“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.”
“Okay, you should calm yourself,” I said. “It’s not that bad. Things happen.”
“No, no. You don’t understand. This is Mammon we’re talking about. The God of Greed. He doesn’t like when he loses treasure.”
“It’s not Mammon,” I said. “It’s Martin Ammon. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I don’t know. Ha-ha. Anal probes? Ha-ha.”
“Maybe he still has the tranq gun in the car,” Diesel said. “We could plant one on him.”
“We’re going to leave now,” I said to Rutherford. “If you find the stone you can call anytime.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll do that. Of course. Yes, yes.”
Diesel and I walked calmly across the road, got into the van, and told Clara what happened.
“Drive off as if everything is perfectly normal,” I said to Clara. “We don’t want to alarm the men with the guns. And we especially don’t want the crazy man who’s pacing back and forth in front of the building to go completely gonzo.”
“Too late,” Diesel said. “That ship has sailed.”
“Now what?” Clara asked, winding her way around Salem.
“I guess we take the treasure back to Gramps,” Diesel said. “He’s the expert at treasure redistribution.”
—
It was hard to drag myself out of bed in the morning. It had been a late night. Diesel was warm next to me. Cat was curled at the foot of the bed. Carl was in the laundry basket. I oozed out from under the quilt, trying not to disturb anyone, and shuffled into the bathroom. I stood in the shower until the room was steamy and I was pretty much awake. When I finally tiptoed out of the bathroom Carl and Diesel were still asleep. Cat was at the door, waiting for me.
Cat and I went downstairs and I fixed Cat’s breakfast. “My life is a big mess,” I said to Cat. “I set drapes on fire and lose treasures and hook up with the wrong men. And I’m not just talking about romantic hookups. I’m talking about cookbook hookups, too.”