schedule. You can't keep Vaticans waiting. So while I was drying out some glued pieces after weighting them down I went into the yard to measure up for the beam, a plain girder with a pulley.
'What are you doing, Lovejoy? Who said you could start on that?'
Good old Piero had come to check on me. He did this about twice an hour usually.
Never said much, just gave a long glance, then went back in. This time he was inquisitive and suspicious.
'Well, nobody, but—'
'You were told your winch idea's off. Listen.' He came closer, casual as anything. I glimpsed Fabio's delighted face at the rear window. 'Your job here is to take orders.
Understand?'
'I know that. But it's daft to waste—'
'Piero.'
Adriana was standing at the top of the showroom's back steps. An entirely new outfit.
Lemon was today's colour, a graceful suit and chiffon scarf. No gold, just enough silver to bend the bullion market. Her hair was lustrous. She looked straight out of Imperial Rome, a real blinder.
'Eh?' I realized she had asked a question, what was going on? 'Oh. I thought I'd start measuring up—'
'For a winch for the top floor,' Piero said. He never took his eyes off me. If Adriana hadn't arrived we'd have been having harsher words than this.
I shrugged. 'If we can't use it for upstairs, it'll do for the showroom. A kid could use it to lift the heaviest furniture right into the ground-floor showroom. For God's sake,' I said, making out I was getting tired of it. 'Even the ancient Romans had lifting devices.
Go to the Colosseum. The mason there lifted those great blocks all day long with one finger, and we hump wardrobes and cabinets up and down those stupid steps, into the loading yard. Daft.'
'Then he can make it for the showroom,' Adriana told the middle distance. 'Will it be safe?'
'Perfectly.' I smiled at her but not at Piero.
And I thought, like hell it will.
Fabio spent a contented morning after that, pouring oil on troubled fires. He took great pleasure in calling me into the showroom, innocently asking my advice on this or that antique. Twice I told him the stuff he was asking about was gunge, modern fakery, and each time he simpered with pleasure. It was only when I saw Piero's thunderous expression that I realized what game Fabio was playing. They were 'antiques' Piero had bought in. Hey ho.
Adriana spent her time being exquisitely beautiful in the office and taking customers around. We were quite busy. I was brought up to play the tray dodge again, once with Piero and once—at some considerable distance— with Adriana.
The influx always fell off about half past twelve, and it was then I really got going.
Instead of working feverishly in ten-minute dashes I could tear into my Chippendale with a single mind. Of course they didn't look like tables, and if things went smoothly they wouldn't for quite some time. Piero came into the workshop about one o'clock. I was pedalling like a maniac at the spindle lathe, running a polisher into action, when I felt him there. I let the spindle creak to a halt, thinking that this was it. I gave him a disarming grin, friendly old Lovejoy.
'You rang?'
'Those bits the rent table for Adriana?'
'Yes. Want to see?'
'Not really.' He was quite casual again, in full control. I think it was then I understood what a dangerous opponent he could be. Give me somebody berserk, every time.
'There seems a lot of pieces for just one table.'
'I'm making the occasional duplicate piece,' I explained casually. 'It's called templating.
Then if the signora finds it sells quickly, I can easily make another. Saves working it all out every time.'
'What I mean is, Lovejoy, you're not making separates, are you? One for the signora, one for yourself? Because I wouldn't like that, Lovejoy.' He spoke like a boss.
'No,' I said, thinking I was getting quite good at lying. I'd lied my head off all morning and it felt marvellous. 'I promise you, Piero. Everything here belongs to the signora.'
'You know, Lovejoy,' he said thoughtfully, inspecting me. 'There's something wrong with you, isn't there?'
I didn't like this. Piero the ape I could handle. Piero the thinker was an unknown quantity. 'Wrong?'
'You bend too easy. Yet I get the impression you're just not bendable. And all this honesty.'
I shrugged uncomfortably. I don't like being looked into. 'Everybody's different.'
'And your gig here. Working on spec, when you're a natural at the antiques game.'
'Scratching bread, same as the rest.'
'Maybe, Lovejoy.' He was still quite calm as he left, but he said it again. 'Maybe.'
* * *
When we started to break at two o'clock I received a typewritten message. In an envelope with just my name on the front: Lovejoy. It read: Lovejoy,
Please phone the number below, two-thirty.
