“Rutherford found the stone. He wants to make the trade tonight so everything is in place when Ammon leaves the hospital tomorrow morning.”
“Call Clara and ask her to bring the van to Gramps’s garage.”
—
Clara was waiting for us when we pulled up to the garage. The van was parked inside.
“We have a problem,” Clara said. “Follow me.”
We entered the tunnel through the garage and walked the short distance to the speakeasy. The door was open and Gramps was inside, sitting in one of the comfy club chairs.
“Howdy,” Gramps said. “Welcome to my rumpus room.”
We looked around and immediately saw the problem. The treasure was gone. Only one plastic bin was left.
“What happened to all the bins?” I asked.
“Got rid of them,” Gramps said. “They were taking up too much space. Kept the one that had the pretty green jar in it.”
“Where’d the bins go?” I asked him.
“I gave them to the Pirate Museum. They had a fire and lost a lot of stuff. Terrible. The pirate ship burned up and everything. The junk in the bins looked like pirate loot, so I handed it over. Pirates are my second favorite thing. When I gave all that junk over to the museum people they said they were going to name a room after me. Can you imagine that? I’m going to be famous.”
Diesel was back on his heels, smiling. “Easy come, easy go,” he said.
“What are we going to do about Rutherford?” I asked him.
“We’ll give Gramps the pretty green jar and give the rest of the bin to Rutherford,” Diesel said. “If he doesn’t want to hand over the stone we’ll jump him and take it.”
“Suppose he has a bunch of armed men with him?”
“We’ll wait until he’s alone, and then we’ll jump him.”
“Okay,” I said. “I like it.”
I called Rutherford and told him to meet us at the front entrance to the bank building Ammon owned.
“Excellent,” Rutherford said. “This is a wonderful plan. A lifesaver. Ha-ha. Literally. Ha-ha.”
I disconnected and turned to Diesel. “He’s losing it. He did two of those awful ha-ha laughs. Two. There was definitely hysteria involved.”
“With good reason.”
We loaded the single bin into Clara’s van and drove to the bank building.
“Keep the motor running, and if I give you the sign you take off,” Diesel said to Clara. “Lizzy has to verify that we’ve actually got the Avaritia Stone before we hand over what’s left of the treasure.”
We sat there at idle for ten minutes before a black Escalade drove up, and Rutherford got out followed by two men in suits. The street was dark, lit by pools of light from streetlights. Rutherford stood at the building’s front door, and the two men stayed by the car. Diesel and I got out of the van and crossed the street.
Rutherford took in a huge, deep breath and exhaled. “Well, this is such a relief. Oh my goodness, you can’t imagine what this means to me. This is large. Massive!” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “This will be our little secret. No need to let the men know the full extent of the transaction.”
“Understood,” I said. “Do you have it?”
He turned his back on the men and carefully extracted the leather pouch from his suit jacket.
“We need to be discreet about this,” he said, handing the pouch over to me.
I opened the pouch and looked inside. It was hard to tell on the dark street, but the stone was the right size and I could see some silver glinting off it. I touched it with my fingertip and felt nothing.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
I dropped the stone out of the pouch, into my hand. Nothing.
“It’s not the stone,” I said.
Rutherford looked stricken. “What do you mean? Of course it’s the stone. I found it in the garden. It was in the leather pouch.”
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s a dud.”
“Ha-ha, you’re pranking me, right? You’re kidding. That’s marvelous. I love it.”
“No, I’m really sorry. This isn’t the stone.”
I put the stone back into the pouch and handed it over to Rutherford.
“Oh dear,” he said. “Oh dear. Oh dear.”
He stumbled back and sat down hard on the cement step leading to the bank’s front door.
I looked down at him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m a dead man,” he said. “I lost the treasure. I lost the weird little guy with the red hair, and I can’t find the stone. I’m done. Dead. Maybe worse than dead.”
“You have a couple hours,” I said. “You could keep digging.”
“We’ve dug up everything. There’s nothing left to dig. The yard looks like it’s been bombed.” He looked up at me. “You have to give me the treasure. Please. Please, please with sugar on it.”
“The truth is, there’s not much left,” I said. “We could only recover one bin.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
“Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha. Only one bin. Ha-ha, ha. You mean it’s all gone?”
I nodded.
“Gone! Where did it go? Wait, I don’t care. Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s gone.”