Mango Lucky

by Bill Myers

  While we waiting for the proprietor to join us, I examined the items in the glass display case.

  It held a selection of gold and silver coins, with dates ranging from the current year to as far back as the 1600's.

  In addition to the coins, the case contained rings, necklaces, gold chains, and several iron artifacts.

  I looked up as a short, slightly overweight man with a stubby cigar in his mouth walked out of the back room.

  His white shirt barely contained his belly, and his suspenders were working hard to keep his pants up off the ground.

  Over his shoulder, a black leather holster held a shiny pistol that looked to be a Smith & Wesson 357 revolver.

  The gun was likely a must-have for one who made his living buying and selling rare gold and silver coins these days.

  When the man saw Anna, he smiled. "Anna, long time no see. You doing all right?"

  "Doing fine. How about you? I see you're still smoking those cigars."

  "Naw, the wife won't let me smoke them any more. But I can still chew on the unlit ones."

  Ken removed the unlit but soggy cigar from his mouth and placed it in a clean ashtray on his side of the counter.

  "So, who's this guy?" Ken said, pointing to me.

  Anna smiled, "This is Walker. I'm taking care of him for a few days."

  Ken looked at me, then back at Anna, "This one looks better than the last one. Hope you don't have to shoot him, too."

  Anna smiled, "Walker doesn't know about that. Let's keep it that way."

  Then she said, "Ken, I've got a coin I want to show you."

  She reached into her gym bag and pulled out one of the gold coins she had found on the beach. She placed the coin on the rubber mat that sat in the center of the glass counter, directly in front of Ken.

  Sitting down on a swivel stool on his side of the counter, Ken looked up at Anna and said, "May I?"

  She nodded.

  He picked up the coin, and using a jeweler's loupe, inspected it closely. After a few moments, he turned the coin over and examined the back.

  Then he placed the coin back down on the rubber mat, and reached behind him to retrieve a large reference book.

  Flipping through the book, he found the page he was looking for.

  "This is a nice coin. Looks like an eight escudos from the 1715 fleet. Dated 1712 from the Lima mint. The condition is almost fine, very little wear.

  "According to the book, this coin has a retail value of around twelve thousand dollars."

  Anna smiled.

  Ken continued, "The book was printed last year, so these values are out of date. Could be worth more. Or could be worth less. Let's check the internet to see what they've recently sold for."

  He rolled his stool down to a computer screen and tapped a few keys. Then waited.

  "Okay, here it is. An eight escudo, dated 1712 from the Lima mint in good condition, recently sold at auction for thirteen five.

  "So retail is probably twelve thousand. If you want to sell it today, I can give you sixty five hundred for it. Cash."

  Anna shook her head. "Ken, I know you've got to make a profit, but you can do better than that. Maybe nine thousand?"

  Shaking his head, he said, "No way. But I'll do seven thousand. And that's it. No more."

  Anna didn't say anything. Instead, she reached into her gym bag and pulled out the second gold coin, and put it next to the one already on the counter.

  Ken looked at Anna, "So, there's two of them?"

  He picked up the second coin and examined it. "This one is as good as the first. Same date and mint."

  Then he said, "I'll give you fourteen thousand for both."

  Anna looked over at me. I raised my eyebrows in reply.

  Ken could see that Anna was hesitating. "Okay Anna, what else do you have in the bag? Maybe we can add it to your collection here."

  Anna reached back into her bag and brought out the third gold coin. Then reaching back in, she brought out the rest. Seven silver coins, the broken silver fork, and the small silver cross.

  Ken whistled and said, "Wow. Looks like you had a good day."

  He picked up the silver cross first. "This I want. I'll give you twelve hundred for it."

  Then he looked at the other items. "Four hundred for the fork. Three fifty each for the silver coins. And the same as before for the gold coin."

  He got out his calculator and totaled it up.

  "Twenty five thousand for everything. Cash."

  46

  Anna nodded. "You've got a deal."

  Ken smiled, "Wait right here. I'll write this up and bring you your money." He stood and stepped through the door to his office, leaving Anna and me alone in the front of the store.

  She turned to me and whispered, "Can you believe that? Twenty five thousand dollars!"

  Then she leaned in and gave me a hug. I hugged her back.

  Ken walked in while we were still embraced. He smiled and said, "None of that in here. Get a room."

  He had a pen in his right hand, a single sheet of paper in his left, and in his front pants pocket, a red bank bag.

  He placed the sheet of paper on the glass counter in front of Anna and handed her a pen, "Sign this, stating you didn't steal those coins, then we can settle up."

  Anna picked up the document, read it, and then signed.

  Ken took the document and handed Anna the money bag.

  She unzipped it, to reveal five banded stacks of one hundred dollar bills. Each band was marked 'five thousand'.

  Ken pointed at the money, "Each stack contains fifty bills. Count them before you leave."

  Anna quickly counted the bills in each stack. Then said, "Twenty five thousand dollars. It's all there."

  She put the stacks of bills back into the bank bag, zipped it up, and dropped the bank bag into her gym bag.

  Turning to me, Ken asked, "What about you, Walker? Anything you want to show me?"

  I shook my head, "Not today. Maybe later."

  "Well, when you get ready to sell, come see me. I'll treat you right.

  "And Anna, be careful carrying that much money. People do bad things for a whole lot less."

  Anna nodded, "Don't worry about me Ken. You know what happened to the last guy who tried something."

  We walked toward the door and Ken buzzed us out. Anna looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then she quickly walked to the Land Cruiser.

  I followed.

  As we pulled out of the parking lot, I asked, "What'd Ken mean about not shooting me. Is there something I should know?"

  Anna kept her eyes on the road and said, "It's nothing. Just an inside joke."

  47

  After leaving Ken's, Anna drove to the nearest Walmart where she bought a tent and sleeping bag to replace the ones that had blown away during the storm.

  After Walmart, we went to the big Publix grocery store, where Anna picked out our celebratory dinner. Steaks, salad, and two bottles of red wine.

  From Publix we headed back to Hutchinson Island and our campsite at Sebastian Inlet State Park.

  On the way, Anna pointed to the cars parked on the side of the road, "Probably treasure hunters. Now that the bridge is open, we'll see a lot more of them.

  "And there will probably be a lot more people in the campground too. That means we'll have to be careful and not let anyone know what we found. People do crazy things when they think you have gold and cash."

  I nodded, "You're right. We'll keep this just between you and me."

  When we reached the park gate, the ranger waved us through. After being in the park for almost a week, he recognized Anna's Land Cruiser.

  Back at the campsite, Anna picked up her gym bag and said, "If you don't mind, I'm going to keep this in the motorhome until I find a safer place. I don't want to risk leaving it here in the Cruiser or the tent."

  Inside the motorhome, Bob came trotting from the back and then stopped to stretch. He was happy to see us, but didn't want us to know
. Cats are funny that way.

  He sat and said, "Murrrph."

  Anna reached down and rubbed his ear. "Bob, you sure are a handsome cat. I'm trusting you to keep this bag safe. Can you do that?"

  Bob butted Anna's leg with his head and said, "Murrrph."

  Which meant yes, he'd keep the bag safe. As long as Anna continued to rub his ears at least once a day.

  I brought the food in from the Cruiser and put it on the counter. Then asked, "So, when do you want to eat?"

  Anna looked up, "A bit later. I want to put my tent up first, make sure I've got a place to sleep tonight."

  I said, "Anna, stay here tonight. There's plenty of room."

  She nodded, "Yeah, I know. And I appreciate the offer. I might take you up on it. But, I'll feel better if I have the option to stay in my own place."

  She gave Bob one last rub, stood up and walked to the door. She turned to me and said, "Leave the steaks out. Make sure Bob doesn't get them."

  She opened the door and stepped out.

  I looked at Bob and said, "If you can figure them out, you're doing better than me."

  Now that I was back in the motorhome alone, I decided to check my phone to see if I had missed any calls.

  It'd been four days since I last spoken with Sarah. Maybe she'd called.

  I checked and there were no messages, no missed calls. She hadn't called. So I decided to call her.

  I punched in her number, and after five rings, a man answered.

  "Hello?"

  "Yes, may I speak to Sarah?"

  "Sorry, she's not available."

  "Uh, you have her phone? Is she with you?"

  "Look, she's not available. You want to leave a message?"

  "Not really. I'm just checking in on her. Making sure she's okay."

  "Oh, she's doing great. If you want to leave a message, I can tell her you called."

  "No, never mind. I'll call back later." I hung up.

  What was that all about? Why wasn't Sarah answering her phone? And who was the guy on the other end?

  Maybe I really didn't want to know.

  48

  After the call, I went back to the bedroom and checked to make sure my treasure finds were still there.

  They were.

  Then I started thinking about the reasons Sarah wouldn't be answering her phone. And why her phone would be answered by a man.

  The only reason I could think of was she had a guest and she was out of the room when the phone rang. And he was comfortable enough with her to answer her phone.

  Maybe a relative? I could call Sarah's sister Molly, and she might know.

  But did I really want to do that? Maybe I'd be better off not knowing.

  While I was pondering this, Anna knocked on the door, "Walker, it's time to celebrate!"

  I met her at the door, and she gave me another big hug.

  "What's with the hugging?" I asked.

  She smiled, "I feel good. We found treasure today. And that money is really going to make things easier for me.

  "It means I don't have to worry about finding a job right away. It's like a big weight has been lifted. So I'm happy. And I'm going to celebrate. I'll probably hug you three or four more times before the evening's over."

  She smiled and walked to the kitchen counter.

  Pointing at the steaks, she said, "I was thinking we could cook these outside on the grill. Drink a little wine, and watch the sun go down over the river."

  I nodded. "Sounds good to me. What do you want me to do?"

  She pointed to the wine, "I'll do the cooking. You open the wine."

  Grabbing the bag of charcoal we'd purchased earlier, Anna headed outside to the grill. I was pretty sure she was humming a happy tune.

  Opening the bottle of wine, I poured us both a glass, and followed her outside.

  I watched as she built a small pyramid of charcoal in the campground grill. She stuffed a crumbled up paper towel at the bottom as kindling for her fire.

  Lighting a match to the paper, she soon had flames under the charcoal.

  Anna nursed the fire for a few minutes, blowing on the flames trying to get the charcoal briquettes to light up. It took only a few minutes before the charcoal was glowing.

  After she was satisfied with her fire, she turned to me and said, "Okay. It looks like we'll be grilling in about twenty minutes. In the meantime, we can drink a little wine, and you can tell me more about why you're living in a motorhome."

  We sipped our wine as I told my story.

  I had been the head of computer operations for a large manufacturing plant. The company that owned the plant decided to move it to Mexico. They announced they were closing the plant, laying off all the people who worked there, including me.

  The day they announced the plant closing, my wife unexpectedly filed for divorce.

  It was a friendly divorce. We split everything we owned right down the middle. It wasn't a lot, but we both ended up with a little money in the bank. I also got to keep my last paycheck and severance pay.

  Using that little bit of money, I traded my pickup truck for the motorhome and had been living in it ever since.

  Anna smiled, "Quite a story. So what's it like living in a motorhome? And where do you stay when you're not in a campground like this one."

  I laughed. "Before I got the motorhome, I lived in a tent for two weeks. Compared to that, the motorhome is a palace. It's got everything I need, and I can take it anywhere."

  "Until recently I've been parking in the backyard of the girl I mentioned before. She hasn't been charging me rent. So other than buying food, it hasn't cost me much."

  Anna took a sip of her wine. "What if the girl decides you need to move? What will you do then?"

  Until just a few days ago, I hadn't even thought about this possibility. Would Sarah soon ask me to park my motorhome somewhere else?

  My gut was saying 'yes'. Eventually, maybe soon, she'd want me to find some other place to live.

  I sighed, "When that happens, I guess I'll have to find another friend to stay with. Or maybe buy a vacant lot where I can park the motorhome."

  Anna nodded, then said, "Maybe you could buy a RV park. That way, you'd always have a place to stay, and you could invite your friends who have motorhomes and trailers to stay at your park.

  "If you did that, I could come visit you."

  I smiled. She was right, owning a small RV park might be fun.

  Anna got up and tended to her fire, then went inside the motorhome to get the steaks.

  Back outside she put the steaks on the grill, then said, "I'm going back in to make a salad. You stay out here and make sure the fire doesn't flare up."

  She placed a large steak fork on the table in front of me, and went back inside the motorhome.

  A few minutes later she came back out with a large bowl of salad, two plates, and eating utensils.

  She checked the steaks, and being satisfied with their progress, sat at the table facing me. "You're not smiling. We're supposed to be celebrating. Something wrong?"

  49

  Yes, there was something wrong. I'd called Sarah and a man answered.

  Instead of sharing this bit of information with Anna, I said, "Just thinking about my living arrangements back in Englewood. And how I might need to find another place."

  Anna reached out and touched my hand, "You can worry about that some other time. Right now we're going to eat and start our celebration. So pour some more wine and let's celebrate today's good fortune."

  I poured and we drank and ate and drank some more. The meal was excellent, and the steak was just what we needed after eating microwave meals for so many days in a row.

  After we'd finished, I cleaned away the plates and asked, "How about we take a walk?"

  Anna said, "Sure. A walk sounds good."

  I locked the motorhome and we headed out. Anna's campsite was right next to mine, and as we passed it, she pointed at her tent and said, "That's where I'm sleeping tonight."<
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  "What about our celebration?" I asked. "You should sleep in the motorhome tonight. You know the couch will be more comfortable than sleeping on the ground in your tent."