The Faberge Egg Read Online Free PDF Page A

think like that. He must assume that they were alive and focus more fully on the task of rescuing them than on anything he had ever done before.
    “Operator, this is an emergency,” McGuffin said. “I must have the number and the address of Klaus Vandenhof. He last lived on Marin Hill Drive somewhere near San Rafael.”
    “I’m sorry,” the operator said after a moment. “That number is unlisted.”
    “But you do have a Klaus Vandenhof?”
    “Yes, sir, we do.”
    “Then listen carefully,” McGuffin instructed. “I’m calling from San Francisco Suicide Watch. I just got off the phone with Mr. Vandenhof. He’s taken some pills. He was trying to give me his address when he passed out. Please give me that address so I can send an ambulance.”
    “I don’t have a San Francisco Suicide Watch listed among approved emergency services, sir,” the operator informed him in a singsong voice.
    “We’re a brand-new voluntary organization, fully endorsed by the AMA and the mayor’s office. Give me that address before it’s too late.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed -”
    “Do you want his death on your conscience?” McGuffin interrupted.
    “No, sir, I don’t.”
    “Then give me the address!”
    “I’m sorry, sir, I cannot give out that information. However, I can send an ambulance to that address if you’d like.”
    “I don’t want -!” McGuffin shouted, halting abruptly. “Which ambulance?”
    “Marin General,” she replied.
    “Go ahead, send the ambulance,” McGuffin said.
    He dropped the phone in the cradle and sprang for the door. He was running full tilt down the main deck, between the lighted offices, when Elmo Bellini appeared at the end of the corridor, hands outstretched.
    “McGuffin, stop!” he shouted.
    “Not now!” McGuffin shouted back.
    When Elmo lunged, McGuffin caught him with a stiff-arm to the chest, sprawling him backwards, head over heels.
    “You’re fired!” Elmo shouted, as McGuffin disappeared out the door and down the gangplank.
    McGuffin ran along the Embarcadero, then wove across the street between flashing headlights, halting finally at the service station on the corner where he always parked.
    “Quick, my car!” he gasped to the young man behind the desk reading a comic book.
    Alarmed by his customer’s urgency, the kid moved quickly. He had to move two cars out of the way before he was able to bring McGuffin’s to the front door. With orchestrated efficiency, the kid slipped out of the front seat, and McGuffin slipped in, passing the kid a $5 bill in the transaction. He leaned on the horn and pulled his battered car out into the Embarcadero traffic ahead of a trail of blue smoke, scattering cars right and left. He sped along the edge of San Francisco Bay, then turned onto Marina Boulevard and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.
    At the bridge, McGuffin plunged the car into a wall of dense fog, then proceeded slowly across the bay to Marin County. The outgoing lanes were crowded with revelers returning to the suburbs after a night on the town, while the fog-shrouded headlights in the incoming lanes were few and far between. He switched the windshield wipers on and glimpsed the moon glowing wet and dim through the fog billowing from under the bridge like steam from a boiling bay. When he left the bridge, the fog disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving a dry moon hanging from the sky above Sausalito. McGuffin glanced at his watch and decided it was time to make the phone call.
    “Sausalito,” McGuffin whispered sibilantly as he turned at that exit. He was thinking of Jack Kerouac’s line at first hearing of the place - “There must be a lot of Italians living there.” McGuffin didn’t know about the Italians, but he knew that an Irish detective and his beautiful bride had once lived there. On a houseboat, of all places. She had insisted that McGuffin give up his apartment on Russian Hill after their marriage and move onto her “Art Barge,” as