The Vatican Rip l-5

by Jonathan Gash

  I sat there like a nerk, daintily at breakfast on top of one of the great masonry teeth which protruded from the floor of the vast arena. Even the most suspicious-minded crook could see I was alone, unaided and completely vulnerable.

  I had been there an hour, perched on my stone block. Anna's white tablecloth fluttered indolently in the stirring air. My elbows on the coffee table and the coffee almost gone.

  What dregs were left in the cup were now stone cold. I was only saving them for effect.

  Getting the table up had almost proved too much for me and Valerio. Patrizio and Anna had sussed out the entire Colosseum at four a.m., reporting all clear in whispers. Apart from one sleeping old drunk and the inevitable prowling cats, the place was empty. I made Patrizio and Anna promise to leave once I was in position. Anna was all for staying and taking on the universe with me. I refused to explain, saying it was all part of the rip. I felt utterly alone.

  The sky lightened. Rectangles of pastel blue began to appear, stencilled out of the enormous brown stone rim above me. I shivered, half wanting the sun to reach down into the enormous bowl and warm me but too frightened to wish really hard. When it rose, Arcellano would come. Some murderers come alone. Others come with a band of assassins. I knew which sort Arcellano was.

  A distant bus revved up and chugged out into the streets. First sound of the day. A few moments later a car came close, changed gear, droned away to silence. Near by a cat stretched, scaring me to death by suddenly being there. I calmed myself as best I could by rehearsing my movements. Arcellano would send his goons to go over the Colosseum inch by inch. I'm not that dim. With a little luck—and the speed which my terror would lend me—I'd be off out of the whole frigging mess with the speed of light.

  I looked down and along the sandy ground across to my left. There, half the arena's width away, was the spot where Marcello's broken body had lain. My eyes lifted, as casually as if I were idly waiting, to where my pulley and beam overhung the stonemason's area. The massive stone block which hung suspended there did not even stir in the cool shifting air. I swallowed. It represented safety, but the bloody thing looked miles away. I'd have to run that far, dodging among the vast blocks.

  I was becoming worried. Time was getting on. I let my gaze move inch by inch round the scagged interior. No sign. No movement. Only one of the cats coughing gently in the gloom directly ahead. The place was dappling swiftly. And the sky blueing, and gold touching the stonework. Soon, visitors would be waking to start the day and there was no way I could cajole Arcellano into a rerun of this meeting…

  That cat coughed again. And I remembered the sound. Too late.

  Against the weakening shadows a pale shape was emerging. About as tall as a man, a big man, with a fawn overcoat draped elegantly over his shoulders. And he was laughing. The laugh was short and dry, unvoiced barks like a coughing cat. I glanced involuntarily towards the long sandy run towards my recess. The pale shape saw my glance and began to drift that way. I thought, Oh Gawd.

  I took a sip of coffee dregs to wet my throat and called, 'Is that you, Arcellano?' The cup rattled in it saucer.

  'Charming tableau, Lovejoy.'

  'Coffee, or have you had breakfast?' It was the best I could do. Everything I possessed had got the wobbles.

  'You're allowed one cigarette, Lovejoy. Before execution.'

  'Don't be daft, Arcellano. You owe me. I pulled the rip.'

  'Wrong, Lovejoy. My men checked. The Chippendale's still there.'

  I lifted the edge of the tablecloth to show the pedestal and the rent table's unmistakable edge. 'It's here, friend. Your antique from the Vatican. The one now in the Museum gallery is a forgery. I made it.'

  He thought about that before speaking. 'Then why no alarms yesterday?'

  'Because I made a good forgery. Go and check. I'll wait here.'

  That cat cough laugh really sounded then, maybe a whole minute. He wiped his eyes, but all the time he was drifting to my left along the terracing. I had to look upwards at a slight angle to see him.

  'You bastard, Lovejoy,' he called down. 'How?'

  I explained the outline. All the time he was drifting, drifting in the direction I had glanced earlier. The swine suspected that was where I'd try to make my escape. He paused, leaning on the iron tourist rail. I could see him clearly now. With every second the day was rushing into brightness.

  'You clever bastard,' He honestly sounded full of admiration. 'The old fiddle switch to rip the Vatican. I might have known. A bluff on a bluff.'

  'It was nothing,' I said, all modest.

  'They said you were really something, Lovejoy.' He was chuckling. 'Robbery without alarms. The only way it can be done. Congratulations.'

  I thought, Here goes. 'Thank you,' I said with careful loudness. 'Captain.'

  I moved my trembling legs ready to leap off the stool and run.

  He paused, tilted his head. 'Captain? What are you talking about, Lovejoy?' He waited. I tried not to glance again at the million miles of sand which stretched between the recess and me.

  'You're a senior officer of the Vatican Security guard, Arcellano.'

  'You're insane.'

  'You thought up this rip to test the Vatican's security. On the quiet.' I let that sink in.

  'So you had a grotty copy made of the Chippendale original. This is that copy.'

  'So where's the real piece?'

  'You have it stashed away.'

  'And why should I go to all that trouble?'

  I smiled, the thing I least felt like doing. 'If I succeeded in pulling the rip, you naturally assumed there'd be a gap left in the gallery's exhibits. Then you could put the real Chippendale back. Nobody would then know there'd been a rip at all.'

  'And if you failed?'

  'Then I'd be nabbed,' I said evenly. 'By you. Your men would have me in clink.'

  'Doubtless telling tales, no?'

  'Yes, but an improbable tale people would laugh at. You gave yourself away, Captain.'

  'Really?' The bastard was too calm by far. I could feel his two goons smiling in the morning shadows behind me and tried not to look round, to concentrate on this murdering bastard who had now resumed his oh-so-casual stroll round the terrace towards my only escape route. 'Really, Lovejoy? How?'

  'A clever geezer like you would naturally want to protect his interests, in case things went wrong,' I said. 'Captain Blood put an end to the straight-lift caper, nicking the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in 1671. Substituting the dud showed your hand.'

  'But why should I bother, Lovejoy?'

  'Because you had the greatest prize of all in mind—a method, Captain. If I succeeded, you'd know how it could be done.'

  He was smiling, the fucking swine, thinking he'd won. 'And you've given it to me, Lovejoy. A method which can be repeated times out of number.' He grinned. 'I'm indebted. Now I can drain the whole Vatican, item by item. I thank you. Sincerely.'

  'But you murdered Marcello, Captain.'

  'Well.' He spread his hands. 'He started asking around about Cardinal Arcellano.'

  'That was my fault,' I cut in. 'I knew no other name for you except that. I should have realized as soon as Marcello sounded suddenly so different, full of urgency.'

  'Silly of me to use the honoured Cardinal's name at that little auction. It seemed just a joke at the time.'

  'It misfired, Captain. You had to kill Marcello because of it. Am I correct?'

  'Near enough. But it's over, Lovejoy. Once that table's out of sight all your evidence has gone, right?'

  'You've forgotten one thing, Captain.'

  He snapped his fingers. The stockier of his gorillas stepped out of the terrace shadows.

  A second appeared far over to my left. My exit run was now overlooked by them both.

  Arcellano made some light quip to the goon, the pleasant way his sort do before knocking somebody off. He turned back to me, a picture of mayhem in classy suiting.

  His voice was suddenly flint hard. 'If
you mean payment, Lovejoy, you'll get paid—well paid.'

  I said shakily, sweat stinging my eyes and my voice quavering, 'I don't mean that.

  You're under arrest, Captain.'

  It should have come out crisp as a western gunfighter's threat. It came out a feeble warble.

  His famous non-smile was back. 'I'm… what?

  'You heard, piss-head.'

  A car droned by. It didn't stop. Yet this was the moment Russomanno and his Keystone Kops should have come bursting in with lovely protecting howitzers. There was silence.

  A cat yawned extravagantly. Arcellano was glancing about swiftly. His two goons had reached inside their jackets. With innate skill they backed against the supporting pillars, fading from the daylight into shadow.

  'Get him.'

  I flung myself sideways, dropping to the ground, and was off, keening with fright. I ran like a stag down the narrow avenue of tall stones, hunched and babbling imprecations, begging for my life. Instinctively I weaved, ducking in and out among the colossal rectangles and scuffing the sand. If only I'd trained. Something plucked the air by my head, clipping stone chips from the masonry. My face stung. A bang, echoing. I heard Arcellano screaming instructions. I could hear footsteps along the terrace.

  Frantic now, I cringed behind an upright slab as a piece of stone exploded at eye level ahead of me. Three cracks sounded. More stone chips. I moaned in terror. The bastards were everywhere. It was all wrong.

  Arcellano should have come down to this level so I could imprison him by my ingenious falling block in that recess up ahead, for the police to arrest at leisure. I ducked into view, saw Arcellano on the terrace, hurled myself back into cover. Two more gunshots, one from behind and to the side. My leg went funny. Bleating with terror I tottered forward, weaving among the standing stones as fast as my sudden limp would allow. I whined, 'Please, please…'

  'Halt! Hait!'

  'Get him!'

  Along the stone avenue, with shots going everywhere and people shouting. I glimpsed Arcellano directly against the metal railing. He swung over ahead of me and dropped lightly to the sand, to my level at last. But he carried a shiny slate blue length in his hand. For a big man he moved like a dancer, soft and easy. I moaned in terror at the sight. He was only twenty yards off and floating like the hunter he was, his teeth bared in a silent hiss. I'd never been so frigging scared of anything or anybody. I limped to the right. More shouts and a small fusillade of echoing shots. Somebody screamed. It wasn't me, thank God.

  'Lovejoy!' some lunatic yelled, as if I wasn't out of my skull with horror.

  Gasping, I lumbered along the arena wall and across the straight avenue of standing stones. The bastard was gliding away from me, looking from side to side. I must have made a noise, maybe scraped on a stone or something, because he spun instantly and the blue thing in his hand flashed. The air near me warmed and splinters flicked blood splashes from my face. I tumbled to, one side, scrabbled lopsidedly across to the far side where my chain hung. The only place I could go was my recess. My own bloody prison.

  The space was the size of a large room. Masonry tools lay scattered. Chisels, hammers, mallets and set-squares, some as Valerio and I had dropped them during the dark hours. Too late to think of using those now. I made it to the coil of chain and gave it a yank to set it firm on the pulley. My throat was raw with fright. Somebody shouted again up on the terraces. I heard rather than saw Arcellano step towards the gap through which I'd come. I flicked the chain once, released it and stepped aside as the dull rumbling began.

  Arcellano came into the space. The fucking gun looked enormous.

  'Okay, Arcellano,' I yelled, though he was only a few feet off. 'I surrender! I'll say it was me!'

  'Too late, Lovejoy.' He was smiling now. 'You're resisting arrest, you see.' He raised his voice and shouted, 'The table, Maria! Just push it off that stone. It'll smash.'

  'Who?' I asked dully. He'd said Maria.

  The gun lifted. My belly squeezed. He glanced up then. Maybe it was the sudden swiftness of the rectangular shadow, maybe the rumbling of the descending block. I don't know. It was all in an instant. But he glanced up and froze, appalled at the sight of the massive block plummeting towards him. He hesitated, started to step back.

  'Forward!' I screeched. 'Step forward, man!'

  He halted, then leant towards me into the space left for the great stone, his eyes on mine. It was only then that I realized I'd told him wrong. I'd said forward when I actually meant to shout back. Either way I'd have been safe, but somehow my mind got the words wrong. It was unintentional. I swear it. Honestly, I never meant him to suffer like he did. The great stone settled into its allotted area with a faint scrape and hiss, pressing Arcellano's broad shoulders down and crushing blood into his face, and forcing the very life out of his mouth. His eyes popped in a spurt of blood that sprayed over my face. His face puced, swelled, burst out of its expression in a splatter of blood. The gun in his hand cracked once, sending splinters round the confined area. Needles drove into my neck and thigh but what the hell.

  Maria. He'd shouted instructions to Maria. His woman, Maria. To push the table, my evidence, off the central stone and break it to smithereens. I suddenly remembered why the table was up there on the stone, and drew a great breath.

  'Maria!'

  The name echoed round the Colosseum. 'Maria!' No sound but a distant shout—man's voice—and rapid footsteps.

  I screeched. 'Maria! Don't touch the table. Please! For Chrissakes, leave it—'

  Her dear voice came clear as a bell over the great arena. 'It's no good, Lovejoy.' Then those terrible words I'd give anything to forget. 'Get rid of him, darling.' Her voice had a finality I'd hoped never to hear. 'Do it.'

  She wasn't talking to me. She meant this dead thing under the stone. She obviously couldn't see—hadn't seen—the block fall on her man Arcellano. Frantic, I drew breath to scream a warning, but she was telling her man to do it. To kill me. Me, who loved her.

  And I uttered no sound.

  I slumped to the sand. It was all happening too fast. Dully I heard footsteps, people running. I sat against the wall of the recess, staring at that horrid mess of Arcellano's popped face squeezed bloodily from between the giant stones. His arm protruded in a great purple sausage. The other arm was nowhere to be seen. Tears streamed down my face, for what or why I don't know to this day.

  The explosion came exactly four seconds after I heard the table crash to the ground.

  The whiplash crack of the hand grenade's plug against the stonework sounded near my head. I didn't even flinch. They always say, don't they, that the plug of a grenade seeks out the thrower. Maria did not even have time to scream before she died.

  I don't know how long I was there, sitting in the sand of that accidental prison. The first thing I remember is a face grinning over the edge up there against the blue sky and saying into the scream of sirens, 'What is it? Filming?'

  It was the drunk, wakened by the war. 'Yes,' I told him.

  'Where are the cameras?'

  'Hidden.'

  I saw him fumble and bring out a tiny bronze disc. 'Want to buy a genuine ancient Roman coin?'

  I squinted up against the light. The same old acid patina, two days old. 'It's phoney.

  You've used too much acid to get the verdigris.'

  He mumbled, nodding. 'I told my mate that. He's a know-all.'

  He made to withdraw. 'Hey,' I said. 'Want to buy a genuine antique?'

  Somebody up there was yelling everybody to freeze because this was the police, that the place was surrounded. Sirens were going, car doors slamming. Now it was all done for them.

  Typical.

  CHAPTER 28

  No airport's pretty.

  They gave me my green boarding-card after an hour's wait. It's always a relief because it means you are going to get aboard and some other poor nerk's going to be left behind. The passengers I was with were a cheerful, talkative crowd. I sat to one side trying not
to remember the inquest, the harsh post-mortem evidence given over the verdict on my lovely Maria and on Menotti, her murderous lover. In the official hearing I had been gently reproved by Cardinal Arcellano for calling Menotti 'Arcellano', but explained I'd known him by no other name. The Cardinal was a quiet little bloke with a mind like a computer. He'd been understanding, even compassionate, when I'd given evidence about the killer Menotti's attempt to finish me. On the way out of the hearing I'd tried to avoid saying a farewell. He got in my way and told me he'd pray for my peace of mind. I'd said thanks and passed on by. I don't know what people are on about half the time.

  'Signor Lovejoy?' An air-terminal policeman stood there, all phoney boredom.

  'Yes?'

  'Would you come this way, please.'

  'But my flight's nearly called—'

  'Only a moment, signor.'

  Obviously a slight passport difficulty, easily resolved. I got my bag and followed him to the manager's office, trying to exude a sense of confidence towards the other passengers. I even swaggered, for show.

  There were four policemen in the office, including a captain. He had his thumbs in his belt.

  'You are Lovejoy?'

  'Yes. If it's this passport, I can explain…'

  'You know this old lady?'

  A photo of Anna in her pickpocketing clobber. 'Yes.'

  'Your aunt, I believe?'

  I thought swiftly. 'Er, not exactly. You see—'

  'You lodge at this address with her?'

  'Well, er…' The signature on the form was oddly familiar. It was my handwriting. That time Anna got nicked by the Via Porto Angelica. No wonder two of these cops looked familiar. The two in the car, who'd made me sign to get Anna off the hook.

  'Yes or no, signor?' That phoney boredom again. I'd rather have hate. It's safer. 'And this is your signature?'