Moonspender

by Jonathan Gash

  I ducked and weaved, then snatched up a great tuft of grass as the creature crashed past the fourth time. My neck got a lash from the nutter, but it was cheap at the price. As he hauled on the animal's gears

  I wheezed after them, my legs trembling. The beast turned to find me crouched there. I leapt skyward with a howl and hurled my tuft, shedding black soil, into the bloody thing's face. It reared and the bloke went over. I'd actually started a last desperate sprint before I realized it wasn't coming any more. It trotted off, looking quite jovial, tail up and snorting. Our hero lay there, winded. My ribs burned. A hand fell on my shoulder.

  "You're under arrest, Lovejoy."

  "Me?" Even that word took three labored inspirations. It was Geoffrey, vigilant constable of our parish, in his size twenty-one boots and posh uniform. "Whafor?"

  "Assault," he said proudly.

  "Don't-be-bloody-silly, Geoffrey," I panted.

  That cheering noise had changed. It was now a chorus of booing, of all sounds my least favorite. Astonished, I looked round. A crowd— honest, a real mob—of people thronged the road beyond the hedge. They carried placards and banners full of exhortation. I didn't bother to look any more; I've never read an intelligible banner yet. To my surprise I spotted a familiar face among the mob. Podge Howarth? Out here?

  "Hang on, Geoffrey," I said.

  This hulking great huntsman was hauling himself to his feet as I stepped up and booted him in the crotch. He doubled with a whoomph that nearly blew Geoffrey's helmet off. The distant boos turned to thunderous applause.

  "Here, Lovejoy. Stop that," Geoffrey commanded. I eyed the horse with hate. Jauntily it eyed me back. I decided to abandon ball-kicking while I was ahead.

  "He tried to kill me, Geoffrey," I explained. "I want him arrested." I decided to snap the goon's whip in a grandiloquent gesture for encore, but the whip wouldn't break. All it did was bend. I felt a duckegg and hoped nobody noticed.

  "Come quietly, Lovejoy. Don't give me all this aggro." Geoffrey led me off while this bird on her white nag pounded up and demanded why I wasn't being hanged from the nearest tree.

  "I've arrested him, miss," Geoffrey said respectfully. "This felon is now in custody."

  Felon? Whacked and bewildered as I was, I couldn't help using up my few remaining kilojoules in an amazed stare. I'll bet anybody a quid that Geoffrey doesn't even know what a felon is.

  "He kicked Major Bentham," pronounced this mounted Valkyrie.

  The crowd's cheers became jeers. A chant of "No, no, no!" began. My day suddenly brightened.

  "I assaulted nobody, did I?" I yelled.

  "No, no, no!

  No wonder there are goons everywhere these days. The feeling's really great. You can say anything, even gibberish, and still emerge president with the World Bank hanging on every belch.

  Fist aloft, I bawled, "Nidginovgorod yeah!" and unbelievably got a "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" ripping the clouds over the brook where Tacitus himself had sat and bathed his feet. I thought, I don't believe this world any more. Maybe I'm a throwback, or a sport. At least I would have thought that, except nowadays you've to say heterozygous recessive mutant or some such. . . . Oh, Christ. A large black saloon car was pulling in by the hedge.

  A somber man emerged, lighting his pipe. Between flashes and puffs he glanced over to our weird scenario, and beckoned. I plodded over, Geoffrey coming with that head-lowering pose of the superseded bobby.

  "Wotcher, Ledger."

  He wafted his match out, chin raised like a stag sniffing fire. "Lovejoy. What're you doing booting the local gentry?"

  "I'm here by invitation. Tinker gave me a message for ten o'clock, the lady of the house."

  "Nothing to do with fox-hunting?"

  "Eh?" I turned to inspect the immediate universe. The chanting mob was now walking along the road, placards everywhere. A hairy bloke was pouring stuff on the ground. Athletic-looking men stripped for marathon running were scuffing their shoes in the mess. The penny dropped. They were preparing good old aniseed porridge, which harriers would stamp all over the countryside to mislead hounds. "Not today. Ledger. I've read all the quotations." Nobody was going to call me unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.

  He actually nearly virtually smiled. Almost. "The major must've thought you were a protester."

  "He should have asked." I eyed him with curiosity. "Here, Ledger. You're around a lot these days, aren't you? For a corporal, I mean."

  Amazingly he was amused. "Now, lad," he said benignly.

  "No, seriously. Fox hunts on your beat, are they?"

  "Ledger!" the hooliganess screamed, deprived of her arena massacre. "I demand—"

  "Says he's here by invitation, lady." To his credit Ledger didn't give ground as she kicked her horse closer. Calmly he struck a match on his coat, to my unbounded admiration, and the beast nervously edged off. The bird lashed the poor thing, furious. It skittered, eyes whitening in worry. I really felt sorry for it. We losers share empathy. "Miss Can-dice, meet Lovejoy. He's unscrupulous, a consort of thieves, and in my view certifiably insane."

  Civilization waited. Then, "Lovejoy?" she said.

  "How do," I said, still trying to be friends.

  Ledger swiveled to point at the big house. He'd made up his mind. "Up that footpath, Lovejoy, you'll see signs To The Restaurant. The lady'll be there."

  "You sure. Ledger?" I asked. "Only, that silly sod—"

  Ledger didn't even glance at the major, who was hunching his slow way along the fenced drive, a paradigm for us all. "The constable will accompany you to ensure your safe arrival, Lovejoy."

  "Am I still under arrest. Ledger?"

  "You misunderstood the constable's phraseology," Ledger said, getting in his car. The police have this knack of losing responsibilities. "Call in sometime. I'd like a chat. 'Morning." He was tipping his hat as the police driver left us a cloud of pollutant. The slur was unmistakable. Miss Candice glared at me. I shrugged, carefully keeping Geoffrey's stolid mass between the bird and me, and went over to Podge Howarth, who obviously felt sheepish being spotted among this lot.

  "Wotcher, Podge," I said blithely. "Ta for helping me when the Cossacks came." A number of protesters grinned and slapped my shoulders admiringly. A gray-eyed girl in camp-follower attire—shredded jeans, dirty pullover knitted from wholemeal, bark sandals—kissed me and awarded me some poor flower she'd dragged from its bed in the interests of conversation. A button-badge begged Call Me Enid!

  "Wotcher, Lovejoy. Didn't know it was you or I'd have—"

  "Oh, aye." I kept pace with his trudging circle. Finding him among a mob of peace-loving proearth antihunt protesters is like a frog in fruit— something with no immediate explanation. I mean, I don't care for hunting either, because I always feel like the fox, never the hunter. But that doesn't set me off rioting, usually because I'm being hunted elsewhere. Now, Podge is a laugh. He makes Roman bronze door keys, always has scores buried in his little garden aging. With the soft bronze he uses—his cousin's a Birmingham car dealer—a lovely antique-looking patina takes about a year to develop in a good (meaning bad) summer. A dry hot midyear like we'd just had is murder to a bronze forger. "Look, Podge," I said. "What's going on? The whole Eastern Hundreds're going frigging barmy."

  He became even shiftier. "Dunno, Lovejoy."

  Puzzled, I halted to inspect the demonstration. You can tell when a bloke's following a bird, can't you. Nodding and beaming as they trogged, I watched them once round to make sure there was no married lady whose eyes wavered in guilt. Was Podge Howarth littering our countryside for sordid sex, or something nearer to his avaricious heart? Yes, he was grinning fatuously at the gray-eyed flower-giver Enid, and her with a wedding ring. Tut-tut. Satisfied, I turned to my police escort.

  "Right, Geoffrey," I said resignedly. "Fancy a walk?"

  Me and Geoffrey went up the path chatting about my fellow villager Raymond, currently on remand for trying to pull the old fiddle trick with a piece of early Wedgwood.
<
br />   "Unbelievable, these days," Geoffrey was saying as I helped him over a stile. He has these feet. "Stupid sod."

  "Raymond's daft. Won't be told," I agreed. "Want a rest?"

  "No, ta," he panted, hobbling and leaning on me, though I was the one who'd been cavalried. "He'll get six months, Lovejoy. Mark my words."

  "Stroll on," I mourned. Three of us—me. Big Frank and Margaret Dainty—had clubbed together to finance good old Raymond's escapade. If he got clinked, we'd be responsible for his antique shop until they released him. Unwritten and tiresome rules of our hopeless game. I'd known Raymond hadn't the brains to pull it off, but he's Margaret's cousin and you know women.

  Geoffrey halted, mopped the interior of his cavernous helmet. "We're here, Lovejoy. In you go."

  Surprised, I stared at the great glass edifice projecting from the lovely old mansion house's side. It was almost an exact shoebox shape, an aluminum-framed slab erected by Neanderthals. It was labeled Modem Farm Centre Restaurant in simulated microdot typeface, red on gold. "Hell fire, Geoffrey. Do I have to?"

  "Good morning, Lovejoy," said this lady, smiling from the French windows, so I went in and left Geoffrey to the mercy of his feet. "So you're the unspeakable lout who assaulted Christopher?" Unspeakable after all, note.

  "Look, missus," I said uneasily. "I can come back. I don't mind leaving it—"

  "Do stay. I need you. Like our new place?"

  She led me through a forest of tubular steel tables, red plastic, and unusable slump chairs designed to immobilize the unwary. Flowers looked ashamed in intense blue slit glass vases, Czechoslovakia's idea of art. Dangling wicker baskets marauded on the ceiling, drooping orange blossoms trying to escape. The whole place had an air of a travelers' Gothic, dreadful. I just made the office without retching. I'd give twice a lot for ten minutes of her, but not for her horrible restaurant. Instantly I knew what was wrong: She'd hired an expert.

  "Candice told me all about it," she said, lighting a cigarette. She didn't need me. She needed Sandy and Mel, because they could make this ghastly clinical restaurant look really homely, except Sandy'd scream and Mel'd get one of his famous heads.

  "Oh, aye." My tone must have told her I'd been the victim of many such impartial reports. Unexpectedly she gave a broad infectious smile, and suddenly I liked her.

  She had a kind of tooled elegance some women call grace. Not Mrs. Ryan's vibrant showiness, but a precision-made look that announced: I'm still trendier than anybody. I'm not much up on the subject of women's garb, yet all the signs of wealth were there: the strap-round yeoman boots in pricey leather, the russet worsted skirt, bishop-sleeve silk blouse. Pearls genuine; surprisingly, no rings. Even so, you wouldn't get much change here from a quid.

  "I'm Suzanne York," this elegance said. "Thank you for broaching the defenses. Christopher assumes the estate's already his."

  Hello, I thought, heart sinking. The dreaded inheritance bit. When property, by some miracle, is being kept out of the taxman's hands, it's never anything but trouble. Women always find my expression a giveaway. She quickly added, "Well, Lovejoy. My husband's passed on. Raising my niece is a problem, a very costly one." "The hounds expensive?" I asked. "Your butler poor?" "Don't start that." She sighed and crossed her legs, picking a tobacco flake off her tongue. "Major Bentham says the hounds will generate interest among the county set, who'll flock to my new restaurant." She eyed me. "You like it?"

  "Horrible, love."

  She took it on the chin. "Yes, well. Just as well you're not likely to frequent the place, isn't it?"

  Touché. "Lady. The, er, reason—"

  "And in any case," she said, temper rising, "the best restaurant designers in London—"

  "It's great," I cut in hastily. "That's what I meant." After all, anyone who builds a glass and tin shoebox with scarlet tables might be daft enough to hire me.

  "You needn't crawl, Lovejoy." She was still mad at me for hating her grottie caff. "It's just that this place is intended for the upper bracket." And you're not in that class, she carefully didn't add, but the words rattled about the office just the same.

  "Which raises the question of me." I smiled my groveler's smile.

  "Your performance on television, Lovejoy." She swung her chair. It was one of those that businessmen use, so they can turn their backs on visitors without having to move. She didn't go quite that far. "Was it genuine, or rehearsed?"

  "It wasn't a performance." Her skepticism narked me. "They slung me out." I was indignant.

  "I noticed you'd been replaced for the second half" Her interest was showing so I melted a bit. "Do you want a job?"

  Suddenly I saw it all. This Suzanne was the person Sykie wanted hooked! I grinned jubilantly. I'd fallen on my feet, actually done what Sykie wanted. "Yes. What is it?"

  "I want you to find a genuine antique, for the restaurant." I tried not to wince, imagining a Sheraton chair or an inlaid Ince and Mayhew table among this load of crud. "For a raffle."

  "Eh?"

  "You see, Lovejoy, a restaurant needs a gimmick. They've all been done a thousand times, the Saxon Axe Bar, King Alfred's Kake Kitchen, Ancient Brit, Quaker's Retreat, all the local history tinseled up."

  "And you think an antique. . . ?"

  Her eyes were glowing, lovely behind the curved lashes. "Each table is numbered. A fanfare, a drumroll, and presto! The lucky table wins an antique!" She was so thrilled she almost applauded herself. "Isn't it a wonderful opening?"

  Which meant the place hadn't opened yet, that only the workmen had so far glimpsed the monstrosity. Thank God for that.

  "When's the off?"

  "Saturday. What do you have in stock, Lovejoy?" She was out of her depth. "I could call at your showrooms—"

  Showrooms? "Er, yes," I said. "But it's more usual for the purchaser to simply say what's in her mind. Then I'd know what items to arrange in the, er, warehouse." I waxed eloquent. "You see, stock is continually changing."

  "Business," this dear innocent agreed with a grave frown, "is business. Yes, I do understand, Lovejoy." The contractors must have rooked her rotten over that garish hangar of a restaurant. "Though Major Bentham advises us on the financial side of things."

  Just as this particularly nasty penny dropped—the galloping major her friendly treasurer—I heard a real frightener. It was a long gravelly sound, with strangled barks, then rising to a bubbly gasp. Mrs. York went pale. "Heavens!" she whispered. "What was that?"

  I knew, and opened the door. Tinker was at the far end of the restaurant between Geoffrey and the major.

  " 'Ere, Lovejoy," he wheezed, recovering from his cough. "They just nicked me."

  "It's all right. Tinker," I called, and said to Mrs. York, "Thank you. I'll select a number of pieces and have my assistants display them in the, ah, display rooms."

  "This lout's another one, Suzanne," called the gallant officer. He could have made ten of Tinker, and held him by the scruff" of his neck. Enough to make anybody cough.

  "Who on earth. . . ?" Mrs. York was peering anxiously at the trio.

  "It's all right, love," I said smoothly. "One of my messengers. We use all sorts of disguises. Mr. Tinker is a Sotheby's undercover man. Not a word, mind."

  "Of course." She sounded doubtful so I made a swift good-bye.

  By the time I reached them Tinker was puce and could only point to his throat where the huntsman's big hand gripped. Geoffrey was standing stolidly by, embarrassed.

  "Half a sec, Tinker." I looked around, pulled a chair close, stepped up, and swung a foot in an arc and up, kicking the major in the belly.

  His chin came forward and caught the chair back. I actually heard his teeth rattle. Blood spouted from his mouth as he slumped, going, "Ergh! Ergh!" as he fell. I heard somebody scream—probably dear old Candice; it seemed her role in life—and got down, pulling Tinker along and down the steps. The quicker we were out of this place the better, now I'd got the job.

  Geoffrey hobbled after us saying wait for me and t
hat. Wearily we helped him down the path. When Tinker had got his breath I asked him what he'd followed me for.

  "Nothing urgent?" I asked, hoping.

  "Sykie's after you, Lovejoy. He's bleedin' mad."

  My blood chilled. "At me? What for? I've done all the right things." I'd proved it to myself over and over. Hadn't I?

  "Says he told you to stop home," Tinker said. "Here, Lovejoy. Reckon they've got draught beer?"

  I was just drawing breath to say I'd suggest it to Suzanne for opening night when I decided to save the oxygen. A pair of long thick saloon cars were waiting in the roadway. Sykie's two lads stood by wearing happy smiles.

  If you don't mind I won't go into details over the next bit. Eric and his brother did me physical damage. That's enough description. It was more or less as painful as what I'd done to the galloping major. It only seemed to last forty times as long.

  5

  Doc Lancaster told me I was a bloody fool to keep getting into scraps that I never won, but wasn't it lucky I had good friends like Mr. Sykes who had come to give me a lift home. I said a bitter yes, wasn't it.

  "I've been good to you, Lovejoy," Sykie announced as I got painfully into his car. "Haven't I?"

  "Yes, Sykie."

  "Your face isn't even marked," he added, gratified and forgiving. "You understand the implications, Lovejoy?"

  "Aye, Sykie."

  "No more naughty from you, eh?"

  "No, Sykie."

  "Legs all right, are they?"

  "A few stitches."

  "Good, good." He sounded honestly quite glad. "Always go to the doctor's in good time, Lovejoy. My old mother used to say that."

  Sykie swung his motor onto the A604 and put us between the farms in quick succession, driving patiently, reminiscing about the good old days spent duffing up law-abiding citizens and bribing the Plod in London's East End. He thoughtfully included a number of his dear old mum's homilies for my edification. I said how very wise his mum had been.