“Why does Ammon hate you?” Diesel asked.
“Ammon inherited a diary that belonged to Palgrave Bellows. The diary spoke of a fabulous treasure that had been plundered from the Mughal ship Gunsway. Problem was, Ammon didn’t know how to find the treasure. It wasn’t enough to just have the diary. The treasure was hidden and could only be found with the help of a map and a coin.
“I’d received some publicity while I was working on the Friendship restoration, and Ammon approached me, offering to share the treasure if I could locate the map and the coin. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I would have funding to research the lost Gunsway.
“After almost a year of searching I ran across the map in a curio shop in Boston. I gave the map to Ammon and continued to search for the coin but had no luck. It was a total dead end. I was disillusioned by then anyway. In the beginning of our professional relationship I thought Ammon was a wealthy eccentric. As I got to know him better I came to realize he’s criminally insane. He has delusions of grandeur, and he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.
“The diary listed, among other riches, the Avaritia Stone as part of the Mughal treasure. This was Ammon’s true reason for funding my research. Ammon had become obsessed with the idea that he might possess the Avaritia Stone. He’d begun to believe that he could awaken the sleeping Mammon within himself if he had the stone. He hates me because I know this about him, and because I don’t worship Mammon.”
“Did you ever see the diary?”
“Yes. I had an opportunity to read it, and I think Palgrave Bellows had his own streak of insanity running through him. I’m now told Ammon keeps the diary under lock and key, like it’s a sacred book.”
“I believe I’ve seen the map hanging in Ammon’s office.”
“It’s a lovely piece of history,” Devereaux said, “but worthless as a treasure map without the coin. Directions to the treasure are written in code, and the coin is the key to the code.”
“And when we came to your office with a piece of a counterfeit coin you thought it might have been fashioned by Bellows.”
“Exactly,” Devereaux said. “I didn’t know for certain, but I hoped I was finally seeing part of the coin. And because you are the one who found the fragment, I had hopes that you could find the rest. You have special abilities.”
“How do you know about my special abilities?” I asked him.
“It’s not exactly a secret,” Devereaux said. “People talk.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I keep hearing this.”
In most places in this country people would roll their eyes and smile, and any rumor of my abilities would be filed away next to extraterrestrials landing in Arizona. This was Salem, however, and people were willing to believe just about anything.
“Unfortunately, Martin Ammon, with all his fortune and influence, has eyes and ears everywhere,” Devereaux said. “When it was whispered that pieces of the coin had surfaced, it fueled his obsession to find the treasure.”
“And he wants you out of the game,” I said.
Devereaux nodded. “Yes.”
—
Devereaux left to check on his office, and Diesel and I were alone on the ship. I could hear voices in the distance. Quiet conversations carrying across the water to us from harborside restaurants. I looked out to sea and thought it would be nice to sail away and leave my strange, confusing life behind.
Diesel slipped his arms around me and drew me in close against him. “You wouldn’t like it,” he said, reading my mind. “You’d get seasick. And you’d miss your purpose.”
“Don’t you ever want to abandon all responsibility?”
“Yeah, all day, every day.”
“What keeps you in the game?”
“You don’t wear responsibility like clothes. You can’t take it off and put it on when you feel like. You wear responsibility on the inside, and it isn’t that easy to remove. You have to learn how to live with it.”
“Wow.”
“Pr
ofound, right? How valuable is that nugget of wisdom? Will it get you undressed?”
“No!”
“In that case, it’s all bullshit. I stay in the game because at some level I enjoy it. I just don’t enjoy it at all levels.”