We drove up among the thickening crowds of visitors. Prez was telling me it would be finished in two years’ time, if investments kept coming.
“Contributions are investments in holiness, Lovejoy. Joy repays joy!”
To my alarm they began singing a hymn. People all around joined in. I went red, feeling a duckegg, not knowing the words and feeling too stupid to join in even if I did.
We stopped at the main entrance. “Praise all goodness, friends!” Prez said, shaking hands with anybody he could reach. People slapped backs, cried heavenly slogans. I nodded, tried to smile.
“Good be praised!” Annalou cried in her dreadful monotone, using her heavenly shape to wheedle a way through the crowd. I followed.
We were on a forecourt laid out with biblical scenes in mosaic, with tableaux showing prophetic events in grottoes lining the route. Close to, the glass Deus Whatnot grew to huge dimensions.
“So far, the only entrance we use is the small southern one, cloistered against evil of course by our famous Exhibition of Eternity.”
“It’s in connection with that, Prez, that my financial —”
“A second’s prayerful thought first, Lovejoy!” Prez intoned, hauling me towards the entrance. I understood: no money chat among devotees.
We paused before a waxwork tableau while he said a lengthy prayer. I paused respectfully, trapped by Annalou’s pressing figure and Prez’s athletic bulk. Visitors all about paused with us, praying along.
The entrance was done up like a church porch. “See that it’s Jerusalem, Lovejoy? Isn’t the symbolism just cute?”
“Great, Annalou.” I wished she wouldn’t crush my arm against herself so enthusiastically. Not in a church, even one like this. I was getting hot under the collar.
“Our Exhibition of Eternity reveals the splendour of God’s own times, Lovejoy,” Prez said in a blast of halleluiahs as the crowd unglued and we started in.
“The antiques?”
“Evidence of former times when Good walked the earth.”
“I’m so moved,” I said to Annalou. And I really was. I could have eaten her with a spoon. No wonder the contributions—well, investments—came rolling in with a bird like this fluttering her eyelashes on your television set.
“I can tell, Lovejoy,” she whispered. If only it hadn’t been in a monotone.
Somebody bumped against me, tripping me. I stumbled and would have fallen if Annalou hadn’t been so close. Magda’s angry face swam into my ken and vanished in a sea of devotees.
We had entered a kind of gloamy grotto. A waterfall cascaded before lights. Antiques were close. I felt a strong boom in my chest, and turned to see Zole ostentatiously swaggering out.
“Wait, Annalou!”
“Yes?” she breathed.
“You’re sure all the antiques are in here?”
“Why, yes, Lovejoy!”
“There’s one being carried out. By that little lad—”
She caught Glad Tidings, he pressed an alarm. Everybody froze. The hymns stopped. Lights bashed on. Devotees crowded in and marshalled us all along walls, whistles sounding outside. Annalou and Prez dragged me through the crowd out onto the forecourt.
“That way. I felt something really overpowering.”
“Felt?” Prez pondered that, prayerfully I’m sure. I saw Zole with Magda heading for a public long-distance coach, walking with composure.
“I’ll tell you who has it.” I closed my eyes, swaying, overdoing things rather, but trying to keep in with the spirit of the place. Pretence is contagious.
“Freeze, everybody!”
Everybody stilled. Glad Tidings muttered that he should shake everybody down, where’s the problem. I said to wait.
I stalked towards where Zole stood with Magda, opened my eyes, gave a quick wink at Zole. Magda was furious for some reason, but that’s only a woman doing her thing.
“Hand it over, sonny, please.”
I held out my hand to Zole, quickly adding as he drew breath for a spurt of insolence, “My name’s Lovejoy. No harm will come to you, we promise.”
“You sure?” he asked suspiciously, little sod.
“We promise in the name of Good, don’t we, friends?” I chanted. “Forgiveness is all. Suffer little children to, er…” What the hell was it? “And we shall be, er, blessed,” I ended a bit lamely.
“Here. It was just lying about.”
Zole gave me a statuette. I almost dropped it in shock as the red-hot glow spread into me and the bells thundered in my soul. I’d never, ever seen anything like it. God, but it was lovely, lying there in my hand where it belonged.
