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“How about you?” I asked Benji. “Has your universe of luxury expanded?”
“I got a cool bike,” he said. “And I’m going to Hawaii to live in a yurt next to a waterfall.”
“Do you got a bathroom in that yurt?” Lula asked. “I wouldn’t want to live in a yurt without a bathroom.”
I looked at Sir Lancelot.
“I bought a Saxon helmet yesterday,” he said. “And I got a lap dance from a wench.”
“This is all terrific,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure this fun stuff has been bought with money you made off the Knights Templar coin. And here’s the problem. There are some very bad guys who want that coin. They kidnapped our office manager and they’re holding her for ransom. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that they killed Paul Mori. All this for the coin. So, what I’m going to do is tell them that you three guys have what they want. I’m taking myself out of it. You’re on your own. You can deal with the kidnappers.”
“And don’t forget they’re killers, too,” Grandma said.
“For real?” Benji asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Benji looked at Beedle. “This isn’t good.”
“I hadn’t planned on this development,” Beedle said.
“You’ve got an impulsive nature,” Grandma said to him. “This is like when you decided to rob the armored truck.”
“Not true,” Beedle said. “I’m really very methodical. I think things through. I make decisions based on logical thought. The armored truck was a fluke. My sudden windfall is the result of my knowledge of finance. And I admit that luck played a part. I was in the right place at the right time. My stars were all in alignment.”
“And now?” I asked. “How are your stars now?”
“They’d still be in alignment if you weren’t such a meanie,” Beedle said. “You’re ruining our good time.”
“Do you understand that there’s a woman being held hostagesomewhere?” I said. “That we have no idea what sort of condition she’s in? That she’s got to be terrified?”
“I didn’t know that,” Beedle said.
“Me either,” Sparks said.
“Me either,” Benji said.
“Does it make a difference?” I asked them.
“Sure,” Beedle said. “You can have the coin, but we already spent the money.”
Oh boy. “What money?” I asked him.
“When Melvin got the coin he examined it under magnification,” Beedle said.
“It’s standard procedure for us collectors,” Sparks said. “It helps to determine the value of the coin. In this case there was a small visible smudge on the knight side. When I looked at it magnified, I could see that it was numbers and alphabet letters. I figured it meant something, so I asked Benji where he got the coin.”
“And Benji came to me,” Beedle said. “I knew right away that the letters and numbers were a cryptocurrency password. It took me a while to finagle my way into the right account but eventually I got in.”
“And?” I asked.
“And there was money in the account. We figured it was finders keepers and that we’d divide it up between us.”
“How much money?” I asked.
“When it got changed to dollars it came to eleven million,” Beedle said.
“Damn,” Lula said. “Losers weepers.”
