protection.'
'Typical lousy Hollywood direction.' Gaskill shrugged. 'Not to worry about Bev. The basement is lit like Las Vegas Boulevard and she's packing a nine-millimeter Colt Combat Commander. Pity the poor monster who comes on to her.'
Now that Rummel's penthouse was dark, Gaskill took a few minutes away from the binoculars to knock off half a dozen glazed donuts and down a thermos bottle of cold milk. He was sadly contemplating the empty donut box when Swain reported in.
'The movers are unloading furniture for an apartment on the nineteenth floor. They're ticked off at working so late but are being well paid for overtime. They can't say why the client is in such a rush, only that it must be one of those last-minute corporate transfers.'
'Any possibility they're smuggling artifacts into Rummel's place?'
'They opened the door of the van for me. It's packed with art deco style furniture.'
'Okay, monitor their movements every few minutes.'
Pottle scribbled on a notepad and hung up a wall phone in the kitchen. When he returned to Gaskill's position at the window, he had a cagey grin on his face. 'I bow to your intuition. Sidney Kammer's home address is in Lake Forest.'
'I'll bet you Kammer's biggest client turns out to be Adolphus Rummel,' Gaskill ventured.
'And for the bongo drums and a year's supply of Kitty Litter, tell me who Kammer leases his apartment to.'
'Got to be Adolphus Rummel.'
Pottle looked pleased with himself. 'I think we can safely shout Eureka.'
Gaskill stared across the street through an open curtain into Rummel's living room, suddenly knowing his secret. His dark eyes deepened as he spoke. 'A hidden stairway leading-from the foyer,' he said, carefully choosing his words as if describing a screenplay he was about to write. 'Rummel walks off the elevator, opens a hidden door to a stairway and descends to the apartment below his penthouse, where he spends forty-five minutes gloating over his private store of treasures. Then he returns upstairs, pours his brandy, and sleeps the sleep of a satisfied man. Strange, but I can't help envying him.'
Pottle had to reach up to pound Gaskill on the shoulder. 'Congratulations, Dave. Nothing left now but to obtain a search warrant and conduct a raid on Rummel's penthouse.'
Gaskill shook his head. 'A warrant, yes. A raid by an army of agents, no. Rummel has powerful friends in Chicago. We can't afford a big commotion that could result in a media barrage of criticism or a nasty lawsuit. Particularly if I've made a bad call. A quiet little search by you and me and Bev Swain will accomplish whatever it takes to ferret out Rummel's artifact collection.'
Pottle slipped on a trench coat, a never-ending source of friendly ridicule by fellow agents, and headed for the door. 'Judge Aldrich is a light sleeper. I'll roust him out of bed and be back with the paperwork before the sun comes up.'
'Make it sooner.' Gaskill smiled wryly. 'I'm itching with anticipation.'
After Pottle left, Gaskill called up Swain. 'Give me a status report on the movers.'
In the lobby of Rummel's apartment building, Bev Swain sat behind the security desk and stared up at an array of four monitors. She watched as the furniture haulers moved out of camera range. Pressing the buttons on a remote switch, she went from camera to camera, mounted at strategic areas inside the building. She found the movers coming out of the freight elevator on the nineteenth floor.
'So far they've brought up a couch, two upholstered chairs with end tables, and what looks like boxed crates of household goods, dishes, kitchen and bathroom accessories, clothing. You know, stuff like that.'
'Do they return anything to the truck?'
'Only empty boxes.'
'We think we've figured where Rummel stashes his artifacts. Pottle's gone for a warrant. We'll go in as soon as he returns.'
'That's good news,' Swain said with a sigh. 'I've almost forgotten what the world looks like outside this damn lobby.'
Gaskill laughed. 'It hasn't improved. Sit tight on your trim little bottom for a few more hours.'
'I may take that statement as sexual harassment,' said Swain primly.
'Merely words of praise, Agent Swain,' Gaskill said wearily, 'words of praise.'
A beautiful day dawned, crisp and cool, with only a whisper of breeze coming off Lake Michigan. The Farmers' Almanac had predicted an Indian summer for the Great Lakes region. Gaskill hoped so. A warmer than normal fall meant a few extra days of fishing on the Wisconsin lake beside his getaway cabin. He led a lonely private life since his wife of twenty years died from a heart attack brought on by an iron overload disease known as hemochromatosis. His work had become his love, and he used his leisure time comfortably settled in a Boston Whaler outboard boat, planning his investigations and analyzing data as he cast for pike and bass.
As he stood next to Pottle and Swain in the elevator rising to Rummel's penthouse, Gaskill skimmed the wording of the warrant for the third time. The judge had allowed a search of Rummel's penthouse, but not Kammer's apartment on the floor below, because he failed to see just cause. A minor inconvenience. Instead of going directly into what Gaskill was certain were the rooms that held the artifacts, they would have to find a hidden access and come down from the top.
Suddenly he was thinking a strange thought, what if the collector had been sold fakes and forged artworks? Rummel would not be the first greedy collector who had been sold a bill of goods in his unbridled lust to acquire art from any source, legal or not. He swept away the pessimistic thought and basked in a glow of fulfillment. The culmination of long hours of unflagging effort was only minutes away.
Swain had punched in the security code that allowed the elevator to rise beyond the residents' apartments and open directly into Rummel's penthouse. The doors parted and they stepped onto the marble floor of the foyer, unannounced. Out of habit, Gaskill lightly fingered his shoulder-holstered nine-millimeter automatic. Pottle found the button to a speaker box on a credenza and pressed it. A loud buzzer was heard throughout the penthouse.
After a short pause, a voice fogged with sleep answered. 'Who's there?'
'Mr. Rummel,' said Pottle into the speaker. 'Will you please come to the elevator?'
'You'd better leave. I'm calling security.'
'Don't bother. We're federal agents. Please comply and we'll explain our presence.'
Swain watched the floor lights over the elevator flicker as it automatically descended. 'That's why I'd never lease a penthouse,' she said in mock seriousness. 'Intruders can rig your private elevator easier than stealing a Mercedes-Benz.'
Rummel appeared in pajamas, slippers, and an old-fashioned chenille robe. The material of the robe reminded Gaskill of a bedspread he'd slept on as a young boy in his grandmother's house. 'My name is David Gaskill. I'm a special agent with the United States Customs Service. I have an authorized federal court warrant to search the premises.'
Rummel indifferently slipped on a pair of rimless glasses and began reading the warrant as if it were the morning newspaper. Up close, he looked a good ten years younger than seventy-six. And although he had just come out of bed, he appeared alert and quite meticulous.
Impatient, Gaskill moved around him. 'Pardon me.'
Rummel peered up. 'Look through my rooms all you want. I have nothing to hide.'
The wealthy scrap dealer appeared anything but rude and irritable. He seemed to take the intrusion in good grace with a show of cooperation.
Gaskill knew it was nothing but an act. 'We're only interested in your foyer.'
He had briefed Swain and Pottle on what to search for and they immediately set to work. Every crack and seam was closely examined. But it was the mirror that intrigued Swain. As a woman she was instinctively drawn to it. Gazing into the reflective backing, she found it free of even the tiniest imperfection. The glass was beveled around the edges with etchings of flowers in the corners. Her best guess was that it was eighteenth century. She could not help but wonder about all the other people who had stood in front of it over the past three hundred years and stared at their reflections. Their images were still there. She could sense them.
Next she studied the intricately sculptured frame, crowded with cherubs overlaid in gold. Keenly observant, she noticed the tiny seam on the neck of one cherub. The gilt around the edges looked worn from friction. Swain
