The Time Portal 2: Escape in Time (17 page)

Seated next to Shorty was the man nicknamed Scotty, the guy that had been sitting with him in the lobby of the hotel the day Lucky and Mickey first met him. Scotty began to brag about how well he had done mining gold as well, and proclaimed that he was happily retiring after building his castle in the desert. It was speculated about town that Scotty, now known for saving a steel magnate’s life, had received a stake in the gold mine in return for his good deed. Other rumors abounded as well, including those swirling around that Lucky and Mickey had brought in money from wagon heists and used that to help Scotty dig his mine. Scotty did indeed build his castle on the desert sands of Death Valley, earning him the nickname of Death Valley Scotty, but died right before his swimming pool was completed.

Back through the portals, the longtime friends vanished and traveled until they returned home to the safehouse in Astoria, Queens. Bobby Boots readied the plane and immediately flew Lucky and Mickey to Las Vegas where they rented a large, four-wheel drive flatbed truck, making sure it could handle their large haul of gold. The boys left Bobby back at the hotel as they took off for a present day visit into the past, a journey of a different kind this time. The drive from Vegas to the ghost town of Rhyolite was about an hour away heading north from “Sin City.”

When the two men arrived at Rhyolite, there wasn’t much to see. They walked the deserted streets of the old ghost town to where the Southern Hotel had once stood and headed over to where Silverman’s tent used to be. It was sad. Mickey and Lucky had seen it in its thriving days and now, it was nothing more than a few abandoned buildings. Nothing interesting remained except the bottle house made from thousands of bottles caps stuck into its adobe sides. It appeared to be the one big draw in the area. The men drove the flatbed truck towards the mountain. Lucky was relieved to see that although the terrain had changed a good bit, the landmarks were still recognizable. The three trees were still there, but much larger in size. Just like in an old western, they counted off twenty paces and began to dig. Right at four feet, Mickey’s shovel hit a metal chest. Ten chests of gold were right where they should be, side by side. They used the truck’s winch (or cable cord) to lift the chests out of the ground. When it was all loaded on the truck, they were exhausted and thirsty. On the drive back, Mickey stopped by a convenience store on the outskirts of Vegas, bought a six-pack of beer, and sat for a moment, inside the truck as he downed one of them in about three gulps.

Lucky began to have some doubts about loading all the gold onto a plane and, instead of driving to the Phoenix airport, he pulled out his cell phone and called his pilot, Bobby Boots.

“Bobby, Lucky here. Look, I’ve decided to drive the truck back east. I have a lot of gold here and even though I know the jet can probably handle this payload of about twenty thousand pounds worth, I’d prefer not to take any chances. So just take the jet back to Long Island and we’ll drive the truck all the way back to New York. I think that’s our best option.”

Mickey took I15 through Nevada, into Utah, picked up Interstate 80 East, and wound his way around Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, and Detroit, until they once again picked up I80, taking them all the way to New York. They made the long, tiring, two thousand eight hundred sixty-five mile drive in two and a half days driving continuously, with one sleeping while the other one drove, switching off frequently and only stopping to eat, refuel, or use the restroom. When they were about three hours shy of New York, Lucky called Nicky, Dukie, Sal, and Casey and told them all to meet them at Morris’s Jewelry store and to bring another portable winch to help them haul the gold off of the truck. Each eighteen-inch square block of gold weighed one ton, or two thousand pounds, and they had ten of them.

Mickey and Lucky drove directly to Morris, their jeweler friend of many years. Morris explained that gold is weighed in troy ounces with one troy pound equaling twelve ounces, not sixteen, therefore, one ton of gold = 24,000 ounces, not 32,000. Morris weighed the gold and told them that they had ten tons of pure gold. With a ton of gold weighing in at twenty-four thousand ounces and with gold selling for fifteen hundred dollars an ounce, the grand total was thirty-six million dollars per ton times ten for a whopping total of three hundred sixty million dollars worth of gold. Morris told Lucky that he would take all of the gold netting Lucky twelve hundred an ounce, which in turn meant two hundred eighty-eight million dollars in Lucky’s pocket. It took Lucky about five seconds to agree, but it took Morris about two weeks to move it all, which was quite remarkable. But when all was complete, a wire transfer was deposited into Lucky’s Swiss bank account. Lucky then wrote a check to Mickey for five million and gave all of the other friends who met him at the airport a check each for one hundred thousand dollars. Any guy who took a risk like that, working for Lucky, deserved it. It was their loyalty that Lucky cherished and he rewarded their loyalty.

Chapter Eighteen

Lucky asked Nicky and Dukie if they wanted to work for him a while, stating that the work might be for a few weeks or the next few months – no way of knowing yet. The boys never said no to Lucky. He had been good to them. Dukie came immediately, but Nicky had some loose ends to clear up, as he always did, and told Lucky that he would make it there in the next couple of days. Dukie was always at the ready with a packed traveling bag nearby. In fact, there was a joke about that bag as it forever sat, right by the front door, just waiting for the next invitation out of town. It was a habit from his fighting days, as every other week, he was traveling somewhere for a boxing match. In this case, all he needed to do was throw his suitcase into his car and drive to the safehouse, which was about twenty minutes away, depending on traffic.

Dukie needed this job, not for the money, but to get his mind off of things. His personal life had recently left him emotionally in shambles and Lucky’s timing could not be better. Dukie had gone and married a society girl from Boston. They were a handsome couple, but after a “quick” marriage, there was “quick” romance, meaning it sizzled shortly after the “I do’s.” It struck them that in their haste to wed the couple really hadn’t known much about each other and, in essence, had little in common. She was from a fine, societal family and Dukie, well, he was the rough and tumble street brawler type; very appealing at first to any woman intrigued with the bad boy “rugged” type, but a turnoff later when she realized that he was a borderline redneck. As for Dukie, he didn’t care much for high society, getting dressed up a lot, and appearing at all those functions for nothing more than what amounted to a photo op, in his opinion. Fortunately, there were no children involved, so the only tough decision to make was who got the dog.
Marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be
, Dukie thought.

Dukie looked forward to working with Lucky and the gang. The timing was perfect. When Lucky called, it was shortly after his wife had left and Dukie was wallowing in pity, blaming himself for not doing the marriage thing better and feeling a little despondent.

At the door of the safehouse, Mickey greeted Dukie with a big slap on the shoulder and Charlie gave him a big hello, as did Sam. Anastasia smiled as she nodded hello. Not long after Mickey’s arrival, the telephone lying on the coffee table in the corner of the living room rang. Mickey nodded to Dukie that it was okay to answer. It was Morris, the jeweler, saying that a package had been delivered to his store, in care of Lucky, and asked if there was anyone there who could come pick it up. Dukie agreed to make the trip. Nicky, by now at the safehouse, agreed to stay to look out for things. The professor asked if he could be dropped off at the library until Dukie finished his business at the jeweler’s. Anastasia jumped in and asked him if she could tag along and Charlie stated that he wanted to do more sightseeing. So it was Sam, Anastasia, the professor, and Charlie who took the ride into the city that morning with Dukie.

The drive into the city was pleasant. The gang really liked each other and got along well. On the way, they traded adventure stories and there was lots of laughter. Sam told the story, for the twentieth time, of how she had met Lucky and the Dukie told stories of their childhood and the trouble that would find them occasionally. The time passed quickly and, before long, they were right in front of the grand library in the heart of the city. The professor and Anastasia jumped out and headed inside.

“Let me stop first and get this package, if you guys don’t mind,” Dukie said to Charlie and Sam. “And then I might join you as you tour around the city. We could stop for lunch or something later.”

Sam and Charlie both chimed in about how they would like that.

Dukie attempted to pull the car up to Morris’s jewelry store, but the area was blocked by an ambulance parked outside in front of the building, so he drove around the block until he found a space much farther away. Dukie told Charlie and Sam to lock the car doors and just stay inside until he returned. Dukie walked to the door outside and pressed the button. He heard Morris answer through the intercom.

“It’s Dukie, Morris, open up.”

Morris’s jewelry business was on the fourth floor and it took up the front half of the floor. Being a jeweler, especially a jeweler whose business relied on precious stones, Morris always used his surveillance camera before buzzing anyone in. There was a hum, then Dukie tugged at the door and walked in. Morris greeted him and offered him a seat while he went to retrieve the box. Moments later, the jeweler returned.

“There’s no return address. I called as soon as I received it, not knowing if it’s important or not,” Morris said.

Dukie picked up the box. It was light. He shook it. Nothing moved around or made any noise. He thanked Morris and left. The heavy steel door closed automatically behind him. Once it was shut completely, Dukie felt a damp cloth pressed against his face, covering his mouth and filling his nose with a sweet chemical smell. Blackness overcame him. As he lay completely unconscious, Dukie was placed onto a gurney and wheeled downstairs to the waiting ambulance.

Chapter Nineteen

When Lucky first phoned Morris about the gold supply that he was about to bring in, Morris ordered his staff to make space in the large vault situated in a room behind a locked gate in the back of his office. But there was simply not enough room for all of the gold, so Morris offered other jewelers the opportunity to purchase the gold below market prices in exchange for storing part of it for him. They were all savvy businessmen, never refusing an opportunity to buy at the right price. The jewelers who couldn’t use the gold or didn’t have the money to purchase it would store it as a favor. Morris would have Brink’s take the gold from his vault under armed guard to his bank the following day. Morris would call a few of his regular customers and inform them of the gold’s below wholesale market price.

Lucky arrived at Morris’s jewelry emporium with the gold. Morris had four armed security guards vigilantly watching for anything suspicious as the gold was transferred onto pallets. After each pallet was fully loaded, it was taken under the watchful eyes of two of the guards, to the freight elevator for delivery to Morris’s office on the fourth floor. The other two guards remained behind to guard the other gold as it was being placed onto the pallets. Morris supervised the entire procedure by first storing what gold would fit into his vault, and then dispersing the remaining gold to the various jewelry companies in his building who had agreed to help. Jewelers were sort of like family, always helping each other. Morris would return the favor one day.

The last of the gold was safely out of Lucky’s hands and his business with Morris was complete. Lucky felt a sense of relief. The men shook hands and, as Lucky turned to leave, Morris reminded him about the package he had given to Dukie, the box addressed to Lucky that had no return address. Lucky stopped dead in his tracks. It was the fact that the box had no return address that caused him to freeze. Immediately, he took out his cell phone out and called the safehouse. The professor answered. Lucky cut him short and asked to speak to Dukie. The professor told him that he hadn’t seen Dukie or the rest of the gang, but that a package was delivered to the safehouse after they returned. He explained that he and Anastasia, Sam, and Charlie had driven with Dukie into the city and that he and Anastasia were dropped off at the library, but that Dukie, Sam, and Charlie had never come back to pick up them up. He went on to say that he and Anastasia had called and called their cell phones and waited for quite some time at the library. Eventually, they gave up and grabbed several buses, making their way back to Astoria. He went on to say that the group had not returned and that Nicky was out looking for them.

“Open the package, professor,” Lucky said. Lucky could hear the professor ripping into the box.

“What’s in there?” Lucky asked.

“A cell phone, a letter, and some photos,” the professor answered as they spilled out onto the table. “The pictures are of Dukie, Sam, and Charlie.”

“What else?” Lucky asked.

“Well, there’s a note here. It says, ‘Turn on the cell phone and dial the number on the screen.’”

Lucky told the professor that he and Mickey would be there shortly. Then he asked, “Is Anastasia with you or do they have her too?”

“She’s here waiting for you to return,” he answered. “She’s a little antsy that you’re gone. You’re her security blanket. You saved her life and well, that’s a pretty big deal.”

Due to heavy traffic, the drive back took a little over an hour. Mickey had not even made it to the front of the house to park before Lucky opened the door, jumped out, raced to the house, and burst into the room. He put up his hand and yelled at the professor, louder than he had intended, “Give me the phone.” The professor handed him the phone that had arrived in the mail.