Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds: A Chase Baker Thriller Book 10

by Vincent Zandri

  I swing my legs and body around so that I land flat on my belly beside the tracks, as the speeding locomotive barrels on through.

  2

  It only took a few seconds for the entire train to speed past, but it felt like several days and nights. When it was gone, and all that could be seen of it was the final car as the train began to snake its way along the winding riverbank, I lifted myself up onto my knees and felt my entire body tremble.

  “Baker,” Edge says, after a time. “You okay, buddy?”

  Slowly, I turn and face him. He’s sucking on a cigarette, blue smoke oozing out his nostrils. He steps over the tracks, stands over me, his beer gut practically slapping me upside the head.

  “Told you this would beat the crap out of SuspenseFest,” he says, as if we’ve been shopping at Trader Joe’s all morning instead of duct-taped to active train tracks.

  Turning ever so slowly, I glance at my left hand. It’s still there. The force of the locomotive’s forward motion must have simply blown me away from the tracks, my wrist tearing away from the tape.

  I wrap my fingers around my wrist. It’s sore, but nothing broken or sprained even. Edge smiles, slaps my back. So hard I nearly lose my balance. He also hands me my wallet and cash.

  “I knew everything would be hunky dory,” he says. “You gotta have more faith in your elders, Baker.”

  “You’re a good writer,” I say, stuffing the wallet and cash into my jeans pockets. “Maybe even a great writer, Edge. But you’re an asshole too.”

  “You should go out to lunch with my ex-wives. You can all have a Leslie Edgerton-is-an-asshole fest over the all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet. Everybody else does.” He chuckles. “Oh, and be sure to tell them the checks are in the mail.”

  “I just might do that.” I start walking towards the small patch of woods that separates the road from the tracks.

  “Let’s grab a drink,” Edge says, following close behind. “I’m thirsty after all that excitement.”

  I look at my watch.

  “It’s 7:15 in the morning,” I say.

  “Yeah, but you of all people should know it’s probably 7:15 p.m. in India. My thirst knows no bounds. Let’s find a bar that’s open and then see about finding that Dutch Schultz treasure.”

  He’s right, I whisper to myself, as I enter the woods. Maybe a stiff drink is in order right about now.

  Naturally, the Russians are gone and along with them, our only mode of transport. Which leaves us no choice but to hitchhike. Something I haven’t done since high school. Edge is all smiles, waving his arm in the air, his thumb fully erect . . . his words, not mine. When a car finally stops, it’s a red convertible with two college-age girls inside it, the driver a brunette and the girl riding shotgun, a blonde.

  We couldn’t have scripted this any better, and by the glow on his face, Edge couldn’t be happier.

  “Why, thank you ladies,” he says, jumping into the backseat with all the enthusiasm and youth of a man thirty years younger. “This is your lucky day.”

  “And why is that?” asks the blonde. She’s wearing a low-cut tank with a black lacy bra under it.

  “I’m a famous author,” Edge says. “Perhaps you’ve read some of my books.”

  “Anything I might know?” Brunette asks from behind the wheel. She’s also wearing a low-cut blouse, a pink lacy bra, and aviator sunglasses. Chase the detail man.

  Edge rattles off a half-dozen titles, including The Bitch, The Rapist, and Dead Whores Don’t Talk. Nice, pleasant titles only a mother could love.

  Both girls eye one another and shake their heads. For a second, I get the feeling they might tell us to get out and hit the road.

  Edge’s smile turns upside down.

  “I’m a writer too,” I add, climbing aboard, plopping myself beside the big man.

  “What books have you written?” Blondie asks.

  Edge gives me a glare, like he wants to be the only writer in the car.

  “The Shroud Key,” I say, tossing Edge a wink of my left eye.

  “Oh my God,” Brunette says in a sing-song voice. “I freakin’ loved that book. The search for Jesus’ mortal remains in Egypt.” She turns, gazes into the backseat. “Are you the real Chase Baker?”

  “In the flesh,” I smile.

  Both girls scream, even though I’m pretty convinced the blonde has no idea who or what I am. Oh well, despite her naked enthusiasm, she doesn’t seem like the literary type.

  “You’re right, Mr. Baker,” Brunette says into the rearview mirror, as she pulls out onto the road. “This is my lucky day.”

  Edge shoots me a smirk. “You suck,” he says under his breath.

  “Hey,” I say, “maybe you shouldn’t have tossed me that lighter back at the train tracks after all.”

  3

  After the girls drop us off, we find ourselves back at the Phoenicia bar where we started last night. Like Edge said an hour ago, it’s night time in India, and my nerves are still raw and throbbing, so I decide to have a beer for breakfast. He chooses a beer and a whiskey chaser. We sit at a bar that’s empty, excepting our presence, of course. Behind us, a few of the tables are occupied by people enjoying a greasy spoon breakfast.

  “Listen, Edge, you really think there’s such a thing as Dutch Schultz’s buried treasure?” I say after a time. “Or do you believe in your gut that it’s all bullshit? A tall tale spread from prison cell to prison cell to kill the hard time?”

  Edge downs his shot, slaps the empty glass against the wood bar to get the bartender’s attention. The short, stocky, white-haired man turns while cleaning drinking glasses with a white towel.

  “You say something?” Bartender asks.

  Edge grins. “Filler up, friend.”

  Bartender sets his towel and glass down, goes to the top shelf, pulls down a bottle of Jack, pours a shot.

  “Shall I leave the bottle?” he asks with plenty of snot in his voice.

  “Why not?” Edge grins. “The day is young.”

  “You realize, gentlemen,” he says, “that at this hour of the morning, we’re simply the local diner. After lunch we become the town bar again.”

  “I do believe it’s seven thirty in the evening in India,” Edge says. “We’re on Indian time.”

  Forming a scowl, Bartender shakes his head, goes back to his glass and towel.

  “Here’s the way I see it,” Edge says turning his attention back to me. “Most reality is based on tradition. You should know that as an author, Baker, even if you are only a part-time author. Take the Bible, for instance. The true site to Sodom and Gomorrah has been located. The true Noah’s Ark might be stuck inside a glacier on a mountain in Turkey. Even the Shroud of Turin is probably the true burial cloth of the big J.”

  He shoots me a wink and a smile like I have no choice but to agree with him, having studied the burial cloth of Jesus Christ on an up close and personal basis.

  I sip my beer. “So, what is it you’re getting at, Edge?”

  “All I’m saying is, just because nobody has found Dutch’s treasure even after eighty years, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means no one is looking hard enough.”

  “Or no one is looking in the right places, gentlemen.” The voice comes from behind us. Directly behind us, I should say. The two of us turn around simultaneously on our barstools only to eye a woman seated alone at one of the available tables.

  “Excuse me?” I say.

  “I said, could be the reason Dutch Schultz’s treasure has never been found is that people aren’t looking in the right place,” the woman repeats.

  She’s in her late thirties or early forties, and she’s got long, dark, almost black hair that falls gently and feathery against her shoulders. Her skin is on the dark side like she might be the child of a very handsome mixed race couple, and her big brown eyes are wet and inviting enough to swim in. She’s wearing a light cotton button down shirt, and although I have no way of seeing them, I can bet she’s wearing blue jeans fo
r pants and leather sandals for footwear. I can’t help but wonder if she’s wearing underwear or not.

  “You know something about the lost treasure?” Edge queries.

  “A little,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “More than you anyway, Mr. Edgerton and Mr. Baker.”

  “You know my name,” Edge happily points out. “You must read my books.”

  “Not exactly,” she states. “But yes, I know who you are. Who you both are.”

  Edge eyes me for a second. Then, grabbing the bottle off the bar, he slides off his stool.

  “Mind if we join you, miss?”

  “Not at all,” she says.

  I get up with my beer, shuffle over to the table, pull out a chair and sit down.

  “My name is Sarah,” she says, holding out her smallish hand. “Sarah Winston.”

  I’m the first to take her hand in mine. It’s warm and soft and inviting. Naturally, I can’t help but look for a ring. When I can’t find one, I feel a wave of optimism shoot up and down my spine.

  Chase the slick.

  Edge shakes her hand.

  “Sarah Winston, Sarah Winston,” he repeats, rubbing his chin with index finger and thumb like it helps him think. “How do I know that name?”

  “I’m an author just like you,” she says. “Rather, I write on non-fiction topics. True crime, strange-but-true crime stories, biographies. I’ve even written about Dutch Schultz.”

  I clear my throat. “So, what are the chances of three authors running into one another in a tiny bar-slash-diner in a tiny town surrounded by mountains so far away from civilization? Civilization being Manhattan.”

  Sarah plants a smile on her face. Something that causes my stomach to constrict and my pulse to pick up pace as if I were a junior high student.

  “Okay, time to tell the truth,” she says. “I was in the bar at SuspenseFest when I overheard you two talking about going after the Dutch Schultz treasure.”

  “I would have noticed you,” Edge jumps in. “You’re rather . . . ummm, attractive.”

  “What he said,” I say.

  She giggles. “I was sitting in a dark corner. You both were too busy backslapping and kissing up to one another to take notice of anyone else. So, when you decided to skip out on SuspenseFest for something truly suspenseful, I couldn’t help but tag along . . . errr, sort of.”

  A quiet pause drapes itself over the table for a long beat or two. But then, the obvious question comes to mind. Rather, a question that should have been obvious from the get-go.

  “Where were you half an hour ago when we were about to get run down by a speeding locomotive?”

  She eyes me strangely.

  “I’m not following.” A shake of her head. “I only just woke up.”

  That explains that, I think. Okay, so next obvious question.

  I say, “You mentioned that people have been looking in the wrong place for Schultz’s treasure for eighty-plus years now. So, where should they be looking? In your opinion, of course.”

  Sarah sips on her coffee, sits back in her chair. “In my humble opinion, I don’t think the treasure is in Phoenicia in the first place,” she explains. “I don’t think it was ever in Phoenicia, in fact.”

  “So, where is it then, Sarah?” Edge jumps in while pouring himself another shot.

  “Albany, Mr. Edgerton,” she says. “Rather, the greater Albany area.”

  Albany . . .

  That word, that city. A place that conjures up so many memories for me. It’s where I grew up with my excavator dad who, after my mom died, played both father and mother to me. When I hear the word, I think of riding bikes with my friends in the summer, digging up little relics in the Albany Rural Cemetery, sneaking beers at high school proms, football games in the fall, skiing in the winter . . . I had a pretty normal childhood up in New York’s capital city. But then, it was so normal that I couldn’t wait to escape it.

  “Hey, call me Edge,” Edgerton adds. “Mr. Edgerton makes me feel older than Mr. Baker here. You can call him by his Christian name too. Chase. Like the verb, not the noun.”

  “Why Albany?” I press.

  “Back in 1935,” Sarah explains, “Dutch Schultz became obsessed with killing then Governor Dewey, who planned on indicting the gangster for tax evasion as soon as all the evidence was collected. Schultz, in the meantime, began frequenting Albany a lot. He’d already invested in an illegal beer brewing business in nearby Cohoes and, at the same time, he was plotting out precisely where and when he would confront the governor and shoot him down. This took careful planning.”

  “How the hell did he plan on getting away with it?” Edge interjects. “Sounds like a suicide mission to me.”

  “You’re right, Edge,” Sarah says. “Schultz was acting more on emotion than common sense. That said, however, he did have enough wits about him to bury his treasure. But he didn’t bury it here. And as much as you hear talk about there being a paper treasure map where X marks the spot, that’s all hogwash and the stuff that draws the tourists to this town.”

  “If there’s no map,” I say, “how in the world would we know where to start looking up in Albany?”

  Sarah finishes her coffee, sets her cup gently back down onto the table.

  “I said there isn’t a paper map,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean a map doesn’t exist.”

  Edge drinks down his shot, pours another, pulls a cigarette from his pocket, pops it between his lips.

  “Who wants to smoke?” he says.

  Assuming a sort of naughty grin, Sarah offers, “I wouldn’t mind joining you, Edge.”

  “By all means, pretty lady,” he says.

  With that, we all head out the door to smoke on the front porch.

  Correction . . . Edge and Sarah smoke while I take in the fresh Catskill Mountain air instead.

  “So, what kind of map are we talking about?” I say. “That is, a paper map doesn’t exist.”

  Edge shakes a fresh cigarette up through the already open pack. A maneuver only a professional, life-long smoker can achieve. Sarah takes it, places it between her thick lips. Edge goes to light it, but I snatch the lighter out of his hand, thumb a flame, do the honors.

  Giggling, Sarah leans in, touches cigarette to flame, inhales some smoke which she exhales gently through her nostrils. Or should I say, cute little nostrils. Chase the terminally smitten.

  “My, my,” she says, “my husband didn’t even treat me this well.”

  “You’re married?” I inquire sadly.

  “Ex-husband,” she stresses.

  Heart be still, Baker . . .

  “I’d like my lighter back,” Edge says.

  I hand it to him. Then, my eyes back on Sarah. “Back to Schultz’s treasure and Albany. Is there or isn’t there a map that might lead us to its location?”

  “I’ve done more than my fair share of research on Schultz not for one book, but several anthologies and collections. Back in ’35 before he was killed, he stashed his treasure in quote—upstate New York—unquote.” She makes quotation marks with her free fingers.

  “Upstate could be anywhere,” I note.

  Edge jumps in, “When I was in prison, my cellmate insisted Schultz buried the stuff in Phoenicia on the banks of the trout stream, near a tree marked with an X, all within view of a cliff face that’s supposed to look a lot like a devil, whatever that looks like.” He squints, purses his lips as though giving the subject a little more thought. “My last ex-wife looked a lot like the devil, come to think of it.”

  Sarah smokes, shakes her head.

  She says, “That rumor is entirely based on two things. First, Schultz liked Phoenicia and often visited to get away from the city and do some trout fishing. Second, on his death bed when he was dying from a .45 caliber bullet in his chest, he was quoted as saying, ‘Don’t let Satan draw you too fast.’ Many people translate Satan into the Devil and therefore Devil’s Rock which is located west of the town here. But I think Schultz was either
talking about another location or, knowing how many people would go searching for the fortune after he was gone, he purposely misled them.”

  I say, “Okay, so before I die from second-hand smoke inhalation, what makes you think the treasure is located up in Albany?”

  “A slave,” she says.

  Edge looks at me. Then, his eyes back on Sarah. “Whaddya mean a slave? Like, slave, as in Lincoln-freed-the-slaves kind of slave?”

  “That’s precisely what I mean,” she declares.

  “What slave exactly?” I say.

  “My great, great, grandfather,” she says with a grin.

  4

  The cigarettes smoked and stamped out, we all agree to head back into the bar, only not for drinks this time, but a proper breakfast.

  Edge’s treat.

  Over scrambled eggs, extra crispy bacon, home fries, toast, and coffee, we learn more about what’s turning out to be a very personal connection to the Schultz treasure.

  “You see,” Sarah says, “my great grandfather, Willy Winston, worked for Dutch Schultz.”

  “He was a gangster?” Edge says. “I like him already.”

  “Not at all,” Sarah informs us. “Nothing so glamorous. But Willy was Dutch’s driver whenever the gangster was in the Albany area, which was a lot back in ’35. Willy overheard Schultz on numerous occasions talking to his confidants not only about the plot to assassinate Dewey but where he was planning on stashing his loot when the time came for him to go on the lam.”

  “If Willy knew where it was, why didn’t he go after it himself?” I ask.

  “Because Schultz only spoke in generalities. That said, Willy did overhear Schultz mention one very important key point.”

  “Which is?” I say, spooning a forkful of egg and toast into my mouth.

  “Schultz created a map that supposedly details where the treasure is kept, she answers.

  “Okay, so there is a map after all,” I say. “But if it’s not a paper map, what kind of map is it?”