Monet Talks (23 page)

P
lease believe me, I wouldn't have dreamed of destroying an object so beautiful had I not been convinced Mama was in big, possibly even life-threatening, trouble. But even then, there had to be a way to access the space between the domes without causing a whole lot of damage. I began by trying to unscrew the outer dome, as I would a lightbulb—a lightbulb the size of a three-gallon jug.

Although the bezel-set gemstones gave me plenty of grip, I couldn't get the dang thing to budge. I may be small, but I'm pretty strong; moving heavy antiques around has given me a surprising amount of upper-body strength—well, surprising to strangers. At any rate, I gave up on Plan A before I burst a blood vein in my head, and scouted around for a magnifying glass. Since Rob is a few years closer to presbyopia than I am, it didn't take me long to find one. But alas, a careful examination of the cen
tral dome's base revealed no seam. Even if the outer dome had once been removable, that was no longer the case.

Then on to Plan B. That was a little trickier, since I had no one to hold a flashlight for me. Fortunately, the Rob-Bobs' sunporch really does catch the late morning, and early afternoon, sun. I removed the cleaning tray and turned the Taj over gently, so that it lay on its back. I was about to stick my head in when my cell phone rang. “Saved by the bell,” I said aloud. I am, after all, not fond of tight places.

Neither am I fond of folks who block their phone numbers. I knew in my gut, however, that the caller was not a telemarketer, but the person who'd stolen my mynah, and possibly even my mama.

“Hello.”

“Mrs. Washburn?”

There was something strange about the voice. It was high-pitched, but it didn't sound like a woman's voice, or even that of a little girl. Nor did it sound like a bird.

“Yes, this is she.”

“Do you love your mother, Mrs. Washburn?”

The pitch was uneven, and got lower toward the end. It sounded a lot like a man who'd just sucked helium from a balloon—like Daddy used to do at my birthday parties. That was it! The birdnapper had given up on using Monet's voice—maybe the poor bird really was baked
in a pie—and had resorted to renting a tank of helium from a party supply store. Now we were cooking with gas.

I made an effort to control my excitement. “Yes, of course I love her.”

“Then why haven't you—” He paused to suck another mouthful from the tank. “—been following my instructions?”

“Because there is no Monet painting.”

The caller was silent for a moment.

“Monet is just the bird's name,” I said. “If you really want him, you can have him. Please, just let my mama go.”

“I don't want the damn bird. I want the Monet.”

“There isn't any!” I screamed.

“The hell, you say, Abby!” The caller hadn't taken the time to inhale more helium. That definitely wasn't Mickey Mouse on the phone, but someone I knew quite well.

I gasped. “Martin Gibble, is that you?”

“You see what you made me do?”

“I didn't make you do anything, you blithering idiot.”

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill her now, Abby.”

“Mama?”

“She hasn't been anything but trouble. Hell, you should see the bruises on my shins.”

I was trembling with fear. Martin makes a bad enemy in the best of times; I had no trouble
believing that he would kill Mama if he was desperate. The trick now was to make him believe that he had a way out of the hole he had apparently dug for himself.

“What can I do to fix this, Martin?”

“The courier said the stupid bird had the info. But he was lying, Abby, wasn't he?”

“What courier?”

“Don't play games with me, Abby.”

“I'm not. Look, Martin, all I know is that I bought this beautiful cage at auction, and that it came with a bird. Whatever secrets came with it—I really don't know.”

“Is that how much you care about her, Abby? Because I'm not bluffing. I've got nothing to lose now, do I? Either you tell me, or she dies.”

My legs gave out and I sat on the floor beside the wicker coffee table. My chest felt like there was an elephant sitting on it, maybe even a tourist from Nebraska.

“Martin, listen to me. I don't know about any Monet painting, but I think there might be diamonds.”

“Speak louder, Abby. I can barely hear you.”

“Diamonds,” I yelled. “Little bits of pressurized carbon.”

“What about diamonds?”

“I think there may be some very special ones hidden inside the birdcage.”

“There's nothing hidden inside that damn cage. I already checked. I didn't just twiddle
my thumbs the night I took this sorry excuse for a bird.”

“Why didn't you just take the cage as well? Wouldn't that have been a whole lot easier? And if you wanted either of them so bad, why didn't you simply outbid me at the auction?”

“Shut up and listen, Abby.”

“I'm all ears.”

“I mean it. Don't piss me off. You do it again and your precious mama gets one chance to fly like a bird. If she can't do that—splat. All the king's horses and all the king's men aren't going to be able to put together Abby's mama again.”

“I'm listening. I really am.”

“Where was I—oh yeah, I was working late one night, doing inventory in my shop, and this guy knocks on the door. I point to the hours posted on my door, but he doesn't pay attention. Then I notice that there's something on the sidewalk behind him, something in a blanket. Maybe it's the family silver he wants to sell. That's happened before. What the heck, I think, I've got a gun in my desk drawer, so I let him in. When he schleps in the thing and uncovers it, I can hardly believe my eyes. It's a damn birdcage.”

Sometimes one can't help but interrupt. “But that day in your shop you told me to make sure Monet didn't poop in the cage. You made it sound like you thought it was the most beautiful thing to be created since a sunset.”

“Abby, Abby. You don't shut up, and you don't use what little brain you have, either. I wanted you to think it was the cage I was interested in, not the stupid bird. Now, if you don't do as I say and shut up, your precious mama will fall down and break her crown, and you'll be tumbling after.”

“I'm locking my lips and tossing away the key—uh, you didn't hear a thing; zilch, zip, nada.”

“Anyway, I ask this guy why he's trying to sell me some kitsch birdcage. First he tells me it's solid gold, but I prove right there on the spot that it isn't. Then he tells me that it's really old, and that it belonged to his grandma. But I tell him that I'm sure his grandma had bunions, too, but I'm not interested in buying them, either. So finally he says he's going to tell me the truth. I tell him it's about time, because I was fixing to call the police if he didn't get around to it real soon.

“‘No, no,' he says. ‘No police.' But I got to swear to secrecy. I tell him nothing doing. It's no skin off my back what happens. ‘Okay,' he says, and tells me that he's a courier. It's his job to smuggle things to and from the big container ships that come into harbor. I ask him how that can be, with security as tight as it is these days. He says it's not that kind of smuggling. Yeah, sure, the stuff he carries is illegal, but it's not the kind of stuff that endangers na
tional security. In fact, most of the time he has to go through security—
most
of the time.

“So then one day he has to get this bird and its cage past customs, otherwise the bird will be quarantined, maybe even confiscated. He's supposed to take them to this address in Summerville, collect his fee, and that's it. But he can't find the address, see. So he takes the bird home with him, and keeps looking—for a month. But he still can't find the address. So that's when he brings it to me. Thinks I might buy it because of the cage.”

“Which you didn't,” I said. “Oops! Sorry, Martin.”

“Yeah, but that's not all. This courier guy said he overheard the guy from the ship talking on the phone. Something about the bird being the
real
courier. There's this stolen Monet, you see, and the bird, which can talk, has the information. The painting is sitting in a warehouse someplace just waiting for someone to pick it up. All you have to do is get the bird to talk and you're worth millions.

“Of course I didn't believe any of that crap. I told the guy to get lost. Then about a year later the damn birdcage comes up for auction. Next thing I know you're bidding like there's no tomorrow. At first I'm as confused as a rubbernosed woodpecker in the Petrified Forest. Then I put two and two together. You've heard the Monet story, too, and you believe it. Well, you
outsmarted me once before, Abby. But not this time; this time I outsmarted you. I let you pay for that monstrosity of a cage. All I had to do was take the bird home with me. You do remember that it was your idea that we give each other keys, like good neighbors should, don't you?”

“I didn't intend for us to steal—”

The cell connection was interrupted by a blast of sound that made me drop the phone. I scrambled for it, but when I put the phone to my ear again there were bells. Church bells! But bells ringing at intolerable decibels, so loud that listening to them hurt my ears, forcing me to turn off my phone.

What was I to do now? Martin wanted only one thing in exchange for Mama, and that was a Monet—which I did not have. Surely he'd settle for diamonds.

I dashed back to the kitchen, where Dmitri was still chowing down on the kitty treats. The Rob-Bobs eschew everyday flatware, so it really wasn't my fault that I had to grab a sterling silver dinner knife. Besides, I was more concerned about damaging the Taj than I was about ruining a piece of Sir Christopher.

My intent was to pry the inner dome loose from the inside. To do so meant removing the bottom tray and sticking my head and shoulders into the cage. This wasn't as easy as it sounds. I may be small, but I'm a lot larger than
a mynah. Plus there were three perches to contend with, only one of which was removable. That meant weaving my body around the two remaining perches, with my arm extended above my head, knife in hand.

C.J. and I took turns keeping the Taj as clean as one of Monet's whistles. Nonetheless, the inside of the cage smelled strongly of the wrong end of a bird, and the ammonia stung my eyes. It was hard to see what I was doing, which, frankly, wasn't that much. With my free hand I felt around the base of the dome for a seam, but could find none. If I didn't find something soon, I was going to have to resort to mankind's favorite tool: the hammer.

Engrossed as I was in the task at hand, I came late to the realization that there was someone else in the room with me. In fact, I wasn't aware of that important detail until my world went black—I mean that literally. My first thought was that I'd somehow managed to hit my head hard enough to knock me out. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that something had been thrown over me. Since Dmitri has little practice throwing blankets, I jumped straight to the conclusion that Martin Gibble was the culprit.

I was not about to go peacefully into that good night, blanket or not. Martin, curse his evil little heart, was going to get the fight of his life. My first order of business was to extricate
myself from the cage. This was by no means a straightforward task, as both my clothes and my hair had become enmeshed in the fine filigree of the cage. While I struggled to free myself, I thrashed my legs and screamed at the top of my lungs.

But I was no match for Martin, who grabbed my legs and pinned them down by sitting on them. He then threw the weight of his upper body against the cage, effectively immobilizing me. Strangely, he smelled of a women's perfume.

“Get off of me you glob of glutinous guano!”

“Abby, is that you?”

“C.J.?”

“Ooh, Abby, I thought that was you, but I couldn't be sure on account of I only saw the back of your head. So I got this comforter from the master bedroom and—”

“C.J.! Off of me—
now
! And get that comforter off me, too.”

Daylight returned. “All right, but you don't have to get so huffy.”

Irritation and relief battled for my emotions, relief winning by just a hair. “C.J., help me out of this thing, will you?”

“Sure thing, Abby.”

I got exactly what I asked for. The big galoot made short shrift of the task by virtually yanking the Taj off over my head. Bits of DNA and
fiber samples remained, intriguing clues for future generations of anthropologists.

“C.J.,” I said when I was through moaning, “what are you doing here?”

“I just got back from seeing your brother, Abby. I was driving down King Street headed for the shop, and I saw the Rob-Bobs walking. They never walk anywhere, Abby, so I stopped and asked them what they were doing. They said they were looking for you. Why are you missing, Abby?”

“I'm not—I'm here.”

“Right. So anyway, I volunteer to go to your house to look for you, and Rob asks me to swing by here and put a roast beef sandwich from Subway in the refrigerator for him. Boy, did that make Bob mad. He went on and on about how restaurant food didn't deserve a place next to his rhea roulade. Finally, I just took off, but I had to backtrack on account of there's a big wedding at St. Philip's. Ooh, Abby, you should have heard those bells.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I stood up to keep them company.

“Maybe I did.”

“Abby, you might have seen stars when I tackled you, but I don't think you heard any bells. What were you doing inside the birdcage anyway?”

Maybe I did hear bells—the bells of St.
Philip's! Those references to Mama falling down and breaking her crown, and having one chance to fly like a bird…St. Philip's Episcopal Church was only a hop, skip, and a jump from the spot where Mama had disappeared. And its steeple was a real cloud-poker. It was only a hunch, but as my friend Magdalena is fond of saying, “a hunch from a woman is worth two facts from a man.”