Stone 588 (12 page)

"And I'm not the Goodwill."

"Tell you what. Springer, take all your fucking goods and get out."

Darlene made an ugly mouth at Springer. She turned her hand over and the diamond fell to the glass surface of the table. It bounced off onto the carpet.

Springer gathered up the briefkes and put them into the leather case. He had trouble finding the diamond in the deep pile of the carpet, but finally it winked at him. He snapped his attache case shut.

"There are thousands of diamond dealers in this town," Seggerman said. "You just lost me."

"Up your ass with your diamonds," Darlene threw at Springer as he went out the door.

Springer walked east on 57th Street. The office workers were out. He could smell the pot. The scene he'd just been through kept repeating in his mind. If he had donated the diamond to Seggerman's hooker it would have taken the top off the transaction, at least twenty thousand of it. But what bothered him more was the way Seggerman had him measured, thinking he'd go for it, be that much of a bend-over. Springer told himself he'd done right, put it out of his mind.

He went over to Madison and down to 50th Street to the Helmsley Palace. In the luxurious apricot and silver sanctuary of the Trianon dining room he was led to a table deep in a comer where Dante Sebastian Raggio was waiting.

Danny Rags.

Eighteen years had changed him, of course. Maturity, as it does with many men, had improved his looks. The little lines of years, especially those that webbed from the outer corners of his eyes, gave him the attractiveness of experience. He was undoubtedly a man who would be difficult, if not impossible, to fool. And from his apparent physical strength, one not to fool with.

Those impressions were required. Ten years ago he had been moved into Just John's spot, operating out of the concession in the rear of the Empire Diamond Arcade. He did what his uncle had done, only more. The shylock-ing part alone now amounted to fifty million, and as a clearing house for swag twice that much came through him. The entire 47th Street area was his territory, and the only answering he had to do went into the ear of the top.

Danny and Springer, despite their different circles, had kept in touch. They had preserved with care the camaraderie of their younger years. Not once had Danny, though often tempted, offered Springer the in on a really good thing. (Such as the breakdown of a stolen necklace of a hundred and twenty-five unidentifiable, absolutely D-flawless carats that he could let Springer have for half the going price.) Also, as mutually agreed, they never met on the street, always at places where anyone who might know them both was less likely to be. Such as there at the Helmsley Palace.

No sooner was Springer seated at the table than a waiter placed a Dewar's and water in front of him, according to Danny's instructions.

Springer inquired after Danny's wife and kids. "The kids are fine. Nothing new with Camilla," Danny told him. His kids were seven and eight, both boys. They were enrolled in a private school in Rhode Island. Camilla was a handsome and quiet Italian woman who had known beforehand what she was marrying into. She shopped a lot at the Westchester branches of the leading department stores, made her own tomato sauce, and refused to hire a housekeeper to help keep up their ten-room New Rochelle home.

"How's Jake?" Danny asked.

"He's fine."

"And Audrey?" Danny put the tips of his fingers to his lips and threw Audrey a kiss wherever she might be. He had told Springer lightly that she was the only thing that could ever come between them.

"Audrey's okay," Springer said, understating.

"Marry her," Danny advised for at least the twentieth time. He raised his glass to drink to that and Springer noticed his meticulously manicured fingernails.

Danny Rags was living up to his name. A far cry from the raw youngster trying to be well dressed, he was now tastefully attired by Paul Stuart and F. R. Tripler & Co. That wasn't what he wore when on the job at the concession. There he was always in inexpensive black gabardine slacks that were a bit shiny and a white shirt with roUed-up sleeves. After this lunch he would go to the apartment he had on East 50th Street and change.

They ordered.

Springer should have been hungrier than the seafood salad he decided on. He hadn't had a substantial meal since Friday, the steak in New Milford.

"How about starting with some pate?"

"You go ahead."

"What's the matter?" Danny asked.

"Nothing." Springer didn't feel like recounting the Seggerman episode.

"Somebody giving you some shit?"

"No."

"Anybody gives you any shit let me know."

Springer nodded. For years he'd been hearing that from Danny.

Their table was isolated enough so they could talk easily without being overheard.

"What do you say we go down to AC," Danny said, "maybe some day next week. Play some dice. We'll take the chopper down. Bring Audrey."

"I'd like that."

Danny thought perhaps some inside street talk might bring Springer up out of it. He confided to Springer that the recent five million robbery of a dealer in colored stones had been a give-up: that is, the goods had been stolen with the dealer's knowledge and cooperation so he could collect insurance. The five million figure was inflated. What had been taken was closer to three. Some nice rubies, Danny said, evidently having seen.

He also told Springer in a conversational way that swifts—thieves — were now using the Social Register for their leads. It listed not only the names of the wealthy but their addresses and telephone numbers as well. A swift merely phoned in advance to determine if anyone was at home.

It seemed the time of random break-ins was over. Fences were now providing their teams of swifts with positive leads.

For instance, a doorman at a restaurant or hotel spots a woman loaded with "heavy flash." She's feeling secure, considering the circumstances, the public place, maybe her husband and others with her, a driver. The doorman, satisfied that the situation is right, jots down the license plate number of the car the woman departs in. He gives it to a fence. The fence gives it to a cop. The cop runs it through the Motor Vehicle Bureau and comes up with the name and address. For every such address the fence pays the cop a hundred dollars.

The fence gives the address to one of his teams. They keep watch on it until the time is right — like the next time the wealthy couple goes out and again she's wearing all that flash. When they come home they're met in the driveway or in the garage by the swifts. With guns. Sometimes, if she's wearing enough goods, the swifts just take that. Other times everyone goes into the house and the couple is offered a choice: Reveal where the goods are stashed, and nothing more will happen. The swifts will just take the goods and leave. Or, if the couple insists there are no goods and the swifts shake down the house and find there is, the couple will be killed for the lie. Naturally, the swifts impress the couple with how thoroughly they can turn a house inside out. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the couple, begrudgingly and gratefully, lead the way to the safe, the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, a Kotex box, or wherever.

Danny's talkativeness, lurid as it was, worked.

By the time dessert was presented. Springer had forgotten about Seggerman and was undecided on whether to go for the hot lemon mousse or the eight-layer bittersweet chocolate cake.

"He'll have both," Danny told the waiter.

At three o'clock Springer arrived back at his office. Five messages were on his desk. The top one was from Audrey. The receptionist had put quotes around it: "My place at four. "

From where Springer was sitting he could see Audrey's place, nine blocks up Fifth Avenue. The thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth floors of Trump Tower, comer apartment. Usually when he gazed up there he tried to picture what Audrey might be doing at that moment. Was she dressed, alone, reading, bathing, penduluming, popping Campfire marshmallows into her mouth, or perhaps at one of her windows looking his way and wondering about him? He had often thought of getting a telescope so he could phone and tell her to wave. He would have phoned her that moment but he knew she wouldn't be home.

Today was one of her work days.

She was in charge of dressing the windows at Bergdorf's, had been for nearly four years. She was almost certain she'd gotten the job on her own with her credentials of art classes taken at Wellesley supplemented by more practical courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology. But even if Libby's pull had gotten her hired, that no longer mattered. By now the store kept her on wholly for her ability, her sense of style.

Audrey took her Bergdorf windows seriously, the challenge of coming up with newer and newer ways to present Bergdorf merchandise to the sidewalkers. The windows of Bloomingdale's, Saks, and Bendel's were getting more outrageous by the month, but Audrey kept up. It was, for her, a perfect job. It didn't require full time and was enough of an accomplishment to satisfy those needs in her. After all, like Gloria Vanderbilt and Dina Merrill, she didn't have to do anything.

Springer's other four messages were from Joel Zimmer of the GIA laboratory. Springer phoned him. Zimmer wanted him to come down. Within the quarter hour Springer was with Zimmer in his cubicle-like work space, an inner sanctum where only the authorized were usually allowed. The stone Springer had left with Zimmer that morning was alone on the surface of the white, impervious-coated work counter.

"Where did you get that?" Zimmer asked.

"It came along with some other rough we bought," Springer told him, which was the truth, though omissive.

"You bought it as a diamond?"

"Yeah." Springer grinned. "I'm about to have it cut for Cartier's."

"Never."

Springer was self-conscious about how flawed the stone was. If he hadn't promised Janet, he would never in his life have put it before Zimmer's eyes.

"First thing I noticed," Zimmer said, "were all the flaws. They were enough to make me want to stop right there, but they also made me want to take a closer look." While he spoke Zimmer took up the stone and placed it on the viewing field of his Raman laser microprobe, a type of microscope especially suited for identifying the flaws in gemstones. It took a few moments to get the stone exactly situated and in focus. "How much do you know about flaws?" Zimmer asked.

"They cost me," Springer replied lightly.

"The flaws in this stone are, like most others, included crystals. Crystals that were formed inside the stone while the stone itself was being formed."

"That's why they're called inclusions. They're included. Right?"

"Forgive me for being too basic. Here, take a look."

Springer pressed his upper face to the ample, fitted eyepiece of the microprobe. Immediately it seemed to him that instead of looking into the stone he was viewing it from a distance of several feet.

Zimmer explained. "Notice that each of those included crystals, flaws, or whatever you care to call them are identical formations of the stone itself. Identical."

Springer saw what Zimmer meant. There were hundreds of included crystals within the stone. Some were extremely tiny, nearly indiscernible. All were in every detail exactly like the stone that contained them, even to the extent of having one tip missing. It was, Springer thought, as though he were looking into a solar system. He felt huge. It occurred to him that if he had magnification enough to view the interiors of those included crystals he would find the same duplication. Again and again.

It was fascinating.

Zimmer was saying, "Normally, included crystals have tension fissures around them, caused by their getting in the way during atomic growth. However, not in this stone. The inclusions in this stone are in there snug and neat, as though it's where they belong."

"So, it's an exception." Springer moved away from the microprobe. "A freak diamond."

"It's not a diamond."

"It's always been a diamond," Springer thought aloud.

"The specific gravity of diamond is three point fifty-two with very slight variance. Your stone is four point thirty-one. I measured three times."

"What other minerals fall in that range?"

"Adamite, witherite, a few others, but they don't come octahedral like this, not eight-sided." Zimmer rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of his first fingers, like a sleepy child. Then he blinked several times rapidly, as though that might dispel the strain. "Diamond," he went on, "is a poor conductor of electricity but an excellent conductor of heat. Actually, diamond conducts heat four times better than copper. Did you know that?"

"No."

"Your stone, when I applied fifteen hundred degrees of acetylene to it, didn't even warm up. However, when I touched it end to end with electrical terminals, the current flowed right through it. Just the opposite of diamond. What's more—" Zimmer removed the stone from the microprobe. From a drawer he brought out a device that resembled a ballpoint pen with a sharp diamond affixed to its tip. He scribbled the diamond harshly across one of the surfaces of Springer's stone. That should have caused deep scratch lines but the stone wasn't affected. "If diamond rates a ten on the Mohs' hardness scale, your stone is an eleven."

"Nothing's harder than diamond."

"Then it's a nothing."

"Okay," Springer said. "If it isn't a diamond, what is it?"

Zimmer dropped the stone into a small, self-sealing, clear plastic envelope, handed it to Springer. "My friend, I could bullshit you. If I needed to protect my reputation I could tell you this stone is some rare but useless mineral such as . . . romeite or whatever . . . and you'd probably never learn otherwise." Zimmer paused, sighed. "You ask me what it is. Well, partly because someday soon my wife will be getting those studs, I'll tell you straight." To be so baffled by a stone was painful for Zimmer. It showed as he admitted to Springer, "I don't know."

From the GIA laboratory Springer walked up Fifth Avenue to Trump Tower. Although along the way he stopped to watch an out-of-towner get taken for fifty dollars on the bottom of an upended cardboard Campbell Soup carton in a very smooth three-card monte game, and he also paused at Cartier's, Townsend's and Winston's to see what diamonds they were showing off, he arrived at Audrey's apartment at one minute to four.