'How much?' I bawled louder over the hubbub. 'I'll pay, this very second!'
The place was a riot of chatter. A couple of tearful old ladies and a well-dressed elderly man pressed forward offering bank notes.
'Here! Take this, signor! For the old povera?
'No!' I carolled. 'This lady is my responsibility! My honour demands—'
'Such honesty!'
The proprietor named a sum beyond my resources. Thankful for the racket, I flourished my handful of notes and, howling explanations that my dear old auntie was in any case slightly loony, grandly miscounted out a complicated sequence of notes. Old Anna looked murderous. The pandemonium reached deafening proportions as I wrung the proprietor's hand. Several of the shoppers embraced me tearfully.
I left the shop a hero, with my dear old auntie clinging to my arm. We walked, smiling and reunited, round the corner to a small alley and paused, carefully looking right and left to check we were unobserved. Then she clobbered me on the side of my head, hissing abuse.
'Cretino!' she spat. 'Stopping them from giving us money—'
All for equality, I clocked her back hard enough to glaze her eyes. She leaned against the wall, moaning.
'You beast! She was obviously at death's door from my criminal assault.
'Yeah, yeah,' I said calmly.
Her basket was crammed with chocolate delicacies under the cover cloth. No wonder the proprietor was narked. Old Anna had practically nicked his entire shop, the evil old witch. I found her purse and riffled inside. Two hundred grotty lire.
I flung the basket down. The old sod was falling about laughing at the expression on my face. I chucked the chocolate figures back, keeping a merry Easter rabbit out of spite.
'Here,' she said, sobering up long enough. 'Got any further on your Vatican job?'
'What Vatican job?'
'I understand,' she said slyly. 'But I could help you.'
'How?' I asked levelly, hating the old crab.
'You're new to Rome. Your Italian's good but raw. Learned too fast, see? Come and live with me.'
The old lunatic was off her nut. 'With you?'
'Not like that, cretin. We'd be a good team. Do that shop act all over Rome.' She went all coy. 'I've extra space. My daughter's away studying. We'd be a great team, Enrico.'
This was getting out of hand. Anyway, I had to phone Marcello to get myself off the hook. I unlatched her arm but I couldn't help smiling.
'You're a scream,' I told her. 'Get lost, Granny.'
She weighed me up. 'You're too dumb to be a good thief.'
'I'm not a thief,' I corrected with asperity. 'That's you, remember?'
'Better than you'll ever be,' she said, rather sad. 'I'm in the open market eight every morning if you need me.'
I felt myself warm to the stupid old creature. In her own way she was courageous and vital, and for a senile geriatric she had startling eyes. I shook myself. When you get feelings like that it's time to cut out, so I did.
Smiling to myself I thought, me? Need her? That was rich. 'Good luck, Anna.'
'Keep it. You'll need it, Enrico,' she called after me. 'Arrivederci.'
I was still smiling when I looked back from the intersection. She was trotting beside a small group of tourists, chattering eagerly and obviously in her element. I could hardly keep from laughing outright.
With considerable relief I got through to an anxious Marcello from a payphone near the Julius Caesar Theatre.
'Is everything all right, Lovejoy?'
'Look, Marcello. The job's off. It can't be done.'
Marcello sounded astonished. Gawd knows what kind of a build-up Arcellano had given me. He exclaimed, 'But there's no question of backing out, Lovejoy—'
'Oh yes there is.' I was getting narked. The whole thing had gone wrong from the start.
It was all based on misconception. And, for Christ's sake, I fumed to myself, one antique's not the whole world. 'I'm backing out right now. So Arcellano has a bee in his bonnet about an antique. Haven't we all?'
Marcello's voice went funny. 'Arcellano?'
'Yes. Tell him I can't do it. Nobody can.' I sailed on. 'Just pass the message on that Lovejoy resigns. Tell him to ask the SAS instead.'
'Lovejoy! You know Arcellano?'
I was too mad and too despondent to chat about things that were pathetically obvious.
'See you, Marcello.'
'Lovejoy!' He shouted so desperately loud the phone crackled. 'Lovejoy! Tomorrow morning! Six o'clock! The Colosseum! See me there—'
