The Very Last Gambado Read online

  W

  E were assembled in a field near Cheshunt. Lighting cameraman Jim Boyce explained how, on film, early dawn could be made to look like a dark London night. I was so captivated I almost nodded off. A balloon, hired along with its six attendant loons, was taking hours to fill. We resembled a stranded circus, vehicles everywhere. For the first—and hopefully the last—time I saw myself described as “artiste” on a movie call sheet. I swiftly quelled my surge of pride. There were already too many egos around.

  Hooded up, me, Nick, and Lofty were readied and told to haul on the balloon’s ropes. It wasn’t even vertical, just lay there on the grass puffing and flopping while people fired hot air from an engine into its rubbery mouth. Lancelot Lake joined us for the first time, also garbed in black but hoodless. He merited three cameras and ninety percent of everybody’s attention, and seemed obsessed with the focusing abilities of the cameramen on his visage.

  And that was it, freezing in a field dressed like a synchronized swimmer minus the grin. The only thing worth noticing was the antiques. By now I was the studio’s focus for stray antiques. Ever- hopeful technicians were always showing me wares they’d picked up down the Belly, London’s nearby Portobello Road antiques market. I was glad. I honestly don’t mind antique bargain-hunt- ers, though I sometimes think they’d be better off stalking modern trophies like the country paintings of Arthur G. Carrick (the terribly secret pseudonym under which in 1987 Charles Prince of Wales started entering his masterpieces at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition), or trying to track down the parchment whereon the Bostonians’ delegation in the 1770s offered Bonnie Prince Charlie the throne of America (declined, incidentally). Still, each to his own.

  At this barmy balloon shoot I was offered a bonny flat leather- covered case, two inches only, containing minute glassy discs.

  "They’re earrings,” Charmain said. I vaguely knew her as a dynamic and thirtyish organizer of mobile ladders, to no clear purpose. “But I can’t find the clips.”

  “Early contact lenses, love.” I tapped them with a fingernail, listening. “Probably American. They came in around the 1940s. The Czechs developed the soft modern ones in the fifties—no sharp sound against your finger, see? Cherish them. Another five years museums will be crying out. They’re rare.”

  “Ergh!” She went, practically holding them at arm’s length. You have to laugh. Earrings are pretty, old contact lenses disgustingly medical—even though Leonardo da Vinci worked out their optics over 500 years back. Why don’t antiques gold-diggers save themselves all this disappointment and go for sheer investment potential outright, like old port or something—up nearly 5,000 percent in 25 years? Still, no passion in port, whereas antiques ...

  "That’s it, paisanos!” Ray Meese called after only sixty takes of us standing, hauling. "You were superboy, Lancelot!”

  Eleven hours and double pneumonia. Cheap at the price.

  Strangely, as the final week approached, my fear was that Three Wheel Archie would default from Monday’s filming in the museum. I checked on him so often he asked what the hell.

  "Okay, Archie. Sorry I asked.” I’d chased after him in the Saturday market.

  “Lovejoy. You phoned me four times yesterday. You've sent seven messages. I’ll be there.”

  “Right, Archie.” I gave a sheepish grin.

  “Now leave me alone!”

  “Right. Sure. See you Monday, Archie.” I waved him off. Then I told Tinker to keep track of him.

  Over the weekend there was to be a studio party, after the residue of the set-piece filming. I went to see the Lake Bayon wagons cause pandemonium outside a Bloomsbury hotel while Meese and forty minions filmed hostage-taking, but the presence of a smiling Gabriella and at least five of Bracegirdle’s navy blue security uniforms got me down and I came home.

  Friday night I tried the pepperbox. Its spring was slightly weak, but the percussion caps worked well and the black powder did its stuff. I dug the spherical bullets out of the garage door and restored them to spherical. I didn’t reload it immediately, in case I started worrying about how the wadding was getting on. Plenty of time.

  That night I painted my smoke canisters. Emulsion paint dries quickly, so the cardboard sleeves I adapted to contain them didn’t stick. Authentic labels I got from the theatrical equipment shop by Long Acre, soaked off legit small-fry stage smokies. I transferred one to each of the larger variants Jock had left for me. Then I cut a paper stencil and did a lookalike warning on the canisters themselves. They’d pass as studio kits. I hoped.

  As it happened I didn't attend the party. I went to the rah-rah session on Sunday noon, though. The Lake Bayon mob had hired a motel place in north London. I suppose they felt they could let their hair down outside the studio. It worked, because everybody whaled into the booze and the scheduled “quiet drink and chat” was a riot.

  No sooner had we got going than Ray Meese came out on a raised platform, wheezing, glasses gleaming, his large form glistening. Whenever and wherever he stood up spotlights sprouted. He stood in a prebattle Patton posture. Everybody whooped, clapped. It was sickening. Vance quietened the hysteria by a wide-armed appeal.

  “Friends,” Meese boomed. His throat caught as he blotted a tear, recovered magnificently. "I mean, heartfelt truly, not merely friends. I mean . . .friends."

  Wild applause. I looked about. They were exultant.

  “We’ve come a long way—long? We’ve traveled worlds, friends. And we’re still here. Need I say more?”

  Hysteria, a pandemonium of adulation. He left the stage weeping. Vance shuffled on sideways to announce praise for all concerned.

  “Monday’s the big day,” he said, taking hours to say it. “Last scene. And I know we’ll wrap the greatest, most memorable megabuck movie of all time. Monday’s compleuon is movie launch. ” He got only scattered thin applause.

  "I’m disappointed about the balloon,” I told Max, still wearing his duffle coat.

  “But it went beautifully, Lovejoy.” He was puzzled. "Lancelot Lake looked absoluto ultimo.”

  "Bit of a fraud, though.” I told him I’d said as much to Ray Meese. He was appalled. “I expected to see a hot-air balloon take off from that Senate House tower and get pulled on cables from those hotels—”

  He still couldn’t see. “But you will, Lovejoy. On film.” "No.” You have to be patient. "I mean us, in real life, not just on the picture.”

  He stared at me. “That film is the real, Lovejoy."

  “Did you do the hotels? Gunmen, hoods, the winches?” "Yes. You saw us, the Wembley studio.”

  I gave up. Another nutter who thought nothing existed except what you saw in the movie. Even reality wasn’t real if it wasn’t on screen. Talking to these lunatics gave me an eerie feeling. I mean, I might not exist at all. I wasn’t filmable, not really, so wasn’t I simply coincidental? I might not really be here. Weird.

  Hank the stunt arranger passed a few words. “Not worried about tomorrow? It’s going to be falling off a log.”

  “No falling, Hank, please. What do we do?”

  “Same as the studio work. Remember? Run from the exhibition room carrying sacks, firing our toys. You kill a security guard. He falls from the balcony, splat!”

  “He be okay, will he?” I asked uneasily.

  Everybody in earshot laughed. Hank said kindly, “We’ve already shot the fall two days back. Remember? And last week we did the smashed window, an outward prat. It went great.”

  People in earshot reflexly praised it. “Magic, Hank. Best stunt ever.”

  “So it’s all done?”

  "Yep. You shot him dead center, Lovejoy.” Everybody laughed. My eeriness worsened. I hadn’t shot anything, let alone anybody. “The balloon scenes were mega mega. We lost Clack. Broken leg, but he’s replaceable.”

  “Cinema art! Magic movie moment, Hank,” people chorused. I swear they didn’t even glance our way. It was all autonomic, stroking each others’ egos continuously. I thought on this news.
I’d already shot the security guard? I’d done it? It was on film, which proved that it really was so.

  “Hank,” I said. “We all stay together tomorrow?”

  Hank refilled our glasses from a bottle nicked off a passing serf. “Yes. You, Nick, Lofty, and Lancelot Lake. The baddies. Vance’ll give you the details.”

  “Hardly seems worth bothering with.”

  The world turned and stared. Hank grinned to ease things. “Movies are life, Lovejoy. You’ll see, in the finished movie. Just give Saffron and Honor their moments.”

  “Their what?”

  "Don't get in their way when they shoot you.”

  Hello, I thought. Here we go. "Shoot? As in bang?”

  “Don’t worry, Lovejoy. My stunt lads’ll do the falling down. Just go and stand exactly where you’re told.” He refilled our glasses. Mine had inexplicably emptied, yet my mouth was dry. “The plot getting to you, Lovejoy? Come and see yourself fall out of the balloon.” He grinned at my expression. “Only joking, Lovejoy. They’re going to show us the rushes.”

  Rushes? We went to a small cinema in the motel complex to watch snippets of our magnum opus. They showed—no sound, really odd—a few disjointed bits of the film. One showed what we’d done on the university’s roof in darkness. Me, Nick, and Lofty tugging ropes. We climbed into the balloon basket. Nick and Lofty did the dangling. I just stood there, pulling. Lancelot Lake was specially featured in close-ups. (He got to rip off his hood, wipe sweat from his forehead, grimly move his soundless lips, light a fag.) Somebody’s hands—Nick’s I think—slickly checked a machine gun. It was disorienting. The film was made up of bits filmed in half a dozen places, spliced together. Hank told me they added the sound later. I was disappointed. I could hardly recognize myself. It could be anybody in that black overall. In fact, it need not be me at all. I needn’t be there. Or did I mean have been?

  That eerie recurring thought: So why was I here?

  Then somebody, one of us hoods, tumbled spectacularly from the basket, miraculously saved himself in free-fall by grabbing a trailing rope, then fell. Presumably Clack, breaking his leg in a good cause. I gave a shiver. The few film people who had bothered to come in burst into applause, which Hank accepted with modest grins.

  The last rush was a series of dark shots of small wall cases containing phony Armenian items being wrenched away, with much flashlight flickering and shadowy toing and froing. Lancelot, clearly identifiable by an incomplete hood that permitted his famous sneer to show beneath his gimlet eyes, did another snarly close-up. Heavy-duty sacks earned a detailed screening. “Weight and content all implied, see?” from Hank.

  “Great,” I said. It needn’t be me.

  The screen blotched as the ratchets slowed. Lights came on, to applause and exclamations of ecstasy and admiration.

  “Staying for the party, Lovejoy?”

  “Me? No, ta, Hank.” I tried a grin as easy as his. It didn’t work. “I’ve a hard day’s filming tomorrow.” He laughed, and I moved off.

  It needn’t be me. Up there on that big screen it could be Joe Soap. Yet everybody on earth was bending over backward to keep me in—employ me, flatter, seduce me, consult my divvying expertise. Why?

  Ray Meese, Vance, and a million minions were holding court, listening to supplicants. Stef Honor was moaning about the number of close-ups Lancelot Lake was getting. Saffron Kay was dithering weepily on the outskirts of the mob. I pushed through.

  “Great, Ray,” I cried like the rest. “Great.” And I added as he rotated into this unexpected beam of adoration, “Pity, though.” "What?” he wheezed into the spreading silence.

  “It’ll look sparse, bare, unadorned. Maybe even cheap.” People grabbed me to lob me out, but Meese stopped them with a frown. “Do I hear opposition?”

  “Not opposition.” I tried to look eager and waggy like the rest of them. “Only, a great museum saloon—well, Ray. Anything duller to the average bloke? And it’s death to birds.”

  Meese intoned, "Have I been wrongly advised, oh universe?” People paled and edged away.

  “Needs a bit of color, Ray. Don’t spoil the ship for a halfpennyworth of tar.”

  “What’s this particular tar, Lovejoy? And its cost?”

  “Free, apart from transport.”

  He held out a hand, passed a palm over his closed eyes. Some panicky girl rammed a filled glass at him. “Arrange. Consult. Beaver. Strive. Gogogo!”

  “Ta, Ray,” I said, and went with Vance to arrange, consult, etc. A Celtic cross wasn’t much of a problem for our overnight wagons. The gold samovar set I’d get Lydia to fetch.

  Off home. That nasty why was getting on my frayed nerves. I was close to deciding to chuck it all up, risking Ben Clayton’s ire, Seg’s homicidal rage, Big John Sheehan’s vengeance, let the world down, when I found the first glimmerings of an answer.

  When it happened I was waiting for this train at Liverpool Street. I went into platform nine’s grotty nosh bar for a pasty—none available, of course. Gnawing at a cheese boulder I went to sit outside the bookshop. A couple of blokes were moaning about travel. “It’d be all right if I worked normal hours. Sunday travel kills me.” His oppo was equally grumpy. “Same here. Look at tomorrow. Bloody bank holiday. Everything shut, travel slowed to a crawl.”

  My train limped in about then. I'd got settled with Savage’s Forgeries before the travelers’ grouses seeped into my soporific cells. Tomorrow a bank holiday? Everything shut, traffic at a creep? Yet we were filming the big punchline at the British Museum. I stared into the tea puddled in my plastic cup. Nothing to worry about there, eh? I mean, Gabriella told me the museum had allowed forty movie companies to shoot their pictures during the past year. And why not do the filming when the museum was closed? Better security, fewer problems with public oglers, less chance of people falling over cables ... sensible, I’d say. Film when there’s least hassle.

  Fewer witnesses.

  That evening I caught Tinker at the Welcome Sailor. He was indignant at being given a job on Sunday night.

  “That’s bleedin’ impossible, Lovejoy.” I poured three pints into him in a corner of the taproom before I got him quiet. “Find out what?”

  “Here’s a list of antiques, mostly fingers.” I’d written it out on the train, a complete account of all the antiques Ray Meese’s film crew had occasionally brought in. The descriptions were as full as I could make them. A finger is an antique small enough to be held in the hand, as opposed to so-called “lifters”—furniture and the like—which require vans for transportation.

  “Gawd Almighty.” He gave a prolonged bubbly cough of dismay. His chest is always ailing—"Aleing’s my medicine,” his joke—and his cough is notorious. I ducked the spittle flecks. He came back to earth, puce and wracked.

  “I need the answer tomorrow, Tinker.”

  “You’re off your bleedin’ nut, Lovejoy.” He took three more pints and two coughs to recover.

  "Find out where they were sold. I think they were all flogged off together a few weeks since.” I looked around, skulduggery in mind. “North London to the Eastern Hundreds, inclusive.”

  If they were from one source, and that source Ray Meese or thereabouts, then my suspicions were well founded. They really had gone to extraordinary lengths to get me to that last big scene. “Find Lydia. Tell her—”

  He cackled an unexpected laugh. "Her? She’s at the cottage, Lovejoy. Friggin’ Snow White she is.” He went suddenly indignant. “Know what the silly cow did today? Hauled me out of the Marquis of Granby, asked if you’d like some poxy colored rag for curtains. Stupid mare.”

  I sighed. That’s Lydia. Death, prison, all hell looming and she was matching chintz. I saw Brad and Hymie, creditors both, enter just then and hurriedly eeled out of the taproom through the bar. The safest place for the moment seemed to be my cottage. I got the bus and luckily made it without help or injury.

  We sat on the divan, opposite ends and knees together. It had that uncompromising firm
ness of the new. Lydia had made a meal of scintillating taste and substance. I didn’t doubt its wholesomeness. My cells shrieked lustily of health as vitamins and long lost trace minerals surged in.

  “Did you like supper, Lovejoy?” Lydia had washed up and brewed coffee.

  “Great, love. You’re, er, skilled.”

  “Cooking is enormously satisfying,” she said, all smiles. Then why do women come for you with a cleaver if you’re late for grub? “Look, Lyd. Who pays for all this?” I’d now a small usable oven, a bucket chair and a tiny kitchen table. Oh, and a divan bed. “You, Lovejoy. In due course.”

  True, true. “What I mean is, where’s the dosh come from?” “It’s a loan, Lovejoy. That explanation will suffice.” She poured more coffee, not looking. “I am very pleased this film ends tomorrow. It’s time we reestablished our antiques trade.”

  “Me too.” Is the antiques trade normally tranquil?

  “These individuals are untrustworthy, Lovejoy. They constitute risks.”

  I gasped in affront. "Lyd! That’s most unlike you, to—”

  She turned, defensive but with spirit. Women have a yard start in indignation. "Why have you acquired a gun?”

  My indignation evaporated. "A what?”

  “The pepperbox multibarrel. Hidden in the cistern.”

  That’s Lydia. Only she’d scrub a cistern before installing new furniture. “Oh, that old thing!” I chuckled a merry chortle. “Notice the chasing? Lovely. Now that six-chambered percussions have gone through the roof we’ll make a”—I nearly said a killing— “good profit. It’s mint.”

  “It is not. But it is loaded, Lovejoy.”