Quicksilver (reissue)

by Toni Dwiggins

  I thought, this guy is accustomed to success.

  He released my hand and moved to our big map table, raising his satchel. “If I may?”

  Walter gave a brusque nod.

  On the phone last night Shelburne had explained that he wanted an assessment of an ore specimen. When Walter replied that what he wanted was a mining geologist, Shelburne had said he was also in need of another kind of expertise. That he needed us. Walter slotted him in for today at four P.M.

  Now, at eleven A.M., Robert Shelburne made his case.

  He set the satchel on the table and removed a box. The box was metal, the size of a lunch box, scratched and dinged. “My brother went missing,” Shelburne said. “Because of this.”

  I said, “You didn't mention a missing person on the phone last night.”

  “That's because I assumed you would tell me to contact the police.”

  “We would.”

  “The police have no interest. He left voluntarily. And I feared if I explained that last night, you would have no interest either.”

  “That depends on the specifics.” I looked to Walter.

  Walter was eyeing the scratched lunch box on the table. “Mr. Shelburne, you have our attention. For another ten minutes.”

  Shelburne flashed a surprisingly nervous smile. He laid a hand on the box. Fingered the latch. Snapped it open. Lifted the lid.

  Inside was the ore specimen: a chunk of rock with a reddish-brown hue, rough and lumpy, a gravel of pebbles and small cobbles cemented together. Unlovely.

  Shelburne’s eyes were on us, not the rock. “You understand what that is?”

  I nodded.

  Walter grunted.

  I knew that grunt. Walter was interested.

  I was wary.

  Walter took out his hand lens and bent over the specimen, giving it a close inspection. He said nothing. He kept his nose to the rock for an inordinate amount of time.

  I shifted. I could have done a full mineralogical and chemical analysis in the time he was taking to do this hand-lens study. Was he going to take until lunchtime? I could have gone into our mini-kitchen and eaten my lunch, in that time frame—turkey sandwich, nectarine, decadent brownie, the whole nine yards. Geological epochs have passed in less time. I glanced at Shelburne.

  Shelburne waited. Perfectly still.

  My stomach growled. I said, finally, “And so?”

  Walter straightened and passed me the lens.

  I put my own nose to the lunch box, playing the twenty-power magnifier across the rough face of the rock. Right off the bat I could say that this was a conglomerate that consisted of well-rounded rock fragments, primarily quartz and diorite, cemented in a matrix of sandy clay. There were a few angular black pebbles, potentially of more interest, but my focus skipped to the sparse freckling of another color. A deep golden yellow. These tiny grains were flattened, irregular, their surface pitted, so unobtrusive that when I set aside the hand lens they were nearly invisible to my naked eye. I snatched up the lens again, looking again, and now the grains stood out in sharp relief because I understood that I was looking at pure gold. Perhaps only a few dollars’ worth but striking enough to silence my stomach and make my pulse leap.

  And then I noticed a lumpy spot near the bottom of the specimen and shifted my angle of view and saw a small inclusion in the lump, about the size of a melon seed. More gold. Coarse gold. By definition, big enough to be called a nugget. Even I understood the lure of the term nugget.

  I tore my attention from the ore and found Walter looking at me. His blue eyes had gone brighter, bluer.

  For Walter, the rock in the lunch box was a thing of joy.

  For me, it was a thing of the past. Or so I thought.

  When I was kid—summer job in Walter’s lab doing scutwork—he had tried to hook me on his hobby, puttering around with the geology of precious ores. He claimed to be in it for the history, prowling old mining sites, bringing back chunks of quartz-studded rock not unlike this one. When I came aboard officially after grad school, Walter was still taking jaunts in the field, following old maps and his vast geological knowledge. By the time I became a junior partner, Walter had pretty much transferred his interest to the internet, posting in the relevant forums.

  And now Robert Shelburne walks into our lab with a gold-flecked nugget-bearing rock and sets it in front of Walter like catnip.

  Walter cleared his throat. “Mr. Shelburne, this ore specimen is connected to your brother?”

  “That’s right. And now, as I said, Henry has gone missing.”

  There was a brief catch in my chest. I’d had a little brother named Henry. I took in a long breath. No doubt the world was well-populated with little brothers named Henry.

  Walter asked, “In what sense is your brother’s disappearance connected with this specimen?”

  “Everything in Henry’s life is connected with this. With gold.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let me give you a backgrounder on our family.” Shelburne paused, as if selecting, and rejecting, family details. He continued, “Henry and I grew up in a small town in the gold country foothills. Our mother died of cancer, leaving us to our father’s care. He dated some after that, but he was a secretive bastard who, to be blunt, was more interested in a quickie than a relationship. My point being, he didn't let one lust get entangled with another—I'm talking gold lust. Dad was an auto mechanic during the week but he lived for the weekends. Chasing gold. No girlfriends allowed. Just family, and we had no choice in the matter. Soon as Henry and I were old enough, Dad would drag us along. Following the veins, panning the rivers. Henry went for it big-time. He still does. He’s not comfortable living in the present. He’s a throwback to the nineteenth century, to the Gold Rush.”

  “And you?” Walter asked.

  “I took a different path. I’m a venture capitalist. I help companies get a start. I suppose you could say my gold country is Silicon Valley—although I’d never put it that way to my brother. Gold country is gold country for Henry, pure and simple. And this,” Shelburne tapped the rock, “is what sent Henry into the wild yesterday. And what brought me to you.”

  “Why us?” Walter asked.

  “Well, you specifically. I found you online, as I explained when I phoned.”

  “Our website.”

  “Yes, and that prospecting forum. You appear to be the go-to guy for anyone following the legends.”

  Walter said, “I debunk the legends that deserve debunking.”

  “And those with merit?”

  “I add my expertise.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Mr. Shelburne, I must clarify that I am not, professionally, a mining geologist.”

  “But you have the itch.”

  After a long moment Walter said, “Let me give you a backgrounder. Did you ever watch a television program called Dogtown?”

  “Sure, when I was a kid. One of those old shows you can stream on the Net.”

  “It lives on,” Walter said, voice brittle.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “My mother was script supervisor. My father was production manager.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” Walter confirmed. “When I was a boy I haunted the set, which was a false-front mining camp. For me, it was faux-gritty enough to pretend it was real. There was a consultant, a mining geologist, and one day he took me aside and scraped the gold paint off a ‘nugget’ and explained how that quartz pebble could be associated with real gold. And then I no longer had to pretend. I knew how to make the false real—become a geologist. And then when I was in graduate school, my thesis adviser was called to consult with the FBI about a murder, in which sand was found in the pant cuffs of the victim. I came along. And here I am, today. A forensic geologist.”

  Shelburne said, “For my purposes you’re the best of both worlds.”

  Walter pretended not to be flattered.

  Shelburne turned to me. “What about you? You’ve been quiet
.”

  “Just waiting to get back on topic.”

  Shelburne lifted his palms. “Shoot.”

  I shot. “Was it your brother who discovered this chunk of ore?”

  “No. Our grandfather found it, but it only surfaced after Dad died. That was a month ago. My brother and I had a reunion—Henry still lives in the old hometown—and I drove up and we went through Dad's things. An attic full of family stuff, going back to Granddaddy's day. So Henry and I are in the attic going through decades of accumulated junk, and Henry produces a letter from the old man himself. Seems Granddaddy distrusted just about everybody—paranoia runs in the Shelburne family—but he had to leave his damned rock to somebody so he picked the most antisocial guy in the family. Henry. Gave him a letter with instructions to open after our father's death. Just that simple. He knew Henry would do precisely as instructed, wait to open the letter. Henry follows the so-called code of the west, honor and all that. So, Henry and I are in the attic and he finally opens the letter, which says look under the floorboard under the giant chifferobe, and so we haul that monster out of the way and open the loose floorboard and there sits this ugly customer. Henry understood it right away.”

  “When was that?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  “But it wasn't until yesterday that the rock sent Henry off searching?”

  “That's right. Early yesterday I got a message from Henry’s landlady. He lives in a boarding house, real old-timey place. She said he’d disappeared. She wouldn’t have taken notice—he went off on his wanderings all the time—but this time he’d left the sink faucet running. When she checked his room she found a note. ‘Call Robert.’ I got there in three hours. He’d gone hunting the source of Granddaddy’s ore.”

  I still wasn’t getting it. “But he left the specimen behind?”

  “Not entirely. He left this half behind.” Shelburne indicated the rock in the lunch box. “It was on his table, along with a microscope and tools and a lot of rock dust. He’d split the rock. Hammer and chisel, bam bam bam. He took half, left me half. Very melodramatic. That’s Henry.”

  “And you’re certain he went looking for the source?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’d know how to do that?”

  “My brother is something of an amateur geologist—if you’ll pardon the expression. All those years tramping around the gold country, he’s schooled himself in the kind of things he needs to know. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure he’s gone hunting. Figuring where does take a geologist. At least, for me.”

  I said, “We don’t do treasure hunts.”

  “How about to save a life?”

  “That we do.” I folded my arms. “Should there be a life in danger.”

  “Henry’s note was a suicide note.”

  It took me a moment. “You just said he was hunting the source of the rock.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Doesn’t sound like somebody who intends to kill himself.”

  “You don’t know Henry.”

  Walter asked, “Did you bring the note?”

  “I did.” Shelburne took a folded paper from his jacket pocket and passed it to Walter.

  Walter opened the paper and read. “This does not necessarily say suicide.” He passed it to me.

  I read. It was two short lines. Shaky writing. I've had it, for keeps. And below that, Call Robert, with a phone number. “So he left this for the landlady to find?” I asked. “Along with the running faucet.”

  “That's right—along with two more items of interest. First was his laptop, open to that forum you frequent, Mr. Shaws. My guess is he went googling for experts and found the forum. Found you. And from there he found your website. He had a window open to that, too.”

  “Oh?” Walter said.

  “He knew I'd need expert help.”

  “You mean he wanted you engage us in order to follow him?”

  “That's what I mean.”

  Walter frowned.

  Frankly, I didn't much like it, either.

  Walter asked, “And the second item of interest that he left for you?”

  Shelburne took another, smaller metal lunch box from his satchel. He opened it and withdrew a plastic dish and set it on the table beside the ore sample. He withdrew a small vial, unscrewed the cap, upended the vial, and let the contents slide into the dish.

  I thought, whoa.

  Silvery drops found one another and congealed into a puddle.

  I wanted to stick my finger in it. I wanted to scoop it up and roll it around in my palm. I’d done something of the sort in college chem, although it was officially discouraged.

  “Mercury,” Walter said. “This is part of your brother’s message?”

  Shelburne turned over the small lunchbox. Crudely etched into the bottom was Property of Henry Shelburne. “He collected the stuff, as a kid. I didn’t know he still had this, until I found it sitting on the table beside the microscope.”

  “Still, that does not say suicide.”

  “I fear it does. I know my brother.” Shelburne’s eyes seemed to take on a metallic glow. “We’re a pair. We’re like gold and mercury—numbers seventy-nine and eighty on the periodic table of the elements. Side by side, brothers and fundamental opposites. But when they come into contact, they mix.”

  I said, “Please put the mercury away, Mr. Shelburne.”

  “It’s not toxic, in the elemental state.”

  I said, “It oxidizes upon exposure to air. In its vapor phase, it’s very toxic.”

  “Not quickly. In a small overheated room, yes.”

  “Nevertheless, please put it away.”

  “Certainly.” He took a large eyedropper from the lunchbox. He suctioned up the puddle and expelled it into the vial. He screwed the cap back on, tight. He returned the vial and the dish and the dropper to the small box.

  Two metal lunch boxes, side by side.

  “Gold and mercury,” Shelburne said. “One precious. One poison.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Walter said, “Tell us why your brother is suicidal.”

  “Let me introduce him first.” Shelburne took yet one more object from his satchel. It was a padded envelope. He removed a photograph and laid it on the table beside the lunch boxes.

  The photo was an eight-by-ten studio portrait. Black and white with a faux burnt border, clearly meant to evoke an Old West vibe. The subject sat in a saloon chair with a rough planked wall as backdrop.

  The subject was a very young man. Slender as a quill. Left thigh tied to a low-slung holster holding a six-shooter, hands resting on thighs, fingers loose, ready to outdraw you. He wore a high-collared white shirt, too short in the sleeves, thin wrists sticking out, looking breakable. Over the shirt he wore a pickaxe bolo tie and a vest with shiny stripes in silver and black and a folded silver bandana tucked into the vest pocket. He wore baggy woolen pants and cracked leather boots. He stared somberly at the camera. He was a smooth-faced wet-combed teenager whose only marks of experience were two sculpted lines beneath his eyes, as if he were squinting at the far horizon.

  “That photo was taken ten years ago,” Shelburne said. “I have nothing more recent.”

  The subject in the photo had dark brown hair, same color that my little brother Henry had. My Henry was reed-thin, too. Thin-blooded. He’d worn a red cowboy hat just about every waking moment, at least during that last year. If my Henry had lived into his teens, he might have gone to a studio to have an Old West photo taken. He would have tried for a squint like that.

  “Something wrong?” Shelburne said.

  I looked up. Both Shelburne and Walter were watching me. Walter, with curbed concern. Shelburne, puzzled. I blinked. Eyes dry, no tears. What, then? Maybe I’m just that readable. I considered shrugging off Shelburne’s question but that would have made this too consequential, something that couldn’t be spoken. I said, “I’m just reminded of my own brother. Another Henry. He died very young. End of story.”

&nb
sp; “Another Henry,” Shelburne repeated, softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” I returned my attention to the photo, looking this time at the tooled leather belt holding up Henry Shelburne’s woolen pants. A big silver buckle anchored the belt.

  Robert Shelburne noticed me noticing. “Dad gave him the belt.”

  Something was written on the buckle, in thin curlicue lettering. I took up my hand lens.

  Shelburne added, “It says quicksilver. Dad gave him the nickname, too.”

  I put down the lens.

  “Quicksilver is what miners called liquid mercury, back in the day. For the color and the volatility.” Shelburne gave a sad smile. “Henry liked to play with the stuff.”

  “Yeah, who doesn’t?” I glanced at the lunch box containing the vial of mercury. “Not very smart, though.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He knows better now but it’s too late. Which is why he left his mercury kit along with the note.”

  Walter said, “Are you saying he intends to poison himself?”

  “He already has. But the coup de grace... I don’t know what he intends. His mind is at times chaotic.” Shelburne touched his temple with his forefinger. “Even as a kid, he was uncontainable. Quicksilver was the right name for him—mercurial as hell when he didn’t get his way. And he never did, with our father. Whatever he did to impress Dad turned into a flop. And then he’d regroup and try again.”

  I glanced again at the photo, at Henry’s cool-guy squint. I wondered if he practiced it in front of a mirror before posing for the camera. Quicksilver: bright and shiny, squint-worthy, but difficult to contain. I turned to Robert Shelburne. “And you?”

  “The opposite. In fact, I’d say Dad was always trying to impress me.”

  “I mean, did you have a nickname?”

  “Oh. Yes. Henry gave it to me.” Shelburne shrugged. “Golden Boy.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “I don’t yet understand,” I said, “why Henry is suicidal now.”