'Explain,' the bird commanded.
I drew breath. This was my pitch. 'If I hadn't been here you'd maybe have sold that tray.'
She smiled like a moving glacier. 'But thanks to you, I didn't.'
'No,' I said affably. 'Thanks to me you sold a hell of a lot more. That tray dodge can be repeated ten times a day. You need somebody here who knows the difference between an antique and a telly.'
'No, Piero!' Her voice was like a whiplash. The ape halted and smouldered silently. 'Go on.'
'A third of your stock's labelled wrong.'
'And you could do it right?'
'Without a single reference book.'
She was eyeing me up and down, I felt to let. 'It's not a bad idea…'
'He's repellent!' the petulant nerk hissed, stamping his foot.
I admit I wasn't looking very affluent, but I thought that was a bit much. She ignored the three of us, simply speculated away behind her hazel eyes.
'Are you in trouble with the police?'
'No, but you would have been if you'd sold that crappy piece of carpet as a genuine Khilim.' I nodded to indicate the labelled rug placed centrally on the floor. A real Khilim is too light to put on the floor. It's properly used for divans or as a wall decoration.
'Khilims have no pile. That things a foot thick. Who made it for you?'
There was a pause, also a foot thick. Finally she nodded as if reaching some inner agreement.
'Come back tomorrow morning,' she said. 'I'll consider you. Nine o'clock. And be presentable.'
I left, backing out nervously. Not much of a promise, but I was becoming used to very little. So long as I hung on in Rome some way, any way at all.
CHAPTER 11
I slept that night in the park near the great Castel Sant' Angelo. Edgy as hell, I kept imagining there was somebody standing watching me under the trees but when I crept over to see who it was I found nobody. I didn't sleep well. The castle's brooding bulk added nothing to my slumber, but at least it didn't rain. Most of the night I thought about popes.
Now, popes have a very chequered history. They haven't always been sweetness and light. If you crossed them— and sometimes even if you didn't—you finished up stabbed, poisoned, burned, garotted, buried, castrated, starved, or if you were lucky simply ignored to death. Even an innocent joke could earn a horrible joke in return.
I couldn't get out of my mind that whizz-kid Sixtus V. His sister had once been a washerwoman, and he considered himself ridiculed when some wag pointedly stuck a dirty shirt on one of Rome's many battered statues. Cunning as a fox, Sixtus pretended great hilarity and offered a reward to the anonymous wag—and cut off the joker's hand when he came to claim it. 'I never said I wouldn't,' the Pope calmly pronounced afterwards, the ultimate infallible theological argument. Well, my worried mind went, if a laugh gets you maimed for life, ripping the Vatican off won't exactly go over as a comedy act. And don't try telling me we don't live in the Dark Ages any more—poor old mankind is always in the Dark Ages, and that includes today. No mistake about that. If you don't believe me, walk around any city at nightfall, or just read tomorrow's morning newspaper. And I had even better evidence than that. I'd met Arcellano.
Twice during that long night I had to shuffle down into a small grove while police cars cruised past and their nasty beams probed the darkness searching for layabouts. I'm hardly ever cold but by dawn I felt perished and was certain I looked a wreck. Anybody that's ever been unwashed and unshaven and unfed knows the feeling, especially when the rest of the world looks poisonously bright and contented. Rome's favourite knack is appearing elegant. On this particular morning its elegance got right up my nose.
I was supposed to be at the antiques place by nine so I scrambled about, had a prolonged breakfast, a barbershop shave and a wash and brush up. Naturally I walked everywhere to harbour my dwindling gelt. Even so, I was early and stood among passing pedestrians at the window of the Albanese Antiques Emporium.
Piero the ape was first to arrive and unlocked the shop's glass door with a proprietary flourish. Adriana herself arrived a minute later, coolly stepping out of a mile-long purple Rolls-Royce and doubtless stopping a few pacemakers among the peasants as she did so. She was blindingly beautiful. The only person blissfully unaffected by her sleek attractiveness was her other assistant, outrageous in a silver chiffon scarf and earrings, who came rushing in after her, complaining about the traffic on the Corso.
'Morning, tout le monde!' he crooned. 'Like my new hairdo?'
He introduced himself as Fabio—'Fab as in fabulous, dearie!'—but I wasn't taken in. I'd once seen a really vicious knife artist with all Fabio's exotic mannerisms.
'Good morning, Signora Albanese,' I said politely.
'Come through.' She swept past into the rear office.
Humbly I stood while she ripped through a couple of letters and checked the phone recorder. Seven messages out of hours, I noted with interest. A thriving business. As she settled herself I wondered about that chauffeur- driven Rolls. There had been a stoutish bloke with her, riffling paperwork in his briefcase. He had barely bothered to look up as she descended. I'd never seen such a distant goodbye. Presumably Signor Albanese.
She looked up at last. 'Your story, please.'
'Oh, er, I was on a tourist trip—'
'Name and occupation?'
She appraised me, her eyes level and cold. First fag of the day lit for effect and radiating aggro. She really was
