The Faberge Egg by Robert Upton Page A

the contents of Miles Dwindling’s old trunk, hoping to find a previously insignificant but now meaningful clue as to the whereabouts of the Fabergé egg. He turned Miles’ magical mystery bag upside down, strewing his burglary tools, disguise kit, and false credentials across the deck with everything else, then went carefully through each file, hoping to find a key or claim check or something that would lead him to the egg. It was almost noon when he returned to the wheelhouse, with nothing to show for his effort except the faded, framed photograph of the little girl with Shirley Temple curls. He propped the picture on his desk and began phoning his contacts, some legitimate, some not so legitimate, in the hope that one of them could lead him to Miles Dwindling’s daughter.
    “Her name, if she hasn’t married and changed it, is Ivey Dwindling, and she’s probably in her early thirties,” McGuffin informed his man at the Chronicle who occasionally earned one or two U.S. Grants for the performance of such services. He gave him the names of both her parents, as well as the last known address of her mother, then phoned the same information to his moles at the county clerk’s office, the Federal Building, the telephone company, PG&E, and the San Francisco Police Department.
    “Miles Dwindling,” Sullivan the cop repeated. “Wasn’t he the private you used to work for who got fuckin’ hammered about ten years ago?”
    “More like twenty,” McGuffin corrected.
    “Time flies. What the fuck you want with his daughter?”
    “Just find her, and you’ve made five hundred,” McGuffin said.
    “Big fuckin’ deal,” Sullivan said, then hung up the phone.
    Soon after placing the last call, there was a loud knock on the wheelhouse door. “Who is it?”
    “Elmo,” his landlord called. “Let me in.”
    “Not now, Elmo, I’m busy.”
    “So am I, so open up right now.”
    “No.”
    “If you don’t open the door, you’re gonna be in a lot of trouble,” the architect warned.
    “I’m already in a lot of trouble,” McGuffin replied. “So if you don’t mind, let’s do this some other time.”
    “I can get a court order, you know.”
    “But you won’t because that would mean hiring a lawyer, and we both know you’re too tight for that.”
    “Okay, Amos, you asked for it. I tried to do this in a nice way, like two civilized people, but I see that won’t work with you.”
    “Elmo, there is nothing civilized about throwing a man out of his home and office - especially when he’s in the condition I’m in,” McGuffin informed him testily.
    “On the sauce again, eh?” Elmo sniffed.
    “No, I’m not on the sauce. And if you don’t get the hell away from my door right now, you’re going to have to add assault and battery to your evict action.”
    “I’m going, but I’ll be back. And when I get back you’d better be gone,” Elmo warned.
    McGuffin listened as the sound of Elmo’s leather heels on the deck faded and disappeared. Then he got to his feet, went into the bathroom, and quickly showered and shaved. He slipped one leg into his brown tweed pants, remembered that the matching jacket was now dog food, and stepped back out. He threw the pants in the corner with the shredded jacket and selected another suit, also brown tweed. It was never a conscious decision, but somehow all of his suits and sport coats were brown. Dressed in his new suit and looking much the same as usual, McGuffin started for the door, then stopped and returned to the desk. He removed Ivey Dwindling’s photograph from the frame and dropped it into the right-hand pocket of his coat, where he usually kept his gun. He supposed he would have to buy another one.
    Ivey Dwindling’s last known address was a large frame house in the Avenues, not far from the Pacific Ocean. McGuffin glided to a stop directly across the street and peered at the building through the fog blowing in from the sea. What was once a one-family house was now a