With all this bouncing around, my injuries started up again. Especially the road rash; it had been burn-y, then sting-y, but it was now ache-y, really really ache-y.
‘You’ve obviously done this before,’ I said.
She looked at me, her eyes the palest blue in her tanned face, and said, ‘You’re not full of crap too, are you?’
That’s nice, I thought.
‘I hope not,’ I said. ‘What’s your name, anyway?’
‘Sal,’ she said.
‘As in Sally?’ I said.
‘As in Salacia,’ she replied. ‘The Goddess of the Sea.’
Bag. Vomit. Need.
‘I’m Dom,’ I said. ‘As in Dominic.’
‘I know,’ she said.
As we got further from the shore the water became calmer and the boat stopped bouncing around so much.
Up ahead, what looked like an island was now visible. Beyond an arc of dark sand I could make out a splash of vegetation and some buildings.
And then, as we got closer, two figures standing on a small jetty.
I was starting to get excited: I was about to meet E Lee Marx, a mythical figure in the treasure-hunting world, a real-life Indiana Jones.
There he was, only twenty or so metres away!
But as we got closer, my excitement took a nosedive – he wasn’t there.
Instead, there was a woman and another girl, younger than Sal, both with the same Goddess of the Sea looks.
With them were two bouncing dogs, Labradors by the look of them.
‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘That’s your mum and your sister?’
Sal nodded.
Where was E Lee Marx, I wondered. I must’ve wondered it aloud without realising, because Sal said, ‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s working.’
She cut the motor and we glided in to the jetty.
I’d been right, they were Labradors. And they sure were excited as I got off the boat, jumping all over the place.
‘Settle down,’ said the woman.
Instead of her daughter’s long, untamed hair, hers was cut short, spiky short.
‘Dominic?’ she said, her accent American.
‘That’s me,’ I said.
‘I’m Trace,’ she said.
She was probably around the same age as my mum, but my mum probably wouldn’t have liked that comparison.
Because the sun and the sea had written on Trace’s skin, especially her face.
We talked a bit and she was really nice, but I couldn’t help thinking: Where in the hell is E Lee Marx?
She gave me a tour of the ‘compound’, as she called it.
There were photos everywhere, incredibly beautiful underwater shots of sharks and whales and swarming fish.
And then she served lunch: mackerel that the Goddess of the Sea had apparently caught that morning with salad that was straight from their garden. It was delicious, but all I could think was: Where in the hell is E Lee Marx?
After lunch Trace talked about diving and shipwrecks and all the great work E Lee Marx had done. How he’d gone from somebody who, in his youth, had plundered shipwrecks, to somebody who now believed in the sanctity of the shipwreck. Again, it was pretty interesting stuff, but all I could think of was, you guessed it: Where in the hell is E Lee Marx?
When she stopped to ask me whether I’d like some tea, I figured this was my chance.
I wanted to say, Would I be able to see Mr Marx now?, but that other phrase had been spinning around my head for so long that it came out instead.
‘Where in the hell is E Lee Marx?’ I blurted.
Trace gave me funny look and I couldn’t blame her.
But she stood up and said, ‘Follow me.’
I did just that, trailing her through the compound to a hut right at the back.
She tapped lightly on the door, but there was no reply.
She tapped again, harder this time, and there was a response from the other side of the door, a muffled, ‘Wait a moment.’
After a while the voice said, ‘Okay, you can come in now.’
We entered, and E Lee Marx was sitting at a desk on which was piled papers, journals, old maps.
It’s pretty weird when you meet somebody who is really famous, somebody you’ve seen on television, and in books, and in the papers.
My first reaction was: This man is a fraud!
He couldn’t actually be E Lee Marx, because somebody like me didn’t get to meet really famous people.
I quickly snapped out of that: no, this was E Lee Marx alright.
Though maybe not the E Lee Marx who was the star of The Treasure Hunter. That E Lee Marx was larger-than-life, bouncing all over the plasma. And this one seemed much more subdued, less colourful, much sadder. Like a photocopy of a photocopy of the original.
I also got the sense that he’d just sat down at his desk. And when I glanced over at the leather couch on the other side of the room, I noticed a couple of telltale depressions. I was pretty sure that E Lee Marx had been having a good old-fashioned snooze when his wife had knocked.
E Lee Marx peered at me.
As he did, I noticed a framed photo of him on the desk with two men who looked like pirates. Miranda would’ve been outraged, because it actually took me a couple of seconds to recognise Johnny Depp dressed up in his Pirates of the Caribbean outfit. And the other pirate, the one with all the wrinkles? It was one of the Rolling Stones, but which one? Not Mick Jagger. Keith Richards, that’s right. Now I remembered reading somewhere that Johnny Depp had based his look on Keith Richards. I guessed that E Lee Marx had been some sort of consultant on the film.
‘Dominic?’ said E Lee Marx.
Seriously, the most famous treasure hunter in the world, a man who had completely out-Indiana-ed Indiana Jones, knew my name!
‘Yes, that’s me,’ I replied.
‘Take a seat, young man,’ he said.
Unfortunately, all the seats were covered in papers.
‘Just move that lot out of the way,’ he said, pointing to the nearest chair.
‘So, son,’ he said, his voice as deep as some of the Spanish galleons he’d discovered. ‘You know Hansie?’
‘Hansie?’ I said, before I realised he could only be talking about one person. ‘Oh yes, of course. Hansie. Except we all call him Hound.’
E Lee Marx seemed to find that amusing. ‘Can I ask you what is the nature of your acquaintance?’
‘I’ve done some work for him,’ I said. ‘Computer stuff.’
E Lee Marx raised his eyebrows; I wasn’t sure if he was impressed or not.
‘Anyway, let’s get down to business, shall we?’ he said, though I had the sense that he was going through the motions, that business was the last thing on his mind. ‘What do you have for me?’
Here we go, I thought. I have to be absolutely on my game here, I have to convince him that Yamashita’s Gold is worthy of his attention.
‘I know somebody who knows where Yamashita’s Gold is,’ I said.
There was no change in E Lee Marx’s face. Nothing.
Eventually he said, ‘I once met Rogelio Roxas in Baguio City. He told me how he’d seen the gold bullion, stacks and stacks of bars. There was a gold Buddha, too. He removed the head and it was full of uncut diamonds. And he saw precious coins of every denomination.’ But his voice, when he said this, was almost emotionless.
‘He’s the man who found Yamashita’s Treasure in a cave near Manila,’ I said, reiterating a line from the Wikipedia entry for Yamashita’s Gold that I must’ve read a thousand times.
‘Exactly. Marcos, the President of the Philippines, had him killed, you know. Poisoned,’ he said. ‘And then the treasure disappeared.’
He seemed lost in his thoughts after this and wondered if The Debt had this wrong, if E Lee Marx was still the man for their job.
For a second I even thought about trying to contact them to voice my concerns. But I soon realised how crazy this was – I wasn’t on their side!
It didn’t matter what state he was in, I just had to get him to Australia.
‘So, Mr Marx, would you be interested in coming to Australia to look for Yamashita’s Gold?’ I said.
The look on his face said it all – it was like I’d just asked him to accompany me to Mars.
I could feel my opportunity slip, slip, slipping away. ‘I have a 1933 Double Eagle,’ I blurted. ‘It came from the treasure.’
‘Ah, the mystical 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle,’ said E Lee Marx, smiling in a sort of patronising way that told me this wasn’t the first time somebody had mentioned this coin to him. ‘Let me ask you, young man, do you know how many were minted originally?’
‘Four hundred and forty-five thousand,’ I said.
‘And how many ended up in official circulation?’
‘None, officially. Supposedly, they were all melted down,’ I said, and I knew I was undergoing some sort of exam here. ‘But some escaped.’
Again he smiled. ‘Some escaped – that’s a nice way to put it. But tell me, how could one of these escaped coins have possibly found their way into Yamashita’s Treasure?’
Definitely some sort of exam, and this was the toughest question by far.
‘A collector in Singapore – sorry, I forget his name – was thought to have some of these escaped Double Eagles in his possession when they were looted by the Japanese.’
‘Kwek Leng Hong?’ he said.
‘Yes, that’s him!’ I said, cursing myself – why hadn’t I remembered his name?
‘I’ve met him, too. Lovely old rogue,’ said E Lee Marx. ‘But I believed him when he told me that the Japanese had taken six Double Eagles from him.’
For the first time, the E Lee Marx in front of me was something like the larger-than-life E Lee Marx from The Treasure Hunter.
‘You have this coin on you?’ he said.
‘Customs took it,’ I said, taking my wallet out, showing the receipt they’d given me.
‘It says “replica” here,’ he said, and sighed.
I could feel the disappointment coming from him, waves of it.
And I couldn’t blame him – why hadn’t I remembered that they’d written ‘replica’?
He looked over at Trace, and though he didn’t say anything he must’ve conveyed something to her, because she said, ‘Well, Dom, we better get you back before it gets too late.’
As Trace, Sal and I walked back to the jetty nobody said anything, but as I went to get in the boat Trace said, ‘You’re not joking about the treasure?’
‘No, of course I’m not joking,’ I said.
‘But the Double Eagle?’
‘What if I brought him the real thing, would he believe me then?’
She looked at me, her face all lines, a roadmap of worry.
‘My husband needs to get back to sea,’ she said. ‘As soon as possible.’
I thought of the nephew who had died.
‘Come back,’ she said. ‘Bring the coin with you.’
‘I will,’ I said.
As I went to leave, she said, ‘Just make sure it’s not a phoney. Lee can pick a phoney from a mile away.’
So can Eva Carides, Numismatist.
This time, as we skipped back across the bay, Sal seemed to be doing everything she could to avoid making eye contact with me.
We glided into the beach, and I said, ‘Thanks.’
She sort of grunted at me, and I said, ‘What’s the problem, are you angry with me?’
‘No, not angry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I don’t really trust you that much.’
‘Don’t trust me?’ I said, feeling wounded.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she said. ‘I reckon you’re up to something.’
Okay, she was right: I was up to something.
But she was a twelve-year-old kid!
I expected Antonio to be in filthy mood – he’d had to wait for three hours with nobody except a dead dolphin for company.
‘It’s been nice here,’ he said as we walked back towards the pimpmobile. ‘So quiet, so calm.’
As soon as I was back inside the pimpmobile I got to work.
Lee can pick a phoney from a mile away, Trace had said, so there was no use rocking up with my Double Eagle.
I had to get hold of the real thing.
TUESDAY
FOREIGN CUSTOMS
The shuttle bus, as it made its way to the training ground, was full. Everybody seemed to be in a pretty good mood, too.
I caught Coach Sheed’s eye across the aisle and she smiled at me.
Obviously she’d forgiven me for smashing my PB yesterday.
I smiled back, but I felt like a complete fraud.
The bus pulled up and we all piled out.
I hurried through the entrance to the arena, hurried through one door of the change rooms, hurried out of another, and hurried through the arena exit.
I was pretty sure nobody had noticed me.
I had now missed a mandatory training season. I was now out of the games.
‘Bugger!’ I softly said, but that was it. That was all the mourning I was going to allow myself. Out on the main road, I hailed a taxi.
‘Airport, please,’ I told the driver.
Once there, I made for the Customs office.
As I handed the Customs official my receipt my iPhone rang.
I wasn’t surprised when I saw that it was Coach Sheeds ringing.
I knew I should’ve answered it, told her some crazy story, but I just couldn’t.
As the official read, her reptilian eyes flicked between the receipt and me. If her intention had been to scare the bejesus out of me, she’d succeeded. Because there was me, and there was the bejesus, now two separate entities.
‘Ticket?’ she said.
I handed her the computer printout.
‘Why are you going to Switzerland?’ she said.
That’s none of your business, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t, of course.
‘I’m going to meet my father there,’ I said.
She raised her eyebrows.
I took out my iPhone and scrolled through the messages until I came to one that was – supposedly – from my dad.
Dom, it said. I’ve booked us into a nice hotel in Geneva. Will pick you up at the airport. Love, Dad.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Wait here.’
Five minutes later she returned with my coin enclosed within a plastic bag, like it was contaminated with Ebola, or one of those flesh-eating viruses.
I had to sign a couple of forms, and then I was free to take my reclaimed possession and go.
I went to the toilet, locked myself in a cubicle and slipped the Double Eagle into my shoe, just under my heel. It wasn’t too comfortable, but I couldn’t afford to have it confiscated again. As I did, I couldn’t help but think of all the other people who’d secreted something on their body just before they boarded a plane. There was even a word for people like us: smugglers. I also couldn’t help thinking of what had happened to a lot of us. Imprisoned. Dead. But I was being dramatic – it was a coin, not a condom full of cocaine. It was under my heel, not in my stomach.
By that time the flight was ready to be boarded.
It was only about quarter full and the other passengers were business types: suits, briefcases.
Again, I took out my piece of paper and went over my meticulous plan. No, it wasn’t exactly James Bond – Agent 007 never seemed to write anything down – but putting it on paper seemed to make my outrageous plan more real, more achievable.
The flight seemed to take no time at all, however.
‘Please fasten your seatbelts for take-off,’ was followed, it seemed, a few minutes later by, ‘Please fasten your seatbelts for landing.’
As I shuffled off the plane and headed for Customs I knew I was in trouble, knew that already I was exhibiting suspicious behaviour, behaviour that Customs officers are trained to detect.
I was sweaty and I was twitchy.
It
wasn’t as if I was a proper smuggler. In fact, I had nothing illegal on me. But my body seemed to think that I did, that it should sweat and that it should twitch.
I stopped to drink some water from a fountain.
Several litres of it.
Okay, pull yourself together!
Somehow it worked, because by the time I was in front of the passport dude I was in better shape.
He said nothing to me, just checked that my face was the same as the one in the passport, before he stamped the page and handed it back to me.
I had no luggage to pick up, so I walked straight past the carousels.
But now my body was up to its old tricks again: sweating, twitchy.
The Nothing to Declare exit looked very inviting – just a few more metres and I was free. But I guess that’s what every one of my fellow smugglers tells themselves.
Just a few more metres.
I joined a group of what looked and sounded like American college students, in the hope that I would blend in.
Just a few more metres, that was all.
And I was there.
There was a tap on my shoulder, and I got ready to run, run, run.
I knew all that sweat and twitching had given me away. I knew there were squadrons of Customs officers peering at screens looking for people behaving just like me.
But I put on the brakes, turned around to see who the tapper was.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice southern American. ‘You’re not one of ours, are you?’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said, and I was away, not running, but walking very, very quickly towards the train station.
As I did I took out the piece of paper, my plan. Now, I had to catch the 10.42 am train to Neuchâtel.
I checked my watch – it was only 10.12 am and the station was an eight-and-a-half minute walk – I had plenty of time.
I allowed myself the tiniest pat on the back – You’re doing okay, Dom. You’re doing okay.
TUESDAY
IKBAL2
Lake Neuchâtel looked like something you’d see depicted on the wrapper for a brand of expensive Swiss chocolate: an expanse of silvery water with snow-capped mountains rising up behind. All very scenic, all very seventy-per-cent-pure cocoa, but I didn’t have time to ponder its beauty; it was straight into the boat-hire shop for me.
Fetch the Treasure Hunter Page 15