Coinworld [Book Three]

by Benjamin Laskin

  Stories of bizarre crimes, strange accidents, tragedies or miracles he filed away as grist for the creative mill; but stories that had anything to do with coins he kept in a separate scrapbook.

  Over the years coin-related stories had been appearing with more frequency, though Hugh Stewards doubted anyone but he had noticed. He was particularly interested in articles about thefts, especially those from a numismatist’s collection, and the more mysterious the better.

  These and other unexplained happenings involving coins received indication on a wall map of the US: brass tacks for pennies, silver tacks for silver dollars, clear glass Moore push-pins for nickels, aquamarine push-pins for dimes, pearl-colored for quarters, emerald for half dollars, and onyx for unknown.

  Over the years concentric circles of pins and tacks had formed around different epicenters. Like a pebble tossed into a placid lake, the incidents rippled outwards. When he set a ruler against the map and drew intersecting lines within the circles, he noticed the cross hairs indicated a location in some remote area: Big Bend in Texas, The Grand Canyon, The Badlands of South Dakota, Death Valley, California, the Florida Everglades, Mount St. Helens in the Pacific Northwest, and seemingly a couple of new and burgeoning spots. Did this mark a community of coins similar to those on Coin Island?

  Had he the money and the means, he’d have liked to investigate his hunch, but he didn’t, and so the quest remained an idle fancy.

  Besides, what would he tell Katherine and the kids? He could disguise it as a cross-country camping trip, but they weren’t that interested in camping anymore. His daughter, Sue, was nineteen and in college now. As pretty as her mother was at that age, boys and getting into a sorority interested her far more than tramping through some wilderness. Brian, now sixteen, wanted to spend his summers working on his pitcher’s arm, and maybe gathering up the courage to ask a dimple-cheeked brunette named Sandy Keating for a date.

  At the back of section two of the paper he saw the headline: “Police Flooded with Sightings of ‘Winged Coins’ in Reno.”

  The article reported that local police in Reno, Nevada had received dozens of calls about coin-sized objects flitting through the air around downtown Reno. The police chief dismissed the callers as either practical jokers or drunks.

  One witness swore that he saw a line of Benjamin Franklin half dollars “hump down the sidewalk” around three in the morning. Another witness claimed she spotted “a swarm of itty-bitty silver eagles” flying between rooftops. The story’s writer made light of the reports, suggesting that local casinos were probably hoping to drum up a little free publicity, as tourism was down for the year.

  Hugh clipped the article and added it to his scrapbook. He noted that it was the third such story to emerge from Reno in the past month.

  One of the previous stories involved an unsolved theft from a pawn shop, and the other a report from an old woman who called the police after witnessing “two masked pennies” galloping across her table at a 24-hour diner in downtown Reno. When asked what she thought the coins were doing, she answered, “rescuing a silver dollar that had crash landed in my coffee cup.” The article ended saying that the elderly woman rambled on about something called “Coinworld,” and that she “had a history of mental issues.” Hugh wanted to call the woman on the phone but the editors, perhaps fearing lawsuits or embarrassing the woman’s family, left the witness unnamed.

  Hugh Stewards picked up a pen and recorded his findings and other thoughts in his journal. Among the latter was his feeling that something momentous was soon to happen in Reno, though he couldn’t imagine what that might be.

  Katherine called that lunch was ready, and he and Shadow left the room. His scrapbook and journal lay open on his desk, and his mind elsewhere, he forgot to switch off the light. Usually conscientious about the monthly electric bill, Hugh regularly had to scold his son about leaving rooms with the lights on. Today, he was the guilty party.

  Cody Quarter and his eagle Ellsworth had been in the Stewards’ home for the past three days, having entered through the chimney. They had been observing The Hugh all morning from inside a hollow, crystal-lined geode on the man’s bookshelf. Hugh had won the polished, softball-sized rock the previous year in a school raffle to raise money for new equipment and uniforms for his son’s baseball team.

  When The Hugh was out getting the mail, Ellsworth flew Cody down to the man’s desk and used the time to gather what intel he could. As The Hugh only kept his journal or scrapbooks open during the day, a trip to the mailbox and lunch were the few opportunities he had to peruse them; otherwise they were stashed in a desk drawer that he was unable to open.

  As soon as the man vacated the room for lunch, Cody returned again to the desk to read The Hugh’s latest entries, and to scan the articles that had held the man’s attention.

  The quarter rolled off the desk so Ellsworth Eagle could gain flight, and they flitted over to the map on the wall. Hovering before it, Cody considered the concentric circles of colorful pins and tacks, and the crosshairs The Hugh alluded to in his notes. It amazed Cody that The Hugh had been able to track Coin Island’s movements with such accuracy. He hadn’t noticed the crosshairs before because the man had drawn them lightly in pencil during a time when Cody wasn’t present.

  “The Hugh is a clever fellow,” Cody remarked to Ellsworth.

  Ellsworth answered with a series of wary squawks and warbles.

  “It’s not The Hugh I’m worried about,” Cody replied. “I fear that if he’s smart enough to have figured all this out, so could others.”

  “If you insist,” Hugh called back to his wife.

  Katherine had guilted her husband into opening his sister’s letter, and he had returned to his office to retrieve it.

  Ellsworth didn’t wait for Cody to order him to take cover. He darted back towards the geode they had been hiding in, but they were too late. The Hugh had spotted them.

  The quarter would have made it safely back into hiding if the hundred-watt bulb on the ceiling hadn’t gleamed off Ellsworth’s wing and caught Hugh Steward’s attention.

  The Hugh stopped in his tracks, his surprised eye on the geode. He approached cautiously, his hands in the air in a display of peace.

  “It’s you again, isn’t it?” The Hugh whispered, wonder in his voice.

  He heard no reply and took another cautious step.

  “I won’t hurt you, little fella,” he assured the coin, and inched closer.

  Within arm’s reach now, it was clear the coin had become nervous. It rocked inside the geode as if debating whether to make a run for it.

  The Hugh retreated a step, his hands still in the air.

  The coin, however, was not calmed by the man’s retreat and leapt from the shelf. The action startled Hugh and he flinched. Before the quarter had dropped a foot, it sprouted wings and darted towards the open door.

  “Hugh, hurry up! Your soup is getting cold!”

  “Be right there, honey!”

  Katherine’s voice scared the quarter back inside. It flew about the room in panicky circles like a trapped sparrow.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Hugh said. “I mean you no harm. Here…” He stepped slowly to the window. “See?” He unlatched it and yanked it up.

  The coin stopped circling and gravitated towards the opening.

  “You’re probably still mad about what Shadow did to your home, aren’t you? I still feel awful about that, and I can’t blame you if you are. I promise you it was an accident. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to make it up to you guys, but I haven’t come up with anything yet.”

  “Hugh?” Katherine shouted from the kitchen. “Am I going to have to reheat your soup?”

  “Be right there, honey!”

  Hugh turned to the hovering coin.

  “I have to go. I’m leaving the window open so you can return to your friends if you like. You’re welcome to visit any time, Cody Quarter.” He chuckled. “I hope you don’t mind I ca
ll you Cody. It seems to fit you somehow, and it just sorta came to me, ya know?”

  Hugh backed away from the window, his hands unthreateningly at his sides. He grabbed his sister’s letter from his desk and walked to the door. He reached to switch off the light, but thinking it might scare the quarter, he left it on.

  Cody consulted with Ellsworth, who had a brilliant idea. During a recent meeting regarding the upcoming Operation Jackpot, Deirdre had mentioned something in passing that had excited Two Loons and Leo Lincoln, who along with their Corps of Engineers were still trying to repair the damage that the dog had wrecked on Coin Island. Cody remembered the hankering in Leo’s eyes, and saw the gears turning in the inventive penny’s mind. If only he and his gang could get their rims on such prized merchandise, Leo had remarked.

  The eagle-eyed Ellsworth recalled seeing just such wares in Brian’s closet. Cody and Ellsworth jetted out of Hugh’s office and into the boy’s bedroom.

  When Hugh Stewards returned to his office after lunch, he paused at the door to glance about the room. He saw neither heads nor tails of the quarter, but he didn’t really expect it to hang around. Hugh walked over to the bookcase and lifted the geode from the shelf. He examined the rock’s crystalline cavern and smiled. He wondered how long the coin had been watching him, and was this the first time?

  Hugh replaced the geode on its stand and sat down in front of his typewriter. He squirmed in his swivel chair, leaned to one side, and removed Sally’s letter from his back pocket. He considered rereading it, but wasn’t in the mood. The letter was accompanied by three articles penned by his sister. He didn’t have to read them to know what they were about, but maybe later. Maybe.

  The letter had been hand-written in a jagged cursive, as if fueled by too many cups of coffee. Although cordial, what stood out to Hugh when he read it to Katherine was its absence of any apology or inquiring after his family. His sister knew Hugh had two children and that he was in frail condition, at least at the time of his last unanswered letter to her, which was just after he had thrown those coins onto their childhood island.

  Sally mentioned no husband or children of her own. Apparently, she was too busy saving the world to marry and raise a family. He also noticed that she had used a form of the word ‘sucker’ twice in the letter, but at least this time it wasn’t directed at him. The world was full of ‘suckers’ according to Sally. Hugh figured she still thought him one of them, but at least she did him the courtesy of not saying so.

  Hugh blew a sigh and tossed the envelope onto his open journal. He turned his attention to the page in his typewriter, set his fingers on the keys, and froze.

  He shot a look at his sister’s letter and then reached to pick it up again. Beneath it, laying inside the fold of his journal, he saw a five-inch red stick.

  Hugh dug it out and held it aloft. Twirling the thin rod thoughtfully between his fingers he glanced about the room. He swiveled in his chair and looked out the window, but this time he wasn’t quick enough to see Cody Quarter and Ellsworth shoot away.

  16

  the pits

  January 1965 — The Stryker home

  Standing on a shelf lined with toy dinosaurs arranged in alphabetical order, Nicolai Nickel and Dominique Double Eagle observed Adam Stryker studying at his desk. Dominique peered down from behind the muscular back leg of a fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex, and Nicolai Nickel leaned against the claw of an equally ferocious-looking Velociraptor.

  Adam Stryker’s entire bedroom resembled the gift shop at a science museum more than the bedroom of a nine-year-old boy. Pinned to the ceiling hung painted Styrofoam planets and their moons from Mercury to Pluto, each according to the true ratio of their size and their distance from the yellow sun in the center. He had done the calculations himself and the mobile had won him a prize at his school’s science fair the previous year.

  On one wall hung four framed awards proclaiming Adam Stryker his school’s spelling bee champion for 1962, 1963, and 1964. The fourth certificate declared him the 1964 Madison District champion.

  Instead of posters of sports celebrities or comic book heroes on the walls, Adam surrounded himself with historical timelines and pictures of three dozen iconic geniuses arranged by birthdate—from Aristotle to Albert Einstein. Despite the room’s clutter of photos, posters, mobiles, and other artifacts, Adam kept his bedroom tidy, and every object had its place, unlike the rest of the Stryker household. He made his bed first thing every morning, never left his clothes on the floor, and every Saturday he dusted his shelves and emptied his wastepaper basket.

  The two coins had been observing the boy on and off for a year, ever since they followed Ned and Hannah to Pasadena. They hoped that they would spot him there again, but neither The Four nor any other animated coin ever showed their faces. Expecting to see The Four was what brought Nicolai and Dominique to the Stryker home, but it was the boy who kept them coming back.

  Nicolai Nickel felt a strange kinship with the Stryker lad. He had a soft spot for kids with big dreams, boundless energy, and smarts. Nicolai believed that all children came standard with such attributes, but that for one reason or another, by the time most of them reached adulthood, they had either squandered what talents and enthusiasms they once possessed, or allowed them to wither away. Nicolai had reason to believe that Adam Stryker would not suffer that fate.

  Bonnie Stryker stuck her head into Adam’s room. She saw her son studying hard at his desk and smiled. “Birthday boy, dinner will be ready in five minutes. Go wash up.”

  Without lifting his eyes from his book he raised his hand and flashed ‘okay’.

  His proud mother shook her head with amusement and returned to the kitchen.

  Since Adam came into possession of Porter Penny and Quimby Quarter he kept them side-by-side on the edge of his desk. He thought of them as pets, even though they never moved or said anything that he could hear.

  He picked up the coins and examined them with a magnifying glass for the umpteenth time. Expressionless, the coins remained as still and mute as any of the semi-precious stones Adam kept in his rock collection.

  Adam might have spent the two coins months ago if his father hadn’t told him that he believed all coins were at least as alive as any plant, but that only a few seemed to have achieved locomotion. According to his father, these two coins had seen the miraculous four-cent nickel, and so they were more special than others. Adam didn’t know how his father could be certain of such a thing, but his dad had been tracking the nickel for years and was the one who discovered Coinworld, and so Adam had no reason to doubt him.

  Believing in Coinworld came easily to Adam. An intelligent boy with an active imagination, he already knew that the world contained many worlds that were invisible to the naked eye or daily interactions. Microbes, bacteria, and viruses were such worlds, and who knew what life existed in deep space or at the bottom of the sea?

  His science teacher at school, Mr. Schiff, once told his class that the universe contained two worlds—one too large to be measured or weighed, and another too small. “As above, so below,” his teacher declared, “the macrocosm and the microcosm.”

  Like much of what the exuberant teacher in the rumpled shirts, loosened ties, and baggy pants said, the statement went over the heads of the boy’s classmates. But for the precocious Adam, it was one of the most startling and thought-provoking ideas he’d ever heard.

  Adam wholly believed his father’s fantastic coin stories, and he kept his word about telling no one, not even Mr. Schiff. He doubted that even someone as smart and open-minded as Mr. Schiff would accept the existence of Coinworld.

  It took Adam only a month to ingest his father’s library of numismatist books and coin-collecting magazines, and another month to memorize details about hundreds of coins and what made them special or rare. Before, when adults asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, Adam answered, “A scientist or engineer.” Now the same question earned the boast, “A numismatist!”

 
The boy’s answer drew head-scratching, cupped ears, and inevitably the response, “A what?”

  Too young to concern himself with status or earning a livelihood, the bewildered looks Adam received didn’t faze him. He found numismatics enthralling, and it led him to many interesting studies—metallurgy and minting, currency trading and economics, world history and American history.

  His pleased father turned over his small coin collection to him, and Adam quickly doubled its size. He examined every coin he came across, and no penny, nickel, dime, or quarter escaped inspection before or after it passed through a vending machine or some merchant’s till. He hadn’t discovered any particularly unique or valuable coins yet, but that didn’t temper his enthusiasm one bit. Adam wasn’t as interested in collecting coins as he was in learning about them, and he instinctively knew that learning by doing was the best way to master anything.

  Besides, like his father, Adam Stryker was really only interested in two coins—the amazing four-cent nickel and the beautiful half dollar that ferried him around. They were the key to Coinworld, and all the other coins were just signposts along the way.

  Adam turned Quimby and Porter over again, smirked knowingly at the coins, and then set them back down. He switched off his desk lamp, rose, and left the room.

  As soon as he was gone, Dominique leapt from the shelf, circled back for Nicolai, and carried him to Adam’s desk. They set down upon the desktop and noted that the boy had been studying a book about ancient civilizations. He had left off on a page with pictures depicting relics and coins from the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires, as well as those from the Hittites and Canaanites, the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Medes, and Persians.

  Nicolai nodded to Dominique as if in confirmation, and then they rolled over to Porter Penny and Quimby Quarter.