Sleight of Hand - By Phillip Margolin Page 0,14

ever heard of a Seattle antiques dealer named Rene Marchand?”

“No.”

“There’s a storm here, so I can’t get back to the mainland before Saturday night at the earliest. I’ll try to talk to Marchand, but I’m not willing to take a bullet to help you get back the scepter.”

“Please. I’ll double your fee.”

Dana thought about that. “All right, but I’m off the case if there’s another incident like the one at Pickering’s house.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll call you after I speak to Marchand. Something else, Ms. Laurent. The people we’re dealing with are very dangerous, and you’re a threat to them. Watch your back.”

Chapter Seven

The storm broke Sunday morning and Captain Leone’s boat docked shortly after noon. Dana drove to Seattle on high alert because of the murder attempt on Isla de Muerta, but she didn’t see anything that made her think she was being followed.

After checking into the Hotel Monaco in downtown Seattle, Dana walked to Yesler Way, a steep street known as Skid Road in the 1850s, when the area was teeming with trees and a chute was used to skid logs to Henry Yesler’s sawmill. When Seattle’s city center moved north, the area became a dilapidated haven for drunks and derelicts and went from being called Skid Road to Skid Row, a term eventually used all over America to refer to a down-and-out section of a town or city.

Rene Marchand had an office in a six-story building on First at Yesler. On the way there, Dana spotted a seedy hotel advertising cheap rooms but most of the twenty-five-square-block Skid Row district—now more popularly known as Pioneer Square—was filled with hip boutiques, coffee shops, restored buildings, restaurants, and art galleries.

There was an old-fashioned elevator in the lobby of Marchand’s office building. Dana slid the accordion gate open, then closed it and took the car to the sixth floor. Halfway down the hall, Dana saw RENE MARCHAND ANTIQUES stenciled in bright gold letters on the glass in the upper part of a door. She tried the knob but the office was closed. After knocking loudly twice Dana returned to her hotel.

Monday morning, Dana dressed in a black suit and white man-tailored blouse so she would look businesslike and headed back to Marchand’s office. During her short walk, she checked for a tail or anything unusual, but nothing aroused her suspicions. This time when Dana tried the door it opened into a small waiting room. There was a desk, two chairs, and a small end table on which lay two magazines about antiques. No one was sitting at the reception desk, so Dana rapped her knuckles on a plain wooden door next to it. Moments later, the door opened and a man in his late thirties with a trim mustache and slicked-down thinning brown hair stared at her through the lenses of a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The man was slender and several inches shorter than Dana, and he was dressed in an open-neck sky-blue shirt, a navy-blue blazer, and gray slacks.

“Yes?” he asked, apparently surprised to have a visitor.

“Are you Rene Marchand?”

“I am, but I generally see customers by appointment only.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dana said with what she hoped was a winning smile. “But I’m here now, so can we talk?”

“About what?”

“The Ottoman Scepter.”

Marchand’s only reaction was a rapid blink but it was enough to give him away.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” the antiques dealer said.

“I think you are. Professor Otto Pickering examined the scepter in this very office not long ago.”

Marchand hesitated. Then he stepped aside and ushered Dana in. The furniture in Marchand’s office looked secondhand, as had the furnishings in the waiting room. Through a begrimed window, Dana could see the train station, the stadiums where the Mariners and Seahawks played, and the Smith Tower, which had been the tallest building west of the Mississippi in 1914. The view was interesting, but it occurred to Dana that the office was run down for someone who supposedly dealt in high-end antiquities.

“Why do you want to know about this scepter?” Marchand asked when they were seated.

Dana handed the antiques dealer her card. “I’m acting on behalf of a client who is very interested in acquiring it.”

Marchand leaned back in his chair and examined the card. Then he set it down on a faded green blotter.

“You’re aware of the Ottoman Scepter’s history?”

Dana nodded.

“Then you know that the gold alone makes the object expensive but its historical value puts it beyond price.”

“My client is very motivated to acquire the scepter. And