The Faberge Egg (11 page)

McGuffin was awakened from his best sleep in many nights by the ringing of the phone. Unimpeded by a hangover, he managed to snatch the receiver from the cradle before the second ring and answer in a clear voice, “McGuffin.”

“Is this the Mr. Amos McGuffin who was once employed by Miles Dwindling?” a woman inquired hesitantly.

“It is,” McGuffin answered. “Who is this?”

“Shawney O’Sea.”

“And what have you got to do with Miles Dwindling?” McGuffin asked, adjusting himself on one elbow.

“He was my father,” she replied.

He bolted to a sitting position, excited but cautious. “Let’s have that name again.”

She repeated it, then added, “But it used to be Ivey Dwindling.”

“Eureka!” McGuffin whispered. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“You have?” she asked, in a puzzled voice. “I thought I was looking for you.”

“You were looking
?!
Never mind, where are you?”

“I’m staying in a friend’s apartment,” she answered, and gave him an address on Leavenworth Street.

“Don’t move, I’ll be there within half an hour,” McGuffin said, springing from the bed.

With three minutes to spare, McGuffin alighted from a cab on Leavenworth Street near the Filbert Street steps on Russian Hill, one of the steepest grades in the city. The house was an ugly stucco fortress, rising straight up from the edge of the sidewalk, a green wall with a few small windows and an arched gateway at one side. McGuffin pushed the iron gate open and started up the stone stairs to the first of four landings stepped against the hill. There appeared to be four apartments in the building, with an entry off each of the landings. McGuffin stopped at the first, the address she had given, and rang the bell. A moment later, the door opened, and McGuffin stood staring at the woman who claimed to be Miles Dwindling’s daughter.

“Mr. McGuffin?” she asked.

“That’s right,” he answered, studying her closely, looking for some resemblance to Miles Dwindling. She had the same lean frame and seemed the right age, about thirty, but beyond that, she could be anybody’s daughter, McGuffin decided.

“Please come in,” she said, in a husky voice.

McGuffin stepped inside, and she closed the door after him. Her hair was long and deeply red, glossy as a sorrel thoroughbred, but a bit tousled, falling over one eye. She brushed it back with a well-manicured hand and led him into the living room. McGuffin stopped in the middle of the room, removed his damp hat and looked around. The place looked as if it had been furnished by a dowager aunt, with fringe on the lamp shades and doilies on everything else.

“You’ll have to forgive the mess, I just arrived from the airport an hour ago,” she said, slapping at the wrinkles in her blue silk dress. It had been chosen to set off her blue, almost violet eyes, as well as her long, smooth body.

“You look fine,” McGuffin remarked. “Whose place is this?”

“It belongs to an actor friend from New York. I believe it was left to him by an aunt. Can I take your hat and coat?”

“I’ll just throw it here if that’s all right with you,” he said, dropping his hat on a red velvet couch.

“Fine,” she said. “I’d offer you coffee, but I don’t know my way around the kitchen.”

“That’s all right,” McGuffin said. When he dropped his coat on the couch, Toby’s gun made a clunk against the leg. He remained standing, waiting for her to take a seat, but she was content to lean against the piano, hair falling over one eye as if she was about to sing a torch song. “Miles Dwindling’s daughter,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered, brushing her hair back again.

“Do you mind if I see some identification?”

“What?”

“It’s standard procedure in such matters,” McGuffin said with an easy shrug. “But if you’d rather not . . .”

“No, it’s quite all right,” she said, pushing off the piano. She walked across the thick Oriental carpet and through an open door to a large bedroom. There was a suitcase on the bed and a leather Coach bag beside it. She returned with a red leather wallet, opened it and began laying cards on the piano as if she were dealing blackjack.

McGuffin approached and looked over her shoulder. The several cards were in the name of Shawney O’Sea, including one from the Screen Actors Guild. “You’re an actress?”

She shrugged. “The jury is still out.”

“Do you have anything in the name of Ivey Dwindling?”

“Not with me.”

“Driver’s license?”

She shook her head. “I live in New York,” she said, pointing to her address.

“Then you have nothing to prove you’re Ivey Dwindling?”

“Of course I do. But I had no idea I’d be asked to produce it,” she answered peevishly, as she gathered up her cards. “I’ve called myself Shawney O’Sea for more than ten years, thinking that it would help my career - which it hasn’t, I might add. I just wish I knew what the hell was going on,” she said, stuffing the cards into her wallet. “I haven’t been called Ivey since I was in high school, now suddenly everybody expects me to answer to that name. Wait, I do have something!” she remembered, delving back into the wallet. She handed McGuffin a crumpled, graying card. It was an identification card from the New York High School of Performing Arts, with the name and signature of Ivey Dwindling still faintly legible. “I keep it as a joke,” she said.

“I’m glad you do,” he said, returning the card. “Now tell me who else suddenly expects you to answer to that name.”

“Mr. Kemidov,” she answered.

“Kemidov?”

“You don’t know him?” McGuffin shook his head. “Well, he certainly knows all about you. And me,” she added. “I’m sure he’s with the KGB.”

“KGB?” McGuffin repeated. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? Tell me all about Kemidov and how you happened to come looking for me.”

“Let me tell you everything just the way it happened, beginning with yesterday morning,” she suggested. McGuffin nodded. “I received a call from a woman with a rather heavy Russian accent, although I didn’t know immediately what it was. She said she represented a European film company that was interested in me for an international role and could I come and meet the producer, Mr. Kemidov, as soon as possible. Naturally I flew - to a rehearsal studio in the theater district, where I met the woman with the Russian accent. She sat me down on a folding chair in the middle of a big empty room and then walked out, leaving me alone for several minutes. I know,” she said, waving her hands helplessly, “you think I should have gotten up and left right then. But in this business you never know what to expect.”

McGuffin waited while she paced thoughtfully across the room to the window, beyond which a light rain had resumed falling. She gazed at it with little interest, before turning back to the detective and continuing her story. “Finally the door opened and a man entered the room. He was about sixty-five, but trim, with salt-and-pepper hair cut very short. He introduced himself as Mr. Kemidov and called me Miss Dwindling. I was amazed. I asked him how he knew that name, and he told me he had known me for eighteen years. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was suddenly very frightened, so I tried acting tough. I told him I had come about a movie, but if there was no movie, I was leaving. Then when I tried to get up, he pressed me back down in the chair. He was incredibly strong for an old man, and I was suddenly terrified. I begged him to let me leave, but he said, ‘Not until you have heard the story of my movie.’”

She took a few steps toward an embroidered chair, started to sit, then quickly straightened up. “He said his movie was about a Russian officer’s search for a Fabergé egg that had been stolen by a German officer during the war,” she went on, working the wallet in her hands like an exercise ball. “He said it was a treasure that belonged to the Russian people, and the officer had dedicated his life to its return. Several times he nearly had it, but each time the German escaped with it. Almost twenty years ago, he traced the egg to California. He was all set to take it from the German, when suddenly a private investigator robbed him of it before he had the chance. And that’s when I realized it wasn’t a movie,” she said, turning her wide violet eyes on McGuffin. “You do know who that private investigator was, don’t you, Mr. McGuffin?”

“I’m afraid so,” McGuffin, the unwitting accomplice, answered.

“He said my father stole the egg on behalf of the man who later killed him, Otto Kruger. And all during the time Kruger was in prison, Mr. Kemidov assumed he had the egg hidden away someplace. But recently, he found out that Kruger never had the egg, that my father had it when Kruger killed him. In fact, that’s why my father was killed, according to Kemidov. He claimed my father refused to turn the egg over to Kruger as he had agreed. Is this true, Mr. McGuffin?”

McGuffin nodded. “Did Kemidov tell you how he learned your father had the egg and not Kruger?”

“Yes,” she said, sinking to the chair. She leaned forward, arms on thighs, and stared into the empty space between herself and the detective. “He said his agents have been watching Kruger since the day he was released from prison. He knows that you contacted Kruger and tried to sell him the Fabergé egg. He also knows you contacted the German officer who had originally stolen it. He knows you have the egg, Mr. McGuffin, and he thinks you’re about to sell it to the highest bidder. That’s why he sent me. He told me to tell you that if you attempt to deliver the egg to either of them, the lives of both you and your loved ones will be in grave danger. Those were his words as he told me to deliver them,” she said, looking up from the blank space and fixing her violet eyes on McGuffin.

“I see,” McGuffin said, nodding slowly. “In other words I’m to give the egg to you, and you’ll deliver it to him in New York.”

“No,” she answered. “You’re to deliver the egg to Mr. Kemidov yourself. All I’m supposed to do is warn you of the gravity of the situation. After that, he’ll be in touch with you.”

“I don’t understand,” McGuffin said, hanging his hand from the back of his neck and staring at the Oriental carpet. “If Kemidov thinks I have the egg, why didn’t he come directly to me? Why did he go through you?”

“Because he thought at first that you were acting on my behalf,” she answered, getting to her feet. “He assumed my father had managed to get the egg to me and now you were selling it for me. But finally, I managed to convince him that I didn’t have the egg, and there’s the rub.”

“The rub?” McGuffin inquired.

“If I don’t have it,” - she said, pointing first to herself, then McGuffin - “you must.”

“Then why didn’t he cut you loose then and there?”

“Because he blames me for what my father did to him. If he doesn’t get the egg, he’ll kill me,” she said, turning her hands palm up. “And you, too,” she added. “The man is obsessed with the Fabergé egg, Mr. McGuffin. I’m convinced he’ll kill anyone to get it.”

“Did he say he was KGB?” McGuffin asked.

“He didn’t have to. He spoke of his agents as if he had a great network at his beck and call. It might sound hysterical, but I’m convinced that Mr. Kemidov is a member of the KGB,” she stated firmly. “Please, Mr. McGuffin, you must give him the egg.”

“I don’t have it,” McGuffin replied.

“Don’t have it? You mean you sold it?” she asked, eyes wide.

“I mean I’ve never even seen the goddamned thing,” McGuffin shot back.

“You’re lying -!” she gasped.

“Yeah, I’m lying! For the last eighteen years, thanks to your old man, I’ve been getting shot at, knifed and beaten up more than a high school teacher. All I own in life is a seven-year-old clunker and four brown suits - no, make that three, one of them got chewed up by a dog - but in reality, I’m an eccentric millionaire with a Fabergé egg stashed away in a gumshoe box. Believe me, I don’t have it!”

“Why should I believe you when you don’t believe me?” she demanded. “Did I ask you for identification? I told you I’m Ivey Dwindling, and that should be good enough! I was born thirty-one years ago in San Francisco where I lived for ten years before moving to Acapulco with my mother! I went to high school in New York where I lived with my aunt until I began pursuing an acting career under the name Shawney O’Sea, and I can prove all of it if you want to come to New York with me!” she exclaimed, brushing angrily at her fallen hair. “You’re the one who got me into this mess - you and my father - and now you’re acting as if it’s my fault somebody wants to kill me!” she concluded, as tears began welling in her eyes.

“I had nothing to do with it!” McGuffin protested. “And I’ve already got too many other lives to worry about to take you on as well!”

“I’m not looking for protection, I’m looking for the egg!” she cried. “I thought you might help me, but I was wrong, so let’s forget about it! Just take your silly hat and get out of here!”

McGuffin picked up his damp fedora and looked closely at it. “This is my rain hat,” he explained.

“Whatever it is, please take it and go,” she said, pointing to the door.

McGuffin picked up his raincoat and walked across the rug to the foyer. There, he stopped and turned, idly twisting the hat in his hands. “What do you intend to do now?” he asked.