The Faberge Egg (14 page)

“Somebody was.”

“And they stole a leather bag which might have contained the Fabergé egg?”

“No,” McGuffin said, shaking his head. “I examined the bag. I’m sure there was nothing in it. I could have overlooked a written message, or even a key, something like that – but not the egg,” he insisted.

“How can you be sure? There might have been a false bottom or a secret compartment, or -”

“There was nothing like that” McGuffin shouted.

“Then why was the bag stolen?” Kemidov shouted back.

“I don’t know - maybe it was just a coincidence! Maybe some kids broke into the boat and walked off with the bag because it was the only thing that wasn’t locked up!”

“It wasn’t locked?” Kemidov fairly gasped. “The bag may have contained the Fabergé egg, and it was just lying about for anyone to come and take? No, no -” he said, bowing and shaking his head. “No one is that big a fool.” He slowly raised his head and fixed his gray eyes on the detective. “And least of all me, Mr. McGuffin.”

“What do you mean?” McGuffin asked.

“I begin to see that I may have overestimated your familial fealty. You would like to have your daughter back, but you would also like to keep the egg if that is possible.”

“I told you, I don’t have the egg,” McGuffin replied in a firm voice.

“And I believed you - until you went too far. Until Kruger alerted you, you did not know the egg existed. Then when you searched for it, you found it in the leather bag. What have you done with that bag?” he demanded.

“I don’t have it,” McGuffin answered calmly.

Kemidov stared evenly at the detective for several seconds as the limousine wound leisurely through the Presidio. He removed his hand from the cane and showed McGuffin his open palm. “I hold the life of your daughter in my hand, Mr. McGuffin. Shall I give her to you? Or would you rather I. . .?” he asked. His gray eyes turned to slits and the muscles in his cheeks twitched as he clenched his fist into a hard tight knot.

McGuffin watched as the face returned, twitching occasionally, to its original composure. “If you harm either one of them, your career will be a failure. You’ll die in disgrace, but sooner than you think,” he warned in a slow but steadily cadenced voice.

Kemidov laughed softly. “You have forty-eight hours to deliver the egg. After that,” he said, drawing a card from his breast pocket, “your wife and child will be no more. When you are ready to comply, you will phone this number for instructions.”

McGuffin took the card, upon which was printed a single phone number and nothing more. “It may take more time,” he said, slipping the card into the pocket of his raincoat.

“Forty-eight hours,” he repeated. “Where would you like to be dropped?”

“Shawney O’Sea’s apartment. It’s on -”

“I know the address,” Kemidov interrupted, reaching for the intercom. He gave directions in Russian - the only word McGuffin understood was Leavenworth - then the driver made a squealing U-turn in front of the military cemetery and headed for Shawney’s apartment on Russian Hill.

Shawney had the apartment and herself neatly back in order by the time McGuffin returned. She threw her arms around him and squeezed him tightly when he stepped into the room. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“He never laid a glove on me,” McGuffin replied, as he peeled her off. He missed the couch with his hat, found it with the raincoat, remembered the card, and transferred it to his jacket pocket.

“What does he want?” she asked, following a few steps after him, then stopping near the center of the room.

“The same thing everybody wants,” McGuffin said, turning to look at her. She wore a white sweater and sharply pressed gray slacks, and her red hair had fallen again over one eye. She clutched one fist in front of her and leaned slightly forward, both eager and fearful to hear what happened. “If I don’t come up with the egg in forty-eight hours, he says he’ll kill my wife and daughter.”

“Wife?”

“Ex-,” McGuffin added.

“You didn’t tell me -”

“There are a couple of things I didn’t tell you. Sit down,” he said, indicating the couch, “and I’ll tell you everything.”

Shawney sat on the edge of the couch, hands and knees pressed tightly together, and listened while McGuffin paced and told her everything that had happened, beginning with the discovery of Marilyn and Hillary’s abduction and concluding with his limousine ride through the Presidio.

“Then you never intended to help me?” she asked, looking up at McGuffin, her violet eyes now open wide.

“I intended to help you,” he corrected. “But it had to be my way. I meant to deliver the egg to Kruger in exchange for my wife and daughter, but I also intended to see that no harm came to you from Kemidov.”

“How?” she cried. “How could you possibly protect me from the KGB?”

“I’m not certain that he is KGB,” McGuffin answered, hooking a hand over the back of his neck.

“Not certain?” she repeated. “You phoned the consulate.”

“And they neither confirmed nor denied that he was one of them.”

“But he phoned you here. How would he have gotten this number except from the Russian consulate?”

“All he had to do was look up this address in the reverse phone directory. Or he could have gotten it from whoever broke in here,” the detective explained.

“But he met you at the consulate,” she protested, shaking her head helplessly at the detective’s obstinacy.

“But I never actually saw him inside. It’s true his car came from the direction of the parking compound at the rear of the building, but again, I didn’t actually see it come out of the gate,” he mused, beginning again to pace, hand over the back of his neck. “But it wasn’t just that - it’s more a feeling I had.”

“Feeling?”

“It was something about his performance. I had the feeling I was watching a stage Russian, if you know what I mean,” he said, swinging around to face her when he reached the wall.

“I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “But take it from an actress who once did
The Cherry Orchard
for an entire summer in the Berkshires, the man who interrogated me in New York is no stage Russian, he’s the real thing.” She shuddered, remembering, then got up and walked across the room to the detective. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, Amos, because I do, honestly. But I know as well as you that Kemidov is KGB and that my life is in danger.” She put her arms around his neck. “You’re a nice man, but a terrible liar,” she said as she lifted her lips to his.

McGuffin returned the light kiss, then grasped her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “You’re no longer in any danger,” he said. “As long as Kemidov thinks I have the egg, the only people in any danger are my daughter and ex-wife. You can go back to New York whenever you like.”

She brushed the hair from over her eye and looked closely at McGuffin. “Is she really your ex-wife?”

“Yeah, we’re divorced,” he nodded.

“Then I think I’ll stay.”

They sat at a table next to the window in a Columbus Avenue coffee shop, eating a late breakfast and watching sullen San Franciscans passing back and forth in the rain. This was the seventh straight day of it, and the collective nerves of the city’s population were becoming frazzled. Drivers honked with little provocation, domestic violence was up, tans were fading, and Herb Caen hadn’t been funny in days. Shawney O’Sea stirred her coffee and stared through the rain-streaked window.

“When will it end?” she asked.

“When we have the egg,” McGuffin answered.

“I mean the rain.”

“Soon. Everything has to end sooner or later - books, movies, life, the world -”

“My, my,” she said, as she raised her coffee cup.

McGuffin stroked his chin - he hadn’t shaved in nearly two days - and turned his eyes on her. “I’ve been thinking about secret compartments.”

“You think it was in the bag?”

“I hope not,” McGuffin answered, shaking his head wearily. “Because if it was, it’s now in the hands of a stranger, and it’s unlikely that any of us will ever see it again. I was thinking about the possibility of a secret compartment somewhere in your father’s office.”

“Wouldn’t you have known if there were?” she asked as she replaced her cup on the saucer.

“There were a lot of things I didn’t know about your father,” he answered. “He was the kind of man who favored secret recesses. But the office was just one small room - not even a closet - and a few pieces of furniture. I took the bookcase with me when I moved to Sansome Street. I’m sure there was nothing there. And I must have searched the desk thoroughly.”

“You don’t remember?” she asked.

“I was settling his affairs, not searching for a million-dollar jewel,” he replied peevishly. The missing bag was chafe enough.

“What happened to the desk?” she went on, heedless to the effect of her implied criticism.

“I left it there.”

“No -,” she whispered.

“It was ugly - your father used to let his cigars burn out on it!” he protested.

“Do you think it might still be there?”

“Shawney, it was a worthless pile of scorched oak,” he explained patiently.

“It can’t hurt to look,” she said, quickly dabbing at her lips with her napkin. “Waiter!”

“Shit,” McGuffin said, reaching for his wallet.

McGuffin hadn’t been back to the old building on Post Street in more than sixteen years. Aside from the name on the formerly bare frosted glass of room 308, Thaddeus Thane, Certified Public Accountant, things looked the same.

“This is dumb,” McGuffin said.

“Knock,” she ordered.

McGuffin knocked, and a moment later the door swung open, revealing a short, fat man with rolled sleeves and a long cigar. “Mr. Thane?”

Thane stared curiously, first at McGuffin, then at Shawney - it was obvious he didn’t get much business off the street - before replying, “Yeah?”

“My name is Amos McGuffin. I’m a private investigator.”

“Thane’s not here!” the little man cried and tried to close the door.

“I’m not a process server!” McGuffin called, planting himself firmly against the door.

“This was my father’s office, I’m looking for something of sentimental value,” Shawney quickly added.

“Don’t give me that shit,” he grunted, struggling to close the door. “I been here sixteen years!”

“Then you must know Miles Dwindling - the guy who was here before you,” McGuffin muttered through a clenched jaw. The little accountant was stronger than he looked.

“The guy who was shot?”

The pressure against the door was relieved. “Right. I worked for him at the time.”

Thaddeus Thane pulled the door back, took two deep breaths and asked, “So what’s it got to do with me?”

“He may have left something in his office when he died,” McGuffin said, peering over the little man’s bald head. The office looked much the same as it had, except for the mismatched filing cabinets that lined the walls. And the desk, partially concealed by cartons and mounds of papers, seemed to be oak.

“Whattaya, kidding - I been here sixteen years, I never seen nothin’.”

“This was very small, a piece of jewelry,” Shawney said.

“Jewelry?” he asked, eyes alight.

“Nothing of any value,” McGuffin said quickly. “It was his wedding ring. His daughter is getting married, and she’d like to have it.”

“Her?” he asked, pointing an ink-stained finger at Shawney. “You’re gettin’ married?” Shawney smiled and nodded vigorously. “You talked to your accountant about this?” he asked.

“Accountant?”

“She doesn’t have an accountant - yet,” McGuffin said.

“No accountant?” he asked. “Because there can be serious tax consequences. Everybody should have an accountant.”

“He’s right,” McGuffin said. “Especially somebody in Bruce’s tax bracket.”

“Lotta money?” Thane asked.

“Scads,” McGuffin answered.

“Let me give you my card,” he said, then turned and walked to the desk.

McGuffin and Shawney followed him in. While Thane looked for his card, McGuffin edged over to the corner of the desk and lifted a pile of papers. Under the papers was a row of cigar burns. “This is it,” McGuffin said.

“What? Hey, those are confidential papers!” Thane shouted, lunging across them.

“We don’t want to look at your papers,” McGuffin assured him. “We just want to have a look inside this desk.”

“There is no ring in this desk,” Thane said firmly. “I should know, I been usin’ it for sixteen years.”

“There may be a secret compartment,” McGuffin said.

“Secret compartment? I think you been readin’ too many spy books.”

“My father was fond of such things,” Shawney explained. “And if I’m right, I’ll be happy to pay you for your time.”

“How much?” Thane asked.

“Five hundred dollars,” McGuffin said.

“I thought Bruce was rich,” the accountant reminded him.

“That’s true,” McGuffin said. “But Bruce wants her to wear his mother’s ring, so he won’t contribute to this.” Thane glanced skeptically from one to the other.

“I think I can go to a thousand,” Shawney said.

Thane continued to search their faces. “This is legit. You ain’t from the IRS or somethin’?”

“Mr. Thane, if we were IRS, we’d come in with a subpoena rather than waste time like this, wouldn’t we?”

Thane considered for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, but you don’t look at none of my papers. I catch you lookin’ at the papers and the deal’s off.”

“Thanks,” McGuffin said, going for the drawers.

He pulled the middle drawer out completely, examined it quickly, and handed it to Shawney. Thane watched closely as the detective and the bride-to-be pulled all seven drawers from the desk and piled them on the floor. Tapping noises issued from beneath the desk until, a few minutes later, the detective emerged.

“Yes?” the bride-to-be asked.

“No,” the detective answered.

Thane waited while they replaced the drawers, then followed them to the door. “Have Bruce give me a call,” he said, handing his card to Shawney.

“Sure,” Shawney said. She dropped the card in the ashtray as they waited for the elevator.

When the security officer of the
Oakland Queen
walked down the main deck with Shawney O’Sea, all of the architects looked up from their glass-walled bins, and one even walked to the doorway to watch her climb the stairs. It was a hopeful sign, McGuffin thought, that men responsible for some of the ugliest buildings in San Francisco could still appreciate classic beauty.

He opened the door to his office and stepped in ahead of Shawney, clearing a path with his feet as he slogged across the cabin, still cluttered with the files from her father’s trunk.

“I’ll clean this up while you shower and shave,” she volunteered, watching from the doorway as papers flew.

“You don’t have to do that,” McGuffin said, as Miles’ basketball trophy clattered across the deck.

“Really, I’d rather,” she said, hurrying across the cabin after it.

McGuffin shrugged. “Okay, I’ll help you.”

“It isn’t necessary, take your shower,” she said, carrying the trophy to the trunk.

McGuffin watched as she carefully placed her father’s trophy in the bottom of the trunk, then knelt down and began gathering files in her arm. After a moment, he knelt opposite her and began picking up files. “I’m sorry I kicked your father’s stuff around like that,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she replied. “I was hoping my father’s bag might magically appear under all this mess.”

“Lay off me about that bag, will you?” McGuffin pleaded, settling back on his heels.

“Sorry.”

“And give me the bird,” he pointed.

“I’ll give you the bird,” she replied, as she reached for the tin crow.

McGuffin took it between his chin and the files, then got to his feet and walked to the trunk. He stood poised to drop everything in the trunk, then froze.

“What’s the matter?” Shawney asked.

“What you just said, it reminded me of your father’s last words. I thought he said, ‘He’s out of his bird.’ But maybe it only sounded like that. Maybe he really said, ‘. . . out of the bird,’ or ‘. . . in the bird’!”

Shawney came off the deck like a cat, grabbed the tin crow, and howled. “It’s sharp!” she said, shaking a cut finger.

“I’ll get a bandage,” McGuffin offered.

“Never mind, open it!” she ordered, thrusting the bird at McGuffin.

McGuffin carried the crow to his desk, Shawney on his heels. She watched, torn finger in her mouth, as he pried at the seam with a letter opener. He managed to force the point in about an inch, but when he began to twist, the opener snapped in two pieces. “Shit!”

“A screwdriver!” she said.

“I don’t have one.”

“Butter knife?”

“Only plastic.”

“Bachelors,” she muttered, looking about the office. “What do you have?”

McGuffin, too, looked about the cabin until he remembered. “A shoehorn!”

Shawney shot him an exasperated glance, then continued to look about the room for a makeshift tool while McGuffin went to the chart drawer for a metal shoehorn. When he found it and managed to force it into the seam of the bird, her exasperated expression gave way to a dubious one; and when the crow popped suddenly apart, revealing a nest of matted straw, changed once again to a look of breathless anticipation.

“It must be,” she said softly, watching, heedless of the blood dripping from her finger, while McGuffin carefully pulled the straw away to reveal. . . .

“The Fabergé egg,” he announced dully.

They gazed silently at the jeweled egg lying on a bed of straw inside a crib made from half a tin crow from Tijuana, unable as yet to comprehend fully their discovery. It was, even to the detective to whom it represented two lives, an undeniably exquisite jewel, approximately the size of his tightly clenched fist. And although untouched for more than eighteen years, each perfect golden eagle still shimmered, as if about to fly from the opaque white enamel, filigreed by silver and platinum twisting among rubies and sapphires. Even the pedestal, the Russian imperial shield carved from blue-black porphyry and set with gold, diamonds, and pearls, was by itself a jewel fit for a museum.

McGuffin lifted it reverently from the straw, like a priest raising the monstrance, and held it up for Shawney’s inspection, turning it slowly in the lamplight so that each stone and gold facet radiated with a colored light that merged in an unreal glow. Framed in each of the imperial Russian eagles could be seen the tiny but perfect likeness of each of the Romanoff czars.

“How incredibly beautiful,” she said.

“And ingenious,” McGuffin added, searching for the lever that would open the egg. When he found it on the bottom of the pedestal and moved it, the seemingly seamless egg opened like a flower, revealing a globe with two maps of the Russian empire inset in gold, one inscribed 1613, the other 1913.

“What do you intend to do with it?” Shawney asked, her voice no longer coming from beside him. When McGuffin turned, he saw her standing in the open doorway, her hand in her purse.

“I intend to trade it for two innocent lives,” McGuffin said, watching as she slowly withdrew her hand from her purse, revealing a white handkerchief. He sighed audibly when she wrapped the handkerchief around her cut finger.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, nothing,” he answered quickly. He turned and walked to the desk, placed the egg beside the phone, and lifted the receiver. “I’m going to leave you with a friend of mine, a cop named Sullivan, so you won’t have to worry about Kemidov. Then I’ll phone Kruger and arrange for the exchange.”

“What about Vandenhof?” she asked.

“I’ll worry about him later,” he said as he dialed Goody’s number where Sullivan would be at the cocktail hour.

“I should worry now if I were you,” a familiar voice warned.

McGuffin snapped around to see Vandenhof’s large frame filling the doorway, the Luger in his hand. He pushed Shawney aside and stepped inside, followed by Toby, a new gun in hand, bigger than the Beretta in McGuffin’s coat pocket. He pulled the door closed as Vandenhof ordered, “Hang up the phone.” McGuffin heard Goody’s voice a moment before hanging up. “Now stand away from the desk,” the fat man ordered, fanning the air with the Luger.