"So Mikey wasn't the innocent bumpkin he led us to believe in the book," I said.

"Hell, no," answered Bill. "He was a crazy-ass loon. My father said he was the most evil man he had ever met. That's why we all thought his book sucked, because we knew it was garbage."

"Why didn't Mikey go back for the treasure?" Sabrina asked.

"At first, or so the story goes, he was too busy building up his business—drugs, prostitution, the usual—to be bothered. Plus, things were still too hot down there for him to show his face. He did try ransoming some of the paintings from the museum, but that blew up in his face."

"But he obviously didn't die, like my great-grandfather thought," I said.

"Nah. He tried to ransom the paintings because his business was falling apart. He had pissed off too many people. He did get shot—probably where the rumor started—but he escaped to Vermont. The bullet lodged in his leg and he developed gangrene. Lost his leg. From then on he wasn't in the best of health. I think he finally lost interest in the treasure."

"And what about the eggs?"

"Those fucking eggs. I don't even know what they were. He just kept talking about the eggs in his writings. Something real valuable."

"Did Tony bring them back?"

"Hell, no. Mikey did. Tony was a nothing. He made him sound big in his book, but in reality, Tony was a two-bit thug. He never amounted to anything and got himself killed a few years later. You want the eggs? You find 'em. He gave 'em to your great-grandfather. Things were getting hot for him, so he gave 'em to Bruce to hold. He had no idea Bruce was going to take off with them. So your great-grandfather was as much of a crook as mine."

"Yeah, but the nice thing is, it stopped with him, unlike your family."

"Why did Mikey even write the novel? It may not have been true, but it had a lot of truth to it. He named Fordlandia. Wasn't he afraid someone might see it as true and go after the treasure?"

"He was dying. He wrote the book in 1958 and died in 1960. He was in bad health. I don't think he cared. He wanted to write a novel and his life was the only thing he could write about. So he turned it into his novel."

The cops were getting restless to move.

"One last question," I asked. "Did you kill my father?"

"Your father?"

"In Northampton."

"Honeycutt. Northampton." His eyes lit up. "The college professor who was screwing his student? That was your father?"

I nodded.

"Sorry pal. He did that to himself. I didn't even know he existed."

I believed him. My father was just a victim of the Honeycutt curse.

"But he knew about Mikey and the book. How?"

"You can find anything online these days. Maybe he just followed the people involved and came upon the book. You'd have to ask him."