Sweetie's Diamonds (35 page)

“Valentine is throwing a big party at his place.
 
I'm invited and I can bring a guest.
 
Wanna go?”

Diane smiled.
 
“You bet your ass.”

“There's just one other thing I want to know,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“What happened to the diamonds?”

Diane smiled wickedly.
 
“Oh yeah.
 
That was something else I wanted to ask you.
 
Do you know any good fences in this town?”

“W
hy the fuck did you have to kill him?” Valentine roared.
 

Emo Tuff shrugged.
 
“It seemed like the thing to do.
 
You know, he'd seen me.”

“Damn it, Emo, it just puts more heat on
her
.
 
The police are looking for her and that makes what we have to do riskier.
 
Wasn't there another way to find out where she was without knocking off her ex-husband?”

“I was trying to expedite things.
 
She wasn't listed and he was.
 
Look, I found her, I got the kid, you should be happy.”

Valentine fumed at his desk.
 
If Tuff weren't such a reliable enforcer, Valentine would have him canned.
 
But the guy had been with him since the beginning and taken care of most of the dirty work.
 
He had to keep Emo happy.

“All right, forget it,” Valentine said.
 
“When do you think she'll be here?”

“I can't imagine that she'll make as good time as we did.
 
She couldn't have driven straight through without stopping.
 
I wouldn't put her in LA until tomorrow at the earliest.”

Valentine stood and went to a window that faced the back of the mansion.
 
The staff was busy preparing for the party by decorating the tables beneath the tent and arranging flowerpots around the pool.
 
Men were setting up food and beverage centers at key locations around the property and portable toilets were being erected on one side of the house to accommodate the thousand-plus guests.
 

“How many are we expecting tonight?” Tuff asked.

“Too many.
 
I've brought in extra security.
 
Talk to Julio, he'll fill you in on everything.”

Julio was Head of Security at Paradise but he reported to Tuff.
 
For all intents and purposes, it was Emo Tuff who really ran the security operations but he usually had to be in a million places at once during a party.
 
Bouncers handled problem guests but Tuff had to step in occasionally.
 
He had received a reputation in the industry as a man no one should mess with at Valentine's parties.
 
Those outside of Erotica Selecta who knew him feared him and the Paradise staff steered clear of him.
 

“What about the kid?” Tuff asked.
 
“With all these people here tonight—”

“Don't worry about it,” Valentine replied.
 
“Keep him locked in his room.
 
We have security guys guarding the stairs on the first floor.
 
Floors two and three are always off limits to party guests, you know that.
 
Check on him a couple of times during the evening but otherwise leave him alone.
 
He doesn't exist.”

Tuff considered this.
 
“I'll have a guy posted outside his door, just in case.”

“Do what you want.
 
By the way, those jobs you did in New York and Chicago… everything taken care of with regard to our privacy?”

Tuff acted offended.
 
“What?
 
You doubt my work?
 
You think I'm gonna slip up after all these years?”

“Take it easy, Emo.
 
It was just a question.”

“Aaron, I wore my gloves, I cleaned up afterwards, and nobody saw me.
 
Those two old men were the only ones who got a look at my face and they sure ain't telling no tales.”

“I wonder how many diamonds are left?”

“From what the old man in Chicago told me, it sounded like she didn't sell them too many.
 
Unless she had ‘em fenced somewhere else.
 
I can't believe she'd go to the trouble.
 
She probably made enough dough off of one measly diamond to last quite a while.
 
I bet she still has over three-quarters of the entire lot.”

“Let's hope so.
 
What she's willing to give back and what she's willing to compensate me for will determine what happens to her and the kid.”

“You'd let her go?”

Valentine gave him a hard look.
 
“She won't be leaving California.”

“I figured.
 
And the boy?”

“I haven't made up my mind.
 
He's old enough to make trouble if we set him free.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Valentine rubbed his chin.
 
“I guess we should take care of him, too.
 
I'll leave that to you.
 
Make it quick and painless.
 
But as for
her
…”

“I read you loud and clear,” Tuff said.

D
arren Marshall buckled his seatbelt and took a look at the in-flight magazine that was in the seat pocket in front of him.
 
Thumbing through it, he wondered how writers got articles in it and if the pay was any good.
 
He never read the damn things.
 
Did anyone?
 
Marshall put the magazine back and settled back for the flight to Texas.
 
His flight was direct to El Paso and then he had to change planes and go to Midland-Odessa.
 
Looking at the area on a map, it appeared that there wasn't much to look at in West Texas.
 
The towns were few and far-between.
 
Garden City, his ultimate destination, had no airport and Midland-Odessa was the closest one.
 
He'd have to rent a car and drive what he estimated to be a little less than an hour.

Eric Gilliam's material was not as exciting as he had expected.
 
There were no shocking revelations there except the clue that Dana Barnett had lived in Garden City.
 
Angela had written in her diary that Dana once told her that Garden City had the “silliest” name for a town and that in actuality it was the “armpit of Texas.”
 
Marshall had to believe this was where Dana's aunt and uncle lived, the ones who raised Dana and her alleged twin sister.
 
Marshall intended to find them, and if they weren't alive, he meant to locate someone who had known them.
 
One way or another, he was going to track down the truth behind the twin sister business.
 

I'
m stuck in this room on the third floor of Aaron Valentine's mansion in California.
 
It's somewhere in a suburb called Woodland Hills.
 
I'm a prisoner and we're waiting until my Mom shows up.
 
I sure hope she gets here soon.
 
I'm going crazy in here.
 
I wish they'd let me out so I could walk around the place.
 
I'm getting tired of watching TV and playing games.
 

Last night Emo brought me my medicine, so that's good.
 
They're treating me all right.
 
No one has tried to hurt me.
 
The bed is comfortable and I slept pretty good.
 
The food sure is great.
 
For dinner last night they gave me steak and lobster.
 
I couldn't believe it.
 
I asked for chocolate cream pie for dessert and I got it.
 
I'm beginning to think that if I asked for monkey brains for dinner they'd find a way to give it to me.
 

But I still want to get out.
 
No one likes being a prisoner even if it's in a palace.
 
Through my window I've seen workers doing stuff outside and it looks like there's going to be a big party tonight.
 
I wish I could see the back yard and swimming pool.
 
I'd be able to signal someone.
 
But there's nothing down below my window but purple flowers.
 
Maybe someone will walk down there and I can drop a message to him.

I tore some pages out of my journal and wrote a bunch of notes.
 
They say, “David Boston is a prisoner upstairs on the third floor—Help!”
 
Maybe there will be a good breeze tonight and I can scatter them out the window.
 
Somebody is bound to see one.
 

I just noticed that one of the lenses on my glasses is scratched.
 
I can still see out of it but there's this weird line across my vision.
 
That's all I need.
 
My eyesight isn't very good to begin with.

It's lunchtime and I'm hungry.
 
I guess I'll punch the call button and ask for a hamburger or something.
 
Maybe a milkshake.
 

I'll write more later.

N
ick Belgrad lost Diane Boston when the Lexus had a blowout just as he crossed the state line into California.
 
Cursing his bad luck, he wasted precious time changing the flat and then driving the car to a garage to have the tire repaired.
 
She had gained a three-hour lead on him and by then she was in the heart of Los Angeles.
 
Belgrad couldn't remember ever losing a mark and wondered if it was a harbinger of things to come.
 

Once he was in the city, Belgrad checked into a hotel in Hollywood and took an afternoon nap for a couple of hours.
 
He hadn't slept much on the trip from Chicago so it was just the thing he needed to shake the cobwebs out of his brain.
 
Nevertheless he had a vivid recurring dream that was not particularly pleasant.
 
In it, he was back in Israel, twenty years ago, creeping up the old rickety staircase of a condemned building.
 
General Security Services had identified the three men squatting in an empty room on the top floor as Israeli traitors cooperating with Palestinian terrorists.
 
He had volunteered for the mission to take them out before the police could arrest them.
 
It was thought that the men deserved to be killed rather than go on trial and later be used as another excuse for Palestinians to protest imprisoning more radicals.
 

The scene was just as he remembered it.
 
Sunlight streamed through slats in the walls and he could hear the traffic on the main highway down below.
 
The snores of the men were audible half a flight below their floor.
 
Apparently the militants felt safer sleeping during the day and doing their notorious work at night.
 

Belgrad readied the gas-powered Galil ARM assault rifle and prepared to burst through the boarded door.
 
But unlike what had really happened, the men in the dream were ready for him.
 
As soon as he kicked in the door Belgrad was met by a barrage of gunfire from the traitors.
 
The bullets ripped into his body, knocking him back—

—and awake.
 
His body jerked abruptly, forcing him to sit up.
 
He almost expected to see blood on the front of his shirt but there was nothing.
 
He realized where he was and relaxed.
 

Belgrad got up, went into the bathroom, and splashed cold water on his face.
 
Normally when the dream occurred—nightmare, really—he felt disoriented and shaky afterwards.
 
This time, though, the adrenaline made him feel surprisingly rested.