in the old Coast Guard building, just before the bend taking the road into residential neighborhoods. On the second floor, it overlooks the Coquille River with a panoramic view of the jetty and historic light house.
Through a reception area, the back assay office smelled of metal. Spotlessly clean, a long stainless steel table neatly aligned in the center of the small room, a pair of office chairs on rollers placed strategically, one on each long side. Counter tops with metal cases, dials and meters on their faces. In a corner, what looked like a small barrel furnace with a heavy steel door and a temperature gauge in its base. At first glance it appeared crowded with equipment. On second glance, it revealed a symmetry of exactness as if every piece was in a specific location for a particular reason.
“Don’t touch anything,” Bo said as we entered the room. His voice turned unusually calm, words articulated rather than his usual helter-skelter rapid fire, exclamation-point chatter. “There’s some very sensitive instruments in here that are hard to replace and quite expensive.”
Sal and I nodded as Bo pointed to a couple of the office chairs.
“Now, what do you have for me?” Bo’s eyes were focused, clear and steady. Another surprise.
Pulling the cheesecloth-wrapped ball from my pocket, “Where do you want this?”
Bo lifted one end of the cloth, “Whoa. That’s spectacular. Put it over here.”
He led me to a side table and pointed to a black-velvet lined display tray. I rolled the ball out of the cheesecloth onto the velvet, stuffing the cheesecloth back into my pocket.
Bo slipped on a pair of white cotton gloves, twisted a small tensor light on and aimed it at the ball.
“Nick, this is truly amazing. Almost mesmerizing. I’ve seen a lot of gold in my day, but the finish on this is unbelievably fine.”
Bo gently rolled the ball so he could look at the entire surface.
“A real craftsman did this,” he said putting on a pair of magnifying glasses and continuing to nudge the ball with a finger. “Look at that,” he muttered to himself. We had no idea what “that” meant, but it clearly intrigued Bo who opened a drawer under the counter, pulled out a fabric face mask like those used by doctors and slipped it over his head, covering his nose and mouth. “Don’t want to get spittle on this.” Again the words were uttered more to himself than Sal or me.
The ball glistened under the tensor’s pure white beam, shafts of light like an aura reflected across the room causing flairs on the walls and ceiling.
Gently lifting the display tray, Bo rolled his chair slowly to the center table. He mounted a smaller tray on top of an electronic scale, zeroed out the weight and carefully placed the ball into the tray. The meter’s digital display settled on 1133.9809.
Bo whistled. “That’s quite a chunk of metal,” he said. Just about 1,134 grams or 40 Avoirdupois ounces.”
“Avoid-what?”
“Oh, sorry. There are many different definitions for ounces. Not to be too technical, Troy ounces are used mostly in precious metals. Even gun powder. That’s where you get the number of ‘grains’ of gunpowder in a bullet. I just turned all of the mumbo jumbo into English ounces, the kind you find on a coffee can. Avoirdupois is the proper name. Invented by the English in the 1300s.”
“About 2 and a half pounds, then,” I calculated.
“Exactly.”
Sal made the calculation in his head. “At today’s gold prices, about $65,000.”
“Give or take if it’s solid, pure gold which we don’t know yet. Could have a lead core. We’ll see.”
He dismounted the tray and moved it to a complicated appearing machine with a five by five inch screen, small boxed enclosure of glass with a hinged door and a keypad.
“Latest in technology,” Bo said. “Sonic and X-ray scan followed by a spectroanalysis,” He lifted the ball from the tray and placed it in the center of the glass enclosure. After checking the alignment, he slid black plastic screens across all of the glass, did some magic with the dials and pressed a small red button. It sounded like a microwave oven.
We stood in absolute silence for three or four minutes. Then the display screen lit up into a series of peaks and valleys with small symbols under each, some of which I recognized as abbreviations for metals and minerals. The spike above Au reached the top of the graph. The others barely registering above flat line. In the bottom right, a digital “99.131” glowed in green.
“Holy moly, rock and roll,” Bo said. “Guys, you’ve got yourself a solid ball of gold. On the streets of Macau and Hong Kong, this is Chuk Kam. Exact gold. 24 karats.” Pushing his glasses back on his head, he looked at the two of us, “Okay, now spill it. Where’d it come from?” He wrapped the ball in a piece of cotton cloth, hefted it and kept his eyes focused on the sphere as he handed it to me.
For the past half hour, Bo had been unlike himself. Or at least his public self. Professional, quiet, analytical, focused and sane. Sal and I exchanged glances.
“Who are you, really?” Sal asked. “And what did you do with Bo?”
The small man laughed. “This is who I am. The guy you see on the street is the one that keeps people away from this place. In all the years I’ve been here, have either of you ever dropped in for a cup of coffee?”
We shook our heads.
“See? And that’s what I want. I have some pretty high profile clients who need confidential analysis of their property, especially newly acquired precious metals. I’m the best there is and don’t mind saying so.”
He swept an arm around the tidy room. “There’s maybe a couple of million bucks worth of equipment in here. Latest and greatest. It gets replaced as soon as something better comes along. I can’t afford to wait for something to wear out before replacing it. And I know how to use every piece, sometimes more efficiently and better than the manufacturers themselves.”
“So if someone came in here with, say, a gold artifact from some Egyptian temple, you’d be able to…”
“Been there. Done that. Look, I’m not about ready to break any confidences. Not about them and certainly not about what you’ve got in your hand. So tell me. Where’d it come from? The Tree Man?”
“Yes. It was contained in a clay egg that must have been hanging around the guy’s neck or wrist.”
“That’s an amazingly well done piece. The smelting and refining is top notch especially for a hundred or so years ago. And the polished finish is flawless. I couldn’t find a single remnant of the polishing process. Not even the most miniscule scratch or mark. Phenomenal.” He lowered his glassed so they rested on his nose again. “As gold, it’s worth a fair piece. What Sal figured, around $65,000. To a gold antiquities collector, someone who enjoys fine jewelry and artifacts, it’s priceless.”
Bo stood up and walked toward the door. Session over. We entered his front office, a plain-jane reception area with nice, but unexceptional furnishing and light gray berber carpet. He twisted the handle on the office door and opened it to let us out.
“What do we owe you, Bo?” I asked.
