“Indeed, Lovejoy. He was executed in 220 b.c. A grateful China made him a duke about thirteen centuries later. Then he was made a prince, finally a full emperor in 1594 a.d.
Help should be rewarded, ne?” He paused, tilting his misshapen head. “You don’t laugh, Lovejoy.”
“I’m losing the knack. What’s he god of?”
“War. Money. And antique dealers, as it happens.”
He left suddenly, skittering away. I rose and dusted myself off.
“Hey, Titch,” I called. “How much do I offer the god?”
“That’s the problem, Lovejoy,” the darkness called back. “But guess right.”
There was a lot to think of on the return to Steerforth’s place. By the time I reached there I’d worked out how to bubble Sim and Fatty at one go.
As it turned out, it all had to be modified because Ling Ling herself arrived at the studio to model for me.
33
« ^ »
THE advertising campaign has begun, Lovejoy.” Ling Ling made my breathing funny, even seated on phony plastic grass. The faint downward draft from my studio’s ceiling panels showed that the filtered-air system was working. Her ribbons stirred.
“Successfully?”
“An amazing response. You are to be congratulated.”
She had been astonished that the painting still had so far to go. I’d explained about the Impressionists’ techniques, the necessity for building up the scene, Monet’s methods.
“But didn’t Sisley create alla prima, all in a day?” she suggested innocently. “You might have done better basing on, say, his Bateaux sur la Seine than Monet’s Summer, the Meadow. It would be already finished.”
Aye, lady, but this way I ruin Sim’s and Fatty’s proud life-style. I grunted in annoyance and she fell silent. Dangerous ground, with her cleverness. I mean she hadn’t seen the canvas before, yet instantly recognized the scene as a Chinese rendering of Monet’s great 1874 work. And how the hell did she know I admired Sisley’s Boats so much? The studio must be bugged stiff. Naturally I could argue reasons: 1874 fitted in with the mythical Song Ping’s movements, Sisley’s Bateaux was 1877, a year too late for the Second Impressionist Exhibition, all that. But I didn’t want her guessing what I was up to.
As the day wore on I felt calmer. Maybe it was her influence. I started talking about faking methods. I had arranged enough trial canvases round the place to be convincing.
She chipped in with her bit, even amusing me with little jokes about Renoir’s women and the weird threesome Monet made with that banker’s wife. She had fascinating views on jealousy.
That night I was relieved—if that’s the word—of my gigolo job, if that’s the word.
Steerforth seemed glad.
No Marilyn that day. No news from Titch.
Nor the next.
This, incidentally, was the day Algernon, still driving Macao mad with his racing engines, became one of the thousand collectors clamoring for details about the forthcoming auction. He had seen the newspapers, and tried to pass himself off as Lovejoy Antiques, Inc. I was briefly interrogated by Dr. Chao, released after an uncomfortable hour with Fatty. I’d throttle Algernon if ever I met the silly sod again.
Nor that week. By then I was working like a maniac on the painting. Ten days after Ling Ling became my model we had a showdown. I came off worse as usual, but none of it was my fault.
It was the day of a Cantonese lantern festival.
Several times I’d called at the temple in the Mologai district after work, leaving messages galore with the incense lady for Titch. Nil. No Marilyn. No Titch, though twice I could have sworn seeing him among the crowds.
The painting sickened me. I was worn out, edgy. I’m always like this during finishing stages. I’d left a note at the Flower Drummer asking Ling Ling to present herself for modeling about midday, and had driven myself. It would be the last day. After this it would mostly need leaving alone, apart from the framing.
“I’ll need photographers along tomorrow,” I told Ling Ling, who arranged herself perfectly, needless to say. “Transparencies and prints, big as they like. No flashguns.”
“Very well, Lovejoy. Is it now completed?”
“Signature tonight, not in Chinese. I’ll romanize it”
She seemed quiet, reserved almost. “You are glad?”
“Eh? Oh, yes.” Glad? After a mere handful of deaths, a degrading existence, bought for a handful of groats by any woman fancying a night on Hong Kong’s tiles, serf to murderers, given a virtual life sentence? Glad? I was frigging ecstatic.
That last painting day I did wonders. The scene was complete, the distant trees showing in the heat haze, the Chinese women on the grass in European garb of the 1870s, a distant picnic, hills faint and bluish, the pure color dragged perfectly, the sky just right. I was knackered. We broke about six. I told her thanks, that she could take a look.
She didn’t. Instead, I got a gaze like a wash in sleet.
