The Curse of the Holy Pail #2 (4 page)

Well, that makes one of us, I thought.

"I'm sure he's no picnic to work under," Price added, much to my surprise.

Suddenly, I wondered if I had slipped and verbalized my comment, but I was pretty sure I had not.

"But he's a brilliant attorney and needs someone like you to keep him organized and in line."

"I do my best," I told him honestly, trying to keep sarcasm out of my tone.

"God knows you did wonders with Dell," he said, chuckling, referring to Wendell Wallace. "Now come along and let me show you one of the world's best lunchbox collections. Just leave your things there."

Following his instructions, I left my stuff on the conference table and followed him over to the glass cases where there were, indeed, lunchboxes-dozens of them. The shelves were filled with colorful metal boxes, most of which were adorned with pictures of cartoon characters, comic book heroes, and TV legends. They brought back memories, and I recognized many of the boxes childhood friends had carried to school every day.

"I didn't realize people collected old lunchboxes," I said in amazement.

"My dear, where have you been?" he teased. "It's a very popular hobby, especially among men. And it can be increasingly expensive as the years go by and these boxes become even rarer."

"Which one was your first?"

He smiled broadly and opened up a glass door to remove one particular lunchbox. It looked well used, with small dents and scratches. Adorning the front, back, and sides were scenes from the TV show Gunsmoke. On the box's front was Marshal Matt Dillon, jaw set and gun drawn. Price held the box lovingly, almost cradling it.

"This was my son Eldon's lunchbox when he was a boy," he explained. "He loved anything with a cowboy theme, particularly this TV show."

Something struck me as off. I racked my brain but could not remember a son named Eldon. In fact, I could have sworn Sterling Price's son was named Kyle. I had just seen the name Kyle Price on some of the documents I notarized. A son named Kyle and a daughter named Karla-twins; that's what my middle-aged memory bank was dredging up.

"I didn't realize you had another son."

Price looked at the lunchbox as he spoke, his voice in a monotone. "Yes, I had a son named Eldon. Unfortunately, he had an accident. Fell from a tree when he was eleven and broke his neck."

"I'm terribly sorry."

He nodded acknowledgment of my condolences and continued. "Years later, I was reading an article about the hobby of collecting lunchboxes and remembered that we had kept this stored away. That was the beginning. I have more than a hundred now, most of which I purchased after my wife's death about eight years ago. She thought it silly but always kept her eyes open for them like a good sport." He extended an arm toward the boxes lined up before us. "These are among my favorites in the collection."

"And this Gunsmoke one is your prize box?"

"Only for sentimental reasons, dear lady. Value wise, it's only worth about one hundred fifty to two hundred dollars. It would be worth more if it were in better condition."

I swallowed hard. Two hundred dollars for a kid's beat-up lunchbox that still reeked of sour milk seasoned with rust? Sheesh.

He put the lunchbox back in its place and picked up the one displayed next to it. "This ... this is my crown jewel; the ultimate lunchbox; every collector's dream acquisition."

Price held the box out for my inspection, holding it gingerly by the top and bottom as if it were made of glass. It did not look like much to me, but then what do I know? I tote my lunch in paper sacks and old Blockbuster Video bags.

Except for a dent on one of its corners, this particular lunchbox did not have the bumps and bruises of the one before it, but neither was it festooned with colorful pictures. It was rather plain, the metal painted a dark blue. On one side it sported a primitive watercolor of a cowboy riding a horse and twirling his lasso over his head. Around the horse's hooves were some quickly drawn grass tufts and in the background a few cactus plants. The picture was not even painted on the box but stuck on. The cowboy depicted in the drawing was unknown to me.

Okay, what was I missing here? I kept looking at the box, hoping a clue to its desirability would pop out of it like a genie from a magic lamp. My eyes traveled up to meet Price's smiling face, quite sure that I looked as dense as I felt.

"Is it safe to assume that this lunchbox is worth more than the Gunsmoke one?"

He gave a mischievous laugh, almost a childish giggle. It was plain to see that Price delighted in showing off this particular treasure.

"Would you believe, Odelia, at least a hundred times more?"

In my mind, I quickly threw a couple of zeros after the twohundred-dollar figure. "Holy shit!" I gasped, then immediately slapped my hand over my mouth. Holy shit, I thought in horror, did I really just say "holy shit" to a client, and an important one at that?

Price let loose with a real guffaw.

Ashamed of my unprofessional behavior, I apologized. "Mr. Price, I am so sorry. That was very inappropriate of me."

He laughed, reached a hand up, and patted me warmly on my right shoulder. "Sterling, dear, remember? And actually, Odelia, that was very close to my exact words when I first learned of its value." He leaned toward me. I could smell the coffee on his breath. "I paid twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred dollars for this trinket," he confessed with a sly whisper. "Just over a year ago." He nudged me good-naturedly. "Go ahead, say it. Say what you really want to say."

"Holy shit," I said, this time with reverence and without apology.

Price laughed heartily. "You're probably too young to know this, but have you ever heard of the cowboy star Chappy Wheeler?" I shook my head. "His real name was Charles Borden and he was from Newark, New Jersey. In the 1940s, he found his way to Hollywood and eventually landed a TV series, appropriately called The Chappy Wheeler Show. It was one of the first shows of its kind, right up there with the more familiar classic cowboy genre shows like Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, and even Gunsmoke.

"This lunch pail," he explained, holding the box up for my inspection, "was the prototype for the first known children's lunchboxes depicting TV stars. See the artist's signature at the bottom of the picture?"

I looked closer and saw what looked like a tiny "Art Bender" scrawled near a bit of prairie grass.

"This is an original drawing. This box, Odelia, started it all. Years ago, it was nicknamed the Holy Pail. Cute, eh?"

I was puzzled. I watched a lot of TV as a kid, but I could not remember a Chappy Wheeler, not even in reruns.

Price put the box back behind the protective glass and shut the door gently. "Wheeler was murdered in 1949," he explained, as if reading my confusion. "Found dead in his bungalow on the studio lot. His killer was never found. The Chappy Wheeler Show was canceled and the lunchbox never manufactured. This box is all that remains of that promotional dream. Supposedly, it's cursed." He laughed softly.

I found the story fascinating, though hardly worth nearly thirty thousand dollars. "So what did become the first children's TVthemed lunchbox?" I asked.

"This one," he said, pointing to a box behind another glass door. On it was a character I knew well-Hopalong Cassidy. "This box debuted in 1950."

I strolled along the shelves looking at the different boxes. Except for a few that appeared to be in pristine condition, most showed signs of minor wear and tear. Many, I was sure, had a history of being proudly carried to and from school in the saner, more innocent times of the '50s and '60s.

I stopped short in front of one of the cases and stared at a lunchbox. It was black. On the front was Zorro, my favorite childhood TV character. What can I say? Zorro and the Sheriff of Nottingham-I had a thing for men in knee-high riding boots even then.

I sensed Price coming up behind me. "Was that your lunchbox, Odelia?" he asked. "We're always drawn to our own."

I shook my head, more to clear my mind of memories. "No, it wasn't. But I wanted this one as a kid." I turned and looked at Price. "My mother said it was a boy's lunchbox. She made me carry a pink one with flowers and ribbons on it." I made a face. "Ugh"

He chuckled. "Junior Miss."

"Excuse me?"

"Junior Miss. That's the name of the lunchbox you probably carried to school."

"Hmm. All I know is that it wasn't very cool."

Price laughed again. "You had good taste, Odelia. Too bad your mother didn't listen. Today the Zorro box is much more valuable than the Junior Miss."

Somehow I knew that without being told.

THREE

"A LUNCHBOX WORTH THIRTY thousand dollars! Are you kidding me?"

I shook my head and finished chewing the food in my mouth before speaking. "Nope, telling you the truth."

The question had come from Joan Nunez, a litigation paralegal in our firm. She and Kelsey Cavendish, the firm's librarian and research guru, were treating me to a birthday lunch at Jerry's Famous Deli. In between taking bites from a mammoth Rueben sandwich and slurps of iced tea, I filled them in on my morning introduction to lunchbox memorabilia.

"Amazing," Joan said slowly as she played with her fries, dragging one through a puddle of ketchup. She was around forty, small boned, with dark features and expressive eyes, and very proper in her demeanor.

Kelsey plucked at the sleeve of my blouse. "Pssst, hey, look over there," she whispered.

Joan and I moved our eyes in the direction Kelsey indicated with jerks of her chin. It took me a while, but finally my gaze focused on what Kelsey wanted us to see-Mike Steele. And he was not alone. He sat in a booth on the other side of the restaurant with Trudie Monroe, his latest in a long line of assistants. Trudie had only been working at Woobie for about three weeks. She was a sweet woman about thirty years of age with a pixie face, long coppery hair, and a cute figure. And knockers, big knockers. In addition to Steele, Trudie was assigned to Jolene McHugh, a senior associate at the firm. She also did work for me on occasion, though generally I found it faster and easier to do my own secretarial work.

When a paralegal shares a secretary with two busy attorneys, especially if one is a partner, and definitely if one of the attorneys is Michael Steele, she can bet her next vacation day that her work will end up at the bottom of the assistant's pile. Overall, I found Trudie capable but not overly bright. Yep, huge boobies and not too smart-just the way Mike Steele likes 'em.

"You think they got nekkid yet?" Kelsey asked, imitating her husband's Texas twang. Kelsey was a plain, tall, and angular woman in her mid-thirties with a firecracker wit. She had married Beau Cavendish four years earlier after a whirlwind online courtship. He was a teacher in Houston at the time and relocated to Southern California just before they married. Like Kelsey, he was delightfully funny and his accent added to his folksy charm.

"You mean naked," Joan corrected her.

"Naw, girl. I mean nekkid." Kelsey looked at both of us in mock disgust before explaining. "Naked is when you don't have any clothes on. Nekkid is when you don't have any clothes on and you're up to no good"

Joan looked over at the couple and frowned. "I'm sure Trudie told me during her first week at Woobie that she was married."

I took a big draw of iced tea from my straw and pondered the budding relationship of Steele and his new secretary.

"Hard to say if they've been nekkid yet," I said, "but I bet he's working on it."

Kelsey and I giggled. Joan's frown deepened.

Later that afternoon at the office, two boxes were delivered to me from Sterling Homes. One was quite large and addressed to Mike Steele; the other, a small one, was addressed to me personally. I opened the smaller box. Inside was a lunchbox, the very same Zorro box I had seen earlier in Price's office, along with a handwritten note.

Odelia, Every child should carry the lunchbox of her dreams. Warmest regards, Sterling

I could not believe it. After running my hands over every inch of the box in disbelief and adoration, I picked my way through my Rolodex until I found the number for Sterling Homes. I was so excited and overwhelmed my fingers had trouble punching the numbers. The value of the lunchbox was anyone's guess. It was enough that this generous man had given it to me. I also had doubts about whether or not I should accept it. Woobie employees were not allowed to accept gifts from vendors, but there was nothing in the employee handbook about gifts from clients. The call went through, but the receptionist informed me that Mr. Price was not answering. I thought about asking for his assistant, then remembered that she was off for a few days. At my request, I was put through to his voice mail, where I left a stumbling and gushing thanks for the box. I also made a mental reminder to write a proper thank-you note later tonight.

"Cool lunchbox!"

I looked up at the enthusiastic comment and my eyes fell on Joe Bays, the firm's mail clerk and jack-of-all-trades. Being rather roly-poly, Joe filled every inch of the doorway as he stood staring at the Zorro lunchbox on the edge of my desk. I detected a hungry look in his eye.