The Faberge Egg (10 page)

Toby aimed the cocked gun between McGuffin’s eyes and laughed softly. McGuffin had no doubt. He was every bit as dangerous as Crazy Otto. For the second time in scarcely more than a day, he would have to bargain for his life with a homicidal maniac.

“You’ve already searched the place, you know the egg’s not here.”

“Then where is it?” Vandenhof demanded. “Your partner had it when he was killed. You must have it!”

“I don’t,” McGuffin said.

“Let me kill him,” Toby said, dangerously gripping and regripping the gun.

“But I know where it is.”

“You do?” Vandenhof asked breathlessly.

“Where?” Toby asked.

“In Mexico.”

“Mexico?”

“He’s lying again,” Toby warned.

“Where in Mexico?” Vandenhof asked, laying a hand on Toby’s gun arm and easing him to one side.

“Uh-uh,” McGuffin said. “If I tell you that, I’ve lost my bargaining chip.”

“If you don’t, you’ve lost your life,” Toby said.

“Killing me won’t get you the egg,” McGuffin explained to Vandenhof.

“But it will reduce the number of hunters by one,” Vandenhof explained to McGuffin. “And I’m sure you realize, there’s little reason for Toby to hesitate, Mr. McGuffin. Not only does he dislike you intensely, he also knows that Otto would logically be the one charged with your murder. So tell me, Mr. McGuffin, right now, where in Mexico is the egg?”

“I don’t yet know exactly where it is, but I’ll find out very soon,” McGuffin said. “I just learned that Mrs. Dwindling is living somewhere in Mexico. She has the egg.”

“How do you know this?” Vandenhof asked.

“I know because I gave it to her, eighteen years ago. I found the egg among Miles’ things after he was killed, but I had no idea what it was. I just put it in a box with everything else and drove over to Mary’s house - she was living out in the Avenues with her daughter, Ivey, who was then about five years old - and I gave it all to them. Mary had no idea what the egg was either, but Ivey thought it was pretty, so they decided to keep it.”

“Pretty,” Vandenhof repeated. “Describe it for me.”

“Well - that was a long time ago . . .”

“A Fabergé egg is unforgettable.”

“Let’s see . . . ,” McGuffin mused, trying to remember Vandenhof’s description of the egg, while hoping that he had forgotten mentioning it. Toby had fortunately been out of the room at the time. “As I remember, it was mostly white, with some gold eagles,” McGuffin began slowly. “And inside the eagles were little portraits. And it was sitting on a pedestal that had some gold and jewels on it, right?”

“And inside?” he asked, his expression noncommittal.

“Inside,” McGuffin began, remembering the globes with two maps of the Russian Empire inset in gold, then suddenly shifting - “We didn’t know you could open it.”

Vandenhof smiled. “Nor would anyone unfamiliar with the genius of Fabergé.” The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Why did you not tell me this before?”

“It didn’t dawn on me until later that the two eggs were the same,” McGuffin answered.

“And when it did, you started looking for Mrs. Dwindling?” Vandenhof asked. McGuffin nodded. “Why not the daughter?”

“The daughter?”

“It seems to me that she would be the one most likely to discover the value of the egg, not an old woman.”

McGuffin shook his head slowly while he tried to think of an answer. “I’ve given that a lot of thought,” he began, then stopped.

“And?”

“Forget about her,” McGuffin urged. “She disappeared years ago.”

“With the egg perhaps.”

“Not a chance,” McGuffin said, shaking his head. “If she had taken the egg, she would have sold it. And if she had, the whole world would know about it.” Vandenhof listened intently. As McGuffin had hoped, the fat man wanted desperately to believe that his precious egg was tucked away safely in the musty jewel box of an unsuspecting old lady. “I’m sure the old lady has the egg, and if you’ll just give me a little time, I can get it for you,” McGuffin promised.

“He’s just playing for time. Let me kill him,” Toby urged.

“I have waited for eighteen years, Toby. What harm is there in waiting a little longer? Especially if you accompany Mr. McGuffin to Mexico - just to ensure that my interest in the egg enjoys precedence over Otto’s,” Vandenhof said with a smile and a nod to McGuffin.

Toby brightened. “Yeah, I think I might enjoy that.”

“Forget it,” McGuffin said. “We wouldn’t get as far as Tijuana before one of us killed the other.”

“You are in no position to dictate to me!” Vandenhof replied sharply.

“I’ll dictate to you and you’ll like it,” McGuffin responded. “Because I’m the only one who can lead you to the egg, and you know it, even if your little friend doesn’t. So if you want to kill the goose that can find the golden egg, go ahead. Otherwise, get your ass out of my chair and get the hell out of here because I’ve got work to do.”

The fat swelled and closed around Vandenhof’s surprised eyes, while a chuckle began building in his bowels, puffing him up like a pigeon. The laughter that finally rolled from his lips seemed powered by a jolt of electricity that racked his body with spasms and filled his eyes with tears as he struggled for speech. “Your audacity . . . ! I can scarcely . . .! Priceless . . . !”

“And I thought Germans had no sense of humor,” McGuffin interrupted.

“Oh, I am amused, sir, most amused, I assure you!” Vandenhof spluttered as he wiped his eyes with the back of his gun hand.

“Let me kill him,” Toby said flatly.

“His needle is stuck,” McGuffin said, jerking a thumb at the gunman. “So what’s it gonna be? If I’m working for you, I work alone. You call it.”

“Very well, Mr. McGuffin, we’ll do it your way,” Vandenhof said, lifting his jacket and sliding the Luger into a shoulder holster.

“Don’t do it. He’s conning you,” Toby said.

“Perhaps,” the fat man grunted, as he pushed himself out of the chair. “So just to be safe, we’ll be watching him very closely. Fair enough, Mr. McGuffin?”

“Fair enough,” McGuffin said, stepping aside for the large man as he lurched heavily in the direction of the door. “I’ll contact you when I have the egg.”

“See that you do, sir,” he said, with a backward glance. “And you will find me most willing to aid in the return of your wife and daughter. Betray me, however, and you will never see them alive. Is that clear?” he asked, reaching for the door.

“Perfectly,” McGuffin answered.

“Good. Come, Toby,” he said, opening the door.

Toby’s eyes danced indecisively between McGuffin and Vandenhof. When Vandenhof repeated his name, Toby shook the Beretta in McGuffin’s face and vowed, “The next time.”

McGuffin smiled and followed Toby to the door. “There’s one other thing,” McGuffin said, as Vandenhof stepped through the hatchway.

“Yes?”

“That gun,” he said, pointing to the Beretta in Toby’s hand. “I’d like to borrow it.”

“You what?” Toby said.

“It’ll just be until I get the egg,” McGuffin assured him. “I, uh - misplaced mine - and I might have need for one.”

“How about just a bullet?” Toby asked.

“Toby . . . ,” Vandenhof said warningly.

“I don’t care, this time he’s gone too far,” Toby complained.

“It will only be for a short while, Toby. And you do have plenty of others,” Vandenhof soothed as he took the gun from Toby’s hand.

“But that’s my favorite,” Toby wailed, as he watched the detective take it.

McGuffin stuck the gun in his belt and blew Toby a kiss. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

“You see that? He’s making a fool of you,” Toby said, as he followed the fat man down the gangway.

Grinning, McGuffin closed the door on Toby’s continuing complaints. Buying a handgun in California is dangerously easy, but borrowing Toby’s was infinitely more fun.

McGuffin was under no illusion concerning his thespian abilities. That he had managed to convince Vandenhof (if not Toby) that the Fabergé egg resided, at present, in a foreign land in the custody of a dead woman and not with the dead woman’s daughter, was evidenced by the fact that, two days later, he was still alive. But Vandenhof had not believed for a moment that McGuffin would take pains to see that he and Toby were apprised of the recovery of the egg - no more than McGuffin believed that Vandenhof and Toby would aid in the recovery of Otto’s hostages in exchange for this courtesy. But that was fine with McGuffin. He and Vandenhof were a pragmatic pair, each of whom knew exactly how far to trust the other. Until McGuffin had the egg (and until Vandenhof knew it), each would behave like a perfect gentleman. Thereafter, the egg hunt would turn mean and ornery.

The truth of this was provided on Friday night when he left the
Oakland Queen.
It had been the kind of foggy, rainy, San Francisco day that allows the night to slip in unnoticed by all but clock watchers. Weather was not McGuffin’s concern. He had spent virtually all of the last forty-eight hours searching desperately for a U.S. citizen named Ivey Dwindling who had once resembled Shirley Temple, and at the end of all that time, he knew little more than that. He had alternately blandished and berated his corps of informants, run off on any fool’s errand suggested by their flimsy evidence, run up a phone bill that would saddle generations of McGuffins to come, and yet it was as if Ivey Dwindling had gone to the moon.

He hesitated briefly at the end of the canopied gangplank, pulled his hat down and his collar up, then stepped off into the wet night. He walked only a few steps when the headlights of a waiting car flashed on him and, a moment later, the car drew abreast of him. McGuffin stopped as the window on the driver’s side slid down to reveal Toby’s surly countenance. There was someone beside him on the passenger seat, not Vandenhof, but a younger man with a grim look on his whiskered face, as if he’d been sitting stakeout for too long without relief.

“What are you doing in San Francisco on such a lousy night when you could be in Mexico?” Toby asked.

“I told you before, but I’ll tell you once more - I work alone,” McGuffin replied.

“Klaus is beginning to think you don’t work at all. He’s beginning to think you’re playing him for a sucker.”

“But I’m sure you’re doing your best on my behalf.”

“I managed to get you a few more hours to live, if that’s what you mean.”

“Thanks.”

“After that, Klaus stops believing in three things - Mexico and the Easter bunny.”

“What’s the third?”

“You,” Toby answered, as the window slid up, and the car rolled away.

McGuffin released his grip on the Beretta, removed his hand from the raincoat pocket, and continued to the World Trade Club in search of a cab. He changed places with an elegant couple who looked as if they’d come up from a place like Hillsborough, then ordered the driver to take him to Goody’s, a long way from elegance. The woman’s smell remained until he opened the cab door in front of Goody’s and stepped out.

Goody’s saloon smelled like cigar smoke and stale beer, and the light seemed even dingier than usual when McGuffin stepped inside. Maybe it was the fog - or his mood, McGuffin decided, as he picked his way through the remnants of the Friday evening drinking session, acknowledging greetings, working his way steadily toward Sullivan, who was regaling a group of fellow officers with a police story.

“So the car’s layin’ up against the tree, the guy’s fly is open and the broad’s blouse is unbuttoned. So I ask him, what are you doin’, drivin’ and playin’ hanky-panky at the same time? And he says, real indignant, even though he’s shitface, ‘Officer, I’ll have you know that we are an old married couple.’ But when I check both the licenses I see the names are different, so I say, ‘What’s this, I thought you were married?’ And he says, ‘Not to each other.’”

“Sully, can I talk to you?” McGuffin asked when the laughter cleared.

“Sure thing,” Sullivan said, then followed McGuffin to one of the scarred wooden tables opposite the bar. He slid a chair noisily across the chipped tiles, then sat and looked across the table at McGuffin. “You look like shit,” he observed.

“I feel like shit.”

“Nothin’ on the daughter?”

McGuffin shook his head. “I’m beginning to think she’s a fake - just like Miles.”

The cop shrugged his thick shoulders, dangerously straining his cheap blue suit. “Everybody steals.”

“I need help,” McGuffin said.

“You want me to call in the feds?”

“Not that kind of help - at least not yet. A couple of nights ago, I sold Vandenhof a bill of goods. I convinced him that Miles’ wife is still alive, living somewhere in Mexico with the egg. I told him I’d get it and then see that he got it, in exchange for helping me get Marilyn and Hillary. Naturally, he knows that if I find the egg, I’ll go straight to Otto with it, and I know he has no intention of ever helping me, but that’s not the point. The point is it’s been forty-eight hours and I’m still in San Francisco when I should be in Mexico, and the fat man is getting jumpy.”

“And you think he might blow you away?”

“Not him, his little friend. He was waiting for me when I came off the boat tonight. I need a couple of cops to sweep the waterfront, Sully. Can you help me?”

“Two cops twenty-four hours a day?” Sullivan pondered. “That’ll cost you, McGuffin.”

McGuffin was surprised. But as the cop had warned, everybody steals. “How much?”

“A drink.”

McGuffin smiled. “Thanks, Sul.”

“But I wish you’d let me call in the feds. We could form a joint task force - you, me, a few good cops, the feds and a bunch of helicopters. We’d be inside that fuckin’ winery before they knew what fuckin’ hit ‘em.”

“I’ll let you know,” McGuffin said, getting to his feet.

Goody was waiting when they pushed their way back to the bar. “What are you two guys up to?” he asked.

“Just having a drink together,” McGuffin answered. “Make mine Calistoga water.”

“On McGuffin,” the cop added.

Goody looked from one to the other for an explanation, saw that none would be forthcoming, shook his head irritably, and went to get their drinks.

“Any messages?” McGuffin asked, when Goody returned with their drinks.

“Only your answerin’ service,” Goody said, dropping their drinks heavily on the bar. “The old biddie says to remind you that you ain’t paid your bill.”

“Shit,” McGuffin said, digging into his pocket. Coming up empty, he asked, “You got a quarter?”

Muttering, Goody slapped a quarter on the bar. McGuffin picked it up and walked to the pay phone at the end of the bar. He had to wait while a lawyer with a young woman on his arm explained to his wife that he wouldn’t be home for dinner because he was meeting with a client.

“Marcie, that’s the truth,” the lawyer whined. Then, “Marcie, don’t you dare hang up! Marcie!” He hung up the phone and turned to the young woman. “It’s okay.”

McGuffin dropped the quarter in the box and dialed his number. Mrs. Begelman picked up only after several rings. “I hope you don’t keep potential clients waiting this long,” McGuffin said.

“You know, Mr. McGuffin, for a man who doesn’t pay his bill for more than two months, you got some attitude.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot, I’ve got a lot on my mind,” McGuffin apologized.

“Me, too, like the rent,” Mrs. Begelman put in.

“I’ll send it right away,” he promised. “Do you have any messages?”

“One.”

“From who?”

“Your ex-wife.”

“Marilyn!?”

“You got more than one?”

“Are they all right? Where is she, what’d she say?” McGuffin blurted.

“Not so fast,” Mrs. Begelman interrupted. “You remember what I said, no money, no messages.”

“For God’s sake, Mrs. Begelman, you’ll get your money! Tell me what she said!”

“She didn’t say anything.”

“What?”

“It was a collect call, I refused the charges,” she said.

“No. . .” McGuffin breathed. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

McGuffin felt his heart pounding irregularly in his chest. In a moment he would begin to hyperventilate, perhaps lose the power of speech. “Mrs. Begelman, you don’t know what you’ve done,” he fairly gasped. “She’s been abducted. She’s in great danger. She was calling to tell me where she’s being held. She’ll never get to a phone again. And you - you money-grubbing old yenta - you refuse to accept the charges! Are you out of your mind?”

“That sort of talk, Mr. McGuffin, is hardly going to help matters.”

An anguished sound escaped from McGuffin’s lips before he was able to bring his voice under control. “You’re right, I’m sorry. So please, Mrs. Begelman, just tell me where she was calling from.”

“How would I know? The operator said she had a collect call from Marilyn McGuffin and would I accept the charges, and I said no and hung up.”

“You hung up. . . .”

“I warned you, Mr. McGuffin.”

“Yes - yes, you did,” he admitted. “And now I’m going to warn you, Mrs. Begelman. If Marilyn or anyone else calls, you will take the message because it may be a matter of life and death - including your own. And you will stop nagging me about a lousy hundred bucks! You’ll get your money just like you always have! Do you understand, Mrs. Begelman?”

“Well, aren’t we getting huffy,” she said.

“Mrs. Begelman!” McGuffin shouted, turning heads at the bar.

“I understand!” she shouted back.

“Good,” McGuffin said. He hung up the phone and rested his head against the wall.

Sullivan slid off his stool and walked across the room to McGuffin. “What is it?” he asked.

McGuffin lifted his head and turned slowly to the cop. There were tears in his eyes. “They’re alive,” he said in a choked voice. “They’re alive.”