Paint Your Dragon (17 page)

Except, the train of thought chuntered on, blowing its whistle and slowing down while a cow crossed the line, if I'd just had a terrible accident, surely I'd be in a hospital with nurses and lots of bits of tube sticking out of me, rather than standing in this very public place, stark naked. So just what is going on here?

‘Hello,' said the grain of dust.

It spoke quietly, in statue language. Don't, by the way, rush out and try and buy the Linguaphone tape because there isn't one, not even in HMV And even if there was, a twelve-year-old child would be a hundred and six before he'd got as far as
What are you called? My name is John,
because statue language takes a long time to learn and almost as long to say.

‘Hello,' David replied, puzzled. ‘Where are you?'

‘On the end of your nose. There's ever such a good view from up here.'

David felt his nose begin to itch again. ‘Okay. What are you?'

‘I'm a bit of dust from Birmingham. It's nicer here than Birmingham. What's your name?'

‘I don't know,' David confessed. ‘I don't think I know anything before you landed on my nose. It was you, wasn't it?'

‘Sorry about that. I just sort of drifted, if you know what I mean.'

How the hell, David wondered, can you itch if you're immobile? ‘Look,' he said, ‘can you tell me what's going on? For a start, why can't I move?'

‘You're a statue.'

‘Don't be thick, statues are dead. I mean, not alive. Inanimate.'

‘Oh are they, now? Well, I've got news for you, buster. Not only are some statues alive, they also walk about and talk and do all sorts of things. I guess,' the dust mused, ‘it's all a matter of casting off crippling social stereotypes and unlocking your full potential.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because,' the dust replied smugly, ‘I've seen it, that's why. Where I've just come from, there was this enormous big statue of a dragon. Alive as anything, it was. Until they blew it up, of course.'

‘What!'

‘With dynamite, or something. Well, they tried to, anyway. At the last moment someone swapped me for it, me as I was, that is. I was bigger then.'

If David had had skin, it'd have goosepimpled. ‘They blew up a statue because it was alive?' he demanded nervously.

‘I suppose so. Can't see why else they'd want to do a thing like that, can you? I mean, statues aren't cheap, you don't just go around blasting them to smithereens because you quite fancy turning the vegetable patch into a rockery.'

‘Good God.' David glanced out of the corner of his eye at the knot of people at the end of the gallery. They were quite definitely staring at him. Had they guessed? ‘This is terrible. I must get out of here at once.'

‘Go on then.'

‘I can't. My bits don't work. Oh Christ, there's a guy over there with some sort of box, do you think...?'

‘The other statue seemed to manage okay. You can't be doing it right.'

David tried again; still nothing. ‘All right,' he said, ‘if you're so clever,
how do
you do this movement stuff? I assumed it just sort of happened when you wanted it to.'

‘Search me,' replied the dust particle. ‘I think it's something to do with the central nervous system. You got one of those?'

‘How should I know? You think I've got a zip somewhere I can undo and take a peek? Besides, even if I did I wouldn't be able to use it.'

A gang of humans, all women, led by a big loud-voiced specimen with an umbrella, were walking down the gallery towards him. This is it, he told himself, the lynch mob. Well, having my entire life flash before my eyes isn't going to be a problem, because the ruddy thing's only lasted about two minutes. On the other hand, there's not much of it I'd really want to see twice.

‘All right,' said the dust particle. ‘Try falling over.'

‘What?'

‘Look down. Feel giddy. You're losing your balance. You're teetering. You're going to fall.
Look out!
'

The statue staggered, clutched at thin air, wobbled backwards and forwards for a split second and fell off its plinth with a crash. If people had been staring before, it was peanuts compared to the way they were staring now.

‘Hell's teeth,' groaned the statue. ‘I banged my head.'

‘Worked, though, didn't it? Come on.'

Without knowing how, or what it was he'd done to bring it about, David found himself scrambling to his feet, jelly-legged as a newborn calf. He remembered something, scooped up the thing that looked like a sock, and held it with both hands over his groin.

‘Which way?' he hissed. ‘Quick!'

But there was no reply. He must, he realised, have displaced the speck of dust, his only friend and guide in this terrible, unfamiliar, murderous world. He whimpered and began to back away until the wall stopped him. At the first touch of something cold on his bare shoulder-blades he squealed like a scalded pig, jumped in the air and dropped the sock. Then he grabbed it again and looked for an exit.

There wasn't one. The only way out was through, or over, the lynch mob. Just as he was toying with the idea of crouching down behind the plinth and hoping they'd overlook him, a vagrant thought hit him and exploded in his brain like a rocket.

Hey, he said to himself. I'm bigger than them.

 

Six floors below, in the gallery's engine room, a breathless guard burst in through the door marked VIETATO INTRARI PERICOLO DI MORTI and slithered to a halt in front of a broad mahogany desk.

‘Chief ! Chief!' he panted. ‘It's the
David,
it's come to frigging
life!'

Behind the desk, a large, stocky man with very hairy arms stubbed out a cigarette.

‘Oh balls,' he sighed. ‘Not another one.'

‘Honestly, Chief, straight up, I saw it with my own - What do you mean, another one?'

The Chief stood up and unlocked a steel cabinet behind him. ‘You haven't been here long, have you, son?'

‘Six months, Chief. You mean to say it's—?'

‘On average,' the Chief replied, opening the cabinet door, ‘once every five years or so. Lately though, there's been a poxy epidemic. Here, catch hold of this.'

Into the guard's quivering hands the Chief pressed a big tranquilliser gun and a bandolier of darts. For his part, he chose a slide-action Mossberg twelve-gauge, a pocketful of armour-piercing slugs and a geologist's hammer. Finally, a tin hat each, goggles and a torch.

‘The
David,
you say?'

‘Yes, Chief.'

‘Fuck. It's always the thoroughbreds. Anonymous figure of unknown man, late fifteenth-century Venetian school, never get a whisper out of them. Right, let's go.'

The Chief walked so fast that the guard was hard pressed to keep up with him. ‘What we gonna do, Chief?' he gasped.

‘Well.' The Chief shrugged. ‘Sometimes, a couple of sleepy-darts knock'em out cold, and then all we have to do is drill out their brains and fill up with quick-drying resin. Other times,' he added grimly, jacking a round into the breech of the shotgun, ‘we have to get a bit more serious.'

‘Serious?'

The Chief nodded. ‘How d'you think the
Venus
de
Milo
got that way, son? Resisting arrest? Had a bad fall in her cell? Act your age.'

When they got to the gallery, it had already been roped off and the doors were shut. Two-way radios crackled and white-faced guards stepped back to let the Chief through.

‘Any movement?' he demanded.

A guard nodded. ‘It chased all the visitors out,' he said, ‘threw a couple of glass cases at them. We've sealed all the exits so it's not going anywhere, but it looks like it's in a mean mood.'

The Chief grimaced. ‘We'll see about that. There's no room for frigging wild men in
my museum.
Okay, going in!'

He applied his boot to the door, which opened inwards. A fraction of a second later, his knife-edge reflexes propelled him backwards, just in time to avoid an airborne bronze bust, which would have reduced him to the consistency of strawberry jam had it connected. He slammed the door quickly.

‘Fuck me,' he said, ‘it's gone bloody berserk. Of course, doesn't help that it's one of the really big buggers. You get thirteenth-century Sienese ivory miniatures running about the place, all it takes is five minutes and a stiff broom.' He hesitated, then turned to the head porter.

‘Get me a bullhorn,' he ordered. ‘Evacuate the museum, then get on the red phone to the army, Special Art Service. Tell 'em unless they get their bums in gear, it'll be the Wallace Collection all over again.'

When the bullhorn came, the Chief tested it to make sure it worked; then, using a broom handle, he poked the door open a crack and waited. Nothing.

‘You in the gallery!' he shouted. ‘Come out with your hands up and nobody's gonna get broken. You hear me?'

Silence.

‘You've got till ten to give yourself up, then we come in. One.'

‘Hey!'

A high-pitched voice, the Chief noted, ear-splittingly sonorous but basically reedy and terrified. But those are often the most dangerous. His mind went back to the early days, the time he'd had to talk down the Elgin Marbles. Maybe, he said to himself, I'm getting too old for all this.

‘I hear you,' he replied.

‘I've got the
Pietà, Saint Matthew
and a big bimbo provisionally attributed to Giovanni Bellini,' yelled the voice. ‘You come in here and they all get it. Understood?'

‘Loud and clear, son, loud and clear.' He frowned and switched off the loudhailer. ‘Was it just the
David,'
he asked, ‘or were any of the rest of them at it as well?'

‘Not that I saw, Chief,' replied the guard. ‘Just the big guy.'

‘Hmm.' The Chief rubbed his chin. ‘Thought you said he was acting confused, like he didn't know what was going on.'

‘Looked like that to me, Chief.'

‘Yeah. Only now he sounds like he's pretty well clued up. Like, the big bimbo, I mean the
Venus di San Lorenzo,
the attribution to Bellini was only in last month's
Fine Art Yearbook.
Somebody's in there with him.'

‘You on the outside!'

The Chief ducked down. Behind him, thin young men with wavy hair, black silk Giorgio Armani jump-suits, Gucci balaclavas and bazookas were filing noiselessly into the corridor. The Chief waved them into position and switched on the bullhorn.

‘Receiving you, over.'

‘Here's the deal—'

‘Different voice,' muttered the head porter.

‘Yeah,' replied the Chief. ‘Shuttup.'

‘Here's the deal. We want no guns, no police, no army. Have a Sikorski airfreighter in the Piazza in thirty minutes. We want ten million dollars in uncut diamonds, clearance to land in Tripoli and a free pardon. Do as we say and the rocks walk.'

‘Actually,' interrupted another voice.

(‘That's him.'

‘Who?'

‘Yeah. Shuttup.')

‘Actually,' said the second voice, ‘they don't. Do they? And anyway, haven't you got to fall over first?'

This exchange was followed by several seconds of heated whispering, which the Chief couldn't quite catch. By the time they'd brought up the boom mikes, the debate had ended.

‘Okay, guys,' muttered the Chief, ‘here's the plan. You boys go round the side, abseil in through the skylight. Use smoke grenades and thunderflashes. You six come with me, in through the door. I'll cover the
David
, you take out the other sucker, whoever the fuck he is. Remember,' he added gravely, thinking of the high velocity bronze bust, ‘they're presumed armed—'

‘Busted.'

‘—Busted and dangerous, so if there's any hint of trouble, get your shot in first and let the guys with the dustpans and glue sort it out later. Ready?'

Twelve balaclava'd heads nodded.

‘Right then. On my command.'

It was a grand spectacle, if you like that sort of thing.
Crash!
went the glass roof.
Whoosh!
went the smoke bombs.
BANG!
went the stun grenades.
Crunch!
went the big oak doors.
Boom!
went the bazookas, reducing to fine-grain rubble two half-length statues of constipated-looking goddesses, no loss by anybody's standards, and a somewhat less than genuine della Robbia rood screen which had been a thorn in the gallery's side ever since someone had noticed the words
Made In Pakistan From Sustainable Hardwoods
chiselled round the back.

And
Oh shit, where've they gone
? went the Chief, standing gobsmacked by two empty pedestals. The birds had, apparently, flown.

In the confusion, nobody noticed that the commando squad had, apparently, recruited two new members during the course of the attack; one tall, athletic-looking specimen, rather unsteady on his feet, and one short, bandy-legged example given to lurking in shadows. While the gallery was still full of smoke, shouting and the joyous sound of hobnailed boot on irreplaceable artefact, these two new recruits slipped quietly past the guards, down the corridor and, having shed their masks and swiped a couple of overcoats from the cleaners' room, out into the street.

‘Yo!' exclaimed the shorter of the two, punching the air. ‘We made it!'

‘Yes,' David replied. ‘Didn't we just.' He stopped and looked at his companion, and a puzzled look swept across his face. ‘Excuse me.'