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mma 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 queasyânot at all ready for a heavy lunchâEmma 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 apartmentâor 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 pictureâand 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 hairâthe 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 refrigeratorâa 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, neitherâexcept 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 himself 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?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“Who was he?”
“The fellow who bought it at the auction. Sat right there where you are and had steak and eggs with meâsometimes you need good old American comfort food, if you know what I mean. He
wanted to know the âpro-ven-ance' as he put it. Had some fancy name I can't remember.
“Henri-Pierre Caraignac,” whispered Emma, her mind reeling. Henri-Pierre had had the dragon all along!
“Henry Caraignac,” said Henny with her mouth full. “That's it. You know him?”
“I met him once. But I didn't know him. I didn't know him at all.”
“Too bad. Real nice fella. Easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean. Promised to come back and see me sometime.”
“He won't.”
“Yeah? Why not? I may not be much to look at, but I know what men like and I got plenty of itâmy butcher supplies the best steak houses in town.”
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Dawson ⦠Henny. Henri-Pierre Caraignac is dead.”
Henny stopped chewing and stared at Emma.
“You're kidding,” she said after a moment.
“I wish I were. He was murdered last week in San Francisco.”
Henriette Dauber finished chewing in silence, then cut herself another piece of meat and ate that, too. Then she put down her silverware and pushed herself away from the table.
“Jesus,” she said angrily. “What a world we got here. Nice young man like that. It's a cryin' shame.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. There was nothing to say.
“Were you able to help him?” Emma asked finally.
The older woman didn't answer. She cut herself another small piece of meat and pushed it around the ketchup on her plate. Emma ate a few bites of salad in silence.
“I'm sorry,” said Henny after a moment. “I don't like to hear about young people dying. Makes me kind of sick. I been off my feed a lot lately, what with this AIDS thing. My stockbroker died from it this past summer, he was only thirty-six. I visited him a
few times in the hospital and it was depressing as all shit. But it wasn't like somebody murdered him intentionally. Did they catch the guy who did it? To Henry Caraignac?”
“No.”
“Figures. It's enough to make you want to holler.”
“Were you able to give Henri-Pierre the information he wanted?”
“Yeah, sure,” grunted Henny. “Esmond liked paper almost as much as he liked gold. I got a dozen notebooks full of bills of sale, all cataloged. I let the Frenchman go through them and he found the one for this dragon thing right away.”
“May I see it?”