The Vatican Rip

Well, yes, I thought, but be careful, folks.

'It's really beautiful,' an attractive blue-rinsed woman exclaimed.

'What period?' her husband asked. He was a benign portly gent in executive rimless specs and looked worth a groat or two.

'George the Third. A London maker called Edward Jay.' The woman noticed me. She obviously hated me on sight. Well, I'm no sartorial model. I never look well dressed, and what with the recent carry-ons I suppose she thought me a right scruff. As long as the other customers were there she could hardly sling me out.

'It weighs heavy, George,' the tourist said. 'And so old.'

'Over two hundred and twenty six ounces, madam.'

'Is that right!'

'And absolutely original, I assure you. Worth—'

Calmly I said, 'Half.'

The proprietress maintained her pleasant smile at my casual interruption. Two goons instantly appeared, one definitely limp of wrist and highly perfumed, the other a handsome gorilla. They came smiling hard and stood to either side of me. I felt like a nut in a cracker. The Americans turned on me, still benign but with financial antennae quivering.

'You say half, sir?'

'Half. Look.' I took the tray—a genuine, lovely job with applied reeded borders, handles and four panel supports—and tilted it at the strip-light. 'See the centre? The reflection's fine until you get to the middle.'

'A forgery?' the American woman said breathlessly.

'Not really. It's original all right. But the one thing which cuts the value of a beautiful tray like this is central engraving—coats of arms, monograms—done later.'

'There is none,' the proprietress snapped. Her smile wasn't slipping, but it had definitely tightened.

'Not now.' I squinted along the tray. A definite margin showed around the centre.

'Somebody's machined it off. It's visible from an angle, like oil on water.'

'Wouldn't it be thinner there, sir?' asked the elderly American.

I was impressed. Politeness and common sense come rare.

'Not if you electroplate it time after time in the centre with silver. Still genuine, you see.

Still legal. But devalued.'

'Ahem, this early saxophone,' the dainty assistant crooned, sharp as floss, trying to distract attention.

'Basset horn,' I put in. It's a weird looker, detachable spout and all.

Her mouth was a pale slit of fury. 'I know it's a horn, stupid!'

'Wrong.' I was enjoying myself. 'It's not a horn at all. It's a woodwind. Basset as in hound, but horn after a bloke. Mister Horn made them in the Strand.'

The dealer was a woman after my own heart. To my astonishment she suddenly smiled and took the tray from me. 'Well done,' she pronounced smoothly, turning casually to her tourists. 'Signor Giuseppe is a member of my staff, ladies and gentlemen. Our little ruse worked, as usual.'

'Erm—' I said uneasily, wondering what the hell. I hadn't liked being Enrico for old Anna. I definitely hated the idea of being Giuseppe for this luscious bird.

She coursed over my hesitation. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we arrange this demonstration to show our customers that antiques are fraught with risks. Now, with our warning in your mind, please allow me to give you a conducted tour of our excellent stock of antiques…'

The two blokes closed on me. I really wanted to cut out and try somewhere else, late as it was, but oozed along with the Americans for protection.

Once or twice I was drawing breath to point out the odd fact—that the cristallo ceramico she mentioned as being by the great Apsley Pellat was probably by a contemporary copier (his favourite best-selling trick was a porcelain medallion of some grand personage, set in glass), and that the pair of peasant love-spoons she claimed were Welsh had probably never been further north than Basle. It was no use. Her two goons were breathing hard in what can only be called a threatening manner. Anyhow, the bird was in full flight, posing thoughtfully at every painting, casually arresting everybody's eye. And I'll be frank about it. She had me as mesmerized as the Yanks, though I suppose after smelly old Anna any bird would have looked like Miss World.

She sold a cut-card silver sauceboat (the silver decoration is fretted on a silver slice which is then applied to the silverware. It's not been done well for a good century).

Knowing I was there, she wisely glossed over a piece of so-called Rafaello ware (in fact Raphael did none of these; they're simply forged nineteenth-century tin-enamel porcelain maiolicas) and instead sold a little harlequin table of about 1790.

The tourists made to leave after half an hour. Uneasily I realized her two blokes were between me and the exit.

'I'll walk part of the way—' I was saying with a sickly smile, but the bird was too quick.

'Signor Giuseppe,' she crooned. 'Would you mind waiting a moment, please? Good night, ladies and gentlemen! And thank you!'

The door closed. I kept my smile up but my hands were wet and my heart was thumping. I couldn't help thinking what a bastard of a day it had been. I wanted a job, not a float in the Tiber.

The proprietress stood, hands on her elbows. Her foot tapped. 'Well? What's the game?'

She snapped her fingers and her bigger ape gave her a cigarette. She was bending forward to accept his light, her gaze on me, when I saw her eyes widen in astonishment. That was because I had taken her cigarette and crumbled it into an ashtray.

'No smoking where you've pewter or paintings, love.'

'Wait.'

The ape was coming for me when her command froze him. It was just as well because the Stangenglâser 'pole' glass I was innocently holding was worth about ten times the lot of us. Their long cylindrical form isn't to my liking, but I'd have crowned him with it if I had to.

'Look, folks,' I said as reasonably as I could. 'You've a choice. I'll bring you a fortune, or you can simply go on in your old ignorant way.'

'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.