“I think I could work around it.”
“No way. I’m not taking the chance. Besides, I’m not even sure I like you.”
“Of course you like me. I’m fun.”
“I had an earlier run-in with Wulf, and now you’re here,” I said to Diesel. “What’s going on?”
“Do you know about Martin Ammon?”
“I know he’s a billionaire.”
“Martin Ammon is a publishing and media giant,” Diesel said. “He owns a bunch of newspaper and media outlets in England and the U.S. He also has a reputation as a devourer of companies, big and small. He’s an eccentric, power-hungry megalomaniac. His great-grandfather was Billy McCoy, a notorious rumrunner during Prohibition. McCoy’s partner was Peg Leg Dazzle.”
“Was Peg Leg related to the bakery Dazzles?”
> “I imagine all the Salem Dazzles are related, but I don’t know where Peg Leg fits in. Anyway, McCoy and Peg Leg at some point in their illegal endeavors came across a diary and an accompanying coin. The diary belonged to a pirate name Palgrave Bellows, and it detailed a treasure he’d hidden on an island off the coast of Maine. The coin was supposed to help read Palgrave’s treasure map. Unfortunately for McCoy and Peg Leg, the map wasn’t with the diary and the coin, and they were never able to find the treasure.
“A bunch of years ago the diary fell into Ammon’s hands, and he became obsessed with finding the treasure. He bought a house on Marblehead Neck, and he buddied up with a history professor. The two of them put a lot of time and money into the project, but nothing came of it.”
“How do you know all this?”
“It wasn’t a secret. There were newspaper articles about the diary and the lost treasure of the Gunsway.”
“The Gunsway?”
“That was the name of the ship that Palgrave plundered. It originated in the Far East, and according to the diary it contained unimaginable riches both ordinary and magical.”
“Wow. Magical.”
“Yeah, that’s where Wulf and I come into the picture. The magical part of the treasure, if the diary is to be believed, is the Avaritia Stone. The Stone of Avarice. Ammon never made a big deal about the stone in all his interviews, but I suspect his real goal was to get his hands on it. He’s made joking references in the past about his drive to acquire more and more money, and says that it’s appropriate his parents named him Martin. If you combine his first initial with his last name it spells ‘Mammon,’ one of the seven princes of hell and the personification of wealth and greed.”
“That wouldn’t be my first choice for a prophetic name.”
“Yeah, me either. I’d rather my name was B. Eergut.”
It took me a beat to figure it out. “That’s gross,” I said.
Diesel grinned and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his touch giving me a rush that went from my ear to my doodah.
“Want me to try again?” Diesel asked.
“No. I want you to finish telling me about the treasure.”
“Ammon managed to get hold of the map that Palgrave Bellows fashioned. It was discovered during a ship restoration project. Ammon tucked the map under his arm, and he still has it.”
“So now Ammon has the diary and the map.”
“Yep. Problem is, the directions to the treasure are in code, and the code can’t be read without the special coin. Ammon hired a team of cryptographers, but they weren’t able to crack the code without it. So all attention turned to finding the coin.”
“How long have they been looking for the coin?”
“Years. Ammon’s had a private investigator on the case.”
“Looking for the coin?”
“Yes, but eventually looking for Peg Leg. After interviewing a lot of people, the PI discovered that the coin and the diary were originally found together, but because McCoy and Peg Leg didn’t completely trust each other, McCoy took the diary and Peg Leg took the coin. Shortly after that, Peg Leg disappeared and was never seen again. It was thought he was shot over a keg of rum, but it never went beyond rumor. Last week the Pirate Museum hung the prisoner cage, and it caught the attention of the detective. The cadaver had been dressed in pirate rags, but the peg leg had clearly been made in more modern times.”
“I didn’t notice,” I said. “It just looked like a wooden peg leg to me. And you know all this how?”