Tom nodded and slung logs toward the rail. “I got no problem with gold and silver,” he said. “Long as we don’t give up too big a cut to get it.”

“Morrison’s charging us six percent on silver and twelve percent on gold,” Kevin said. “That sounds like a lot, but at least you’ll be able to feel the weight of real money in your hand.” He looked out at Mike and Bess and then peered along the dirt access road that led into the grassy lot. Through the gray mist there was no sign of Reddy’s wagon. “Damn, where is that darkie?” he muttered, wiping an errant trickle from his lips.

Chapter 19

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.”