“Marvin has seen the goose and guessed pretty easily that it’s what we’re looking for.”
Cal frowns. “And the good?”
“He doesn’t seem to think anything of it other than that it’s ‘creepy as hell,’ and he has confirmed it is indeed still on the truck. So it’s just a matter of going to pick it up. And then we’ll be right back to the less-than-ideal-but-more-ideal situation of having it hidden in the shop while you research its origins.”
Cal’s breath is shaky. “Okay. That’s…a relief.”
“Yep. So come on, Callahan. Let’s go see a man about a goose.”
—
Marvin is oneof the tallest men I have ever met in my life. He must be over seven feet. Cal looks like a small child standing in front of him. And I feel like a miniature of a doll that belongs to a slightly larger doll.
“Thank you so much for letting us come by after hours,” I say. “Especially when you’ve already had such a long day.”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all. Always happy to be of help,” Marvin says, reaching for the door of the box truck behind him. “Besides, these things happen.”
I’m not actually sure they do. At least not this exact thing. But I appreciate the sentiment.
The door rolls up with a loud clatter as metal clangs against metal, and Marvin steps up into the truck with the ease ofsomeone tackling a normal stair. “I’ll put it on a dolly and wheel it forward for you,” he says, and ducks into the shadowy depths.
“Dammit, Nevin!” echoes from inside the truck a few seconds later, followed by a string of much more creative expletives, and Cal and I exchange an uneasy look.
Marvin emerges again into the light, a familiar quilt fisted in his ginormous hand, but without a stuffed water fowl on a dolly accompanying him. “I am so, so sorry, but your goose isn’t here anymore.”
“Isn’t…here?” Cal repeats, color quickly draining from his face.
“Were you robbed?” I ask.
Marvin shakes his head. “Not exactly. I’m certain I know who took it. My kid brother, Nevin. He helps me out sometimes, but his judgment is…well, it’s shit, to be real candid. It’s my fault, though. I should’ve kept a better eye on him after he showed interest in the thing. I’m going to call him and make him bring it right back, don’t you worry.”
As Marvin pulls out his phone to call his brother, I tug on the sleeve of Cal’s jacket. “What if we just let him keep it?” I whisper. “Then he would get caught with it instead of you.”
Cal considers it for a moment, then shakes his head. “Still too easily traced back to Virtu. I doubt this Nevin kid is going to keep his mouth shut about where he got it if anyone questions him. Plus, while I’m fairly certain my, uh, friend, doesn’t particularly want to keep the goose, I don’t think unloading it on some random kid with sticky fingers was what they had in mind for it.”
“Nevin,” Marvin growls angrily into his phone when his brother answers after the second attempt at reaching him.
“Yo, Maaaarv! What’s up?” We hear the response as clearly as if he was on speaker.
“I got people from the antique store here wanting that goose back. Don’t even try me, I know you swiped it. You need to bring it back here to the lot right now or else I—”
“Yahhh, no can do, bro.” Marvin stomps farther away as Nevin explains why this is apparently not possible out of our earshot.
Cal has his eyes shut tightly when I look at him again. “It’ll be okay,” I assure him. He takes a deep breath but doesn’t otherwise respond.
Marvin comes back from the corner of the parking lot, no longer on the phone, his mouth pursed tightly in displeasure as he massages his temples. “Okay, so this is the situation. Nevin helped me with the staging job yesterday and when we decided not to bring the goose in, he decided to ‘borrow’ it to play a stupid prank on a buddy of his.” He pauses, taking in our questioning looks. “The guy’s name is Gustav. So Nevin thought giving him a goose would be real funny.”
That makes a certain amount of sense, I guess.
“So where is it now?” Cal asks.
“Well, he said he left it on Gustav’s porch early this morning. He hasn’t heard from him yet, so presumably it’s still sitting out there. I tried to tell him to go get it and bring it back here, but he’s…in no state to drive right now.” Marvin’s displeasure with his brother is palpable. “But he did give me Gustav’s address so you can go get it yourselves.”
I pull out my phone to take down the information as Marvin reads it from the text Nevin sent.
“I can’t believe he did this,” Marvin says, more to himself than to us. “I mean, Ican. I can believe it. But I thought this job would help give him some structure, teach him responsibility. He’s such a good kid at heart. He really is. Just also a completemoron.” He wrings his hands together. “Hey, can you please not tell Genevieve about this? My contract with her and her referrals make up a huge part of my business, and if I lost that…”
“We’re happy to keep this between us,” Cal says quickly. “Allof it. You don’t tell anyone about the goose, and we don’t tell anyone you lost it. Deal?”
