Stone 588 (32 page)

"No problem."

"The impression I get is you're much more ambitious than Townsend and, God knows, more attractive to deal with." She paused, reminded of another consideration. "Although I must say Townsend does come up with some lovely things." Her tone was ambiguously edged. "Let me show you. . . ."

Out they came. From drawer after drawer. So many, so swiftly, that Springer couldn't adequately take them all in. No sooner had she placed one in his hands than it was replaced by another equally dazzling.

A diamond necklace that had belonged to Empress Eugenie. Another that had belonged to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and another once owned by Princess Marie Louise. Tiaras, diadems, bracelets, brooches that had belonged to this or that grand duchess, this or that Hapsburg, one princess or another. There were pieces that had adorned the necks or wrists or hands or ears of Du Barry and de Pompadour, Consuelo Vanderbilt, the Duchess of Marlborough, Elizabeth Morgan, Sarah Whitney, Caroline Astor, Marian Davies, Mary Pickford, Paola Negri, Wallis Windsor: Libby chanted off the names of the famous former owners with nearly an auctioneer's rapidity. She knew each piece well. There was no doubt in her mind which had belonged to whom.

Springer was astounded by the precious jewels that shot before his eyes, a veritable deluge. While being shown some Czarist bibelots that would have put La Vieille Russe to shame, he asked, "Doesn't keeping all these things here in the house make you a bit nervous?"

Libby scoffed. "They're perfectly safe here. And a hell of a lot more convenient. If I kept them somewhere in bank deposit boxes I know I wouldn't wear them nearly as much. Certainly I wouldn't get to play with them as often. No, I feel they're safe. I have an alarm system and enough people here to form a cordon around the place if it ever came to that. Quite capable people, and very loyal, I should add."

Springer wondered how she knew they were capable, as she put it, and why she was so confident that they were loyal.

Perhaps she sensed his doubt. "Wintersgill finds my people for me," she said, "recruits them and screens them intensively." She placed a necklace that she'd said had belonged to the Duchesse de Noailles back into its fitted leather box and its drawer and told Springer, "Naturally, I'm not one to flaunt. I don't allow just anyone down here."

Springer held back telling her he knew the psychology of jewelry — 90 or more percent of the joy of owning it was letting people know you did.

"Is it possible that I might induce you to stay for dinner?" Libby asked.

"I'm meeting Audrey."

"Sometimes impetuousness can be very rewarding," she said predictably.

Even if Springer had been more strongly tempted he wouldn't have stayed. Danny had phoned him yesterday late and arranged a meeting for tonight, had been very cryptic about it, wouldn't say why. Only rarely did Springer and Danny see one another on weekends.

Libby waved her hands before her face, dismissing disappointment as though she were shooing away gnats. For a further countermeasure she dug into one of the drawers and came out with a small cobalt-blue enameled gold box, edged with a crust of diamonds and diamond-monogrammed with an R. Unmistakably a Faberge creation for Czar Nicolas II.

"When and if you get your precious little stone back," she said, handing him the Faberge, "this should be nice to keep it in."

On the return trip from Libby's, Groat was surprised when Springer told him he wanted to be left off at Arthur Avenue.

Springer was surprised when Groat, without consulting a street map or asking directions, took him right to it.

Arthur Avenue is the aorta of an Italian section in the mazed heart of the Bronx. A short unimportant-looking street, actually. About three blocks of it is commercial, store next to store, and it is here that the bosses and underbosses in the churchlike hierarchy of the Mafia come to replenish their larders. From their large, illicitly earned houses in Larchmont or New Rochelle or Orient Point they come (usually on Saturdays) to confidently leave the keys in their double-parked cars while they get the real romanos and provolones, veal and sausage as it should be, olives authenticated by the stenciled wooden banels they're ladled out of, and olive oil that makes those sold at Grand Union taste like something better used in an old engine. Too, here, only here, the bread of all breads can be bought, crackly crusted, sprinkled with sesame. And always a few evocative anise-spiced cookies to munch on the way home.

The larders of their egos also get replenished on Arthur Avenue. Elsewhere these family executives are mere successful businessmen. Here, however, the way is parted for them. The sidewalks are water to be walked upon. They exaggerate their heights, float their heads, and fix their mouths with a smile of proper friendly disdain. For Sicilianos gathered in front of the fish store, seated there on empty milk crates. And the Neapolitanos down the way in their place, close up to a store that sells produce. Each group maintaining the understood distance from the other, and each wondering if this will be one of those times when a capo's nod will be conferred.

"He tipped his hat"

"He wasn 't wearing a hat"

"With his eyes he tipped his hat"

"It was to me that he did it"

"Why only you?"

"I was not always a fucking shoemaker." Said with mystery and a hard mouth.

Thus, Arthur Avenue in its own way is consecrated. Borne out by the fact that it has the lowest incidence of crime of any neighborhood in the city.

Springer got out of the Daimler on Arthur Avenue and by only an inch missed stepping on a glob of rotting tomato. He leaped over a pool of milky, detergented water to gain the curb and went into the Vesuvio Restaurant.

It wasn't a cozy place. About forty white cloth-covered tables. On a ledge along each side were plaster quarter-scale copies of classical Italian statues. Almost nudes. The walls were hung with Italian townscapes oil-painted straight out of the tubes. The lighting was indecisive, neither dim nor bright enough. Hardly anyone was there at that early hour. Waiters outnumbered customers. The waiters stood in the back, anticipating the tips of Saturday night, fresh white napkins on their forearms.

Danny and Audrey were at a table for four midway along the wall on the right. They didn't notice Springer enter. Audrey was listening intently to whatever Danny was saying. Springer got a possessive welcoming peck of a kiss from her. He and Danny were beyond shaking hands.

Danny ordered a drink for Springer.

Audrey urged Danny to go on with what he'd been telling her. When Danny didn't, Springer guessed it had been a story he'd already heard that Danny was self-conscious about repeating. Must have been that because Danny went on to a different one.

He told about two swifts who hit a mansion over in Jersey, Short Hills or Far Hills or one of those Hills over there. A really big, luxurious house. The people, who weren't at home, were obviously rich but there was no flash lying around the way there should have been, on the dresser tops and places like that. Also, there was nothing worth stealing in any of the drawers or anywhere. It didn't figure. Then one of the swifts comes across a safe in the back of a closet in the master bedroom. Not a built-in safe but a regular heavy little bastard. About a five-hundred-pounder.

Anyway, the swifts hadn't come prepared for it, and the safe seems to know that, the way it stands there among the two-thousand-dollar dresses like it's enjoying the situation. The swifts figure since they found nothing anywhere else in this fat house, everything has to be in the safe. It has to be loaded with jewels and a lot of cash.

They can't pass it. They decide to take the safe—with them. They heave and shove it along inch by inch. It takes them an hour just to get it out to the second-floor landing. They let it go crashing down the stairs. Three hours it takes them to get it across the lawn and into their van. Their shins are bleeding, their toes and fingers are mashed, they've thrown their backs out— but it's in the van, and pretty soon it's in the garage at the house of one of the swifts.

It doesn't seem so smug anymore, the safe doesn't. For one thing, it's standing on its head. Like most safes of that kind it's got an easy bottom, just skin and concrete, and that's where the swifts cut and peel it and chip it open.

Inside the safe is — you guessed it—nothing. It doesn't even have dust in it. If either of the swifts was alone he'd cry. Not only because after breaking their balls they've come up empty—now they've got to get rid of the safe, and that means more sweating and struggling with it.

That night they're dumping the safe in a ditch somewhere up in Putnam County. A state trooper comes along and nails them. No way can they explain the safe. It gets identified. For breaking and entering they each pull down three to five in Trenton.

"The safe won," Audrey remarked.

"It was a lock," Danny punned in street talk, meaning it couldn't lose. A line he'd probably used before to cap the story he'd just told. Springer thought.

Danny was up and smoother, as he usually was when in Audrey's company. Part of it was his male Italian disposition responding to her, his need to erotically overstate and let her know how close he was to being helplessly aroused. He was mindful, of course, to keep his wooing oblique; nevertheless, there were instances when it seemed he was only a breath away from being direct.

The other part of it for Danny was his reaction to who Audrey was, the element she represented. It was in her hemisphere, so evidently removed from his own, that Danny believed the better things were simply the way of life. Just being in Audrey's presence elevated him. Anyway, it was closer to the upper league than his kind usually got.

Audrey found Danny fascinating for the same reasons in reverse.

Springer, because he knew them both so well, just sat back and let them play at it.

Danny ordered dinner. This was his territory, he knew what was best. He also knew quite a few of the people who came into the restaurant, especially the men in mohair suits who took off their jackets and with dandyish care hung them over the shoulders of their chairs, the ones who looked like they'd just come from their barbers. Most were made guys on the same level as Danny. He acknowledged them casually. A few others he greeted with an almost grim respect.

Once during dinner Danny excused himself and went over to speak with an older man, alone at a table, who was taking his food seriously, sort of growling at it before it went down into him. A man with a heavily creased face, wearing a short-sleeved summer-weight white shirt with his undershirt showing through.

Just John.

Springer almost didn't recognize him.

Crime sure ages, Springer thought.

It wasn't until after dinner over anisette and espresso that Danny got around to the other than social reason for this meeting. He moved his chair sideways to the table so he could cross one knee over the other and be closer to Springer without having to lean to him.

"I was wrong," he told Springer.

"Yeah?"

"Your goods."

"Someone brought them in to you."

"No, the whole package went to one party."

"A private?"

"Someone in the trade."

"You know who?"

Danny nodded.

"Then who?"

Danny hesitated. "I won't be doing myself a favor by telling you . and I don't think it'll be doing you any good either."

"So why even mention it to me?"

"You've got to understand. I do business with this guy off and on. For years we've been doing business."

Springer twisted a sliver of lemon peel above the surface of his espresso, saw the blue oily film it made, stirred it away with a little spoon. He glanced around indifferently as though he'd already dropped the subject. He knew the best way to press Danny was to not press him.

Danny again heavy-lidded his eyes at Audrey. She winked at him to defuse him. He got back to Springer, told him, "Townsend."

"You're shitting me."

"No."

"The same man by that name that I know?"

"He goes for swag now and then."

"The fuck."

"Just one of many," Danny said. "Actually he goes for swag more often than now and then."

Springer wouldn't have been nearly as surprised had the goods not been his own. Nor as angry if the buyer had been anyone other than Townsend. He reminded himself that Townsend had no way of knowing the swag he'd bought was from Springer & Springer. Thieves never said, buyers never asked. Townsend wouldn't know. Goods were goods. Swag was swag.

Except . . .

Except for that one stone, stone 588. The one Springer so desperately wanted back. Townsend had seen it. That night at Libby's he'd had a good look at it, would recognize it the moment he saw it again. Sure, Townsend would see it and know exactly whose stolen goods he'd bought. He had seen Libby's hands, seen what the stone could do. No matter how much he doubted that part, he couldn't dismiss it entirely. Too much in it for him if the stone wasn't bullshit. Townsend would find a way of proving it out. Then he'd offer it to the highest bidder. Just that afternoon Libby had seriously said she would have paid a hundred million for it. Someone else might make it two hundred million.

What irony.

A dirty diamond that wasn't a diamond, a stone The System had forced on Springer's father as punishment, that his father had probably come close to throwing away in disgust, probably would have if there hadn't been a tax advantage in keeping it in the inventory, that his father had drawn hardening caution from each day when it lay in that little silver tray on his dresser top among mere collar stays—now, as it turned out, point for point, carat for carat, it was by far the most precious thing in the world.

A measure of that. Springer thought, was how much he himself now needed it for Jake.

Perhaps, Springer wildly suggested to himself, he could go see Townsend. Appeal to him. Come right out and tell him why he had to have stone 588 for a few hours. Promise him whatever it took. Leave a million cash deposit. Even pay him a million just to rent it for that long. Townsend, of course, would simply deny any knowledge of the stone, act offended.