“Then why didn’t your grandpa go back to San Marcos and get it? Thirty years is a mighty long time to tarry when you’ve got a sunken treasure waitin’ for you.”
“Maybe he was afraid of Peguero’s men,” sputtered Emma, amazed that Poteet could be so matter-of-fact in light of what she had learned. “Peguero was the dictator. They must have believed that the treasure was theirs. That Pépé had stolen it from them.”
“You have evidence that such a map is still in existence, Miz Passant?” said Poteet in his quiet drawl. He seemed strangely uninterested, remote.
“No.”
“Lots of things disappear over the course of time on their own, you know.”
“Then what was in the model boat? Why else was it stolen?”
“Can you prove now there was something in the model boat?”
“No.”
“Can you prove that it was in fact stolen?”
“No.”
“Have you learned anything that would tie your grandfather to Mr. Caraignac?”
“No, but—”
“Then you don’t got nothin’ new, do you, Miz Passant?”
“What about the man who was following me?” said Emma angrily.
“What man was this?”
Emma recounted the appearance of Big Ed Garalachek on San Marcos, and how he was not who he claimed to be. In her excitement about the treasure she had almost forgotten about him.
“He doesn’t sound like someone to worry about,” said Poteet when she had finished.
“I’m glad you think so!” exclaimed Emma. What was it that Zuberan had called the police? Bunglers and fools.
“We’d check him out if it would make you feel better; only there doesn’t seem much to go on.”
“He gave me a telephone number,” said Emma, digging into her purse for Big Ed’s card. “Maybe you can track him through that.”
Emma read the phone number.
“Got it,” said the policeman. “Anything else I can do for you, Miz Passant?”
“How is your investigation going? Have you learned anything new?”
“We’re working on a few things.”
“Anything interesting?”
“As I say, we’re working on a few things. Now, if there’s nothin’ else, I hope you’ll excuse me. I’ve got a lot to do today.”
Emma hung up the receiver, feeling as if she had just had a conversation with a wall. She had expected that the detective might bawl her out for continuing to poke around, but it had never occurred to her that he wouldn’t take what she had learned seriously. Obviously he just didn’t care anymore. Jacques Passant was yesterday’s murder; Poteet had other crimes to attend to, easier ones to solve.
Emma wasn’t going to give up, however.
She pulled out the Manhattan white pages from under the counter and looked through the listings for Dauber. Perhaps the wife of Esmond Dauber would be able to tell her something. From the catalog Emma knew that the woman lived in the city.
No Henriette Tawson Dauber was listed in the phone book, but Esmond Dauber still was. The phone number was followed by an address on Central Park West. Emma put a quarter in the phone and dialed.
“Yeah?” answered a gruff female voice.
“Hello,” said Emma, taken a little aback. “I’d like to speak with Henriette Tawson Dauber.”
“That’s my name. Who the hell are you?”
Just another loopy New Yorker, Emma told herself. She had just been telling someone about how New York was full of nutcases. Who had it been? Henri-Pierre Caraignac, Emma remembered, swallowing hard.
“Mrs. Dauber, my name is Emma Passant. Mr. Pilkington at Sotheby’s has been telling me about your late husband’s collection. I wonder if I might be able to speak to you about one of the items that sold recently.”
“All right,” said the voice. “Come on over.”
“You mean now?” said Emma.
“At my age, honey, it don’t pay to put things off. I could go at any minute. By this time next week I could be forgotten by everyone but the IRS. I haven’t any family, you know. Esmond wasn’t interested in collecting children, except gold ones you could light cigarettes with.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll pull out some chops. You’re not one of those nouvelle people, are you? Lunch on a radish, dine on grass?”
“I can handle a chop.”
“Good. I’m at the Malvern. Eighty-second Street and Central Park West.”
“I’m afraid I’m not from the city, Mrs. Dauber. Could you tell me how to get there?”
“Sure,” said Mrs. Dauber. “You go outside and holler, ‘Taxi!’ at the top of your lungs. Then you get in and I’ll see you here soon.”
The line went dead. Emma made her way back through the lobby and retrieved her coat, wondering if everyone in New York City was crazy.
The doorman was occupied with an elderly couple, but Emma didn’t need his help to get a cab. There wasn’t one in sight, anyway. At least not an unoccupied one—you could tell whether a cab had a fare or not by the TAXI sign on the roof. If it was lit, they were available. When they took a fare and started the meter, the light went out.
Emma looked down the block. There was a large hospital below Sotheby’s. Several people were standing on curbs of various cross streets, obviously looking for cabs. Across the street, not looking in her direction, was a man who might also be looking for a cab. A man with a heart-shaped scar on his cheek.
Emma was surprised to see him again, but it wasn’t so unlikely, she told herself. Maybe he had been at Christie’s because he was looking to buy his wife or girlfriend a present and had settled on something in silver instead of something in lingerie. Sotheby’s was also having a silver sale, according to the schedule she had noticed in the lobby. There was nothing sinister about comparison shopping, was there?
Still, after her experience with Big Ed, and Detective Poteet’s treating her as if she were crying wolf, Emma’s nerves were frayed to the point of unraveling. She didn’t want even to consider the notion that someone else might be following her. She turned, crossed Seventy-second Street and walked briskly up York Avenue. After a block she glanced back over her shoulder. The man with the heart-shaped scar was walking uptown, too, on the other side of the street.
There was still no reason to panic. It was probably just an innocent coincidence. It was only when Emma saw the city bus going up York Avenue a block ahead of her, and another one heading downtown on the opposite side of the street, that she realized how frightened she was.
It was the classic setup of an illusion, and Emma seized the opportunity. She increased her pace, narrowing the distance between herself and the bus ahead, which was creeping slowly through the thick traffic. The man with the heart-shaped scar walked faster as well, keeping up with her on the other side of the street. Emma caught up with the uptown bus at the same instant that the downtown bus was passing it in the opposite direction.
With the buses between them, the man with the heart-shaped scar would expect her to continue walking in the same direction she had been going, hidden behind the uptown bus. He continued walking uptown, running to keep up with the bus, expecting to see her emerge when it pulled farther ahead.
The instant the buses crossed, however, Emma sprinted into the middle of York Avenue and reversed direction. She ran downtown along the yellow center-line marker, concealed by the downtown bus for two blocks, then darted in front as it stopped at a light. By this time the man with the heart-shaped scar had followed the other bus two blocks uptown, putting four blocks between them.
Emma tore down Seventy-second street as fast as her legs would carry her, not stopping until she reached First Avenue, where she was able to hail a cab.
“Where you want to go?” demanded the driver happily as she got into the pine-scented vehicle.
Somewhere safe, Emma wanted to say. Somewhere where people didn’t change their names or conceal their motives. Somewhere where they did
n’t run away or get killed or have to look over their shoulder, worrying who might be following them.
“Eighty-second and Central Park West,” she whispered, wondering if she would ever feel safe again.
17
Emma stepped out of the cab and craned her neck at the Malvern. The huge old apartment co-op with its forbidding turrets and three entrances stood directly across from Central Park, a few streets up from the Natural History Museum.
Taking a deep breath, she walked directly to what seemed to be the main entrance. A gray-uniformed doorman with white gloves directed her through the ornate brass-grille doorway into a lobby overflowing with marble, wood-paneling and fresh flowers. Inside, another uniformed man asked whom she wanted to see.
“Mrs. Dauber is expecting me,” said Emma and gave her name, still shaken by her experience with the man with the heart-shaped scar outside of Sotheby’s. The last thing she wanted to do right now was lunch with some crazy woman, but what choice did she have? Henriette Tawson Dauber could be the key to whether the golden dragon plucked from the sea and smuggled out of San Marcos decades ago was the same one that had been auctioned last month at Sotheby’s.
The doorman picked up a telephone. A brief conversation ensued.
“Eighth floor,” said the man, putting down the receiver. “Jimmy will take you up.”
Feeling queasy—not at all ready for a heavy lunch—Emma walked across the lobby as directed to a surprisingly small elevator, where another pleasant uniformed man with white gloves closed the steel gate and turned the old-fashioned control wheel. The elevator buzzed and whirred its way slowly up to the eighth floor. Finally it stopped, and the attendant unfolded the steel gate and opened the door.
Emma was startled to find herself not in a hallway, but actually in an apartment—or rather, its vestibule entryway. It was a two-story area with a black-and-white stone floor and a crystal chandelier. She took a few steps into the room, looking for signs of life. Ahead to the left was a dining room dominated by a threepedestal, thirty-foot-long table of polished mahogany, surrounded by dark carved chairs. To the right was a cavernous living room with more furniture that looked as if it belonged in a museum. Directly in front of her a winding staircase led to a second floor.
“Hello?” Emma called out, not knowing what to do. For a moment nothing happened. Then a door swung open at the far end of the dining room, and the woman Emma had seen pictured in the auction catalog stuck her head into the room.
“You the girl who called?” shouted Henriette Tawson Dauber. She looked even bigger than she had in the picture—and more hatchet-faced, though somehow kinder in person.
“Yes. Emma Passant.”
“Got my hands full. Park your coat on a chair and come on and join me in the kitchen.”
The door swung shut. Emma took off her coat and laid it tentatively across one of the armless chairs in the hallway. Then, bracing herself, she crossed the long dining room and pushed open the door behind which Henriette Dauber had disappeared.
The spacious kitchen Emma found herself in was as warm and informal as the rest of the apartment was cold and stuffy. In the huge fireplace set into a brick wall, a fire snapped and crackled. Herbs and flowers were hanging everywhere from the ceiling to dry, in between pots and pans suspended from iron racks. The cabinets were of blue-painted pine. Around a pine farmer’s table were half a dozen mismatched wooden chairs. The table was set for two. Harriet Tawson Dauber was standing at the enormous double sink cranking a salad spinner.
She was a woman of substantial girth and high hair—the dyed-blond mass on top of her head resembled an oversized football. She wore an apricot-colored muumuu that fit her like a sack. Over one shoulder was a dish towel. Her expression was animated, bemused. Emma guessed she might be in her seventies.
“Thanks for seeing me like this, Mrs. Dauber,” Emma said, feeling herself relax a bit in the cheerful, homey room.
“Call me Henny,” said the woman, picking up a platter of enormous veal chops and tossing one on a grille built into the eight-burner gas stove. “Everybody does. How many chops you want?”
“One will be fine, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Henny shrugged, placing another two on the grille for herself.
“I didn’t mean to put you to so much trouble.”
“No trouble. I like company. Don’t get too much anymore, not since Esmond croaked. The couples we used to hang out with don’t want to be stuck with a third wheel, and all the single men my age are either out with twenty-year-olds or dead.”
“Can I help with anything?”
“No, just sit yourself down at the table. I got everything under control. These chops’ll be done in no time. There’s some pickles in the icebox you could bring out if you want. You a pickle eater?”
“Not too much,” said Emma, walking over and opening the refrigerator—a two-door affair with pictures of Yorkshire terriers attached to it with magnets shaped like little pieces of sushi. The pickles were swimming in a large glass bowl, which Emma took out and brought to the table.
“You should try these anyhow,” said Henny Dawson, whisking up a salad dressing while keeping her eye on the stove. “I get ’em down on the Lower East Side. One bite and you can practically speak Yiddish. Go on. Taste one.”
Emma plucked one out of the crowded brine, took a bite, then closed her eyes and waited for her face to unpucker.
“So what you think?” said Henny.
“Oy,” said Emma. Henny chuckled with satisfaction.
“Where I grew up in Oklahoma, we didn’t have no Jews. No Orientals or Indians, neither—except the kind that lived on reservations and ate Spam sandwiches on Wonderbread like I did. We all thought that pickles were things that grew in jars, can you believe it? Now I send out for tandoori chicken and battle the mobs in Chinatown on Sundays for dim sum. God, I love New York. There still ain’t nothin’ like a good old-fashioned American veal chop every once in a while, though. Sometimes you just have to go for comfort food, know what I mean?”
“Sure,” said Emma.
“Go on, sit down. You want a potato, don’t you? You could use some more meat on your bones.”
“Like I could use an extra appendix.”
“Hey, that’s rich. Extra appendix. Spuds are in the side oven; they should be about done. Get a couple out for me, too.”
As Henny Dawson tossed the salad, Emma collected their plates and took them over to the small built-in oven across the room that Henny had indicated. She extracted a potato for herself and two for her hostess, then brought them back to the table on a serving plate.
“What do you want to drink?” said Henny after a few moments of poking the veal chops with a pair of tongs, then turning them over.
“Water will be fine.”
“How ’bout a beer?”
“All right,” said Emma, feeling as if she was being tested. She had a feeling that this wasn’t the time to order milk.
“Get one for me, too. They’re right under where you found the pickles.”
Emma walked back to the refrigerator and took out two cans of Budweiser. She brought one to Henriette Dawson, who popped the top and stared at her expectantly. Emma popped the top on her own and raised the can to drink.
“Ain’t we gonna clink?”
The can was almost at Emma’s lips. Emma lowered her arm.
“Clink?”
“You know. Toast, like.”
“Sure,” said Emma, walking over and tapping her can lightly against the older woman’s.
“To sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” said Henriette Dawson and took a healthy swig. Emma followed suit, keeping an eye on her hostess, not knowing what to expect from her next. What came was a deep sigh.
“Esmond was big on clinking,” said Henriette wistfully, after wiping her lips with her sleeve. “With him it was usually champagne glasses. He was one stuffy old bird, let me tell you. I used to tease him, make him clink beer cans, try to keep him from taking h
imself too serious-like. Don’t have nobody to clink with anymore.”
An odd, unreadable sadness descended over her hatchet face for a moment, then she glanced at the stove and perked up again.
“I think the chops are about done. Bring your plate.”
Emma took two from the table and brought them over.
Henny Dawson put chops and salad on each, and they sat down at the table. Emma followed her lead, picking up a steaming potato and juggling it between burning fingertips over to her plate, then cutting a small piece of meat and raising it to her lips,
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” said Mrs. Dauber suddenly, putting down her fork the instant Emma had put hers into her mouth.
“What?” said Emma, caught with her mouth full of veal. She had never heard anyone actually use that expression before and couldn’t image what emergency it portended.
“I forgot the ketchup,” declared Henny.
“I’ll get it,” said Emma, chewing, rising. “Where is it?”
“In the icebox. Thanks.”
In a moment Emma returned with the bottle, which Henriette Dawson opened and drenched her meat with.
“Want some?” she said, offering the bottle.
“Sure,” said Emma, wondering if this, too, was some kind of test. She poured a little pool next to her meat and dunked a morsel as if she had been doing it all her life. To her surprise it wasn’t a bad combination.
“So why you want to know about Esmond’s stuff?” asked Henny after polishing off a few enormous mouthfuls.
Emma hurried to finish chewing before answering.
“There was a golden dragon of his that was auctioned in the sale a few weeks ago,” she said finally. “A kind of whistle. My grandfather had one just like it that was stolen, and I’m trying to help the police.”
“Hey, that’s the same thing that that Frenchie came here about,” said Henriette, after taking a sip from her can of beer. “Popular little articles, these dragon things.”
“A Frenchman?” exclaimed Emma and put down her fork. “A Frenchman came here asking about the dragon? When was this?”
The Girl Who Remembered the Snow Page 23