Chapter Nineteen

Silver and Gold

Friday, March 28, 1924

By mid-morning Friday the rain was gone, the sky a wash of pale blue with innocent clouds on the horizon. Wearing his wool vest and cleanest collared shirt, Kevin carried his toolbox west on M Street. M is for Morrison. He pictured the enervated ex-banker arraying last season’s gold and silver coins on a marble table before a high, bright Georgetown window, fifty miles but a world away from the wooded hills of Kevin’s Washington County. He adjusted his fedora and spat into the M Street gutter.

When he reached Wisconsin Avenue he turned right and struck a leisurely pace as the brick sidewalk rose gradually to P Street. P is for parasite -- what Morrison was, what all money changers were. One of the prices you had to pay to survive in a world that was angled against the common man. He turned onto P Street and continued half a block to Morrison’s brick rowhouse, which was painted gray and faced south. Front steps led to a black door and black-shuttered bay windows dominated the right side of the facade. A walkway across the lawn passed a weeping cherry tree; two warm days since his last visit had swollen the blossoms from glowing points to strands of pink bells that hung like necklaces.

Kevin disgorged his chaw and wiped his mouth with a grimy handkerchief, then followed the walkway to the steps and pulled the brass bell-pull. The door opened and an elderly oriental woman peered out -- the same woman who had guided him to Morrison’s sitting room on Wednesday. He smiled through stained teeth and removed his hat as she gestured for him to enter. She led him up the tilted wooden stairway to the third floor in silence, padded down the hallway to a door on the right, and knocked. Opening the door halfway, she nodded and withdrew to the stairway. When he’d visited two days ago, he thought, she’d listened to his inquiry and guided him here while uttering no more than a few words. Today she needed none. Every Chinaman born at night, he remembered, was mute like a puppet. He crossed the threshold into the room.

A worn oriental rug covered most of the floor, its faded colors indigo and sage, rust and gold. Kevin guessed that it must once have been worth a fortune. Morrison was sitting where Kevin had seen him last, in a leather armchair with its back to one side of the bay window. A matching armchair fronted the opposite side and a round table of amber marble anchored the window, uniting the chairs. The room was unlit but the morning sunlight flooded in, illuminating ribbons of cigarette smoke that spun and folded in the upper half of the bay. Morrison remained seated as Kevin entered the room carrying his toolbox and hat.

“Good morning, Mr. Emory.” Morrison’s voice was breathy and sing-song, with a trace of condescension hiding behind the cadence. Like the voice of a mischievous schoolchild, Kevin thought, greeting a substitute teacher in class. “I see you brought your safe deposit box.”

Kevin grinned, tapping the toolbox as he crossed to the empty chair. “It’s a burden I never mind bearing.”

“Please forgive my inability to meet you at the door,” Morrison said. He took a drag and set his cigarette down in an ashtray. “My neurasthenia makes sudden movement difficult.”

Kevin sat down with the box between his feet, then turned so he could look directly at Morrison. The trader’s thin face was pale and hairless, with wispy eyebrows lost behind his wire-rimmed frames and slick, dark hair brushed back from his high forehead. He could have been almost any age, Kevin thought. Thirty or sixty.

“Were you able to find the currency we agreed on?”

“Of course,” Morrison said in a disarming voice. Kevin heard the black sleeve of his silk jacket rustle as he retrieved his cigarette and took a drag, then transferred the ashtray to the windowsill. He reached down for a leather satchel, snapped its jaws open, and withdrew two coins that he laid on the table, angled toward Kevin. The first was silver and the second gold.

“1922 Peace Dollar,” he said. “Eight-tenths of an ounce of silver.” Morrison handed it to Kevin. Its face showed the crowned head and flowing tresses of a young woman in profile, lips parted, engraved beneath the word “Liberty.” On the reverse a bald eagle perched on an olive branch above the word “Peace.” The coin felt sharp-edged and clean in his fingers. He nodded and set it back on the table.

Morrison picked up the gold piece. “1924 St. Gaudens Double Eagle,” he said, handing Kevin the gleaming coin. “Not yet circulated.” On its face, Lady Liberty stood backlit by the fan-shaped rays of the sun. A bald eagle with raised wings was set against the same rays on the other side, beneath the words “Twenty Dollars.” The images dissolved into pools of gold as the coin caught sunlight while Kevin turned it in his fingers.

“Very nice,” he said, laying it beside the Peace Dollar. “Should outlast my paper.”

Morrison smiled and exhaled smoke into the air above the table. “Gold and silver are timeless, my friend. They will outlive you and me. Paper is disposable, vulgar, and cheap -- like the life we all live.” He paused to flick an ash. “But paper is grist for the grind mill, and our pathetic lives need grain.” As he spoke, Kevin watched his eyes turn to almond-shaped ciphers, shifting and dancing in a recessed world. The eyes grew still as Morrison leveled them on Kevin. “So let’s count your worthless paper.”

Kevin forced a smile as he bent to open the toolbox. He withdrew Geary’s bill-stuffed envelope, to which he’d added the appropriate amount, and pulled out the stack of bills. “For two hundred silver dollars at six percent?” Morrison nodded and Kevin counted out the bills. “Two hundred and twelve,” he said. He pushed the stack halfway across the table but Morrison made no gesture toward it. Kevin looked at him, then continued.

“And for twenty-four Double-Eagles at twelve percent…” He counted out four-hundred and eighty dollars and asked for help calculating the fee.

“Let’s call it fifty-seven,” Morrison said with a fleeting smile. “That will give you an extra sixty cents for entertainment in Georgetown.” Kevin added smaller bills to the second stack. Leaning forward, Morrison swept the bills to the perimeter of the table, where they came to rest on top of a circumferential scarlet band. Embedded in the band was a pattern of nested green and gold triangles, and in the triangles multi-colored flecks and flakes of marble swirled like seabirds. The money, shapes, and patterns mesmerized Kevin, and he made a conscious effort to re-focus on the center of the table.

The Double Eagle and Peace Dollar were gone, and Morrison was extracting paper sleeves -- pale green, with $20 printed on one side -- from his satchel. He centered them on the table. “Six. Eight. Ten,” he said, sitting back. “Those are your two-hundred Peace Dollars.”

Kevin plucked four random sleeves and opened their seams; their contents spilled into rows of silver coins. Nodding at the quantities, he stacked the coins and pushed them to the center of the table.

“And your gold,” Morrison said. He placed a single tan sleeve stamped “$500” alongside the others. “There were twenty-five coins in that sleeve. I removed the piece you saw earlier, so there are now twenty-four.”

Kevin peeled it open and let the virgin coins slide onto the table, where sunlight transformed them into a pool of liquid gold. An involuntary smile spread across his face. He assembled stacks of five from the glowing pile, leaving four coins for his flattened palm. Two faces showed Lady Liberty standing and two showed an eagle in flight.

“I count twenty-four as well. Pretty as a sunset on the water.”

“Fair enough, then,” Morrison said. He deposited the bills in his satchel and snapped the jaws shut while Kevin transferred the sleeves into the bottom of his toolbox and laid the stacked coins in the hanging coin tray. With the coins secured, he locked the toolbox and stood up, adjusting his fingers for a better grip. Empty it weighed almost fifteen pounds, but now it felt heavier. He snared his hat from the chair and extended his hand across the table.

Morrison exhaled smoke toward the ceiling and leaned forward to shake Kevin’s hand with limp, pale fingers. His lips were pressed into an ironic smile and behind his glasses his eyes were again dancing a private dance. “Take care, my friend. Your appreciation of precious metals is well-founded, but you should try to keep them at some distance. Otherwise they can drag you down.”

“So long, Mr. Morrison,” Kevin said. He started across the carpet toward the door. “No need to call your woman, I know the way out.”

As Kevin turned onto the dirt road to the Rock Creek boat basin, the toolbox felt heavy in his hand but his heart was light. He and Tom had accomplished the tasks they had set for themselves in Georgetown. They had delivered two barrels of whiskey to Finn Geary, which Kevin hoped would solidify the relationship they had established with him last fall. Most of Geary’s paper had been converted into hard money. Reddy Bogue had finally arrived yesterday evening and paid fifteen dollars for the seven cords. Reddy and his kid had carted away two wagons full last night and appeared again at first light to take the rest. They had been stacking the last load as Kevin set out to visit Morrison.

Yesterday morning he had even found time to visit the M-Street store Ellie had steered him to for fabric. And while the remains of the rockfish had been consigned to the creek, a trip to the M-Street grocer on Wednesday had yielded smoked beef, potatoes, and carrots for the trip back up the canal.

It wasn’t noon yet but the thought of food made his stomach growl as he approached the scow, which had been tied up in the basin for over two days now. Mike and Bess were grazing thin grass and Tom was sitting with his back to the nearest tree, knees bent and hat lowered over his eyes. The feed trough was set up, but when Kevin reached it he saw it was empty. The water bucket next to it was half-full. He walked over to Tom and kicked his boots.

“Think they might want a little hay before we ask ‘em to pull us back to Harpers Ferry?” He put the toolbox down and stretched his tired hand.

“I fed ‘em!”, Tom protested, pushing his hat back and looking up at Kevin. “Didn’t want to give out too much, since there ain’t a whole lot of hay left. Maybe one of us should go out and get ‘em some corn.”

“Hell with that. We can get canal-company corn for nothing. We’ll feed ‘em again on the way up. And they’re pulling a light boat now anyway.”

Tom stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants. “Morrison come through?”

Kevin grinned, tapping the toolbox with his boot and rattling the coins in the tray.

“You ready to get going?”

“Yep,” Kevin said. “Let’s get ‘em harnessed.” Tom went to the hay-house to retrieve the tack while Kevin took the toolbox down to the cabin and set it under the table. He carved two hunks of smoked beef from the side in the cupboard, refilled his hip flask with whiskey, and returned to the deck as Tom was emerging with the bridles, breast pads, and spreader bars.

“Tommy, a toast.” Kevin screwed the top off his flask and held the vessel high. “To our first Georgetown run of 1924. An unmasticated success.” He took a long swig, then presented the flask and a hunk of beef to Tom.

“First of many,” Tom muttered. “But the trip ain’t over ‘til we’re back in Washington County.” He knocked back a comparable shot. “Now let’s get boating.”

They set their teeth into the smoked meat in unison, and Kevin followed Tom toward the mooring lines and the mules.

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