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

by Vincent Zandri

  “You wanna try another one of your beer grenades?” I suggest.

  “Not on your life,” he says. “There’s only a few left, and we’re almost out of money.”

  Rocks . . .

  To my right is a severe drop-off that leads down to a brook. A road breaks off from this one and follows the decline all the way around the drop-off. I’m guessing if we drive into the old trees that cover the edge of the drop-off, the Russians will miss us altogether and take the road down into the gully. From there we can pelt them with boulders. If we can disable them long enough, we can get the hell out of here.

  “Rob,” I say, “when I give you the signal, I want you to make a hard right turn.”

  “When?”

  “Soon as the Sergeys can’t see us.”

  The road is winding and bending around big trees and the occasional marble mausoleum. I wait for just the perfect time when one or both objects will separate the Sergeys from us. Up ahead, an old mausoleum that’s crumbling under age and its own weight.

  “At that building, make a hard right turn.” Then, over my shoulder. “Hold on everyone.”

  Rob turns the wheel hard and the tires spin, the back end of the Jeep fishtailing in the soft dirt. The wheels catch, and the Jeep scoots over the tall grass, all the way to the trees on the perimeter of the drop-off.

  “Brakes, Rob!” I scream. “Or we’ll go over the side.”

  He slams on the brakes. The Jeep slides to the very edge of the drop-off. Rob, Edge, and Sarah scream. But the Jeep stops just in time.

  “Jesus Christ, dude,” Rob says. “When were you going to inform me of the cliff?”

  “You wouldn’t have followed my orders if I told you,” I say.

  I turn around in my seat, see the Russians speed past.

  “They’re taking the bait,” I say.

  “What bait?” Edge says, sticking his head between the front bucket seats.

  “You hear that?” I say. The wooded cemetery is filled with the noise of a big V8 engine revving its way downhill and around the gully. “That’s the Sergey boys taking the wrong road downhill and around the bend, thinking they’re right on our ass.” I jump out of the Jeep. “Grab a rock. The biggest you can find. We’re going to rain hell down upon them.”

  Everyone gets out, searches for something to toss over the side.

  “Hey, what about these stones, Chase?” Rob poses.

  Teetering on the edge of the ever-eroding drop-off is a series of tombstones. Judging from how gray they are, I’m guessing they have to be as old as the cemetery itself.

  “Seems a little sacrilegious,” I say. “But it’s either us or them.”

  I bend down in front of the first stone, give it a little shove. It nearly comes away and drops off the edge. Perfect.

  “Everyone take a stone and wait for my command,” I insist.

  The three of them each drop to their knees before a headstone.

  “Ready?” I say, listening for the sound of the big Lincoln making the two-hundred eighty degree curve in the road as it wraps around the hill. Looking down, I can make out the hood and the roof of the vehicle.

  “Now!” I shout, pushing on my headstone.

  All four stones come loose from the earth. They don’t just fall but tumble down the steep drop-off, until they collide, one by one with the Lincoln Town Car.

  The car turns sharply to the right, skids, goes off the road’s edge and drops down into the brook onto its side.

  We all stand and cheer.

  Screw you and the horse you road in on, Sergey boys!

  “Back in the Jeep,” I insist. “They’re liable to come after us on foot.”

  “That is, they’re still alive,” Edge says.

  “Let’s not wait around to find out,” Sarah says.

  “What a novel idea,” I say.

  22

  Driving out of the cemetery.

  “Where do we go now?” Rob asks.

  “We can’t go back to the Extend Stay America,” Sarah insists.

  “What about The Harmony Hotel?” Edge says. “We can stop for more beer first.”

  “And risk that little man at the counter calling in Mendel and Dernitz?” I say. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m hungry,” Edge says. “We missed lunch. Can’t we find a Denny’s and look at the skull there? We can sit way in the back along with the drug dealers.”

  I find myself laughing as the Jeep descends the wooded hill back down in the direction of the St. Agnes Cemetery. The idea is so preposterous, it’s brilliant. It’s like the setting for a scene in one of Edge’s hardboiled novels.

  Rob stops the Jeep at the end of the cemetery road.

  “There’s a Denny’s not far from the airport,” Sarah says. “It’s usually filled with travelers passing through the city looking for something to do with their layovers.”

  “I taste a Grand Slam breakfast in my immediate future,” Edge says.

  “Breakfast for dinner,” Rob says. “Early bird special.”

  “What the hell,” I say. “It’s quite possible that Denny’s is the last place anyone will be looking for us. And the last fifty we have left should cover it.”

  “Hook a right,” Sarah says. “It’s not far.”

  Rob hits the gas, pulls out onto Broadway.

  Pulling into the parking lot of the Wolf Road Airport Denny’s, Rob takes the very last parking space in the far corner of the lot. We get out, go around to the Jeep’s tailgate. Rob opens it, and together we face down the small metal strong box.

  “It’s freakin’ padlocked,” Edge says. “You think to buy a crowbar at the Home Depot, Baker?”

  “I did not,” I say, grabbing the strongbox and setting it on the pavement. “But I have something equally as effective. You can trust a former sandhog, Edge.”

  I head back to the front seat, grab the spade. Bringing it around to the box, I slide the spade tip into the narrow space between the clasp and the box.

  “Stand back,” I say. Raising my right booted foot, I press down hard on the shovel handle, and while the padlock remains intact, the clasp’s thin hinge pops like it’s made of balsa wood. Tossing the shovel back into the front seat, I lift the box back up, set it on the tailgate.

  “Sarah,” I say, “I believe it’s you who should do the honors. The remains of this man belong to your great grandfather after all.”

  Her face has gone pale, her eyes wide and milky, her hands trembling however slightly.

  She nods. “I guess this is my show after all. But for some reason, I’m really afraid.”

  “We’re here for you,” I say. “Aren’t we fellas?”

  The others nod politely.

  Slowly, Sarah reaches out with both hands, touches the box lid, and inhaling a deep breath, pushes it up. There’s a brown canvas bag inside that must contain the bones. For a long beat or two, we just stand there, staring at it.

  “This is where being the great-granddaughter ends,” Sarah says, “and the boys take over.”

  Edge and Rob both look at one another like they’re going to be sick.

  “You do it, Baker,” Edge says, scrunching his face. “You’re used to handling bones and spiders and snakes.”

  He’s got a point.

  “So long as it’s okay with Sarah,” I say.

  “It’s okay,” she says.

  They’re right, of course. Inspecting the bones doesn’t bother me in the least. I lay my hands on the bag, find the opening. It’s closed with a leather drawstring. Slowly, I open it, allow the light of the late afternoon sun to fill it, and look inside.

  As expected, the bag is filled with remains. A pile of bones, in the center of which is a skull. Reaching into the bag, I grab hold of it, pull it out. What strikes me immediately is not the fleshless face or the missing front teeth, but the carvings in the skull itself.

  “Whoa, dude,” Rob says.

  “Jeeze, will you look at that,” Edge says. “Alas, poor, Yorick.”

/>   “Poor Winston,” Sarah says. “Should we say a prayer or something?”

  “We’ll save the prayers for later,” I say. “For now, let’s get a few pictures of this map Schultz carved into the back of his cranial cap and get these bones back in the bag.”

  I pull out my smartphone from my bush jacket pocket, take three close-up pictures of the approximately two inch by two-inch bone map. When I’m satisfied with the pictures, I gently set the skull back inside the bag, tighten the drawstrings, and close the lid.

  “Okay,” I say. “So, who’s hungry?”

  23

  We luck out and manage to grab a table in the back of the Denny’s dining room. Whether or not there are any drug dealers occupying the few back booths is anybody’s guess. The uniformed waitress approaches us, and we order four Grand Slam breakfasts. Edge orders an extra plate of bacon, just to be sure his heart valves get enough cholesterol. He’s also somehow managed to sneak one of his last remaining beers into the restaurant under his Mysterious Bookshop t-shirt.

  When he snaps the tap on the beer can, the sound attracts the attention of a late middle-aged man who’s sitting alone in the booth beside us. He’s reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. Could be he’s a drug dealer. Yet, somehow, I don’t think so. But when he hears the beer tab snapping open, he turns lightning quick. Edge, in turn, raises the beer, smiles, as if to say Cheers and takes a deep swig. The man just shakes his head, goes back to reading his paper.

  “What’s he expect?” Edge whispers. “The Four Seasons?”

  I’ve already opened the gallery app on my smartphone and begun examining the first picture by the time the meals arrive. Using the pads on my index finger and thumb, I enlarge the photo as much as I can without it becoming too grainy and indecipherable.

  “What the hell is all that?” Edge says, his mouth full of a future coronary. “Just looks like squiggles and zigzags to me. No wonder the historians never gave them a second thought.”

  “Total agreement, dude,” Rob says. “Looks like a whole lotta nothin’.”

  But clearly, Sarah is seeing something more than a random pattern of squiggly lines and haphazard carvings. So am I. That is to say, knowing what I know now about Dutch Schultz and his last words before dying, the map carved into the skull bone makes sense.

  “Don’t let Satan draw you too fast,” I say.

  “Schultz’s last words?” Sarah says.

  “Before he met his maker,” Edge adds, washing down his food with a deep swig of beer.

  “Precisely,” I say. “Those were Schultz’s last words before he died from the gunshot wound he received inside that restaurant down in Jersey. ‘Don’t let Satan draw you too fast.’ Everyone has assumed that Satan referred to a rock outcropping that looks somewhat like a skull in Phoenicia. A place called Devil’s Rock. But no one has ever been able to find the treasure there even after more than eighty years.”

  “So, what are you saying, Chase?” Rob wonders.

  I point to the picture on the phone.

  “You see this straight line here?” I say.

  All three nod.

  “What if that represents a road?” I say. Then, shifting my finger to the carving beside it. “This zig zag beside it . . . What if that represents water? A stream or a river?”

  More nods.

  “Now,” I go on, shifting my finger on the phone screen once more. “This interesting carving right here at the top of the zig zag? You gotta use your imagination a little, but if you ask me, here’s two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.”

  “I think I see it,” Edge says.

  “Me too,” Sarah says, as she forms a smile.

  “Me three, dude,” Rob joins in. He points at the screen with his index finger. “But what’s with the zig zaggy squiggly lines above the face? What’s with the square above that?”

  “It’s possible that the zig zags represent more water. Only not a linear river or stream in this case, but more like a pond or a lake.”

  “And the square?” Sarah says.

  I sit back in my seat, my eyes still locked on the phone.

  “Not entirely sure,” I say. “But what if it were a building? Something man-made?”

  Everyone looks at me like they’re more confused than we were before finding the map.

  “So,” Sarah says. “Let me get this straight. We’re looking for a road and a river and a lake and a house.” It’s a question.

  “More like we’re looking for a road, set beside a river, that’s fed by a lake . . . most likely via waterfall . . . that has a house or some sort of building situated on its banks.” I feel myself grinning at my assessment. Chase the master map reader.

  “Guess that’s why you’re the treasure hunter,” Edge says. “But I still say it all looks like a bunch of lines and squiggles to me. But if that’s what you see, that’s fine by me.”

  “Okay,” Sarah says. “So your description, as logical as it might seem, still doesn’t do us any good. This is upstate New York. There are a thousand locations that match a road next to a river fed by a lake with a house on it.”

  I drink some coffee, cut a bit of egg and pancake with my fork, eat it, place the fork back down on the plate.

  “True,” I say. “But we already know Dutch spent a lot of time in Cohoes with his illegal beer business. So, what if we narrow our search down to a road by the river in Cohoes?”

  “The Mohawk River,” Sarah says, eyes wide. “Mohawk Street in Cohoes runs directly beside the Mohawk River. The road leads directly to The Harmony Hotel.”

  “And,” I say, “what used to be one of the main tourist attractions along the Mohawk River in Cohoes?”

  “Jesus,” Sarah says. “The Cohoes Falls. Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?”

  “What’s The Cohoes Falls?” Rob asks.

  “If history serves me right,” I say, “they are the second largest falls in New York State, Niagara Falls being the biggest.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of them?” Edge says.

  “Because they don’t always run,” Sarah says, her eyes locked on mine. “The century-old hydroelectric plant set beside the falls dams the flow of the river in order to generate the city’s electricity. They only release the overflow once a day or so, and even then only for a few minutes at a time. But that overflow is one powerful display, let me tell you.”

  “How do you know all this, doll?” Edge inquires.

  “My Uncle Pat used to take me to the Cohoes Falls Overlook back when I was a kid. He’d get me there just moments before the loud alarm would sound, and then maybe a minute later, the water would be released. It was exciting but also a little frightening when tons and tons of gallons of water suddenly came crashing down the side of the falls like that. I used to have nightmares about being trapped on the bottom of the falls when it was dry. Fact is, every now and then, some unlucky kid trying to cross the dry river bed from one side to the other would get caught up in the overflow and never be heard from again. The falls are that violent. That dangerous.”

  “Tell me something,” I say, after a beat. “The dry Cohoes Falls rock face. What did it resemble to you as a kid?”

  Sarah sits back, crosses her arms over her chest.

  “A skull,” she says. “The devil. Lucifer—”

  “Satan,” Edge says. “Looks like he’s about to draw us in.”

  The table falls quiet as we all come to realize we know precisely where the Dutch Schultz treasure and the blue diamonds are hidden. Until that is, Edge drains the rest of his beer and crushes the can in his right hand. The man sitting beside us folds up his paper, gets up from the table, digs in his pocket for a five-dollar bill, sets it under the coffee cup. Giving Edge one last dirty look, he shakes his head, walks away.

  “Fan of yours, Edge?” I ask.

  “Not likely,” he says. “My fans usually shower me in kisses. I think he was dealing dope out of Denny’s. Just like the old song says.”

  I might laugh at
that if not for the two men who barge into the restaurant, semi-automatics gripped in their hands.

  The Sergey boys are back.

  24

  The entire restaurant erupts in a collective scream.

  “Does this mean we get to chew and screw?” Edge mumbles under his breath.

  “Nobody gets up!” Sergey Senior shouts.

  His normally slicked back hair is mussed, and there’s a gash on his forehead, blood dripping from it into his eyes so that he’s forced to wipe them every so often with the back of his hand.

  His son hasn’t fared much better.

  Even from where we’re seated at the opposite end of the restaurant, I can plainly see that his nose has gone from broken to smashed and flattened against the side of his face. His two top front teeth also seem to be missing. He’s holding the pistol in our direction, but it seems to be too heavy for him. It’s like his knees are about to buckle, and he’s going to collapse on the spot.

  I take a quick look around. The emergency exit is located behind us. It’s the only shot.

  “Yes, Edge,” I say. “It’s time to chew and screw this joint.”

  Sliding out of the booth, I reach into my pocket, pull out what’s left of the cash, slip off a twenty, drop it onto the table.

  “Everybody out the emergency exit,” I add. “Now. Don’t wait.”

  We all slide out, head towards the door.

  “Stop!” Sergey Senior barks.

  He shoots, and the plate glass window behind us shatters. Screams once more fill the place. He shoots again, and he hits the glass emergency exit door, the glass cracking.

  Set beside me on a portable serving cart is a plastic tray stacked with dirty plates, coffee cups, and drinking glasses. I pick one of the plates up and, fixing it like a discus in my right hand, lob it at the Sergeys.

  “You guys go!” I shout. “I’ll keep them busy.”

  Sergey Senior ducks and my three amigos are able to escape the restaurant through the emergency exit.

  Sergey Senior shoots again. This time the bullet hits the stacked plates and the whole tray collapses into a heap of plastic and broken glass. I head for the door as another bullet hits the wall over my head. I see the other three sprinting for the Jeep. Until they stop, their hands slowly raised overhead in surrender.