Spoils of the Game (34 page)

As she entered the end of the drive, Austin saw his opportunity and jumped toward the woman, who was caught totally by surprise. He took control of the gun and ripped it from her hands, tossing it toward the road. The woman tried to kick and scratch Austin in anger, but it was clear that she was not skilled in fighting, and she was no match for the former linebacker. Austin grabbed her from behind, put his arm around her neck, and forced her toward the road.

“So who might you be, madam?” he asked.

The woman did not answer. He applied a little more pressure to her neck, and she began to cough. Austin did not want to hurt the woman, but a woman that brought a gun got his attention and his encouragement to have her answer a few questions.

“Do you have a problem with me?” said Austin, trying to determine why he had been so lucky as to have her visit. Across the road and out of sight of the house, Austin threw the woman on the ground. Then he placed his knee on her stomach.

“Now let me repeat myself,” he said and applied his weight.”

The woman gave up the fight and began to cry uncontrollably.

“Madam, let me repeat myself. What is your problem, and who the hell are you?”

The nameless woman continued to cry and did not answer. Austin stood and rose over her, waiting for her answer, which she finally provided between sobs.

“I am Carmella Basset, the wife of Simon Basset. You killed my husband, and I came here to kill you.” The woman continued to cry. “I have never killed or hurt anybody, but I loved my Simon. He was my life, and I came here determined to kill you.”

“Carmella, I did not kill your husband. Your husband and I had a disagreement, and I am afraid I may have hurt him, but I did not kill him. A man that he was working with killed him.”

“I was told that he was killed by the man from the museum, and that is you.”

“Your husband was killed by a man named Badeau, and I am not from the museum, he was. Mr. Badeau is also dead, so I am afraid you cannot hurt him now.”

Carmella rolled over in the grass and continued to cry. “I am so sorry. I loved him so much, and now I don’t know what I am going to do.”

Austin walked back toward the drive and picked up the automatic pistol. He pulled the clip and pulled back the slide to eject the one round in the chamber.

“Carmella, I can call the cops, and they can discuss this with you in more detail and perhaps tell you that it is not a nice idea to walk around with a gun. Or we can just let this little discussion be between us and forget about it. I hesitate to let you drive out of here in your condition, so I will make a deal with you. I want you to promise me that you will wait thirty minutes before you go, and then you can just drive out of here. Or, if you want, I will take you to town, where you can get a bus.”

Austin waited about five minutes for Carmella
to reply.

“Simon was a very good husband and a great father. I never knew him to be cross with anyone, and he was always so kind to me and his mother.”

Austin did a quick audit in his mind. The Simon he knew was a cold-hearted thug. Apparently he’d missed Simon’s softer side, but he didn’t think so.

With Austin’s help, Carmella rose from the ground and headed for her car. “I will be okay. I will wait, as you ask. I am so sorry and so embarrassed. Thank you so much. I have two children at home, and I was so close to messing up everything. Thank you.”

Carmella got into her car and waited, as she’d promised. Austin headed back to the house and Madeline.

“Where have you been? I was looking for you, and you were gone,” said Madeline.

“Oh, there was a lady out at the road that had a problem with her car. I fixed her car, and she should be gone soon. We have time before your four o’clock surprise, so I want to go down to the beach and get rid of the few coin samples I showed you last night. Is that okay with you? I really, really want to get even the fake gold out of our life.”

“Sure.”

“I will even buy you lunch.”

The weather was perfect, and a good, slow walk to town was a great idea. As they came around the bend in the road, Carmella’s car passed, and Austin let that small chapter in his life drive away forever. Before formally throwing the coins in the ocean, Austin invited Madeline into Sid’s, a small bar that had the only cheeseburgers worth eating on the Riviera. Madeline was in a good mood, and the expectation of a new car had her very excited. Sid’s had a great view of the ocean, and the breeze eliminated the need for air conditioning. Austin and Madeline had just been seated at a corner table when two men approached them.

“Mr. Clay, my name is Antonio Duva, and this is my associate. May we join you?”

Without waiting for a reply, the two men seated themselves. Madeline was startled, and Austin was concerned. It was only a few minutes ago that a woman was planning on killing him, and now two men that looked like they belonged in a gangster movie were confronting him.

“Mr. Clay, I must apologize. I believe that you may have been contacted by a gentleman named Simon. Simon believed that you represented an opportunity to offer our services with respect to a treasure that some believed you might have found. Our associate Simon perhaps lacked a business style appropriate for the type of people with whom he was trying to build a business relationship. We do not believe that he was successful in selling the benefits of doing business with our organization.”

Duva may have been right. As rough as Simon was, Duva provided a more polished appearance. His hands were manicured, and he wore a large diamond in a pinky ring. His impeccable suit, social polish, and tan helped define a man who, if he was a gangster, was at least a gangster with some refinement.

“Mr. Duva, let me interrupt you, if I might,” said Austin. “First, I do not appreciate your interrupting our lunch. If you want to talk about poor style, then I suggest that you look at yourselves. Second, we never believed that your help was needed, and we also did not know that there was any treasure. We got caught up in chasing a fable with no idea what might be found. Your friend Simon was a thug, and he was not a team player. He was interested in our efforts for himself and not as a member of your organization. He got faked out by a man that took exception to having his reputation and life destroyed … and who, as the newspapers suggest, blew Simon’s head off just before he killed himself. Now, if you are interested in what you call the treasure, I will make you a deal. I can arrange that you receive all of the gold that we found. It currently resides in Switzerland, and you can have it all. Because, Mr. Duva, we all got fooled by a Venetian who ransomed his two boys with counterfeit coins that may have fooled people temporarily at the time, but they have not fooled the experts that have recently seen it.”

Austin reached into his pocket and pulled out the small bag of coins destined for the ocean.

“Mr. Duva, here are a few coins that I saved as souvenirs. I want you to have them. But before I give them to you, let me take a fork and show you what they really are.”

Austin scraped the surface of a coin; flakes of gold leaf settled on the tablecloth, and the lead core of the coin was revealed. Duva picked up the lead coin as Austin started to laugh. Austin continued to laugh and laughed so hard that he began to cough. Through his laughter he looked at Duva and made a very clear statement.

“Mr. Duva, this meeting is over. I have asked my friend here to lunch, and I am afraid that you are not invited.”

Austin slid the small pile of coins toward Duva, who placed them in his jacket pocket. Duva rose and gave Austin a stare that Austin returned. Without a word Duva and his associate left the bar.

Austin sat looking at Madeline out of the corner of his eye. She had her face in her hands, hiding her emotions.

“Austin, I need another bottle of wine, and I am going to try and forget what just happened. When will we be able to wash away the stink of this adventure”

“Madeline, if you truly believe that the coins are cursed, then we could not have picked a more deserving person to give them to.”

“Forget my lunch—where is the wine?”

Austin watched Duva and his friend walk toward the parking lot, with Duva on his cell phone. After a couple of minutes they got into a large, white SUV and left the parking lot. Giving the coins to Duva had felt so good. It was now clear that the search for the gold had been a folly for everyone, but somehow Duva and his friend Simon had felt they were entitled to their share, and Austin was happy to give it to them. It was strange. Giving the coins to Duva had been liberating. It was as if they had taken over the burden, and they were welcome to it. Life somehow seemed brighter, and things could get back to normal.

At about three o’clock that afternoon, Austin and Madeline began the walk back to the house on the hill. Along the way Austin found a place along the shoreline to toss the gun that he’d taken from Simon’s wife, without Madeline being the wiser. It was about a quarter to four when they arrived back at the house. Madeline was excited about the expected present, but when it was four-fifteen and no present had been delivered, Austin was concerned, and Madeline was confused. When the woman making the delivery arrived in what appeared to be a new Mercedes, Madeline jumped up on Austin and put her arms around his neck.

“Madeline, calm down! Calm down, you’re going to break my back.”

“Austin, I always dreamed of owning a Mercedes. Oh, I love you, I love you.”

“Madeline, I did not buy you a Mercedes. Now, calm down.”

The woman exiting the car with the large brown envelope saw Madeline’s reaction and could understand why. She introduced herself and opened the envelope, placing a few documents on the hood of the car.

“I am so sorry I am late, Monsieur Clay. The traffic up by the highway is a mess. There was a tragic accident, and two men in a white SUV were killed.”

In a split second, Austin’s mind froze.
Madeline was right. The coins were cursed,
he thought to himself.

Madeline was so excited about the possibility of getting the car that she did not hear the woman’s words, which was fine with Austin.

Austin signed the documents at the few places noted and used his body to block Madeline’s view. Madeline saw his action and was now sure that he was buying her the car; she tried to be patient and not go crazy. Austin covered the majority of the page with the envelope and told Madeline to sign too, an obvious formality in buying a car. In a minute or two the paperwork was over, and the woman got back into her car and backed out of the driveway. Now Madeline was very confused. What was all of the paperwork about? Where was the woman taking her car?

“Madeline, I did not buy you the car. I bought us this house.”

Madeline stood motionless for several seconds, trying to understand what Austin had just said. Suddenly she began to cry; her knees folded until she was sitting on the driveway. Austin knelt down and kissed her on the cheek; he picked her up and took her into their new home overlooking the Mediterranean. It took about twenty minutes for Madeline to recover from what she’d just heard. As he had done many times before, Austin gave Madeline a large glass of wine to make things better.

“Austin, why did you buy the house? It is perhaps the best gift anyone could ever get. I cannot wait to tell my sister.”

“Hey, I got a good deal on it, and real estate is always a good investment. I cannot believe that you did not see the listing for it in the real estate office window that day we walked through town.”

“I never saw anything, but I am glad that you did.”

“Did you see the fine print on the contract?”

Madeline looked at Austin, worried that there was a problem. “Fine print?”

“Sure, every deal has fine print.”

“Well, what does the fine print say?”

“It says that you must accept the house as a wedding gift. Madeline, will you marry me?”

Madeline put her arms around Austin and began to cry again. The house was a wonderful gift, but it was Austin that she wanted.

In the days that followed, Madeline and Austin enjoyed the environment and the new house. Both had found a way to remake their lives, and each had found someone to make them whole. Madeline took the remaining time in Antibes to study her new home and determine how she could put her personal touch on every room. There were many things that she wanted to do, but for now she only had the time to do the simple things. Madeline had put the pots to good use. Each coin pot was about ten inches in diameter, and several had been filled with potting soil; soon each was about to receive geraniums in an effort to dress up the rooftop patio.

“Austin, do you think I need a drain hole in these pots, so that they will not fill up with rain?”

Austin picked up an empty pot and agreed that rainwater might be an issue. “I might be able to drill a hole in the bottom. This clay does not appear to be that hard.” Austin took a pair of scissors, scratched the bottom of a pot, and confirmed that for a fired pot, it was surprisingly soft.

In a downstairs closet were an old electric drill and some rusty drill bits that had belonged to the previous owner. Austin turned over the first pot and carefully began to drill through the five-hundred-year-old clay. Being careful to not crack the pot, he proceeded slowly, watching as clay powder began to build up around the hole. Suddenly a very strange thing happened—the reddish clay powder turned to gold, real gold.

In addition to the clay that made up the pot, a hard layer of five-hundred-year-old mud coated its interior, and it was very thick at the bottom. Hidden in the mud in the bottom of the pot were the gold disks he had learned about in Switzerland but had assumed were long gone. Using a spoon he liberated the bars from the mud, and then he sat back in his chair and began to laugh. He handed the disk to Madeline, who took it apprehensively. She looked at the gold without comment. Only hours before, she had been convinced that the issue of the gold was behind her, and she had been relieved; now it was back.

She handed the disk back to Austin and turned and walked away, saying, “Austin, we agreed that any gold would be used for good, and that is what I want to do. I do not want the gold, and I want you to do something.”