Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 01 - A Brilliant Plan (32 page)

“Oh, I am still on but not caring about Mr. Closeky.”

“What else is there to do?”

“Well, of course the death of Phoebe. And my personal promise to Thomas to get him the Maximilian Jewels.”

Mundy chuckled. “Which, of course, are now in the possession of the police.”

“That is no problem, I assure you. I have an idea that you can help me with.”
 

Mundy agreed; glad to see some part of the action, too.

“I will call you on your mobile as soon as I am back in Redondo,” I said after we had discussed the details.

Mundy hung up and I packed my things, kissed Mom and Dad goodbye and hit the Freeway.
 

Sunday traffic was thick and it took me almost five hours to crawl back to L.A. I called Mundy on the cell phone and he gave me a location where we could meet, near Santa Monica pier.
 

Another hour drive and it was close to six o’clock, my stomach signaling dinnertime. I parked my car on the beach parking lot alongside the pier and walked up the steep ramp toward Downtown Santa Monica.
 

“Where are you?” I called Mundy on his mobile.

“I am on Third Street Promenade, at The Gap store.”

A few minutes later, I spotted Mundy in front of The Gap, listening to a street musician, having his five minutes of walkway-time.

“Are you working or what?” I pecked a kiss on his cheek while he gave me a critical look over as if my evening with Ron had left a permanent mark on me.
 

“Want to do some shopping first or go to dinner?”

“Your suggestion?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

He pointed to a bookstore on the right. “Let’s go, there are some new releases I want to check out.”

Mundy held out his arm, I took it and we walked over to the bookstore just like a regular couple.

We ran into Professor Benito Salanca in the art book section. Mundy had a stack of paperbacks in front of his nose and I was looking into a book about Tiffany jewels of the sixties.

“Benito, how are you?” I tipped him on the shoulder and he looked up from the book he was browsing.

“Oh, Calendar,” he looked happy to see me, eyeing Mundy, who was balancing his stack a little clumsily.
 

“Oh, may I introduce you. Benito, this is Mundy Millar, a good friend of mine. Mundy, this is Professor Salanca, the one I told you about writing about the Maximilian Jewels.”

Mundy just waved his free index finger. “Read your stuff, interesting.”

“Thank you. I read in the morning papers that the San Diego police retrieved the Maximilian Jewels.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I was involved in that one in my consultant role.”

“The Maximilian Jewels came to a lot of fame, I had so many phone calls from reporters who wanted to know more about them,” Benito said.

“Well, they came to the right person, didn’t they?” I laughed.
 

Benito’s eyes twinkled. “A little change from the dull university research, so much is true.”

“Listen,” I said, “I have the chance to attend the official handover of the Maximilian Jewels to the Mexican government. Would you like to join me? You were a great help with your insights and I bet you are dying to see them for real again.”

Benito’s eyes were glowing. “That would be possible? What an honor! Of course, I would like to join you. If it is not too inconvenient… ”

“No, of course not. I will let you know when and we can drive down to San Diego together.”

We exchanged phone numbers, I continued browsing through the Tiffany book, didn’t like it, and my stomach was making funny noises.
 

“Pay up, pal, and then we go for dinner.”
 

Mundy steered me to his favorite Thai place, just around the corner. I couldn’t deny him this little reward for a job well done.

Monday morning, I opened my shop, started catching up on orders, mail and bills. Mrs. Otis chatted with customers; I did some design work, and ordered salad for the both of us for lunch. Anything to have a regular day.
 

Around two in the afternoon, Ron called.

“Hi, traitor,” I said.

He was silent for a second, swallowed the retort and turned official. “We are cordially invited to join the official return of the Royal Maximilian Set to the Mexican nation.”

“Oh, very nice, but you are too late because Fowler already invited me.”

“It will be tomorrow, one o’clock, will you come?”

“Of course I will.” I remembered my promise to Benito. “Can I bring that art historian friend of mine, Professor Salanca? He was the one providing me with all the information about ‘The Max’ in the first place. I owe him.” I spelled the name for him.

“Sure, no problem, I will arrange it,” Ron said.
 

“Another thing,” I started.

“Shoot.”

“This is about something else. Will our common friend Pedro Vasolar be there, too? After all, he is the director of the Mexico City History Museum.”

“Sure, he just got his head out of the sling, saved by the bell. With your help.”

“Is it possible to have a meeting with him earlier? Around noon?” I asked.
 

There was a very long silence on the phone. Very long. “Hello?” I asked carefully.

“Calendar, is there anything, I mean anything, I should know beforehand?”

“Even if there was, I would not share it with a stupid prick like you!”

I hung up and had the first very good laugh of the day.

FOR THE OCCASION, I chose a black Armani dress, serious but chic. Worn best with a one-carat white fire diamond on a stainless steel thread around the neck, it was a serious piece of understatement, just like me.
 

Benito picked me up with his car on Tuesday morning in Redondo around eight a.m. and we drove down to San Diego with no problems. We had a lively discussion on Mexican art and culture, stopped for Starbucks Coffee Venti and the time passed quickly.

We met with Ron at police headquarters, the first time I ever saw him in a suit and tie. Juanita was there, too. She was a little overdressed but how many times did you meet senators and secretaries of state. We shook hands all around and I introduced Benito. Juanita avoided my eyes, Ron was a little uneasy. Fowler turned up, dressed in a very old-fashioned British three-piece suit. I pulled his leg, saying that he was probably the only guy in California wearing it today. Got a weak smile.

It was only a short walk over to city hall, where the small ceremony was taking place. The sidewalk was lined with TV trucks, their dishes pointing into the sky. All the major networks and news channels plus some Mexican channels would be showing the ceremony live. The ceremony was still over 90 minutes away and they were all in the middle of preparations.

Ron flashed his credentials, our names were checked against the guest list and we were led into the hall where the event staff was in its own preparation process. The TV crews were setting up their cameras and microphones, some poor city hall employees were attempting to arrange everything but failed completely and some bored journalists were already waiting or typing away on their laptops. The official texts of the speeches had been published an hour ago.

One of the city hall minions led our little troupe into one of the back meeting rooms of the hall, where two well-dressed men, who obviously spelled government, greeted us. There was one other, in addition to Pedro Vasolar, who looked considerably more relaxed than at our last interview. Introductions were made and we all shook hands. The officials were John Carver, the representative of the Secretary of State and Franco Pineljo, attaché to the Secretary of Culture of Mexico, Pedro Vasolar’s boss. All were dressed for the occasion in dark suits, decent ties and new haircuts.
 

John Carver made some pleasant remarks toward me, thanked me again in the name of both nations for my part in the retrieval. And then, of course, asked the inevitable. “Miss Moonstone, you asked for this meeting, the floor is yours. What is it all about?”

All eyes went on me.
 

“Do you have the Maximilian Jewels here?” I asked.

John Carver nodded and went over to a sideboard. A dark brown polished wooden box held ‘The Max.’ Carver put it on the table and held out his hand for Mr. Pineljo, who opened the box and took out five panels.

The Maximilian Set lay before us, bedded on black satin, shimmering in the light of the meeting room. We were all quiet for a moment, marveling at the beauty. Benito took a step closer and inspected them from very close.
 

“Miss Moonstone, your turn,” Carver was encouraging me.

I looked around the group. Ron had his skeptical ‘what does she know that I do not’ look. Juanita was still engrossed in the jewels. Pedro Vasolar and the officials looked curiously at me and Fowler simply looked. Outside, we could hear the hall filling with people.

I started, “You know, I really, really hate doing this. You all are so proud of what you achieved,” I nodded to Ron, Juanita and Fowler, “and you Mr. Carver, Mr. Pineljo are proud to return the heritage of the Mexican nation. It is indeed a great day.”

“But, you know there is still one thing that is not solved and I swore to myself to try my utmost to find the killer of Phoebe Eastman.”

Carver and Pineljo had blank faces. They had no clue what this was about. I stepped over to the jewels and picked up the now very famous necklace that had hung around Phoebe’s neck not so very long ago.

“You see these truly beautiful pieces and you know exactly why people want to have them in their possession. They represent everything that jewels and art stands for. Value, style, representation, uniqueness. And the Maximilian Jewels represent even more—heritage, culture and history. They generate passion. A passion to steal them, a passion to trade them and a passion to kill for them.”

I again looked around the group, held every pair of eyes for a second. I held the last pair of eyes for just a little longer. Those were the eyes of Mr. Pineljo. “I beg forgiveness for what I am now doing to you, Sir. I know that you came here believing that you would receive an important part of your nation’s history, the very same jewels that one of Mexico’s founders brought into the heritage, a link between the Native Mexico and the European Mexico, the Maximilian Set, ‘The Max.’”
 

Mr. Pineljo nodded his head slowly, not seeing where it was leading.

“You will step out to the podium in a few minutes and you will receive the Maximilian Jewels in front of the eyes of two nations.”

I took a deep breath to deliver the next line.

“And, Mr. Pineljo, you will receive a complete and utter fake.”

AS FOR PERFECT timing, the door to the meeting room opened and an aide stuck in his head. “Thirty minutes, gentlemen. And ladies.” Gave a smile and closed the door. Opened the door again, because he suddenly realized that the whole assembly either sat or stood frozen. Nobody was moving or talking. “You guys all right in here?” He asked. Carver shook himself from the trance and gave a dismissing wave of his hand.

Mr. Pineljo said in his broken English. “Miss Moonstone, I beg your pardon. Did you say ‘fake?’ Is that what I think it means?”

“Fake!” I said. “As in—Not the original. Not even a copy. Not existing at all.”

Ron stood up. “Cal, hang on a second here. You want to tell us that these jewels here are not the original Maximilian Jewels? That there has been a replacement?”

Fowler immediately stepped closer to the displayed jewels and inspected them with his nose hovering an inch over them.

“Ron, that is the point,” I explained. “There has been no replacement and there are no copies. There was never the need to replace or copy anything. There are no Maximilian Jewels at all.”

Carver’s military background took over and he tried to bring a little structure into the meeting. “Now, now, young lady. You are stating some very strong things. No one can deny that these are the Maximilian Jewels. They are here in front of us. And the specialists are here to prove it, too. We have also had the original appraiser from Chicago look them over. They are truly made of gold and rubies and whatever else.” He looked at Vasolar and Benito Salanca for confirmation, and then quickly back at me, because what he saw in the faces of Benito and Pedro didn’t please him. Both of their faces had turned ashen white.

Ron shouted at me, partly because I had led him into this situation blindfolded, which he deserved. “What do you mean there are no Maximilian Jewels at all. That it is a con?”

I gave Ron a helpless smile. “Yes, dear. It is all a con. A fake. A swindle. The great Rock ’n’ Roll swindle!”

Pineljo asked, “Please, ladies and gentlemen, pardon my English. What is a con?”

“Do you remember the 70s movie,
The Sting,
with Redford and Newman? In the movie, they build up a fake horse betting parlor, filled it up with fake people playing the parts of placing horse bets, winning and losing, faking the announcer from the hippodrome. A lot of effort just to fool one rich man into placing a very high bet,” I explained. All of those disbelieving eyes. And I repeated slowly, “A lot of effort. Just to fool one rich man into placing a very high bet.”

“Mr. Pineljo, there are no Maximilian Jewels. The world has been taken for a fool by a clever scheme. The Maximilian Jewels have no historic basis. They were produced exclusively to build credibility for a swindle.”

Carver stepped in again, the natural born disaster manager. “Stop, stop, stop. First things first. We know that the Maximilian Jewels exist. They have a history that is based on scientific evidence. The experts say so.”

“Mr. Carver, all we know about the Maximilian Jewels comes from very few sources. My good friend Mundy Millar, a reporter, did a little research for me last week. He actually took the effort to trace back each and every citation and every original source that has a mention of the Maximilian Jewels. In the end, he always came back to one source, kind of an endless loop that all went back to the publications of Benito Salanca.”