Billingsgate Shoal (42 page)

"Oh yes it could. Thing is, where the hell is
the gizmo used to turn the nut? Perhaps old Walter carried it with
him. If that's the case we'll never—"

"No! No he wouldn't. Don't you see? The head's
triangular. How many triangular bolt-heads have you ever seen in your
lifetime?"

"None." .

"Right. So the gizmo, as you call it, has got to
arouse suspicion. It's in fact more of a key than a lever since it's
shaped uniquely. Doc, he wouldn't tote it around. He wouldn't want to
lose it; he wouldn't want it seen."

"You're absolutely right. And he wouldn't hide
it anywhere near the hole either, would he?"

"No!"

"Then let's follow the example of Poe's
Purloined Letter
: Do
you remember where the missing letter was hidden?"

"Can't say as I've ever read the story."

"It was hidden in the most inconspicuous place:
with a bunch of other letters. So where do we look for this tool?"

Walter Kincaid's workshop was very big, as one would
expect of a millionaire engineer. There were drill presses, lathes,
joiners, jigsaws, a drafting board, tap and die sets—the works. We
rummaged through a whole passel of exotic micrometers, gauges, metal
rules, combination squares, and just about everything that places
like Woodcrafters and Brookstone's sell. We looked through exotic
hardwood tool chests lined with green felt that held tools from
Sweden and Germany. We looked through drawers and racks of lowly
screwdrivers and nailpullers.

Nothing.

And then Joe saw a rack of carefully labeled cigar
boxes that lined a high shelf. One of these was labeled
"Miscellaneous Bits."

He took this down. Of the twenty or so metal drills
and bits inside, one had a curious head. It was a round terminus as
thick as my thumb, with a triangular socket at its end. My pulse
revved up like a jackhammer. The base of the bit was the standard
four-sided tapered shank that fits into an old-fashioned crank brace.
I grabbed the brace from its place on the pegboard, inserted the
strange bit,` and tightened the chuck. Then we made our way back to
the furnace room. I inserted the crank contraption into the hole. The
socket thunked home perfectly.

"Does it?" asked Joe.

"Like the proverbial hand garment."

I turned the brace; it wouldn't budge. Then I
reversed the crank, and heard a slow regular grinding deep in the
wall. Joe ran over to the ash door and shined the flashlight in; I
kept grinding away, like a storekeeper cranking in an awning.

"Son. . .of. . . a. . bitch. It's moving!"

I joined him and peered inside. The brick back of the
flue was half an inch to the right. A narrow fissure was now visible
along the left side. Darkness, the darkness of space, lay beyond.

"Walter Kincaid, you genius you—"

"The guy was an engineer, yes?"

"Uh huh, and it shows too. He was an expert at
locks. I think he also realized that concealment and secrecy are far
stronger security than the thickest bank-vault doors."

"Sure. If you don't know where the money is, how
can you get it?"

Joe took a turn at the crank. I supposed it was a
rack and pinion design, in which a geared-down wheel with teeth moved
a straight piece of steel with matching teeth; There were probably
ball bearings or smooth metal wheels to help move along the slab of
genuine brick, which would weigh a few hundred pounds. It worked
slick as a whistle, and showed the inventiveness and determination of
Kincaid, No wonder the guy was loaded. He was smart, cagey, and
worked like a dog. He had probably designed the set-up, machined and
fabricated most of it himself or at the Wheel-Lock factory, and
installed it alone, perhaps in the space of three or four grueling
days of long labor during one of Laura's rendezvous with Schilling.

As Joe turned the crank I watched the fissure widen.
For every eight turns of the crank the slab opened another inch. The
bricks had been mounted in a steel frame set on big steel dolly
wheels. I shined the light through a circular concrete tunnel a yard
long and saw the glint of gold eight feet away.

Now I knew how Howard
Carter must have felt when they broke the seals of the last chamber
in Tutankhamen's tomb, and entering, he saw the gold sarcophagus
still in place. "Howdja like to retire, Joe?" I said
laughing.

* * *

We spent only about twenty minutes in the small
concrete cubicle fashioned from the shell of the septic tank. A
description of the treasure trove wouldn't do it justice. The most
spectacular part of it was twenty-two gold ingots. Kincaid had lined
them up like miniature loaves of bread on a clean pine, board. I
hefted one of the li'l critters. It weighed ten kilograms, and felt
like it. It was stamped with an embossed seal of the double eagle of
Austria on the bottom. What was it worth?

"Dunno, Charlie. Let's see, gold's going for
about seven hundred dollars an ounce, that's, uh, over eleven
thousand dollars a pound, and these things weigh twenty-two pounds
each—"

"Each one's worth almost a quarter of a million
dollars."

"Doc, I feel dizzy."

"Twenty-two ingots, that's well over five
million in the gold bars alone."

"Charlie, I feel really dizzy."

We rummaged briefly through the rest of it. There
were polyethylene file card cases filled with old coins. There were
various historic relics in a big wooden box. There were pieces of
scrimshaw and pewter. But mainly, there was the gold. In bars and
coins, it sat there and glimmered in the beam of our flashlight.

"How we gonna carry this out?" he asked me.

"Wecan't. It's not ours."

"C'mon Doc. Listen, if we each take two bars we
c—"

"No I'm serious, Joe. You're a cop; you know the
rules."
 
"So? I'll quit
being a cop. I'll retire, as you wisely suggested. Now listen, we'll
just—"

"Now you listen, the last thing we want to do is
screw this whole thing up by taking it illegally. By the laws of
maritime salvage, this gold and treasure is the property of Walter
Kincaid, deceased—or at least presumed deceased."

"Right. And then, it would gosto his
next-of-kin, wife Laura—also deceased, and without relatives."

"So—and I've checked this—the treasure
belongs, again by law of salvage, to whoever owns the house."

Joe was so dizzy he went topside for a breath of air
while I tidied up the chamber and left it intact. We cranked the
brickway shut behind us and re-puttied the seams with caulking seams
with wood ashes, making them look astoundingly like mortar, placed
new ashes in the bottom of the flue, swept up clean, and departed. I
had the funny-shaped bit with me. "I wanna keep this key,"
I said.

I stumbled on the way out in the dark basement
hallway. I limped all the way to the car. In my pocket were a dozen
color prints of the treasure. I had taken them for a special reason.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

WE FORMED a syndicate for the sole and express
purpose of purchasing the Kincaid residence and splitting the swag.
Since the realtor was asking a cool four hundred-grand, a fairly
hefty down payment would be required. We—Joe and Mary and I—figured
that five thousand earnest money plus a hundred grand down payment
would seal it up for us. But we had to move fast. Beside the three of
us were Jim and Janice DeGroot, Tom Costello, and, at my insistence,
Morris Abramson. Jim balked a bit at this. Who the hell was Morris
Abramson and what part did he play in finding the treasure? After
all, he said, another member meant another cut of the action. But I
insisted. To maker our stand official, Mary suggested that if Jim
didn't like the arrangement he could always pull out of the syndicate
altogether.

Jim shut up right away.

Leave it to Mary to nail things down when they get a
bit sticky. I figured that with Moe in on the deal some worthwhile
cause would come out smelling like a rose. But when I called him he
told me he had no spare money at all.

"Sony Doc, I gave my last bit of discretionary
income to the Sisters of St. Jude. They run a halfway house for
runaway girls. Try me in a month or so."

"It'll be too late you dummy. You know you're
the stupidest Jew I've ever known?"

"You know you're the pushiest gentile I've ever
known? And if there's one thing I cannot stand it's a pushy gentile—"

"Don't worry, Moe, you're in the syndicate."

Mary and I decided to cough up ten percent of our
claim, which would, be the lion's share, to Moe. It soothed our
consciences—made us feel a little less like outright thieves.

We sat in our living room and passed around the
pictures. Everybody drooled and licked their lips. Especially
DeGroot. If he could ever love anything even a tenth as much as he
loves money, it hasn't been invented or discovered yet. The members
of the syndicate were to split the proceeds of the treasure sale in
portions and shares according to their contributions. As Chief
Treasure Finder I reserved the right to invest, and claim, fifty
percent in the Adams family's name. The name of the syndicate was
coined by Mary: Golddiggers of Seventy-nine.

We all thought it was cute. But then we were going to
be filthy rich; we would have thought a hammerhead shark was cute.

We decided that Jim DeGroot would be the buyer. My
involvement, or even Joe's, would tip off everyone that the house had
an unexpected attraction. Jim made his initial contact with the
realtor and phoned us.

"Old man Kincaid made a codicil in his will
before he arranged to disappear," he said. "As Laura told
you, he left at the house to the Wheel—Lock Corporation, not to
her. I betcha she and Schilling were surprised, and not too pleased,
about that development, The board of directors of Wheel-Lock has
decided to offer the house. for sale, as we know. However, they must
meet and decide if the buyer is a good bet. Then they'll affix their
OK to the buy and sell agreement?

"Sounds OK. Just hang in there and wave that
cash around. We're waiting on pins and needles."

The only absent member of the syndicate was Moe.
While I he wished the operation luck and success, he told me over the
phone that the thought of money bored him.

"It's what you can do with it that's exciting,
Doc. If I make anything let me know and I'll tell you where to send
the check."

But Jim DeGroot returned to the domicile in bad
spirits, and asked for large quantity of same.

"I can't believe it," he said, cradling his
big paw around the frigid glass.

"Well what?"

"I just can't goddamn believe it.

"Well what?"

"The Hare Krishna."

"Yeah. The Hare Krishna what?"

"The goddamn, bald—headed, dip—shit Hare
Krishna have bought the Kincaid place!"

"I can't believe it," we said in unison. "I
just can't believe it."

And we couldn't.

"Know what they did? They put down two hundred
thou in cold cash. A registered bank check from the Merchant's
National. Cold cash."

"Jesus. All those shopping center handouts. All
those flowers at Logan Airport. . . all that drum beating and
chanting on the Common."

"I can't believe it," wailed Mary and
Janet.

"The board of directors of Wheel-Lock met this
rnorning. They are going to sell the company to an Arab consortium—"

"The Decline of the West. . ." I intoned.

"—and they looked at the offers the realtor
presented to them. Ours was fine. . .but the Hare Kristna's was a
good deal better."

"I can't stand it," said Joe.

There was a glum silence. I told the would-be
syndicate to follow me. We arrived in my small, book-lined study in a
few moments' time. I turned on the double brass student lamp.

"Do not despair, friends," I began.

"Can I have another drink?" asked Joe.

". . .because as I look around me at the warm
faces of friends and loved ones—"

'
Are you going to the bar? Make mine a double, OK?"

"—I seem to see a new ray of hope."

"I'm gonna throw up."

"Mary, would you please remove that big green
book from the shelf behind you?"

"Which one, Charlie?" '

"The Golden Bough, of course."

She removed the tome.

"Now stick your hand in behind the space."

She drew out a weighty hunk of Au. I directed her to
place it on my desk, where we could all gaze at it.

Joe was indignant.

"Dammit, Charlie, I searched you after you'd
sealed the place up, remember? It was a joke at the time. . .
actually, you suggested it. I frisked you. You were clean."

I fondled the little darling on my leather-topped
desk. I patted it. . . massaged it.

"I wanted you to search me, to determine I was
absolutely free of any illegal metal. What you didn't know, my
friend, is that I pulled a little prestidigitation while you were
upstairs."