'You're not all that good,' the luscious creature said. By turning my head on the cushion I could watch her wiping her lips with a tissue. It was so lovely I had to swallow. She looked good enough to eat.
'No?'
'No,' she said. 'I'm Anna.'
There was a century pause, give or take a year. I cleared my throat. Anna's decrepit clothes hung by the alcove. And on that dressing-table stood boxes and tubes and sprays and paints and cylinders—enough make-up to service the Old Vic in season.
'You're who?'
'Cretino!' she said scornfully. 'Go to sleep.'
My head was splitting. This bird had just said she was old Anna. Sometimes things get too much. It's always women's fault.
My cortex groped for its one remaining synapse and switched to oblivion.
CHAPTER 14
A clamouring alarm clock shot me awake at ten past eight. I was relieved because I'd had a hideous dream in which Maria became the bird and old Anna became Adriana, and Carlo and Piero advanced towards me with knives while Arcellano stood by lighting cigarettes. I sweated into consciousness.
Anna had gone. Presumably she was already out on the streets conning the tourists.
Quite a worker. Old Anna's black dress had gone from its hanger. The old bird was nicer than this young one. For the life of me I couldn't think of them as one person.
On her dressing-table stood a paper bag with rolls and jam. One of the curtained alcoves turned out to be a tiny kitchen with an unbelievably complicated kettle that defeated me. Outside I found a shower by the loo but no telephone, which was a setback because I badly wanted to phone Maria. It was at least worth a try.
I washed and ate. Anna had left a battery shaver in clear view, and a note on her chair.
It read:
Lovejoy,
Be here at three. Anna.
Another woman giving me orders. That's all I needed.
Fabio was in a hell of a mood when I reached the Albanese Emporium dead on nine.
'Walk round him, Lovejoy,' Piero advised me laconically. 'He's had a tiff with his boy-friend.'
'Shut up, you great buffoon!' Fabio squealed.
Adriana arrived in time to prevent bloodshed and got us all working, me on a collection of prints she had purchased a week before.
That morning my main intention was to work out the details of the rip. Instead I had two successes and one failure. All three came through Adriana. By elevenish I had picked out the spoiled prints and the forgeries and took them in to the boss. She was ploughing through a catalogue from Sotheby's Rome office—only a stone's throw from us. She pulled a face when she saw how many there were in the dud pile.
'Put them back in an auction,' I advised.
'Brick them?“
'Why throw away good prints after bad?'
To 'brick' a group of sale items offered at auction is to include something really quite good or valuable—or a forgery which appears so—in among the dross. This makes for a better price. The risk you take is that the bidders will be too thick to recognize the valuable antique and you'll finish up having thrown it away for a song. I never brick my stuff. It's an insult to a superb genuine antique to make it live among a load of tat.
I told her, 'Think how you'd feel.'
She actually did begin to smile but throttled it at birth. 'Very well. Into next week's auction.'
I said, 'Erm, thank you for the supper last evening.'
She looked down at her catalogue. 'Not at all. I'm glad you dined well.'
As I made to go I pretended to notice a small stand on her desk, a simple circular base with a neatly turned stem not quite ten inches tall. She kept appointment cards in the slot at its top. It still had its screw. 'Excuse me, please, signora. Do you still have the embroidery fans?'
'The what?' She saw I was holding the stand. I knew she didn't know what it was. Fabio had its partner on his desk.
'There is a crenellated embroidered fan-shaped piece of material which goes with this.'
The penny still hadn't dropped. 'It's a rare American candle screen. Ladies used them to shield their eyes from direct glare when sewing. Seeing you have the pair… Look, signora,' I suggested. 'Why don't I restore these in the workshop? I could clean them up and maybe we can find the screens. They're really very valuable…”
That was my first success, gaining access to the workshop. My second came when Adriana, passing for the umpteenth time to check I was still hard at it, actually came in and commented, 'You seem at home here.'
I was concentrating on milking the screw out. 'I am. Why is it such a shambles?'
She gazed about and did her shrug. 'The business can't run to a craftsman.'
