The Treasure Hunt Club

by Michael Scott Clifton

  “You’re talking about breaking the law!” Patti said as she stared at her husband in disbelief.

  Flashing Patti an irritable glance, Mark ignored her and continued. “If we are fortunate enough to have the book locate any of these lost coins, we simply sell them to these collectors, and then it’s their problem to settle the legality issues with the government.”

  “I like it!” Kenneth said. “I make a motion we accept Mark’s proposal!”

  “Shecondt!” Steve slurred.

  Patti and Abby both looked angry, and when Nick called for a vote, the final tally was 3–2 in favor of Mark’s proposal, with both women voting against it.

  An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Nick hastily suggested they immediately put the question to the book.

  Seeing no disagreement, he pulled it from his satchel and placed it on the table. Mark gave him a printed copy of the exact words he wanted used when making the request. It read:

  Reveal the location of any lost Saint-Gaudens $20 golden eagle coins minted in 1933 by the U.S. Government Mint in Washington, D.C.

  Nick carefully wrote the request word for word in The Book of Lost Treasures. As they all held their breath, a familiar golden glow immediately issued from a map that suddenly appeared on the following page.

  “What’s it show?” Mark asked as he, Steve, and Kenneth crowded around Nick.

  “It’s a map of Arlington, Virginia,” Nick replied. “Here Lies the Lost Treasure” was pulsing within the city boundaries, marking the spot of the lost coins on the map. Nick turned the page, and another map showed the detailed location of a house, along with the street name and address.

  “Looks like at least one coin exists!” Nick said as he turned to Mark, grinning. “But somebody must own that home. How are we going to play this?” he asked.

  “Let me handle that. I’ll think of something,” Mark said in a determined tone.

  The meeting quickly broke up after that, with Patti and Abby the first out the door. Nick was so enthused at the prospects of finding a Saint-Gaudens worth millions that he barely noticed their quick departure.

  All of Nick’s previous worries and concerns about his friends were forgotten as the excitement of the moment washed over him. It suddenly occurred to him that if they did indeed recover at least one Saint-Gaudens, they wouldn’t just be rich.

  They would be millionaires!

  “Here are your tickets and boarding passes,” Tellie said as she efficiently handed them to Nick and Mark. “You leave DFW at one forty, and your flight arrives in Arlington at five thirty in the afternoon, eastern standard time. You’re booked at the Hyatt Regency, and I’ve included your confirmation number with your plane tickets. I’ve already arranged for a rental car at the airport, and you’ll simply have to pick up the keys at the rental agency. Mark has the club’s credit card, so there should be nothing more that you need.”

  Smiling, Tellie added, “Good luck!” although she didn’t have a clue as to what Nick and Mark were leaving on their “business” trip for.

  “Boy that Tellie sure works fast!” Mark said after they had left the office and were out of earshot. “You hired a great secretary, Nick!”

  Nick couldn’t have agreed more. After less than three weeks on the job, Tellie had far surpassed his expectations. She worked hard, didn’t complain, and handled even the most routine jobs with zeal. In fact, she was rapidly making herself invaluable!

  With that thought in mind, he got into Mark’s car, and they drove for the airport some two and half hours away.

  As soon as Mark’s car disappeared from sight, Tellie called Carter. As she was the only one in the office, she didn’t bother trying to keep her conversation low.

  “They’ve left.”

  “Good!” Carter said. “I’ve got two men already at DFW. They’ll shadow them all the way to Virginia, where another team will pick them up.” Pausing he asked, “Did they tell you anything before they left?”

  “No,” Tellie said, shaking her head. “All I know is that it’s something big.”

  Carter bit back a curse. Even with his men following Hollister and Chambers, they were still shooting in the dark. At best, his men might discover what they were looking for in Virginia, but that still didn’t answer the how part! How were they able to find such valuable artifacts?

  Tellie, as if sensing Carter’s frustration, said, “I’ve got a plan that might finally tell us what they are using to find all these valuables.”

  “What? What is it?” he asked eagerly.

  “I’ll let you know after tonight,” Tellie said. Knowing that he would grumble and demand to know what she had up her sleeve, Tellie lied and told him someone was coming and clicked off. Truth be known, Tellie’s frustration matched Carter’s and then some. She was the one stuck in this godforsaken office, running errands for some of the biggest nerds on the planet. Let Carter stew for a while since it was his plan that put her here!

  Another reason she hadn’t told Carter the details of her plan was because she wasn’t sure it would work. However, she smiled inwardly to herself; she was pretty confident that after tonight, she would have the information Carter so desperately wanted.

  Humming to herself, she began to plan what she would wear to Dusty’s that night.

  Chapter 29

  Nick and Mark’s plane touched down without incident as it touched the runway in Arlington. There had been no delays, and they had actually arrived a few minutes earlier than the 5:30 p.m. arrival time. Picking up their luggage at the baggage terminal, they stopped next at the rental car kiosk, where, as promised by Tellie, the key to their rental car was waiting for them. Their hotel was located just a few short blocks from the airport, and after checking in, they ate a quick meal at the hotel restaurant and turned in early for the night. Nick, who thought he would be too keyed up to sleep, fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Waking up early the next morning, Nick and Mark skipped breakfast in their haste to locate the address of the home that might contain the lost Saint-Gaudens coins. Their rental car came with a GPS navigation system, and they entered the address in it that the map said was the location of the rare coins. Twenty-five minutes later, they turned onto a street containing modest, bungalow-style homes. It was immediately apparent that this was an older neighborhood, with junked cars resting in the driveways of several residences.

  Mark stopped the car beside a house with an unkempt front yard, whose address matched that of the map in The Book of Lost Treasures. The address was painted on the curb beside the house, but it was faded and flaking so badly that they had to get out of the rental car and peer closely to make sure it was a correct match.

  “Not one of the best neighborhoods I’ve ever been in,” Mark commented sourly as they stood beside the curb.

  Nick grunted in assent before his attention was captured by a sign on the front porch of the home that was partially obscured by an overgrown hedge.

  “Mark, look!” he blurted, pointing excitedly.

  As one, they both rushed to the front porch. There, leaning against the hedge, was a sign that said “For Sale or Rent by Owner.” Below this was a scrawled phone number. From the weathered condition of the sign, it had apparently been sitting there for a long time.

  Both Nick and Mark peered through the bay window on the front porch. The window was filthy and the interior dark, but they could still make out a small living room dotted here and there with the dusky forms of furniture. A gloomy sense of abandonment cast a pall about the house, and it was readily apparent that it had been unlived in for quite some time.

  Nick and Mark turned to each other and, grinning, high-fived one another. By a fantastic stroke of luck, the coins were lost in a house that was for sale! Mark quickly took out his cell and called the number on the “For Sale” sign. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, someone answered the phone. Mark introduced himself and then asked about the house. After chatting for a f
ew minutes, he said good-bye and clicked off.

  “What?” Nick asked, unable to curb his curiosity.

  “Well, the guy’s name is Curtis, and I guess I woke him up. He was pretty grumpy until I asked about the house. Then, all of a sudden, it’s like he’s wide-awake and nice! Anyway, he’s driving over here to meet us and said it will take him twenty minutes.”

  Nick nodded, and then he and Mark spent the time waiting for Curtis by looking around the old house. A fence with a warped wooden gate guarded the entry to the backyard. As Nick pushed it open, his ears were assaulted by a sharp squealing sound produced by the gate’s rusty hinges. A five-foot high cinder block wall encircled the backyard, and as Nick and Mark soon discovered, it was just as overgrown as the front. Calf-high grass and weeds had turned brown in the late November weather and crunched loudly under their feet.

  From their position in the backyard, Nick and Mark had a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding area. Nick noticed that all the adjacent homes had what looked like large, earthen mounds in their backyards. Puzzled, as he peered more closely, he saw that these “mounds” were actually hardened concrete with rusty vent pipes poking from them.

  “What’s that?” he asked Mark curiously as he pointed at the mounds.

  Following Nick’s finger, Mark studied one of the concrete mounds. Finally, he gave a low whistle and said, “Well, I’ll be! These houses around here must really be old! Those are bomb shelters, Nick! During the height of the Cold War in the fifties and sixties, everybody was building them in case of a nuclear attack.”

  Pausing, Mark looked around and said, “That’s strange. This house seems to be the only one without a bomb shelter.”

  Indeed, as Nick cast about, he saw nothing that resembled the humped bomb shelters. After a few minutes of searching, he shrugged and gave up. About that time, he and Mark heard a car pull up into the driveway. Hurrying back through the gate, they arrived just in time to see a large man struggling to extricate himself from a Honda Civic. The car had definitely seen better times, as it had a bent front bumper and a thick sheet of plastic had been duct taped to where the missing passenger-side window had formerly been.

  Huffing and puffing, the man appeared to be middle-aged, and he sported a huge beer belly, which a stained undershirt struggled to contain. Bloodshot eyes blinked at Nick and Mark, and a thick three-day stubble covered his face and double chin. Although the temperature was in the low forties and he was wearing only the undershirt and no coat or jacket, he was sweating profusely.

  Hastily, he shut the car door and turned to walk toward Nick and Mark. As he did so, he lost one, and then the other, of a pair of green Crocs he had hastily jammed onto his bare feet. Cursing, he hopped on the cold concrete of the driveway and attempted to place them back on his feet. Finally giving up, he sat down on the driveway and put them back on his feet. It was from that position that he saw Nick and Mark studying him in bemusement.

  Rolling to his knees, he managed to lever himself up and onto his feet. Then extending a meaty hand, he said, breathing heavily, “Curtis, Curtis Branson. You Mark, the guy I talked to on the phone?” he asked, looking at Nick.

  Nick shook Curtis’s hand before he pointed at Mark and said, “No, he is.”

  Curtis immediately switched his attention to Mark. “So, you interested in the house?” he asked eagerly.

  Mark, who had already rehearsed in his mind what he was going to say, was deliberately noncommittal and said, “We’re interested in acquiring rental property, but we’d like to see the inside of the house first.”

  Bobbing his head rapidly, Curtis pulled a set of keys from his pocket and hurried to the front door. Unlocking it, he motioned them in. Once inside the house, a stale, musty odor permeated the air. When Nick tried to turn on a light switch, he was unsurprised to see that it didn’t work. Undoubtedly, the electricity had beenturned off for some time. Looking around, Nick noticed dark stains in the ceiling, evidence that the roof leaked and needed repair.

  Making a show of studying the house, Nick and Mark went room to room before discovering the house contained a large basement accessed by a creaking set of wooden stairs.

  Taking a penlight from his pocket and playing the beam about, Nick spot- ted an old boiler in a corner, along with various boxes, broken furniture, and assorted knickknacks, all covered with cobwebs and a thick layer of dust. If the musty odor was strong upstairs, it was downright overpowering in the basement.

  Hurriedly going back up the stairs and exiting the basement, Nick and Mark gratefully gulped the stale air. A few moments later, they went out on the front porch.

  “What can you tell us about the history of this place?” Mark asked Curtis.

  Curtis took a can of Skoal from his back pocket and placed a healthy pinch under his lip. Spitting on the brown grass, he said, “Well, this place is owned by my aunt. She’s been in a nursing home for almost five years now, and Medicare doesn’t cover all the costs of her care. I’m the only family she’s got left, and I help my aunt with her financial affairs. So I’ve been trying to sell the house to help pay her bills.”

  Nick detected a brief gleam of greed in Curtis’s eyes, and he immediately doubted the veracity of his story. More likely, he thought, Curtis had “helped” to squander his aunt’s money, and now he needed to sell the house.

  Curtis paused long enough to spit again before continuing. “This residential area was one of the first mass-produced housing areas in Virginia, and they started building these homes right after World War Two. They knew how to build houses back then!” he said proudly as he gave the wall beside the porch a firm knock. Instead of producing a solid thump, a dull thud sounded. Hastily, Curtis pulled his hand back.

  “Er, ah, as I was saying, my aunt inherited this house from her daddy when he moved here after retiring from the Mint. She lived here—”

  “Her father worked at the Mint?” Mark asked excitedly as he interrupted Curtis.

  “Well … yeah,” Curtis replied, puzzled at Mark’s reaction. “She said he worked there for over forty years.”

  Nick and Mark looked at each other, unable to keep the expression of triumph off their faces.

  “How much do you want for the house?” they asked Curtis simultaneously.

  Tellie sat by herself at a table near the stage at Dusty’s, where Steve’s band was currently playing. A vodka tonic sat untouched in front of her as she toyed impatiently with a gold bracelet about her wrist. She was wearing a black strapless cocktail dress with a plunging neckline, and since taking her seat at the table, she had fended off no fewer than ten men who had tried to pick her up. Ranging in age from those barely at the legal age to drink to men twice her age, she had firmly but politely turned down all offers. She was after bigger game tonight, and with both Nick and Mark out of town, the timing was perfect.

  The band finished playing, for which Tellie was extremely grateful. The ringing in her ears had subsided somewhat as she spotted Steve walking off the stage.

  “Steve!” she cried out waving. “Over here!”

  Blurrily, Steve stopped and looked in Tellie’s direction. A sloppy grin appeared on his face, and he turned and walked to her table.

  Tellie patted a chair beside her, and Steve plopped into it.

  “You sounded so good tonight!” Tellie gushed as she leaned forward, exposing her deep cleavage. “I had no idea you were so talented! Can I have your autograph?” And with that, Tellie pulled a pad and pen from her purse and pushed it toward Steve.

  “You bet!” Steve said enthusiastically, his chest expanding proudly.

  Tellie studied Steve as he jotted his name on the pad. His eyes were a bleary red, and she had no doubt he was well on his way to becoming drunk. Deciding to speed up the process, she signaled for a waitress.

  “What are you having?” she asked Steve.

  “Are you kidding? I own the place!” Steve said, tittering. With that, he ordered drinks for the both of them, failing to notice that Tellie st
ill had a full drink before her.

  An hour later, Steve’s band went back on stage without him. As they began to play, he had his arm around Tellie and was regaling her with stories punctuated here and there with fits of inebriated chortling. Feeling the time was as right as it was going to get, Tellie put her hand on Steve’s knee and leaned in close to him.

  “You know, I’ve heard all sorts of amazing stories about you and the rest of the club members. Some of it is so fantastic, I just don’t believe it could be true!”

  Steve’s breath had a tang of alcohol on it as he whispered conspiratorially to her, “Well it’s true all right! Every bit of it!”

  Tellie cast a doubtful glance at Steve. “I don’t believe you!

  You’re just teasing me!”

  Despite drifting in an alcoholic fog, Steve managed to look scandalized. “No, I swear, I’m telling the truth!”

  Tellie ran her finger around the rim of her drink. Looking sideways at Steve, she said demurely, “Well … okay. But which parts are true?”

  Sniggering, Steve held his finger up to his lips. Leaning in he whispered, “You have to keep all this to yourself, because we’re not supposed to tell anyone.” Tellie breathlessly assured him she would, and Steve proceeded to tell her all about the discoveries the Treasure Hunt Club had made, from the stoneware crock to their most recent discovery of the rare Honus Wagner baseball card. When he had finished, Tellie sat back in amazement. Thinking hard, she realized that while Steve had divulged where the sudden riches of the Treasure Hunt Club had come from, he still hadn’t revealed the secret of their string of successes.

  Lightly rubbing her hand alongside his inner thigh, Tellie nuzzled Steve’s neck and purred, “But how are you able to find all those things?”