by James Norton
They rolled down 76th street under the canopy of elms and maples. It was a great place to ride in an Olds convertible with the top down even if the price of gas was bankrupting him.
“I mean, in order to get the money you have to have someone who is willing to pay that amount to get the coin.”
She sat up straight. “Well, right.”
“Okay, how ya’ gonna sell it? Who’s gonna buy it? Nobody legit. Anybody who knows anything about coins isn’t gonna touch it.”
Rhonda looked at him open mouthed as they stopped in a line of cars that waited for a train to pass through the railroad crossing on Harwood Avenue. He turned off the engine to save fuel.
Her gaze shifted over his head and she squinted. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
Bernie twisted around to see who was behind and felt a cold circle of metal in his neck. His door opened and someone got into the back seat.
“Pull out and make a left on State,” the visitor commanded.
Bernie restarted the car, nudged it out of line and into the vacant oncoming-lane as he tried to place the voice.
“Hi Stan, how’s your dad?” Rhonda asked.
“Shut up,” he said.
Fourteen minutes later they stood in Stan and Leon’s apartment. They were in a small space among the piles of used furniture that filled the living room and kitchen. Though Bernie had been in their place twice before it was the first time he’d taken a close look. The two of them must have scrounged every abandoned chair, sofa and table in the neighborhood as the residents moved out. Leon sat at the kitchen table drinking a beer and eating Oreos.
“Look who I got,” Stan said with a wave of his pistol.
“Do you wear the same clothes everyday?” Rhonda asked the old man.
Leon looked down at his gray-green T-shirt and ran his left hand over the front. “No, I have a bunch of ‘em.” He belched. “Where’s that no good, son-of-a-bitch?”
“Which no good, son-of-a-bitch would that be?” she asked. “I know several.”
Leon stood on his one remaining leg. “Don’t try to be cute with me, toots. It’s what’s-his-name Smith?”
“Knickerbocker?”
“Yeah, that one.”
Bernie pulled an armchair covered in worn, nubby green fabric from the pile and sat on it. Rhonda took a seat on half of a yellow flowered love seat next to a box of mismatched plastic food containers.
“Well,” she said. “He is one alright. Why do you want him?”
“He stole somethin’ from us and we want it back,” Stan said with an additional flourish of his pistol.
“What would that be?” Bernie asked.
“Never mind,” Stan said. “But, he knows Calamity Jane here. So I … we think you know where he is or how to get in touch with him.”
Rhonda sighed. “No way, loser.”
Stan rushed up to Bernie and pointed the pistol at his head. “What? What?” Stan screamed. “Call that troll, or I’ll blow his god damn head off.”
Rhonda leaned back in the love seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re an idiot.”
“That’s what Ollie said before I shoved that ice pick into his ear!” Stan yelled as he waved his pistol at her.
“Why don’t you give Nick a call?” Bernie asked.
“You people are amazing.” She smiled. “Where’s the phone?”
Chapter 69
“We’re not cutting that asshole in,” Stan said.
Rhonda stood. “Yes, we are.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Leon put his right leg on and they all piled into the Olds for the short ride to the Mayfair Shopping Mall. Nick Smith designated the skating rink in the middle of the mall for their meeting. Two late summer skaters were taking advantage of the indoor ice to work on their jumps and twirls.
Bernie pointed them out to Rhonda. “Not Olympic, but attractive.”
“I’m freezing,” Leon said while surveying the few other spectators standing at the main floor railing above the rink. “Why are we here?”
Rhonda rolled her eyes and turned to him. “Nick wants to meet in a public place.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t trust her,” Stan said as he scanned the skaters on the lower level. Stan and Leon danced in place to ward off the cold air creeping up from the ice.
While they were distracted Bernie leaned close to Rhonda and whispered, “What are you doing?”
She put a finger to his lips.
“Hey, what are you two talking about?” Stan asked.
“The weather,” Rhonda said.
“Well, well, well,” was the call that came from behind them. They all turned to see short Nick Smith exiting a store not ten feet from where they stood.
“Where’s our shit?” Leon demanded to the consternation of a shopping matron as she passed with two pre-teens. Nick addressed Rhonda. “I thought we were going to meet alone?”
“A couple of things came up.” She nodded toward the raggedy pair. “I thought we should meet and have a little talk.”
“That’s it?”
“Actually, there’s more. Lots more.” She dug her left hand into the pocket of her shorts and produced the 1932 Double Eagle in its clear cellophane envelope.
“What the hell are you doing?” Bernie asked.
She shrugged and handed it to Nick. Stan grabbed the coin in mid-transfer and brought it close to his face. Leon snatched it from Stan and stepped back out of arms reach. Nick walked up and kicked him. When Leon bent down to grab his knee, Nick took the coin out of the old man’s hand.
“Unbelievable,” Bernie groaned.
“What’s the deal? This is the coin I gave you to prove I had the collection,” Nick said. “Where’s my movie?”
Rhonda smiled.
Nick glanced at the coin then at her. “This is more than it looks like. Right?”
“So?” Leon stood and clutched himself against the cold.
“But, there’s something wrong,” Nick said. “Isn’t there?”
“We need to talk someplace more private than this,” she said.
Nick frowned. “I’ve got a room at the HoJo. We can talk there.”
Leon and Stan insisted on riding with Nick and the 1932 Double Eagle for the three minute trip to the motel room. Rhonda and Bernie went in his Olds.
“All this starting and stopping is costing me a fortune in gas,” Bernie said.
“Christ on a crutch, if it bothers you that much get a VW. This is a huge deal and you’re bitchin’ about gas money.”
“Why the hell are we talking to these people?” he asked in their momentary privacy.
“Just what you told me.”
“Me? What?”
“You said we need to have a buyer and no one legitimate would touch the coin.”
He nodded dumbly as he pulled into a parking space
“Nick knows people who have money and aren’t exactly kosher.”
His eyes widened as the fog lifted. “No, no, no!”
Stan was leaning out the door of the motel room as they stepped out of the car. “Get your butts in here. We got business to tend to.”
That little voice people call a gut feeling, instinct or intuition was screaming “Run!”, but Bernie’s conscious mind was confused by a loyalty to Nana, affection for Rhonda and a curiosity about how she might make this work. He would have put the Olds in gear and raced out of there, but she was half way to the room.
Chapter 70
Inside the motel Leon had his pistol stuck in Nick’s neck. “Where’s our stuff, dwarf?”
Everybody stopped.
“What’d ya mean, yours?” Rhonda piped in from the doorway.
“Ours. Finders keepers,” Stan said.
Rhonda went into the room and got right in between father and son. “What is this, grade school? You took it from my grandmother’s property, shit bird!”
Nick pushed the pistol away from his body. “I�
�m not a dwarf, jerk off. I’m just short.”
Bernie said, “Well, technically the government seized Nana’s house.”
“Shut up,” Rhonda hissed. “Okay, let me talk it over with Nick in private for a few minutes.”
“No way, toots,” Stan said. “You got anything to say, you say it in front of us.”
“Put the gun away Leon.” Rhonda sighed. “We’ve bigger fish to fry.”
Nick’s room at the Howard Johnson’s was appropriately done up in a cheap ‘50’s style emphasizing turquoise and orange. It had a slight disinfectant odor. Rhonda took the only chair. Leon and Stan sat on the end of the bed. Nick and Bernie stood in opposite corners.
“Okay,” Leon said. “What’s up?”
“Forget the coin collection,” Rhonda said.
“Why?”
“It’s only worth about twenty-thousand dollars.”
Bernie scored Rhonda’s first lie.
Leon looked at this father. “That sounds fine to me.”
“Chump change.”
Father and son frowned.
“We’re looking at a million. If we do it right.”
That was the second.
They listened to the air conditioner hum for a moment before Nick spoke. “What are you talking about?”
She smiled. “A 1933 Double Eagle gold piece.”
Bernie’s mind raced for something to say that would stop her, but nothing came.
“Big fuckin’ deal,” Leon said.
“Exactly.” She gave them the barest details of the story. Nick listened and took a seat on the bed while Bernie pulled up a piece of floor.
When she finished Stan sat there with his mouth open. Leon said, “Whoa mama!” Nick didn’t say a thing. The one-legged old man and his fratricidal son began to dance in place and holler. This bizarre performance was short lived and ended in fits of coughing followed by a smoke for each.
Nick spoke up. “Rhonda, why are you telling us this? You and I have this out of control hate-hate relationship.” He nodded toward Leon and Stan. “And, these guys are idiots.”
“Hey,” Leon said and nothing more.
She smiled. “Excellent questions, Nick.”
It was exactly what Bernie had been thinking for the past hour. “Cuts to the heart of the situation.” The entire meeting seemed insane to him.
Nick smiled. “So?”
“We need a buyer for the coin,” she said. “Actually, we could use several. You know, competition to drive the price up.”
Stan and Leon stood silent while Nick smiled broadly.
“Ah … okay … no honest coin dealer will touch this piece,” he said.
“It’s hot so you need a fence,” Stan said.
Rhonda nodded. “May be, but what we’d really like is to deal directly with a buyer.”
“We don’t personally know any crooks,” Bernie said.
Nick stood. “And, we do.”
After a moment of silence Leon spoke. “We can’t just go around to every jamoke talking up this deal. Word would get around. Either the cops would get wise or some clown would try to rip us off.”
Bernie sat stunned at Leon’s common sense and saw that his reaction was shared by the others in the room. It was sound reasoning if they were going to commit a criminal act, which seemed to be the road they were taking.
“We’ve got to think this through very carefully. And …“ Leon took a drag on his smoke. “I don’t trust any of you.”
“Hey,” Stan said.
“Don’t take it personal, son.”
Chapter 71
Later that afternoon Rhonda explained the entire scheme to Nana as the little lady smoked at the kitchen table in her other granddaughter’s house.
“Not bad, sweetie.” Nana patted Rhonda’s cheek.
“Not bad. Not bad!” Bernie danced around the table. “It’s out and out nuts!”
“Why?” Rhonda asked.
“Yeah, why?” Nana blew smoke out her nose.
“For one thing those letters from your great aunt are a load of crap,” he said.
“What letters?” Nana asked.
Rhonda produced the letters from her macramé purse and handed them to Nana. She read them while Bernie got some beers from the refrigerator. Rhonda took a cigarette from Nana’s pack and lit up.
“They could be a load,” Nana said. “But, from what I know of your grandfather Sol’s family, the times, places and people check out.”
“Oh good, a half-truth,” Bernie said. “Why am I not surprised?”
The two women smiled at him and exhaled smoke in his direction. That sight was almost as unsettling to him as the idea of working with Leon and Stan. Oh, shit! “And … and … then, there are the people Nick says he can bring to the table to bid on this coin. They don’t strike me as the type who will take too kindly to being conned.”
Rhonda snorted and laughed. “Who’s conning anybody? We are simply offering interested parties the opportunity to own a rare piece of American history. No one is going to put a gun to their heads. If they want to buy, they can. If not, not.”
Bernie stood there silent. She was full of good points today.
“Two million, you say?” Nana asked.
“It’s very rare. Could be more,” Rhonda said.
“We told Nick and the boys a million,” Bernie said.
Rhonda grinned and crinkled her eyebrows. “We lied.”
He felt that this conversation was not reassuring. “Wait a minute, this coin belongs to the United States government. Do you think they might have an interest in recovering it?”
“I’m not gonna tell ‘em,” Nana said.
Chapter 72
Knickerbocker lay on the bed of his room at the HoJo and looked into the muzzle of a .45. He would have screamed louder, but his Wemblon wrinkle-proof tie was stuffed in his mouth. He could smell the velvet aroma of fine tobacco.
“Relax, Smith.” Lucerio spoke from across the room in that soft tone he liked to use.
Nick tried to suppress his terror and control his vocal cords with limited success. After attempting two more screams, he settled for breathing hard against the polyester fabric. The gunman stepped back as Lucerio leaned over Smith and tapped him on the cheek with his hand.
“Nick, Nick, Nick you should not lie to me,” he said.
The little man mumbled something about not lying to the Colombian.
“Do not insult me with another lie, Nick. You told me everything was okay with our movie project, but now I have found that it is not so. Your investors are not happy.” Lucerio took a seat in a chair next to the bed. “Now Mr. Mendez...” He nodded toward the swarthy gunsel. “...is going to take your tie out of your mouth and you are going to tell me the truth, yes?” He placed a thick cigar between his lips, inhaled and allowed the smoke to drift from his mouth.
Nick nodded.
Mendez leaned forward and lightly pulled the tie from his mouth.
“So what have you done with our money?” Lucerio asked while Nick exercised his tongue.
“I shot the picture. It’s in the can.”
“We talked with …” Lucerio raised his hand and frowned.
Mendez said, “Paulie.”
“Yes, ah, Paulie at the film lab.” Lucerio blew a smoke ring. “He said that you didn’t pay him so he stopped working. We gave you the one-hundred thousand dollars you said you needed to complete the movie, but you did not finish it. What did you do with our money?”
Nick turned his head to the left to look at the Columbian sitting next to the night stand. The light from the small lamp made Lucerio’s features sharp and illuminated the gold tie bar in the collar of his silk shirt. Nick said, “Well, it’s kind of a long story.”
“Make it a short story. Where is our money? And, where is our movie?”
“There are additional expenses, but I … I can get the money to finish it.”
Lucerio nodded at Mendez and he put the tie back into Nick’s mouth. The C
olumbian slapped Nick very hard across the face. He screamed more from terror than pain.
“I told you. No more lies. Paulie told us that the woman you used in our movie, this Rhonda, took the uncut film away with her. You cannot finish our movie if you do not have the film, can you?”
Nick pulled the tie from his mouth. “I can get your money back to you.”
Lucerio held up his right hand. “We invested our money with you, because we know that type of movie gets a very nice return. It is not just the investment. We want the return you promised, also.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Six-hundred thousand.”
“What?”
“That is what you told us. We expect you to keep your word. Plus the one-hundred thousand comes to seven-hundred thousand.”
“Holy, shit.”
Mendez and his pistol loomed over Nick.
“Is this a problem?” Lucerio asked.
“What, what, I’m not worth anything to you if I’m dead.”
“True.”
“Let me … let me get this straight. You either want the finished film or seven hundred grand.”
“Exactly.”
“Well … well I’m gonna need some time to do either one.”
“Certainly you will.”
“Good, good, swell. I’m working on it right now.”
“Wonderful, Nick. I’m glad to hear it. Mr. Mendez, help Mr. Smith up from the bed.”
Lucerio headed for the door.
“Ah, how much time do I have?”
“Enough.”
“How much is that?”
“I’ll be in touch. Your investors want to see progress.”
Nick followed them to the door and steadied himself against the jam. “Say, how did you find me?”
Lucerio laughed. “Who do you think cleans motel rooms in Milwaukee, Jewish princesses?”
Chapter 73
Rhonda sat in the booth at Denny’s because she knew Nick hated sitting in them. He could never touch the floor with his feet. She fingered the single strand of pearls she wore as she saw the door swing open. Though she couldn’t see his head over the booths, she knew the little creep had arrived. He stepped into the aisle, then looked around for her and frowned when he saw her. Tough shit. As expected, he wore a brown suit that looked like it had been pressed with a mix-master.