Venus With Pistol

  VENUS WITH PISTOL

  Gavin Lyall

  UNABRIDGED

  PAN BOOKS LTD: LONDON

  First published in Great Britain 1969 by

  Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.

  This edition published 1971 by Pan Books Ltd,

  33 Tothill Street, London, S.W.1

  isbn o 330 02759 x

  2nd Printing 1973

  © Matchlock Limited 1969

  The characters in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any living person.

  Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press), Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

  Gavin Lyall

  ‘There is a lot to be said for novels like Gavin Lyall’s. His work is meant to entertain, no more, but it has a tangible, almost aggressively physical, content of machines and skills and climatic temperatures and the cost of things… what really matters is the flying.’

  LISTENER

  SHOOTING SCRIPT

  THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

  MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE

  THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY

  ONE

  He didn’t want to buy a gun. At least, not the kind I sell. You can tell.

  He was thin, slightly nervous-looking, in a thick black overcoat and the sort of narrow-brimmed hat worn by fashionable spies in the movies.

  For a moment he stood there, just inside the door, avoiding catching my eye. So I left him to it. After a while he picked up the pistol that I leave on the little table by the door for people to pick up and click if they’re that sort of people.

  He clicked it.

  Then he coughed and asked: ‘How much?’

  I put on my professional expression and came forward and pretended to peer at it closely. It had only been there six months.

  I gave a professional opinion: ‘The workmanship isn’t outstanding, of course, but it’s in good condition and it’s fairly rare of its kind.’ Rare? It was probably unique. A non-rifled screw-barrel job with the original 1820 lockplates, a barrel cut down from something else around 1930 (I guessed) but nicely aged; 1950 vintage hammer and mechanism, and a butt carved out of bad oak a few years ago.

  I mean, if that was exactly what you were looking for, you’d be dead lucky to find it, wouldn’t you?

  I said: ‘This time of the year, I’d sell for twenty pounds.’

  ‘The money’s tight at this time of the year, is it?’ he had a faint Irish brogue.

  ‘Who buys antiques in January? Surtax payers buy antiques. This is the time they pay their surtax.’

  He got a slightly crafty look in his light-blue eyes. ‘You’ve paid yours yet?’

  ‘That’ll be the day. When they want surtax off me.’

  He nodded absently. ‘They’re all saying that. Bad all round.’ He eased past me towards my desk at the back o the shop. ‘To tell the truth, it was about a sort of surtax ] came to see you.’ I just looked after him. He picked up the pistol on my desk. I said: ‘Put it down.’

  He put it down. ‘Worth a bit more than twenty pounds, is it?’

  ‘A bit.’ It was one of a pair of Scottish flintlocks I’d been fiddling with to see if anybody else had been fiddling with. He grinned and looked around. ‘Dreadful thing if somebody busted in here, bashed up your stock, done the place over a bit. Dreadful. Never get it back on the insurance. Difficult to value, this stuff, I’d say.’

  The hammer finally clicked in my head. ‘A protection racket? You can’t run a protection racket in this part of Kensington.’

  He was sensitive enough to look a bit ashamed. Maybe he’d had a difficult day. But he recovered quickly. ‘A racket? Who said anything about a racket? Security, it is: security. A small down payment every month, you’ll be safe as Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Charlie Good, I suppose?’

  This time his eyebrows nearly knocked off his hat. I patted his shoulder - I had to reach for it, him being a good bit taller - and said: ‘Look, you check with Charlie about me. Tell him you saw me. I’ll ring him myself later, when he’s likely to be up.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything about it being Charlie,’ he persisted.

  ‘No, but it had better be, mate. If you’re trying this little game on your own, you’re in dead trouble when Charlie hears about it.’

  That didn’t frighten him, so he obviously wasn’t a freelance. But he wasn’t any genius, neither. ‘Twenty quid a month,’ he said. ‘And it’s cheap at the price, it is. Shall I tell them you’ll be paying it?’

  There was a little buzzing and crackling in my head, like a loose connection in a radio. This was a hell of a way to start the New Year.

  ‘Look,’ I said patiently, ‘just piss off home and tell Charlie you’ve seen me and ask him does he really want me to pay. I mean, just do that.’

  ‘You know Charlie, do you?’ The message had finally arrived.

  ‘What the hell have we been talking about the past five minutes?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll be checking with Charlie about it, then.’ Just as if he’d thought of it for himself.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ I said.

  ‘Not that he’ll be out of bed, yet,’ he added.

  The doorbell pinged again.

  My first visitor glanced quickly over his shoulder. ‘Well, I’ll be checking with Charlie then. When he’s up, that is.’

  ‘I wouldn’t try it before,’ I advised.

  ‘Not a thought of it.’ And finally he went.

  I’d zipped back down the narrow shop to my desk and opened the big bottom drawer and got out the bottle before I realized the new customer wasn’t clicking the pistol by the door.

  ‘Second customer of the year always gets offered a drink,’ I said, loudly. I found a second glass that was almost clean and started pouring.

  He walked easily, almost elegantly, down past the tall narrow display cabinet that was really an old bookcase. It was dark by the desk, even with the desk lamp on. So I put on the working light, the bright twelve-volt I use for fiddling with guns under, as well.

  He was slim, neat, and around five-eleven high. Long handsome-craggy features, a strong thin nose, sallow skin, dark eyes. All that, and the threequarter-length coat in some rich dark fur, taped him as Spanish, or maybe South American or something - except for his hair. It was curly auburn.

  I held out the second glass. He took it, sniffed it, smiled appreciatively.

  ‘Single malt Scotch,’ I explained. ‘Christmas present from a customer who thought he’d cheated me.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘and a verra good one, I’d say.’ I just stared At the voice more than the man. It was thick and Scottish as a haggis.

  He took a nibble at the drink, then smiled again. ‘It’ll be Mr Gilbert Kemp, will it?’

  I woke up. ‘Bert. Gil to Americans, Gilbert to my enemies.’

  He frowned politely. ‘I dinna quite—’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t like my own name. Skip it. What can I show you? The stock’s a bit low at the moment, but so’s the prices.’

  He took out a black leather card-case and dealt me one. It read:

  Carlos MacGregor Garcia

  Managua

  I said: ‘Managua,’ sort of thoughtfully, as if that was the one moment in the year when I’d forgotten just where or what it was.

  ‘Ye’ll recall Managua’s the capital city of Nicaragua,’ he said politely.

  ‘Ah yes.’ I thought of saying something like Welcome to Britain, then remembered he couldn’t have picked up that accent in the capital city of Nicaragua. So I just said again: ‘Well, what can I show you?’

  ‘Well, now, I’m not exactly buying. I have a little proposition.’

  ‘Oh?’ I sipped my single malt. ‘Well, take a seat, then.’ I found a rickety seat for h
im to take, and he sat down carefully.

  He said: ‘Mr Kemp - I believe ye smuggle art?’

  I found I’d finished my drink. ‘Do I? I mean, where did you hear that?’

  He waved an elegant hand. ‘Ye sort of learn these things, if it’s your job. Do ye still do it?’

  I poured myself another drink, then remembered to offer him one. He shook his head. ‘Look, Mr Garcia—’

  ‘MacGregor, if ye dinna mind. Ye’ll recall the Spanish custom uses both the patronym and matronym, but ye’re always known by your father’s name.’

  ‘Sorry. But look: let’s say I’ve done a bit, in the past, just for the sake of argument, I mean … well, what have you got, where is it, and where d’you want it to go to?’

  ‘Will ye he taking on the job?’

  ‘I want to know more about it, first.’

  ‘Aye. That’s fair enough. Well now - I represent a certain person who’s in Europe building up a collection for export.’

  ‘To Managua?’

  ‘Aye. But ye wouldna be doing that part of the journey. We reckon it’s good enough if we can store it in Switzerland, then send it on as one big load.’

  That made sense, of course. There aren’t any Swiss art export laws. Once you’ve got it across the frontier into Switzerland - and there’s plenty of frontiers into Switzerland - you can fly it to any damn place in the world and legitimate as lechery.

  Wait a minute: he’d said ‘one big load’, hadn’t he?

  ‘Sounds like quite a collection,’ I said. ‘What’ve you got? And where?’

  ‘Most of it isna bought yet.’

  I frowned. ‘You might not even need me. I mean, the art export laws aren’t as tough as they used to be. Except Spain, Portugal, Italy.’

  ‘Aye. But we think we’d like ye along. Anyway, it’s a risk we’ll take - and be paying for.’

  I got up and walked around in a small circle - there wasn’t room for more - behind my desk. ‘You mean you just want me to come on the payroll and travel around for -for how long?’

  ‘I’d reckon a month.’

  ‘For a month, just so if you pick up something that needs my sort of exporting then I’ll be there to do it?’

  ‘Aye.’

  I mean, it was bloody barmy. If they thought they needed me, they thought they were going to buy some pretty pricey stuff - artists even I’d heard of, probably. You can export all you like of the average stuff, from almost anywhere. And they were planning on just a month, buying that sort of picture. I mean, I don’t know much about sticking together a collection of Picassos and Matisses and Gainsboroughs, but I know it takes a damn sight more than a month. Unless you’re really going to throw your money around.

  Well, maybe they were going to throw their money round. So why should I duck?

  I said: ‘I don’t much like leaving the shop. Closing it up -‘

  He raised his eyebrows politely. ‘At this time of the year?’

  ‘This time’s when people sell their collections to pay their taxes. I could miss a lot of good stuff cheap.’

  ‘Aye. Well - I can offer ye five pun’ a day for yerself and five pun’ for the overheads on your shop, and all your travelling and living abroad, of course.’

  He waited calmly for me to grab at it.

  I said: ‘And a special rate for each job.’

  A polite frown. ‘I dinna see—’

  ‘You should’ve seen. There’s a lot of difference between getting a Picasso out of France and a bloody great statue out of Italy.’

  ‘Aye. I think there’ll no be any statues, but … I reckon we can accept the idea. Will ye be coming, then?’

  ‘I suppose so. When? Where?’

  ‘Paris, tomorrow.’ He reached inside his coat again. ‘There’s a ticket for the aeroplane and fifty pun’ for your first expenses. Ye’ll be keeping a good note about them, of course?’

  I just nodded.

  He stood up, and thought over his next remark rather carefully. ‘Mr Kemp - do ye usually dress like that?’

  ‘Huh?’ I mean, what was this? I was even wearing one of my suits thai day. Well, I suppose it was a bit worn at the cuffs and elbows, and maybe a bit too much gun-oil on the lapels - you shouldn’t really wear light grey to fiddle with guns - but hell, it was a suit.

  I said: ‘I’ve got another suit. Sort of brown and green. Tweed I mean.’

  He gave a little artificial smile. ‘Aye - well… it’s just ye’ll maybe find yeself in some smart places.’

  ‘Oh. Don’t you worry about me, mate. I’ll manage.’

  ‘Aye.’ Then he sighed. ‘We’ll meet on the aeroplane, then.’ He held out his hand and I shook it and he walked away up the shop and out.

  I just stood behind the desk staring at the bunch of francs, the BEA ticket and the visiting card. I picked up the card and automatically ran my fingernail across it to see if it was engraved. It was, of course. Pompous bastard. Telling me how to dress. Then I tore up the card and threw it away. He shouldn’t have left it anyway. Bad security, if we were doing any undercover work - and art smuggling is undercover. Well, supposed to be.

  Then I checked the airline ticket. It was in my name, so he’d been pretty sure of getting me. So then I counted the francs and it seemed about right. And a month was - say -thirty days, which was three hundred pounds with the overheads on the shop, plus the special rates for the real work. Well, that wasn’t so bad. A lot better than I’d do staying here, in January, whatever I’d told MacGregor.

  Provided I didn’t land in some Italian jail.

  Selling antique guns isn’t a bad way to earn a living. At least the cheating’s legal. And there’s always the chance you’ll pick up something really classy from some nit who doesn’t know the prices, or maybe match a pair of handguns that’ve got split up. Not a bad trade. And then somebody comes and dumps a wad of francs and a ticket on your desk and you’re out in the cold again. And you’re scared -well, no, not scared, but … all right, you’re scared. You might be getting a bit old for this sort of thing.

  Christ! - you are getting old. You forgot even to ask the name of the people you’re working for!

  TWO

  Anyway, the next day I was on the plane. I’d stored my best guns at the bank, warned my landlord, turned off the water, packed two bags - the big smuggling one with the rigid frame, just about as big as you can get without it looking suspicious, and the small airline handbag affair - and at the last minute I even paid a few bills, then on the way to the air terminal I bought a couple of shirts which I’d been planning to do for months … and I caught the plane.

  I don’t like aeroplanes Particularly I don’t like jets. At least the old propeller thing made a decent noise so you knew the engines were really trying, and they didn’t go up like bloody rockets, neither.

  I’d teamed up with Carlos MacGregor in the final departure lounge (that’s a hell of a reassuring name, too) and I let him take the window seat on the plane. I don’t really want to know how far down it is.

  We did the usual bit where the thing stands on its tail and the engines go all quiet as if they’ve stopped and the pilot’s had a heart attack, and they’re throwing soft piped music at you to get your mind off your short future … and somehow we survived it. The stewardesses started running around with little sandwiches and empty cups and ignoring people like me screaming for alcohol.

  Carlos looked at his watch and said: ‘Well, we’re off on time.’

  I said: ‘Marvellous.’ and went back to shivering. It was pretty warm in the plane.

  He glanced at me, smiled gently. Then took out a black leather case and lit a rather long fawn-brown cigarette Now I wouldn’t even be able to smell when the engines caught fire.

  Carlos took out a piece of paper, consulted it, and said: ‘There’s a room reserved for ye at the Montalembert. D’ye know it?’

  ‘I think so. Over in Saint-Germain, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, fine. But i
sn’t it about time I knew who I’m working for?’

  ‘Aye, I’d’ve told ye yesterday if ye’d asked. Dona Margarita Consuela Santana … well, it’s a rather long name. Just say Dona Margarita Umberto.’

  Somehow the name was a bit familiar. I frowned over it, then caught him looking at me, slightly amused. ‘Ye’ll remember her if ye ever followed tennis twenty years ago, Mr Kemp.’

  Well, of course, I hadn’t followed tennis, but at Wimbledon time the papers and radio are full of it. There’d been a Margarita Umberto at Wimbledon the first few years after the war. She hadn’t won anything, but the newspapers had liked her, they’d called her the Spanish Smasher or something. You know.

  Carlos went on: ‘She’s a widow lady, now. She married Don Lorenzo - he was a big landowner and something of a politician - and he died just seven years ago.’

  ‘And now she’s spending her inheritance on an art collection, huh?’

  ‘Ye might say something like that ‘

  ‘Just how much are you spending?’

  He looked a little stiff about that. But then: ‘Well, ye’ll be hearing figures mentioned, no doubt, so ye’d best get the right one. It’ll be around two and a half million pounds.’

  After a long time I found enough breath to whistle. ‘You shouldn’t have to make do with a stack of dirty postcards on that money. Quite sure the lady wouldn’t like to buy a few antique guns just to add variety?’

  ‘I fear not, Mr Kemp.’

  Then I got another thought. ‘If anybody else knows that figure, you’ll be up to your neck in every faker and forger in Europe.’

  ‘Aye. So we’d appreciate ye keeping it a secret.’

  ‘Don’t worry, mate. I don’t want her going broke until I’ve had my bite. I just hope she hasn’t been bidding it up at Christie’s and Sotheby’s and places.’

  ‘We have two experts who’re doing the buying on Dona Margarita’s behalf.’

  ‘Well, where’s she staying in Paris?’

  ‘The Prince de Galles.’