Pulp! 2

Chapter 12

“Dude, did you just say diamonds?” Mohawk Rob says. “Blue diamonds?”

“He said blue diamonds, Rob, man,” Edge says, l*****g 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 t*****e 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.”

was “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.”

“And what did your grandfather Willy get in return, dude?” Rob asks.

“Safekeeping for the diamonds for one, along with safekeeping for himself and his little grandson.”

“Safekeeping?” I pose.

The old man dumps what’s left of his cigarette into the coffee cup. It hisses when the fiery end hits the now cold coffee.

He adds, “By then, quite a few gangsters knew all about the blue diamonds, thanks to my father, Charlie’s, big mouth and love of the bottle. They would do anything to get at them, including kidnap me in hopes of a baby blue ransom.”

I say, “And Dutch Schultz, gangster and murderer, perhaps even of your own father, kept you safe in exchange for the control of the blue diamonds.”

He nods. “That he did, Chase. The diamonds were collateral against the loan of protection.”

The room goes silent for a moment. It’s the kind of silence that’s heavy and thick. So thick you can punch holes through it. Sarah originally told Edge and me that Schultz’ attraction to the Albany area was his illegal beer business and his desire to assassinate Governor Dewey. Now, I realize that Schultz was focused on more than those things. He was focused on millions of dollars’ worth of rare blue diamonds.

“So, now what?” I say.

Sarah turns to me. “We try and uncover my grandfather’s remains. But we need to be careful.”

“I’ll say,” Uncle Pat says. “If I know one thing about Dutch Schultz, he was an expert at hiding things. And if he wanted that treasure hidden, it’s very likely that it will be difficult to find, even with the map. But make no mistake about it, you will also face many dangers along the way.”

“What kind of dangers?” Edge says, lighting up a smoke.

“Deadly dangers,” Uncle Pat says.

“Well, that figures,” Mohawk Rob chimes in, pulling gently on his nose hoop. “I thought this was going to be a slam-bam-thank-you-mam, get-in and get-out operation.”

Uncle Pat slowly gets up. It’s like a special event watching the old man rise out of his chair.

“Do not take the search for the Dutch diamonds lightly. Death and tragedy surround them. But then, they are by now priceless. The person or persons who find them will be wealthy beyond their wildest imaginations.”

“When do we start?” Rob says, a grin plastered on his face, his red Mohawk sweeping the stale, cigarette smoke-tinged air defiantly.

“The diamonds belong to you, Uncle Pat,” I say. “You and Sarah.”

I look at Edge. He reluctantly nods in agreement and puffs away on his cigarette.

“Much as it pains me to admit it,” he says, running his free hand over his bald scalp, “You’re speaking Gospel, Baker.”

“The diamonds aren’t the only treasure to be found,” Sarah adds. “There’s reputedly millions in old jewelry, gold bars, and gold coins alone.”

“That cheers me up,” Edge says. “Can we go now?”

Sarah looks at her watch. “Obviously, we’re not going to ask permission to exhume Willy. Which means we’ll have to wait for nightfall.”

“We’ll need digging equipment,” I say. Then, turning to Edge. “How much cash you have left?”

“About three hundred,” he says. “Why?”

“I don’t want to use cash machines or credit cards if we can avoid them. We don’t want to leave a trail for the Feds, who would no doubt seize the treasure once we find it. We need to use cash.”

“What for?” Edge says.

“For our shopping spree at the Home Depot, of course.”