The Balloon Man

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Jem's round, pink face was unusually serious. Max was surprised and pleased. Jem didn't hand out compliments often. Fortunately Jem reverted to type before either of them could get maudlin.

  “Anyhow, she's not alone. Damn it, Max, Egbert and I take umbrage at the suggestion that we aren't capable of looking after her. Don't we, Egbert?”

  “Decidedly,” Egbert said. “Both of us would lay down our lives to protect Mrs. Sarah and Davy. At least I would.”

  Max grinned at him. “Thanks. I hope you won't take further umbrage, though, if I call in reinforcements. It's time I got in touch with the rest of the crew.”

  He had meant to call the office, but for some reason he found himself dialing the number of the house on Tulip Street. Theonia picked up on the first ring. Had she expected him to call? Knowing Theonia, Max wouldn't have been surprised. He could hear her rustling something out of a paper bag or perhaps a chocolate box. Theonia liked little snacks that came in small bags.

  “Max, is that you? How sweet of you to call. No, of course its not too early. Brooks has already trotted off to the office. I've been thinking about you.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “I'm afraid not, Max dear. I'm still getting that strong sense of danger, and it's definitely connected with the necklace.” Theonia's soft chuckle sounded like the cooing of a turtledove. “I know, Max, it doesn't take foresight or supernatural powers to suspect that. But it's so strange that the thing has turned up again after all these years.”

  “You don't have to tell me,” said Max. “I was with Sarah the day we walked over to the High Street Bank to see the famous Kelling parure, which was supposed to have been lying in one of the bank's safe-deposit boxes for many years. What we found was a boxful of bricks. That was the day Sarah got her arm broken while I was outside smashing a front windowpane to get at the bastard who intended to kill her and damned near did. I kept tabs on him for a while, but he was moved to another facility for special cases, and I lost track of him. I don't know what I'd do if I ever came face-to-face with him again. I'm not a vindictive person as a rule, but there's one who needs special treatment. Something interesting, with boiling oil in it.”

  “Not you, Max dear. You just do not have it in you to destroy another human being, however vile that person might be.”

  Max laughed ruefully. “Sarah said something of the sort while she was supervising the workmen who put up the tent for the wedding. She says I'm not steely eyed enough.”

  “Of course you're not, and why should you be? Neither is Sarah, as you ought to know by now if you're ever going to. But she's got gumption, Max. She'll cope. You're the one I'm worried about. Do be careful. Watch out for anything that seems out of key, even if it strikes you as stupid or silly. Oh dear, is that our other phone ringing?”

  “Answer it,” Max said. “If it's Brooks, tell him to cut the billing and cooing short, since I'm about to call him.”

  Evidently the caller wasn't Brooks, since Max reached him at once. He gave Max a brief and characteristically well-organized summary of the present status of their varied cases.

  “Things are getting backed up,” Max said with a groan. “I'm sorry to stick you with all this work, Brooks. I know I haven't been pulling my weight the last few days.”

  “My dear chap, how could you do otherwise? Don't fret yourself, everything is more or less under control. You'll be glad to hear that Charles and Mariposa are on their way home, with the statue.”

  “Thank God,” Max said, and meant it. “Brief them as soon as they get here, will you? I want to get this business of the necklace settled so I can stop worrying about Sarah and Davy. In the meantime, find Jesse and send him out here.”

  “Has something else happened?” Brooks sounded concerned.

  “Hasn't enough happened?”

  Brooks agreed that it had. “I'll let you know as soon as I get any information.”

  Jem had retired to the living room for his early morning, as opposed to his late morning, nap, and Egbert was helping Sarah with the breakfast dishes while Davy towed the alligator around and around the kitchen, making alligator noises.

  “He certainly loves that toy,” Sarah said, stepping neatly over the string that was about to trip her. “Which reminds me, Max, your father just called to say he's coming over with his tools. Something about the front door of the carriage house. What's wrong with it?”

  “Nothing. You know my old man, he wants everything perfect for Mike and Tracy. Maybe he's decided the door might stick some day in the far, distant future and he's going to scrape off a few millimeters of wood so it won't.”

  “I asked him to stay for lunch, but he said he'd bring a thermos and a sandwich, since he didn't want to be in the way. I can't say I blame him for preferring your mother's cooking to mine.”

  “You make as good a salami sandwich as Mom ever did,” Max said loyally.

  Davy hadn't seemed to be listening, but he didn't miss much. “Sandwich,” he exclaimed. “Picnic! A picnic with Grandpa.”

  “What a good idea,” Sarah said. “What shall we have?”

  Sarah made peanut-butter sandwiches and put them in a basket with some oranges and apples and little boxes of chocolate milk, which were a special treat for Davy because his mother didn't think too much chocolate was good for his teeth. Davy suggested cookies, since he was sure his grandpa and the alligator would enjoy them. They were just about to leave the house when the phone rang and the answering machine switched itself on.

  “Oh dear,” Sarah moaned. “Max, that's Arnold Upthorn's secretary. Do we want to talk to him?”

  “We don't want to, but we can't afford not to after all Upthorn did for us on that Artemisia Gentileschi transaction. Grab the phone, will you?”

  Upthorn, one of Max's best clients from a prestigious insurance agency in Chicago, was in urgent need of some high-powered expertise, and he needed it now if not sooner. Max started calling airlines, and Sarah suggested to Davy that they turn the picnic into an expedition into the Sahara, sent her son off with Egbert to collect the various items a daring explorer might need, and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag. When Max joined her she was standing by the bed, holding his worn bathrobe.

  “I won't need that, sussele, I'm not planning to entertain a glamorous lady spy in my hotel room.”

  “I'd be embarrassed to have a glamorous lady spy see you in this.” Sarah's smile wavered. “Max, do you have to go?”

  “We can't afford to lose Upthorn's goodwill, darling, or the outrageous fee I expect to collect. You never know, Davy may need braces, or a brace of camels. I'll see Up-thorn in the morning and be back tomorrow night, come hell or high water” He took her by the shoulders. “Jesse will be here in a couple of hours, and Mariposa and Charles are on their way home”

  “Did they get it?” Sarah's face brightened.

  “There speaks a true professional.” Max kissed her. “Yes, they got it. I have to go, sweetheart. The flight's not till five, but by the time I get to the airport and park the car and pick up my ticket and go through security three or four times because I forget to take all the coins out of all my pockets I'll just about make it.”

  Max had faced assorted criminals with considerable aplomb, but he wasn't man enough to explain to his son that he couldn't go to the Sahara. He sneaked away while Sarah did her best to propitiate the leader of the expedition. “I'm sorry, Davy, but Daddy has to fly to Chicago and talk to a man about a painting.”

  “Can we go, too?”

  “Not this time, dear. It would be wonderful if we could all go together, but the people in Chicago are going to give Daddy quite a lot of money for bringing back something that somebody else had taken away. Aren't we lucky to have such a clever daddy?”

  “But he's going away. Tell him I want him here, Mummy.”

  “We can't, dear. You see, if you've promised to go somewhere to see somebody who wants very much to see you, it's not polite to stay home.”

  �
�Why can't Uncle Jem and Uncle Egbert go instead of him?”

  “Because Uncle Jem doesn't know how to drive a car, and Uncle Egbert is going to cook something special for dinner. Let's take our picnic down to the carriage house, shall we? Grandfather Bittersohn will be there, and you can show him how fast his alligator can run.”

  “But I want Daddy to see, too.”

  This was awful. Davy wasn't usually so whiny. He had a sunny disposition, and he was used to having Mummy as well as Daddy go away from time to time. At least she had thought he was. Had he reached an age when the absences were beginning to bother him? Perhaps it had been a mistake on her part to have offices both at home and in Boston. Had there been too many paid baby-sitters, too many too willing relatives? But that big, loving family was what she had missed as a child, what she had believed every child should have. Not just Max's father and mother, and sister and brother-in-law, and nephew and brand-new niece, but her own wonderful and weird support group. They all adored Davy, and he adored them. If ever there was a child who did not suffer from neglect, Davy Bittersohn was it. He was just going through a stage, the way children did.

  The welcome he got from his grandfather brought the smile back to Davy's face. Isaac had brought his own thermos bottle with coffee in it; he gave Davy a taste, but only a little one, which was all Davy wanted anyway. Grandfather Isaac showed Davy how to pound a nail into a board with both of them holding the hammer at the same time so that nobody's thumb would get banged, and the alligator raced to the satisfaction of all. Then they sat around the boxes of wedding presents that hadn't been put away yet, ate up the picnic, and had a lovely time until Sarah decided that she and Davy ought to go home and let Grandfather Isaac get some work done. Jesse had arrived, brimming with zeal and ready to defend the premises against any invaders that might turn up. Fortunately none did, but Davy refused to take a nap, and Jem spent the afternoon cleaning an antique pistol he had brought back from Pinckney Street, and the phone kept ringing with calls from various clients, and what with one thing and another Sarah was more than a little frazzled by the time her energetic son consented to go to bed.

  The last straw was a call from Lieutenant Kilkallen in Boston. The police had finally located Jem's car in one of the lots where abandoned or illegally parked vehicles were taken. An astute traffic cop had noticed the meter hadn't changed for twenty-four hours and had had the car towed. The right front fender was bashed in, and one of the headlights was broken. When he heard that, Jem hit the ceiling and it took an extra pitcher of martinis to calm him down. By the time Sarah got him and Egbert up to their rooms, she was so tired she had barely enough energy to brush her teeth.

  She did wonder, though, why Max hadn't called. He usually did when he had to be away from home overnight.

  15

  Miriam Rivkin was in a swivet.

  “Fifty cases of pickles! And such pickles, Sarah! I bought a jar of kosher dills, right after Mike got engaged to Tracy, thought I should keep it in the family, but after I took one bite I threw the jar away. What I'd say is just get rid of the whole lot of them, if you can think of anybody you dislike that much,”

  “Do you think Tracy would mind? They're hers and Mike's really, I suppose,”

  Mike's mother snorted loud enough to rattle the phone. “You'd be doing her a favor, Sarah. They aren't going to eat them, you can be sure of that, and it has to be so embarrassing for the poor child to see what her father thinks of her. Her mother's not much better.”

  “I thought she helped you with the blintzes.”

  “She tried. I don't think she knows a saucepan from a soup tureen. Oh, she's a nice enough woman in her own way, but the minute she sets eyes on a good-looking man she loses track of everything else. Tracy said she and her mother only see each other a couple of times a year; they meet for lunch if Jeanne happens to be somewhere between downtown Boston, the classier shopping malls, and her latest boyfriend.”

  “Well, she's got you and Ira now,” Sarah said. “That makes her a darned lucky girl, Miriam, and she knows it.”

  “She asked if she could call me Mum, like Mike does.”

  “And of course you said yes”

  “Of course. As for those awful pickles, get them out of the house before the kids come home, they must be taking up a lot of space. How about donating them to that senior citizens' center your cousin Dolph and his wife started? They aren't actually poisonous, just limp and tasteless.”

  Sarah thought that was an excellent idea, but she refused Miriam's next suggestion, that she bring Davy over to spend the day with his doting aunt. “To be honest, Miriam, I've got a bad case of the guilts. We've left Davy with other people so much lately, what with the wedding and all the other distractions, and I think he's missing his daddy.”

  Davy definitely was. He'd waked up that morning demanding Daddy or the balloon, preferably both, and it had taken Jesse's offer of some fast rides up and down the driveway in his wagon to cheer him up. Jesse could run faster than anybody except his daddy, and Jesse didn't keep slowing down for fear a little boy would bounce out of the wagon and land on his head. Jesse shared Davy's conviction that nothing like that was ever going to happen.

  Sarah didn't share it, and knowing Jesse's habits, she insisted he put the wooden sides up on the wagon and rig up a temporary but sturdy seat belt. Jem decided he'd time the race with his stopwatch, so Egbert carried out a pair of lawn chairs and a table and they settled down to watch.

  After such a strenuous morning, Jesse was ready for a nap even if Davy wasn't. He settled down, though, after Sarah tucked him up under the lions-and-tigers quilt that Aunt Miriam had pieced for his third birthday and gave him fresh water in his small carafe and a few whole-wheat crackers to munch on with his fine new tooth if he felt the need for a snack before it was time for a meal. Sarah went downstairs to do something about the avalanche of mail that had accumulated during the past few hectic weeks. Thank goodness Max would be back tonight. She hoped Upthorn wouldn't want him to go rushing off to Katmandu or Lhasa or some other remote spot. Davy missed him, she missed him, and the paperwork was really piling up.

  Then there was the ruby parure. It was still upstairs in the hidden safe in their bedroom. Max had planned to take it to the bank, but there just hadn't been time. She'd feel a lot happier if it were out of the house, but that was silly and superstitious. No outsider knew about the safe, and only a locksmith as talented as the legendary Louie could get into it.

  Sarah forced herself to concentrate on her paperwork, so successfully that only a change in the breeze from the open window made her realize how late it was getting. It was coming off the water now and was fairly brisk. She'd better make sure Davy put on his blue sweater; he was probably awake by now and playing on the deck.

  He had waked up. His bed was empty except for his usual menagerie of toys. But he wasn't on the deck outside his room. The bathroom?

  He was not in the bathroom, or out on the upper deck, or in his parents' bedroom, or in either of the two guest rooms that Jem and Egbert were occupying for their own afternoon naps. She could hear them both snoring: Egbert in a steady, rather pleasant low rhythm; Jem in a raucous crow, proclaiming himself the cock of the walk and perhaps dreaming that he really was.

  Then Davy was either on the floor below or on his way back to his room. He knew he wasn't supposed to leave the house and go wandering around outdoors unless he had somebody with him. Davy was a sensible little chap for his age. Nevertheless Sarah went downstairs more quickly than usual.

  Jesse was in the living room, watching a soap opera on television. That's what Sarah assumed it was; she caught only a glimpse of two enormous mouths unattractively entwined before Jesse snatched up the remote and the screen went blank. At least the boy could blush, Sarah thought distractedly. The blush was probably on her account, though.

  Jesse began, “Oh, hi, Sarah, I was just—”

  “Have you see Davy?”

  “He's in his room, isn't he?”
/>
  “No. He's not in the house.”

  “Maybe Jed Lomax has seen him,” Jesse suggested. “Jed always keeps an eye peeled when Davy's outdoors.”

  “Jed isn't here. He had to take Mrs. Lomax to the hospital for her therapy session today.” Sarah tried not to wring her hands. “Oh, this is silly. Davy wouldn't go outside, he knows better. He must be playing hide-and-seek with me. Under his bed, pretending to be a lion, or on one of the decks talking to a bird, or … Help me look for him, Jesse.”

  She'd never realized how many hiding places there were in the house. It was a modern open structure, not like the rambling old mansion she and Max had had torn down, but a small boy didn't occupy much space. She was beyond caring about disturbing the elders by then. When she burst into Jem's rooms and dropped to her knees to look under his bed, he woke with a snort and a snuffle.

  “What? Hey? Who?”

  “It's Davy,” Jesse said. “Sarah can't find him.”

  That woke Jem up. “You sure? How long has he been gone, Sarah?”

  “Not very long. Twenty minutes, half an hour at the most. But that's a long time to a child as young as he.”

  “He's got to be around here someplace. Egbert! Egbert, damn it, get your lazy carcass up from that bed.”

  Sarah couldn't believe Davy wasn't hiding somewhere in the house. She called till her throat hurt, dashing from room to room and looking in places she'd already investigated. Finally she gave up and ran, outside, where she met Jem and Egbert coming back from the carriage house.

  “Not there,” Jem reported. “Jesse's looking in the garage and the shed. Sarah, maybe we should call the police. There's thirty acres out there.”

  And the cliff and the ocean below. Nobody wanted to say that, or even think it. “Call them,” Sarah said. “And Miriam and Ira. Warn them not to say anything to Mother and Father Bittersohn, there's no sense in getting them worked up before … until … Oh, why isn't Max here? How could he go off this way?”