by Mark Donahue
Lucille had purchased a dark green print cotton dress, dark brown shoes, and a white shawl. She wore the corsage that Lester had bought for her. She looked real pretty.
Despite knowing each other for nearly twenty years and talking most every day, Lucille and Lester sat stiffly in the van on the twenty-minute ride to the restaurant trying to think of something to say.
“You look real pretty,” was the best Lester could do.
“Thank you. Here’s the change from the money you gave me. It was way too much.”
“You should have spent it all. Just keep it. After all, you’re missin’ all your tips tonight.”
Shoving the change in his coat pocket, Lucille said, “I can’t do that, Lester.”
When Lester pulled up in front of the Biltmore Hotel in Scottsdale, two young valets ran up to his van to greet him.
“Good evening, Mr. Jones. We were expecting you,” one of them said as both van doors were opened simultaneously.
“Evenin,’ boys.”
“I didn’t even know your last name was Jones,” Lucille said.
“Yours is Wilcox. Lucille Marie Wilcox.”
The maître d’ saw Lester enter the restaurant and moved around four other patrons to greet him. “Mr. Jones, so good to see you again. We have your table ready.”
On the way to their booth, Lucille whispered, “Lester, what the hell is goin’ on here?” Lester just smiled.
Once seated, two waiters poured water, unfolded napkins, and placed them in Lucille’s and Lester’s laps. Menus magically appeared, and a wine list was given to Lester.
After a few minutes, Lester asked the waiter, “How’s the lobster?”
“Flown in fresh today, Mr. Jones.”
“You like lobster, Lucille?”
Before she answered, Lucille looked at the menu, saw the cost and said, “Lester, I ain’t orderin’ anything that cost seventy-six dollars even if rice and salad is included. That’s crazy.”
“We’ll take two lobster dinners, some of your best white wine, and make a couple of those chocolate soffly things.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Jones, two chocolate soufflés.”
“Lester, you tell me what’s goin’ on here right now, or I’m gonna get up and leave.”
“Remember all those times I told you I wuz rich? Well, I am rich. Damn rich. In fact, I may be the richest son of a bitch in this whole state.”
“Oh Lord, Lester, I wish you wouldn’t make up such things. All these new clothes, this fancy restaurant, this fine hotel, you can’t afford all this.”
“First of all, I eat and sleep here for free, don’t pay a damn dime…”
“That’s it, Lester. I can’t bear to hear you say such…”
“Lucille, darlin’, I eat and sleep here sometimes for free cuz I own this whole kit and caboodle. The hotel, the restaurant, the golf course, everything. Told ya’ I wuz rich.”
Lucille shook her head and started to slide out of the booth but stopped when Lester pulled out an old notebook and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a story. But I swear it’s all true, every damn word of it. It’ll explain why I get free food here.”
Lucille took the notebook and started to thumb through it, but Lester said, “You can read it later, I got some other things to talk about with you.”
Lucille set the notebook down and turned to Lester. “Like what?”
“Well, I’ve been thinkin’…I know I’m old as hell, and you’re just a young thing, but how ’bout if we wuz to get married? I’ve been meanin’ to ask you for a while, hell, guess it’s been ten years now, but never got up the nerve. I know you’re past child bearin’ age, but that’s okay with me, it’d be just you and me.”
“You’re crazy, Lester.”
“Nope, just figured you and me get along real good, and I ain’t got all that much time left, and maybe we could just be happy awhile, and you wouldn’t have to work. Maybe we could travel and see the world.”
“Lester, you are very sweet to ask but…”
“Tell you what, you read my journal there and maybe it’ll convince you I ain’t crazy. Another thing, I ain’t askin’ that you love me none, cuz if you want to know the truth, I love you enough that I could get by with you just likin’ me a little bit. Hell, I’ve been lovin’ you for twenty years now and not sure I could stop if I wanted to. But I’ll understand if you say no as long as we can still be friends, cuz I like ya’ too, not just love ya, if ya know what I mean, and would sure hate to never see you again just because I told you I was lovin’ you. Aw hell, that don’t make no sense at all, does it?”
Lucille reached over to Lester and stroked his cheek. “It makes all the sense in the world, Lester. I don’t know what’s in this old book, but whatever’s in it, is you. And I guess I’ve been lovin’ you for a long time too, ’cause you’re the nicest, sweetest man I’ve ever known.”
When the waiter approached the table with the white wine, he stopped when he saw Lester and Lucille in an embrace, tears running down both their faces. The wine could wait.
Chapter 49
Jasper Mine—2014
“It couldn’t have been a man. You must have seen something else,” Tom said as he put his arm around Sam’s shoulder.
“The first thing I saw was what looked like canvas-covered boxes. When I moved the flashlight to the left I saw this man in a uniform sitting on one of the boxes holding a rifle. He was staring right at me.”
“Did he move or say anything?” Ben asked gently.
“No, he just sat there and stared at me.”
“We just said the other day, there are probably a hundred ways into this place and maybe someone is guarding whatever’s behind that wall.” Jon said.
“You said he had on a uniform. Could you tell what kind, was he a cop, a guard, or maybe military?” Ben asked.
“No, but he carried a rifle, that’s all I can remember. Oh, one more thing, there was a canteen sitting next to him.” Sam said, as she quickly regained her composure, although she made no attempt to move away from Tom’s arm that remained around her shoulder.
“A canteen would indicate it’s a military man, but what would he be doing here?” Ben asked.
“Sam, could the man have been dead?” Tom asked.
“No…I mean, I don’t think so. His eyes were open, and like I said, he was staring right at me. His eyes are blue.”
“We need to get inside that wall once and for all and find out what’s in there. I think we should do it now before we get another visit from the local Welcome Wagon contingent,” Tom said.
Without waiting for agreement from his partners, Tom rose and walked toward the platform.
“Tom, wait,” Sam said.
“Tom, don’t,” Jon said.
But Tom wasn’t listening. He walked onto the platform, picked up the hammer Sam had dropped, and began smashing the black wall. Within a minute, he had opened up the hole enough for him to stick the upper half of his body through. As he scanned his flashlight behind the wall, he saw the guard that had scared Sam. But Tom didn’t retreat. He crawled through the enlarged hole and disappeared from the view of the other three.
“Tom, you okay in there?” Ben asked.
“I’m okay.”
“What the hell’s in here?” Jon asked.
After several seconds of silence, Tom nonchalantly said, “A really dead guy...and a bunch of gold.”
“Quit screwing around,” Jon said.
From behind the wall, Tom asked calmly, “Isn’t there an intergalactic rule that says whoever finds the gold first owns it all?”
Ben and Sam looked at each other and smiled.
“If you’re kidding around, I’m gonna cut off your…” Jon said.
“Tom, can we take a look?” Ben
asked.
“No! No! Its mine…its alllll mine!” Tom stuck his head out of the hole, a big grin on his face.
Sam and Ben moved to the platform after Tom came back across it. They took turns and peered inside. Their reaction was surprisingly muted as if they were looking at the inside of a Walmart.
“Let me see,” Jon said. After a few seconds behind the wall, Jon stuck his head back through the hole and exclaimed, “Holy fucking wow! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Tom, Sam, and Ben smiled at Jon’s euphoria.
“There’s thousands of ingots back here! They must be worth a billion dollars! What’s gold selling for today, close to $1,500 an ounce? Holy shit!”
“Before we leave, we should take an inventory of what’s back there. I also saw four large barrels,” Ben said.
“That place is too cramped for me,” Tom said. “Jon and Sam can squeeze in there and see what we have.”
“Good idea,” Sam said. “I’ll take my camera and record everything we find.”
“Sam, you okay going in the hole with Jon?”
“Sure.”
“Be careful, honey,” Ben said.
Armed with flashlights and a camera, Sam and Jon squeezed into the hole made by Tom and disappeared behind the black wall. Even though they knew the man behind the wall was dead, they both recoiled at seeing the hulking figure who sat on the edge of a wooden barrel, his rifle in his hands and at the ready. The man’s face had a look of melancholy, his blue eyes wide open, his skin flawless.
“He looks like one of those dummies in a wax museum,” Sam whispered almost in fear of waking the young man.
“How could he die just sitting there like that?”
“Daddy and I have seen people, especially from dry locations, who died standing up, leaning against a wall.”
“He looks like a young man. I think he’s wearing a German uniform. I can see how you’d think he’s alive.”
“He looks sad,” Sam said.
“Well, he is dead.”
Sam sat down on a barrel next to the dead German and stared into his blue eyes. His eyes seemed to follow her movements, which mesmerized Sam. “He looks alive, even from this closeup.”
“Maybe he’s the guy you’ve been looking for. Tall, young, handsome, blue eyes, and really quiet.”
The hole in the wall behind Sam allowed a slight breeze to enter, and the dead man’s hair fluttered. Sam took her hand and gently moved his hair back into place; it reminded Jon of how Barbra Streisand had stroked Robert Redford’s hair in The Way We Were.
As Sam moved her hand away, she accidently brushed the dead man’s rifle. It discharged with a flash and deafening roar in the enclosed space. The bullet passed under Sam’s right armpit and smashed into Jon’s left thigh.
The recoil from the rifle seemed to fold the dead man in half. The upper part of his torso fell slowly, almost in slow motion, toward Sam, who slid to the floor to escape the dead man who continued to inch toward her. His blue eyes looked directly into Sam’s.
Instinctively, Sam raised her arms and tried to ward off the dead German. But as he hit her outstretched hands, they penetrated his chest, and a fine dust erupted from his torso through his brown uniform and enveloped Sam’s body. Sam tried to cry out, but she inhaled the dead man’s dust, and it gagged her into silence.
Seeing Sam disappear under the dead man, Jon yelled, “Sam, are you alright? Sam?!”
Lying on her back, Sam continued to hold up the lifeless corpse as it slowly disintegrated into a fine dust and drifted onto her like brown snow. Sam could see his intense blue eyes inches from hers. The flawless skin from his face began to crack and fell away from the skull, the blue eyes tumbled out of his head onto her face and chest.
For several seconds, she was virtually paralyzed and couldn’t make her body react. But then Sam began to punch the corpse. Each time a blow landed, a dust plume erupted, sending more of the dead man’s dust onto her until she could no longer breathe. She felt his hands on her—they moved! His hands pulled on her, pulled her up toward his eyeless skull. She punched the dead man again and again.
“Sam! Stop it, it’s me, Jon! Calm down, you’re okay, calm down, Sam.”
Suddenly Sam stopped punching, realizing that the hands she felt on her were Jon’s.
“What happened?”
“Well, it appears you just got hit on big time by a dead Nazi who shot me in the damn leg.”
As she coughed and wiped dust from her face, Sam’s brain finally deciphered what Jon had said. “Oh my God, you’ve been shot!”
“Yeah, I think I mentioned that.”
Seconds later Ben thrust his head into the dust-filled room and yelled, “Sam, Jon, what the hell happened in here?! Are you guys okay?”
“Jon’s been shot.”
“By who?”
“By him.” Sam pointed to the now-flattened dust-covered uniform.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here and get Jon to a hospital,” Ben said.
“Bullshit. The bullet went all the way through my leg and into the wall. I’m not leaving here until we find out what’s in here.”
Having replaced Ben on the platform wall, and having seen Jon’s injury, Tom said. “Don’t be an idiot. You could bleed to death. Get the hell out of there.”
“I’m not bleeding that bad, and it didn’t hit a bone. I’m okay. Sam, you ready with that camera?”
On her feet, camera in hand, a dust-covered Sam said, “Ready.”
Jon limped to the nearest pile and pulled back the green tarp. In less than a minute, Jon had uncovered billions of dollars in gold. Gasping for breath from the exertion, pain, and dust, Jon turned to the exposed gold and whispered, “Fuck me!”
As Sam clicked away on her camera, Ben and Tom entered the tight space and gaped at the impossible.
“Where could all of this have come from?” Tom asked.
“Given the uniform that pile of dust is wearing over there, I’d say Germany,” Ben said.
“It does look like a Nazi uniform,” Jon said.
“It is. His rifle is WWII vintage,” Ben said.
Still dusting herself off, Sam asked, “What would a Nazi soldier be doing in Arizona? And do you think he’s been sealed up in here since WWII, Daddy?”
“Looks like it.”
Breaking the spell of historical possibilities, Jon asked, “Do you guys have any idea how rich we are?”
“Pretty rich,” was Tom’s answer.
“Pretty rich? We are disgustingly, arrogantly, stupidly rich.”
“Yeah, I guess that too,” Tom agreed.
As she knelt and touched the now-flattened uniform on the floor, Sam had a question. “Why would this man allow himself to be sealed up in here until he died? He had a rifle, and it looked like he could have broken down the wall with his bare hands.”
“Look over there.” Ben pointed toward several concrete blocks, a bag of mortar, and a trowel. “I’d say this young man sealed himself up, and someone else just threw some paint and dirt on the outside to blend with the rest of the wall.”
“Maybe he didn’t think he’d be guarding something until he died. Maybe he thought he’d just be behind the wall for a short time. You can see he had some food and water, even a candle over in the corner,” Jon said.
“Whoever convinced him to go behind this wall must have convinced him they’d be back for him later,” Ben said.
“That was one hell of a salesman,” Jon offered.
“But he must have realized at some point no one was coming for him,” Sam said.
“Some men are trained to follow orders. I suspect our friend here was one of those who did exactly what he was ordered to do, even if it meant he would die,” Ben said.
Tom asked, “If this guy was really a Nazi, does that mean the gold came from Germany?”<
br />
“That’s the most logical answer, but who knows? My bar said Mexico on it and yours Canada.”
“When I was doing my research on all those tales of lost gold, I read that the Nazis moved massive amounts of gold from Germany during both world wars to protect it from being confiscated by the Allies. But how could they get all this gold from Germany to Arizona?” Tom asked.
“It would have been difficult,” Ben said. “But with enough money anything is possible.”
“Daddy, could the gold have come in from Mexico or Canada?”
“Not sure, but I’d bet there are a bunch of countries’ names stamped on these bars.”
Jon and Sam moved to one of the stacks of gold.
“This one says U.S. Government,” Sam said.
“This stack says Australia,” Jon said. “And here’s Brazil.”
“Looks like they were thinking ahead as to where the gold was ultimately going,” Ben said.
Still euphoric over his newfound riches, Jon said, “It doesn’t really matter where the hell this stuff came from, it’s all ours now. Unbelievable.”
Tom pointed to the barrels in the back of the space and asked, “Jon, did you open those barrels yet?”
“No, toss me a hammer.”
Jon took the hammer and limped over to the first barrel where he wedged the claw end into the edge of the rim. The wood squeaked as Jon strained to pry open the lid. Suddenly the lid flew into the air, and Jon fell to the floor as the lid landed at his feet. Jon slowly rose, looked into the barrel, and said softly. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.”
“What’s in there?” Tom asked.
“Looks like about ten thousand loose rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and some notebooks,” Jon said. “Hey, Ben there’s something else, a gift you can give to your grandkids.” Jon then tossed a small red toy truck to Ben.
Ben caught the toy, smiled, and spun the wheels of the truck with his fingers. But then Ben suddenly grimaced and dropped the toy like it was a hot ember then uttered, “Awl…no!”
