Zolar looked at him with a shifty grin. "You do and you'll be throwing away two hundred million dollars."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your share of the treasure."
Sarason paused with a forkful of pork in front of his mouth. "What treasure?"
"You're the last of the family to learn what ultimate prize is within our grasp."
"I don't follow you."
"The object that will lead us to Huascar's treasure." Zolar looked at him slyly for a moment, then smiled. "We have the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo."
The fork dropped to the plate as Sarason stared in total incredulity. "You found Naymlap's mummy encased in his suit of gold? It is actually in your hands?"
"Our hands, little brother. One evening, while searching through our father's old business records, I came upon a ledger itemizing his clandestine transactions. It was he who masterminded the mummy's theft from the museum in Spain."
"The old fox, he never said a word."
"He considered it the highlight of his plundering career, but too hot a subject to reveal to his own family."
"How did you track it down?"
"Father recorded the sale to a wealthy Sicilian mafioso. I sent our brother Charles to investigate, not expecting him to learn anything from a trail over seventy years old. Charles found the late mobster's villa and met with the son, who said his father had kept the mummy and its suit hidden away until he died in 1984 at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. The son then sold the mummy on the black market through his relatives in New York. The buyer was a rich junk dealer in Chicago by the name of Rummel."
"I'm surprised the son spoke to Charles. Mafia families are not noted for revealing their involvement with stolen goods."
"He not only spoke," said Zolar, "but received our brother like a long=lost relative and cooperated wholeheartedly by providing the name of the Chicago purchaser."
"I underestimated Charles," Sarason said, finishing off his final morsel of braised pork. "I wasn't aware of his talent for obtaining information."
"A cash payment of three million dollars helped immeasurably."
Sarason frowned. "A bit generous, weren't we? The suit can't be worth more than half that much to a collector with deep pockets who has to keep it hidden."
"Not at all. A cheap investment if the engraved images on the suit lead us to Huascar's golden chain."
"The ultimate prize," Samson repeated his brother's phrase. "No single treasure in world history can match its value."
"Dessert?" Zolar asked. "A slice of chocolate apricot torte?"
"A very small slice and coffee, strong," answered
Sarason. "How much extra did it cost to buy the suit from the junk dealer?"
Zolar nodded, and again his serving lady silently complied. "Not a cent. We stole it. As luck would have it, our brother Samuel in New York had sold Rummel most of his collection of illegal pre-Columbian antiquities and knew the location of the concealed gallery that held the suit. He and Charles worked together on the theft."
"I still can't believe it's in our hands."
"A near thing too. Charles and Sam barely smuggled it from Rummel's penthouse before Customs agents stormed the place."
Do you think they were tipped of?"
Zolar shook his head. "Not by anyone on our end. Our brothers got away clean."
"Where did they take it?" asked Sarason.
Zolar smiled, but not with his eyes. "Nowhere. The mummy is still in the building. They rented an apartment six floors below Rummel and hid it there until we can safely move it to Galveston for a proper examination. Both Rummel and the Customs agents think it was already smuggled out of the building by a moving van."