The Kills (34 page)

"You
think the feds have time to be interested in rusted old medals and coins that
are only worth a few thousand dollars?" Mike asked.

"When
you're talking about King Farouk, I'd say you'd have everyone from the Secret
Service to the CIA on the hunt."

Stark had
just ignited the spark that had been smoldering in our pockets. Whatever made
him bring the CIA into this conversation?

Mercer
took the lead, calm and easy, in his usual style. "I guess I'm just
missing something, Mr. Stark. We're aware that the king collected royal jewels
from monarchies all over the world, and that he had Fabergé eggs worth a
good fortune. Ms. Ransome would have had to have carted off trunkloads of-of
nickels and dimes, so to speak-to make it worth her while. We know that didn't
happen."

"You'll
have to talk to someone in the rare jewel business to find out how many
Fabergé designs existed and what they're worth on the open market. When
it comes to this kind of thing, I can assure myself that she need only have
taken the right coin, Detective. Just one single piece that Farouk owned, and
I'd say I know a lot of people who would have killed for it."

"Maybe
she did take it," I said. "Maybe if you can describe-"

"Queenie-is
that what you call her? Queenie didn't get the particular coin I'm talking
about," Stark said, smiling at me again. "That one actually wound its
tortuous way back into our very own hands. I just mean that with objects as
rare as the things Farouk bought for himself, one of them alone might be worth
a fortune."

"Well,
go back to the piece you referred to-the one you wound up with. Maybe there was
another just like it."

"Ah,
Ms. Cooper. That is the stuff that dreams are made of-sort of like a dirty old
black falcon that a private eye set out to find. This coin-
our
coin-was an eagle, and I know for a
fact there was only one in the entire world."

"You
mentioned the CIA and Secret Service, though," Mike said. "You want
to explain what this is all about?"

"I
think you should know the story, Detective. Perhaps it will suggest some
comparable avenue of investigation. Have any of you ever heard of a Double
Eagle?"

Stark
walked to a glass display case that stood at the far end of the room. He took a
small key out of his breast pocket and unlocked it, taking from the top shelf a
black leather box with a hinged clasp.

He sat
down and opened the box, staring at the large coin inside before passing it
across to us. "Mind you, this is just a proof-a copy of the actual gold
piece. But it might be the most magnificent coin ever struck."

I lifted
the shining disk from its nest and rubbed my finger over its raised image.

"She's
quite gorgeous," I said.

Stark
took off a strip of paper that was affixed to the inner lid of the box.
"This is a passage from the auction catalog when we sold the piece. It
describes her better than I can."

He
paraphrased the copy. "Lady Liberty, striding forward in a loose gown,
against the wind. Her left hand holds an olive branch while her right is
extended with a lighted torch. There's a small representation of the Capitol
Building on the bottom, with forty-eight stars circling the edge of the disc,
and the rays of the sun emanating from beneath the feet of Liberty. The year of
issue was 1933."

Mike took
her from me and flipped her over. On the back were a finely etched profile of
an eagle in flight, and the designation of the amount of the piece in United
States value: twenty dollars.

"You
sold one of these at auction?" Mike asked.

"Correction,
Mr. Chapman. Don't get your hopes up. We sold the
only
one of these that existed at auction. July 2002. It
was the one Farouk owned."

"You
mean only one of these was ever made, that's how come you're so sure?"

"Many
were made, in fact, but the government never issued them. They were all
destroyed."

"I
gotta ask you, sir, what this one went for. What price did you get for
it?"

Stark was
only too pleased to answer Mike's question. "It was in all the newspapers,
Mr. Chapman. I've got nothing to hide." Stark reached over and reclaimed
his proof, holding it up between his thumb and middle finger.

"The
Double Eagle sold for more money than any other coin in history," Stark
said proudly, puffing up as he gave the answer. "More than seven million
dollars."

I looked
at Mercer's three plastic bags of supposedly rare coins, which together would
only fetch a few thousand. It was impossible to conceive that a single piece of
gold with a face value of twenty dollars could eventually sell for seven
million dollars.

Mike was
incredulous, too. "So, just humor me, Mr. Stark. Suppose there was a
second one. Just like that one you're holding, all solid and real. Suppose we
found it mixed in with these others and brought it back to you. What'd you give
me for it?"

"Nothing,
Mr. Chapman. Not a dime."

Mike
laughed. "At least I'd get twenty bucks' worth."

"No,
that isn't true. Your hypothetical piece wouldn't even be worth the twenty
dollars engraved on its back side. The coin was literally illegal the very day
it was made."

Mike
mimicked the position of Stark's fingers, which were still holding the coin. He
had a goose egg instead of a gold proof. "Zilch. Zero. Bupkes."

"I
suppose if you melted it down you'd get the price of the gold weight, but
that's about it."

"How
come?"

"Very
simple, Detective. After the Mint creates the coins-all coins-they have to be
'monetized.' That's the process the Treasury Department has to go through with
every kind of currency, or else-like the Double Eagle-it never becomes
legitimate money. It's the process of monetizing the coins that makes them
legal tender." Stark sighed. "This particular value is all in the
history of this piece, the uniqueness of it."

"You
wanna tell me about that?"

"Certainly.
If I entertain you enough, perhaps I can charm Ms. Cooper out of some of these
other little treasures," Stark said, referring to Queenie's stash.
"I'd like to see everything you found in the lady's closet."

He
started after the Gold Rush of the 1840s, which placed the young American
nation among the wealthiest in the world. "The United States Mint needed a
new denomination for the growing economy, something more than the original
one-dollar gold piece. The highest value of currency that had been available
until then was the ten-dollar coin. So a bill was introduced in Congress to create
a twenty-dollar piece, cast with nearly a full ounce of gold."

Stark
went back to his glass étagère and brought several coins back to
us. "Plenty of these twenty-dollar gold pieces to go around," he
said. "They were minted almost every year between 1850 and 1933."

I looked
at the older version that he handed to me. "This one isn't nearly as
elegant as yours, is it?"

"You
can thank Teddy Roosevelt for the improvement. While he was president, he had a
chance encounter with the man most people considered America's greatest
sculptor."

"Who
was that?" Mercer asked.

"Saint-Gaudens.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Roosevelt complained to him that the U.S. coins lacked
artistic qualities. Old Teddy wanted something to rival the ancient Greeks,
with brilliant design and high relief. He had found the man capable of
designing it. This new golden Double Eagle became the symbol of American wealth
and power, a very desirable object from the first moment it went into
circulation."

"There's
only one bird on this thing," Mike said. "Why call it a Double
Eagle?"

"Because
it was twice the amount of the old ten-dollar piece, which had been nicknamed
the Eagle."

"What
ended the Eagle's flight?" I asked.

"Another
Roosevelt, Ms. Cooper. Teddy's cousin, Franklin. By the time he was inaugurated
in 1933, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression. You could buy a
daily paper for two cents and a pack of cigarettes for a quarter. The only
thing that held its value during this crisis was gold itself."

"So
there was a run on the banks, and people began to hoard gold coins,"
Mercer said.

"And
two days after he was sworn in, President Roosevelt closed all the banks,
embargoed the export of the very precious metal, and took America off the gold
standard. After March of 1933, never again was the United States Mint to issue
gold coinage."

"So
Farouk's piece was made before FDR's proclamation?"

"Ah,
the heart of the matter, Mr. Chapman. The Treasury Department prohibited the
Mint from monetizing, or legitimatizing, any gold coins from that point on. But
it neglected to forbid the actual
production
of the coins themselves."

"Farouk's
Double Eagle was struck
after
we
went off the gold standard?" I asked.

Stark
nodded his head. "The Mint was just a factory, after all. The engraving
for the coin had already been completed, the bullion was prepared, and within a
month after the embargo, one hundred thousand 1933 Double Eagles had been cast.
The Treasury realized the gaffe and immediately told the Mint not to license
this particular coin."

"So
the Double Eagles existed…"

"Yes,
Mr. Chapman," said Stark. "But they had only the value of a small
gold medallion. They were never legitimized."

Mike sat
back in his chair. "That's an awful lot of gilded birds in the nest. How
could anybody account for them all?"

"There
are wonderfully arcane regulations that have been in existence since this
country's birth," he answered. "Romans had their Trial of the Pyx, so
our forefathers set up an assay commission. Samples of the strike were
submitted in locked boxes to be weighed and tested-a laborious series of
examinations-and while this was being done with just a few hundred coins, all
the others were kept in storage at the Mint."

"What
became of the one hundred thousand?"

"In
1937, the order finally came from the Treasury-right from the president-to melt
down the entire strike. As far as the government knew, not a single coin was
left."

"So
when did the Eagle fly out of the cage?" Mike asked.

"I'm
afraid that's the first time our company came into this mix," Stark said.
"Nineteen forty-four. My father had been in business about ten years,
doing quite well, when a great private collection came on the market which he
bought for auction. The owner was a Colonel James Flanagan."

Stark
took another sip of coffee. "Papa put an advertisement in all the papers,
announcing the sale. And for the final lot, the biggest prize, the ad read,
'The Excessively Rare 1933 Double Eagle.' He was quite thrilled about his
coup."

"I
guess that let the cat out of the bag," Mike said.

"Needless
to say, that wording caught the attention of a few giants in the numismatic
field who were interested in bidding, one of whom took it upon himself to call
the Mint and quite simply ask what made it so rare. How many coins had the
government actually legalized and released was what he wanted to know."

"The
answer was none?"

"Exactly.
From there on, the feds moved in pretty quickly. The Mint brought in the Secret
Service-"

I
interrupted Stark and looked at Mike and Mercer. "I know the Secret
Service is the law enforcement branch of the Treasury, but I can't for the life
of me remember why. I just think of them as the presidential protection
force."