Parisian Affair (2 page)

If his assumption was correct, he was looking
at jewels that, until this moment, he had been uncertain even
existed. They had sparked vicious rumors and whispered debates the
world over, elicited discreet and disparaging comments from members
of royal families in all of Europe, caused quarrels and rifts among
the cognoscenti of international high society.

'Oh,' she said, training her heartless gaze
on him, 'I forgot to mention one other detail. The emerald pendant
on the necklace must be sold separately. It mustn't be reset with
any of the other stones.' Although her statement was delivered in a
flat monotone, there was no mistaking that she was giving an
order.

'Of course, madame,' he said again. 'We'll be
glad to oblige your wishes as always.'

He never wore his jeweler's loupe around his
neck, thinking the practice common and beneath a professional of
his status, but now he wished he did. He would like nothing more
than to immediately snatch it up to begin a quick examination of
the emeralds, particularly the pendant on the necklace. Instead, he
took a deep breath and calmly slid open the desk drawer and slowly
took out the loupe as if performing a rite.

She was watching him, seemingly serene and
composed, her head held high, as if these were nothing more than
ordinary jewels that she'd brought in.
She's a very good
actress
, he thought
. Frightfully good. I would hate to be
her enemy.

'Lovely,' he said at last, looking down at
the emeralds.

She nodded slightly. 'Yes.'

Still betraying no excitement, he carefully
picked up the necklace and began examining its stones one by one,
deliberately beginning at the clasp rather than with the pendant.
He knew that if his suspicions about the jewelry's provenance were
correct, then it was the pendant where he would find his answer. He
took his time, looking at each of the stones through the loupe,
amazed by their perfection. There were no inclusions, cracks, or
other flaws, a rarity in emeralds, and the stones had not been
treated with oil, or otherwise, to enhance their color.

'Colombian,' he muttered as if to himself,
then looked up at her. 'The finest.'

She nodded again, a tight hint of a smile on
her darkly painted lips.

He focused on the necklace again, patiently
looking at the next stone. 'Important emeralds,' he said casually,
peering through the loupe, 'those of any historical importance, I
should say, came from Cleopatra's mines in Egypt.' He looked up at
her again and smiled. 'But of course you knew that.'

She nodded again, her expression unchanged.
Why doesn't the fool get on with it?
she thought.
Why
must he drag out this tedious process with his inane comments?
But it was part of the game, of course, and she knew that, too.

At last he moved the loupe to the pendant.
When he saw the one imperfection in the stone, his hands began to
quiver involuntarily, and he laid the loupe and the necklace down
on the desk hastily, hoping she hadn't seen his reaction. Tiny
beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he dabbed at
them with a crisp white linen handkerchief from the breast pocket
of his suit.

It is true,
he thought
, almost
faint with expectation. They do exist, and here they are. With
their one defining stone. In my possession
.

Levant was tempted to negotiate the purchase
price immediately. He knew without looking that the rest of the
emeralds would be flawless like these, but he also knew that he
should examine them regardless. The charade must be carried on till
the finish. Picking up his loupe, he forced himself to methodically
examine the bracelet, then each of the earrings, and finally the
brooch before setting it down on the
bureau plat
once more
and looking over at the woman.

Her large violet eyes returned his gaze
unflinchingly, as flinty a regard as he'd ever seen.
Perhaps
they were once beautiful,
he thought
, but living has made
them hard
.

'The stones are beautiful,' he said, smiling.
'Of that there is no doubt.' He cleared his throat. 'Did you have a
figure in mind?'

'Yes,' she replied. She opened the pocketbook
in her lap and drew out a folded piece of heavy ecru paper and
handed it to him.

Levant unfolded the piece of paper and looked
down at the figure.
She must have a mind like a calculator
,
he thought
, and she also knows her stones. She's even taken into
account the fact that they will be sold with no provenance
whatsoever. But then, he reminded himself, this is not her first
trip to me
. He looked back up at her. 'I think this is
acceptable,' he said. 'Shall we proceed as in the past?'

'That would be fine,' she said.

'Good,' he replied. 'I'll see to it first
thing in the morning. You should have the cash tomorrow afternoon
at the latest.'

'Very well,' she said. She closed her
pocketbook and shifted in her chair as she put her gloves back
on.

Levant quickly got up and went around to her
side of the bureau plat, then slid her chair out for her. She rose
to her feet and turned to him. '
Merci
, Monsieur Levant,' she
said, extending a gloved hand.

He took her fingertips in his, and in the
continental manner leaned over and made as if to kiss her hand,
careful not to touch it with his lips. 'It was a pleasure,' he
said. 'Anytime I can be of service.'

She withdrew her hand. 'I appreciate that,'
she said. 'Now I must go.'

She turned to the door, and he hurriedly
opened it for her. Then they walked down the hallway to the rear
exit.

'Au revoir,' he said, opening the steel door
for her.

She put her dark glasses on and pulled the
stiff little veil down over her face. 'Au revoir, Monsieur Levant,'
she responded, for she knew, as did he, that they were saying their
good-byes only for the present. They would meet again. The
world-famous lady went through the doorway and, heels
click-clacking on the cobbles once again, walked quickly away from
the shop.

Levant locked the door and for a moment stood
staring down the hallway without seeing anything.
If only I
could sell the emeralds as they are
, he thought sadly
, and
if only I could provide the provenance. They would be worth
millions of dollars
.

Ram hurried from the basement room where the
video monitors were housed, and closed and locked the door behind
him. Forgoing the elevator— Levant must not know he'd been down
there—Ram headed up the staircase to the ground floor. Leaping up
the steps two at a time, he rushed up the next flight to his
workroom. He sat down on the high stool at his worktable and tried
to look relaxed despite his excitement and wildly beating heart. He
took a few deep breaths to calm himself.

I can't believe it!
he thought. He had
heard the gossip about the jewels— everybody had, hadn't they?—but
he hadn't known what to believe. So many rumors swirled around the
departed woman that it was hard to separate truth from fiction. But
from what Ram had seen through the monitors, he was certain that
these were indeed the emeralds of legend.

He soon heard the whir of the elevator, then
the doors sliding open and Levant's footsteps in the hallway
outside his workroom. He bent over the intricate platinum setting
he'd been working on, waiting for his boss and mentor to
appear.

'Ram,' Levant said, coming into the room, the
red leather pouch in hand. He smiled at his twenty-year-old
protege, appreciative of his honey- toned Algerian handsomeness and
his dark eyes that flashed with vitality.

'Yes, sir,' Ram said, looking up at him.

'This is the reason I asked you to come in
today,' Levant said. He placed the pouch on Ram's worktable. 'I
have some important work for you to do immediately, so drop
whatever it is you're doing. I want the emeralds in this pouch'—he
tapped it lightly with his fingers—'taken out of their settings.
The settings must be cut up and melted down at once. They're too
ornate and old-fashioned to use nowadays. Put the emeralds in the
vault. All of them together.'

He paused momentarily, a thoughtful
expression on his face, then cleared his voice. 'On second thought,
keep the necklace pendant separate from the others. I think that
perhaps it will make a nice ring. We'll decide on new settings for
them this week. You can help me choose.'

'Yes, sir,' Ram said. 'I have some drawings
of new designs. Maybe you could have a look at them?'

Levant nodded. 'Yes, yes,' he said. 'Of
course, my boy. Tomorrow afternoon sometime. I have a little
business to take care of tomorrow morning and have to be gone.'

'Okay,' Ram said. 'I'll get started on the
settings right away.'

Levant went to the door, where he turned and
stopped. 'And Ram,' he said, 'don't mention your work today to
Solomon. I'd rather he didn't know anything about it.' He was
referring to his longtime assistant, an excellent repairer and gem
cutter and polisher.

'Of course not, sir,' Ram said.

Ram watched as Levant left. When he heard the
elevator doors slide shut, he opened the pouch and took the
emeralds out, then picked up his loupe and looked first at the
necklace pendant.

Exactly as I thought
.

He slid off his stool and went over to the
cabinet where he kept his camera. He got it out, then carefully
arranged the pieces of jewelry, adjusted the lighting, and began to
photograph them, both together and separately, from various angles,
and with various lenses, making certain that the gold settings were
clearly visible. When he was finally satisfied that he had the
shots he needed, he took the film out of the camera and put it in
his briefcase. After he removed the stones he would also photograph
the empty settings and the loose emeralds.

From another cabinet he took out one of the
shop's signature aubergine quilted suede pouches. When he was
finished with his work, he would place the intact gold settings in
the pouch, put it in his briefcase, and take it home with him.
There, in the tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment that Levant
provided for him, he would secret away the pouch. If Levant ever
asked to see the melted-down settings, Ram had an appropriately
sized lump of gold to show him. It was only one of many that he'd
made from the accumulation of gold that came from the shop's daily
vacuuming of the worktables. He'd taken a minuscule portion from
the tiny vacuum every day, squirreling it away for just this sort
of purpose.

Sitting at his stool again, he adjusted the
powerful lights and began removing the emeralds from their
settings, a simple but tedious task.
Levant will never know the
difference,
he thought
. No one will. And if I bide my
time
. . .

As he worked, his mind swirled with
possibilities. Thanks to Hannah Levant, the jeweler's wife, gone
two years now from breast cancer, he had started working at the
shop when he was only fifteen years old. Like her husband, she'd
been seduced by his dark handsomeness, his thirst for knowledge,
and his polite manners—all this after an initial confrontation that
held little promise for friendship, much less their virtual
adoption of him.

It had been late at night, and he had been
with Ahmed, a friend from the projects, when he first encountered
Hannah. He and Ahmed had been wielding cans of spray paint in the
quiet lane behind the jewelry shop, defacing the wall with lurid
red swastikas. When Hannah Levant stepped out of the door and
fearlessly faced him down, Ramtane Tadjer stood glued to the
cobbles, his legs unwilling to move, while Ahmed threw down his can
and ran away.

Hannah grabbed his forearm with a claw of a
hand and pulled him into the shop, where she sat him down and
lectured him at length about what he had so mindlessly done. He had
no idea what swastikas represented, he confessed. He'd only been
following Ahmed's lead. Touched by the seemingly genuine tears of
remorse that fell from his huge dark eyes, she had fallen for him
that evening. Eventually she and her husband had taken him in,
treating him as if he were the son they'd never had.

Five years had gone by since they'd rescued
him from the bleak, soulless high-rise housing project on the
outskirts of Paris known as les Bosquets. Inappropriately named,
the Copses was where many Algerian immigrants like his own
impoverished family lived. After he'd lived for weeks in a basement
room at the shop—a room he'd gladly made his own—they'd taken him
to a tiny apartment in the Marais district on the rue des Rosiers,
the heart of the old Jewish quarter. They had showered him with
clothing he'd only dreamed of, paid him well, and begun educating
him in the business from the ground up. They saw that he had time
to finish his secondary education.

At only twenty years of age, he had a
formidable knowledge of gemology, jewelry making and design, and
the business of buying and selling top-quality merchandise. Whether
working on the selling floor or in the workrooms, he had quickly
become an expert, absorbing everything they'd passed along, easing
into their world. He seemed born to it.

After Hannah's death, Levant promised him a
share in the business someday, but for Ram that someday couldn't
come soon enough. He had a ravenous craving for a magnificent
hotel particulier
like Levant's. It was very close to his
tiny fourth-floor walk-up in the Marais but might as well have been
a million miles away. He coveted the chauffeured Bentley that
carried Levant to and from the shop while he had to peddle a
secondhand bicycle. But more than anything else, he wanted to have
the power and status that were Levant's because of his position at
the pinnacle of the world of rarefied jewelry.