“Truth is, I got sorta obsessed with this necklace. Just holding the box made my whole body feel warm, made me happier than anything. Not like a high or nothing. Like when Laura and I were little and having a picnic on Father Donny’s farm, petting the foals and eating sandwiches and strawberry shortcake. Like I was riding on the clouds.” Jeffrey looked up at me, his eyes pleading. “You know what I mean?”
I did. Totally. I wasn’t a faerie for nothing.
He wasn’t exactly an alchemist, but he definitely had some level of sensitivity to magic. Otherwise, he’d never have felt this way about the jewel—the dragon egg. A human with no talent for magic would have just treated it like any other jewel, no matter how beautiful.
And I had to be grateful that the man who’d obtained the egg just so happened to be sensitive enough to have some idea of its true value. If your average pickpocket had found the necklace, the egg would have vanished into the darkness of New York, washed up in the sewers of God knows where.
“So how does Richard Diefenbaker get involved?” I asked.
“Well, I ran outta money,” Jeffrey said. He slipped his hands under himself, shifting uncomfortably. “I went uptown, hoping to earn a little something. Didn’t wanna run into my old group, so I was wandering around Fifth Avenue when suddenly…” He broke off, looking at me.
“What?” I said, sternly.
He stared at his hands, muttering, “A crow landed in front of me and spoke to me with a human voice.”
He looked at me like a child expecting to be scolded for lying. I didn’t bat an eye, which seemed to give him courage.
“It said, ‘I know what you have. I know someone who’ll pay top dollar for it. There’s no use in you holding on to it, but if you deal with me, you’ll be rich and safe.’”
I nodded. So here’s where the alchemist behind this whole mess came in. Casting spells on animals or dead things was par for the course with them.
“I freaked out a bit,” Jeffrey said. “I turned right the hell around and went back to my room. But voices talked to me there, too. Crows, roaches and mice, my curtains, empty takeout boxes… It was like some insane Disney movie.”
He licked his lips.
“At first I was so scared I didn’t know what to do, but eventually, I decided that, if I was going insane anyway, I may as well answer the crow. I was getting desperate, needed the money. Eventually, I agreed to the deal.”
“Is this the boss you mentioned?”
“I dunno if I can call him that. I don’t even know his name.” Jeffrey shook his head. “But he arranged a meeting, and the deal went down in a little fishing place near the Hudson. The place in the photo.”
I looked at the picture again, a grainy security camera still. Jeffrey was wearing his best suit and looked taller. Richard Diefenbaker’s fat face was like a stone, his men clustered all around him as he examined the necklace.
“But,” I said, adding just a touch of a growl to my voice, “that wasn’t the real jewel, was it?”
“That’s what the boss said to do!”
Jeffrey went white; he looked ready to collapse. I summoned a cup of water out of thin air and handed it to him. Jeffrey didn’t seem perplexed by where it had come from and gulped it straight down before wiping the sweat from his brow.
“He prepared the fake, too,” Jeffrey muttered, keeping his gaze firmly between his knees. “It looked exactly like the real one. Just at a casual glance, nobody would know it was fake. I put the phony in a box to give to the old guy and the real one in a special pouch prepared by the boss. In return, the boss gave me money. A lot of money.” His lips trembled. “But…but then I saw the photo in his wallet!”
“Diefenbaker’s?” I asked.
“Yes!” Jeffrey slammed the cup down on the table. “It was Laura! My Laura! Right there! All dolled up with crazy makeup, but you couldn’t fool me! I knew it was her! That dried up old fart had her locked up!
“I was planning on giving the real jewel to the boss and getting outta dodge, but the moment I saw Laura, it was like getting a glass of water thrown in my face. I remembered the reason I was even here. I’d come to New York to look for Laura! I figured this was my one chance to save her.
“So I called in some favors. Found out who the old man was and learned that he’d bought that theater and had locked Laura up in there.
I figured, if I’ve got this jewel, I can take Laura and get away. We can go anywhere we want. If I can get the money from the boss or keep the cash and sell off the necklace so no one’s the wiser… I thought we’d make more doing that.”
“That wasn’t the only reason, was it? You didn’t want to give the necklace up,” I said, interrupting him.
He shut his mouth.
“Or, more importantly, the opal,” I added.
If he had even a little magical sensitivity, there was no way he’d be willing to hand the opal—the dragon egg—to someone else so easily. This was a morally challenged, magic sensing lowlife with a rare treasure in his hands. This wasn’t something he could give up easily, no matter how much money he stood to make.