Suspended Sentences (15 page)

“How come you're not in jail?”

“They couldn't prove it. It was my word against Cushman's. I said I'd delivered the proper goods. He said I delivered fakes. He had the fakes to show for it, but he couldn't prove they hadn't been substituted by himself or somebody working for him.”

“Did they investigate Cushman and his employees?”

“Sure. I don't think they did an enthusiastic job of it. They figured they already knew who the culprit was, so why waste energy? They went through the motions. They didn't find anything. Cushman stuck to his story. Far as I can tell, none of his employees had access to the stones during the period of time between when I delivered them and when Cushman showed the paste fakes to the cops. So I figure it must have been Cushman.”

“Did the insurance pay off?”

“They had to. They couldn't prove he'd defrauded them. Their investigator offered me a hundred thousand dollars and no questions asked if I'd turn in the stones I stole. I told him he had five seconds to get out the door before I punched him in the nose. I was an amateur light heavyweight just out of high school, you know. Nineteen thirty-one. I can handle myself.”

Right now, Breck thought, he didn't look as if he could hold his own against a five-year-old in a playpen. But what he said was, “What else do you know about Cushman?”

“Snob. I don't know where he hails from but he affects that clenched-teeth North Shore of Long Island society drawl. Mingles with the million-dollar Waikiki condominium set. I guess they're his best customers for baubles.”

“What'd they do to you?”

“Revoked my bond. I can't work without it. I tried to sue for defamation, this and that, but you know how these lawyers are. The case is still pending. Could be years before it's settled. The other side knows how old I am — they know all they have to do is wait a few years.”

Breck said, “Maybe I'll have a talk with this Cushman.”

“What's the point?”

“Maybe I can persuade him to give you back what he owes you. Don't get your hopes up. He's never going to admit he framed you — he'd go to jail himself if he did that. The best you can hope for is to get enough money out of him to pay off your debts and set you up in that retirement you talked about. The condo, the boat, the bridge game. That much I may be able to persuade him he owes you.”

“Aagh.”

The shop was a pricey-looking storefront at 11858 Kalakaua Avenue; the sign beside the door was discreetly engraved on a small brass plaque:
CUSHMAN INTERNATIONAL DIAMOND CO.

Inside, every inch a gent in nautical whites, Breck stood looking down at several enormous diamond rings spread across a velvet background.

“My fifth wedding anniversary. I want to give my wife the most beautiful present I can find. You were recommended — they told me they were sure you'd have what I'm looking for.”

The man across the counter was bald and amiable. He looked fit, as if he worked out regularly. He wore a dark suit and he'd had a manicure. “Thank you, sir. You're very kind.”

“Are you Henry Cushman?”

“That's correct. May I ask who recommended me?”

“A couple of people at a party for the governor. Let me have a look at that one, will you? The emerald cut.”

Cushman picked up the third ring. Breck gave him the benediction of his best smile. “Mind if I borrow your loupe?”

Clearly a trifle surprised, Cushman offered him the small magnifying glass. Screwing it into his eye Breck examined the stone. “Very nice,” he opined.

Cushman said softly, “It's flawless, sir. Excellent color. And there's not another one like it.”

“How much?”

“Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Breck examined the ring even more closely. Finally he said, “Make it four twenty.”

“Oh, I wouldn't be at liberty to go that low, sir.” The bald fellow was very smooth. “You see, diamonds at the moment —”

“Four thirty-five and that's it.”

There was a considered pause before Cushman murmured, “I think I could accept that.”

“I thought you could.” Breck smiled again. And then, a bit amused by his own air of tremendous confidence, he went around to the proprietor's desk and took a checkbook and a gold pen from his pockets and began to write out a check. “I want it gift-wrapped — and I'll need it delivered to my suite at the Kahala Towers no later than seven o'clock tonight.”

He beamed when he stood up and handed over the check, accompanied by a driver's license and a gold credit card; Cushman scribbled lengthy numbers across the top of the check and Breck didn't give the jeweler a chance to get a word in edgewise. “Of course my wife'll have to approve it, you understand. I don't want to spend this sort of money on a gift she doesn't really like. You know how women can be. But I don't really think it'll be a problem. She's a connoisseur of good stones.” Then he was gone — right out the door.

He went two blocks to the beach and shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned at the ocean.

Henry Cushman stood momentarily immobilized before he came to his senses and reached for the telephone. The bank's telephone number was on the check in his hand but he didn't trust anything about that check and he looked up the bank in the directory. The telephone number was the same. He dialed it.

It was a frustrating conversation. A bank holiday, this particular Friday. “I know you're closed to the public but I've got to talk with an officer. It's important.”

“I'm sorry, sir. This is the answering service. There's no one in the bank except security personnel.”

Cushman hung up the phone and made a face and wasn't quite sure what to do. He paced the office for a moment, alternately pleased to have made the sale but disturbed by suspicion. Finally he picked up the telephone again.

The lobby bustled: people checking in, checking out — business people and tourists in flamboyant island colors. In this class of hotel in this high season you could estimate the fifty people in the lobby were worth approximately $20 million on the hoof. Mr. Fowler watched with satisfaction until the intercom interrupted. “Yes?”

“It's Mr. Henry Cushman, sir.”

“Put him on.”

“Jim?”

“How're you, Henry?”

“Puzzled. I've got a little problem.”

Jim Fowler laughed. “I told you not to bet on the Lakers. Can't say I didn't warn you.”

“It's serious, Jim. Listen. I've just sold a very expensive diamond ring to…a Mr. F. Breckenridge Baldwin. I understand he's staying at your hotel.”

“Baldwin? Yes, sure he's staying here.” And by the sheerest of meaningless coincidences Fowler at that moment saw the extraordinarily tall F. Breckenridge Baldwin enter through the main entrance and stride across the vast marble foyer. In turn Baldwin recognized Fowler and waved to him and Fowler waved back as Baldwin entered an elevator.

“What's that, Henry? Hell, sure, he's reputable. He and his wife have been here three weeks now. Royal Suite. They've entertained two bishops and a Rockefeller.”

“How long are they staying?”

“They'll be with us at least another week. She likes the beach. I gather he has business deals in progress.”

“What do you know about him? Any trouble?”

“Trouble? Absolutely not. In fact he's compulsive about keeping his account paid up.”

“He gave me a damn big check on the Sugar Merchants Bank.”

“If you're worried about it why don't you call Bill Yeager? He's on the board of the bank.”

“Good idea. I'll do that. Thanks, Jim.”

“That's all right. You're certainly welcome.”

It took Henry Cushman twenty minutes and as many phone calls to find Bill Yeager. In the end he tracked him down at the Nineteenth Hole Clubhouse. There was quite a bit of background racket: a ball game of some kind on the projection TV, men's voices shouting encouragement from the bar. Yeager's voice blatted out of the phone: “You'll have to talk louder, Henry.”

“Baldwin,” he shouted, “F. Breckenridge Baldwin.”

“Is that the big tall character, looks like Gary Cooper?”

“That's him.”

“Met him the other night at a luau they threw for the senator. Nice fellow, I thought. What about him?”

“What does he do?”

“Investments, I think. Real estate mostly.”

“Does he have an account with Sugar Merchants?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You're on the board of directors, aren't you?”

“Henry, for Pete's sake, I'm not some kind of bank teller.”

“It's important, Bill. I'm sorry to bother you but I really need to find out. Can you give me a home number — somebody from the bank? Somebody who might know?”

“Let me think a minute…”

“That's right, Mr. Cushman. He's got an account with us. Opened it several weeks ago.”

“What's the balance?”

“I can't give out that kind of information on the telephone, sir.”

“Let me put it this way, then. He's given me a check for four hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. I need to know if it's good.”

“I see. Then you certainly have a legitimate interest…If Mr. Yeager gave you my name…Well, all right. Based on my knowledge of that account from a few days ago, I'd say the check should be perfectly good, sir. It's an interest-bearing account, money-market rate. He's been carrying a rather large balance — it would be more than adequate to cover a four hundred and thirty-five thousand dollar check.”

“Thank you very much indeed.” Hanging up the phone, Henry Cushman was perspiring a bit but exhaustedly relieved. It looked as if he'd made a good sale after all.

Breck's hand placed the immaculate ring onto the woman's slender finger. Vicky admired it, turning it this way and that to catch the light, enraptured.

“It's the loveliest present of all. My darling Breck — I worship you.”

He gave her a sharp look — she was laying it on a bit thick — but she moved quickly into his embrace and kissed him, at length. There was nothing he could do but go along with it. Over her shoulder he glimpsed Henry Cushman, beaming rather like a clergyman at a wedding.

Politely, Cushman averted his glance and pretended interest in the decor of the Royal Suite. If you looked down from the twelfth-story window you could see guests splashing around the enormous pool, seals performing in the man-made pond beside it, lovers walking slowly along the beach, gentle white-caps catching the Hawaiian moonlight.

Finally she drew away and Breck turned to the room-service table; he reached for the iced champagne bottle and gestured toward Henry Cushman. “Like a drink before you go?”

“Oh no. I'll leave you alone to enjoy your evening together. It's been a pleasure, sir. I hope we meet again.”

As if at court the jeweler backed toward the door, then turned and left. Breck and Vicky stood smiling until he closed it. Then the smile disappeared from Breck's face and he walked away from her. He jerked his tie loose and flung off the evening jacket.

She said, “You might at least make an effort to be nice to me.”

“Fire that alimony lawyer and let me have my money back and I'll be as nice as —”

“
Your
money? Breck, you're the most unrealistic stubborn stupid…”

He lifted the bottle out of the ice bucket and poured. “We're almost home with this thing. I'll keep the truce if you will. Time out? King's X?”

She lifted her champagne in a toast: “King's X. To Daddy.”

He drank to that. “Your turn tomorrow, ducks:”

“And then what?”

“Just think about doing your job right now.”

AVAKIAN JEWELRY — BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

It was upstairs in an old building in Waikiki village. Patina of luxury; the carpet was thick and discreet. Past the desk and through the window you could see straight down the narrow street to a segment of beach and the Pacific beyond.

There were no display cases; it wasn't that sort of place. Just an office. Somewhere in another room there would be a massive safe.

The man's name was Clayton; he'd introduced himself on the telephone when she'd made the appointment. His voice on the phone was thin and asthmatically reedy; it had led her to expect a hollow-chested cadaverous man but Clayton in person was ruddy-cheeked and thirty pounds overweight and perspiring in a three-piece seersucker suit under the slowly turning overhead fan. He was the manager. She gathered from something he said that the owner had several shops in major cities around the world and rarely set foot in any of them.

Clayton was examining the ring. “Normally I don't come in on Saturdays.” He'd already told her that on the phone; she'd dropped her voice half an octave and given him the pitch about how there was quite a bit of money involved.

He turned the ring in his hand, inspecting it under the high-intensity lamp. “I suppose it's a bit cool for the beach today anyhow.” His talk was the sort that suggested he was afraid of silences: he had to keep filling them with unnecessary sounds. “Raining like the devil over on the windward side of the island today, did you know that?” It made her recall how one of the things she'd always admired about Breck was his comfort with silences. Sometimes his presence was a warmth in itself; sometimes when she caught his eye the glance was as good as a kiss.

But that was long ago, as he kept reminding her.

Presently Clayton took down the loupe and glanced furtively in her direction. “It's a beautiful stone..shame you have to part with it…How much did you have in mind?”

“I want a quick sale. And I need cash. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

He gave her a sharp look. He knew damn well it was worth more than that. He picked up the satin-lined little box. “Why don't you take it back to Henry Cushman? They'd probably give you more.”