The Adventure of the Peril Gem

ideas to keep me busy. So, while she caught up on her paperwork, I simply waited for a telephone to ring.

  Typically for central Illinois in high summer, the evening was warm and humid, though not unbearably so. Yet the interior of the store felt intolerable. Michele had turned off three of the four ovens located at the rear of the shop, but the heat from the one still stifled. I stood in the open doorway, seeking relief through any small breeze. Outside, beyond the semicircle of light from the entrance, the night looked absolutely black. The parking lot lights had been turned off a few minutes earlier as the other stores prepared to close. Far across the street, I could see the tiny glow of lights above an apartment front; nothing filled the emptiness between. Even the street seemed deserted of both cars and pedestrians.

  I turned around and took a few steps inside, just enough to peer into the office. Michele sat at the desk, a fan blowing her loose blond hair about her oval face. Her long fingers effortlessly worked the desktop calculator as she totaled the day's receipts. Michele struck me a pretty woman, let's make no mistake about that, but she stood taller than I did, with virtually no figure. Besides, her husband could have been the inspiration for Bad Leroy Brown.

  She paused and looked up at me, her green eyes slightly magnified by her wire-rim glasses.

  "I was just wondering if you wanted me to start cleaning up."

  One corner of her thin mouth turned upward a little. "What time is it?"

  I looked over my shoulder and up at the clock over the door. It had black plastic cards with white numbers printed on them attached to a rolodex-style spool. I watched as the minutes spool flipped from eleven to twelve.

  She frowned when I told her. I had a good idea of what she thought. Ordinarily she preferred to stay open as late as possible, which on a summer weeknight meant three in the morning. Some of the other drivers complained that it was due to pure greed, but I suspected that, as popular as Checker's was, it was an expensive enterprise to run. She needed these extra hours simply to break even during the summer, despite the expense of keeping a driver that late. She probably compared her accumulating loss against possible profit if a late night rush developed.

  "Let's wait and see what happens till one. If we don't get any orders, I'll shut down the phones and you can get started."

  I nodded and turned to step back into the doorway--and almost collided with a figure standing right behind me. I didn't hear him come in, which was unusual. I was generally alert enough to know when a customer had entered the store, even while talking to someone else.

  "I'm sorry..." I began out of reflex, then I took a closer look.

  That night had been too warm to allow a pedestrian to comfortably wear anything other than a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The person before me, however, had bundled himself up as if for winter. Aside from a pair of rather baggy trousers, he wore a heavy coat that covered him from neck to knees. A wide-brimmed hat sat low over his head, and a meter-long muffler wrapped around his face hid everything beneath the nose. I could see only two, deep-set, and very disturbing, bloodshot eyes. His posture looked stooped and bent, as if he was extremely old or crippled, and he stank of mold and loam.

  My first thought was that he might be a robber, trying to hide both his appearance and a weapon, but he simply stood in the doorway, staring at me, with both hands thrust into the coat pockets. I didn't like the look of him (at least, I assumed it was a "him"). Even so, he made no threatening move, so I couldn't just dismiss him without a reason.

  Overcoming what I thought was simply my natural paranoia, I asked if I could help him. His only response was to pull his left hand from the pocket and extend it towards me. That hand had tannin-brown skin, with black, stringy hair, and long, pointed nails encrusted with some dark matter. He held a piece of torn newspaper in his grasp.

  Taking the scrap, I saw that it had an advertisement from our store offering a special price for two large pizzas. It was still valid, but it was also soiled with food, and other, stains, as if it had been taken from a garbage can.

  "I take it you want to place an order." I may have sounded surprised, but he nodded, calm and smooth.

  "I'll be just a moment." I stepped behind the front counter and retrieved the order book from underneath. I spent a few minutes filling out the preliminaries, such as the time, date, and my name.

  "Let's see now. You want two of our large pizzas--"

  A vigorous head shaking interrupted me. He took a few steps closer and pointed at the ad. Looking more closely I saw an "x" followed by the number twelve written below the word two.

  "You want twelve orders?"

  He nodded his head.

  "But that's twenty-four pizzas."

  He nodded again, patiently.

  I shook my head in disbelief, but recorded the number. "They come with cheese. Would you like any other toppings?"

  He stared hard at me for a few seconds, then spoke a single word in a high-pitched voice that meeped the vowels.

  "Meat."

  If there had been a full moon that night...but I didn't believe in werewolves.

  "Um, we have five different kinds of meat..."

  I let my voice trail off when he only stared. As I jotted down the details, he placed another piece of torn newsprint on the countertop. It had only a portion of an ad, but I saw an address, and a name, scrawled in a very illegible script, beneath it.

  "Elmwood and Charles," I mumbled as I added it to the order. "Is that in Tamarack?"

  He nodded once. I should have guessed.

  The name proved to be more difficult, but I pronounced it "Caldwell" and he rewarded me with another nod.

  "Ah, I don't suppose you have a telephone, do you?"

  He gave no answer. Briefly, I felt like a fool.

  That left only drinks. He nodded vigorously when I suggested that he add beer to the order, and he indicated the number of bottles by pointing to the number of pizzas.

  "Ok, because of the size of this order, we can't guarantee 25 minute delivery. We will, however, get there as fast as we can. Also, I'll have to ask that you pay in advance."

  He was way ahead of me. As I spoke he dug into one pocket and tossed me a single coin, about the size of a silver dollar. Surprised, I tried to catch it against my shirt, but I missed and had to scramble for it as it rolled under the counter. For a brief moment I thought I saw the man's feet, but what I saw must have seen his shoes instead. No person could have feet like that.

  When I finally caught the coin I discovered that it was encrusted with filth and dirt. I stood up, ready to explain that it wouldn't be acceptable, but the man had vanished. He had left as silently as he had arrived, leaving me dumbfounded.

  "Do we have an order?"

  Glancing at the office, I spotted Michele looking at me. I signaled for her to come out and waited until she came over before answering.

  "We do, though you were close enough to hear."

  She flashed a testy expression. "I heard you ask for payment, but I didn't hear if you were paid." She then glanced at the order form.

  "Twenty-four pizzas?" Though higher in pitch, she reproduced my original reaction perfectly. "Did he pay?"

  I held up the coin. "If you can call this payment."

  She took it to examine. "What is this?"

  "I would suppose a dollar, assuming, of course, it's not a foreign coin."

  She scowled in disappointment. A large order like that one could save a bad night, if it was legitimate. Unfortunately, it looked like it probably wasn't.

  "Well, if it's any consolation, at least we didn't waste our time and money making a bunch of pizzas we couldn't sell."

  I had tried to cheer her up, but from the look she gave me I wasn't successful.

  Then she examined her fingers. They were gray from the filth on the coin. When she scrutinized the now clean surface more closely, a confused look crossed her face.

  "I thought dollars were made out of silver."

  "I beg
your pardon?"

  She handed the coin back to me. What I saw left me speechless. Instead, I began to frantically clean the coin with my shirt.

  "What's wrong?"

  When I had finished, I held up the coin for her to see. The polished yellow metal glinted a dull green in the fluorescent lights. Her eyes grew wide, filling her lenses, as she recognized it.

  "It's gold, isn't it?" Her voice cracked on the second word.

  "It's more than that." My own voice rose barely above a whisper. "It's an 1850 Double Eagle, and in excellent condition. They weigh a full ounce and contain almost 90% gold. Based on the metal alone, at today's prices, it would be worth maybe $450. But that's not the half of it. To a collector it's worth almost $3000."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "I used to be one."

  Michele said nothing for the longest time; she just stared at the coin. Yet even when she finally could speak, she didn't take her eyes from it. "Do you think he knew what he gave us?"

  "I don't know, but no matter how you look at it, he certainly paid for his order." It was a lame statement, I know, but what else could be said at a time like that?

  It took us nearly 45 minutes to make all the pizzas. We packed them into insulated boxes to keep them warm, six pizza cartons to a "hot" box. Afterwards, I went next door to a liquor store. (We had an agreement with the proprietor to buy beer at a little more than his wholesale price. In that way, Michele didn't need to have a liquor license.) While we worked, I described the man's manner and appearance. Michele informed me that no customer like him had ever visited the store