by Robert Upton
“I heard every word,” McGuffin assured her. “They’re dangerous and they’ll kill me. Most of the time when I hear something like that, I turn down the job. But this time I can’t,” he said, pulling the tie around his neck.
“Of course you can!” she said, jumping up from the bed. “No one’s forcing you to go there!”
“I’m afraid they are,” he said, watching her in the mirror as he tied his tie.
“Who?”
“A couple of friends of mine,” he answered, staring into her reflected wide, violet eyes.
“Close friends?”
“Very close.”
“You mean - my father and me?” she asked hesitantly.
McGuffin looked at her and nodded slowly. “That’s right, you and your father.”
“Amos, you’re a very sweet man,” she said, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him, long and hard. “And I don’t want you dead,” she murmured against his lips.
“Not to worry, Kemidov is not going to kill me in the Russian consulate and create an international incident. So why don’t you just wait right here until I get back, and then we’ll do that Persian thing again.”
“I only do the Persian thing in the dark,” she whispered, pressing tightly against him.
He ran his hand down her long, lean back and gently slapped her taut behind. “Gotta go.”
She released him, and McGuffin fled.
* * *
The Russian consulate is a six-story mansion occupying about a third of a block in posh Pacific Heights. The main floor is white stucco, with a large pair of mahogany doors front and center bearing a brass plaque announcing that visiting hours are from 9:00 a.m. until noon, Monday through Friday. The top five floors are of sand-colored brick, graced by many evenly spaced windows across the front, an expression of capitalist greed fallen to the communists, guarded now by a six-foot-high wrought-iron fence, sophisticated detection devices, and several strategically placed Panasonic cameras. On the roof is a small addition that some claim contains microwave spy equipment, although this has never been confirmed.
McGuffin learned much of this from a fetching female cabbie who confessed to really being a writer. “Look!” she pointed, as the cab drew to a halt opposite the gate. “A Reebok-clad, face-lifted, Pacific Heights housewife walking a Russian wolfhound! Do you suppose it’s a symbol of international goodwill or a brazen flaunting of capitalistic-aristocratic privilege?”
“I don’t know, but there ought to be at least a short story in it,” McGuffin said, exiting the cab in front of the oncoming matron and her wolfhound. She watched as the man in the damp trench coat and misshapen rain hat skipped around the puddles and across the street to the front gate of the Russian consulate, wondering perhaps if he was the communist responsible for the shed on the roof that obstructed her view of the bay.
McGuffin halted in front of the gate and posed for the camera behind the three-inch hole in the mahogany door, first a smiling head-on shot, then a profile of his good side, while wondering what the bureaucrats in Moscow would make of this. When he turned his bad side to the camera, he caught sight of the black limousine clearing the steep Green Street hill and turning for him. The car halted abruptly, and the rear door was thrown open. “Get in, Mr. McGuffin,” a voice from the rear of the car instructed.
McGuffin walked to the car, stooped, and peered inside. Mr. Kemidov, wearing the sort of dark twill suit favored by military men on civilian outings, sat stiffly beside the curtained passenger window, his hands resting on a brass-topped walking stick poking up between his knees. For a man who had to be in his late sixties or even early seventies, he looked remarkably fit, with still thick salt-and-pepper hair cut military style and alert gray eyes above high Slavic cheekbones. He was a man easily pictured standing resolutely before the artillery in the face of oncoming panzers. McGuffin slid past him and settled in the opposite curtained corner as the door was pulled shut, and the car raced away from the curb.
“Where are we going?” McGuffin asked.
“For a ride - as they say in the gangster movies,” the Russian answered with a thin smile.
“This is my first ride in a communist limousine,” McGuffin observed. It came with all the decadent capitalistic luxuries - moonroof, television, refrigerator, bar, and smoked glass all around.
“I hope it won’t be your last,” Kemidov said.
“So do I, Colonel.” Kemidov turned a lazily arched eyebrow on the detective. “It is Colonel, isn’t it?” McGuffin asked. “Colonel Kemidov of the KGB?”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. McGuffin, but it is nothing so - so dramatic as that. I am here as part of a peaceful trade mission, nothing more,” he assured the detective.
“What your boys did to Shawney O’Sea’s apartment last night was hardly peaceful,” McGuffin pointed out.
Kemidov leaned forward on his cane and studied the detective for a moment before replying, “I must say, Mr. McGuffin, even for an American, you are most direct.”
“And I must say, lay off her, she doesn’t have the egg,” McGuffin shot back.
“Then why were you so eager to find her?”
“Because I thought her father might have somehow gotten the egg to her before Kruger killed him, but I was wrong, she doesn’t have it. And neither does Klaus Vandenhof or Otto Kruger.”
“Then that leaves only you.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Colonel, for a couple of reasons, but I don’t have it either.”
“Then why did you contact Vandenhof if not to sell him the egg?” the Russian demanded.
“To find Kruger,” McGuffin snapped.
“To sell him the egg.”
“No! To get my. . .” McGuffin stopped.
“To get your wife and child back,” the Russian finished for him.
“How did you know?”
“I know everything that in any way concerns the Fabergé egg,” he answered in a quietly assured tone. He laced his fingers over the brass ball at the top of his cane, leaned back in the plush seat, and stared straight ahead. They were now driving, McGuffin noticed, through the Presidio military reservation. “I have spent more than fifty years in the service of my government,” the Russian agent went on. “Forty of those years have been spent in pursuit of the Fabergé egg - among other things, of course,” he added with a nod in McGuffin’s direction. “My career has been marked by many successes and many honors. By any objective measure, I am a hero to the Russian people, and yet, if I go to my grave without finding and returning the egg to its rightful place in the Kremlin, I will die a failure, disgraced. I tell you this, Mr. McGuffin,” he said, nodding again, “because it is so very important to your welfare that you fully appreciate the depth of my vocation.”
“I understand, but I’m afraid you don’t fully appreciate mine,” McGuffin put in. “All you have at stake is your career; I have my daughter, and your threats mean nothing to me because her life is more important than my own. So with all due respect, Colonel, your vocation is nothing more to me than a hobby - like duck carving.”
The Russian turned his clear gray eyes on the detective and nodded sadly. “You don’t understand, Mr. McGuffin. I am not threatening you. I am threatening your daughter.”
“Hillary -! How - how can?”
“I know where they’re being held,” he interrupted. “I waited eighteen years for Kruger’s release, expecting him to lead me to the egg, when instead he led me to an abduction.”
“Are they all right?” McGuffin blurted.
Kemidov shrugged. “Bored perhaps, but it seems they’re being treated well enough.”
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me where he’s keeping them?”
“I’m afraid not,” Kemidov answered. “But rest assured, my people have them under constant surveillance. Whenever it suits me, I can order either their release or their . . . But never mind that. I’m only telling you this, Mr. McGuffin, because it occurs to me that we can work together. I
believe you when you say you don’t have the egg. If you did, I’m sure you would give it to Kruger in exchange for your wife and child, foolish though that would be. Deliver the egg to me, Mr. McGuffin, and I will see to the release of your wife and child. I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman.”
“That’s the fourth offer I’ve had this week, Colonel. Why should I throw in with you instead of the others?”
“Because you have no other choice,” Kemidov replied easily. “Vandenhof is obsessed with the egg; once he has it he will do nothing to help you obtain the release of your family. And Kruger is unstable; he despises you for sending him to hospital, and would gladly kill his hostages once he has the egg.” He stopped and looked quizzically at McGuffin. “You say there are three offers besides mine?”
“Shawney O’Sea.”
“Ah, so, a mistake on my part. Miss O’Sea is no longer a pawn in our game. You and I, Mr. McGuffin, are the only serious players.”
McGuffin nodded. “Exactly. When I give you the egg, you’ll forget all about my wife and daughter and take the next Aeroflot back to Moscow. Forgive me, Colonel, but I’d rather take my chances with a homicidal maniac than the KGB.”
“I said you have no other choice, Mr. McGuffin, and I meant just that. You will either find the egg and deliver it to me and no one else, or I will order the execution of your wife and daughter.”
McGuffin looked at the Russian’s eyes. They were hard and cold and gray as gun metal. “You’re bluffing.”
“Then call me. It makes no difference to me one way or the other,” the Russian said, shrugging easily. “If you manage to deliver the egg to Kruger, I will simply take it from him - after killing your family. So you see, Mr. McGuffin, it’s not American poker we are playing, but Russian chess. And you, sir, are checkmated.”
McGuffin glared defiantly at the Russian for a moment, then sighed the sick sigh of defeat. There was little doubt, the KGB was a more formidable foe than Klaus Vandenhof and Otto Kruger combined. “I don’t have the egg,” he sighed. “I know Miles Dwindling had it, but he must have gotten rid of it sometime before he was killed.”
“That is obvious, but what did he do with it?” the Russian asked peevishly.
“I don’t know,” McGuffin answered testily.
“You must have some idea, you are my last connection to the dead!” he insisted.
“I don’t know!” McGuffin shouted. “Unless it was in the black leather bag your men took from my boat.”
Kemidov’s gray eyes opened wide as artillery muzzles. “I don’t know what you are talking about. My men have not been near your boat.”
“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 i
n 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.
