Moonspender Read online

  "Yes, Lovejoy," he sniffed. "An angel. She raised us to show respect. Visited our Joe in Wormwood Scrubs every chance she got. They don't make them like her any more. Do they, lads?"

  "No, dad," his psychopathic offspring said in unison. They were beaming proudly on the rear seats. Four more hooligans followed in the second motor.

  They left me at the cottage door. The elder lad chucked a flintstone through my window, grinning at the crash. They really love life. Sykie put his head out.

  "What's that implication, Lovejoy?"

  "No more naughty from me, Sykie."

  "Good. See how easy life is?" He gave a forgiving smile. "Stay home until somebody calls with a job for you because he's seen you on the telly. Right?"

  Hell, I thought I'd just done that, but obediently I repeated the instruction. We cowards don't mince matters. "Why not tell me who it is, Sykie?"

  "And have you chisel him with one of your crooked deals?" said this paragon of virtue indignantly. He eyed me, grinning. "You needn't wave us off, Lovejoy." The joke being that my ribs were strapped up.

  They were all laughing as they drove out of the gateway. It took me an age to reach the keys in my back pocket and open the door. I brewed up, had a pint pot of tea, pulled out my divan, and slept for a million years.

  Six o'clock I fried my breakfast, seven thick slices of bread, tomatoes, and sliced apple sizzled in margarine. Noshing and wincing, I did the post. Today there were a good dozen letters. I was sore as hell, but pleased. And determined. I'd survive in this maniacal antique business if I died doing it. These letters proved I was getting there by degrees— as lawyers go to heaven, my old gran used to say.

  About these letters. Leaving aside my lies to Suzanne York about warehouses bulging with tsarine splendors, there are only three ways of surviving when times are bad. The first is to go "on the knocker"— literally banging on doors and doing a con on whoever opens the door. It has its moments, but there's always aggro on knocker jobs, what with people wanting ornaments back when realizing their value. So you need gelt and transport for that particular road to riches. The second is to wait in your costly well-stocked antiques shop for customers; must be nice. The third is to bread.

  Now, every antique dealer on earth has done a bit of breading in his time. Even if Christie's or Spinks say they're above all that undignified conning, take it with a pinch of salt. They've done their share. My technique's to use the local free paper, the Advertiser. Usually I pretend I'm different people. Last week I'd been Bereaved Lady of Polstead, American Buyer Visiting Bures, and Distinguished London Collector. I tell Lize that I act as a free agent for these enthusiastic advertisers. She runs the Advertiser single-handed, and wants to believe my lies about being hooked on Good Social Works, so I don't disillusion her. It'd be cruel. Besides, I was using her rotten old cheapo giveaway newspaper, so it's really me doing her a kindness, right?

  Filling with fried bread and humanitarianisms, I sorted the responses to my adverts. The two dealers replying to the nonexistent Polstead lady were Ellston—a Clacton porcelain dealer—and Mannie, a Vitamin Earth lentil eater who deals in antique clocks. Both piously offered to save the poor widow heartbreak, and do it for nothing. And nick half the stuff while doing it, too, which they didn't mention.

  "The swine," I said aloud, with heartfelt indignation. Lucky there was no such widow. I burned the replies. The imaginary Polstead lady's advert had offered Late relative's collection of archeological items for sale to interested buyer. No dealers, I'd written. Tinker hates these jobs with nothing really to go on, but it was time the drunken old devil earned his keep. Times were hard at Lovejoy Antiques, Inc.

  My American Buyer advert called for real celebration: Cash money offered for old pottery figures. Five replies, only one worthwhile answer. A slow printed hand wrote of a "Pottery piece, a woman carrying two eshets", and said I could call any time on Mrs. Rowena Ray at 2, Sebastopol Cottages, Dedham. It sounded honest and frank—maybe the most really underhand trick of all. It was the sort of thing I'd write, so naturally I was suspicious. However, the use of the old farm word for bucket suggested some grannie flogging off her heirlooms. You never know.

  As the "London Collector" I'd enticed Genuine Householders Only: quality furniture needed for Kensington sale. Highest prices paid. Nothing about antiques, note. The six responses to this advert were today's best, of course; they represented families. Even if you're only invited in to see a wobbly 1945 bed, it still gives you the opportunity of sussing what else is in the house. . . .

  Somebody was knocking. Probably Tinker. Thinking I must have absently shot the bolt I got up instead of shouting, but no, the door wasn't barred. A polite bloke stood there, smiling expectantly. The breeze chilled my knees.

  Warily I eyed him for concealed warhorses, whips, the odd phalanx of hoodlums, police insignia, and warrants for my arrest. So far it hadn't been a good day.

  "Ah, Lovejoy?" he said anxiously.

  "Yes." I was reassured. He got good points for anxiety, because huntsmen, gangsters, and police are famous for its absence.

  "I called earlier. Unfortunately you were out."

  Could this be Sykie's mark? I usually turn errors into habit, so gave him my best bent eye. Stolid. Polite. Moderately well attired. Smooth hands, and a tie without emblems, so maybe common sense lurked within. The silence was now painful. He shuffled anxiously, earning another point. Aggro doesn't shuffle. He saw my gaze on the plastic bag he held.

  "I, er, had to call for some vegetables. Off Billiam Cutting, that writer at Ramparts Comer." He smiled self-consciously. "Cheaper than shops."

  "Come in," I said, casting the door and leaving him to shut it. "Want a cup of tea? I've no sugar."

  "Do us both good, then."

  He took a few minutes to settle. He was Ben Cox, director of a Suffolk archeology trust. "I'm supposed to write first, according to our rules," he said disarmingly. "But . . ."

  Yes, I thought, as I washed him my spare mug and tried to find a clean bit on the pot towel to dry it, this sounds definitely more like a Sykes ploy than the landed gentry's posh new manorial caff.

  "Difficult." I said understandingly. "Want some fried bread?"

  "No, thanks," he said, pleased. "My missus."

  "Mmmmh," I sympathized. Women go berserk if you've had anything to eat before coming to their table, God knows why. You'd think it'd be easier for them if people arrived half full.

  I got on with my grub. The tomatoes were congealing nicely on the cold plate. If you play your cards right, you can scoop up a whole slurp on one rent of bread. It makes a lovely mouthful. I hesitated to try,

  having company, but decided to give it a go and failed. It was an omen, but I didn't know that then. He grinned.

  "I do that," he said. "Hard, isn't it? Easier on a deeper plate."

  "Really?" I was impressed. Education must be spreading. I'd never met a really sensible academic bloke before. "East Anglians call us Silly Suffolk," he added, laughing. "They probably mean me. My wife won't have me doing it. You're lucky, eh?"

  "Now," I said. Women don't last where I'm concerned. It's not entirely their fault. They simply lack staying power. My one wife had left quickly, claiming I was zero potential. To this day I've never had a penny in gratitude for all the love and devotion I lavished on her. Well, nearly lavished. She'd even demanded alimony. "Eh?" I asked. Cox had said something important while I'd been romancing.

  "I saw your broadcast." He was smiling apologetically. "Very impressive. The second half wasn't half as good. I'm pursuing ancient bronzes. I came to enlist your aid."

  Pursuit, like in hunt? Here was a chance to change roles. I nearly asked about Sykie, but remembered in the nick of time I wasn't to mention him. Cool Lovejoy. "Pursue? To where?"

  "Ah. I'm afraid we don't know that."

  "What antique bronzes, exactly?"

  "I'm afraid we don't know that either, Lovejoy."

  "Then who nicked them?"

 
"Well, we don't really know."

  A definite pause, but I'm not impoverished for nothing. "Where were they nicked from?"

  "Ah, well. I'm afraid . . ."

  "Then," I said, a headache coming on, "where were they found?" Pause. "For Chrissakes," I yelled, forsaking my nosh to walk about in anguish, "if you don't know what they are, who's nicked them, where they've gone, where they came from, why the hell do you want me to chase the frigging things?"

  He rotated his hat miserably. "That's half the problem, Lovejoy. They're not even discovered yet."

  My head throbbed briskly. "Half the problem?" I seethed, sitting and glaring at the table. "Never tell me the other half, mate. You're a nutter."

  "Please don't be angry, Lovejoy. Only we're in such a mess."

  "I'm not angry!" I bawled, furious. I could have strangled him. I thought, I'll kill Sykie one of these days. It's always me who finishes up in plaster, poverty, and prison, never these barmy sods.

  For a whole minute I sat seethed, shoving tomato pips round my plate with a fork. I got twelve in a row. Toffee smarmed her way onto Cox's lap unnoticed, I was surprised to see. He stroked her.

  My neurons synapsed with audible clangs. Another Lovejoy winner. Sykie's opinion of academic archeology was likely to impose few demands on East Anglia, or on me. His goons, however, were a feral mob of barbarians, so I'd better get it right this time. Cox might not be Sykie's mark at all.

  "Look, Mr. Cox. Was it simply chance that brought you here?"

  "Yes, chance, really." He was utterly dejected. Toffee sensed his distress and stared reproachfully at me. "I take it this means you, ah, can't assist us?"

  Not Sykie's man after all. "Well, I've got a lot on," I said. "Otherwise I'd come like a shot. I'll try to call on you, say, tomorrow." I meant no. What with Raymond getting nicked over his Wedgwood fiddle, my promise to help Suzanne York's restaurant, Sykie, Ledger the Bodger, I was committed.

  "I understand." He was quite gracious about it, which made me feel even worse, and rose, pouring Toffee to the floor. "I do realize it's a commercial world."

  He bade a quiet farewell. He waved from the gateway, smiling, and went off carrying his bag of cheap vegetables. I felt mad because I felt bad as I slammed back inside. Toffee was reclining on my rug, exuding scorn. I wasn't taking that from a frigging feline.

  "You vagabond moggie," I gritted. "Who gets beaten black and blue? Me! Who starves to frigging death while you don't raise a frigging finger? Me! And who's got to keep this antiques firm going? Me. So less of your frigging lip. Hear?"

  She walked away, soulful and censorious, and sat watching the garden birds. Just then the blue tits came tapping on the window for their nuts, the robin started screeching outside for his grub, and Harry my blackbird arrived to glare impatiently from the sill. Must be half-six.

  "Why me?" I yelled at them all, apoplectic. "Frigging chiselers, out for an easy touch!"

  Mother Nature continued to tap, screech, glare, beg. I was grumbling my old refrain, how had they managed before I arrived, when something odd happened, really fantastic. The telephone rang. Now, because

  my phone had been cut off for two months. Everybody in the Eastern Hundreds knew it. I was so astonished I sat staring at the thing. It's the ancient black daffodil type because I can't stand those absurd installments you have to act hunchback to keep on your shoulder.

  It rang and rang, then stopped. I was glad, and in relief started to clear my pots away.

  It rang again. I pretended it was routine, picked it up and said, "Hello?"

  Bad, bad mistake. I should have used wire cutters on the flex. This time it was Sykie's mark for certain.

  Hereon life goes downhill.

  6

  Toffee was getting fed up being carried about in her basket so at nine next morning I presented her to a neighbor's house. Eleanor rushed to the door. I've never known a woman like her for hurtling. She's never still, always late, forever breathless.

  "A cat?" she squealed, distraught. "But I haven't time, Lovejoy! I'm so behind!"

  When women are in a mad dash you have to take a firm line or you get nowhere. "Toffee's come to play with Henry," I announced in a parliamentary voice. "I've to call on an important client. She can share Henry's grub, no bother." More likely Henry'd eat hers, I thought but did not say.

  "Very well," she said, screamed, "The oven!" and zoomed inside.

  Humping Toffee, I wandered after and found Henry in his playpen. He's lately learned to maraud unaided, thus gets strapped behind bars so Eleanor can sprint about the county being late for everything. When sitting up he wobbles a bit, but can crawl and bawl with gusto. Seeing me, he gave a great grin and a prolonged yell of greeting. A yard of grot dangled from his chin. You have to keep wiping it off or he's soon swimming in spit.

  "Listen, Henry," I said, giving him a mechanical wipe and lifting Toffee out. "This creature is not edible. Comprenny?"

  He ogled in astonishment as I deposited Toffee in his pen. They stalked round each other, Toffee with detachment, Henry panting and chugging his one exclamation, a sort of brief oooh. He's no linguist.

  "There's a rule, troops," I added. "Neither of you's to eat or deform the other till I get back." I then went to say so long to Eleanor. She'd got into a terrible shambles in the kitchen.

  "Quick, Lovejoy, quick!" she squealed, dithering about with a steaming skillet while pans bubbled and the oven blinked signals in red-eyed urgency.

  "Right," I said calmly. "Be with you in a sec, love," and left her to get on with it. Honestly, why ask me for help? Bloody cheek. Pans are her job, not mine. Anyway, she's experienced in handling messes—she used to go out with me once upon a time. There's honestly nothing between us now, though. No, really honestly. I do a bit of Henry-sitting now and again when I'm absolutely broke, that's all.

  The bus was canceled or late. It never matters which. Jacko, our village opportunist, got his rickety old lorry out and clattered me into town. He sang "La Golandrina" wrong all the way, and dropped me off at the war memorial. From there I walked to the office of Castor Chemical Industries on the bypass, and found the snooty secretary who had phoned me the previous night. I'd asked if it was to do with antiques, and was told yes. Sir John had seen me on television. Sykie's mark? Had to be.

  Well, an antique collector is a collector. They're great. I really admire them, even though they're the weirdest mob on earth. Nutters, maniacs, scholars, lovers, the whole lunatic herd. And why? Because they're greed-crazed for love, which is a beautiful, wonderful state to be in. It's the attribute of God. In fact I'll go so far as to say that as long as love-lust is alive and well, God is still in with a chance.

  "Take a seat," the secretary said, giving me the woman's totaling look—feet, trousers, jacket, hands, face. Miss Minter had the terrible barren beauty of an air hostess, believing herself stunningly glamorous and at the peak of her calling. A laugh. Every woman I've ever known could leave her standing, even if she did measure right, poor thing.

  "No, ta." The office was brilliantly designed in repellent plastics. You'd struggle a month to get up from the fawn suede couch, and never make it. What is wrong with everybody these days?

  "Sir John will be twenty minutes." She made it sound a promulgation. The world evidently had to go along. Well, not me. I'd done what

  Sykes ordered, correctly this time. If Camforth wouldn't see me, he and Sykie could fight it out.

  "Tell him I called on time, love. Tara."

  And I was down the corridor before she came hastening after me and said Sir John was ready. She looked stricken, so I retraced, thinking this Camforth must be an ogre. The inner sanctum's door lintel was carved in Greek key designs, a pathetic waste of good wood. Some tree had given its whole life so this Camforth maniac could carve it wrong. What a world.

  "Your typist changed her mind," I said to the curtain that hung immediately beyond. Typists hate being called typists. You're to call them personal secretarial administrative specia
lists nowadays instead.

  The curtain was a heavy modem Thai silk in lime. Somebody dragged it aside and I stepped into the most extraordinary room, so weird I heard myself gasp. Normally I only do that when thumped.

  As long as broad, the place had three vast convex mirrors, floor to ceiling. A quiveringly beautiful antique study desk confronted me, Ince and Mayhew, late Regency. I moaned with unrequited lust. The walls staggered me so I literally recoiled. Can you imagine? Me, desperate dealer of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., practically fainting under the impact of that enormous room's furniture and ornaments. Two Joshua Reynolds pencil sketches dazzled on the right-hand wall. An alpine water-color by Turner, greatest of them all, shimmered its yellows and whites in a paneled alcove. A luscious Charles Cressent commode stood arrogantly by—this Frenchman originated the commode as we know it, changing it at one fell swoop from a mere humble chestlike lump to a slender-legged Regency triumph complete with crossbow bottom rails. It bestrode an Aubusson carpet, an 1820ish Empire pattern on a lettuce green field that made you wish you could float from respect. Over to the left was an early English face shielder, a pole screen with the most delectable tapestry work. Embroidresses nowadays go too much for collage—not clever ladies who needleworked their feminine loveliness and stitched their signatures in the whole history of man. I stepped forward to see if they'd used undercouching stitch, and saw the fake.

  Ivory cracks, especially those hard East Africa ivories, so if you've got any, keep them humid. This was a finely decorated German tankard, silver gilt and ivory—desperately pretending to be seventeenth century. I gazed aslant—sure enough the ivory had fractured and been mended. This is okay, because ivory breaks with geometrical precision and ordinary glues mend it easily enough. But, forever trying to warp, ivory needs pegging, with metal or ivory dowels, exactly as somebody had done here between two cherubs below the rim. Vinyl adhesives never stain true ivory, so why was discoloration diffusing from that faint seam? Because it wasn't ivory, that's why. I'd have whitened it with hydrogen peroxide, 120 volumes, and—