Treasure Hunters

by James Patterson

  “Um, that’s what we’re working on,” said Beck.

  “Good,” said Tommy. He’d followed Storm in. “We have to get the urn back—no matter what.”

  “Don’t worry, you guys,” I said. “We will. Of course, we have to figure that an international arms dealer like Mr. Aramis is going to have some major firepower at his disposal.”

  “Major muscle, too,” added Beck.

  Storm nodded grimly. “His heavily armed security guards will most likely blast us with a Stinger missile. Maybe a rocket-propelled grenade. We’ll be dead before we reach the second floor.”

  “Maybe not,” said Beck. “Because the Grecian urn isn’t much good to Mr. Aramis without these.” She pulled out the provenance papers she had stuffed into her back pocket not long before the surfer chicks stole Tommy’s gym bag.

  “You grabbed those?” said Tommy.

  “Yep.”

  “Beck, you’re the best. You have single-handedly restored my faith in womankind.”

  “We’re gonna need you, too, Tommy,” I said.

  “No problemo. What do you want me to do?”

  “Kick some big-time butt,” said Beck.

  “Cool. I can handle that. Whose butt am I going for?”

  “Mr. Athos Aramis himself,” I said. “Beck and I think we should pay him a visit. Tomorrow. High noon.”

  “Awesome. Come on, Storm. Let’s head up to the deck. I need to practice a few of my butt-kicking karate moves.”

  While Tommy and Storm were off practicing their karate, Beck and I worked on our plan of attack. Okay, maybe it was more of a plan for a suicide mission. But we had to do something.

  A little after midnight, I called Professor Lewis.

  “Thank you for giving us your number, sir,” I said.

  “My pleasure, Bickford.”

  “I hope we’re not calling too late.”

  “Oh. no. Anytime. Day or night.”

  Beck leaned in so she could hear both sides of the conversation.

  “Sorry we got so emotional in your office,” I said.

  “No need to apologize,” replied Dr. Lewis. “This is a very emotional situation.”

  “Well, anyway, we decided to step back and try to see the big picture.”

  “Ah, yes. The forest instead of the trees. The ocean instead of the waves. The room instead of the sofa. The—”

  “Right,” I said, cutting him off. “Here’s the deal: We’re going over to Fifth Avenue tomorrow to visit Mr. Athos Aramis.”

  “Oh-ho. You’re joking. Right?”

  “Nope. Tomorrow. Noon. We’re dropping by his Fifth Avenue penthouse.”

  “Oh, my. I cannot allow this. Mr. Aramis is a very dangerous man. Lethally dangerous. What part of ‘weapons dealer’ don’t you understand? You children could end up dead!”

  “We know the risks involved. However, Dr. Lewis, in our parents’ absence, you are not our legal guardian. Uncle Timothy is. Timothy Quinn. Do you know him?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Lewis’s voice squeaked a little.

  “Well, if you have issues with what we’re about to do, I suggest you give Mr. Quinn a call. Do you have his number?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Tell him to hurry. Like I said, we’re going in at noon tomorrow.”

  Beck and I spent the rest of the night down in The Room trying to dig up more info online about Mr. Aramis. He was cunning. Clever. Had an IQ of 202—so he would’ve been in the Guinness Book of World Records if he weren’t so “publicity shy.” He was also a “noted philanthropist” in New York City. That meant he wore a tuxedo to a lot of fancy charity balls and donated a ton of money to buy the respect—and probably the protection—of the city’s most powerful people. He also spent, like, forty thousand dollars on his suits. For each one.

  To make things even worse, Athos Aramis absolutely despised children. Thought they were too loud and noisy. In fact, he liked to quote the comedian Henny Youngman on the subject: “What is a home without children? Quiet!”

  After a few more hours studying Mr. Aramis and Google maps of his block on Fifth Avenue, Beck and I both fell asleep in front of the computer.

  I vaguely remember Tommy coming into The Room and carrying me to my bed.

  I think I said “Good night, Dad” when he tucked me in.

  “Good night, Bickford,” Tommy said back. He even tried to make his voice sound deeper like Dad’s when he said it.

  Yeah. It was kind of sweet.

  Every so often, Tailspin Tommy is like that.

  CHAPTER 59

  The next morning, over Pop-Tarts, Beck and I launched into Twin Tirade No. 433.

  Storm and Tommy ignored us and stayed quietly focused on their frosted rectangular toaster pastries.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Beck. “Visiting Aramis is too risky.”

  “No risk, no reward,” I snapped back in reply.

  “Well, what’s the reward if we end up dead?”

  “Setting Mom free.”

  “And how will we even know she’s free if we’re dead?”

  “That’s not the point, Rebecca.”

  “Uh, yes, it is, nubby boy.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re a nub. You know—a thing that’s pointless. You’re nubby.”

  (My sister, the wordsmith.)

  “Look,” I said, “sometimes you just have to go with your gut. Like I did when I grabbed the Grecian urn instead of a Picasso.”

  “You mean the last time we all came this close to getting killed.”

  “Hey, close only counts in horseshoes.”

  “And hand grenades.”

  “And bad breath.”

  “Stick with the hand grenades, Bick.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mr. Aramis is an arms dealer, remember? That means he could have all sorts of weapons, including hand grenades and rocket launchers to shoot them with.”

  “Okay,” I said. “There’s a risk. Just like every time we take The Lost out to sea. A ship is always safe when it’s tied up at the dock, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

  “Did you just make that up?”

  “No, I read it somewhere.”

  “I didn’t think you made it up.”

  “I told you I didn’t.”

  “Only because I asked you.”

  “Well, you only asked because you knew I would tell.”

  “Of course you would. You’re my brother.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re cool?”

  “Totally. You happy?”

  I nodded.

  “Then finish your Pop-Tart. We need to head over to Fifth Avenue. Where we’re all going to die.”

  Beck was right. Not about the dying part.

  It was time for us to suck it up and head over to 983 Fifth Avenue.

  So we piled into a taxi and cut across Central Park. Then we stood on the shady sidewalk lining Fifth Avenue, staring up at the towering castle of an apartment building on the other side of the street.

  We watched the front door for over an hour. Maybe two.

  Storm had brought along a pair of binoculars and pretended she was focused on a hawk roosting behind one of the gargoyles up near the building’s roofline.

  “The bird is in the nest,” she reported when she caught a glimpse of Mr. Aramis moving past a penthouse window. “I repeat: The bird is in the nest.”

  Finally, at noon, my dive watch’s alarm started beeping.

  “Here we go,” I said.

  “Yeah,” added Beck. “To our deaths.”

  “To our deaths!” said Tommy and Storm.

  And then we all crossed Fifth Avenue.

  CHAPTER 60

  Everybody else on Fifth Avenue looked like they belonged on one of the swankiest stretches of real estate anywhere in America.

  We did not.

  We looked like four tourists on a suicide mission.

  Steeling ourselves, we mar
ched up to the door of Mr. Aramis’s apartment building. A barrel-chested guy with cauliflower ears and a broken nose, all decked out in a doorman uniform with brass buttons and shoulder boards, blocked our way forward. He looked like one of the guards in The Wizard of Oz. If they’d all been ex-boxers.

  “May I help youse?” the doorman asked, looking down his flat and crooked nose at us.

  “Yes, my good man,” I said, because I heard a rich guy say that once when we were docked outside London.

  “We need to see Mr. Aramis.”

  “I’m sorry. Mr. Aramis isn’t home.”

  “Yes, he is,” said Storm, tapping the binoculars draped around her neck. “And the lady who lives in the apartment below him needs to buy drapes or a bathrobe.”

  “Listen, smart mouth,” said the doorman, “Mr. Aramis gave me strict orders that he is not to be disturbed this afternoon.”

  “But that was before he knew we were coming,” I said.

  “And who, exactly, are you?”

  “John Keats,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Just tell Mr. Aramis that we’re here with very important information about his most recent art acquisition.”

  “Really? And exactly which art acquisition might you have been involved with, squirt?”

  “The one in Charleston,” I said. “The Greek urn he picked up yesterday. Tell Mr. Aramis that his people forgot to take the papers. And, frankly, without the proper paperwork, his new clay pot isn’t good for much besides planting petunias. Go ahead, my good man. Make the call.”

  The doorman had a puzzled, angry look on his face, but he finally called.

  And his expression turned to shock. He slowly turned back to us.

  “Mr. Aramis says to send youse right up.”

  CHAPTER 61

  The four of us stepped into an elevator that reminded me of a fancy birdcage.

  “What floor?” asked an extremely snooty guy in uniform who, I guessed, sat on a stool all day punching floor numbers for people too rich to punch numbers for themselves.

  “The penthouse, if you please,” I said, trying to sound as snobby as I could.

  “Pleasure,” said the elevator operator. He pushed the PH button and cranked a lever, and we whooshed our way up to the twenty-sixth floor.

  “My ears just popped,” said Tommy, yawning and stretching his jaw. “I hate when that happens. You know what I mean?”

  “Nyes,” said the elevator operator in his clipped British accent. “Indeed.”

  The car slowed. A bell dinged.

  “Penthouse,” announced our elevator pilot.

  When the shiny doors slid open, we stepped into the Pirate King’s palace.

  Talk about impressive. The walls were covered with very colorful and very rare paintings—all of them displayed in ornate golden frames, the kind with lots of swirls and curlicues.

  “Which one of youse kids is Johnny Keats?” asked a tough guy with a pistol-shaped bulge under his sport coat.

  “Me.”

  “Who are these other people? More poetical types?”

  “No,” said Tommy. “We’re the Kidds. Dr. Kidd’s kids.”

  “The one what fell off a boat and died?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Him.”

  The guy shook his head. “Tough break. Not for nothin’, my dad fell off a boat, too. In Jersey. His shoes were made out of cement at the time. Come on, Keats. You and the Kidds, follow me.”

  As we crossed the spacious living room, I could hear Storm muttering behind me.

  “Renoir. Match. Manet. Match. Monet. Match.”

  Storm was confirming what I had already suspected: These were the same paintings we’d all seen in the photographs hanging on the walls of The Room.

  And I couldn’t help but wonder if our dad had helped Mr. Aramis get his grubby hands on them.

  CHAPTER 62

  The tough guy escorted us into a wood-paneled library-type room.

  Mr. Aramis, his hair slicked back with something thicker than Vaseline, was seated in a high-back leather chair behind a major-league glass desk topped with a fancy pen set and a tiny blue-and-white flag.

  “John Keats,” Aramis said coldly when we entered his lair, “the renowned English Romantic poet, died in February 1821. Therefore, I am forced to inquire: Who are you irksome little children?”

  I think he meant us.

  “We’re Professor Thomas Kidd’s kids,” I said.

  That’s when a guy sitting in a swivel chair in front of the glass desk twirled around to face us.

  Nathan Collier.

  Apparently, we’d barged in at exactly the right moment. Collier was just now handing our urn over to Aramis.

  Collier pulled the wet cigar stub out of his mouth. His face and hands were trembling with rage.

  “Didn’t I tell you four that the next time we met you would all end up dead?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I forget.”

  “Yeah,” said Beck. “When you talk, it’s kind of like your TV show. Blah-blah-blah. Bor-ring.”

  “Why, you little—”

  “Silence, Nathan,” hissed the Pirate King, raising a delicate hand and twiddling his digits. Collier sat down and did as he was told.

  Aramis narrowed his eyes. “So, children”—he said the word as if it were a disease—“which one of you had the audacity to tell Bruno downstairs that he was John Keats?”

  “That would be me, sir,” I said.

  “Me, too,” said Beck, stepping forward. “We’re twins.”

  “They’re really Tom Kidd’s kids,” Collier blurted out. “He abandoned them at sea right after he abandoned his quest to find your final treasure for you.”

  “He didn’t abandon anything,” said Tommy.

  “He just turned the job over to us,” added Storm.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Dad took off to go look for that missing Rembrandt. The one he said Mr. Aramis might enjoy adding to his collection.”

  “Ha!” said Collier. “What ‘missing’ Rembrandt?”

  “Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” said Storm.

  Mr. Aramis leaned forward over his glass-topped desk. We had his attention. “Fascinating,” he said. “Your father knew where to find that particular Rembrandt?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Just like he knew where to find that.” I gestured toward the Grecian urn. “See, unlike some treasure hunters, our dad actually delivers the goods.”

  “Including the documents proving that a treasure is, you know, a treasure,” said Beck, whipping out the provenance papers.

  Aramis scowled at Collier. “You told me there was no historical documentation attached to this object, Nathan.”

  “There wasn’t. Not in the gym bag. There was nothing in there but a smelly sweatshirt.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Because every halfway decent treasure hunter knows you never keep the papers with the prize.”

  “Makes things too easy for lazy thieves and pilfering pirates,” added Beck, kind of hissing the words at Collier.

  “Yo,” said the thug with the gun bulge on his chest. “Watch your language. Mr. Aramis here is the Pirate King.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Beck. “No disrespect.”

  “You will be forgiven,” said Aramis with a sickly smile, “as soon as you hand over those papers.” He extended his bony fingers in Beck’s general direction.

  “And why, exactly, would I want to do that?”

  “So he doesn’t rip out your fingernails with a pair of pliers!” shouted Collier.

  “Nathan?” said Mr. Aramis, shaking his head and putting a finger to his lips to silence his yapping lapdog.

  “Sorry, sir,” said Collier. “Won’t happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t.” Aramis focused his coal-black eyes on Beck. “Young lady, after I study those provenance papers and feel confident that I am in possession of the genuine Grecian urn immortalized by the real John Keats, I will complete the transaction with my cl
ients in Cyprus.”

  “The thugs who took our mother?” said Tommy.

  “The very same,” said Mr. Aramis. “Who knows? Once I release their arms shipment, perhaps those angry young men will finally set your mother free. Now, then, kindly hand me those papers.”

  The tough guy who had escorted us into the room reached under his bulging sport coat and pulled out… a wad of Kleenex.

  “Sorry, boss,” he said, blowing his nose. “It’s all these dusty antiques and picture frames. Allergies.”

  The goon didn’t have a gun.

  I glanced at Beck.

  She gave me the slightest nod.

  “Wait a second!” I shouted. “Our father did not work for you, and he is not dead.”

  “Actually, Bick, Dad is dead.”

  “No, he is not!”

  Beck smiled at Mr. Aramis. “Please forgive my brother. Sometimes he loses touch with reality.”

  “I do not!”

  “Yes, you do!”

  And, just like we planned, we launched into Twin Tirade No. 434.

  CHAPTER 63

  “Dad is not dead, Rebecca!” I shouted. “He is too, Bickford.”

  “No, he’s not!”

  “That’s enough,” said Mr. Aramis. “Silence, please. Your voices grate on my nerves.”

  So Beck and I amped up our rant.

  “Whose side are you on, Rebecca?”

  “Yours, Bickford. But I’m just telling the truth.”

  “Then how come you keep saying Dad is dead?”

  “Because he is!”

  “No, he’s not!”

  Aramis tried again. “Silence! Now!”

  We weren’t listening. “Then where is he?” said Beck.

  “On a top secret treasure hunt!”

  “What?”

  “A helicopter picked him up.”

  “Nathan?” Aramis’s face was turning purple. “Do something. Make these children cease this senseless bickering!”

  “Shut up, kids!” shouted Collier.

  Beck ignored him. “Ha! A helicopter?”