“Actually we had no agreement,” I said, running my hands over Rutherford. “We never discussed this.”
“It was understood.”
“He’s clean,” I said.
“You will never get the stone,” Rutherford said. “Never. Mammon is guarding the stone.”
“I thought Mammon was trapped inside Martin Ammon,” I said.
“Yes, technically I suppose that’s true,” Rutherford said. “Still, you won’t be able to steal it away from him. We’ve taken precautions.”
Glo had another spoonful of potion ready for Ammon. “Nice doggy,” she said.
Ammon wriggled away from Diesel and for a moment looked like he was going to lick the spoon, but he leaned forward and licked Glo instead. He woofed, grabbed the jacket off the floor, and bolted for the balcony that surrounded the beacon room. He tripped over Broom when he went through the door, stumbled, and flipped over the wrought iron railing.
Everyone gasped and froze for a beat before rushing out and looking down at Ammon. He was laying spread eagle on his back.
“Holy bejeezus,” Glo said. “Do you think he’s okay?”
Ammon’s eyes fluttered open. “Aaarooo,” he said.
The two men that had been standing guard halfway down the jetty were running toward Ammon.
“Bacon,” Ammon said. “What? Who?”
Rutherford rushed into the beacon room, snatched the jar of potion off the table, hurtled down the stairs, and ran out of the building. We looked over the railing and saw Rutherford pouring the contents of the jar into Ammon’s mouth.
“Whoa,” Glo said. “That’s a lot of gonad he’s giving him. He’s going to get diarrhea.”
People were gawking from the restaurant at the water’s edge and from the ship museum. An EMT truck pulled onto the wharf with lights flashing. A cop hustled down the wharf toward Ammon.
“Time to go,” Diesel said.
We ran down the stairs, crammed ourselves into the electrical closet, and squeezed through the trapdoor.
Clara was waiting for us in the tunnel. “How’d it go?” she asked.
“It was mixed,” I said. “Ammon did a flip off the lighthouse balcony.”
“Is he okay?”
“Okay is relative,” I said. “He’s not dead. And it looked like he might be coming out of the dog thing.”
“I saw him move his foot,” Glo said. “And he sort of had a spasm when Rutherford was pouring the potion into him.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about all this. Ammon wasn’t a good person, but I didn’t wish him dead or paralyzed or thinking he was a dog for the rest of his life. I mostly just wished he would go back to being a self-absorbed billionaire and leave me alone.
“Even if Ammon is perfectly okay, this is going to occupy everyone’s attention for a couple hours,” Diesel said. “We should use the opportunity to look for the stone. They have it someplace safe. The first safe place that comes to mind is Ammon’s bank vault.”
“I’ll take you to the Wessel House exit,” Clara said. “Then I’m going back to the bakery.”
“I’ll go to the bakery, too,” Glo said. “My bike is there, and Broom could use a cupcake.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We left the tunnel system at the Wessel House and walked to the bank building. Two men in suits were lounging at the building’s front door. No assault rifles in sight. They didn’t look especially worried about an attack. In fact, they didn’t look worried about anything…maybe because they were both sucking in weed. I guess Mammon took a lenient view on recreational drug use. We were standing downwind, and I was getting a contact high.
Diesel took the Blue Diamond out of its pouch and dropped it into my hand. “Anything?”