by Robert Upton
“No,” McGuffin said, shaking his head, “that’s not the way it’ll be. These guys are friends of mine. They won’t bother with the legal niceties. These guys will go to work on the two of you, and when they do, one of you will crack. And you know who that’ll be, don’t you, Toby?”
“Nobody will crack,” Toby replied confidently. “But keep it up, I like to see you squirm.”
“Your boyfriend will crack,” McGuffin predicted. “They won’t beat him with a rubber hose like they will you. No, he’ll get the velvet glove treatment. In exchange for testifying against you, they’ll let the fat man walk. You’ll go to the gas chamber, and your boyfriend won’t even come to your funeral.”
“You know what you are, McGuffin? You’re a homophobe. You think people like us are fickle and unreliable. You can’t understand that the love of one man for another can be every bit as good and lasting as the love between a man and a woman. Klaus loves me. He’d never do anything to hurt me,” Toby insisted.
“He loved Otto Kruger, too,” McGuffin reminded him. “But he threw him over for somebody younger and prettier. Why shouldn’t he do the same to you when the time comes? Especially if it means staying out of jail. Wise up, Toby. Kill me and within six months you’ll be on death row, and Vandenhof will have a new, young boyfriend.”
“Shut up!” Toby shouted, thrusting the gun to within a few feet of McGuffin’s face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Klaus can’t testify against me because I know where the bodies are buried! Don’t think you’re the first! He’s killed before - over things a lot less valuable than an egg! And besides - besides, I know what Klaus did in the war!” he went on, gun and eyes dancing jerkily.
Come a little closer, McGuffin said to himself, watching as the gunman struggled to regain control. There was a thin line between awareness and abuse, and McGuffin knew he was dangerously close to stepping over it. Back off, talk about Klaus for a while. “What did he do in the war?” McGuffin asked softly.
“He - he sent thousands of Jews to the camps. First in Holland, then in France. But first he stole everything they had. Klaus made millions on the war. So even though I may be getting a little older, I guarantee you, McGuffin, he’ll always prefer me to the Israelis.”
“That doesn’t change things,” McGuffin insisted, knowing full well that it did. “He’ll still have to save his own skin first from the district attorney, and for that he’ll have to give them you.”
“Enough!” Toby cried suddenly. He raised the gun until McGuffin could see into the bore, then pulled the hammer back until it fell into position with a solid click. “I’d like to stay and watch you crawl, but I’ve got to go before your friends come around again. You understand.”
The shot followed only a moment later, a split second after the detective, knowing that, at that moment, he presented the smallest target, had jerked his head to one side and lunged blindly forward. Their bodies collided vaguely - McGuffin’s head struck something that crunched and gave as he groped blindly for something to grab and hold on to, preferably a gun. Someone cried out. A second shot was fired, and McGuffin felt himself falling blindly, out of control, until he was stopped by something soft. He was lying on top of the struggling Toby, he realized after a moment, and the gun lay across the deck beside the trunk. When Toby’s knee found McGuffin’s groin, he grunted painfully and rolled off the smaller man, then scrabbled after him, racing crabs, McGuffin by a claw.
He found the gun and rolled onto one side as Toby appeared above him. The automatic jumped once in his hand, and Toby fell like a shot bird across McGuffin’s legs. Keeping the gun at the ready, he extricated himself and climbed to his feet. When he slipped a toe under Toby’s shoulder and flipped him over on his back, he saw what had crunched against his head. Toby’s formerly aristrocratic nose was now lying over to one side like a mongrel’s ear, and although it had been discharging blood prodigiously only a moment before, now it was still, its pump stopped by .45-caliber slug.
“I knew it couldn’t last,” McGuffin said, as he slid the warm automatic into his jacket pocket. Until now, he had been in the PI business for eighteen years without killing anyone.
It’s difficult to find a cab in the rain during the dinner hour in San Francisco, even if it’s a matter of life and death. It was a few minutes after eight when McGuffin’s cab pulled to a stop in front of Shawney O’Sea’s temporary quarters on Leavenworth Street. He stepped out, unmindful of the rain, dug under his trench coat for a twenty and passed it through the driver’s window.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Mac, your head is bleeding,” the driver informed McGuffin as he passed him his change.
McGuffin touched his forehead and came away with blood. “It’s not mine.”
“So whose is it, Mac?” he asked, waiting for his tip.
“The guy I just killed,” McGuffin answered, pocketing the tip. He hated guys who called him Mac.
“Very funny,” the driver said uncertainly, then stomped on the pedal.
McGuffin turned his face to the rain and looked up at the ugly, green fortress on the side of the hill. A pale, yellow light glowed dimly from behind the lace curtains on the first floor, but that didn’t mean anyone was there, he knew, as the desk lamp was always on. He removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped Toby’s blood from his face, snagging the cotton material in his beard. It was Monday evening, and he hadn’t shaved since Saturday morning, he realized, as he started up the stairs to Shawney’s apartment.
The front door was closed and singly locked, but the detective managed to open it easily with a plastic card. He removed Toby’s Beretta from his coat pocket, suddenly aware that he was now carrying two guns, both of them Toby’s, then slipped quickly into the dimly lighted foyer. The only light in the living room came from the reading lamp on the desk near the window, and seated at the desk with a startled look on his face was Klaus Vandenhof.
“Keep your hands on the desk where I can see them,” McGuffin ordered, stepping quickly into the room behind the sweeping Beretta. “Where is she?”
Vandenhof said nothing.
“Did you kill her?” McGuffin demanded.
“No,” Vandenhof replied. “She killed me.”
It was only then that McGuffin saw the dull stain spreading slowly under Vandenhof’s lapel where, under layers of fat, his heart should approximately lie. The hole was scarcely visible, no wider than the silver pen clutched in the fat hand resting next to an open checkbook. McGuffin walked to the desk and picked up the checkbook. It was made out to Brigid LeBlanc in the amount of $10,000 and signed by Vandenhof.
“Who’s Brigid LeBlanc?”
“I am. Don’t turn around, or I’ll shoot!” the woman whom McGuffin had until now known as Shawney O’Sea/Ivey Dwindling barked sharply. “Place the gun on the edge of the desk and step away slowly.” McGuffin did as instructed. “Good. Now turn around with your hands in the air. And please don’t do anything foolish, Amos,” she said as he raised his hands and turned. She had a small silver automatic pointed at his chest, the kind favored by women who have learned the hard way that karate was never meant to be a coed sport. “Killing Klaus was a public service. You, I wouldn’t enjoy. Open your raincoat and let it fall to the floor.”
“I’m not in the habit of carrying two guns, if that’s what you’re thinking,” McGuffin said as he unbuttoned his coat and let it fall softly to the floor. He waited for the order to remove his jacket, but it didn’t come.
“I told Klaus you’d be too much for Toby, but he didn’t believe me,” she said, brushing the hair from over her eye.
“So that was the reason for the victim act,” McGuffin guessed.
“Exactly. Even if you survived Toby, I expected to be in South America by the time you learned Klaus hadn’t killed me. But now you’ve messed up my plans, Amos. I don’t know what to do.”
“Why not throw in with me?” McGuffin suggested.
“Seriously?” she asked, amused
.
“Seriously. Let me have the egg long enough to get Marilyn and Hillary, then I’ll take it back from Kruger and give it to you. You’ll be free to go. I’ll never bother you again, I give you my word,” he pleaded.
“What about Kemidov?” she asked.
“He’s a lousy actor, forget him,” McGuffin advised.
She laughed shortly. “So you saw through that one, did you?”
“I wasn’t certain of anything then, but now it’s reasonably clear,” McGuffin answered. “I made the mistake of telling Vandenhof the little I knew about Miles Dwindling’s daughter, so he hired an impersonator to keep an eye on me. I must say, you’re a better actor than Kemidov. I was suspicious at first, but when you came out with that high school identification in the name of Ivey Dwindling, I tumbled.”
She smiled, obviously pleased with herself. “That was my idea. Klaus had the card made up. He was very good at forgery and art swindles and things like that, poor dear,” she said, glancing his way. The blood had spread over his entire shirt front and his face was ashen. If he was not already dead, he soon would be, McGuffin guessed. “Harold - that’s Kemidov - and I worked with Klaus several times. We were usually the aristocratic, but destitute refugees who had to sell off the family collection to one of Klaus’ rich but dumb customers. It seemed a lark at first - Harold and I are both serious but penniless New York actors, or at least I was, he still is - but lately it’s become absolutely dangerous!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed. “That’s why I decided to retire - with the Fabergé egg, of course. But I’m so happy that my last performance was so utterly true and convincing!”
“Good sex dulls my faculties. And you were good, Brigid, you were very good,” McGuffin assured her.
“I prefer Shawney, it’s my stage name. And although I don’t expect you to believe it, Amos, I wasn’t entirely acting,” she said, allowing her hair to fall over her eye. McGuffin wondered which of them she used to sight her gun. “I really do like you.”
“Then trust me.”
“Darling, I wish I could, I really do. But what would we do about him?” she asked, waving the gun in Vandenhof’s direction, then quickly back to McGuffin. “My God, I’m a murderess! Or soon will be,” she added, peering closely at her victim’s eyes. “It sounds terribly dramatic, doesn’t it - Shawney O’Sea, Murderess?”
“I’ve got that figured out,” McGuffin said, glancing at Vandenhof. He had slumped in his chair, his chin rested on rolls of fat and both hands hung limply at his sides, while the blood that had collected on the wooden chair was now beginning to drip onto the carpet. “I take it this is Vandenhof’s apartment.”
“How did you know?”
“I recognized his taste. And it was hard to believe that the KGB could trash this place without breaking even a single piece of Wedgwood china.”
“Did you hear that, Klaus!” she scolded, before turning to McGuffin. “I told him -”
“Let me tell you how you can beat the homicide rap,” McGuffin interrupted.
“Yes, do. How can I possibly avoid that except by getting out of the country?” she asked quickly.
“We lay it on Toby,” McGuffin answered.
“Toby? Didn’t you kill him?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” McGuffin answered, nodding vigorously. “With just one corpse, we clean up both your mess and my mess at the same time. I’ll bring Toby here. We’ll put your gun in Toby’s hand and Toby’s gun in Vandenhof’s hand. The cops will be happy. They’ll have two corpses and two murderers, already tried and executed,” he said, talking with and lowering his hands at the same time. His right hand was only a few inches from Toby’s bulky automatic in his jacket pocket. It was only the fact that his tweed suits customarily served as briefcase and filing cabinet that she wasn’t alert to the possibility of a second gun, but at the moment he made his move, she’d be on to him, he knew. Do I risk it now, or do I count on her buying the Toby plan?
“I didn’t tell you you could put your hands down,” she reminded him, but gently.
“Sorry,” McGuffin said, raising them halfheartedly. She was considering it. “Listen to me, Shawney, you’ve got to do this my way, not just for my sake, but for your sake as well,” he went on in a quick, urgent voice. “If you kill me and walk out of here with the Fabergé egg, you’ll have the FBI, Interpol, and every government in the world after you. Cops don’t like unexplained corpses, Shawney. Give them Toby, and the case will be closed.”
She smiled as she considered this, then suddenly grinned and asked brightly, “Why can’t I give them you?”
“Me?”
“Sure. You broke in, Vandenhof shot you, and you shot him. It’s all very neat and tidy.”
“But what about Toby? You’ve got an extra corpse.”
“You shot him before you came here - just as it really happened,” she said with a reasonable shrug.
“It won’t work,” McGuffin said, shaking his head. “I told the cops all about you and the egg. I delivered a set of your fingerprints to the FBI. If they haven’t got a make on you by now, they soon will.”
“Amos, you’re lying,” she said playfully. “My performance had you totally convinced.”
McGuffin shook his head. “Not totally. The night we had dinner, when you were falling asleep at the table, I took your wineglass and gave it to my friend Sullivan, a cop,” he said, ending his story at the place just before Goody washed the glass.
“You bastard,” she said softly, disappointed in either her performance or McGuffin.
“So you see, you’ve got to do it my way, Shawney. Otherwise, the cops will be after you for the rest of your life - which won’t be very long. Kill me, and they’ll nail you for all three murders, as well as grand larceny. Do it my way, and you’ll live to enjoy your money.”
“But the FBI knows about me,” she said, trouble showing in her face for the first time.
“It won’t matter,” McGuffin assured her. “I’m your alibi and you’re mine. We were miles away when the murders took place, and we never found the egg.”
She studied him closely from behind her fallen hair, then brushed it back and asked, “And after you have your wife and daughter, you’d give me the egg - you wouldn’t want even a small piece for yourself?”
McGuffin shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You know, I believe you, Amos,” she said slowly. “I think you’re just enough of a Boy Scout to turn your back on $10 million, once you’ve given your word.”
“Thanks,” McGuffin said, showing her his altar boy smile and lowering his hands.
“Keep them up!” she ordered.
“But why?” he asked, lazily raising them.
“Because I could never trust a Boy Scout,” she answered. “Money means nothing to you - if it did you wouldn’t be a private investigator. But morality and justice and things like that, that’s what matters to you, Amos. You could allow me the egg, but you could never allow my murder to go unpunished,” she said as she raised the gun and pointed it directly at McGuffin’s chest.
McGuffin was about to speak, to desperately attempt to convince her that he was just as amoral as the next guy, but he never got the chance. He heard the explosion, felt the slug, and watched as Shawney O’Sea was snatched from the carpet and slammed against the wall by an unseen force. It took a moment to realize that the explosion had come, not from Shawney’s tiny automatic, but from behind him. He turned to see Vandenhof, ashen and dull, taking feeble aim for a second shot from the small but lethal Beretta McGuffin had left on the desk.
McGuffin stood transfixed, equally amazed that Vandenhof was alive and he, himself, would soon be dead. He saw the slug hurtling for him in a gush of red, then knew, all in the space of a split-second frozen in time, that it was not lead but blood, spewing from the mouth of a man who was dead when his head hit the desk. And the slug that had struck him, he realized when he saw the tear in his jacket pocket, had glanced off Toby’s gun and struck Shawney, somewhere in the
vicinity of her beautiful breasts, he guessed, seeing the blood slowly covering the front of her white sweater.
She looked up at him with the eyes of a trapped but resigned animal, still breathing, and asked, “Is it bad?”
McGuffin took two steps toward her and looked down. The hole was very close to her heart. “Not bad,” he lied.
“I wasn’t going to kill you,” she lied.
“I know,” McGuffin lied.
Then, she was dead. McGuffin walked across the room to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Goody’s number. Judge Brennan picked up on the third ring, and McGuffin asked to talk to Sullivan.
“Where the fuck you been, I got her!” Sully blurted.
“Who?”
“Ivey Dwindling, only it ain’t Dwindling, it’s Sinaloo or some fuckin’ thing which means ‘inner peace’ or some bullshit like that, and she’s livin’ in a fuckin’ commune in fuckin’ Oregon, and if you want her you gotta go get her.”
“I can’t,” McGuffin answered.
“And if you’re anywhere near that broad Shawney O’Sea, you better get the fuck away from her because I got some news on her, too,” Sullivan went on. “She’s an art swindler, twice arrested, but never prosecuted ‘cuz one of the pigeons wouldn’t testify, and the other couldn’t fly.”
“What do you mean?”
“He fell out of a window in New York. So watch yourself, McGuffin, she may be a killer.”
“She is,” McGuffin said.
“You got proof?”
“I’m standing next to it - Klaus Vandenhof.”
“No shit! I was just comin’ to him.”
“Let me guess,” McGuffin interrupted. “He’s her partner, along with another actor named Harold. She and Harold pretend to be rich aristocrats who have to sell off the family -”
“Don’t tell me you bought a painting,” Sullivan interrupted.
“This time, it was an egg. I got it all over my face.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“I’ve got the egg. I’m on my way to make a trade for Marilyn and Hillary. I’m just calling to report a murder.”