Masterpiece (27 page)

Suddenly, James reached down and plucked Marvin from the paper, positioning him snugly under his cuff. He looked around the room. Spying the phone on the desk, he rushed to it.

“We’ll call my dad,” he said. “He’ll know what to do.”
He punched the numbers and held the phone tightly against his cheek, waiting.

After a minute, he groaned. “It’s not going through. He must be someplace where his cell phone doesn’t work.”

Marvin tried to think what to do. But James didn’t hesitate. He punched in more numbers. “Hello? Um, New York City. Can I have the phone number for the Met? Yeah, the museum. No, wait! Not the recording, I need a real person. Yeah, that’s good. Thanks.” He wrote a number on the pad of paper on the desk, then dialed it. “Hi, uh, can you connect me to Christina Balcony’s office?”

James’s voice exploded with excitement.

“Denny! Denny, it’s me, James! I found the drawing! I found
Fortitude
!”

M
arvin froze. Denny!
Don’t tell Denny
, he wanted to scream.

But of course James had no way of knowing that Denny was the thief. He was already babbling ecstatically into the phone. “No, really! I’m in somebody’s apartment, this guy Gordon Perry. The address is”—here James read from the crinkled label—“236 East 74th Street, Apartment 5D.”

No! Don’t tell him
! Marvin raced onto James’s hand.

“It’s the real one. I know it is. I . . . I can’t explain on the phone. Can you get my dad?” There was a long pause.

“Oh,” James said, “he is? Okay, but you’ll tell him, and Christina too? And can you please hurry? I don’t know when this guy might come back.”

He hung up and looked down triumphantly at Marvin. “We did it!” he crowed, dancing around the table. “Dad and Christina weren’t there—they’d gone to look
for me—but Denny’s going to find them and tell them, and then they’ll all come over here. Everything’s going to be fine!”

Oh, no! Marvin slumped in despair. This was impossible. How could he make James understand that they were in terrible danger?

Nobody knew they were here but Denny. And Denny, the real thief, was on his way to the apartment. He certainly wouldn’t tell Karl or Christina anything. Marvin trembled. What would he do with the drawings when he got here? More important, what would he do with James?

James lifted his hand and peered at Marvin, tilting his head to one side. “What’s the matter, little guy? You don’t seem very happy.”

Marvin took a deep breath, trying to shake off his hopelessness. He had to convince James to leave the apartment. And to take the drawings with him! But how?

He crawled to the end of James’s finger and motioned with his front legs.

“Where do you want to go now?” James asked, looking at him quizzically. “I think we should just wait till they all get here.”

Marvin continued to gesture toward the briefcase.

James walked doubtfully over to the closet and crouched on the floor, holding out his hand so Marvin could disembark. Marvin crawled straight to the part of the briefcase with the handle and latches, and waited there expectantly.

“You want me to shut it again?” James asked.

Marvin climbed onto one of the latches.

“Why? Denny and Dad and Christina are on their way here. Can’t we let them do it?”

Marvin tapped his front legs imperatively.

James paused. “I’m scared I’ll wreck the drawing.” When Marvin didn’t budge, he sighed. “You can be really bossy, do you know that?” He fiddled with the packaging sheets. “But I guess you’ve been right about most things so far. And you did find the drawing.”

He sighed again. “Okay, watch out.” Gently, he wrapped the paper sheets over
Fortitude
and, while Marvin clung to the latch, closed the briefcase.

Marvin was about to jump off when he caught sight of something under the briefcase’s handle. Imprinted in the worn leather, faintly traced in gold. What was it?

Letters, he realized. Three of them. Faded almost beyond recognition.

Something stirred in a remote part of Marvin’s brain; something from the human world. Three letters on Mrs. Pompaday’s bathroom towels. Three letters on Mr. Pompaday’s silver cuff links. Three letters on the pen case that Karl gave James for his birthday. (“Look, your initials, so everyone will know it’s yours.”)

Initials. Denny’s initials.

Marvin went crazy. He leapt in the air, rolled over, waved all his legs, and spun in a mad circle.
Here! Look, James! Now you’ll know
!

The letters were so faded and small that only a beetle
would ever notice them. A beetle and a boy who always paid attention.

“You’re doing it again,” James said in amazement. “Calm down! What’s wrong with you? Maybe you’re having a seizure, like Billy Dunwood did after he got hit by that baseball last summer.”

Marvin crouched directly above the initials and pounded his front legs on the leather.

“Oh,” James said. “Yeah, I see it. Somebody’s initials.” He bent over the briefcase and squinted. “So what? I can’t even read them. ‘D,’ something, ‘D.E.M.’ Is that what you wanted me to see? Why? Why do you care about that?”

Marvin stayed right where he was, determined not to
move until James made the connection. He continued to tap his front legs.

“D.E.M. Okay. Who is that?” James asked him. “I guess it’s not Gordon Perry. But he could have borrowed somebody else’s briefcase. Or maybe this is the guy who helped him steal the drawing.”

Marvin spun in a circle and waved his legs madly.

“That’s it? This is the guy who helped him steal
Fortitude
? Okay, but I don’t know anybody with the initials—” James stopped. He squinted at the top of the briefcase, angling it toward him. “What’s this?” he asked, tracing his finger over a square insignia printed on the leather. Marvin saw it, too, on the top of the case, a small box with symbols inside it.

“It’s letters too,” James said. “G-E-T-T-Y,” he read. “Getty. Wait, isn’t that Denny’s museum? Out in California?” His gray eyes widened.

Turning to Marvin, he whispered, “What’s Denny’s last name again? Mac- something. MacGuffin.” He shook his head. “But why would he . . . He couldn’t have. He was the one who—”

Please
, Marvin begged silently. If there was such a thing as mind reading, he needed James to do it right now.

James stopped again, then sucked in his breath. “Oh, my gosh! If it
is
Denny, he’s coming. . . . We have to get out of here!”

Yes! Finally, he understood. Marvin leapt onto
James’s outstretched hand and scooted under his jacket cuff. In a panic, James grabbed the handle of the briefcase and ran to the door of the apartment.

They rushed into the hallway just as the elevator dinged.

“What if it’s Denny?” James whispered, frantic. He
whirled around. “We have to take the stairs. Where are they?”

As the elevator doors began to open, he ran down the hall toward a broad metal door with a lit-up red sign over it.

Hurry
, Marvin thought,
hurry
!

James pushed through the door into a narrow, bleak stairwell. He thudded down the first flight of stairs, the briefcase banging against his legs.

“I hope he didn’t see us. I hope he didn’t see us,” he kept whispering to Marvin, like a magical incantation, as he rounded the corner and took the second flight of stairs two steps at a time. Marvin clung to the jacket cloth, bouncing helplessly against James’s wrist, craning to see if they were being followed.

Finally, they came to the first floor and burst into the lobby.

James raced across the entryway, heaved open the massive front door, and ran down the steps to the sidewalk. Outside, he paused only a moment, then took off down the street through the fast-falling snow.