by Elise Broach
Marvin listened in disgust. How convincing Denny sounded in his concern.
“Look at it,” Christina said dully.
As soon as Denny walked over to her, Marvin crawled down his sleeve to one of his pants legs, and from there to the floor. The bunched-up label made this journey quite arduous, but as soon as he was safely down, he scrambled beneath the table. Now, the question was how to get James’s attention.
He could try crawling up to his wrist, as he’d done before, but everyone was so focused on the drawing, he didn’t know if James would even notice him. He crouched near the table leg, mulling over this new challenge. Above him, he could hear the tense conversation.
“They looked the same,” James was saying. “Nobody could tell them apart.”
Christina sighed. “That’s why I wanted you to come. I was hoping you’d say I was wrong. But . . . oh, just look at it. As soon as the FBI said they’d retrieved the tracking device from a cab in a taxi yard, I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I had to check the original, to reassure myself. And then . . . well, I knew. You can tell, too, can’t you, Denny?”
Of course he can! Marvin wanted to shout. He planned the entire thing! He couldn’t bear to see Denny’s sympathetic nod. “It’s not the Dürer,” he said quietly.
Christina turned to James, inconsolable. “You see? We could run all sorts of tests to confirm it, but we don’t need to. When you’ve looked at his work for as long as Denny and I have, you can feel it in your bones.” She shook her head. “It’s that way with any forgery. Whatever the tests say, it’s human judgment we all rely on for the final verdict. Because when you know an artist well, the thing that bothers you about a fake will continue to bother you the longer you look at it. Until it becomes unbearable.”
Marvin saw her look at his drawing and close her eyes, and he flinched with the realization that something he’d made could cause anyone such grief. But before he had much time to contemplate this, he glimpsed something shiny by the table leg. It was the metal tack he’d hidden the night he was abandoned in Christina’s office.
Aha! A weapon. Or, if not a weapon, an excellent poking tool. Marvin grabbed it with his front two legs. Holding the sharp point aloft, and still carrying the folded label, he crawled with great difficulty over to James’s sneaker. He climbed up the side of the sneaker, under the edge of James’s jeans, and pressed the tack against the boy’s bare ankle.
No response. The distressed conversation above continued.
Marvin tensed his leg muscles and vigorously plunged the point of the tack into pale flesh.
“OW!” James yelped.
“What is it?” Karl asked in concern.
“Ow, I don’t know, my ankle hurts.” James hopped on one foot, almost knocking Marvin to the floor. He dropped to his knee and lifted his pants leg.
“Did you twist it?” Karl started to crouch down next to him, but James had already spied Marvin.
“No, no, Dad. It’s okay,” James said quickly. “My foot must have fallen asleep. Pins and needles.” He looked at Marvin, took the tack and dropped it on the floor, and then surreptitiously placed the beetle under his jacket cuff.
Marvin released a long breath. So far, so good. Now he just had to show James the address label. From his new position, he could see Denny examining the drawing on the table in front of Christina. It was framed identically to the original, but even through the glass, Marvin had no trouble recognizing it as his own work.
“I just don’t understand it,” Christina said. “I was so careful. I checked the drawing a dozen times. I don’t know how I could have confused them.”
Karl crouched next to Christina, his hand on her shoulder. “They looked so much alike,” he said gently. “The museum wouldn’t fire you over one mistake.”
She raised her eyes despairingly. “Denny, tell them. That drawing was worth at least half a million dollars. On loan from another institution! And I put it at risk needlessly, for my own stupid purposes.”
Karl shook his head. “No, that’s not fair. You were trying to recover the one that was stolen—Justice. It was a good plan.”
“It was, Christina, and we all gave it our blessing,” Denny said. “But I’m afraid this won’t do much for relations between our two museums. The truth is, we were both responsible for the drawing, and we’ll both pay the price for this . . . disaster.”
Marvin could hardly stand this show of contrition.
Christina gestured at the table, then pressed her fingers into her temples. “I don’t even care about my job. The worst thing is that Fortitude is gone, and it’s my fault.”
Karl rubbed her shoulder. “Maybe the FBI will be able to recover it,” he said. “I know the microchip fell off or was taken off or whatever, but at least they know where the drawing was up until that point, right?”
“Yes, but it was in a series of public places—a hotel, a church, an office building. The tracking device isn’t precise enough to pinpoint rooms, and the drawing never stopped moving for more than a few minutes, so the FBI didn’t have time to close in on the location. Or at least not until the cab returned to the cab yard and they discovered the matting and the microchip on the floor of the backseat. They’re still searching, and retracing the path—but I haven’t much hope.”
“We need to start notifying people,” Denny said quietly.
“Yes.” Christina sounded hopeless. “I just wanted to give the FBI a little more time, in case . . . Oh, Denny, I can’t bear this.”
“I know, my dear. I’m so very, very sorry.”
This was too much for Marvin. He couldn’t stand the drawn look of fear and sadness on Christina’s face. As if reading his mind, James blurted, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Karl barely glanced at him. “Okay, buddy. You know where it is.”
As soon as they’d left the office, James lifted his wrist and brought Marvin inches from his face. “Where have you BEEN? I couldn’t figure out what happened to you! Were you in the museum? Did you get knocked off my arm somehow?” He shook his head. “We’ve got to think of a safer way to carry you around. Oh my gosh, I thought I’d lost you again.”
Looking James straight in the eyes, Marvin promptly rolled on one side, exposing the rolled label.
James stared at him. “What is that?” he asked.
Marvin used his front legs to wiggle the label out from under its belt. He held it out to James.
“It looks like a little piece of paper,” James said. “All rolled up. Like a spitball. Is it a spitball?”
Marvin waited.
“Is there something on it?”
Marvin ran enthusiastically from James’s wrist to his hand.
“Okay, okay.” James crouched down in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He took the label with two fingers and turned his hand over slowly so that Marvin wouldn’t fall off.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked, watching Marvin. “Open it up?” He began to unroll the miniature paper bundle. When he was finished, he spread the crinkled white rectangle on his thigh and looked at it.
“Gordon Perry, 236 East 74th Street, Apartment 5D, New York, New York,” he read.
Marvin frowned. Uh-oh. So the label didn’t have Denny’s name on it, after all. But surely that was still the correct apartment. Seventy-fourth Street made sense, just blocks from the Met.
“Who is this?” James asked, studying Marvin intently.
Marvin ran around excitedly.
“What’s the matter? Why are you so excited?” James watched Marvin with his serious gray eyes. “Do what you did before, when I gave you a ride to the kitchen. Go to the end of my finger if I’m right. Does this guy have something to do with the drawing? The real drawing?”
Marvin raced to the tip of James’s finger.
“Yes? Did he steal the drawing?”
Well, that wasn’t quite right, but James was so smart, he would figure it out.
“Really?” James bit his lip. “What sho
uld we do? Call the police?”
Marvin retreated to the middle of James’s knuckle. No, no, that wouldn’t work. The police would have no idea what to do with this information, and no reason to believe it mattered.
James looked at the label, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know, little guy.”
Marvin ran to the tip of James’s finger and stretched his legs out over the air.
“You want me to take you somewhere? Where?”
Marvin waved his legs frantically.
“Okay, I get it. Where? To this address?”
Good for James! Marvin knew he would understand. He stayed at the tip of James’s finger, waving two legs in the air.
“But what if this guy is the thief?”
Marvin continued to thrust himself forward into space, willing James to get up on his feet and in motion.
James cast a sideways glance at Christina’s door. “Should I tell them?”
Alarmed, Marvin crawled back to James’s knuckle. He could only imagine what would happen if Denny found out they were on their way to the place where Dürer’s masterpieces lay hidden.
“No?” James sighed. “I guess you’re right. They won’t understand, and then they won’t let me go.”
He stood up, thinking. “Okay, look, it’s not far from here. My dad will totally freak out, so we can’t be gone long. I don’t even know what you want me to do, but maybe you can show me when we get there.” Marvin returned delightedly to his fingertip.
James looked down at him anxiously. “Is this going to be dangerous?”
That sounded so similar to something Marvin himself would say to Elaine that he almost smiled, despite his jangled nerves. As long as Denny was there at the museum, they were safe. He hoped. He looked up at James, not knowing how to respond. Getting to the apartment was only half the battle, Marvin knew. Then he had to figure out a way to get James to the drawings.
Clutching the label in his fist, James scrambled to his feet, tucked Marvin under the cuff of his jacket, and ran down the hall toward the exit.
Breaking and Entering
James walked much more quickly than Marvin had expected, covering the dozen blocks to the apartment on East Seventy-fourth Street in long strides. When they got to the large front stoop, he hesitated, shivering, as he scanned the metal panel of apartment numbers and buzzers. It had started to snow lightly, wet flakes dusting the sidewalk.
“What should I do? Push the button?” he asked Marvin. Marvin crawled to the tip of his finger, but with no particular enthusiasm. He knew the apartment was empty.
“Let’s see, 5D,” James said. He read the label again. “Perry. Here it is.” He pressed. There was no response.
James bounced on his sneakers. He looked up at the tall front of the building, blinking away snowflakes. Then he shrugged. “I guess we have to find a way inside, huh? Somebody must be home in one of these places.”
He dragged his fingers over the double row of buttons, hitting every one. The intercom crackled, with multiple voices sputtering, “Yes?” and “Who is it?” until someone indifferently pressed the release button and the front door buzzed. Quickly, James turned the handle and pushed his way into the small tiled lobby.
They rode the elevator to the fifth floor, with Marvin trying to think how to get into the apartment. He could certainly crawl under the door, but that wouldn’t help James. Once inside, he supposed he might be able to set off the fire alarm (Uncle Albert, the electrical whiz, had taught Marvin a few tricks), and if he succeeded, the building super was sure to come and open the door for a look around. But how would James explain what he was doing there?
James found the door marked with a brass plate showing “5D.” He looked nervously down the hallway. “Okay, I guess I’ll knock,” he told Marvin. “There’d better not be some criminal in here.”
He took a deep breath and tapped on the door. There was no answer. He looked down at Marvin. “Now what do we do?”
Marvin ran to James’s fingertip and waved his front legs at the door.
“I know, I know. You want to go inside. But how?” James tried the door handle with both hands. “See, it’s locked.”
Marvin, seeing his chance, crawled quickly onto the doorknob. The only thing he could think to do was to try to spring the lock himself. He took a good, long look into the blackness of the keyhole, then plunged inside.
“Wait! What are you doing?” James protested.
The keyhole was dark and crowded with chunks of cold metal. Marvin could see the workings of the lock with perfect clarity, but he had no idea how to move the mechanism and unlock the door. Great-aunt Mildred, the family locksmith, had given several lectures to the relatives on exactly this topic, but Marvin hadn’t realized he’d need the information so soon himself. The secret was some kind of leverage, as he recalled.
“Hey!” James whispered through the keyhole, sending a warm blast of air rushing into the tiny space. “Where are you, little guy?”
Marvin saw one of James’s worried eyes appear in the opening. “Are you trying to open it? Really? That would be so cool!”
Marvin pushed as hard as he could against the metal bolt, but it wouldn’t budge.
A minute later, James’s breath swooshed into the keyhole again. “Guess what? I have a paper clip in my pocket! Maybe that will help. Hold on.”
Marvin heard him rustling, and a moment later, the curved wire end of a paper clip came thrusting into the keyhole. Marvin leapt out of the way right before it skewered him. Take it easy, he thought.
“Does that help?” James whispered.
Marvin considered the paper clip and the metal bar of the lock. He tried desperately to recall Great-aunt Mildred’s instructions. He positioned the paper clip carefully against the mechanism of the lock, then turned himself around and pressed the back of his shell against the paper clip. Wedging his feet against the bar of the lock, he pushed as hard as he could.
Nothing.
He pushed again.
Nothing.
“How’s it going?” James whispered. “Maybe you aren’t strong enough on your own. I’ll try turning the paper clip, okay?”
Marvin repositioned the paper clip and pushed with all his might just as James began to twist it. Leverage! He heard a dull thunk as the metal bar slid back.
“It’s unlocked!” James whispered in delight, opening the door. Marvin scrambled out of the keyhole and onto James’s hand. A moment later, they were inside the apartment.
A Revelation
James closed the door softly behind them. He flipped the light switch, surveying the small, tidy living room of the apartment.
“What is this place?” he asked Marvin. “Who’s Gordon Perry?”
Who, indeed. A friend of Denny’s? An accomplice in the theft? Marvin had no idea. He moved to the tip of James’s finger and once again dangled his legs in the air.
“Where do you want to go now?” James asked. He began to walk slowly around the living room.
Using the technique they’d perfected earlier, Marvin guided James, with a few false stops and starts, to the closed door of the study.
“Okay,” James said. “In here.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “Huh.”
He looked around, scanning the bookshelves and table. Then he walked to the desk, glancing at the stack of mail. “This is his place, all right. But there’s nothing here, little guy. What do we do now?” He hesitated in front of the window, staring gloomily out at the falling snow. “I have to go back. My dad will be really worried, and if he calls my mom . . . well, you know how she is.”
No! Not yet, James, Marvin begged. He ran back and forth along James’s finger.
“Okay, relax. What are you trying to tell me?”
James turned toward the closet, where Marvin was pointing himself. “Something in there?”
Marvin scurried to the end of James’s finger and drummed all his legs in place, doing a frantic dance.
His brow furrowing, James cro
ssed the room and opened the closet door, revealing a jumble of coats and a few packing boxes. The briefcase was on the floor in the back.
Marvin flung his front legs over the precipice of James’s fingertip, waving them in midair.
“What?” James asked, squatting on his heels. “It’s just a bunch of boxes. What are you so excited about?”
Marvin whirled in circles, desperate for James to discover Denny’s secret.
“Is it something about the drawing?”
Overcome with frustration, Marvin hurled himself from James’s finger to the floor and ran across the wooden boards to the briefcase.
“Oh,” James said. “That thing? Okay, let’s see.”
He picked up Marvin very gently and tugged the briefcase out of the closet. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he set it on its side and flipped the latches.
“It’s just a bunch of papers,” he said.
Marvin dove off his finger once again, landing smack in the middle of the packaging that surrounded the drawings.
“Listen, little guy. We have to go back to the museum. I don’t know what you think is here, but—”
Marvin pounded on the top layer of paper with his legs, thoroughly beside himself.
James took a deep breath. “I don’t think I should mess around with this stuff. That Perry guy will notice and get mad.”
Marvin rolled onto his back and waved all six legs in the air, as dramatic an SOS sign as he could think of.
“Geez,” James said. “You’re going crazy.” He touched the edge of the top paper with his fingers. With all his might, Marvin flipped himself onto his stomach and ran to the edge of the sheet.
James shifted it aside and hesitantly unwrapped what was underneath. He gasped.
There, unveiled in all its glory, was Fortitude.
James stared. “It’s the real one,” he said haltingly, as if he couldn’t trust his own eyes. “It is, isn’t it?” He looked down at Marvin in amazement. “You found it! The one that was stolen! How did you do that?”