The Deal (18 page)

Moving full steam ahead, I decided to split the screen into two windows. This way my eyes could bounce back and forth between text and actual images of the imperial treasures. From the first antique that came up on the right side of the screen, Coronation Egg, I was immediately reminded of what was most interesting, beyond all of the history and accolades, about all of the Fabergé eggs. Their striking beauty. Just like when I had first laid my eyes on Danish Jubilee Egg, Coronation Egg had me captivated. This particular egg, larger than any previous and dated 1897, had an enameled, translucent yellow surface of golden starbursts—said by some to be inspired by the empress’s gold robe worn at her coronation—so appealing, so lustrous, it appears as a giant piece of hard lemon candy that would pleasantly melt in your mouth. To finish off the overall feel of the piece, bands of laurel spun from gold diagonally crisscross the starburst field. Black, double-headed imperial eagles appear at each gold band’s intersection, each sporting a small pink diamond on his chest. The surprise within the egg is a highly detailed, incredibly proportioned miniature coronation coach less than four inches long that in and of itself took fifteen months to fabricate. As for the coach’s interior, red and blue enamels were used to re-create the upholstery of the original coach as to not leave even one detail open-ended. The wheel rims were done in platinum and the windows with etched rock crystal; all the wheels moved, all the doors opened, and there was even a tiny step-stair. Coronation Egg, like Danish Jubilee Egg, astonished me by its brilliance. I truly could have stared at the picture until the sun came up.

I snapped myself from my dreamy little funk and looked for the most important information, the tidbits that in fact authenticated Coronation Egg, before continuing on. The information was right there in the description: MP (Perkhin), crossed anchors (St. Petersburg), and fifty-six zolotniks (14-karat gold).

I knew I should stuff as much information into my brain as possible, but I found it hard to resist the temptation to keep looking at more of the eggs before returning to the text. I minimized the window on the left, expanded the window on the right back to the full size of the monitor, and continued to scroll down. Some of the eggs, Lilies of the Valley Egg, Gold Pelican Egg, I vaguely remembered from the coffee-table books, while others like Peter the Great Egg and Memory of Azov Egg, I didn’t recall whatsoever. Like one of my girlfriends walking by Luca Luca’s store on Madison Avenue only to see the new spring dresses on display, my eyes were happily transfixed. For just as it is documented, as the years progressed so did the magnificence, creativity, and boldness of the eggs.

At 4:11 I kissed Neo’s belly and headed for my bedroom closet. Once there I swooped in on the boot acting as a safe house for Danish Jubilee Egg, removed the black leather box, and went back out to the bedroom. I sat down on the bed and placed the black leather box in front of me. I went to open it, but just before I touched it decided that since this examination would involve actually handling the item, as opposed to just ogling it in the case, I needed protection against leaving prints. So I hit the closet again, opened a drawer that contained somewhere between five and ten pairs of winter gloves, and took out the thinnest ones, a black leather pair from Coach.

I repositioned myself on the bed, carefully opened the box, and, in an act I found both soothing and alarming, extracted Danish Jubilee Egg. I held the antique up in front of my face. Even though her strong, bantam beauty was enough to permeate the darkness, I still couldn’t see the information at the center of my search. So I turned on one of end table’s halogen lamps.

Searching for the critical markings, I looked again at the egg’s base. And there they were.

Fifty-six zolotniks, which meant 14-karat gold. Crossed anchors for St. Petersburg, the location of origin.

My eyes kept going, looking for the head workmaster’s initials. I couldn’t remember what the two guys’ names were. I thought, MW, H.P, M.W.

Perkhin and Wigstrom. The two sets of initials were MP and HW. But it didn’t matter.

No MP. No HW.

No initials whatsoever.

Chapter 20

The following morning, Saturday, I headed out into the still resting city. The time was 5:02
a.m
. The warm, fleeting breeze felt soothing as I hailed a cab. Danish Jubilee Egg was resting safely in its case, which in turn was neatly concealed in the half-empty Dunkin’ Donuts box I was carrying.

Since returning from Pangaea some four hours earlier I had done nothing but read up on Fabergé eggs then sat on my terrace with Neo and a baseball bat taking the occasional snort of a bump or hit of a joint. The thought of turning the egg over to the police entered my mind, but I admit only briefly. They would never believe my story, and I couldn’t risk that no one from the party would remember Robie Hart. I simply would have come off as an accomplice who’d suddenly grown a conscience. Besides, like I said earlier, for me the cops weren’t even an option. Someone in my own history had made sure of that. So as much as I wanted the egg near, I needed to make sure it was safe.

After a quick cab ride up to 77th between Park and Madison, I hurriedly pushed my key into the front door of my father’s four-story brownstone, which was passed down to him from my grandfather. I punched in the alarm code, shut and locked the door behind me then stepped into the main foyer.

To my left was the dining room, a boxy, high-ceilinged enclave with a long, golden oak table and an overly elaborate crystal chandelier. There were two Waterford candlesticks on the table, as well as a couple of others that matched a set atop the credenzas and
buffets around the room’s perimeter. The walls were covered with a cream-colored paper that contained vertically interspersed vines of soft, beige velvet. On the ground, in front of the head of the table’s chair and slightly off to the left, was a buzzer that sounded only in the kitchen to summon the waitstaff.

To my right was the main living room, or as my father liked to call it “The Parlor.” I took a few steps toward it and stopped in the doorway. The room was warm, rich. It had red-based, Far Eastern rugs covering most of the dark, Brazilian cherry wood-paneled floor and big, beautiful couches and loveseats made of thick yet soft auburn leather. The main coffee table had a brass base and a black-and-white marbled granite top, and matched the many end tables that were at all times, this moment included, adorned with an assortment of ceramic and glass vases full of fresh flowers exploding with color. The walls were spotted with an eclectic array of framed artworks from limited edition Maxfield Parrish and Andy Warhol prints to the haunting moonlit paintings of Ralph Albert Blakelock, one of which hung slightly off center over the fireplace. To my immediate left, snug against the center of the western wall, was a black Bombay-style three-drawer chest with a burnt orange latticework design. The complete works of Shakespeare, all thirty-seven plays, one hundred fifty-four sonnets, and miscellaneous verse stood on top held upright by simple bronze bookends. Next to them was an amber, lacquered porcelain lamp with a silk shade. Aside from anything to do with money, spending it or making it, these books were the only thing I ever remember my father reading. He loved them. So I loved them. So much, in fact, I was a Shakespeare legend with my friends in high school. The small, rare olive green antique books were lined up in the order they were written. On a few occasions I’d asked my father why he cared for the books the way he did. He always gave the same answer. “Someone we both know told me they’re the perfect study in human nature.” My mother, I figured. In the far corner was an old Steinway & Sons grand piano that I was told ever since I was a boy to stay away from. On top of the piano sat Pop’s prized collection of antique cigar humidors.

Once I had removed Danish Jubilee Egg’s box from the larger, less sturdy one, which I dropped off in the kitchen, I headed up the house’s central staircase to the second floor. As I ascended in the darkness my eyes caught traces of the Ia (pronounced ee-uh) originals lining the wall next to me, drawings of wild animals done with the most intensely obsessive, almost Rain Man-like, detail. Each, whether it was a zebra or a tiger or a puma, was simply gray charcoal strokes on white paper. There were four separate pieces, and each was so lifelike, so ready to jump off the wall, it was almost startling. Even in the darkness the different animals’ eyes were struggling to show an emotion, a story. My father, so I had been told, had come across Ia in his European travels around the time I was a young boy. The artist’s work has been lining the townhouse’s staircase ever since.

All of the common area floors were hardwood, so I was doing my best to be as quiet as I could. Once on the second floor, I headed straight for Pop’s study. The room had a creaky, old door, so I decided to leave it open. My steps were no longer a concern since I was now on brown carpet. As I went for the desktop lamp, paranoia again grabbed hold of me and I began to ponder someone waiting for me outside, surveying the house. If this was in fact the case, they already knew I was inside. A light would give them not only my location, but the location of the egg.

I continued to navigate using only the predawn light. The room was in the same style of my own study, which made sense since I had copied most of it. The back wall was carefully speckled with framed photos of him and my mother, most of them black-and-white. On his desk a sterling silver Tiffany cup held some of his Writers Edition Mont Blanc pens, limited edition writing instruments crafted to honor some of history’s greatest authors. It also contained a letter opener and a hand-held magnifying glass I’d never seen him touch. The pens are some of the finest in the world, and the only ones Pop ever liked to use. He always had one or two with him. They would bounce back and forth between his home study and his office. That morning I remember being able to see the sterling silver “snake” clip of Agatha Christie’s 1920’s-style tribute as well as the marbled, midnight blue cap of the pen designed for Edgar Allan Poe. Alexandre Dumas was there in the Tiffany cup that morning also, as was Dostoevsky.

On both sides of the pictures the walls were lined with bookshelves. Of the ones to the left, on a lower, out-of-the-way shelf, the last twelve books were attached to one another. They swung forward and out like some tiny door, exposing a 13"

13"

13" padlocked wall safe. It was nothing crazy, just something large enough to safely store cash, documents, jewelry, Fabergé Easter eggs, things that were home for assorted reasons as opposed to the safety deposit box at the bank. The safe had been installed by my father before I was even born. Even though only the two of us knew the combination, we changed it annually for safe measure. This year, my choice, it was 034050. The numbers, in order, of Stephon Marbury, Kurt Thomas, and Mike Sweetney, the only three Knicks worth shit for the future.

I knelt and slowly turned the dial to the appropriate numbers. The safe opened. The main chamber was empty aside from two watches, a gold Rolex Presidential and a gold Patek Philippe 10 Day, and two nice stacks of cash. I say main chamber because this is the true beauty of this safe: The rear, interior wall hides a second chamber. All it takes is a push on that rear wall, and it slowly comes forward from the top down.

After a quick push, the important goods were revealed. A stack of documents that are rarely touched and my father’s “serious” watches: An F. P. Journe and a Vacheron Constantin, each a tourbillion valued at more than a hundred grand, and an old, silver Audemars that was a gift from my mother and the spark behind my theory on the untouchable Seamaster. When I was young, before he would dismiss my asking to see the watch altogether, he would say, “A good woman asked me, not you, to look after it.” I figured from then on, like the Audemars, the Seamaster was a gift from my mother. Only the Seamaster, which he wore often, must have been engraved with something sentimental unlike the Audemars, which hardly ever moved. I never knew where he kept the Seamaster. It was never in the safe.

I placed my hands inside and dropped off the goods. I put the rear wall back into place. As I went to reclose the thick steel box, a voice emerged from thin air.

“What are you doing?”

“Fuck, Dad!” I jumped back.

“Relax there little girl.”

“I didn’t hear you coming.”

He noticed, even though the safe was now shut, that the door was still open.

“It’s not even five-thirty. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s just fine.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Jonah. What are you putting in there?”

“Nothing. Signed tennis ball.”

“Signed what?”

“Tennis ball. Andy Roddick, the kid who won the U.S. Open last year. I met him when I was out last night, and he signed a tennis ball for me. Anyway, I didn’t want Neo to get ahold of it.”

“So you woke up at five to bring it up here?”

“Please, Pop. I’m up because I never went to sleep. The rest of the donuts I just ate for dinner are in the kitchen for your breakfast. Anyway, don’t sweat it. Go back to bed.”

Pop didn’t move. He wasn’t buying the story.

“I know how you go out. And it’s not wearing jeans like some goddamned bum.”

He was fully onto me. But I couldn’t drop the lie now, for his sake.

“What? I’m not allowed to go out casual?”

I opened the safe. He started to come closer. As the door swung back I stepped away making room for him. He kneeled down to have a look inside. Before reaching in, he looked at me.

“Unbelievable,” I said. “I put on a pair of jeans, two hundred and thirty bucks by the way, and my credibility goes flying out the window.”

Pop reached in and pulled out a tennis ball. The red autograph read Andy Roddick, only it had been signed by me. I brought it as a line of defense against him asking what was up. I didn’t want to bullshit my father, but this was the last crap I wanted or needed him involved in. The less he knew, the better. Safe in its rightful case, Danish Jubilee Egg was tucked away inconspicuously under Pop’s documents in the second chamber. The same pile of papers that hadn’t been touched in what seemed like my whole life.