Little Black Book

It was small and unmarked with a shine to the rich black leather cover. The side was all cream colored pages with that cute deckle edge. Out the bottom flopped a scarlet red marker holding place about a third of the way through the book. I remember it being in the journal section of Hardgrave's Book Emporium. I should let you know that the journal section is next to where they sell coffee, trust me its important for later.

I held the little journal running my hands over the smooth cover. I was not normally inclined to buy a journal because, while an avid reader, I was not a avid writer. I had very little time to cornicle my thoughts as I was a biomedical engineering graduate student at the University of Portland. Between my studies and the graduate assistantship I had managed to secure myself I had little time for the frivolity of journaling. Today however I wanted it! I wanted the idea of having that time to devote to my own inner world.

I walked to the counter with my used copies of "Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies" and "Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering." My little extravagance proudly presented on top in all its black luster. The owner of the store was a man by the name of Gregory Adams, he had bought Hardgrave's from its previous owner only a few years ago and kept the name as all others had before him. He rang up the books but finding no tag on the journal stopped.

"Where there any others like this when you grabbed it?" he asked in his gravely old man voice, though he was only in his forties.

"Not that I noticed, I can go and look if you like." I said with my normal desire to please attitude.

"Nah, how about we call it three dollars?"

"Great!" I hated to haggle and three dollars was more than reasonable.

I walked out with my purchases in my backpack, still a requirement for any graduate student. I moved off down the street under my white and purple striped umbrella, a gift from my Mom for getting into graduate school. I walked toward my apartment not far from campus, it was a simple studio apartment. I wanted to live on my own and preferred not to pay too much so this was the compromise.

I placed my backpack to the side of the door when I got in and fished out my new prize. Once again I ran my fingers over the cover glorying in the prize I had gotten for a meager three dollars. I grabbed my favorite pen and quickly opened the cover.

To my shock and dismay the first page was full of writing, so was the next, and the next, all the way to the back of the journal it was covered in writing. NO! I thought how could this happen? How could I have bought a used journal? What idiot does not open a journal to make sure it is not used in a used bookstore?!

I tossed the now useless rag aside onto my bed and opened the refrigerator to fix lunch. I pulled out some leftover Thai Curry and threw it into the microwave to heat. I pulled a beer out and drank half in one go, so upset at my misfortunate journal.

DING!

I pulled my warmed leftovers out and began eating. After I had eaten and downed two beers my emotions calmed enough to let my curiosity peak. Who's journal was it? What was in it? How old was it?

I grabbed the journal off my bed and began to read.

"December 14th, 1916 at 13:56

Portland, Harvard St. Jerry Yost speaks to Arlo Perry exchanges documents on bench.

Perry walks into Harvard apartments and leaves by maintenance door."

I became immersed in the journal reading well into the following morning. I took notes piecing together who this person might be and where in this city they might have lived. Each personal tidbit a bread crumb for me to work with, each one a revaluation of his humanity.

From what I had gathered he was a man in his late fifties who worked for some government agency on the federal level. There were many notes in here about the comings and goings of various people in the neighborhood around the university. Several who he identified as being "reds" and who they talked to and what they did.

However about half way through the journal he writes about coming across a man named Nicholas Petcu. Afterwards he chose to only follow him and the entries in the journal went from the normal gumshoe to obsession. The detailed chronicling of this one man baffled me, including his repeat references of Petcu and "The Romanian." The last page had only one note on it:

"October 18th, 1917

Retirement is at hand, Petcu is dead. 45.572990539214196, -122.72653050480294."

I still had a few days before the semester started and was curious what this could mean. Did he kill Petcu? Whose retirement? And where was he pointing to with those longitude and latitude measurements?

I punched the coordinates into Google and found that they were the exact location of the Clark library. I decided to start there and headed out.

When I arrived the library was relatively empty I went downstairs hoping Elise was there. Elise and I had met on my first day of graduate school, she was a librarian in charge of special collections restoration. She had been working the reference desk that day as part of her normal rotation. She had softly greying black hair and a round face with sparkling green eyes. Elise was in her office when I popped my head in.

"Hey Elise! Do you mind if I take a look down here?" I asked my best smile on.

"Knock yourself out kid." She said with a dismissive wave. She was working a piecing back together a rather old looking volume. Clearly busy so I made myself scarce.

I took out my phone and opened the GPS program I had installed on the way over. The location it took me too had a large worn rug covering the floor and a few old wooden bookshelves on it, the kind they no longer used upstairs. I took my foot and began tapping around on the floor.

Tap! Tap! Tap! Thunk! Thunk! Tap! Tap!

Okay clearly the floor in one spot was a different kind of material.

"Found the door to the cellar I see."

"Ahh!!" I jumped about six feet in the air startled out of my mind.

Elise laughed so hard she began coughing. "Sorry kid, didn't mean to scare you."

"Sorry, I was just concentrating. Cellar? I thought this was the lowest level of the library."

"It is now, the cellar flooded in the 1910's. Fortunately, it had not been in use for a while before that so they just closed it off allowing it to drain naturally."

"Any chance I could take a look down there? I have some coordinates for a scavenger hunt."

"You kids and your weird challenges." She rolled her eyes. "If you can safely move everything off it then move it back feel free, its not locked. Just be careful down there." She moved off back to her office laughing to herself.

I nodded and began to slowly move the old shelving and rug aside. The door was clearly old and worn but still very sturdy. I used the flashlight on my phone and slowly descended the metal stairs.

The cellar had the smell of a place unaccustomed to anything fresh, the musty concrete and brick gave off the smell of dust. The air felt cold as ice but thick in my mouth. As I moved in I found there were no pipes over head nothing electric either. There were shelves that had clearly rotted over time. I moved along to the light of my phone finding only more and more decayed shelving till I got to the far west corner.

Clearly someone had dug here, the floor was torn up and a good deal of dirt was piled on top. This could be it I thought! I looked around for something to dig with and found a few pieces of wood that would work. I began to dig, about two feet down I hit a wooden lid of something. I dug harder and worked it free, it was an old wooden suit case. I pulled on the straps and opened it...

Two months later....

"The Romanian government thanks you for returning our lost gold. We also thank the University of Portland for allowing the excavation of Clark Library to uncover not only our gold but the body of our citizen Nicholi Petcu. 'The Romanian Treasure' as it is commonly called has been lost since 1917 and only a few of the valuables have been returned since. However, this discovery of 100 tones of gold bars brings us much closer to finally recovering what was lost to us."

I stand next to the Presidents of the United States, Romania, and the University while the speeches are made and pictures are taken in the Rose Garden. Since the finding of the gold I was granted a full ride scholar ship and living stipend, all my student loans have been paid. I also have several deals in the works for a book and a movie. While none of the treasure was granted to me I still feel like I have come into a fortune and one that I know will keep giving long past my graduation.