Moonspender

by Jonathan Gash

  They left, the goons giving me prolonged threatening stares. I had a splitting headache. The whole world was now goading me into a personal Barge of the Light Brigade. Well, maybe a Creep. I sighed lengthily. Nothing for it. I'd have to suppress my ingrained cowardice and raise my game. Dare to be surreptitious, Lovejoy, risk caution.

  The phone was still on. "Sandy? Lovejoy."

  The receiver squealed. I held it full arm's length and still heard Sandy's scream. "Ooooh! Mel, dearie! It's that utter scoundrel Bluebeard Lovejoy!"

  Like I say, an embarrassment. I go red even when I'm on my own. "Cut it, Sandy. I've a job for you."

  "Mel, dear," Sandy caroled sweetly. "Lovejoy demands our services. Thrills!"

  "Money, Sandy," I said, to silence the maniac.

  "He's said the magic word, Mel! Oh, what an absolutissimo cherub! Where, lovie?"

  "Be in the Treble Tile, noon."

  "Have the drinkies ready, cherub. Sweet lemonade for Mel, but no lemon unless it's genuine Seville. Gin and hormone for me. What's the job? No more Gold Coast tribal effigies, please. They turned Mel peculiar." I'd done a commission sale for them on an Ashanti shield, no later than 1880 but beautiful.

  "A lady at Dogpits."

  Sandy screamed. "You sadist. Double commission, then!"

  Cradling my pintpot I let my head pulse unhindered. No aspirin. I'd cadge a couple from old Kate. She'd be cleaning the village chapel later.

  The glimpse of my face in my cracked mirror depressed me no end: gaunt, unshaven, frightened. Nothing new there. I rose and shuffled among the chaos of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., that writ-riddled enterprise. I was narked, what with Toffee miaowing for her grub, blue tits tapping on the window, the robin screeching at me. How did St. Francis keep his temper with his massive menagerie, much less get beatified? Or Byron write sublime verse with a zoo —bears, a camel—in his basement?

  "One day I'll go on strike," I shouted, searching under the sink for the robin's minced bacon rind. "You see if I frigging don't."

  But by noon I'd got a plan of action.

  Fixer Pete caught me at the Olde Showrooms at Head Gate. This is a warehouse specializing in junk furniture, chuck-out stuff that even ragbone men can hardly be bothered with. It's run by Ridgway, a loud long-limbed bloke with sallow cachectic cheeks. He looks desperate, a real Mexico Pete. For years I've been telling him to turn to politics. They pay simpletons, and Ridgway's that all right.

  "Lovejoy!" he thundered as I entered the glass porch. "What d'you think I've found?" He came clumping at me. Fixer Pete was upending some grottie old chairs over by the windows. He has more sense than rush over. A few old dears were ambling among the heaped dross. An old soldier snored peacably on a rotting chaise longue. I carefully didn't see Fixer.

  I said wearily, "Another Rembrandt?" He's always just found another Rembrandt.

  "No lies, Lovejoy. Scout's honor." Since Easter he's discovered a Turner, a Gainsborough and six van Goghs, he says. "Come and look," he pleaded. "It'll only take a second."

  "Or less."

  The painting was practically a black-brown wash. It could have passed for roofing felt. Nev bounced around it. He'd put it on an easel. "I'll make a fortune, Lovejoy. How old do you reckon?"

  "Who cares?" I made to walk off but he caught at me.

  "What's up? It's ancient!" He was appalled by my exasperation. I was justified. Everybody's got Shakespeare's secret last play or Michelangelo's missing sculpture Sleeping Cupid in some attic. It's not just once. It's ten times a frigging day.

  "Nev, old pal." I'd felt no vibes in my chest. "Take any painting you like, hang it in total darkness, and it'll dowse. The colors blacken. Also, it's filthy." I spat on my hankie and caressed it. "See? You can't even tell what it is. Ship? Lovebirds? Landscape?" I didn't explain that sunlight will occasionally partly restore a dark-blackened oil painting to life. It's as if a painting knows its whole purpose is to be seen, and its little lamp simply goes out in despair when closeted in darkness. That's why I hate these investment companies and trade-union pension funds that hide paintings in vaults, the cruel sods. I'd rather have the Sir Johns of this world anytime, and that's saying a lot.

  "Honest, Lovejoy? Sixty quid for it?" He saw my hesitation and pleaded, "The frame's worth that, for God's sake."

  "Thirty." I scribbled an IOU, and called, "Fixer. Tell Tinker we've paid a fortune for this old blackboard."

  "Okay, Lovejoy." Fixer Pete nodded, came along with me.

  I left, with Nev grinning all over his face. I'd try the sunlight trick after cleaning it. He was right about the frame, but the painting was worth a try.

  "What's the job, Lovejoy?" Fixer asked. He's a tiny smiley man with a tash off a silent film. His Chaplin walk is quite natural. I like him. He takes orphanage children on outings in his brother's taxi when the London cabbies convoy to Yarmouth. His own three kids are grown up.

  "Fix a wedding, Pete. Somewhere posh; the George, say. It's Rowena's and Big Frank's."

  "For how many?"

  "Dunno."

  "When for, Lovejoy?"

  I rounded on him and yelled, "Fixer! I've given you the frigging job, now get frigging on with it."

  A few fuming strides down Red Lion Alley and I was mercifully free of his wailed reproaches. Honestly, some people. Where's their self-reliance, for heaven's sake? Why do I always have to decide every bloody detail? No wonder you lose your rag, even a patient bloke like me.

  Maybe it's associating with so many other antique dealers that makes me stupid, but it took time for the penny to drop about George Prentiss. I'd be wondering yet if it wasn't for meeting Clive as I came out of our local post office. He's our local "hanger." A hanger is an antiques con man who makes a well-heeled living from smuggling antiques (fakes included) into exhibitions. No, I haven't got that wrong and yes, I do mean he wangles things in. To be explicit, a hanger simply adds one. His only ally is our greed, so his scam works every time.

  Clive is a flashy bloke with an air of being momentarily short of a chauffeur. Hangers are always rich.

  "You don't change, Lovejoy," he said. "Saw you pinch that extra stamp book. Comb trick. Works every time."

  "Eh? Not me, Clive."

  "No, no," he said hastily, but still grinning. Well, the post office has the monopoly, so where's the harm? One lousy stamp book, for heaven's sake. "Glad we met, Lovejoy. Ready for a hanger job at the Minories?"

  "What's to be hung?" We were in the High Street.

  "A little nef, probably. Thought I'd ask you first." He saw my thoughtfulness. "There's time to arrange a buyer."

  "You mean the Local Antiques?" The town gallery had been trumpeting its forthcoming exhibition. A nef's a little ship on wheels. Don't make the terrible mistake of thinking it's a child's toy, as I've seen happen. It's a really valuable table ornament, usually gold or silver gilt. Lift the deck and you'll find condiments or little spice holds inside. Some nefs have guns, rigging, even musical boxes.

  "Here's my bus, Lovejoy." Clive made it sound as if he'd ordered the damned thing. "You in?"

  "In," I said. "Only I'll decide what you hang, Clive. Right?"

  "Great, Lovejoy." He bought the stamp book off" me, half price.

  Carrying Toffee, ever heavier, I crossed the road among hooting traffic to buy her horrible tinned muck with the money. I'd tried to educate her palate to pasties but she was basically a very unrefined cat and steadfastly turned up her conk at my delectables. Nor would she eat custard, though I'd made her two jugs of the bloody stuff". I'd concluded that moggies are basically obstinate.

  An idea was forming. The hanger con trick has mucked up more exhibitions and auctions than you'd ever imagine. Clive could be useful.

  The hanger brings in an antique of his own and, by bribery, stealth, the use of accomplices, or sleight of hand, installs it as a proper exhibit, complete with notice card and number. Me and Clive did a good one up Lavenham way a year back, inserting a Sevres porcelain standish— inkstand to u
s commoners—into a manorial lord's exhibition. The catalog printer is bribed, of course, to prepare half a dozen separate catalogs wherein the mysterious addition is magically legitimized. I'd invited a Sevres collector from London that time, and he bought the standish a month after the exhibition closed. If a hanger's any good, the hanged item can be sold for twice, three times even, its street value by virtue of being associated with a posh exhibition. Mind you, I don't believe these people like Sykie, who claims to have hangered Sotheby's and Christie's, though everything's possible, no?

  You can see the way my mind was going: Supposing Clive did a hanger job using a bronze Roman figure—say, at random, a leopard with silver inlay—in the Minories exhibition. Big attraction for somebody.

  Which, as Toffee and I left the market, set me thinking of excavating a Roman metal object buried in some field. For this you'd need a treasure-finder. My somnolent cerebrum voted with my feet, fetching me to our town's one metal-detector shop.

  The window was crammed. Metal detectors can cost a king's ransom these days. Basically a detector's a disk at one end of a rod. They're only natty mine detectors, really. The shop was blazoned with lurid fluorescing notices: Audio Ground Exclusion!! and METER DISCRIMINATION PLUS!!! and suchlike specialist nonsense. Local treasure-hunters call them "bongers" because they perforate your eardrums if you walk the disk over any buried metal. But most call them mooners or moonies, not because of the disk's shape but because the game's one for night owls, the heroes we call moonspenders.

  There were six blokes in the shop when I entered. I ambled about examining the instruments. Nine clubs had pinned notices up behind the door, I saw to my surprise. Ten different magazines were arrayed on a rack. The blokes talked in numbers and initials, like all elites, exchange a CS 411 for a VLF 990B and all that. I gaped affably. Customers came and went, a thriving business. The proprietor was in his element, fags at the ready and sheets of data stuck to the glass cabinets behind him. I'd never seen such useless technology outside an army.

  "Help you, sir?" he said.

  "Cost," I gave him sadly. "I've an old cheapo. I'm wondering whether to move upmarket."

  "VDI?" he smiled shrewdly.

  "Well ..." My shrug led him into more initials. He showered me with pamphlets. I left in mild shock, promising to return. Technology's a killer, especially this sort. More particularly, it had done for George Prentiss. For another hour I watched the shop from across the road. All its customers were enthusiasts, with glazed eyeballs of madmen. But on the way home with Toffee I couldn't help thinking of the adverts on display. Half were from collectors inviting detector freaks to get in

  touch when seUing detected finds. No help there, but they had all specified an interest in buying bronzes, gold, and silver, Roman and medieval especially, and said to contact the Advertiser. Well, nearly no help.

  10

  Liza's our local news. Without her is made nothing that was made, as far as news goes. She runs the Advertiser, a rag issued free with everything. She's an underpaid stringer for the town's literary Hooray Henries, who oversee things from a pub called the Grapes. These print lordlings' Aston Martins are always parked at the boozer, while they gut democracy for every drachm. Needless to say, the effort's warped her. She dresses like a speedway rider, tight jeans, studs on her denim sleeves, leather carapace on her shoulders, jaunty cheesecutter.

  "Lize," I said, knowing it annoys. "Unpaid and unstinting help immediately, please."

  "Liza with a zed, not Lisa with an ess, you ignorant fascist chauvinist." We'd recently had a row, not my fault.

  "Tough luck. The song's been written." While she laid up enormous sheets of paper I drank her coffee. Well, everybody else had swigged mine all morning. Fair's fair.

  "And shift your frigging poxy basket, you." Lize gave Toffee a curious glance but said nothing, as if moggie-toting dealers were quite usual. I like her a lot, but not for news-making. As far as I'm concerned the less of it the better.

  I asked, "Here, Lize. Do you keep addresses of all of us who place adverts?"

  "Certainly not. I do too flaming much as it is. You know the system, Lovejoy. The boxes are in the foyer for the replies. Whoever takes them takes them."

  So much for tracking the moonspenders through her. Any passing pedestrian can reach in for the sheaf of envelopes.

  She shoved me off her stool and sat. "Right, you coffee-thieving bastard. What you want?"

  "Anything about my village and adjacent countryside, love. Radius of three miles."

  "Sodding frigging hell, Lovejoy." Her multichrome abuse is natural; she did sociology. "You don't ask much. How far back? A week? A month?"

  "A year."

  She went mad, calling me all the names she could lay tongue to. Humbly I heard her out. I'm pretty patient with women. If only they'd learn some patience from me.

  "You've a nerve, Lovejoy. After standing me up in the Marquis."

  "No, Lize," I said. "When I arrived you were already with a bloke."

  Lize glared. "That 'bloke' was my dad."

  "Eh?" I coughed for time to work up an escape clause.

  "Didn't think I had one?" She slammed into her sheets. She could hardly speak.

  "Your dad? Lize. I'm sorry. Most sincerely. Only he looked too young, compared with you I mean—"

  "Out!" she screamed.

  At William's bank I finally halted to get breath. Toffee was miaowing reproachfully. She hates being shaken. See what I mean? You pay them a compliment and what thanks do you get?

  Sandy and Mel's gigantic Rover was at the Welcome Sailor. Once, it had been a respectable black. Now it dazzled even in dull November. Sequins patterned its bonnet, roof, fluorescent-handled doorways. A silver lame fringe fluttered above the windows. Neon lights encircled each wheel, flashing even at rest. It played Vivaldi to itself as it waited. Chintz curtains, I noted, new, but vermilion chintz a possible mistake. I've seen quieter circuses. I drew breath and entered.

  Sandy cried, "Oh pancreas!"

  He was driving. His eyes, admiring himself in the adjusted mirror, had caught sight of the new restaurant.

  "We're going home this very minute." They were the first words Mel had spoken since the pub. He and Sandy were in the middle of a tiff over their antique shop. It's actually a converted Suffolk barn where, as Sandy puts it, they live in sun. "It's deformed. Home, Sandra."

  "You can't, lads," I begged desperately. "Just check whether this lady's decorated her restaurant right."

  "Or not," Mel added spitefully.

  Aggro, and we'd not even entered. I disembarked wearily. The car park was empty but for one saloon. Waiters lolled; nothing so doleful as a spare waiter, is there? Slump Towers, Ltd. Two lonely diners peered, possibly hoping for company.

  "Patience, world." Sandy was doing his mascara, some glittery powder from a tiny pot. Lipstick, blush highlight, a quick check of his gold-luster earrings, done. He trilled, "Ready?"

  "Ready," Mel caroled. I go red over this pantomime.

  "Here I come, dear hearts!"

  The driver's door opened. A small gilt staircase descended. The radiator grill churned out "You Were Never Lovelier," and here he came in a florentine-striped spencer jacket surmounted by a silver soprano cape, the burke. Lace gloves, high heels zigzag-welted in gold thread, ultramarine cavalier hat. Jesus but he looked ridiculous. He twirled.

  "You like? Worship? Adore? Envy?"

  Mel's stare dared me. "Er," I said, desperate and sweaty, "it's really, er, original."

  Mel smiled. He's the quiet one. By the time we reached the entrance the kitchen staff, cleaners, and the band crowded the entrance, gaping. I felt a twerp following shamefaced in the wake of these two apparitions, trying to look like I wasn't with them. Sandy was chattering about the Rover's music: would "Yeoman of the Guard" be more appropriate? Then an outlandish scream made me jump a mile. Sandy had fainted spectacularly in the foyer, in instant pandemonium. Mel was suddenly screaming for doctors, Guy's Hospital, cardiac
surgeons, oxygen. Waitresses were scampering, waiters yelling, all hell let loose. Wearily I crossed the spongy carpet and opened a bottle of wine. It was probably mine anyway, if I'd bankrupted the place. I sat to watch the riot.

  Sandy was whimpering, threshing, amid the attention. No business like show business. Usually he begins yelping, a minute into Act One, Scene One. Suzanne, white-faced, pushed through the surging horde demanding what's the matter.

  "You, Lovejoy! I might have known."

  She made them carry him through, flailing like a ribbon in a gale, and lay him on a phony chaise longue. I took my bottle in while Mel screeched, "Give him air!" When the band had resumed playing and the chaos had dwindled, I went over and said, "Right, Sandy. On your feet."

  "What are you saying?" Suzanne asked, bewildered.

  I said acidly, "He's overcome by your restaurant's beauty, love."

  Sandy instantaneously opted for life. "Lovejoy! Don't you dare that mess I mean poor people are expected to eat oh my God . . ."He saw the velvet lounge, screamed, and bonk, down he went comatose with Mel screeching was I trying to murder his poor cherub. I sighed and had another swig.

  "Takes a few minutes," I told Suzanne consolingly. "Rubbish always affects him like this."

  "Rubbish! It cost a mint," Suzanne whispered. "The very best designers ..."

  "Got a minute, love?" I took her hand and walked with her to the restaurant. The Gardner porcelain was still on its stand. "What actually happened last night?"

  "Oh, Lovejoy. It was dreadful." Her eyes filled with tears. I thought, she's lovely. She wore a smart midday suit, pastel green, double string of pearls, and silver earrings. "We had a good crowd. Then suddenly people seemed to . . . well, drift. It was dreadful. And then they began phoning in, canceling. Cancel, cancel. Thirty-nine staff, two customers. Everything was all right until you came."

  "Dry your eyes, love." I led her to a table. "Got a candle?" She snapped her fingers and black-tied serfs sprang forward. "Shut your band up, love. And pull the curtains."

  She gave a puzzled nod and the waiters moved to obey. I had them draw all the tasseled drapes, extinguish the chandeliers. I crossed to the porcelain, smiling.