The Gondola Scam

by Jonathan Gash

  No sign of any motorboat moored alongside the house, but then there might be all kinds of sneaky little private canals which we tourists never even see. No action by the time the traghetto gondola bumped into its pier on its eighth rocky trip, so I went and pressed the bell again.

  He came out ready for a dust-up, moving with aggression written all over him. I begged with the speed only cowards achieve for him to accept a gift for the signora. He halted at that.

  "A gift. Personal."

  "Where is it?" He stood vigilant and still while I drew out the flat cylindrical box. I rattled the sycamore disc inside, tempting.

  "It's a genuine Elizabethan coaster, signore." I opened it and showed him, passing the box but keeping the inscribed coaster. "Hang on, though."

  Signor Gambello had let me have—well, I'd nicked it, actually—a ten-inch piece of his metal rod to sharpen on the lathe. While this goon looked on in amazement I put the coaster flat on the palazzo wall and slammed the pointed metal through the wood. Quick as that, I chucked it to him to keep both his hands occupied. It broke my heart to skewer the lovely thing, especially as I'd made it look so original and antique.

  "What—?"

  "Grazie." I smiled, swiftly backing off to where the two traghetto men were now still, looking at our little scene. No arguments, not even with aggressive goons, until I knew whose side I was on. Or better, who was on mine. The nerk went in slowly, staring at me with malevolence. He'd remember my face now, but then I'd remember his.

  Ten minutes later he came for me. I was sitting perched on the traghetto pier railing reading notices about long-gone gondola regattas, and let myself be invited in.

  'The signora's assistant will see you now," he announced at the air over my head.

  “Ta," I said, slipping round him and into the palazzo's doorway at a rapid trot, slamming the door behind me so he was left outside. Assistant, indeed.

  These Venetian palazzi have an aroma all their own. Some find it claustrophobic, even musty. To me it's beautiful. It's antiques, antiquity projecting from the lovely ancient past into this crappy modem world, and still going strong. Still lived with, despite the folly and stupidity of our modem-day daftness. It's love, hallowed and enshrined—

  "I don't believe it!" A staccato laugh ripped down the stairs at me. Ugly, shrill. "It really is the tramp with that ridiculous car!"

  A young bloke wearing a pink cotton suit and a cravat was staring down into the hall over a luscious oak balcony. The wall lights were subdued greens, yellows, rose colors in ghastly Murano glass, but I recognized the laugh from that day Mr. Malleson had outbid the ring dealers and Connie and me were in the Ruby at the pub. I'd found the Norman family's hatchet man. The one who'd done in Crampie and Mr. Malleson.

  "Good day, signora." I spoke up the staircase, swallowing my hatred and smiling. "Lovejoy."

  The thundering on the door made me shout.

  "What have you done with dear Placido?"

  "Locked him out, I'm afraid. Sorry." Placido was a laughable name for a ten-ton mauler.

  "You have?" the pink apparition said with awe. "He'll be in such a temper!"

  "What is it, Tonio?" a woman's voice called.

  "Some scruff, dear. No need to come. I'm getting rid of him."

  The door was being pounded. Excited people outside were asking what was going on. It was all getting rather out of hand.

  I yelled, "Signora? Don't come out if you're ugly."

  ''What?'' the voice demanded.

  "You heard."

  The enemy was coming down the stairs, practically quivering with anticipation at the excitement of taking me apart, when she appeared on the landing above us.

  "Wait."

  Tonio halted his pigeon-toed descent. "Don't spoil it now, dear."

  'You're the cocktail man," she observed to me.

  'Eh? Oh." That middle-aged aggro over the cocktail in the hotel bar the night me and Nancy made smiles. I went up, ignoring the burning hatred in Tonio as I passed. "You're the lady with more money than sense. I remember. I'm Lovejoy."

  She was being amused at it all when I finally stood beside her. She was holding my skewered coaster. "Explain your insults."

  "You've got to be rich to buy a two-carat Royal Lavulite stone. You've got to be senseless to plonk it in the middle of a Florentine-set gold crucifix like you did."

  We processed, me first, into a grand chandeliered room of rectangular windows, darkened paintings, and heavy furniture. A telly was showing muddy red lines across people's faces. The clue to her amusement was in her screaming boredom. Well, if the script called for me to be a diversion, I'd divert all right.

  "It was done by a great craftsman, Lovejoy. Are you a jeweler?"

  "I'm an expert forger, love. That's a million things a jeweler isn't."

  In the room's light she was lovely. No, gorgeous rather. Her hair could only be called rich, obviously shaped daily by dedicated salon slaves. Her clothes had that casual fawn style only wealth brings. She'd not been expecting visitors, but her makeup didn't war with her earrings and her opal nail varnish didn't drain the colors reflected from a single one of her three rings.

  "Or an expert lunatic who impales a genuine Elizabethan posset coaster?"

  Her eyes never left me—God, her black eyelashes were a mile long—as she failed to take a cigarette from a carved box of Bengal ivory. Failed because my fingers were there first, crushing the cigarettes into an unsmokable mess.

  She recoiled slightly. "You're insane."

  "No smoking where there's these lovely oil paintings, missus. Even the rich shouldn't be that dim. Especially them." I looked sadly at my ruined handiwork. "And I made the coaster. Finished yesterday."

  "You?" Tonio came sulking beside her as she spoke. "I suppose you've witnesses?"

  "Two in Mestre. One here—me. I'd never do that to a genuine antique."

  "You're always stopping me, cara,” Tonio grumbled. I was beginning to hate the way he kept his opaque stare fixed on me. It's the way folk look at the salad in a restaurant—dull stuff, eating a chore, something to be got on with, then forgotten.

  She sat to show how beautiful her shape was. "Hush, Tonio. Bring us a drink. What else can you make. Lovejoy?"

  "Not for me, thanks," I said quickly. The sudden pallor round Tonio's mouth meant he was determined to keep Venice's medieval reputation alive even if it meant poisoning my sherry. "What else? I can fake anything."

  Tonio pigeon-toed out of the room, a lot of paces before he looked away to see which way he was going. I'd made a real friend there. Shallow eyes unnerve me. I get to imagining there's nobody behind the corneas.

  "Prove it."

  I fetched out my little Ricci sketch for her.

  ''You did this?"

  "Certo, signora."

  "How?"

  "Mind your own business."

  Tonio returned, with Placido carrying a salver. She reached unlooking for her glass. The nerks guided it into her hand. I'd found the boss all right. I presume the brownish fluid was her famous rusty nail cocktail, but the glass was a perfect glowing example of Venetian eighteenth-century ware. I almost wept with longing. The two goons stood about in hope of an order to exterminate.

  "Cara," Tonio said as she placed her lips loosely about the rim. "This man's a dealer. I saw him with your daughter."

  His putting the relationship so spitefully into words shocked me, but I did my innocence bit, glancing about with quizzing curiosity before letting my brow clear and recognition show. "I see. You're Mrs. Norman? Mr. Pinder's daughter?" "Yes."

  I sat, unasked, nodding slowly as if realizing. "I see." "You see what exactly?" She hated me for knowing her daughter. Notions of aging thickened the atmosphere. We all ignored them, but I wouldn't like to be in Tonio's lemon-leather shoes when she got him alone. Odd how older women don't realize they're twenty times better than young popsies.

  "If I'd known you were the lady in charge here, it would have been a lot easier fo
r me, signora."

  'You have one minute," she said. "Time him, Tonio." I spoke from a dry throat. "I'm a dealer, true. And I've forged a few antiques in my time. The woman in the dealers' ring took me to see old Mr. Pinder. He told me about some scam in Venice, a lot of forgeries and fakes. Wanted me to work for him."

  "Why didn't you agree?"

  "I'm no glue-and-saw hack, love. I'm superb." Tonio snickered and nudged Placido, but I kept on. "The old man seemed nice enough, and the girl said the wages would be high. But that's not enough. I've given you proof I'm a great forger. So I want a percentage. No flat rates for me, love, if it's a really big scam."

  'To which Mr. Pinder replied . . . ?" I shrugged. "No offense, but it was obvious the boss was here in Venice, not him."

  'The address!" Tonio put a hand on her shoulder. There was a lot of possessiveness in the air, and none of it anything to do with me, worse luck.

  "Daddy and Caterina would never tell you, Lovejoy." "Mr. Pinder got reminiscing. I pieced it together." "He's lying, cara! He's some sort of agent—" "No. Babbo does, all the time." She held out her glass as if in disdain. They leapt to collect it. "I want this sketch examined. Bring Luciano."

  "He's on the island."

  Tonio bent and whispered into her ear. She smiled, gleeful like a little girl given a pleasant surprise.

  "Yes. Give Lovejoy the cigarette lighter."

  Placido passed me a gold cube. "Ta. But I don't smoke, missus."

  "And pass him the sketch, Tonio."

  Lighter. Ricci's sketch. I held them both. There was no danger to anyone, but I felt my chest chill with that awful cold which true terror brings.

  "Let me look!" She came across, knelt in front of me. "Now bum it, Lovejoy."

  "Eh?"

  "You heard the lady, tramp." Tonio toesied over to enjoy the fun. "Light the lighter. Bum the—your—sketch."

  He clicked the thing in my hand. The flame was blood red, some fancy gimmick. She had her forearms on my knees. Her eyes were enormous, dark, made into deep tunnels by the reflected fire. Excitement was making her breathe quicker. Our faces were inches apart, her lovely arms on my knees.

  "Well?"

  Neat. A true forger would bum it uncaring. He could dash off another fake in a trice on the back of an envelope. A phony—especially one with some vested interest— couldn't or wouldn't, or would risk his neck with some hesitation.

  The sketch hurt my fingers. It was already charred, fell onto her carpet. I'd lit it practically without thinking. I watched the flame move casually along to the comer, eating away Ricci's name in that painfully meticulous copperplate. Gone.

  Her hand lifted my chin, exposing my mind to those luscious fevered eyes. I gave her a delighted grin which felt from the very depths of my soul. I knew I'd kill her now. It

  was out of my hands. Tonio and his lady had not only done for Malleson and Crampie. They'd just foully murdered a precious antique from the hand of Ricci himself. My own laborious crap could be crisped or slung out for all I cared. But people who murder antiques shouldn't be allowed. Everybody knows that.

  I pulled a face, almost laughing now the responsibility had passed from me.

  "Sorry about your carpet, missus, but you told me."

  For an instant she seemed a little puzzled. Then she shrugged and rose.

  "What's your preference, Lovejoy?"

  "Faking? Oh, furniture, jewelry, sculpture, if I'm on my own. Tapestries and oil painting, with the right help."

  "Stonework?"

  My grin was wider and more heartfelt than ever. I even felt happy. "Anybody can fake stonework."

  "Take him on, Tonio."

  "Don't, cara. There's something wrong."

  "Nothing that a new suit wouldn't cure, Tonio."

  She snapped her fingers and they fetched her another cigarette box. I drew breath, glanced at her oil paintings. Her eyebrows raised inquiringly. I answered with an apologetic shrug. "Light, Lovejoy."

  The same red fire, miles inside her exquisite pupils. She blew the smoke into the air with an upward jerk of her chin, and gave me an amused glance of understanding. I was one of her serfs now.

  I cleared my throat. "Any time you want your oil paintings cleaned, lady."

  "Clean yourself up first, tramp," from Tonio.

  "Do you always dress like that?" Her interest stung me.

  "Geniuses are allowed. And if I'm to work anyway."

  "Working clothes are different, tramp."

  I looked Tonio up and down. "Apparently. Mrs. Norman, that percentage."

  "Two things, Lovejoy. First, the money from our scheme is so vast that your pathetic little requirements are insignificant. You'll see in good time. Take him out there in a few days, Tonio."

  "Better be tonight, cara. There's an acqua alia due soon."

  "Tiresome. Tonight, then."

  "Out where?" I asked.

  Nobody spoke until she said coldly, "And the second is speak when you're spoken to. Understand?"

  Everybody paused while I assimilated her last instruction. "You mean like them?"

  "Well." She flicked ash on the carpet just too quickly for them to streak for ashtrays. They'd both twitched. I hadn't moved. "Well, almost."

  Placido gave me a handful of money at the door. Tonio told me to make myself presentable, bloody cheek, by fitting myself out at a tailor's near the Calle delle Bande, to be on the Zattere, tramp, by eight tonight. He shut the door without waiting for my reply.

  The San Moise is hardly the prettiest church in Venice, but even ugly churches do for lighting candles. As I lit the four—Mr. Malleson, Crampie, Cosima, and a just-in-case for Nancy—I saw again those huge wells of eyes with their distant reflected scarlet flames. A second later, thinking, I put more money in the slot and lit a fifth candle for her.

  On the way out I thought. Oh, what the hell, returned and did a sixth, though Tonio didn't deserve it. He was just lucky that generosity is my strong suit.

  Pleased, I went shopping among the crowds, looking for Goldoni's shop, where they sell the big navigation maps of the lagoon.

  21

  Resplendent in a new off-the-peg, I tasted the coffee and sank a couple of giant margherita pizzas in the comer nosh bar on the della Bande. Not that I was pleased about being well dressed. As my usual grubby self I could fade among the mob. Immaculate as any wedding guest, I'd stand out like a daffodil in a goalmouth. The lady brought over my omelette and some of those thick torta slices that make Italy a green and pleasant land, so I was in good nick to wrestle the problem of the vast nautical chart I'd tried to spread on the world's narrowest counter while perched on the world's most pointed stool. One thing's sure, I thought fervently, in the nosh bar din, it's a hell of a lagoon. When I saw where I'd been, pushing Cosima to safety, I had to order some more cakes to stop myself throwing up from sheer fright. It's those deep blue channels and pale green sedgy barene that scare me.

  The big problem was how an ultra-nervy supercoward weakling like me could make headway in this game. It had all escalated in a way I couldn't understand. Easy, though, to see why old man Pinder was eager to employ a divvie— best to be careful even if a bird as aggressive as the luscious Signora Norman was here at the business end of so much syndicated money. Clearly Caterina didn't trust dearest Mama. Her mistrust had reached Granddad Pinder—perhaps the penny only dropped when he realized that his lovely quiet scam was going awry after the savage assault on Mr. Malleson and Crampie. Hence he suddenly needed a divvie that bad, to seek exactly which fakes had gone where.

  Another big curved-horn dolce with cream, and I could look my own enormous ineptitude in the face. What the hell did I do now? Not just the ultimate in cowardice, but an incompetent one at that.

  My one bonus was that Cosima was fine, so they told me on the blower. From their guarded inquiries, they taped incoming calls, but I was past caring. Anyway, I changed my voice each time, talking through combs, tissue paper, doing it in funny accents and being different r
elatives and whatnot. No worry there.

  Ranged against me was my monumental ignorance, my thoroughly chicken-hearted nature and innate incompetence. I didn't know practically everything. For example, what Mrs. Norman was up to. Tonio's role anybody could guess, but was he Mrs. Norman's bloke or Caterina's? Both? Playing one against the other, with Mama's money as encouragement?

  There were some meager bits of knowledge. The scam was painfully real. Cosima had nearly died, and gunshots are proof of the most absolute kind. And now I knew some of the participants. Mrs. Norman was boss, with gelt and power. They'd mentioned a Luciano, presumably an expert faker. And an island. And if Luciano the faker was there, with Lovejoy the newly recruited forger being taken there, the island was the center of the scam, right? Answer must be yes. I shivered at the thought of all those bones on that other island.

  "Another two of those cakes, signora, please," I asked, to keep out the cold, and settled down to memorize the islands of the lagoon from my chart.

  As long as I got the direction and distance of tonight's boat journey, I'd be able to identify the island, then find my own way there whenever I wanted, right?

  Answer: no. Because there's such a thing as a blindfold, and such a thing as suspicion. They turned out to possess both.

  Curiosity made me peer from the St. Theodore's column in the direction of the Riva. Curiosity drove me among the crowds past the dozing Ivan the Terrible, past my artist—still grumbling to all spectators about money—to the second bridge, where I sat to watch for Cesare.

  His boat was there. He was there, too, with a harassed new girl courier I'd never seen before, clipboard and all. Maybe Cosima's ex-partner, now relieved of her boyfriend, and holding the fort?

  Cesare's boat left with a load of tourists about five, probably to the Marco Polo for the departing Alitalia 294, which meant a good hour even if little boats like his don't have to go all the way round through Murano like the big ones do. Reluctant to risk being accidentally spotted from the hotel or by the boatmen, I ducked down past the San Zaccaria, long way round, and popped into Vivaldi's Pieta church, the one which old Pinder got so burned up about.