Pulp 2, p.5
Pulp 2, page 5
As if on cue, the three of us glance at one another. Sure, it was Edge and my idea to leave the conference and come north to seek out our own “suspense” in the form of a search for legendary buried treasure. But why is it I have the feeling we’re no longer in charge of the search?
11
Stepping into The Harmony Hotel, or should I say The Harmony Home for the Aged, is like entering a time warp. The tall townhouse is narrow with high tin ceilings that have been painted white. The walls are a dark wood paneling, and there’s a long reception desk positioned on the opposite side of the vestibule as you walk in. A man wearing a blue cardigan sweater is seated on a stool behind the desk reading a magazine.
Sarah approaches the balding man. He peels his eyes away from the magazine, smiles.
“Well, I’ll be,” he says. “Is that you Sarah Winston? Look how grown up you are.”
The old man comes around the desk with all the enthusiasm and agility of a much younger man, takes Sarah in his arms. He hugs her tightly then takes a step back to gaze upon her, looking her up and down.
“You are a grown woman,” he says, “and a beautiful one at that. How long has it been, Sarah?”
“Too long, Sam,” she says.
“You must be married with some little ones running around by now,” Sam beams.
Sarah brushes back her hair so that one side is locked behind her ear.
“Sadly, no little ones,” she says, not without a nervous laugh. “But I do have my first divorce behind me.”
When she says divorce our eyes automatically connect as if by some odd force of nature. The word, as horrible as it is (take it from me), can sound absolutely wonderful coming from the mouth of a single woman as beautiful as Sarah.
Sam takes on a faux sad expression. “I’m sure it’s all for the best,” he says. “I hope he didn’t hurt you.”
“We’re still friends,” Sarah says. “We just weren’t meant to be married.” Then, waving her hand in my direction, and the direction of Rob and Edge. “These are my friends. We’re here to speak with my uncle about something very important. He isn’t sleeping, I hope.”
Sam takes a moment to size us up.
“That’s some hairdo, sonny,” he says, not without a laugh. “I get it that you must color it with red dye. But how on God’s good earth do ya get it to stand up like that?”
Rob bites down on his bottom lip and runs his open hand over the top of the Mohawk.
“That’s a secret, old dude,” he says. “Let’s just say it takes some practice. And a lot of product.”
Sam shifts his gaze to Edge. “And you, sir,” he says, his eye squinty and inquisitive. “Haven’t I seen you someplace before?”
Edge pulls a cigarette from the pack in his jeans pocket, pops it between his lips.
“You a reader, Sam?” he asks.
“A book a week.”
“Ever read, The Bitch?”
Sam’s eyes light up. “That’s you?” he says.
Edge lights the cigarette with his red Bic lighter.
“Well, not the bitch per se,” Edge says, releasing some smoke through his nostrils. “But I did write the book of the same name.”
“Edge, no smoking,” Sarah breaks in.
“I just love that hard-boiled fiction,” Sam says. “And we don’t mind smoking here. Half the old guys who live here still smoke, never mind the oxygen canisters they cart around. One of these days this place is gonna blow sky high.” Heading back around the reception counter, he adds, “Hey Edge, did you know the city of Cohoes was the playground to lots of gangsters back during prohibition?”
“So I hear,” Edge says.
Sarah, sensing my ever-growing loneliness, breaks in.
“And this is Chase Baker,” she says. “Chase also writes books. He’s also an adventurer, an explorer, and all around Renaissance man.”
“That so,” Sam says, holding out his hand over the counter.
I take it, shake it.
“You written anything I know about?” Sam asks.
I let go of the hand.
“Well, if you gotta ask . . .” I mumble. Chase the deflated.
“Message delivered loud and clear,” he says. “Well, send me something for my Kindle. I’m always willing to try new authors.” He giggles. “Not much else to do around here but read and watch the Weather Channel.”
“So, is my Uncle Pat up?” Sarah says.
“Just finished lunch. He’s sitting in the living room, looking out the window. He’ll be so happy to see you, Sarah.”
“I hope so,” she says.
“Go on in,” Sam encourages, picking up his magazine. “Surprise him.”
We begin walking down the narrow corridor until we come to an opening in the wall to our right-hand side. Before we step through, Edge turns to me.
“Don’t get discouraged, Baker,” he whispers over his shoulder. “One day you’ll find a huge audience. It takes time. You’re a decent enough writer.”
“Gee thanks, Edge,” I say. “Means a lot coming from the guy who wrote Kill My Wife Please.”
The large living room is wide and brightly lit from the early afternoon sun that shines through the window. There’s are two elderly men seated on a couch pressed against the near wall. Both of them are asleep, chin against chest. Two more men occupy separate chairs towards the far corner. They’re watching the midday news on the wall-mounted flat screen. It’s hard to tell from where I’m standing if they’re awake. Maybe they’re dead.
Seated before the big picture window is a man with a balding — if not bald — scalp. Like Sarah, his skin is the color of coffee with milk. When Sarah gently places her hand on his shoulder, he turns, looks up at her and assumes a smile befitting a man who is seeing God for the first time. Or a young woman whom he loves very much, anyway.
“Sarah,” he says, his eyes wet and glassy. “Is that really you? Or am I dreaming you?”
“It’s me, Uncle Pat,” she says, bending down, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I’ve missed you, darling. Tell me, how is life in New York City? Have you written any books yet?”
She laughs softly. “I’ve written a bunch,” she says. “Nothing that’s made me rich. But I make enough to afford the rent on a Lower East Side walk-up, and that’s enough for me.” She turns to us. “I’d like you to meet my friends.”
She introduces us, and thankfully, Uncle Pat isn’t a Leslie Edgerton fan, or I’ll really consider hanging myself from the roof rafters. He nods at us, and smiles gently. It’s summertime, but like Sam at the vestibule counter, he’s wearing a cardigan over a wool button down and long pants. I peg him for maybe eighty or eighty-five. It’s tough to tell when you consider that these days more and more people are living long enough to usher in their one-hundredth birthday.
Sarah pulls up a chair and sits beside him, her face bathed in the same golden sunlight. She proceeds to explain to him our rather unorthodox and impromptu search for Dutch Schultz’s treasure. In return, he nods in understanding at every bullet point she expresses. Namely, the treasure is reputed to be buried along the streambank in Phoenicia, but she believes that to be untrue since it makes more sense that the treasure is buried in Albany.
She speaks about Great Grandpa Willy’s remains having been discovered and moved to the St. Agnes Cemetery, and how it will now be possible to test the veracity of the legend of the skull. That is, the treasure map that is supposedly carved into it. She also speaks about two Russian men who have been following us, and who are willing to rough us up in order to keep the treasure for themselves.
Uncle Pat laughs bitterly at this last one. “Well, Sarah, sweetheart,” he says, “wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far, Uncle Pat,” she says, her eyes shifting from the old man to us and back to him again.
“Let me tell you something,” he goes on, “Dutch Schultz was a natural born killer. And he killed plenty to save his treasure. He killed a man right inside this room over it.”
“How’s that?” Sarah questions.
“Eighty years ago,” Uncle Pat says, crossing his legs, “I was a boy of nine years. I often accompanied my Grandpa Willy when he was driving for Mr. Schultz.”
“Schultz allowed you to tag along?” I say.
The old man nods. “Schultz was a killer,” he says, “but he also liked kids. Liked having them around. I suppose it had something to do with his lust for hero worship and something else a little more emotional too.”
“Well, whaddya know,” Edge says. “A sentimental mobster.”
“You see, Mr. Schultz’s own father run out on him when he was just a nine-year-old boy like I was. It was a pretty tragic thing back then to have your old man leave you high and dry—”
“—My old man took off on my mom when I was in utero,” Mohawk Rob interjects. “It’s still traumatic, dude.”
“Good word usage, Rob,” I point out. “Looks like you’re educated beyond your means. For a punk rocker slash Uber driver, that is.”
“I’m a big reader, dude,” Rob adds. “Maybe one day I’ll get around to your stuff. Edge’s too.” He shifts his gaze to Sarah. “I’d like to check your books out too.”
“So, that explains the hair and piercing hardware,” Edge comments under his breath. “You’re quite the complicated guy, Rob.”
“Well then, young man,” Uncle Pat says, “you know exactly what I’m talking about. Schultz loved playing the father figure, and in turn, he could spoil you with gifts and such in exchange for your hero worship.”
“So, exactly what happened inside this room, Uncle Pat?”
“First, you gotta picture the scene eighty years ago. The Harmony Hotel wasn’t a broken-down palace for old geezers like me in those days. It was a swank hotel for some pretty glamorous actresses and actors come up from New York City to appear at the Music Hall over yonder. It also attracted more than its fair share of gangsters. This room where I’m sitting right now was a beautiful dining room.” He slowly raises his arm, points with a crooked index finger toward the opposite end of the room where the two old men are sitting on the couch, asleep so soundly their jaws have dropped. “Over there is where Dutch Schultz drew his pistol from his vest pocket, shoved the barrel into his beer business partner’s mouth, and pulled the trigger.”
“Whoa, dude,” Rob interjects. “Dutch was a real nice guy. What did his partner do to deserve that kind of treatment?”
“He was skimming,” Uncle Pat says. “Skimming off the profits of their illegal beer business to the tune of twenty thousand a year. But that alone isn’t what caused Schultz to blow his brains out like that.”
“What did?” I ask.
Uncle Pat looks one way and then the other as if we’re being watched and listened to by somebody who cares other than ourselves.
“Dutch’s personal treasure trove was filled with more than just cash, gold, silver coins, and the odd piece of jewelry. It also contained something else that made it very special. Very one of a kind you might even say.”
Sarah tosses me a quick look, her eyes on fire, her face tight with anticipation.
“We’re listening, Uncle Pat,” she says.
“My grandfather . . . your great grandfather, Sarah . . . was more than just the occasional driver for Dutch Schultz. He was in fact, an invaluable connection.”
“To what, Uncle Pat?” Sarah begs.
“To some of the most beautiful and rare blue diamonds in the world.”
12
“Dude, did you just say diamonds?” Mohawk Rob says. “Blue diamonds?”
“He said blue diamonds, Rob, man,” Edge says, licking his chops. “I heard it myself. Isn’t that right, Chase?”
“I heard it too.” Pulse elevated, curiosity piqued, both eyes focused on Uncle Pat. “Can you tell us how that connection came about?”
“Willy Winston was born in 1859 to slave parents down in South Carolina. His parents were shipped here from the African Slave Coast as children nineteen years earlier. The only possessions they were allowed to carry with them when they were dragged from their homes, chained and imprisoned on that horrible boat, were the clothes on their backs. But there was something they were able to hide from their captors.”
“The blue diamonds,” I say.
“Between the both of them, they swallowed a handful a piece of the diamonds. And as difficult as this is to imagine, whenever they would pass the diamonds, they would immediately clean them, and then swallow them once more. It’s not all that different than what some Jews were forced to do with their precious wedding rings and diamonds when they were interred in those horrible concentration camps in the 1930s and 40s.”
“That sounds like torture to me,” Edge says with a shake of his head, his cigarette burned down to the brown filter. “The intestinal pain they had to endure almost doesn’t seem worth it.”
“But it was worth it,” Uncle Pat insists. “Because what my great grandparents knew was that those blue diamonds would one day buy them their freedom.”
“Did they?” Sarah asks.
Uncle Pat turns away from her, eyeballs Edge.
“Hey, young man,” he says. “You got an extra one of them cigarettes?”
“Yes, sir,” Edge says, pulling the pack from his shirt pocket, tapping one out, and handing it to Uncle Pat. “I’ll do anything for anyone who calls me young.”
The old man puts the cigarette between his lips, and Edge lights it for him. I’ve never been much of a smoker, but I have to say, the satisfying, almost indulgent manner by which the old man puffs away on it makes smoking look almost irresistible.
“So, Uncle Pat,” Sarah pushes. “Stop keeping us in suspense. Did the blue diamonds buy my great-great-grandparents their freedom?”
“Yes,” Uncle Pat says, blowing out some smoke. “But not right away. It took some time. They knew that if they were to make an offer of the diamonds to their owner, the owner would simply confiscate them, have them flogged as punishment for concealing them, and force them to go back into the fields. It was a lose-lose proposition. Then came Willy, and then came the Civil War.”
“So how did they end up getting free?” I ask.
“After the war between the states,” he goes on, “it was generally assumed that black men were free. But that was nonsense. Many now owed their former owners back wages for room and board and for what was considered the privilege of working fields for which they did not possess ownership.” He makes quotation marks with his fingers when he says, ‘owed.’ “However, this time, if my great grandparents used the diamonds, the former owner would have no choice but to release them. And when they presented the owner with five or six of the brilliant blue stones, which was far in excess of which they legally owed, he had little choice but to let them go. It was either that or no diamonds.”
“Did they use all the diamonds to get free?” Edge asks.
“Not at all,” Uncle Pat says. “They still owned most of the original amount that they took with them from Africa.”
“So, what happened to your great grandparents?” Sarah asks. “My great, great grandparents?”
“They came north where they settled in Cohoes not far from the mills.”
“Shouldn’t they have cashed in the remaining diamonds and lived like kings and queens in New York City?” Edge asks.
Uncle Pat nods emphatically. “You would automatically assume that would be the case. But while my great grandparents cashed one of the diamonds in every now again to buy something like some property or a house or even a couple pair of horses and wagons, they hung on to as many as they could so that my grandfather, Willy, could have a fine start on life.”
“And did he?” Sarah asks.
Uncle Pat shakes his head. “As soon as he was of age, my grandfather Willy left Cohoes to seek out adventure. He went back to Africa, where he hunted down more of the blue diamonds. He searched for years but never found anything but disease and hardship. By the time he returned, his parents were dead. But they had left him a very special gift in the family safe.”
“The blue diamonds,” Sarah says. “But he didn’t cash them in either did he?”
“He held onto them, hoping they would help his newly born son live a good life, but not right away. His son — my father, Charles — was expected to work for a living before he might reap the benefits of great wealth. But that immediately became a source of tension between my grandfather and father. My father, in turn, refused to gain respectable employment but instead sold himself to the gangster lifestyle. He became a gambler who racked up great debt. When he demanded one or two of the blue diamonds from my grandfather in order to pay off his debt, my grandfather stubbornly refused.” He shakes his head sadly. “My father, Charles, was killed not long after I was born, down on the Boardwalk in New Jersey in one of Dutch Schultz’s casinos. Shot in the back of the head while he played blackjack.”
I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.
“Who shot him?”
“Exactly who did it remains a mystery to this day. But one thing I do know is that it couldn’t have been Dutch Schultz.”
“Why do you say that, Uncle Pat?” asks Edge.
The old man smokes for a time, gently releasing the smoke through his nostrils. The events he speaks of happened nearly a century ago, but I get the feeling that for him, mere minutes have passed since they occurred.
“I say it because my grandfather went to work for Schultz as his driver. Not only that, but Grandpa entrusted the blue diamonds to him.”
“Why on earth would he do such a thing, Uncle Pat?” Sarah asks.
He shrugs his shoulders.
“My guess is that my grandfather Willy trusted Schultz. Despite his violent and hostile tendencies and the fact he might have had something to do with my father’s murder in cold blood, my grandfather entrusted Schultz with arguably millions of dollars in diamonds.”
