Tracking the mint's missing gold

I happened by Mister Sloppy's place yesterday - okay, he happens to have air conditioning - and by way of breaking his grumpy Evil-Genius silence, mentioned the Mint's vanishing gold problem, and how the local Petfinder was just yesterday obsessing again about the strange silence of government, mint and red coated gendarme types.

Mister Sloppy snickered. My usually cast-iron coyote tummy clenched. That laugh is never good.

"Slop," I said, fearing the worst. "In your obsessive quest for world domination, you haven't sucked 15 million bucks' worth of gold into an improbability vortex? Or something?"

"I didn't need to," he cackled.

"Huh?" I can be a dimwitted doggy. Especially when it helps me enjoy nice cold air conditioning a bit longer.

"You know how the Tories - having such terrific heads for business - are all hot on selling off prime government assets at fire sale prices? To allegedly balance the government's books, even though it always loses major money?

"I was rummaging around a government network one night a coupla years back and sniffed out the fact that their brain trust had decided to flog the mint's extra gold inventory in secret. To - get this - one of those "We buy all of your used gold - no amount too large or too small" joints that advertise on late night cable channels. I hacked myself into a few emails as a discussion option, and incorporated myself as a cheap gold buyer the next day. Bought a few ads in throw-away tabloids and on cable to look legit. Hung out. Waited. The government showed up in no time!"

"Aaand?" I breathed.

"I drew up a contract they couldn't make head or tails of. Not that they ever make head or tails of anything," he snorted. "When the dust cleared, I had signatures on an airtight document assigning me fifteen million bucks in gold ingots and assorted refining scrap, purchased for the princely sum of thirty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents. Which, by the way, is actually about what most old gold places would have paid 'em. A buncha the backroom guys from the PMO are now so redfaced, all they wanna do is drop the whole story down a mine in Sudbury."

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta pack." Mister Sloppy looked dreamy. "Maybe Switzerland. The ice cream in Zurich is fabulous this time of year."

"So you're taking a well-deserved break from planning world domination?" I said, hopefully. I've had enough Pepto-Bismol moments lately already, with Mayor Larry back.

Mister Sloppy cast an austere blue eye at me. "Of course not! The Large Hadron Collider is there, too..."