production assistants.”

  “I sincerely hope they do, too,” she said, on my side but interrogating me with a glance.

  “Tell me how to eat this first course, love.” It was mussels.

  As Lydia did so, I thought of nasty old MacAdam’s attempt to catch me out. A woman’s car had been taken from a social club. Her handbag had gone missing from the car, alas. This was my cue— he’d hoped—to say I hadn’t touched it. Then he’d have pounced.

  I’d just said, “Naughty people around these days. If I find it, I’ll ring in.”

  I ate heartily, for strength when Ben Clayton came calling to wreak vengeance. Proving alibis to the peelers is one thing, to the Claytons of this world different entirely. Odd that he hadn’t yet showed up, but he would, he would.

  W

  OULD you believe, but a film company limousine drove us back into East Anglia. By then I’d recovered from that awkwardness, partly at least. Lydia took time off from being glamorous to upbraid the driver—surely the provision of motor cars for guests was a wholly unwarranted expenditure? Et cetera. He was startled even more when, two hours later, he dropped her off at her mother’s, then drove me to my village. Normality sails under many flags. It had been odd saying goodnight to Lydia. She’d almost hesitated, disembarking, then hurried on up the path without a backward glance. I felt really strange.

  No vicious Seg or vindictive Ben Clayton was waiting, thank heavens. The phone was ringing when I entered. It was Lydia. A message had been left on her answer phone. Tinker, no less.

  "He says to tell you Duffie has discovered what you wanted to know, Lovejoy. That is all.” And went quiet. "Lovejoy?"

  “Aye?” Sam’s bus, found.

  "A year ago I was about to ... to sojourn at your cottage. To care for you after you sustained injuries. If you remember.”

  “Aye.” My voice cracked. “Your mother intervened."

  “I wish you to know that, should circumstances require, I’d be quite prepared to stay, as we provisionally agreed then.” Her euphemism had been housekeeping.

  “Er, that’s very kind, love, only—” A sleeping bag on the bare flags?

  “I feel responsible, Lovejoy. It was my visit to the Russian exhibition that led to the damage done by Clayton. I shall make restitution.” She paused for me to express thanks. I did so, feebly. “In your right jacket pocket, you will find a call sheet. It lists you as acting in the robbery scenes.”

  “It what?”

  "Keep calm, Lovejoy. I thought it wise to avoid discussion in the film company’s driver’s hearing. I suggest that tomorrow you meet Ray Meese and Lorane as agreed, and adopt the following tactic . . .”

  No Ben Clayton in the misty dripping dawn.

  Ray Meese brought Lorane to the Three Greyhounds. Polite, I praised his posh party.

  “Truly on a par with that Paramount thrash,” Meese wheezed.

  “Er, nice.”

  "Not super excessively so, I guess?” from sweet Lorane, looking distastefully round the pub. She had an infallible way of narking me.

  “This call sheet.” I showed it.

  “Miss Prim too busy during th
e night to decipher it, Lovejoy?”

  “What she’s got, love, you couldn’t even spell.”

  She tried to backhand me but I deflected her swing and let her overbalance. The crash shut everybody in the pub up for a second. Meese helped her up, staring hard at her for control. She recovered, hating me.

  “Not hurt, dear?” he boomed, setting the scene. She could have killed me, probably would if I didn’t look out.

  “She overbalanced,” Meese intoned. The pub resumed its talking. One or two muttered drunk-again jokes.

  “No offense intended,” I said, rejoining the pleasantries. "It’s that famous line from, wasn’t it a Bogan film? The one where—” "I sense unhappiness, Lovejoy. Give give give.”

  "Not really. I don’t understand this call sheet.” It was full of an/props and camera/grips and scene numbers and fisher boom splices and dolly tracks and instructions to wardrobe people. But what griped my entrails was on page five. “I’m not going to be in your film crew, that’s all.”

  He groaned slowly. "Lovejoy. Give me a hundred sound reasons for raining destruction upon my aching brow.”

  “Giving advice on filming an antiques robbery in a Wembley mock-up set, yes. The same in the British Museum, yes. But this says I dress up and pretend I can act, shoot, rob. No, Ray.”

  He placed an avuncular hand on my arm. “You mean yes, Lovejoy. Truly truly truly.”

  “I mean no, mate.”

  “The shooting’s elementary, Lovejoy. In my hands, can people fear? We’ve constructed a British Museum room thirty-one set in studio. Correct down to the last antique. All those crazy Russian Armenian scrolls, silvers, paintings. Perfect. At a cost of Jesus. All you have to do is trot with Lancelot Lake and his two hoods across that set, in costume. Lancelot says words. All in studio comfort, truly. You pack the studio props into studio sacks on our perfect studio set. It takes ten minutes, for fuck’s sake. You are paid a fortune. And still say no?”

  “Definitely. No.”

  “Why not?” Lorane had recovered. Somehow I wish she hadn’t.

  “Because if I do the studio filming in Wembley, I’ll have to do the British Museum bit.” I fumbled with my call sheet. “It says here—”

  "That we shoot the BM footage in the BM.” Meese held his head. “Apocalypse wow. My head, Lorane."

  She passed him a shake of three white pills. He gulped them with a swirl of vodka and lime, sent her for another double.

  “That’s because the British Museum is the British Museum, Lovejoy.” He sounded broken. I began to feel really sorry for him, and not a bit narked that Lydia had put me up to this. “And the movie’s about robbing the British Museum. Get it?”

  I said I couldn’t see why everything was so desperate. Meese blinked. It was one of those odd moments when truths will out.

  "Lovejoy. You don’t know the movies.” His eyes shone, owled in those glass disks. “There’s what we call the ratio. For every hundred movies planned, fourteen get financed. Three get finished. And one’s The Guns of Navarone.”

  “Not bad odds.” I felt I had to explain, their silence being so full of blame aimed my way. "Compared to antiques. Our odds are a thousand to one for the tiddlers, but a million to one for a Cellini gold work or a Sheraton bureau.”

  Meese listened me out. The man was transfixed. I felt weird, uneased by the fervor in his eyes. I’ve seen it before and hated it every single time. It’s a kind of selective insanity, as if his brain was sending some terrible signal: In all else I am sane; but better go along with me because in this I’m mad. He spoke in a whisper, still as a pike in a pool.

  “But don’t you dream, Lovejoy? Of that one great antiques scoop, that triumph that will make you a legend?” I had to lean to hear, so low his voice. “Movies have the same fable. We all strive for that one superb movie that has everything. The truly last gambado—superbly original, something never been screened before, the whole adoring world howling to see it. Fame. Fortune. Its creator pedestaled, immortal. Among the gods.”

  Pause for reentry. "And your picture’s it?”

  “Has to be, Lovejoy. That’s why the British Museum, the last great impregnable antiques fortress on earth. Impenetrable, inviolate. I’ll ravish the ultimate virgin . .

  And so on. I went along with the barminess, nodding my asinine smile to earn my wage. But deep down I knew I wasn’t witnessing a mystic transport of some latterday St. Francis; I was sitting in on dementia. It’s stuff that kills. Time Lovejoy got out from under.

  Lorane returned and weighed in. "The balloon shots are being done on studio sets mostly. The stuntmen—not you—will do the rest on the London University tower. And Lancelot Lake, one

  prelim take. That’s it. You won’t even see the balloon, Lovejoy.” "You’ve got to teach Lancelot Lake how to handle these things. It’s not a simple snatch, Lovejoy. Not for Russian Armenia’s entire priceless heritage, right?”

  "What if something gets nicked, Ray?” I was chatty, offhand. "I’ve a police record. Any of your million assistants pinches a light bulb, the constabulary’ll slam me in the clink and forget.”

  Meese moaned. Lorane took up the argument, exactly as Lydia had predicted. Almost. "Lovejoy. In what capacity were you hired?”

  "To advise on antiques.”

  "Right.” She lit a cigarette. “You signed a contract, cashed the checks. Fancy a visit to our lawyers?”

  "Lovejoy. Lorane.” Meese smiled. “Peace be unto you. I’ll die if you quarrel. How about you two get together, resolve those conflicts. Let Ray Meese live again, hmmm?"

  She spoke before I could draw breath. “Very well, Ray. We’ll give you a definite.”

  Meese prayed to heaven. “Lord, let it be soon.”

  No Ben Clayton stalking me in the streets of Soho. No maniacal Seg fling me from the train. Quiet life.

  The east coast has ugly patches, God knows. Most of them are caravan sites—called Perfect Paradise, Trailer Park Supremo, some such. During our miserable wet summers they are occupied by legions of holidaymakers. These desperate resorts are situated hard by gale-swept shores, centered on clapboard bungalow-style buildings, pinball arcades, bingo parlors, and the like. Out of season these areas degenerate into drab loneliness. They are honestly awful.

  The saving grace is that, as holiday crowds dwindle, nearby villages revert to normalcy. Pubs cautiously creep back to a pleasant indolence. Shopkeepers start smiling. The one village bobby nods off. All is well. Even the itinerant hotdog stands and roadside ice-creamios give up the ghost. The few diehards who stick it out do quite well, but have to travel farther for the same number of customers. So it was that Duffie’s brother Gus, combing the caravan parks near Great Yarmouth, saw a lonely bus on a concrete acre. It answered Duffie’s description. I phoned MacAdam with a lie: The studios wanted me to plan a scene. Then I borrowed Lydia’s car to run out, late that evening. I didn’t want anybody following.

  The east coast can be malign, wet and full of nasty gales. It was misbehaving energetically this particular night. I only discovered the bus by a fluke, though Duffie had given me precise directions. The holiday camp half a mile away was mostly silent, except for one building trying to pretend it was a live disco. A light showed here and there. God, it was desolate.

  My torch showed Sam Shrouder’s bus. I cut the car’s lights, hunched my collar, and effected entry to the cabin, which was partitioned from the passenger’s area by a sliding panel with an unbeatable—for the moment—lock. The engine fired first time I touched the wires. Sam must have kept it in pretty fair running order. He’d have had to, of course, needing it every day. I couldn’t open the rear door. I relocked the cabin, drove a million leagues to find a phone box, and got Lydia. I told her I needed her to drive her car home, gave her directions.

  "But you already have my mother’s car, Lovejoy. How on earth can I—?”

  “Lydia,” I said wearily. “Come. In secrecy. Forthwith, if you please.” And rang off. Every time you want a woman to reall
y get her skates on she gives you a load of lip. Ever noticed that? I went and sat in the car on the seafront until she came. Three hours. Three bloody hours. I ask you. Is that cooperation?

  She came trotting over, exasperated and tilting herself against the wind. "Lovejoy!” she began, breathless. “I’ve had to tell such fibs to get a lift from my friend Rosalyn! I said that my aunt was ill—”

  “Good old Rosalyn. Night.” I gave her the car keys and walked off, ignoring her yelps of outrage. Ask a favor they moan you’ve sucked blood.

  I drove the bus through the stormy night to St. Michael’s ruined church, near Myland. Not much cover except for a small wood, but it was handy and I was worn out. I put a Police: Do Not Attempt to Remove sticker on it, which I’d thoughtfully stolen while passing through Great Yarmouth, thereby saving some motorist from an unexpected infarct. And trudged home, three drenching miles and the rain teeming.

  The outside light was burning. Ben Clayton at last. A white saloon car blocked my gravel drive. Praying he’d give me time to prove my cast-iron alibi before setting Seg on me, I wearily opened the remains of the door.

  “Welcome home, Lovejoy,” Lorane said. “Any way of heating this place except rape?”

  There wasn’t as it happened, and I’m not proud of that or what happened next.

  “You see, Lovejoy,” Lorane said in the early hours. “It mayn’t seem much to you, because you’re one of Mother Nature’s simpletons. But believe me, a hundred and ten minutes of movie takes an average of forty tons of electrical equipment a minute. It’d take a man ten years to pay for that single minute of shooting, every penny he earned. It needs nine dozen support staff minimum, thirty vehicles basic plus a dozen specialist carriers. Wardrobe staff alone are two dozen, full time.”

  “You keep on telling me this.” She occupied a hell of a lot of the sleeping bag, but two’s warmer than one. And less restful. She’d proved that.

  “One defective cog means the machine doesn’t work, Love- joy.”

  "So get a substitute.”

  She was all knees as she turned round, shoving her bum into my belly and wriggled backward to get to my warmth. Typical. “You’re on the payroll because you’re a divvy. The museum insisted there be an antiques adviser. You’re it.”