Mercer had hoped to return the Silver Wraith to its rightful owner and thought he could call the police as soon as they were safely back in Washington, but he knew the Rolls would be a bundle of parts by the time they hit the Maryland border. Tomorrow would just have to be a bad day for some insurance company.
“Deal.”
“You should give him the papers too,” Lizzie said to her husband.
“Papers?” Cali asked. “What papers?”
“Ras’s father had the safe opened back in the fifties. Don’t know what else was in it, but there were a bunch of papers. A note or something. He made a copy of it and locked the originals back inside. Ras, where did they get to?”
“God, you talk too much, woman,” Fess groused. He ran his fingers through his hair and unleashed a blizzard of dandruff. “They’re in the office file. Bottom drawer. Behind the paperwork for them airplane engines I bought five years ago.”
Mercer wasn’t surprised that Fess knew where the papers were. He suspected that the salvage yard owner could put his hand on any piece of scrap in his sprawling yard.
“Let’s go,” Fess growled. Harry said he’d wait on the porch, and he’d talked Lizzie into giving him a drink by the time her husband grabbed a flashlight from the tow truck’s cab.
“You ain’t no collector like that writer fella from Colorado,” Fess said as he unlocked the chain link gate guarding his scrap yard. “What do you want with the safe?”
“There’s a chance it belonged to my grandfather,” Cali said before Mercer could come up with a lie. “He was returning from Europe on the Hindenburg. He always carried a safe with him. He was a jeweler.”
At that Fess stopped short and shone the light in her eyes. “Ain’t no jewels in the safe, I can guaran-damn-tee you.”
“Do you recall what was in it?” Mercer asked.
“I was fightin’ in Korea when my pappy had it opened. He said there wasn’t nothing in there but the notes and a shot put.”
“A what?” Cali and Mercer said in unison.
“A shot put. Like athletes use. Said it was nothing but a round ball o’ metal.”
He led them deep into the salvage yard, past ranks of demolished automobiles and trucks. Mercer spotted a burned-out fire engine, several boats, and the boom of a large crane. There were countless tarry patches of oil dotting the sandy ground, and a tire pile that had to be twenty feet tall. Night animals scattered at their approach, and shiny eyes watched them from the darkness.
Near the back of the yard was a metal shed. Fess used another key from his jangling ring to open the door. He stepped inside and pulled the chain to a single bulb dangling from the ceiling. Why the junk on the shelves that lined the shed needed protection from the elements was something Mercer couldn’t understand. Most everything looked like valueless hunks of rusted metal.
“I keep the good stuff in here,” Fess said.
Mercer wasn’t going to ask what exactly qualified this to be “good stuff.”
Fess shoved a transmission from out of a corner and bundled up a filthy piece of canvas to reveal the little safe. It was about a foot and a half square and made of dark metal, with rust on the prominent hinges. On the single door were an offset dial and a small handle.
“Be right back,” Fess said and scuttled from the shed.
“The shot put has to be an ore sample,” Cali said as soon as Fess was out of earshot.
“No other way to explain it,” Mercer agreed. “Remember the old woman said Chester Bowie sent crates of dirt away by river, but he must have kept some ore with him. He refined it and must have put it in the safe to block the radiation.”
“But enough has leaked to affect Erasmus and Lizzie.” Cali thought for a moment. “I’m going to have to report this site to my bosses at the Department of Energy. We need to get a NEST team down here right away. We need containment.” She looked around the shelves. “God knows how hot all this junk is.”
“Might have a turf battle with the EPA,” Mercer quipped, “considering all the oil that’s leached into the ground.”
A moment later Fess returned to the shed with a gardener’s cart. The tires were flat, but it would be easier using the rusted handcart than to try and carry the safe. Mercer manhandled the safe into the cart, pausing as he heard the distant beat of a helicopter. His senses were hyperacute from the adrenaline overdose, and he became suspicious.
“Any flight paths around here?” he asked Fess.
“That chopper’s nothing. Hear ’em all the time. It’s big shots from New York going down to Atlantic City.”
The explanation seemed reasonable but Mercer remained on edge. The quicker they were on their way to Washington, the happier he’d be. He settled the safe toward the back of the cart and swung around to take the handles. It took considerable effort to get the flattened tires rolling, but once he had a little momentum it became easier. Fess didn’t seem to be in any great hurry, so Mercer ignored him and made his own way out of the salvage yard, relying on the map he’d unconsciously drawn of the facility.
“Sure you know where you’re going?” Cali asked as she paced him with her long legs.
“God, you talk too much, woman,” Mercer said with a dead-on impression of Fess’s redneck accent. Cali pantomimed smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke in his face.
They reached the gates and Mercer set down the cart’s handles. He didn’t know which vehicle Fess would give him, so he waited for the irritable scrap man. “Why don’t you go check on Harry?” he asked Cali. “I’ll load the safe once our pal Erasmus ambles along.”
She stepped onto the sagging porch and knocked on the door. A second later she was inside. Fess finally emerged from the salvage yard. He locked the gates and motioned Mercer over to a late-model Ford sedan. The tires looked bald and the right front fender was dented but otherwise the car would be fine. Fess opened the rear door and grabbed the keys from under the back bench seat.
“Thieves always look in the sun visor or under the driver’s seat. Never in the back.” He used the key to pop the trunk and stood far enough back to let Mercer know he wasn’t going to help him lift the safe into the car. Mercer braced his legs and lifted what had to be a hundred pounds of dead weight. He balanced the safe on the rear bumper then rolled it inside. He clearly heard a heavy metal ball rattle inside the safe as it crashed into the trunk.
“There,” Fess said, holding out his calloused hands. “You got your safe and car. I want my money.”
Mercer handed him the two bundles of hundred-dollar bills. “Twenty grand.”
But Fess didn’t hand over the keys. He turned and started back for his house, mumbling, “I gotta count it.”
Without realizing it Mercer balled his hands into fists as he felt his blood pressure spike. It was a struggle to keep the anger from his voice. “Mr. Fess, we’re in a bit of a hurry.”
The old man whirled. “Listen, sonny buck. I don’t know who you are or what you’re really after but I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. So you’re just gonna have to cool your heels until Lizzie and I count the money.”
If Mercer wasn’t sure he’d give the codger a heart attack, he would have pulled the pistol still tucked behind his coat. “Fine,” he said and seethed. He was about to follow Fess into his house when he became aware of the helicopter again. It sounded much closer. Too close.
Someone flying from New York to Atlantic City would surely stick to the coast or run along the barrier islands. They wouldn’t be five miles inland. Then Mercer willed himself to relax. He’d left Poli stranded on the AC Expressway, and the rest of his team was still back at the Deco Palace. There was no way they could have tracked the three of them to Fess’s house or known about the call to Carl Dion that led them here.