“Now that you’ve all worshipped at the shrine of the latest member of the dynasty, can I force a drink on anyone?”
Everybody made affirmative sounds, and the butler supplied them with chilled liquids and comestibles.
“Well, now,” Kate said, when she was settled on a sofa, “tell me how we can steal this beautiful necklace tonight.”
58
Daryl Barnes stood in a line of male waiters and waited to be issued a uniform, while Annie waited in the female line. He stepped up to the issuer, who measured his chest and waist. “Forty and thirty-four,” the man said. “Do you know your inseam? Save me the trouble?”
“Twenty-eight,” Daryl replied.
The man went to a rack and extracted a red jacket and black trousers. The men had been told to arrive in a white shirt, black shoes, and black bow tie.
Daryl received the clothes and the key to a locker and went into the men’s changing room. He dressed and found the uniform a good fit. He transferred the contents of his pockets to the uniform, including one item heavier than the others, regretting that he had been relieved of his switchblade at the metal detector. He wondered why a party would need a metal detector. He checked his glued-on mustache in the mirror, locked his locker, and went into the next room.
“Okay, you, you, you, and you will be serving dips,” a woman said, including Daryl. “The rest of you will be taking orders for cocktails from those who don’t want to stand in line at the bar, then delivering them. Please note that I am aware that all the booze tonight is premium stuff, and that may be tempting, but anybody trying to cop a bottle for later use will be ejected without pay. Everybody got that?”
Daryl had hoped for the dip. He collected a tray and was given a bowl of guacamole, then stocked his tray with chips. He could hear a pianist begin to play in the next room and the conversation of arriving guests. He walked into the room and began offering guests his tray, working his way toward the center of the space, where, like a beacon, the glitter of the Bloch-Bauer necklace drew him. He circled the little stand that held the post that bore the choker, under a glass lid, then continued to offer food until the bowl was nearly empty, when he returned to the kitchen for a new bowl.
Annie was on her way out with a tray of canapés, and he stopped for a moment. “All set? You know where the panel is?”
“Got it,” she said, and went on her way.
As Daryl reentered the room the pianist stopped in the middle of a Cole Porter tune and began to play “Hail to the Chief.” Ah, he thought, that explains the metal detector. He stopped in his tracks and watched the President of the United States enter the room, followed by her husband and a small group of people, one of whom was Stone Barrington. He resisted the urge to escape; his dyed hair and the mustache were disguise enough; Barrington would never recognize him.
Stone watched as Kate waved and nodded to the applauding crowd, then held up a hand to the pianist as if to say, “Enough.” He went back to Cole Porter.
Stone then slowly steered Holly toward the necklace, glittering under the spotlight.
“My God!” Holly said. “I’ve never seen anything so... expensive. Wait a minute, I did see the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London once.”
“The necklace would look good on you,” Stone said. “We’ll find out later.”
Jamie Niven greeted the President and First Gentleman, then turned toward Stone. “Glad you could make it,” he said, shaking hands.
“Jamie, this is Holly Barker, of the National Security Council. I’ve promised Holly and Vivian Bacchetti that, when this is over, they can try on the necklace. Can you arrange that?”
“Of course. My office is just down the hall — we can do that before it goes back into the vault.”
Daryl continued his journey around the room. It occurred to him that, with the President in attendance, there would be Secret Service agents present, too, and he began to pick them out by the small discs in their lapels. They shouldn’t be a problem, since their attention was focused entirely on the President. He served another bowl of guacamole and went back for a third refill. “Hey,” he said to the supervisor, “since I can’t steal any booze, can I have dibs on the leftover guacamole? My wife loves the stuff.”
“Oh, sure, why not? The health department won’t let us serve it again. There are some plastic containers over there.”
Stone stood with Kate, Will, Dino, Viv, and Holly, looking at the necklace.
“That’s what I want for Christmas,” Kate said to Will.
“Well, let’s see, if we sell the Georgetown house, the cattle farm, and the Carlyle apartment, that should get us within a few million of the price, but where would we live when you retire?” He steered her toward the smaller jewelry.
“This Carrie Fiske had quite an eye, didn’t she?” Holly said, looking at a pair of diamond earrings.
“She did,” Stone said, “but this is three generations of jewelry, so she didn’t choose it all.”
“I read the story about how the necklace got into her safe,” Holly said. “Is it true?”
“As far as anybody can tell. Your agent’s grandfather has been dead for a while, so all we have is Harvey’s word for it.”
“I understand you suspected poor Harvey of Carrie’s murder.”
“He was perfect for it — ex-husband cast aside, still in love with her, obsessive. Too bad you people alibied him out.”
“He was in my old office in New York around the time of the murder,” Holly said. “Did you want us to lie so you could put a good officer in prison for the rest of his life?”
“I think Dino would have found that convenient, but it wouldn’t be his collar, anyway. A county sheriff in New Mexico will get that honor, if the guy can be caught.”
“You have any doubts about that?”
“He’s been on the loose his whole life and never been arrested. He’s not going to make it easy for the police. I’m kind of hoping he’ll try to steal it tonight, so I can grab him myself.”
“Once a cop, always a cop,” Holly said.
Now, carrying his tray, Daryl was working his way back toward the center of the room. He was only a few feet from the necklace when the lights went off.
59
Stone, who was wandering across the room when the lights went out, made for the necklace, but he was slowed twice by bumping into people in the dark. Later, he would figure that it took him half a minute to forty-five seconds to reach the display case. He was nearly there when the lights went on again. Jamie Niven had beaten him to the necklace by a second.
Jamie held up a hand, stopping Stone and two guards in dark suits. “It’s all right,” he said, pushing the guards back. “It was just a momentary power failure.” A waiter offered him guacamole, but he waved it away.
“You’re sure there’s no problem?” Stone asked.
“Everything’s fine, but I was glad to see that your reflexes were working.”
“My heart hasn’t slowed yet,” Stone said, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. He rejoined his group.
“Your instincts were good,” Dino said.
“How about yours? Where were you?”
“Relaxing,” Dino said. “There are enough people in this room who would have handled it, if it had happened.”
“I was hoping someone had stolen it,” Will said. “That would have let me off the hook for Christmas.”
Kate laughed. “Please don’t think of yourself as off the hook, darling. The world has plenty of other baubles, and a lot of them are in this room.” She looked at her watch: “We’ll give it another few minutes, then decamp.”