Free Fallen Palm (Jesse McDermitt Series) by Wayne Stinnett Page A

it wasn’t missing a stone and these are real emeralds. Saw one like it in a museum and they said it was worth a million bucks. With a stone missing, I’d guess maybe half that. But, ya gotta unnerstand, kid. My fence ain’t gonna pony up full price and the price will be melt value, so the cross might bring ten grand. Best guess is he’d do about fifty cents on the dollar. So, you’re looking at about a hundred thousand, maybe a bit more. I’ll take thirty percent. That fair to you?”
    Lester arched his brows, thinking. Math wasn’t exactly his strong suit, so Sonny added, “That’d be $70 thou to you and $30 thou to me. Give or take a few grand.”
    “That’s more than two years pay for me, Boss. But, I’d like to keep the necklace, it’s cool looking. Sounds more than fair. How soon ya think ya can get the money?”
    “Tell ya what I’ll do, kid. I was about to go downtown for lunch, anyway. Let me carry this to a guy I know. Once he verifies it’s the real stuff, I’ll give you your $70 thou outa my own pocket, when I get back. I’ll prolly have to wait a day or two to get the money from him. Why the hurry? You ain’t gonna cut out on me, are ya?”
    “No way, Boss. I got it good here. I think I might wanna buy myself my own car. Not that I don’t like tooling around in your DeVille, but I think I’d kinda like something a little sportier. I also kinda found a Ford truck, but it’s old and pretty beat up.”
    Sonny laughed and said, “Found a truck, huh? Look kid, ya need to just torch that, okay? Sportier car, yeah. But with a clean title. You’d look good with a red Mustang or something wrapped around ya. Look, I ain’t gonna pry about where this stuff come from. But, is there anything else you wanna tell me?”
    Lester thought it over and said, “It’s like this boss. I also found this book, when I found the coins and the cross. The guy that owned it wrote down a lotta shit in it. I think he’s a treasure hunter. Lots of dates and numbers. I got no idea what they mean.”
    “What kinda numbers?”
    “Long ones,” Lester replied. “To long to be a phone number or anything. They all start with the same group of numbers, but some in the middle and end is different.”
    “You say this guy’s a treasure hunter? They’re prolly GPS numbers he saved for places he found stuff.”
    “Yeah! He had one of those GPS things,” Lester blurted out.
    “So, you know this guy? Is he gonna know you got this stuff? Maybe come looking for it, or call the cops?”
    “No, Boss, I seriously doubt he knows I got it and he ain’t gonna be callin’ the cops. I also got the GPS thing, too.”
    “Anything else in this book, kid? Anything at all?” Sonny was thinking he really needed to look at the book.
    “I got it right here, Boss,” Lester replied, pulling a small leather bound book out of his back pocket. He opened it to the first page. “The Dates go back to 1980. Only thing other than dates and numbers is this one name. See here, says ‘Jesse McDermitt’ and it’s repeated a few times further on.”

10
    Sunday night, October 23, 2005
     
    I climbed down from the bridge and walked across the gang plank after Deuce. “Power’s out, Jesse,” Rusty said. “I got the backup generator going, but it only gives enough juice for the house or the bar, not both. Got the bar powered up right now. Everything in the cooler’s gonna go bad when I switch it over to the house. You guys hungry?”
    Art and Tony joined us on the barge and Tony said, “If you got any more of that ‘bacon fish’ or whatever it was, hell yeah.”
    We all laughed and Alex asked, “You still pulling that hogfish joke on unwary tourists?”
    “Only when I can find a gullible enough tourist,” I replied.
    Jimmy called out from the end of the canal, as he was walking toward us, “Here comes rain, man.”
    “Let’s get inside,” I said. “That squalls gonna be here in a few seconds.” We all ran to the Anchor and made it