sixty-eight

In the basement of the Kit Kat West, Ollie and I showed Bear the back wall stacked with Nomad shipping crates. Well, I showed Bear; Ollie just tagged along. Sitting beside the crates was Keys’s old steamer trunk partially covered with a tan tarpaulin.

Bear said, “Okay, Tuck, what’s this all about?”

“Show him, kid,” Ollie said.

I pointed to one of the crates already pulled from the stack. It was about two feet square and nailed shut. “Open it, Bear. Unless I’m slipping, there’s a bunch of gold and jewels waiting in there.”

Ollie added, “It’s kinda like a rainbow—Leprechauns with a pot of gold.”

He was trying to compete with my Zombie joke.

Bear pulled out a pocketknife and levered open the crate. It took him a few minutes and he broke his knife blade in two, but he continued until the wooded lid was on the floor beside him. When he pulled back a layer of plastic padding, the glint of gold and gemstones peeked out from inside.

The end of the rainbow.

Bear stood back. “Holy shit, Tuck. It’s here.”

“I know.” I didn’t, really; I’d guessed. So had Ollie. “Check a couple more.”

Bear searched around the basement and found a handyman’s toolbox in a cabinet by the stairs. Then he went to work on several of the Nomad crates until all but a couple were open and their contents laid out on three folding tables.

The tables were covered with Youssif Iskandr’s Egyptian treasures. There were gold amulets laden with emeralds and what I think were rubies. I say amulet because that’s what they call those things on the science channels I often watch late at night. There was also a small box that resembled a sarcophagus (History Channel Thursday nights) with a carved pharaoh’s head on one end. The box was the size of a shoebox and it too was decorated with gems and gold with hieroglyphs carved on its sides. There were dozens of small stone statues, some artifacts covered with gems and others with gold. The boxes weren’t empty yet and in front of us were millions of dollars of antiquities hidden in William’s secret vault for over seventy years.

“Damn, Tuck,” Bear said. “I can’t believe it. It’s like some old movie or something.”

“Think Charlton Heston,” I said. “I did.”

Ollie stood in front of the table and looked down at the loot. “Yeah, a fortune. But it ain’t worth all this killin’. And it wasn’t worth Youssif’s life to start.”

Bear’s cell phone rang and he took the call. A moment later, he stuffed it back into his pocket, frowning. “My men just hit B.C.’s place out in the sticks. Empty. But they found an old dark blue pickup truck parked in the back. And get this, they found a smashed up cellphone in the trunk. It was William’s. And it looks like B.C. doctored himself after getting shot. They found a couple plastic medical containers in his trash—for blood—and other medical supplies.”

I nodded and watched Ollie as he looked over a stack of gold and ceramic statues. “What d’you find, Ollie?”

“The jackpot, kid.” He touched my shoulder with one hand and one of the statues—a sphinx-shaped ceramic piece—with the other. “William’s missing bookends.”

The room flashed black.

William Mendelson sat behind the small steel counting table inside his vault. He was bent over, examining a glass frame. He held it up to the light for a better view. It was a papyrus scroll. Beside the table, his safe was open, and it was empty.

In fact, the entire vault was empty—the treasure was already gone.

Ollie and I watched as William laid the glass frame on a file in the middle of the counting table.

“Do you know what this is?” William asked as he looked toward the vault door and tapped the file.

The killer stepped into the vault. “Your inventory.”

“Precisely—and it tells me much.” His voice was soft, calm, and without worry that his life was about to end. He tapped the framed scroll. “In this frame is a scroll that dates back to the time of Khufu in the Fourth Dynasty—I’m sure of it. To think that Keys and I have kept these treasures to ourselves. They belong with their people. And I am going to rectify that.”

“You’ll expose Keys. Do you want him dead, too?”

William lowered his eyes to the file. “No. And I don’t want to die, either. His secret weighs heavy on us both. Those were dark times and he has more than atoned for his sins.”

“Then why?” the killer asked.

William folded his hands and looked at the killer with sad eyes. “I know about the account. I know you stole some of these treasures and sold them. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? I’m consulting with someone who has the credentials to assist me—Professor Tucker, from the university. She has contacts with the police and will help me sort this out. I will not press charges—how could I?”

“You’ve consulted with an outsider?” The killer moved closer. “You should not have done that. This treasure is worth tens of millions. You owe me, William. You don’t get that, do you? You—this bank—destroyed my family. It’s not about the millions—oh, I’ll take that, too—but it’s about family. And I’m getting revenge.”

“Revenge? I don’t understand, but then, neither do you. By selling those pieces, it is you who have brought the danger to us—to Keys and me. We were going to return those treasures and end this madness.” William slammed his hand down on the framed papyrus scroll and cracked the glass, sending shards sliding off the table. “Don’t you see? We have to make this right.”

“All right, William. If it’s that important to you. Show me the scroll. Khufu, you think?” The killer moved behind William and put one hand on his shoulder, then drew a .22-cal revolver with the other.

William raised the scroll. “Khufu was—”

The sharp crack inside the vault was not as surprising as the look in William’s eyes as he saw the last seconds of his life spill onto the desk before him.

“I understand, William. And I’m sorry. But you can’t tell. Not about Keys. Not about this treasure. Not about me.”

Footsteps ran down the stairs into the anteroom behind us.

Marshal Mendelson ran into the vault, sweaty and out of breath. “Dear God, what have you done?”

“You knew I had to.” The killer’s voice was calm, relaxed. “You knew.”

“No.” Marshal stared at his father. “I just wanted out. I needed the money. Nicholas bailed me out—I told you it was over. I didn’t want this.”

The killer laughed. “You sound like Keys. We have to get out of here before that idiot B.C. shows up. He’ll get the blame and I’ll be gone. You can play the grieving son and the score will be almost even.”

Marshal peered down at his father’s body. A strange, eerie calm flooded his face. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

The killer grabbed the Khufu scroll. “Yes, it did.”