The Miwok Eagles

David crossed the boulevard and hurried toward the iron gate that, like those of the other houses, blocked entrance to a covered stairway leading up the side of the house to the second floor. Unlike those of the other houses, this gate was open. When he saw the gate pushed back, a damp finger of night air tickled the back of his neck. Easing into the forecourt, he looked up at the door that would lead into the house from a tiny landing. He took his .38 from the holster and put it in the side pocket of his jacket with his right hand holding it. He mounted the stairs and stepped into the open door of the foyer, a narrow jungle trail of hanging ferns and potted ficus. From where he stood listening, he could see three doors, open and threatening. Lights shone from far back in the kitchen, and a subdued radiance outlined the living room door. Music for slow belly dancers whispered from a stereo.

Without turning his back on the rest of the house, he stepped to the living room door, looked inside at the large body on the floor, then back at the silent house. No movement anywhere. Mirza Tarkanian lay face up on an elaborate carpet of embroidered wild horses that seemed to be jumping his outstretched hand. He was dressed for company in a blue suit with a rich red tie at his throat and a harmonious purple knot on his bald head. David felt the neck for lifeblood, though he could see that Tarkanian was breathing steadily. The thick fingers among the wild horses began to twitch. David turned the music off.

The coin dealer groaned as David tugged him up and leaned him against one of the embroidered overstuffed cushions. His shaved skull reflected a tan sheen except where the lump throbbed with a life of its own. The magnificent moustache hung damply around the corners of his full lips, and the long chin rested on the knot of the red tie. David opened the collar and tilted the head back to admit more air into the lungs. “Sit still, Mr. Tarkanian.” The man looked at him with dimmed eyes. He wasn’t functioning yet. David decided that Tarkanian did not need an ambulance. Just let him sit among his familiar swooping drapes and brass trays, he thought. “You’ll be O.K..” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He walked silently but swiftly through the dining room and into the kitchen where his nose picked up the scents of cigarettes, coffee, Asian spices, and licorice, but saw no one, nothing out of place. A boiling kettle whistled at him. He turned it off. He checked the third floor, expecting to find nothing there either and saw that the bedrooms were untouched. More drapes of red and gold and lamps with tassels went with a large painting of young nude women bathing with the assistance of equally nude Nubian female slaves. He did not see a safe. A stairway in the hall led to a locked glass door and the deck. It was clear. David went down the back stairs to the locked garage where he found a red Jaguar with a cold engine. When he got back upstairs, Tarkanian’s bushy eyebrows and moustache were moving like the thawed feelers of a long-dormant insect. Tarkanian shook his head, grabbed it to keep it from falling off, and suddenly opened his eyes to stare at a desk near the front window. Walking to the desk, David saw a black felt tray with ten cavities arranged in two rows, each cavity just larger than an inch in diameter. The tray sat among the tools of the injured man’s trade: silk gloves, a large magnifier, a tiny balance, tweezers, cleaning fluid, the coin collector's red book and Dies' Coin Encyclopedia. Small brass dishes held dates, pistachio nuts, and dried figs. “Whoever took them didn’t like the gift wrap,” David said. “They left the box. I assume these were the coins you wanted guarded tonight.” He looked at Tarkanian to see how he would take the news.

With his heavy legs stretched before him like a doll’s, black patent leather shoes pointed at the ceiling, Tarkanian cursed and covered his face with his hands. In this posture he could not see the pale, menacing man with the gun at the door. David could see him. The gun owned a spot on David’s chest, a spot that began to ache.