The Gondola Scam

by Jonathan Gash

  God knows how long I stood there before I did the only sensible thing I'd done since I came to Venice. I put my head back and bawled, ''Help!”

  And blessedly, out of the wet night, quite close, came Keith's voice delightedly yelling, "Lovejoy! That you, blue? Keep shouting, mate! We're on you!"

  And lights began to glow as I bawled and bawled.

  29

  We worms of this world can't look heroes. I tried my best to seem noble while Tonio died on the dredger, where Keith and his two burly mates had finally managed to carry him.

  I could hardly look. He was covered in blood where my hoe had dug into his neck, his cheek, his temple. It was Gerry, astonishingly along, who did what could be done for him. In the brilliant light of the great dredger's cabin everything was ghastly. Blood and mud everywhere. But even in all this, Caterina had to get away.

  "Caterina knew about you killing Mr. Malleson and Crampie," I said to Tonio. "She told me." It came out like an accusation. I'd meant to sound kind. "You had to do Malleson. Mr. Pinder had hired him to recover that Carpaccio fake. He'd guessed about you and Caterina, hadn't he? And your plan to cheat Lavinia as well as his syndicate."

  He smiled, oddly friendly for the first time. "She was there, Lovejoy," he explained. His voice seemed oddly chatty, no hard feelings.

  "Where?" I said blankly.

  "She's left-handed. Ask the witnesses." His neck ran brown blood. Gerry thrust me aside and did something with a folded white square that instantly bloomed bright scarlet.

  "What's he saying?" one of Keith's burly dredger pals said irritably.

  "I'm not," Tonio informed us all in quite a conversational tone, and died in silence.

  "Not what?" the dredger bloke demanded. He was annoyed with practically everything. I wondered what it all had to with him.

  "Not left-handed. He was telling us.'

  "What the hell!" the man said. "He died?"

  "Poor, poor thing!" Gerry was in tears, kneeling beside Tonio on the cabin floor. "If he hadn't been so hacked about. . ."

  Christ, I thought, faint. It would have been me otherwise. Tonio had a frigging gun with him. No wonder Cesare and Caterina had laughed. Chains rattled outside.

  Keith consoled, "Don't cry, Gerry, dear. Please." A call sounded from the outside man, and his mate yanked a lever and put the wheel over, probably turning us or something. Tonio's body rocked a bit.

  Hopeless. Me nearly demented, frightened out of my senses on an island being flooded by the highest tide ever recorded, blinded in a fog, stumbling on buried corpses all over the frigging universe, attacked by an armed psychopath, and Keith tells Gerry please don't sob. I felt sick.

  "Listen, you burke,” I said to Keith. "Why the hell were you so late?"

  "The fog. We were watching the island, but—"

  "Watching?" I said, furious. The chains rattled. The outside bloke shouted in a slow shout. "In this? I said eleven o'clock."

  The dredger's motor gunned. The cabin gave one shake as we began to move, and a sudden jerk. The driver swore.

  "We couldn't come any earlier," Keith said, apologetic. "We had to call at the Rio dei Greci for permission."

  "Eh?" I began wondering if Keith was off his nut. There's nothing down there except the water police depot.

  "Oh, Lovejoy!" Gerry sobbed. "I said don't come out here tonight!"

  "I'm sorry, dear," Keith consoled Gerry. I looked at the steerman for enlightenment, but he was preoccupied with something outside in his fog-blind searchlight. The big dredger lifted an inch, maybe the tide turning.

  "What's he on about?" I asked Keith, suddenly uneasy.

  Keith gazed fondly at his mate and explained, "He's so tender-hearted. He feels things so, Lovejoy. And you're under arrest."

  "Eh? Me?"

  "You."

  "Here," I said queasily. "You can't do that. Can he?" I added to the steerman.

  He finally took notice of me as he swung the wheel frantically, "Si, signore," he said bluntly. "And so can I."

  "Oh, Lovejoy," Gerry wailed. "I said.”

  And he had. Don't go, he'd said to Keith. All the time he was pleading with his pal not to betray me.

  "And your interest in these dredgers . . . ?"

  "We kept the island under surveillance from the dredgers. They're the only vessels always left out on the lagoon. Come hell or acqua alta.”

  "You a cop too?"

  "Art squad. We both are."

  "We knew something's been going on, Lovejoy," Keith explained, his arm consolingly round his pal. "All those movie people, secret films, sudden departures. A bit amateur, really. None of the regular art thieves would be so careless. We never even find a trace of the London-Amsterdam teams. They're still the greatest thieves of all.”

  “So you've been watching us all?"

  “Fakes were appearing all over Venice. Stumbled on them by chance. We had an idea it was Tonio and maybe his grand signora."

  Tonio. Caterina. I tore out of the cabin to stand helplessly in the grotty fogbound air. And saw the funeral barge trundling along astern from a towing chain.

  'What's that?" I yelled to the burly man at the rail.

  'Only the funeral barge you stole," he said reprovingly. "We were lucky to find it. It had fetched up against the wall."

  “Did you untie it?" I could hardly speak the words. “I chained it to ... to ..."

  "Thought there was a bit of a pull." He shrugged. "But what's an anchor worth on a night like this?" No wonder the wheelman had been struggling to control the dredger. He was remembering what had made it temporarily difficult to get moving. Oh, Jesus.

  They turned the dredger back when I managed to convince them. All we found was a caved-in building just submerged by a tide that had laid almost the whole island awash. No trace of a living soul. Caterina and Cesare were buried, under the ruins, and under the tide.

  My idea had been to release them in daylight, select the best fakers, and exit laughing as 1 pulled the plug, destroying all trace of my filching. All I'd done was do for everybody else.

  30

  The villa was set off the road a hundred yards or more. It looked pretty, absolutely colorful and charming. A tennis court, a swimming pool. A splendid orangery in true Victorian style. A delectable little enclave of vines climbing up ornate trees. And a walled kitchen garden.

  "This it?" I actually felt pale. The car journey from Mestre hadn't made it any more pleasant, sandwiched between Keith and Gerry, those two eccentric expatriate members of the Antiques Fraud Squad.

  "This is it, Lovejoy," Keith confirmed, poisonously cheerful.

  "Bellissima, non e vero?" The police sergeant who had accompanied us was delighted it looked so fetching, as if he was trying to sell me the damned place.

  "Si, signore," I said courteously.

  'So many amenities!"

  “All securely netted, wired, walled." It was a prison.

  The sergeant looked despondent. "So much money in antiques."

  "It's that rose-colored wallpaper," Gerry whispered to Keith. "I'm just not sure."

  We walked in. The gate was wrought iron, head tall, and gave a telling double click when shut.

  "Before you case the joint, Lovejoy," Keith informed me in proudly dated slang, "your duties are to be available at eight-thirty each morning."

  "Where's the trial?"

  "No trial, Lovejoy."

  I presumed he meant to give evidence. "See the lawyers?"

  "Not that either. You're going to do an honest day's work, Lovejoy. Every single day."

  That shook me badly. "Look, Keith, mate. If you can pull a few strings ..."

  "No way, old sport."

  "It's to do with antiques, Lovejoy." Gerry ushered us all into the living room and waited hopefully for praise. I gave his decor a surly nod. His face brightened as if I'd exulted. "Keith's done a great deal with the police."

  The villa seemed full of crummy modem gunge. "Signora Norman's villa is just over the hill," Ke
ith explained.

  "A very beautiful, attractive lady," the police sergeant put in huskily.

  "You go there every day to examine the four caches of assorted antiques and fakes which the signora had distributed all over North Italy. They will be brought under escort."

  Scheming bitch. She'd told me one houseful. Still, Lavinia wasn't bad company, even after all this.

  "And I will divvie them?"

  'Too right, Lovejoy. The signora also came to agreement with us."

  "Come and see the kitchen!" Gerry cried excitedly. I trailed dejectedly after.

  "How do you know I won't cheat?"

  "A video film record will be made of every single antique. By a special film unit. We arranged it with Miss Nancy Waterson."

  "She too is a very beautiful, attractive lady." The police sergeant's voice was huskier.

  'True," Keith said, staring into the distance while I tried to look ecstatic at Gerry's kitchen design. "We chose her because Signora Norman once engaged her also previously for making her private advertising movies showing what stolen antiques she expected to have on sale.'

  "And, erm, where'll Nancy be, erm, based?"

  "Oh, around," Keith said.

  "And I want no criticism from her about the bathroom tiles," Gerry warned. "I sweated blood over those. Come and see."

  We trooped after him. He extolled the hallway and the special windows on the way.

  "Great," I echoed morosely into the bathroom.

  "Not avocado, note," Gerry said proudly. "I hate that color."

  "And how long's this arrangement to last?"

  "Six months in the first instance, Lovejoy. Renewable."

  "That's a sentence." I was sussing out the grounds. I was trapped in a bloody fortress.

  "True." Keith nodded to Gerry, pleased. "I think he likes it, Gerry."

  "Do you think so, dear?"

  "And Signorina Cosima," Keith added as we plodded after Gerry, who had squeakily decided we were to inspect the bedrooms next. "She'll be here."

  "Eh?"

  "A very beautiful, attractive lady," from the sergeant in a husky moan.

  "Well." Keith shrugged, "We have to keep an eye on you both. Why not together? After all you were—"

  "And we do approve of her," Gerry reminded us all. "Not like that bossy cow who just arrived."

  I was getting a headache. "Erm. Look, lads. That makes, er, four."

  "You asked us to cable her," Gerry said through pursed lips. "When you wanted all those lawyers and thought you were going to jail."

  "Connie? Here?"

  In Venice. She can visit you each evening.' A very beautiful, attractive . . ." The sergeant moaned.

  Forty miles. Bloody hell. Lavinia over the hill, thinking me hers alone. Nancy was nearby with a camera she would doubtless brain me with. And Cosima here in the villa frying up spaghetti pasties. With Connie who'd strangle me for just glancing at any of the others.

  "Now the garden!" Gerry trilled, eyeing me keenly. "This way! You're falling for it, aren't you, Lovejoy?"

  Dear God. I'd not survive a day. How the hell do I get in these bloody messes? My heart was banging at the battles to come.

  "What a good idea!" I cried, following Gerry. "Yes. Let's see what sort of plants you selected!"

  Gerry went ahead, anxiously watching my face as he listed the wretched fronds in the ground. I alternately frowned and beamed to keep Gerry on edge, and we walked along the perimeter path.

  Between fleeting changes of expression my eyes roamed the surrounding countryside. A road ran along the nearby slope, and a path led up from the edge about two furlongs from the villa's tennis court.

  "And these fuchsias, Lovejoy."

  "Lovely, Gerry."

  "I knew you would love them!" Gerry cried, calling the splendid news to Keith, who was watching me with narrowed eyes. The sergeant was lost in secret raptures.

  "And over by the pool?" I prompted.

  "Yes, well, lace-cap hydrangeas have such a riot of blues I almost went out of my tiny little mind."

  "A beautiful blue," I said, pausing. "Chrysanthemums?" If I could nick an antique piecemeal, and conceal it bit by bit near this perimeter fence, I might be able to get over the wire one dark night, and lam up that path—but there was a police patrolman having a smoke on his motorbike up there. Hellfire.

  "Pansies, Lovejoy?" Keith explained sardonically, suspicious swine.

  I smiled. "I just had to stop. My favorites."

  "Are they, Lovejoy?" Gerry gushed. "Oh, thank heavens we decided to put some in that border!"

  'They grow well, don't they, Lovejoy?" Keith was still watching me.

  "Great."

  "Especially since the wire fence carries an electric current."

  Gerry saw my face. "Positively no harm to your flowers, Lovejoy, dear. We've been into all that." Gerry gave Keith a sharp glance. "Don't you start worrying Lovejoy, Keithie, there's a dear."

  "A car!" The police sergeant brightened. A red Acclaim was bowling over the hill, the way we'd come.

  "Two." A second car hove in sight.

  "Your friends, Lovejoy," Keith said. "Here they come. All your little helpers."

  "Er, great," I said in panic, thinking. Now if I could nick a tin opener from the kitchen, I could maybe use it to fuse that frigging wire fence while the cop is mesmerized by the birds.

  "We'll be off, then." Keith and Gerry moved.

  "Erm, look, erm," I tried. "Any chance of a deal?"

  "Aren't you going to go down and say hello?" Keith said innocently.

  "Not yet. I'll stay here a minute." Maybe Earth would collide with Saturn or something.

  Gerry's eyes filled. "With his pansies! Oh, how sweet!"

  I could have trampled the bloody things. In a desperate sweat I was working out: Now if I got Cosima or maybe Connie to sunbathe one day, then while the cops were mesmerized I could nick one of the antiques and cut the current and steal out. . .

  "And the patrol police are on four sides, Lovejoy," Keith called from the gate. "Give them a wave now and then. To show you're still here. 'Byeee."

  I could almost swear the bastard was still suspicious of me. Why is there no trust in the world anymore? Why is it that we trustworthy honest folk always come a cropper and everybody else gets away scot free? There's something wrong somewhere.

  A car pulled up and a motor cut.

  "Lovejoy! Darling!"

  "Hello, love." Smiling, I quickly developed a limp and went to embrace Cosima while the second car came nearer and nearer. She looked well and beautiful. "Look," I whispered to her. "Can I go and lie down, sweetheart? And be left strictly alone? Only, I've had an absolutely terrible time since I saved your life in that lagoon."