“Synchronicity,” declared Big Ed, leaning forward and fixing her with his big earnest puppy-dog eyes.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Synchronicity. It's like fate, see? Only more scientific. You know how sometimes you're thinking about somebody and the phone rings and it's that very person? Or you hear some funny word in a conversation and for the rest of the day you keep running into it?”
“Yes?”
“Well, that's synchronicity. Happens all the time. Happens to everybody. And that's what we got here, our running into each other like this again so soon. At least that's what I think. But if you think I'm some kind of masher, hell, I'm out of here.”
The big salesman rose to his feet and reached for his hat. He looked like an abandoned cocker spaniel. An abandoned cocker
spaniel the size of a refrigerator. Emma couldn't stand it. She leaned across the table and grabbed his sleeve.
“Sit down, Ed,” she said.
“I'm not staying if you think I'm some kind of wacko.”
“I'm sorry. I'm sure you're not a wacko. I've been under a lot of stress lately.”
Ed settled back into his chair.
“It's okay, I guess. You still upset about your grandfather, aren't you?”
Emma nodded. She had mentioned Pépé's recent death to Ed the night they had spent drinking together in Phoenix, but not the circumstances.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“It's okay, honey,” said Ed. “You're right to be careful. Pretty girl like you. Big ole ugly Chevy salesman you barely know. And this is a little weird, our meeting down here like this. Tell you what ⦔
Ed reached into his back pocket a took out a fat wallet. He extracted a business card and passed it to Emma.
“ ⦠if you're feeling nervous, you call Mamma at the lot. Now she might not be the most impartial person in the world, but she's honest as an apple. Honest Big Muriel, they call her. She might try to sell you a Chevy, but she ain't gonna lie to you about me.”
“It's all right, Ed,” said Emma, uncomfortable. “I'm sure you're telling the truth.”
“No, no, no,” said Ed. “If you have any doubts, you call Big Muriel. She knows all about the psychiatrist, she'll set you straight. Now you put that card in your pocket, you hear?”
Emma slid his business card in the pocket of her blouse.
“Look,” said Ed, making as serious a face as Emma had ever seen him manage. “This obviously isn't a good time for us to get caught up. How 'bout you having dinner with me tonight?”
“Thanks, but I'm kind of tired.”
“I'm really not trying to press my attentions on you, Emma honey, I swear to God. I'm just a long way from home, and it's nice to find a friend.”
“Look, Ed ⦔
“You're a long from home, too, you know. Maybe you could use a friend, too. So how âbout lunch tomorrow? I'm not seeing Dr. Jose until three o'clock. What do you say?”
“I don't know,” said Emma.
“Dinner tomorrow, then. Please, Emma honey? You don't want to ruin my self-confidence, do you? How am I ever going to find that little lady of my dreams if I have to go through life knowing that you think I'm some kind of nut?”
“All right.” Emma laughed, shaking her head. “I'll have dinner with you.”
“Great,” said Ed. “Why don't you meet me in the hotel restaurant at seven? The food's pretty good here, they tell me.”
“Fine,” said Emma. “Maybe I'll go upstairs now, if you don't mind. I am a little tired.”
“Sure. Tomorrow night, remember.”
“I'll remember.”
Big Ed was on his feet before Emma was, holding her chair, waving away the pesos she offered to pay for her drink.
Back in her room Emma sat down on the bed and reached into her pocket. Ed's business card was baby-blue with the Chevy logo in black superimposed over the image of a car in white. The address and phone number for Buena Vista Motors was in Phoenix. Ed had given her a card just like it when they had met the first time. She had left that one back at the house in San Francisco. The house she would never see again.
Emma picked up the telephone, glanced at the instruction card for phoning the United States, and began dialing the number for Buena Vista Motors. Then she hung up.
If Ed had given her a card with a phone number and encouraged her to call, there surely would be someone who would answer,
someone who would say that she had reached Buena Vista Motors. Calling would tell Emma nothing: certainly Big Ed's motherâor someone claiming to beâwould give him a good reference.
Emma picked up the phone again and dialed international information for Phoenix.
“Do you have a listing for Buena Vista Motors in Phoenix?” she asked.
After a moment, a electronic voice responded with the phone number, which matched the number printed on Big Ed's business card.
Emma hung up the phone, walked to the window and looked out at the ocean. All her life she had looked out over an ocean, but the Pacific off San Francisco was usually cold and choppy and austere. Here the part of the Atlantic that cradled the Caribbean islands seemed warm, calm, benevolent. Her grandfather's ashes rested in the ocean back home. A golden dragon had emerged from the placid waters here, waters that could also rear up in a hurricane and destroy everything in their path.
There really was such a thing as coincidence, Emma knew. There were such things as synchronicity and fate as well. If Big Ed wasn't who and what he said he was, then he had gone to a great deal of trouble. The letter. The photograph. The directory listing for Buena Vista Motors. And who could make up a name like Dr. Jose Jacinto Gautreau-Godoy? Ed's explanation was all very reasonable.
Only Emma didn't believe it.
Emma dialed international information again and got phone numbers for five other Chevrolet dealers in Phoenix. No one at the first four numbers was familiar with Buena Vista Motors or any Garalacheks, big or otherwise. At the fifth number she reached Marv Hopperman.
“I'm not one of those car dealers who needs all kinds of gimmicks, Miss Passant,” he said in a smooth drawl. “I don't have to
tell folks I'm Mighty Marv or Honest Marvin or Marv-who's-going-to-come-to-your-house-and-barbecue-a-steer. No, ma'am. I've just been in the business of selling good cars to good people since 1969, and I will tell you for a fact that this Garalachek fella is pulling your leg. I'm the biggest Chevy dealer in Phoenix and I know all the others, I promise you. I never heard of this Buena Vista Motors. Where is it supposed to be located?”
“At 15983 Alameda Boulevard,” said Emma weakly, looking at Big Ed's business card.
“Well, there you have it. The fifteen-thousand block of Alameda is right around the corner from here. Vince Capaletti is the only car dealer anywhere near thereâsells Ford Lincoln Mercuryâand he's half a mile up the road. Now what kind of vehicle are you interested in, Miss Passant? Maybe I can help you out.”
Emma freed herself from the sales pitch and hung up the phone. The next instant she was digging through drawers, frantically throwing clothes into her suitcase. Maybe there was some good explanation for there being no Buena Vista Motors in Phoenix, for Ed Garalachek turning up in San Marcos. Emma had no intention of sticking around to find out what it was, however. She had to get out of there. Now.
It was only after Emma had packed that she stopped, sat on her knees, forced herself to breathe slowly and listen to her head, not her racing heart.
The most important thing was to remain calm, she told herself. Whatever was going on, whatever Big Ed was up to, panic would only hurt her chances of escaping. Emma didn't know if Ed would still be downstairs, but seeing her come through the lobby with a pair of suitcases was a sure tipoff that she was wise to him.
Emma went through the closet and removed the black gabardine jacket she had hung up to unwrinkle. She stuffed a clean bra and a pair of panties into the pockets, then went into the bathroom
and put her toothbrush and toiletries into her big leather purse. Then she scribbled a note on hotel stationery requesting that the hotel send her suitcases to Charlemagne Moussey's office in San Francisco at her expense. The hotel had taken an imprint of her credit card when she had checked in, so Emma doubted they would mind her leaving without formally checking out. The room would cost nearly three times as much if she paid on her card rather than in cash, but there was no point in worrying about that now.
After taking a final look through her suitcases to ascertain that she hadn't forgotten anything she couldn't live without, Emma put the room key, the note, and twenty pesos for the maid on the bedstand. Then she put the purse over her shoulder, tossed the gabardine jacket over her arm, and went downstairs, directly to the front desk.
“I have something in the hotel safe that I'd like to get,” she said quietly to the clerk, who took her behind the counter. Emma opened her box, put her passport, checkbook, and money into her purse, and emerged from behind the desk to find herself face-toface with Big Ed.
“We meet again,” said Ed, smiling from ear to ear. “I thought you was tired.”
“I was,” said Emma, returning the smile, though inside she was screaming. “Sometimes, though, I get so tired that only one thing can relax me.”
“Oh? What's that?”
“Shopping.”
“Hey, if you need some company ⦔
“Thanks, Ed, but there are some things that a girl must buy alone, if you know what I mean. And they're not Chevrolets.”
“Sure, sure” said Ed, turning lobster-red. “Of course. Can I get you a cab?”
Emma followed his glance to the battered cars with taxicompany
emblems that were parked outside the glass entrance doors of the hotel. Would it be possible to trace where they had dropped passengers?
“Thanks, but I think I'll walk.”
She started for the doors. Ed sprang in front of her and opened them for her.
“What you need a jacket for? It's hotter than hell out there.”
“I plan ahead,” she said. “I get carried away when I shop sometimes. I might be gone awhile, and it gets cold here in the evenings. Thanks, Ed. See you tomorrow night.”
“Seven o'clock, right? The restaurant here.”
“Right.”
She left him standing at the door and walked briskly through the parking lot and out the gates. Only when Emma was on the sidewalk by the street did she glance back. There was no sign of the big Chevy salesmanâor whatever he really was.
At the end of the hotel property was the usual group of tour guides and money changers, all of whom started yelling at once as she approached. Neither Timoteo or Changee Money was anywhere in the crowd. Emma selected the quietest and shortest man, the one who looked least likely to cut her throat.
“Do you speak English?” she asked, getting into the man's battered old Chevrolet, trying not to think of the synchronicity of it.
“Si, si,” he said eagerly. “Where you want go? Tour of city? Old fort? Central market?”
“Take me to the airport,” Emma whispered, thinking of a little Frenchman with rosy cheeks who had smuggled a golden dragon away from these islands thirty years ago and had maybe died because of it.
The car lurched into traffic. Emma sat back, closed her eyes. The picture of another Frenchman suddenly filled her mindâa tall, handsome man with a sad smile whom she had known for only a few hours. She had made a promise to him, not so long ago. It was time to keep it.
Â
Â
“
R
oom service,” declared the metallic voice on the other end of the line.
“Room three-oh-five,” Emma said, sleepily. “Continental breakfast. Lots of coffee. Hot. Strong. Thanks.”
Emma rubbed her eyes and concluded her yawn. Light streamed into the small, cozy room from three narrow windows. The bed on which she lay was large, the mattress firm. The walls were as fancy as the French-style furniture, all aswirl with moldings and brass fittings, but then this room had been built in a gilded age when artisans had worked for pennies and ruthless men had raised monuments to wealth, unencumbered by income taxes or conscience.
This was the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Emma had promised Henri-Pierre Caraignac that she would stay at the Plaza the next time she came to New York, and now she had kept her word. Henri-Pierre, however, wouldn't be showing her around the city as he had offered.
After fleeing Big Ed at the Casimente yesterday, Emma had
managed to get a seat on a late-afternoon flight to New York. It was after eight o'clock by the time she had cleared customs at Kennedy and walked outside into the frigid night air.
“What are you, a Eskimo?” the taxi dispatcher had asked, gaping at Emma's tropical attire. “Doncha know we got December here?”
“I like to freeze.”
“What about luggage? You got luggage?”
“I travel light.”
“So where you want to go?”
“Shopping.”
“Finally she's makin' sense.”
“I don't suppose you know any place in the city that's open late?”
“What, are you kidding?” said the dispatcher, opening the door to a cab for her. “This is New York City, and there's only seventeen shopping days left until Christmas. Take the lady to Bloomie's, Mac.”
By the time she had arrived at the Plaza last night, Emma was the proud owner of a new winter coat, slacks, blouses, sweaters, and underwear. And a suitcase to carry them in. It had been strangely therapeutic to leave all her clothes in San Marcos. There would be plenty of time to worry about how much everything had cost when her credit-card bills came in. With everything new, she felt new herself, almost reborn.
Emma rolled out of the comfortable bed and picked up the room-service menu on the night table for the first time. The breakfast she had just ordered cost as much as a restaurant dinner in most cities. Emma tried not to think of it as she went off into the old-fashioned marble bathroom to brush her teeth. This was New York City, after all. If she was going to start worrying about prices while she was here, she'd soon be diving out the window.
By the time Emma had performed her ablutions and dressed, her breakfast had arrived. She let the waiter set it up on the
room's small table, signed the check and gave him a generous cash tip on his way out. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee and tried to start her brain.
It was a little after nineâstill too early to call Benno Poteet in San Francisco, where the time was three hours earlier. Emma had arrived too late last night to call as well. She wouldn't be able to relax until she had told the detective about Big Ed. What Poteet would be able to do from three thousand miles away was another matter.
The real problem was the dragon, Emma reminded herself, taking a sip of coffee, which was hot and strong. She had planned to fly back home through New York anyway to avoid another nightmare plane trip, but now she might actually be able to do something useful while she was there.
What Bernal Zuberan said had made sense: New York was a logical place to sell a unique item like the dragon, if selling it was indeed the killer's objective. Of course there were probably a dozen other places in the world that would do just as well. London. Tokyo. Even Spain or South America. Wouldn't a collector of Spanish heritage be the one most interested in such an artifact?
But this is where Pépé had come and where big auction houses were located, Emma told herself, trying to be optimistic. The killer would have every reason to believe that no one else knew that the dragon even existed, let alone that it had been stolen. Why shouldn't he just put it up for auction?
Forty minutes later Emma was downstairs at the desk, bundled up in her new red coat and a sweater against the twenty-five degree, dazzlingly bright morning.
“How do I get to Sotheby's and Christie's?” she asked the clerk behind the counterâa short, middle-aged woman with thick glasses and an impish smile.
“Sotheby's is up on Seventy-second and York, but Christie's is right down the block,” said the woman in a cheerful voice. “I go over there on my lunch hour sometimes.”
“What's it like?” Emma asked, feeling distinctly intimidated, wondering if she should call first for an appointment. This was not like her little antique stores and thrift shops in San Francisco. This was the big time.
“Oh, I love the auction houses,” said the desk clerk, oblivious to Emma's discomfort. “They're much better than museums: you can touch everything. I always check out the drawers of expensive furniture. You'd think someone would clean things like that out, but they don't always.”
“Found anything interesting?”
“Candyâmostly sour balls, which says something, I think. Combs, every last one of them full of hair, which says something else. Once I found a shopping list. âHerring, vanilla ice cream, Ajax cleanser.' This from a dresser that belonged to that big newspaper heiress. I think they poisoned her.”
“Could be.”
The clerk nodded, her impish expression turning smug.
“Another time I found twenty-seven cents in a desk that was estimated to bring sixty thousand dollars. I walked out with it. The twenty-seven cents, not the desk.”
“Good for you,” said Emma. She had expected New Yorkers to be unfriendly and glum, but so far this trip they were talkative and nice, though maybe all a little loopy.
The woman cackled with unconcealed glee, then took out a map and circled where each auction house was.
“Is Sotheby's too far away to walk?” asked Emma, studying the orderly grid of streets, trying to get her bearings.
“Not really, but you might want to take a cab if you're not used to it. We New Yorkers walk everywhere. Beautiful day. I like your hat. You look very French.”
Emma touched the navy blue beret she had gotten yesterday at Bloomie's.
“Merci,”
said Emma. “I am French.”
“Il n'y a pas de quoi,”
replied the clerk. “I'm from Pittsburgh.”
“I thought you said you were a New Yorker.”
“All real New Yorkers are from out of town,” pronounced the clerk knowingly.
Emma thanked the woman again and walked through the opulent lobby of the grand old hotel, down a red carpet and onto Fifty-ninth Street. Across the street, half a dozen horse-drawn carriages were lined up in front of Central Park, ready to take her for a rideâliterally, it seemed, from the rates printed on their placards.
By the time Emma had made her way to the corner of Fifth Avenue through the teeming throngs of pedestrians, three panhandlers had shaken plastic cups in her face for spare change. Emma's supply was exhausted by the time a fourth man, less steady on his feet, but with a happier expression on his face, had inquired if she could spare a hundred dollars.
She walked across Fifty-ninth Street, as the clerk had instructed, past Madison to Park Avenue. Christie's was right there at the corner. Somehow it was not at all what Emma had expected. Except for the two-story glass lobby and pictures of multimillion-dollar sale items in a discreet window case, it looked like all the other large, stone-faced apartment buildings lining the avenue.
A smiling doorman in a fancy navy-blue uniform was stationed outside. He tipped his hat and held the door. Emma entered and followed a thin man with a heart-shaped scar on his cheek up a short brushed-brass spiraling staircase. The man looked vaguely familiar, but Emma couldn't place him for a moment. Then she remembered. She had seen him at Bloomingdale's last night and had wondered what he was doing in the lingerie department. Perhaps he lived in the neighborhoodâBloomie's was only a block away from there.
At the top of the stairs Emma found herself in a small space with a low ceiling. There was a small gallery to the right, a much larger one to the left. A long corridor and another staircase apparently
led to other galleries. In the center of the room was an island where three nicely dressed women stood behind a counter amid a slew of glossy catalogs.
“Excuse me,” said Emma, approaching one of them, a short blonde with a pearl necklace. “I'd like to speak with someone about an antique gold ⦠ornament ⦠and chain.”
“Your name, please?”
“Emma Passant.”
“Please have a seat, Miss Passant,” said the woman, picking up a telephone. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
There was a small area with couches across from the counter. Unbuttoning her coat, Emma walked over but didn't sit down. Instead she checked out a glass-topped display case full of small silver objectsâporringers, beakers, spoons. After a few more minutes she wandered over to the entrance of the larger gallery and looked over cases full of silver teapots, trays, and tableware. According to the labels she could own a tankard made by Paul Revere, if she was willing to shell out seventy-five to eighty-five thousand dollars for the privilege.
“Miss Passant?” spoke a soft female voice.
Emma turned and found herself facing a woman about her own age, dressed in a tasteful gray suit.
“I'm Jill Boxer. You have a piece of jewelry you wish to sell?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Oh. I'm sorry. That's what I had understood. How can I help you?”
“I'm not sure,” said Emma. “I've come about a gold artifact which may have been stolen from my family.”
“Artifact?”
“It's a gold dragon. Well, it's shaped like a dragon. Or something like that. It's about three inches long and is on a long link chain. Together they weigh nearly a pound. I believe they originated with the Spanish conquistadors.”
“It sounds interesting, but I'm not sure that this sort of thing
would fall into my department,” said Ms. Boxer, smiling politely. “You say the piece was stolen?”
“I think so. I believe somebody may try to sell it. That's why I'm here. Has anyone tried to consign something like this?”
“Not that I'm aware.”
“Well, as I said, there's a chance they might.”
Ms. Boxer nodded, her professional smile showing no trace of impatience or condescension, though Emma felt increasingly foolish. She wished she had checked her coat; she was beginning to perspire.
“I'll be happy to keep my eyes open for your property and alert our legal department,” said Ms. Boxer after a pause, “but again I'm not sure this would fall into a jewelry sale. Do you have a picture?”
“No,” said Emma. “But it's very distinctive. If you blow through it, it makes a sound like a whistle.”
“I see.”
“Do you have any idea of what such an item might be worth?”
“No, not really. If it's gold, however, it will certainly have value. I'm trying to think where I could direct you. Your piece might fall into
objets de virtu
. And we do occasionally run sales of sunken treasure, though these are unusual affairs that involve several specialties. Your best bet would probably be to speak with our silver department. Unfortunately, things are a bit frantic for them right now, what with their big sale tomorrow. You might call and make an appointment to see someone in a few days.”
“I'll do that, thanks,” said Emma. There was no reason for her to feel embarrassed that she could think of, but she did nevertheless.
Ms. Boxer remained courtesy itself, not allowing Emma to escape until Emma had taken a business card and given her her room number at the Plaza and Charlemagne Moussey's address in San Francisco.
Finally Emma was down the stairs and out the door, so relieved
that she barely acknowledged the doorman's offer to get her a cab and advice to have a nice day. She was five blocks away before she had cooled down enough to button her coat against the icy air.
It was no sin to feel intimidated, Emma told herself. New York had been designed to intimidate people. The towering buildings, the fast-paced manners, the glitz and razzamatazz had been cultivated and refined over centuries specifically to separate people from their money in the most efficient manner. Though San Francisco was a sophisticated town, Emma was just another rube here. Everybody was, until he or she learned the territory.
The thought centered her, but Emma wasn't ready to tackle another auction house right away. She took out the map she had gotten at the Plaza and stood studying it for a minute, until a dazed-looking young woman wandered up and asked her if she had a dollar. No wonder people walked so fast, Emma realized, taking off in the opposite direction. Once you stopped, you became a target.