Relative Danger (5 page)

Doug looked at the back of his left hand as he held up the picture. “It would make one impressive engagement ring.”

“It’s too big for a ring, really, but you’re right, it would be impressive.”

“So what would your grandfather do with it if he had it?”

Aisha shrugged her shoulders. “Knowing my grandfather? He’d keep it in a desk drawer and look at it about once a year.”

“Is that what you’d do, stick it in a desk drawer?” he asked.

“I’m a bad person to ask. It’s beautiful, but that’s not what interests me. Really, it’s the history. Someday I’d like to publish the definitive biography on that stone. I think it’s just fascinating. So what would I do with it?” She re-filed the photo and straightened the papers in the folder. Doug stared at her hands and then past her hands, past the folder, to her legs, wrapped in those tight, black jeans. She bounced her knees slightly as she slid the pages back in place. Doug’s gaze wandered off her knees and up her thighs.

“What would you do with it if you got your hands on it?” she asked.

“Hands on what?”

“Hello!…the diamond. What would you do with it if you had it?”

Doug thought about it for a moment and then sighed. “I really don’t know. I mean, yeah, I’d sell it, but like you said, to who? I don’t know any fences and I doubt that the local jeweler would be interested. I’m assuming that if you split the diamond up….”

“Cut the diamond,” she corrected him. “You cut a diamond, and pray to God you don’t split it.”

“Whatever. I assume it would lose much of its value.”

“One hundred percent of its historical value, that’s for sure,” Aisha said. “You’d probably end up making more money, though. Like I said, who can afford it but sultans and emperors? Not a lot of those left. You’d still have to find someone who could cut this rock without damaging it. But, yes, smaller, one carat diamonds are much easier to sell. You’d make a couple of million quite easily.”

“I could deal with a couple million,” Doug Pearce said.

“And I could do with a couple more,” Aisha said as she stood up to replace the folder. Doug watched her walk back to the bookshelf. Did she sense him watching or did she always move her ass like that, he wondered.

“Assuming you got a hold of the diamond,” she said over her shoulder, “you’d still have a little problem with the rightful owner.”

“Come on, he couldn’t still have a claim to it, after all these years, could he?”

“His estate—he died in the Thirties—has a very active claim on the diamond. In many cases, international art theft, as you probably know….”

No I don’t, he thought.

“…has no statute of limitations. The rightful owner has claim to it in perpetuity.” She replaced the notebook and walked over to the computer. Doug couldn’t see what she was doing but the hidden speakers started playing some soft, Arabic sounding music. “If you found the diamond you’d either have to sell it on the black market to someone who would keep the purchase quiet, meaning you’d have to sell it for a fraction of what it’s worth. A tiny fraction. Or,” she said, adjusting the volume on the screen, “you’d have to have an excellent diamond cutter—who’d be willing to work illegally, of course—cut the stone so it couldn’t be traced. But then there goes the diamond’s real value.”

“So no matter what I do,” Doug said, “I’m going to lose a fortune. I’ll try to keep that in mind when I find the diamond.”

Aisha smiled as she looked over at Doug, the soft blue light of the computer screen tinting her white tee shirt. “Ah, the truth comes out. You’re after
Al Ainab
.”

“I guess,” Doug said, “but I’m just as interested in what happened to my uncle.”

Aisha walked back to the couch and stood, leaning one knee on the coffee table, her hands on her hips. “
Just
as interested? Millions of dollars interested?”

“Alright. The more I know about the jewel the more interested I become. But realistically,” he said, looking up at her as she posed—and it was definitely a pose—“what am I more likely to find? The solution to a fifty-year-old murder or a million-dollar grape?”

“Is neither an option?” Aisha said, tilting her head to the side as she said it.

“Neither is a possibility. More likely a probability.” Most likely, he thought, a certainty.

“Enough diamond talk for now. You get me started on that topic and I’ll never let you go. So, is this an all-business trip or can you squeeze in some tourist activities?”

“I definitely have time for that.” Choose your words carefully now Dougie, he thought. “Do you know anyone who could show me around?”

“Come on,” she said, reaching for a purse on the back of the leather chair, “I’ll give you a lift back to the city. It’ll give me a chance to tell you all about my special ‘First Time to Casablanca’ package tour.”

Chapter 6

“I hope you are no judge of wines,” Sergei Nikolaisen said as one of the swarm of waiters filled their glasses. “With Moroccan wines it’s best to be ignorant. Less painful.”

“Well then this will be quite painless.” Doug sipped the wine. As he predicted, it tasted fine to him.

“The wine industry here is not so young as you’d expect but even the French cannot beg a decent vintage from this soil. I can order a bottle of French wine if you’d prefer? No? Fine then, we’ll go native. And, if you don’t mind,” he motioned for the maitre d’, “I’ll have the chef put together something special for us.”

A relay of waiters spent ten minutes arranging various plates, bowls, and covered dishes with the unstated goal of filling every open space on the table with some food item. Sergei explained what each dish contained and warned Doug which spices to avoid. Sergei kept the conversation light as they ate, and it wasn’t until after the train of waiters had cleared away their display and they were sipping the French port forced on them by the owner that he asked Doug about his trip.

“Like I said, it’s a favor for a friend. She wants me to look up some of her old friends and pick up a couple of gifts. Nothing important.”

“Well don’t let the touts hear you say that. They’ll have you off to their ‘uncle’s shop’ pricing second rate carpets before you know what hit you,” Sergei said. “I’d offer to help but I doubt that your friends and mine run in the same circles. I’m not a jet-setter like yourself.”

Doug smiled. “I have to admit this is only my second international trip. I’m not as jet-set as you think.”

Sergei Nikolaisen nodded his head. “You pull it off admirably, young man.” It was a compliment and an exaggeration and Doug knew it.

“And you? I’d guess it’s not tourism that brings you here.”

“You’d guess correctly. I was recently retired from the Berlin Art Museum. Of course they called it a well-earned respite from a lifetime of service,” he said, holding up his glass in mock salute, “and instead of the gold watch gave me a title.
Curator emeritus
. The end result was the same, I suppose—put out to the proverbial pasture. And I’d like to think many years before my time. Anyway,” he said, his hand making a slight wave in front of his face as if to blow away a bad smell, “I had traveled here and there scouting interesting little items for their collections and, as sort of a farewell tour, the trustees decided to send me to a few places I still had living contacts. They gave me a modest budget and an even more modest honorarium and told me to bring back some treasures. Considering the size of the budget I hope they will be happy with souvenir tee shirts.”

“So who do you know in Casablanca?” Doug asked. “Maybe you’d know some of the people I’m looking for.”

Sergei Nikolaisen laughed as he leaned back in his chair. “Douglas, my friends are all gray and dusty. Museum officials and collectors. Even I find them an insufferable lot. They are certainly not the type of people to arouse the interest of old friends across the seas.”

“But you’re here, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, still laughing, “and doesn’t that say something sad about me?”

Doug poured himself another glass of port. Port, he decided, was a lot like whiskey and that was all right by him. “In all your travels did you ever hear much about jewels?”

“But of course. Would you?” he said, holding out his glass. “While the museum trade is mostly in historical artifacts and the occasional gold coin, we did get offers now and then for gems and the like.”

“Ever hear of
Al Ainab
, the Grape?”

Sergei Nikolaisen pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. “No,” he said, drawing the word out, as if waiting for the memory to rush back and cut him off, “I don’t think I have. Is it a ruby then?”

“I was told it was a very famous red diamond.”

“A red diamond? Are you sure? There are few of those, you know. Could it have been a red sapphire?”

“No, it was a diamond. I was told it was stolen here in Casablanca back in 1948.”

“Oh
that
diamond! Of course I heard of that,” Sergei said, leaning back in his chair. “But what did you call it? The grape? How did you come up with that name?”

“I was told it was an old treasure from some king in Baghdad and Akbar had it and it may have been in China, too, and Africa. What’s so funny?”

“Oh Douglas, please don’t think me rude, but someone has been pulling your leg.” Sergei put his hand up to cover his smile, yet he continued to chuckle into his palm.

“You mean there is no red diamond?”

“There is definitely a red diamond, Douglas, but I’m afraid it does not have the colorful history of your grape. The diamond you are referring to was discovered in a wadi, a dry riverbed, in South Africa around 1910. It was called, simply, the Jagersfontien Diamond, after the closest town, and maybe that’s not such a simple name but it wasn’t called anything so,” he paused, looking for the right word, “so
romantic
. But it was big, something like eighty carats, if I recall.”

Doug ran his tongue across the back of his teeth. The port and the wine were making his upper lip feel numb. He was thinking about Aisha and the file.

“And indeed it was stolen here in Casablanca,” Sergei Nikolaisen continued. “It was a bloody affair, a real mess. Three, four people killed rather brutally. Butchered, really. One of my old friends here in Casablanca is a retired police captain. He worked that case. He said that there was so much blood….” He paused and looked up at Doug. “Anyway, it was a rather unpleasant affair.”

Doug sighed. He drained his glass and was debating whether it would be rude to polish off the bottle. He decided to be rude and poured another. “I suppose,” he finally said, “that they never caught the thieves?”

“From what I recall you are correct. I’m afraid I don’t know much more than what I’ve told you…. There was a problem with the insurance claim, some nonsense about Nazi soldiers hiding in the Atlas Mountains, and of course the story of how it went on to Egypt—another bloody tale.” Sergei looked across the table at Doug. He waited an uncomfortable minute before he said, “The thieves were not good people, Douglas. I do hope that they are not in any way related to your friend.”

So do I, thought Doug.

***

Three cups of Turkish coffee—tiny little things with a black sandy sludge on the bottom—counterbalanced the alcohol so Doug was awake when Edna’s call was forwarded to his room. “I’m sorry if I’m calling too late, it’s eleven p.m. here so it’s, what, two there? I just haven’t heard a word from you and I was nervous.”

“Yeah, I should have called,” and he knew he should have, too, “but I just wanted to wait until I could tell you something besides a weather report. I’m sorry, I mean you’re paying for all of this and the least I could have done was call.”

“Don’t worry about the money, that’s not important, I thought I made that clear. As long as you’re safe….” Her voice trailed off and Douglas thought for a moment he was talking to his mother.

“I’ve made some progress. There was a large red diamond stolen here back in forty-eight. I’m getting different stories from my sources and I’m not sure yet which source is most reliable, but I’m going to do some background work tomorrow, try to get to the truth.” Doug was aware that he was sounding like a movie detective, but how was he supposed to report? Tell her everything, down to the way Aisha looked in the white tee shirt and black jeans, not sweating in the ninety-degree heat of the shade? No, follow the role models, even if it did sound strange coming from him.

“Were my notes of any help? Did you find everything?”

“It’s interesting reading. I could have sworn, though, that you said you had a plan.”

“What do you mean? Of course I have a plan.”

“All you sent me was a list of names and a general idea of what my uncle and Charley were doing at the time.”

“Well what did you expect, Douglas, a step-by-step map? Follow your leads, ask some questions, and we’ll see what turns up.”

“I’m not a detective.”

“Oh that’s obvious,” she said. Doug thought he heard her laugh.

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. I’ll ask around, maybe somebody will know something, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Of course not, Douglas. But you’re a bright man, I’m sure you could piece things together as well as a detective.”

“Do you actually know any detectives, Edna?”

“I’ve run into a few over the years and I wasn’t impressed with what I saw. Any idiot could do their jobs. You should have no trouble.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Just snoop around and we’ll see what you turn up. So,” she said, “about those notes I sent you.”

“I can see why my family avoided the guy.”

“They just didn’t know him. He was a real sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart? Let’s see, he stole from his friends, smuggled drugs, was involved in a crime where someone was killed….”

“True. But he was also a lot of fun.”

“And his friend Charley? Quite the ladies’ man.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” Edna said, “but yes, Charley did chase the women back then.”

“They were quite a pair, I guess.”

“Yes, quite a pair,” she said. “Now, what did you find so far? Did you visit the places I suggested?”

“Yeah, at first. Some were helpful. Listen, do you remember the guy named Mr. Ahmed?”

“Of course, he was the first name I gave you, a real dear. Did you find him at the café? How’s he holding up? Oh, I wish I could have seen the look on his face.”

Doug drew in a deep breath. “Look, Edna, I don’t know how to say this but Mr. Ahmed is dead. He was hit by a car the day I spoke with him. I’m sorry.”

There was a long pause before Edna said, “I see. Thank you.” There was another, longer, pause before she continued. “Did he remember Russ and Charley?”

“He did, but we didn’t get a chance to talk. We were going to meet at the café today.”

“Oh Lord,” she said into the phone. “Do you think your visit and his death are related? No, never mind, that’s a silly question, of course they’re related. Douglas, are you sure you’re all right? I mean if you want to come back, I understand.”

Yes, book me a flight home, get me the hell outta here, I want to sleep through a night without the prayer call blasting me out of bed, I want to hear English, drink a Odenbach beer, hang out with the guys, get my job back, eat food I can pronounce, avoid homicidal drivers, and quit chasing the killer of a lousy bastard who probably deserved it anyway. “No, I’m fine, really. Things are going well here and I feel like I’m making progress. I’m meeting again tomorrow with my main source and I should know better then where this is going. It appears the jewel left here for Cairo. If my leads indicate that’s what happened, do you want me to go there and have a look around?”

“Douglas, you are amazing. That’s exactly where Russ and Charley went after Casablanca. I didn’t say anything to you because I didn’t want to influence your investigation.”

My
investigation
, he thought.

“Yes, yes of course that’s what I’d like you to do,” she continued. “If you want to. If I don’t hear from you tomorrow I’ll call back to the concierge of the hotel. I’ll take care of everything. If you need anything, just ask him. And Douglas?” She paused. “Thank you.”