The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [209]
Annie saw no reason not to enumerate the contents. “The real Queen’s got three big emeralds in her crown already. Dad must have put them back in the statue.”
“Just three?” Ruthie set down her coffee cup in a thoughtful way. “How about the 135-carat star ruby?” She moved her perfect teeth over her lower lip when Annie shook her head no. “This could be a problem. Feliz is paying Jack a great deal of money for La Reina Coronada. He expected more emeralds and that ruby to go back on that silver box with the Holy Thorn inside it. Now he won’t have either. He’s a mobster but a good Catholic. He honestly believes the Queen should go to the Church, and go looking good. I’m going to have trouble selling this…‘as is’ sale to Feliz.”
Annie was quiet a minute, then she said, “How much did my dad, or Fierson, tell you about the photo at The Breakers? The one with your friend Feliz Diaz in it.”
The woman looked baffled. “McAllister Fierson?”
“Yes. The government big shot who arranged for me to get here to Havana. My dad told me last night that what Fierson really wanted from that bank pouch was a photo.” Annie described her birthday party picture and named the men who sat laughing together in the background of the restaurant. “Fierson specifically told me to stay away from you if you were in Havana. You might want to watch out for him. My dad told me that the negative to that photo was his gift to you. I’ve got it here.”
Ruthie leaned away, thinking hard. “Well, Jack has surprised me…” She stubbed out her cigarette.
Annie said, “The negative and a print were in the pouch with the jewels. I left everything but the negative in there for this FBI agent Fred Owen.”
“Fred,” said Ruthie. There was a world of contempt in the word. “He’s over there in that Chevy with Willie Grunberg. Willie’s a good guy.”
“I’ve got the negative under my hand.”
Startled, Ruthie glanced over at Annie for a moment. Then she asked if anyone, and she meant anyone, had possibly seen her remove the negative from the pouch?
“No,” Annie assured her. “I’m very fast.”
Ruthie said there were now at least two men at the café and there was another man standing in the Plaza; all three were watching them right now. Before too long, Annie had to leave the negative and the Queen and walk away.
Annie said, “Dad used to give me lessons every day. Five years old, I could palm the wallet right out of your purse, study everything in it, put it back and tell you the contents to the last detail. And you’d never know your wallet had been out of your purse.”
Ruthie Nickerson smiled slightly. “I recall that your dad had great hands.”
The remark startled Annie. “You were lovers,” she blurted out.
The woman’s mouth softened. “No. Never. He said he was in love with me. I wasn’t with him.”
Annie was confused. “I thought you were lovers.”
“We could have been. But we weren’t. Those were crazy times. Clark was going back to Vietnam. He’d reenlisted. So back he went and ended up a POW.” She shook her head ruefully. “Funny. Jack couldn’t talk me into loving him. I couldn’t talk Clark out of leaving me. I never figured Jack would do what he did. Take you, I mean.”
Annie stared a long time at her eyes. They looked familiar because they looked like her own eyes. “Are you my mother?”
The older woman looked at her, looked past her, replaced the sunglasses. “I came to the same conclusion. But only a week ago.”
Annie’s eyebrow arched. “In St. Louis?”
Ruthie took a cigarette from a leather purse. Annie noticed her hand was shaking slightly. “Yes, in St. Louis. Of course Jack knew all along but he kept it to himself. Unless he told Sam. But I never thought it until I saw you there in the airport. I had assumed…” She frowned. “That you were growing up happy in Ohio. The way I’d planned.”
“In Barbados…Why?” Annie asked.
The woman’s brow tightened. “…College.