Stone 588 (30 page)

"Surround yourself with healing white light . . ." Mattie advised Jake. "The God light." She also told him that his name was at that very moment in thousands of prayer baskets all over the world.

"How about in Paris?" Jake asked.

"Even in Paris," Mattie said unequivocally.

Springer suspected she was fibbing but he loved her for it. Since he'd accepted the efficacy of stone 588 he was seeing Mattie differently. He no longer loved her despite her eccentricities. He loved her more because of them. He understood now the plain generosity of her nature and was a bit ashamed of how narrow-minded he'd been. He rightfully blamed some of that on 47th Street. Its ways had compressed him, intensified his dubiousness with its cold, mean realities.

While Mattie and disciple Audrey did their spiritual best for Jake, Springer comforted him on less abstract levels. He lugged a new nineteen-inch Sony television to Jake's room. Also a Sony video recorder. Jake's having mentioned there being no cable TV at the hospital had created for Springer the opportunity to please. He phoned around and located a store on Third Avenue near 96th that had an extensive selection of video cassettes. Springer bought a whole day's worth of rock videos. Twelve cassettes, two hours each. Stints by Van Halen, Sting, Foreigner, Springsteen, and a lot of Jake's other favorites. From his own collection Springer brought a cassette of the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal volleyball match between Brazil and the United States. He hooked up everything, including earphones, so Jake could listen anytime, even in the middle of the night, as loud as he wished.

Jake could use all the support and distraction he could get. On Wednesday, the very next day after his biopsy surgery (which was not all that minor, considering an incision had been made all the way to the bone and even a "window" of the bone excised), Jake was put through a battery of tests to evaluate his condition for chemotherapy. A technetium-99 bone scan and a CT scan of his chest determined that the tumor had not yet spread. A trispiral tomograph further verified this with a dimensional "sound picture" of his chest. Other tests measured the function of his liver and kidneys.

The hurry to have these evaluations done was not arbitrary. Whenever a tumor such as Jake's was cut into, the malignant cells took advantage, ran rampantly into the bloodstream. They had to be chased down with chemotherapy as soon as possible.

Thursday would be Jake's day for that.

First, because it was essential that his system be alkaline, he was given intravenously 50cc of sodium bicarbonate solution. Then, over a period of four hours, 10 grams of methotrexate in a 5 percent glucose and sodium bicarbonate solution was dripped into his veins. Methotrexate, a synthesized chemical substance, is a very potent poison, 10 grams of it enough to kill a dozen men. Methotrexate literally tricks the body. Its molecular makeup resembles folic acid, one of the vitamins in the B-complex needed for healthy cell division. The resemblance of fatally poisonous methotrexate to harmless folic acid is, in fact, so close that the body misidentilies it and readily admits it into the system.

Jake also received injections of three other aggressive chemotherapeutic agents: bleomycin, cyclophosphamide, and dactinomycin.

At six o'clock Thursday morning he was "rescued" from deadly methotrexate by being given calcium leucovorin. Thus he was poisoned one day and given the antidote the next.

He had to drink a lot of water.

He had to have intravenous fluid going into him constantly.

He had to take allopurinal pills to prevent the cells that were being killed by the chemotherapy from creating uric acid and causing him to have gout.

He had to remain alkaline, have every pee litmused.

By Thursday noon Jake was just about out of cooperation and courage. Springer, who was more sensitively in tune with Jake's feelings at this time, detected as much when a laboratory specialist came to draw blood and Jake begrudgingly stuck out an arm already badly discolored from previous punctures. Springer remembered he'd promised Jake that nothing bad was going to be done to him. He hoped Jake didn't feel betrayed.

When not at the hospital. Springer spent some time at the office. The box of rough from the sight he'd attended while in London required going over. It consisted of an average number of pieces of average quality goods, indicative of The System's merely average opinion of him.

He tried to give the new rough the scrutiny he would ordinarily give it, but his spirit wasn't in it. He handed the task to Linda. She would sort and classify the stones and see that they were sent off with instructions to the cutter in Antwerp.

Some of the goods that had been out on memo at the time of the robbery were trickling back into inventory. Other out-on-memo goods had been sold and payments for it received. Springer & Springer was reviving, just stirring but nonetheless showing signs of getting back on its feet.

"I think I'll sue," Springer told his insurance agent. Bob Steiner, during a phone call.

"Don't. They've got lawyers who are cousins to God."

"A million what?"

"A million eight. They balked at that figure. One five was their firm top. I warned them that you were an influential force at the Diamond Dealers Club."

Springer belonged to that club by tradition, hadn't been to it more than a half dozen times in as many years.

"The company assumes you'll be continuing with your coverage," Steiner said. "Of course, your premium rate will be automatically higher."

"They're worse thieves than those who robbed me."

"Better thieves," Steiner contributed.

"When can I expect a check?" Springer asked.

"The company has ninety days. It's in your policy, ninety days from the time an adjustment is agreed upon. Look for a check ninety days from tomorrow."

"Just to make me wait."

"That's not it. They figure even a day short of ninety would be a waste. Ninety days' interest on a million eight is roughly fifty thousand."

Well, at least that was settled. Not to Springer's satisfaction, but done with.

On Thursday afternoon, Springer arrived at the office to learn from Linda that he'd been called twice by someone named Karinov, who hadn't left a number, would call again. At five o'clock, just as Springer was about to leave, the same party called again. It was a woman. Using a pay station phone. Traffic sounds backgrounded her voice.

"You were in Rome last Thursday," she said.

"I was in Paris last Thursday," Springer corrected.

"A diamond was shown to you, an eight-carat diamond."

"Ten carats."

"A square cut."

"A round cut."

Evidently that was verification enough that Springer was her man. "Your material has arrived," she said. Her Russian accent had a British accent.

"That's good news."

"I wish to put it in your hands as soon as possible."

"You name it."

"Tomorrow morning would be ideal."

They made an appointment for nine o'clock the next morning at his most recent bank, the United States Trust Company of New York at 11 East 54th Street.

Karinov, who said her name was Nessa (Springer believed neither) turned out to be a Valkyrie type. A straight-haired blonde, about thirty, strong-boned and rangy. She was handsome more than pretty. Her eyes were a vulnerable blue but quick, cautious. A true maiden of Odin, bored with merely helping war heroes find their way to Valhalla, she'd gotten herself into a much more precarious game. Springer found it rather easy to imagine Audrey in her place.

At the bank, Mr. Leeds served Springer again. At Springer's request he led the way to the second floor and an office intended for the use of clients. It suited Springer's purpose well, had a tall window that faced north.

There, in privacy, Nessa impassively lifted her skirt and held it up by its hem with her chin, while she undid a compartmentalized cloth belt from around her waist. She sat at the desk and from the compartments of the belt removed twelve small chamois pouches, then, from each of the pouches, a round-cut twenty-five-carat diamond. She lined up the diamonds on the beige desk blotter, handled them perfunctorily, as she might had they been merely backgammon pieces. She raised her eyes to Springer, silently giving him permission to touch them.

He left the diamonds as they were for the moment, scanned them bare-eyed. No doubt they were Aikhal goods, they had that distinctive colder-looking blaze. From his jacket pocket Springer took out his loupe, a stark white business envelope, and the small leather case that contained his set of master stones. The master stones his father had given him when he was a boy.

He tore open both ends of the envelope and placed one of the diamonds in the crease of the long fold that remained. Turning to the window he examined that diamond with his loupe. The white trough of the envelope cut down on whatever extraneous light might be affecting the color of the diamond, allowed its true uninfluenced color to be viewed. Even the slightest hint of yellow, devaluating yellow, would be detectable. It was a little testing trick his father had shown him early on, usually done with a once-folded business card.

Springer placed the D-color diamond from his master set close beside the Russian stone. His master stone was much smaller, of course; however, it served for comparison. Springer placed four of the Russian stones side by side in the white trough of the envelope. Compared them, shifted them about, and compared them again. He examined all twelve stones in this manner.

Satisfied with their color, he next looked into them for flaws. He would not forgive even the most minuscule speck, but he saw none. Nor were there any feathers or clouds, graining or knot lines. As for the cut of the stones, he believed he'd never seen finer.

Throughout the procedure, which took a good hour, Springer and Nessa had not spoken a word. Now, he looked into her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. Springer kept close watch of Nessa's fingers, as she put the diamonds back into their individual chamois pouches. No sleight of hand. The pouches remained on the desk.

"I understand you're to tell me how to make payment," Springer said.

"To this account." On a note pad Nessa jotted down from memory: Bank Gallar and Cie., Bauhofstrasse 93, 8022 Zurich, Switzerland, account number PR-200819. She checked to make sure it was correct.

Springer used the phone to summon Mr. Leeds. He instructed Leeds to send thirteen million five hundred thousand dollars to the Swiss account Nessa had designated. Springer signed the required documents for a wire transfer from account to account. Leeds treated it routinely, unfazed by the amount of the transaction. He said it would take approximately an hour.

Nessa said they would wait for verification from the other end. She'd been through this before.

While waiting, Springer wondered how it had been pulled off, swiftly and precisely as ordered. Surely it wasn't mere coincidence that someone in the Soviet Union just happened to have on hand a dozen perfect diamonds of that size. Perhaps they had hundreds like it, equally flawless, hundreds of every significant size. Perhaps it was true—the rumor that the Soviets had more diamonds than The System, more diamonds than they knew what to do with, evidently so many diamonds that whoever was supposed to be keeping track of them could easily skim. Sweet deal. Dangerous but sweet.

Springer was right. But he would never know that the diamonds had been included in the diplomatic pouch put aboard an Aeroflot plane at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. Three diamonds in each of four 14-ounce tins of Imperial Caspian caviar bound for the Soviet installation in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, and the palates of the upper-echelon Soviet diplomats assigned to the United Nations and the Consulate in New York City. The Glen Cove place was a sumptuous estate in an area of sumptuous estates. With swimming pool, tennis courts, and all such decadent amenities, it was preferred, especially in summer, over the somewhat austere apartment house on East 67th Street that served as the Soviet Mission.

The so-called Nessa Karinov was one of the staff at the Glen Cove installation. She was a chef, a specialist in French cuisine, had been sent for three years to learn at the ecole de Cordon Bleu in Paris. As a chef, naturally she saw to the caviar.

She also saw to the diamonds that sometimes came concealed in it. Dug them out from the huge choicest-of-all sturgeon roe and washed them in warm water sudsed up with a squirt of lemon fresh Joy detergent, rinsed them with hot, dried them, and dropped them into her deep apron pocket where she always kept a few extra cloves of garlic.

"Do you like being in New York?" Springer asked her just to break the silence.

"Very much."

"I suppose you miss Russia."

"Very much."

Springer had recently read somewhere that the Russians had 900 people stationed in New York. He'd bet that Nessa was less talkative than the other 899.

Leeds returned with verification that the money had been credited to the Swiss account. Nessa went over the verifying printout carefully before saying, "Done." She asked to have returned to her the slip of notepaper upon which she'd written the name of the bank and the numbered account. To destroy it. Springer surmised.

Nessa left the bank. It was her day oflf. She would shop Alexander's for a while and go to an early movie.

Springer decided that while at the bank he might as well take care of Drumgold. He had Leeds transfer Drumgold's commission to an account at a bank in Nassau that Drumgold had stipulated should the deal go through.

Two hundred thousand dollars. And one.

Out on the street with the diamonds safely pocketed, Springer's first thought was that he'd drop them off at Townsend's, only a block and a half away up Fifth. Hadn't Libby said that was how she wanted it? He'd get a receipt from Townsend, of course.

Springer's second thought was that he shouldn't be so hasty about that.

He returned to his office and phoned Wintersgill at the Hull Foundation to ask him how he believed the matter should be handled. He was somewhat surprised when he was put right through.