by Tamar Myers
I made an effort to control my excitement. “Yes, of course I love her.”
“Then why haven’t you—” He paused to suck another mouthful from the tank. “—been following my instructions?”
“Because there is no Monet painting.”
The caller was silent for a moment.
“Monet is just the bird’s name,” I said. “If you really want him, you can have him. Please, just let my mama go.”
“I don’t want the damn bird. I want the Monet.”
“There isn’t any!” I screamed.
“The hell, you say, Abby!” The caller hadn’t taken the time to inhale more helium. That definitely wasn’t Mickey Mouse on the phone, but someone I knew quite well.
I gasped. “Martin Gibble, is that you?”
“You see what you made me do?”
“I didn’t make you do anything, you blithering idiot.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill her now, Abby.”
“Mama?”
“She hasn’t been anything but trouble. Hell, you should see the bruises on my shins.”
I was trembling with fear. Martin makes a bad enemy in the best of times; I had no trouble believing that he would kill Mama if he was desperate. The trick now was to make him believe that he had a way out of the hole he had apparently dug for himself.
“What can I do to fix this, Martin?”
“The courier said the stupid bird had the info. But he was lying, Abby, wasn’t he?”
“What courier?”
“Don’t play games with me, Abby.”
“I’m not. Look, Martin, all I know is that I bought this beautiful cage at auction, and that it came with a bird. Whatever secrets came with it—I really don’t know.”
“Is that how much you care about her, Abby? Because I’m not bluffing. I’ve got nothing to lose now, do I? Either you tell me, or she dies.”
My legs gave out and I sat on the floor beside the wicker coffee table. My chest felt like there was an elephant sitting on it, maybe even a tourist from Nebraska.
“Martin, listen to me. I don’t know about any Monet painting, but I think there might be diamonds.”
“Speak louder, Abby. I can barely hear you.”
“Diamonds,” I yelled. “Little bits of pressurized carbon.”
“What about diamonds?”
“I think there may be some very special ones hidden inside the birdcage.”
“There’s nothing hidden inside that damn cage. I already checked. I didn’t just twiddle my thumbs the night I took this sorry excuse for a bird.”
“Why didn’t you just take the cage as well? Wouldn’t that have been a whole lot easier? And if you wanted either of them so bad, why didn’t you simply outbid me at the auction?”
“Shut up and listen, Abby.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I mean it. Don’t piss me off. You do it again and your precious mama gets one chance to fly like a bird. If she can’t do that—splat. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men aren’t going to be able to put together Abby’s mama again.”
“I’m listening. I really am.”
“Where was I—oh yeah, I was working late one night, doing inventory in my shop, and this guy knocks on the door. I point to the hours posted on my door, but he doesn’t pay attention. Then I notice that there’s something on the sidewalk behind him, something in a blanket. Maybe it’s the family silver he wants to sell. That’s happened before. What the heck, I think, I’ve got a gun in my desk drawer, so I let him in. When he schleps in the thing and uncovers it, I can hardly believe my eyes. It’s a damn birdcage.”
Sometimes one can’t help but interrupt. “But that day in your shop you told me to make sure Monet didn’t poop in the cage. You made it sound like you thought it was the most beautiful thing to be created since a sunset.”
“Abby, Abby. You don’t shut up, and you don’t use what little brain you have, either. I wanted you to think it was the cage I was interested in, not the stupid bird. Now, if you don’t do as I say and shut up, your precious mama will fall down and break her crown, and you’ll be tumbling after.”
“I’m locking my lips and tossing away the key—uh, you didn’t hear a thing; zilch, zip, nada.”
“Anyway, I ask this guy why he’s trying to sell me some kitsch birdcage. First he tells me it’s solid gold, but I prove right there on the spot that it isn’t. Then he tells me that it’s really old, and that it belonged to his grandma. But I tell him that I’m sure his grandma had bunions, too, but I’m not interested in buying them, either. So finally he says he’s going to tell me the truth. I tell him it’s about time, because I was fixing to call the police if he didn’t get around to it real soon.
“‘No, no,’ he says. ‘No police.’ But I got to swear to secrecy. I tell him nothing doing. It’s no skin off my back what happens. ‘Okay,’ he says, and tells me that he’s a courier. It’s his job to smuggle things to and from the big container ships that come into harbor. I ask him how that can be, with security as tight as it is these days. He says it’s not that kind of smuggling. Yeah, sure, the stuff he carries is illegal, but it’s not the kind of stuff that endangers national security. In fact, most of the time he has to go through security—most of the time.
“So then one day he has to get this bird and its cage past customs, otherwise the bird will be quarantined, maybe even confiscated. He’s supposed to take them to this address in Summerville, collect his fee, and that’s it. But he can’t find the address, see. So he takes the bird home with him, and keeps looking—for a month. But he still can’t find the address. So that’s when he brings it to me. Thinks I might buy it because of the cage.”
“Which you didn’t,” I said. “Oops! Sorry, Martin.”
“Yeah, but that’s not all. This courier guy said he overheard the guy from the ship talking on the phone. Something about the bird being the real courier. There’s this stolen Monet, you see, and the bird, which can talk, has the information. The painting is sitting in a warehouse someplace just waiting for someone to pick it up. All you have to do is get the bird to talk and you’re worth millions.
“Of course I didn’t believe any of that crap. I told the guy to get lost. Then about a year later the damn birdcage comes up for auction. Next thing I know you’re bidding like there’s no tomorrow. At first I’m as confused as a rubbernosed woodpecker in the Petrified Forest. Then I put two and two together. You’ve heard the Monet story, too, and you believe it. Well, you outsmarted me once before, Abby. But not this time; this time I outsmarted you. I let you pay for that monstrosity of a cage. All I had to do was take the bird home with me. You do remember that it was your idea that we give each other keys, like good neighbors should, don’t you?”
“I didn’t intend for us to steal—”
The cell connection was interrupted by a blast of sound that made me drop the phone. I scrambled for it, but when I put the phone to my ear again there were bells. Church bells! But bells ringing at intolerable decibels, so loud that listening to them hurt my ears, forcing me to turn off my phone.
What was I to do now? Martin wanted only one thing in exchange for Mama, and that was a Monet—which I did not have. Surely he’d settle for diamonds.
I dashed back to the kitchen, where Dmitri was still chowing down on the kitty treats. The Rob-Bobs eschew everyday flatware, so it really wasn’t my fault that I had to grab a sterling silver dinner knife. Besides, I was more concerned about damaging the Taj than I was about ruining a piece of Sir Christopher.
My intent was to pry the inner dome loose from the inside. To do so meant removing the bottom tray and sticking my head and shoulders into the cage. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. I may be small, but I’m a lot larger than a mynah. Plus there were three perches to contend with, only one of which was removable. That meant weaving my body around the two remaining perches, with my arm extended above my head, knife in hand.
C.J. and I took turns k
eeping the Taj as clean as one of Monet’s whistles. Nonetheless, the inside of the cage smelled strongly of the wrong end of a bird, and the ammonia stung my eyes. It was hard to see what I was doing, which, frankly, wasn’t that much. With my free hand I felt around the base of the dome for a seam, but could find none. If I didn’t find something soon, I was going to have to resort to mankind’s favorite tool: the hammer.
Engrossed as I was in the task at hand, I came late to the realization that there was someone else in the room with me. In fact, I wasn’t aware of that important detail until my world went black—I mean that literally. My first thought was that I’d somehow managed to hit my head hard enough to knock me out. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that something had been thrown over me. Since Dmitri has little practice throwing blankets, I jumped straight to the conclusion that Martin Gibble was the culprit.
I was not about to go peacefully into that good night, blanket or not. Martin, curse his evil little heart, was going to get the fight of his life. My first order of business was to extricate myself from the cage. This was by no means a straightforward task, as both my clothes and my hair had become enmeshed in the fine filigree of the cage. While I struggled to free myself, I thrashed my legs and screamed at the top of my lungs.
But I was no match for Martin, who grabbed my legs and pinned them down by sitting on them. He then threw the weight of his upper body against the cage, effectively immobilizing me. Strangely, he smelled of a women’s perfume.
“Get off of me you glob of glutinous guano!”
“Abby, is that you?”
“C.J.?”
“Ooh, Abby, I thought that was you, but I couldn’t be sure on account of I only saw the back of your head. So I got this comforter from the master bedroom and—”
“C.J.! Off of me—now! And get that comforter off me, too.”
Daylight returned. “All right, but you don’t have to get so huffy.”
Irritation and relief battled for my emotions, relief winning by just a hair. “C.J., help me out of this thing, will you?”
“Sure thing, Abby.”
I got exactly what I asked for. The big galoot made short shrift of the task by virtually yanking the Taj off over my head. Bits of DNA and fiber samples remained, intriguing clues for future generations of anthropologists.
“C.J.,” I said when I was through moaning, “what are you doing here?”
“I just got back from seeing your brother, Abby. I was driving down King Street headed for the shop, and I saw the Rob-Bobs walking. They never walk anywhere, Abby, so I stopped and asked them what they were doing. They said they were looking for you. Why are you missing, Abby?”
“I’m not—I’m here.”
“Right. So anyway, I volunteer to go to your house to look for you, and Rob asks me to swing by here and put a roast beef sandwich from Subway in the refrigerator for him. Boy, did that make Bob mad. He went on and on about how restaurant food didn’t deserve a place next to his rhea roulade. Finally, I just took off, but I had to backtrack on account of there’s a big wedding at St. Philip’s. Ooh, Abby, you should have heard those bells.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I stood up to keep them company.
“Maybe I did.”
“Abby, you might have seen stars when I tackled you, but I don’t think you heard any bells. What were you doing inside the birdcage anyway?”
Maybe I did hear bells—the bells of St. Philip’s! Those references to Mama falling down and breaking her crown, and having one chance to fly like a bird…St. Philip’s Episcopal Church was only a hop, skip, and a jump from the spot where Mama had disappeared. And its steeple was a real cloud-poker. It was only a hunch, but as my friend Magdalena is fond of saying, “a hunch from a woman is worth two facts from a man.”
“C.J., give me fifteen minutes—no, make that half an hour—at which time if I haven’t called you, call the police and tell them to look for my body at the base of St. Philip’s bell tower.”
She looked alarmed, as only a dear friend can. “Abby, you’re not going to run in front of the wedding guests, are you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Like they do in Pamplona.”
“Those are bulls, darling, not wedding guests.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Abby, I’m not trying to argue, but Cousin Leonardo Ledbetter—”
“Later, C.J.” I took off like a bat headed toward its belfry.
24
The crowd of wedding guests was thinning when I arrived, enabling me to slip into the church without garnering a lot of attention. Because I was casually dressed—at least by wedding standards—some folks probably thought I was a florist, or a caterer, attending to postnuptial details. And since I’d actually been in the bell tower once, on a guided tour of the church, I knew exactly where to go.
There are slightly less than a million steep steps that lead to the top of St. Philip’s steeple, and I’m not in the best of shape. However, the imminent murder of one’s mama can be a powerful motivator. I removed my shoes, so as to make as little noise as possible, and paused frequently to listen for any sounds coming from the top. At one point I thought I heard voices, but then realized they were coming from outside.
Perhaps I was totally off base and would find nothing at the top except for bird droppings and deaf pigeons. But if that was the case, there would be no harm done—except to my calf muscles. I just hoped that the sextant didn’t lock me in the tower. St. Philip’s Episcopal Church has one of the most historical cemeteries in the nation, and no doubt there are a few Apparition Americans who have taken residence in the bell tower.
But I got barely more than halfway to the top when I heard Martin Gibble shouting down to me. His voice echoed in the tower, and it was hard to sort out the words.
“Come on up, Abby, the view from up here is a killer.” At least that’s what I thought he said.
“Martin,” I shouted back through cupped hands, “if you let my mother go, you can have the Monet, and anything else you want.”
“I want you to come up here, Abby.”
Strange that Martin wanted me to come there, to confirm with my eyes what my heart already knew. But maybe not so strange after all. If I got close enough so he could shoot me, or push me off the tower, or snuff me out in any number of ways, he might still be able to escape scotfree. Of course he’d have to kill Mama, too—if she wasn’t already resting comfortably with Daddy on the Wiggins family cloud. But as long as I stayed out of Martin’s reach, I remained a threat.
“I’m not coming up there, Martin. I sprained my ankle yesterday; I can barely walk.”
“Don’t lie to me, Abby. There was nothing wrong with your ankle a few minutes ago. You were practically running down the street.”
“But I am afraid of heights, Martin. Honest. Tell you what: I’m going to leave the key to a storage unit on the ledge of this little fake window next to me. The name of the storage company is—”
“Acme?”
That’s exactly what I was going to say—but I was just making that up. I had no idea if there really was an Acme Storage in Charleston. Maybe there wasn’t, and this was a test.
“Actually, Martin, the storage company is in Orangeburg, South Carolina. It’s called Treasure Keepers. The number of the unit is tied to the key.”
“You’re lying, again. Why do you lie to me, Abby? Don’t you love your mama?”
The man was brighter than I gave him credit for, and a whole lot more intuitive. His hunches were worth every bit as much as a woman’s. It was time to switch tactics.
“Come to think of it, Martin, my mother has always been a pain in the butt. ‘Abby, do this, Abby do that’; she never shuts her trap. Not to mention that she’s always loved my brother more. The Monet—oh, you should see it, Martin—is worth a cool three million. Even more, if the Saudis are in the right mood. No, Martin, you keep Mama, and I’ll keep the painting.�
�
“Why, Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake Washburn!” Mama’s voice was clear as a bell. But Martin was fond of playing around with voices. For all I knew, that was a recording. Or maybe even Monet. “How dare you choose a painting over your mama. I’ll have you know I endured thirty-six hours of excruciating labor—”
“Mama!” I screamed. “It really is you.”
“He doesn’t have a gun!” Mama screamed back.
“Shut up, bitch.”
I heard scuffling overheard, the clank of a bell hitting something—or someone—and another scream. It is easier, and quicker, to run down a zillion steps than it is to run up. I took the path of least resistance.
The body was lying on the sidewalk, faceup. I expected it to look worse, perhaps because I’d seen so many gruesome scenes on television and in the movies. Martin Gibble, on the other hand, looked for all the world like he’d decided to take a nap—with his eyes open.
“Who is it?” The question was on a dozen pairs of lips.
“I’m not sure of his name,” a matron in wedding guest attire said, “but his face rings a bell.”
Her husband nodded gravely. “That’s because this fellow’s a dead ringer for that antique dealer over on King Street. You know, the one who sold us that Napoleon love seat you like so well.”
“Probably a suicide,” a second matron opined. “People who commit suicide are so inconsiderate. He landed on our cousins from Missouri. Fortunately, they’re a hard-headed bunch and no one was hurt.”
That explained the condition of Martin’s corpse. Mama, however, was nowhere to be seen. I ran back into the bell tower and climbed all zillion steps without pausing to catch my breath.
25
I called my brother, Toy, from the emergency waiting room at Roper Hospital. “I found Mama.”
“Yeah? Where was she? No, let me guess…she was working as the entertainment director on a Club Med cruise.”