The Girl with the Phony Name (8 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl with the Phony Name
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L
ucy walked into Trump Tower stifling the impulse to giggle at the doorman. He was decked out in red military splendor like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace, his awesome height and jet-black face topped off by what looked like a gigantic black rabbit's foot on his head.
Inside, the lobby was done in veined red marble—floors, walls, and ceiling—giving Lucy the distinct feeling of being in a huge and ostentatious bathroom. In the center of the concourse a man in a tuxedo was playing Cole Porter on a grand piano. Behind him the space opened to a ten-story atrium with a waterfall cascading down one marble wall. Weekend shoppers nibbled cream puffs in the café, a floor below ground level. Gawking tourists admired their reflections in the polished brass. Crudely accented conversation swirled all around.
“Ain't it the most beauty–ful thing you ever seen?”
“Can you imagine what they paid for all this?”
A goggle-eyed fellow in a baseball cap and T-shirt strained what he used for a neck. “Now this is the kind of place I should live in,” he said to the creature in a lavender pantsuit by his side.
Lucy made her way up the escalator. She couldn't resist taking a spin around the second floor, a subway tunnel of red marble. She passed several tiny stores featuring merchandise like $600 belts and $1,500 purses before coming out where she started. Each of the next six floors had similar shopping
tunnels, but Lucy wasn't interested in shopping. At least not at these prices.
She rode the escalator to the top level of the atrium and walked down the marble hall. This floor followed the same plan as those beneath, but at the back instead of another store there was a miniature restaurant with tables set with white linen and gleaming crystal. A man at one of the tables—there were only eight and all were against windows—stood and waved her in.
“Mr. MacAlpin?” asked Lucy nervously.
“I am. An' you moost be Lucy Trelaine. Pleased to make your acquaintance at last.”
MacAlpin held out the chair as she sat down. He was a wiry man of average height with soft gray eyes. There were still some flecks of brown in his graying hair. He was wearing an elegant charcoal gray suit with a faint pinstripe. His shoes shone like mirrors.
“This is quite a place,” said Lucy, bursting with excitement, exhilarated by the view down Fifth Avenue.
“Indeed it is,” he grinned. “We hae castles in Scotland, but naught the likes of this.”
A white–jacketed waiter swooped over Lucy's shoulder and handed her a menu.
“The fish is very good here,” said MacAlpin, studying her with a kind face. “An' I've ordered a wee bottle, if tha's all right with you.”
“Sure,” said Lucy.
As if on cue, another waiter brought over an ice bucket and unobtrusively opened a bottle of Pouilly–Fuissé, then passed MacAlpin the cork. MacAlpin absently rolled it between his fingers and nodded. The waiter filled Lucy's glass, then MacAlpin's, and departed. Lucy took a sip of her wine.
“It's delicious,” she exclaimed.
“Ye should try the trout,” said MacAlpin with a smile. “I'm sairtain ye willna be disappointed.”
“Can I have a shrimp cocktail, too?”
“Absolutely.”
Lucy grinned. She had to admit that this Robert MacAlpin had a lot of style—for an insurance agent.
“Two trout, please,” said MacAlpin when the first young waiter returned. “And a shrimp cocktail for the lady to start.”
“You really didn't have to go to all this trouble … .” Lucy began as the waiter departed, but the little Scot held up his hand.
“Wha' man in his right mind would consider it trouble to have lunch wi' a bonnie yoong lass, I ask ye?”
“Well, I'm flattered,” said Lucy, flattered.
MacAlpin pushed himself back from the table and studied her for a moment, grinning.
“Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine,” he said finally.
“Mr. MacAlpin,” Lucy replied, grinning right back. “So. Can you really tell me who I am?”
“I hope so. You've brought your brooch like I asked?”
Lucy nodded eagerly.
“May I see it?”
Lucy took the monstrosity out of the pocket of her jacket—she hated to carry a purse—and put it on the table between them. MacAlpin picked it up as gently as one might pick up a robin's egg and stared at it. When he turned it over and studied the inscriptions on the back, Lucy saw that his hands were trembling.
Finally, as a silent man in a white coat delivered four of the most gigantic shrimp Lucy had ever seen, MacAlpin placed the brooch carefully back on the table between them.
“Well?” said Lucy, practically jumping out of her skin.
“I dinna want to say anything until I'm sure. Please now, go ahead and eat.”
Lucy speared a shrimp and impatiently took a bite.
“Very good,” she said, chewing. “When will you be sure? Sure about what?”
“Well, I've asked someone to join us here if ye dinna mind. I think he'll be able to tell us if your brooch is genuine.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. His name's Fraser. He's sairt of a low-life character, wha' they call a ‘fence' on the telly, actually, but an expert on this type of jewelry.”
“You have some peculiar friends,” said Lucy, putting down her fork, suddenly very uncomfortable.
“In the insurance business ye meet all kinds.” MacAlpin grinned. “He knows me by the name of ‘Scott' by the way, so I'd like you to play along.”
“Why?” She didn't like the sound of this at all.
“I dinna want to get too involved with the man, if ye catch my meanin'. Nor should you.”
“Look, Mr. MacAlpin,” said Lucy, feeling like a first-class chump, “I'm here because you said you could tell me something about my family. All of a sudden you want some … criminal … to look at my brooch. You want me to accept some phony name. Maybe I should just finish my appetizer and say
adiós.
”
“I do ha' a good reason for askin' this man here, Lucy,” said MacAlpin sincerely.
“Like what, for instance?”
“Like if the man says that the brooch is genuine, then I think I'm your faether.”
 
Lucy sipped her coffee and tried to think. The trout had looked wonderful, but Lucy couldn't even remember what it tasted like.
MacAlpin's story had been simplicity itself. Thirty years ago back in Glasgow, he had been engaged to marry a girl named Bethoc Trelaine. Bethoc Trelaine worked at Glasgow's Celtic Museum of Antiquities. One day Bethoc disappeared. So did a valuable brooch from the Celtic museum. MacAlpin never suspected that Bethoc might be pregnant, but when he thought about what Lucy had told him, suddenly it had all made sense.
“Dinna ye see, lass?” he was saying now in a soothing
voice. “She couldna face the shame. She needed money to get away, so she stole the brooch.”
Lucy felt dizzy. This man was her father. Her mother was a thief. Lucy tried to take a breath, but her lungs wouldn't work. Everything was happening too fast. She couldn't get her bearings. Her perspective, her distance from the action, was gone. She had been plucked out of the audience and dumped onto the stage.
“Why does the brooch have this writing on the back?” Lucy finally stammered, picking up the silver ring and turning it over in her hand.
“Bethoc must have had it engraved,” said MacAlpin softly.
“But why would she do that if she only stole it to sell it?”
MacAlpin shrugged.
“Who can say wha' went through the poor lassie's mind? Maybe the brooch reminded her too much of the past to pairt with.”
“I read you the inscription when we first talked,” said Lucy. “Why didn't you know right away?”
“Your pronunciation left somethin' to be desired, lass.” MacAlpin smiled and patted her hand. “And remember, this was thairty years ago and a world away. I dinna put two and two together until afterwards.”
“Is that the piece?” said a voice from behind Lucy's shoulder. A tall, red-haired man with horn-rimmed glasses and a square jaw pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.
“Fraser,” MacAlpin said evenly, releasing Lucy's hand and rising. “I'd like ye to meet my daughter, Lucy … Scott.”
“Michael Fraser,” said the man, cracking a smile.
“Pleased to meet you,” Lucy said coldly.
Fraser's knees accidentally touched hers under the tiny table as he sat. His grin widened. Lucy pulled away, feeling a blush race across her face. Fraser was pretty good-looking. For a crook. But why did she care? This was certainly no time to think about her sex life. It hadn't been the time to think about her sex life for years.
“You can call me—” Fraser began, but MacAlpin interrupted with a noticeable touch of impatience.
“We chust need to know if this brooch is genuine.”
“All right. May I?” said Fraser, plucking the heavy silver ring out of Lucy's hand and taking off his glasses to study it close up.
“What do you think, Fraser?” said MacAlpin finally.
“I'd have to study it further to be sure,” the redhead answered, putting his glasses and his grin back on, “but it looks Pictish to me.”
“Pictish?” asked Lucy.
“The Picts were the Celtic inhabitants of the area we now call Scotland,” said Fraser breezily. “They vanished in the ninth century. The brooch might even be as old as that. If it is, certain things have been added on the back.”
“We're not interested in—” began MacAlpin, but Lucy cut him off.
“Like ‘Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine',” she said.
Fraser turned the brooch over. “Yes, that. But this other inscription is intriguing. ‘Dumlagchtat mac Alpin Bethoc.' Kenneth mac—or ‘son of—Alpin was the king who united the Picts and the Scots, of course, and Bethoc was a traditional woman's name in the house of Alpin. I'm not sure what Dumlag …”
“But is it genuine?” asked MacAlpin.
“Yes, it appears to be. But as I said, I have to study it further, do some tests …”
“Well, I dinna think that will be necessary right away.” MacAlpin's voice was soft, measured. “I think Lucy and I need to talk privately now, if ye dinna mind.”
Fraser shrugged, handed the brooch back to Lucy.
“What do you think it's worth?” she said.
“I dinna think this is the time to …” began MacAlpin.
“I want to know,” said Lucy. MacAlpin started to protest, then apparently thought better of it.
“It's not really museum quality,” said Fraser with a shrug.
“I'd say it might bring anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand at auction. There's not a large market for this sort of thing.”
“I hope cooming here wasn't too inconvenient for ye,” said MacAlpin, standing up—clearly a dismissal. “I'll ring ye oop later.”
“Sure,” said Fraser, a little unhappily. He stood, grinning at Lucy. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Lucy. I hope I'll have the pleasure again. You'll call me, Mr. Scott?”
“I'll be in touch.”
“Yes, well. Good-bye.” Fraser turned and walked out of the tiny restaurant and down the red marble hallway, glancing back over his shoulder periodically.
“He said the brooch wasn't museum quality,” said Lucy when Fraser was out of sight.
“Chust a negotiating tactic.” MacAlpin smiled knowingly, then caught the waiter's eye and motioned for a check. Lucy looked into a mirrored panel and tried to see Robert MacAlpin's likeness in her sharp features. There was some slight resemblance, she supposed. Neither of them was particularly tall. His hair might have been black once.
“I still don't understand about the inscription.”
“Wha' dinna ye understand? Your mother's name was Bethoc Trelaine. My name is MacAlpin.”
The waiter appeared with a leather folder with the bill. MacAlpin didn't even bother to look at it, just handed the man a gold American Express card.
“I've been in hundreds of cities,” said Lucy, “and I've never found a single Trelaine.”
“It's a common enough name in Glasgow,” shrugged MacAlpin.
“Who's Lucy?” asked Lucy. “As in ‘Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine'.”
“Why, tha' must be you. Tha' must be wha' poor Bethoc named you, with her surname and mine. And to answer your
next question,
Dumlagchtat
means ‘I love you' in Gaelic. Now, aire ye satisfied?”

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