Stone 588 (24 page)

Getting ready was always a pleasant part of it for Mal. He enjoyed being honed by anticipation, his intentions. He used a pair of round-ended scissors to snip hairs from his nostrils, tweezers to yank out a few wild white ones from his brows.

So far, he thought, he'd played it right with Marcie. The previous night he hadn't pushed for dinner and a longer evening. When Marcie first halfheartedly mentioned that she should be getting home, which was, of course, his cue, he had promptly paid the check and hailed a cab. On the way he implied that he was late for a business engagement, preempting the possibility of being asked up to her place for a drink. It was easy to see she was disappointed, had wanted more, a whole night of it. At the entrance to the high-rise apartment building where she lived she was reluctant to part, sat silent for a long moment giving him the chance to change his mind. She kissed him on the cheek, a bit lingeringly and close to the comer of his mouth, and when she went in, her walk, the sensual left-right undulation of it, was for his benefit.

She was really some piece of work.

Now, for her, he put on a fresh shirt and a new fifty-dollar tie he'd bought at Sulka while he was out for lunch. He took extra care with the tie because it was silk that would easily crease. Got it right first try, a perfectly shaped soft knot with both ends matching in length. He considered that significant.

Marcie was due at six. Ostensibly she was coming to the office so Mal could help her choose a small diamond. Indeed they would go through with that. There would be a show of diamonds. However, as agreed, afterward they would have dinner. Mal had made a reservation at La Cirque. In case she came too casually dressed he'd made a back-up reservation at Trastevere 84. Of the two places he preferred Trastevere 84 for this night. It was noisy, hurried, not conducive to bullshitting over coffee and snifters. Possibly they could be at his apartment or hers by ten at the latest. He was best early.

Phillip's office, Mal decided, was neater and more impressive than his own. Also more convenient because the safe was there. He went in and adjusted the Levelor blinds, reduced the intrusiveness of the city to a vague atmosphere. He sat in Phillip's swivel chair.

Twenty minutes to go.

He'd like it if Marcie showed up early. Not that he required any further emboldening from her. Short of coming right out and saying it, she couldn't have made it more obvious that she was obsessively attracted to older men. The way Mal saw her, this want was one that had probably ached her for some while and frightened her. He doubted she'd ever given in to it. It was going to be like having a virgin without all the pathos. There was so much to be done to her, so many ways to spoil and addict her.

At five to six Mal heard the outer door open and close. He went out to the receptionist's desk and through the small bulletproof window saw Marcie standing in the vestibule. The vestibule, a confined space, was part of the security system. Nearly all gem dealers in the district had the same sort of setup: an outer door off the corridor that could be freely entered, then the vestibule and a solid inner door. Unless the outer door was closed the inner door could not be opened; an electronic circuit prevented it. This would keep an armed thief from making a dash in from the corridor during the instant when both doors might be open. The inner door was kept electronically bolt-locked. A switch beneath the receptionist's desk released the bolt and allowed the door to be opened.

Mal reached down under the desk, pressed the switch.

A buzz, a click, and in came Marcie, smiling, complaining lightly. "Couldn't find a cab again. I gave up and hiked it."

"I could have called and had one sent to you."

A sigh. "I wonder if I'll ever learn to get around in this town."

"Just remember you're too pretty to chance riding the subways," Mal advised. An unoriginal line he'd used numerous times.

Marcie glanced around merely to familiarize herself with the surroundings. They went into Springer's office. "For some reason I imagined a lot of people would be bustling about," Marcie said.

"Not on a Friday afternoon in summer."

"I'll bet you're a marvelous boss."

"I can be."

Marcie sat in one of the client chairs in front of the desk and dropped her handbag on the floor beside her.

Mal was tight in the windpipe, he hyperventilated. His face and neck felt flushed. She, no doubt, was the cause. More radiant than his memory had pictured her. Today her hair was liberated. Straight, heavy, healthy hair, it reached nearly to her shoulders, had a swishing liveliness to it. Her dress was summery. Cotton in a pale, very becoming blue. A scooped-out neckline with a narrow, rounded collar framing it. Ample sleeves that puffed up at the shoulders and buttoned four times at the wrists. It was, Mal thought, the type of dress an English schoolgirl might wear on a barefoot scamper across a country field. To complete the illusion, all that was needed was a bonnet and some streaming ribbons.

"You don't mind being alone here with me, do you?" Mal asked.

"No," she replied, settling back.

"Are you sure?"

"My father always says we never really do anything we don't want to."

"I suppose you thought about not showing up."

"Well, I'm a shy person at heart—trying to not let it show, of course. It's hard for me to be as forward as I should be. That keeps me good but it also keeps me lonely. Isn't it strange how most people will admit almost anything except that they're shy?"

"You can admit anything to me."

"I feel that."

"Good. Shall we relax a while longer or look at the diamonds?"

Marcie shrugged.

Mal went to the safe, turned its handle, and swung the heavy door open. He knelt on one knee with his back to Marcie, pretended to be searching through the contents of the safe while he kept an eye on Marcie in a small strip of mirror inconspicuously attached to the wall there. Ordinarily, during a sale when Phillip left goods under consideration on his desk and went to the safe for others, the client was watched in that mirror. The switching of stones, a synthetic diamond for an identical real one, only took an instant and was not unheard of.

That, of course, was not Mal's reason for observing Marcie. He merely hoped to view her unaware. It was his theory that often a few seconds of such observation allowed him to know more of the craft and subtlety of a woman than he could ever gather face to face or even body to body.

Marcie, he saw, remained faithful to her impression. The only thing she did was pull back her cuff and glance at her watch, which Mal translated as an act of impatience in his favor.

From the safe he brought a small red leather case. He placed it on the desk and unsnapped it. In it were briefkes, about thirty, each letter coded in pencil on its upper right-hand corner.

"Let's see what we have here," Mal said. Actually he was familiar with every diamond in the case. They were his personal goods: some European cuts, stones extracted from old settings, and some bought from freelance thieves or fences along the street, some extra stones that had been thrown in to sweeten deals. He had accumulated them especially for such situations as this. Thought of them as his ammunition, called them that, and sometimes Linda or Phillip ribbed him good-naturedly about them. It never fazed him. The fact was, his ammunition seldom missed.

He riffled through the briefkes, selected one, and unfolded it. "What about this?"

Marcie pulled her chair up, placed her forearms on the edge of the desk, and leaned forward to see the diamond that lay crown up in a crease of the paper. Mal juggled the briefke to cause scintillations.

"How large is it?" Marcie asked.

"Close to a carat."

Marcie examined it intently. Mal surmised that in spite of her claim that diamonds were unimportant to her she was already warming to their fire. "Keep in mind," she said, "I only have so much to spend."

"How much?"

"Maybe five hundred."

Mal couldn't count the number of times he'd heard that from women. Why was it always five hundred? He folded the briefke, put it away, and chose another. In it was a fairly clean carat-and-a-quarter diamond with a visible yellowish cast. It had cost him three hundred.

"It's larger," Marcie said after looking at it, "but not as pretty as the other one. Sort of yellow, isn't it? Is yellow good?"

"You have sharp eyes." Mal folded that diamond away and again fingered through the file of briefkes. Doing his routine. "Oh!" he exclaimed as though having made a discovery. "Here's one for you!" He unfolded another briefke to expose a one-carat diamond that immediately welcomed the light with brilliant flares. He concentrated on Marcie's eyes, was sure he'd struck home. "That's beautiful," she said reverently and, after some silent appreciation, "I'm sure it costs more than I can afford."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't have it."

"What better reason?"

"I want you to have it." Mal thought she might cry. Her eyes looked watery. With a special pair of tweezers he picked up the diamond by its girdle. He took it around the desk to her. "Hold out your hand, fingers together."

She extended her left hand, palm down, and he placed the diamond in the crease between her second and ring fingers. She moved her hand about, admiring the diamond, evidently very taken with it. "It's really a good one, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Not too large and not too small. It really doesn't make my hand look greedy."

"It's yours."

"For how much?"

"From me to you."

She got him eyes to eyes, dead serious but tender. "Mal, I'm touched, I truly am, but I didn't come up here for you to give me a diamond. It's important to me that you know that."

"Okay." Mal still didn't believe it.

"Now tell me the price."

"A thousand," he said offhand.

"Honestly?"

"Yeah, an even thousand, no tax." The diamond was worth five thousand. It was the best of his ammunition. A throw-in with a lot he'd bought for the firm only six months ago. It was, now that he thought of it, miraculous that he'd been able to keep it this long.

Marcie placed the diamond in its briefke and reached for her purse. She took out a white business-size envelope and, from that, ten one-hundred-dollar bills. She counted them out on the comer of the desk. "I went to the bank this afternoon," she said. "I was uneasy carrying this much cash around."

Mal was at a loss for what to say. It had never gone like this.

Marcie must have sensed it. She remained seated, held her hand out to him. He took it. "The diamond was one thing," she said, "you and I are another." She drew him to her, wrapped her arms around his hips, placed her cheek against his abdomen. A tight hug. There was at that moment a duality to her. It was little-girl-like the way she was hugging him, and at the same time he half expected she would unzip his fly and go down on him.

Finally she let loose and offered up her face. He lowered his to hers. His hand went beneath her hair to the back of her neck. He tried to kiss her tenderly but she wouldn't have it. His lips were at once encircled by the openness of hers. Her tongue pried and probed in. It was a long kiss that released and resumed again and again, causing Mal's back to strain stiff, bringing him to his knees before her.

She cupped his face with her hands. "Do we have to bother with dinner?" she asked, breathless.

"No."

"I'll tidy myself up and we'll go." She stood. "Is there a washroom?"

He told her where it was and she went out to it, leaving him on the floor. He felt incapable of moving. The swiftness and intensity of it had him erotically paralyzed. His senses were confused, some sharpened, some dulled. His ears felt plugged. That was why it didn't immediately register that he was hearing the outer door being opened and closed. He jumped up and rushed from Phillip's office.

Marcie was at the receptionist's desk, her hand beneath it.

A buzz, a click, and in they came.

Two of them.

They both had guns.

Air France Concorde Flight 001 touched down at Kennedy International Airport at 8:45 a.m.

According to Springer's watch, that was two and a quarter hours earlier than it had taken off from Paris DeGaulle. When he mentioned the fact to Audrey she remarked that to that extent their lives and therefore their love had been extended.

Their long weekend in Normandy had been a lazy, voluptuous disappearance. Out of touch with everyone but one another from early Friday to Sunday late. They stayed at an inn that was once a watermill a few kilometers from the painful-sounding village of Conches-en-Ouche. Around there they were brought to earth by bony-hipped black-and-white cows that returned their regard with bewildered wisdom. They also lay on the warm painted boards of a flat-bottomed boat, calmly floated the river Rouloir, and pretended for an hour that they were married by having a foolish spat. They walked the high grasses in the orchards in the daytime so they would know their way at night.

Now it was another land.

Cruel chrome and restrictions.

It took them an hour to pass through customs and forty minutes more to get into town. Audrey had a change of windows scheduled, would stop at her apartment for only a moment before going on to Bergdorf's. Springer went straight to his office.

It was like plunging into unexpectedly cold water. A finger print specialist from Midtown North Precinct was there blowing dust onto all the likely places, making a mess. The detective assigned to the case was moving about passively as though the circumstances and its setting were routine. Springer knew the detective by sight but not by name, had seen him around the street. The card he now gave to Springer said he was Dennis Fahey. He was less than medium height and not athletic looking. Too many complimentary meals prevented him from being able to button the jacket of his wrinkle-proof suit. Fahey had seen it all when it came to the diamond district. From cowboys firing silenced .22 calibers into the ears of gem dealers in the middle of the day to the apes with grappling hooks and ropes who, twelve stories up, swung from rusty fire escape to rusty fire escape across a forty-foot-wide airshaft to gain access to the rear of the 47th Street buildings in the middle of the night—especially on Jewish holidays.