Edge takes a deep drink of his beer, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Not exactly,” he says.
“What’s that mean?” I say.
“What it means, Baker, is that while Mendel, the in-shape one, didn’t come right out and say it, he did issue us a warning of sorts.”
“I’m listening,” I say.
“The big cop said, I know why you’re here and you’re not going to get away with it,” Edge tells us.
“Dude, then said he’ll be watching us,” Rob interjects.
I nod. So, that’s it then. What I assumed would be a fairly easy treasure hunt grab is about to turn into something nuclear. Unless that is, we can outsmart the police and get to it today or at the very latest, tonight, without them being the wiser.
Slowly, I twist myself back around, take another quick glance out the window. They’re still there.
“So, what’s the plan, Chief?” Edge says.
“We don’t wait until nightfall to get at those old bones, or for that matter, the treasure. We do it now.”
Sarah nods. “Chase is right. The only advantage we have over competing interests right now is that we know where the treasure map is, and they most definitely do not.”
“But how we gonna do that with the cops staring us down?” Rob says.
“I second the question,” Sarah adds.
“Well,” I say, “we can’t just bust out of here like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But we can figure a way to get rid of the cops.”
“How exactly?” Sarah says.
A solution appears inside my brain like the flipping on of a light switch. A solution that will necessitate my breaking the rules.
“Hey, Edge,” I say, “give me one of those cigarettes.”
17
Edge assumes a suspicious expression, lips pursed, eyes wide, disbelieving. He goes to hand me the lighter and a fresh smoke. But I hold up my hands in protest.
“I’m no smoker,” I point out. “But you, my friend, are one hell of a chimney.”
“Thought you were paranoid about getting caught,” he says.
“I am,” I confirm. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to blow the alarm.”
Sarah nods. “I get it,” she says. “Set off the alarm, send in the fire crews, make the two cops standing outside do their job by responding to the emergency.”
“What if they just hang out where they are regardless, dude,” Rob says. “They seem pretty corrupt to me.”
“You’re going to call the emergency in to the cops, Rob,” I say. “And when you do, tell them there are two cops already on the scene.”
“When?” Rob questions.
“Edge,” I say, “lighter ‘er up.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he says, “even if you did toss my last one in the toilet.”
We watch him pull out a fresh smoke as though he were performing delicate surgery. When he lights the cigarette with a tall orange flame from his Bic lighter, it’s like the fate of the world rests upon his every move.
He inhales deeply on the cigarette. So deeply, you can hear the fire burning the paper and tobacco while a third of the tube turns to gray ash. Clearly pleased with the gargantuan inhalation, he then stands up from the bed, aims his mouth for the ceiling-mounted smoke alarm, and exhales a thick blue cloud of smoke.
The cloud hovers over our heads and surrounds the plastic alarm like the gas inside a gas chamber, until it explodes in the most annoying, ear-piercing, high-pitched, pulsating electronic noise one can imagine.
“How’s about them apples?” a very satisfied Edge poses above the wall of noise.
Shifting my gaze to Rob. “Call the cops.”
He picks up the phone on the small end table set between the twin beds.
“What do I dial?”
“Punch in nine to get out,” I say. “Then dial nine-one-one.”
“Oh yeah,” he says like he should have figured that out on his own in the first place.
He dials the four digits, waits for the answer. When someone comes on the line, his eyes light up.
“I’d like to report a fire,” he barks. “Errr, I mean, I don’t like to report a fire, like I’m, you know, enjoying the process. But you get what I mean, dude. It’s at the Extend Stay America by the airport. We need firetrucks and police. It’s huge. Oh my God.” He makes up a coughing fit just to add drama. But, in reality, he’s stoned out of his gourd.
The alarm is blaring. I know at any moment someone is going to come knocking on the door. Probably the guy behind the desk whom we bribed earlier.
“I’m sorry . . . I can’t hear you,” Rob says. He’s really putting on a show. Then, he hits them with the zinger. “Oh my God. I see the police. Right outside my window. A big dude dressed in regular clothes and another fat one in a uniform. They’re driving a Colonie cop cruiser. They’re names are Detective Mendel and Sgt. Dernitz.”
Sarah immediately turns to me. “How the hell would he know their names if he’s just some jerk staying at the hotel?”
“Just go with it,” I say. “He’s on a roll.”
“Oh my God,” Rob goes on. “It’s getting so hot. I think the fire is flashing. Make sure Detective Mendel and Sgt. Dernitz come to rescue me . . . Please, please, please . . . I can see them from the window. Out in the parking lot.”
He lets loose with a lung-puncturing scream, then hangs up, gazes at us with wide eyes and an ear-to-ear grin.
“Well, how’d I do?” he says, taking a bow.
“You missed your calling, Brad Pitt,” Edge says. He’s still sucking on that same cigarette which has been reduced to just a brown filter.
I go to the window. I see Mendel talking on the cruiser radio. He’s shaking his head like he’s pissed off. Leaning in through the open cruiser window, he returns the radio handset to the dash-mounted console, and he says something to Dernitz. The two immediately begin marching across the lot towards the hotel like they mean business.
“It’s working,” I say, about-facing. “Grab the stuff while we still got a chance.”
Sarah grabs the two shovels, while Edge and Rob grab hold of their precious cooler. I open the door, stick my head out, look both ways. There’s an electrically illuminated exit sign mounted to the ceiling above the stairwell at the very far end of the third-floor corridor.
“Let’s go,” I say, opening the door wider.
We step out into the hall and take it double time to the emergency exit. But before we get there, one of the doors opens. A man and a woman appear, their bodies covered with a bed sheet.
“Is there a fire?” the man says, scrunching his nose. “I don’t smell any smoke.”
“Please don’t tell me there’s a fire,” the woman says. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
At least she’s honest . . .
Now, coming from outside the building, the wail of fire engine sirens, and the rumble of their heavy-duty engines.
“Get out now while you can,” I insist. “Don’t bother with your clothes. This place is about to flash. Hurry.”
“Told you this was a bad idea, Harold,” the woman says, running out into the hall. “How will I explain this to my husband?”
“You bad boy,” Sarah says as we collect in front of the emergency exit.
“Couldn’t resist,” I say, opening the door and allowing my team to enter the stairwell before me. But I enter the stairwell just as the manager makes his way into the corridor via the elevator.
“You!” he shouts. “Stop!”
“Go!” I bark, closing the door behind me. “Go now!”
18
We make it out the bottom floor emergency exit of the hotel facility just as the fire trucks are rounding the corner onto the parking lot.
“Head for the Jeep,” I say. “Before they box us in.”
We don’t walk to the Jeep. We run. Edge and Rob set the cooler onto the back seat, while Sarah tosses the shovels into the front passenger side seat-well. She gets in th
e back along with Edge, while Rob takes his place behind the wheel. I jump into the shotgun seat while he fires her up.
“Go,” I press. “Go, go!”
He’s pulling across the lot, just as Detective Mendel and Sgt. Dernitz come running back out of the hotel. Two very pissed off cops giving chase.
19
“What now, dude?” Rob says.
“Go straight to the St. Agnes cemetery,” I order.
Sarah leans into me. “Chase,” she says. “It’s broad daylight. How can we dig up a body in broad daylight?”
“We work real fast,” I say over my shoulder, the wind buffeting my face.
“How do we get to the cemetery?” Rob asks.
“It’s the St. Agnes Cemetery,” Sarah says. “I know the way.”
She proceeds to direct our red-Mohawk-haired driver on a route he never would have expected in his wildest dreams when he answered our call for an Uber driver. But then, life’s all about little surprises.
It takes us maybe seven minutes to get to Broadway in North Albany. Like I said, I grew up in this city, but I rarely had reason to come to this particular hamlet called Menands. There’s not much to see here but an abandoned white concrete monstrosity that once housed the Montgomery Ward department store. Across the street from that, a now equally abandoned telephone book printing press that — judging by its broken windows and kicked in doors — looks like it’s become the perfect home for the city’s north-end vagabonds and bums.
The only thing to see besides the remnants of what was once a bustling, if not thriving, business community are the cemeteries. The historical and secular Albany Rural Cemetery where my dad is buried, and located right beside it, the Roman Catholic St. Agnes Cemetery. It’s inside the latter cemetery which takes up most of a great flat plain of green grass where we’ll find the bones of Sarah Winston’s great grandfather, and hopefully the map to the Dutch Schultz treasure. Sounds like the kind of made-up story you might find in some old pulp fiction magazines. But you know what they say, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Let’s hope that’s the case.
We pull into the granite block and black metal gated entrance to the St. Agnes cemetery and drive the long narrow road that’s surrounded by pristine green lawns on both sides. In fact, if I wasn’t certain I was heading to a cemetery, I might confuse the place for a country club golf course. But when we spot a church made from stone on the left-hand side — an old church three-sided with plots of headstones — there’s no question about where we’re headed.
Rob hooks a left into the small gravel-covered parking lot in front of the church and stops.
“Now where?” he says.
I shift in my seat so I can lock eyes on Sarah.
“Navigator,” I say, “the plane is yours.”
“Pull into the cemetery,” she says. “Drive all the way into the back.”
“Aye aye,” Rob says.
We drive across the length of the lot to a dirt road that appears, initially anyway, to run through the very center of the flat cemetery with half the plots on one side and half on the other. We drive for maybe half a mile surrounded by a silence that really isn’t silent what with the noise of the Jeep engine, the tune Rob is humming inside and outside his head, and him punching the beat to on his thigh with his fist, the snapping open of another beer tab by Edge, and the buzz of adrenalin in my brain.
The adrenalin rush isn’t only due to the fact that I am about to uncover a treasure map carved into a man’s skull, but because two corrupt police officers could be on our tail right this very second. Which, of course, means we need to dig this grave up fast and get the hell out.
Suddenly, the quiet is broken by Sarah barking, “There, Rob! Over there!”
She extends her arm, points to a small plot of ground that does not support a headstone but is covered in brown, freshly excavated dirt rather than lush green grass.
Rob stops the Jeep just feet away from the plot.
Edge sets his beer into the center console cup holder and jumps out with all the agility and enthusiasm of a much younger man.
“Let’s get this show on the road, Baker,” he says. “Let’s find this treasure and grab some food, already. I’m starving.”
I get out, hand him a shovel.
“Me?” he says, eyes wide, face painted with surprise. “I’ll be seventy years old soon.”
“It’s your treasure too,” I say. “Besides, seventy is the new fifty. Just ask Geraldo Rivera.”
Together, Edge and I make our way to a plot marked by a temporary wood marker that, instead of a name, contains only the number seven on it.
“What’s with the number?” Edge says to Sarah.
“My great grandfather was the seventh slave to be found among the unknown corpses. Only reason he could be ID’d at all was because of his skull.”
“Would have been easier if you’d just taken a picture of it,” I say. “Saved us a whole lot of hassle.”
“There were always people around. Historians. It was impossible.”
“How come the historians never noticed the map?” Rob asks.
“Yeah, good question,” I say.
“They never paid much attention to it,” Sarah explains. “They just assumed someone messed with the skull at some point. Someone who felt the need to carve nonsensical lines into the bones.”
“Nonsensical,” I whisper to myself.
She always knew that one day, she’d have no choice but to dig the skull back up. Or get two idiots like Edge and me to dig it up for her . . .
“Let’s do this Edge,” I say.
“Yeah,” he grouses. “Let’s do this before I decide not to.”
Placing one foot on the spade, I push the blade into the soft ground and dig out my first shovel full of God’s good earth.
20
For as much as he drinks and smokes, Edge isn’t in all that bad a shape. Maybe seventy really is the new fifty. Between the two of us, working nonstop, we manage to dig our way down to the solid metal box in a matter of five minutes. We worked up a sweat doing it, but it’s a good kind of sweat. A sweat that can lead to great things. That is, we manage to avoid the police.
“You two keeping a watch for Mendel and Dernitz?” I say as Edge and I drop to our knees, take hold of the strong box handles.
Turns out the box isn’t heavy at all since all it purportedly contains are bones of someone long deceased. Edge is able to let go of the box while I carry it to the Jeep, set it into the small storage space that exists between the back seat and the tailgate.
“Should we fill the hole back in?” Edge says, his eyes focused on Winston’s plot and the ugly gaping hole that now occupies it. “You know, like out of respect.” Shifting his eyes to Mohawk Rob. “Maybe the punk rocker can get his hands dirty this time.”
I’m just about to tell him that yes, we should fill it back in and that Rob should be the one to do it when the shots ring out, and the bullets fly past my head.
21
Survival instinct takes over.
Edge and I dive into the Jeep face first.
“Drive!” I demand. “Move it!”
Rob shifts the Jeep in gear and peels out, heads in the direction of the cemetery road.
“Dude, who’s doing the shooting?” he barks.
“Just keep your Mohawk down and drive.”
More shots. A couple of rounds ricochet off the Jeep hood.
“Is it the cops?” Sarah asks.
I’m scrunched down in the front seat, while Edge is lying face first in the leg room area in the back of the Jeep. Sarah is lying on her side on the Jeep back seat.
“I don’t know,” I say.
But when I get a quick look in the direction from where the shots originated I can see that it’s not the cops we’re dealing with at all. But someone else entirely.
“Fuck me,” I say. “They’re back.”
“Who?” Rob says as he skids into the church parking lot, gravel kicking up against
the Jeep undercarriage.
“The Russians!” I shout. “The Sergey boys!”
I’ve spotted the big black Lincoln coming at us not from the road, but from across the big expanse of lawn. Both father and son are shooting out their respective open windows with what looks to be 9mm semi-automatics. If they weren’t bouncing all over the place, bullets would have connected with flesh by now. Their bullets. My flesh. Our flesh.
“Ditch ‘em, Rob man!” Edge barks.
“Trying, dude,” he says.
More bullets whiz past, two striking the windshield. The cracks spread out from the dime-sized bullet holes like spider webs. Out the corner of my left eye, I make out the hill that leads up into the adjoining Albany Rural Cemetery. The place is heavily wooded, and the uphill road is winding. Gullies and streams snake through the one hundred fifty-year-old rural burial grounds.
“Head up the hill,” I tell Rob. “We can lose them in there.”
“Sure about that?” he says.
“Only thing I’m sure about is the Sergeys have guns, and we don’t have shit.”
“We could toss rocks at them,” Sarah says from the back seat. “Course, then we’d have to stop and get out.”
Rocks . . . Gives me an idea . . .
Rob turns the Jeep wheel to the left when he comes to the end of the parking lot in front of the old church. He takes the cemetery road all the way to the end until it turns into an uneven two-track that goes uphill through big trees into the Albany Rural Cemetery. The engine strains with the severe change in grade, but the wheels and suspension easily negotiate the rough terrain.
I venture a look behind us and see that the Sergeys are right on our tail, the big boat of a car they’re riding in bouncing and bucking on the two-track. But that’s not stopping them from shooting at us.
“Get down!” I shout once more. “Keep your heads down!”
“You ain’t gotta tell me twice,” Edge says.
Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds: A Chase Baker Thriller Book 10 Page 7
