Read The Tavernier Stones Online
Authors: Stephen Parrish
The Tavernier Stones (13 page)
Barclay Zimmerman was already waiting at the corner of Fifth and Arch, next to the Christ Church burial ground where Benjamin Franklin and his wife, Deborah, slept the everlasting sleep. Their plain marble slab, sprinkled with coins, lay immediately on the other side of the bronze spiked fence where Zimmerman stood. Any tourist who wanted to pay respects to one of America’s founding fathers only had to pause on the sidewalk and dig some loose change out of his pocket.
David watched from a block away. He wanted to make sure Zimmerman was alone: if he had company and knew it, he would glance occasionally at the observation post, even if only inadvertently. But Zimmerman, a wiry, nervous man in his thirties, with unkempt hair that often spilled into his eyes, just stamped his feet impatiently, his hands buried deep in his pockets.
That satisfied David; if something were about to go down, Zimmerman would be waiting with the patience of a statue.
Their stories were remarkably similar: Zimmerman had been working on a graduate degree in medieval European history when something happened to alter his course. The “something” was different for everyone who ended up working the street; rumor was, Zimmerman had come to blows with his advisor. That would end an academic career awfully fast.
He was sharp—and mean as a cornered dog.
When Zimmerman looked at his watch and kicked the fence, David finally approached him.
“How’s the X-rated theater business?” he asked.
“If it were doing well, I wouldn’t be out here fencing stolen rocks.”
“I suppose if the fencing business were good, you wouldn’t be showing porno films, either.”
“I did fine until you took Sarah away from me.” Zimmerman took his hands out of his pockets. One of them was holding a pair of locking tweezers, the other a triplet. “Do you have it?”
David produced the stone paper. Zimmerman quickly unfolded it, maneuvered the diamond into the tweezers, and louped it critically.
“It’s flawless,” David said.
Zimmerman snickered. “Yeah, they all are, you know.”
“No, I mean it. This one really is.”
“Whatever you say, Feinstein.”
“Listen, Zim. You know me. You know if I say it’s clean, it’s clean.”
Zimmerman removed an envelope from his back pocket and handed it to David. David counted the money inside. It didn’t add up. He counted it again, to make sure.
“This is a little light, Zim.”
“It’s exactly right, Feinstein.”
David closed his eyes. One more mention of that name and he’d belt the man. “The stone is worth three times as much wholesale!”
“Supply and demand. Take it or leave it.”
“Screw supply and demand. You know I have to unload the piece. You’re taking advantage of me.”
“If you don’t like the price, sell it to someone else.”
“I can’t shop around for another fence this late in the game. Everyone in Nineveh & Shimoda knows my face.”
“Everyone in this
town
knows your face, Feinstein. You’ve been working this corner of the world too long. Pretty soon the
Jeweler’s Circular Keystone
is going to post your ugly puss on its front cover.”
town
knows your face, Feinstein. You’ve been working this corner of the world too long. Pretty soon the
Jeweler’s Circular Keystone
is going to post your ugly puss on its front cover.”
“The name is Freeman. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Fuck you, Feinstein, you sniveling Jew.”
David dropped the envelope on the sidewalk and pinned Zimmerman’s shoulders against the spiked fence.
“You asshole,” Zimmerman said. “Take a look over there.” He pointed across the street. Three unfriendly looking derelicts were sitting on a park bench between Arch and Race. One of them grinned. He was missing most of his teeth.
“What are they going to do,” David asked, “strangle me with dental floss?”
“They have your address, and now they, too, know your face. Lay another finger on me and they’ll do things to you that—trust me—you do not want done.”
David glanced back at the three derelicts. Smiley was gesturing the act of masturbation.
“Take it or leave it, Jew boy.”
David released Zimmerman, picked up the cash-filled envelope from the sidewalk, and dusted it off.
Zimmerman unfolded the stone paper and admired the diamond again. “Well,” he said, “it’s not the Prairie, but I never did kick a rock out of bed for eating crackers.”
“What’s the Prairie?”
“Don’t insult me by feigning ignorance. And unless you want to walk funny for the rest of your life, stay out of my way in the search for you-know-what.”
As soon as David was out of sight, Zimmerman crossed the street and handed the three drunks five dollars apiece.
Smiley said, “You still haven’t told us why you wanted us to sit here and act like that.”
“Warm the bench for me, gentlemen. Someday I’ll be sleeping on it myself.”
He returned to his theater in Kensington. The theater was unsupervised and the projector was still running, but it didn’t matter; no one had bought a ticket. He sat in one of the empty seats and inspected David’s diamond once again.
You had to hand it to Feinstein, he thought. It sure did look clean.
He felt a twinge of guilt for having stiffed David. He felt it, then it went away. They had once been friends. Even, on occasion, partners—until Sarah changed allegiance. And they were both obsessed with the lost Tavernier stones.
Zimmerman’s Grail was one of the stones in particular, the Ahmadabad diamond, a 94-carat stone “of perfect water.” That wasn’t unusual; gem aficionados often fixed on a single specimen or group—for example, the Hope diamond or the Three Brethren. The Ahmadabad wasn’t the largest or most famous diamond in history, but it was the most controversial. A 78-carat pear-shaped stone currently in circulation purported to be a recut of the legendary diamond. But Zimmerman was convinced the genuine article was still intact, still missing, still waiting for him to find it.
He made no secret of his obsession. He had named his theater after the stone.
Now, as he sat in the empty, high-ceilinged room, passively watching the wriggling figures on the screen, he wondered how Feinstein could possibly not know about the Prairie. Was he telling the truth?
David took the number 23 trolley northbound on Eleventh Street, got off at Cliveden, then headed south on Germantown Avenue. It was midday, and the sidewalks were filling with people steered by hunger and motivated by short lunch breaks. He walked along the streetcar tracks, pretending to keep his balance on one of the metal strips, until a car honked and forced him onto the sidewalk.
Stay out of my way in the search for you-know-what.
David knew what. But the Prairie? What the hell was that?
Germantown was a dump. The Germans, right on the heels of the Indians and the deer they hunted, were long gone. And the charm of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture had been obliterated by twenty-first-century trash and graffiti.
Stay out of my way …
He arrived at Tien Chau’s, an unsanitary Vietnamese restaurant where several riffraff were loitering out front. He had always found it ironic that some of the dirtiest places in the city served some of the city’s best food. As he was about to enter the restaurant, the riffraff suddenly pulled revolvers and pointed them at him.
“Put your hands behind your head,” one of them commanded. “Lay down on the ground. You have the right to remain silent.”
TWELVE
MANNFRED GEBHARDT HAD DISCOVERED an easy way to steal books from libraries: just throw them out a window, then snatch them from the bushes on the way back to the car.
Bookstores were more challenging, but he had solved that problem too: slit the covers off with a pocket knife while pretending to browse, thus removing any magnetic security strips that might be present, then simply walk out of the store with the signature-bound pages in hand. If the staff didn’t perceive a book was being stolen, a book wasn’t being stolen. Perception was the better part of reality.
One helpful bookseller recommended an encyclopedia of gemology recently published by the Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig. He also informed Gebhardt that the last copy had walked out the door just seconds before he walked in.
Gebhardt found the woman in an alley a block away, strolling smugly with the fat volume tucked under her tiny arm. Moments later, the book was his. He didn’t feel guilty about her injuries; she should have taken him up on his offer to buy it.
The richest source of materials was the library of the University of Heidelberg, famous for its mineralogy department as well as its index of all the world’s notable gemstones. Since the Heidelberg Library yield would be great, Gebhardt could not merely toss the stuff out a window. The more you wanted to profit from crime, the more crime you had to commit.
Late in the afternoon, while the Hauptbibliothek was still open, he passed through the gothic façade into the arched and marbled foyer, figuring none of the staff—government employees, all—would linger after closing time.
The university and library were Germany’s oldest. Founded in 1386, the collection had grown in healthy spurts but had also been seriously damaged during the wars, taking one step backwards for every two forwards. Now it contained more than three million volumes, and if Gebhardt had his way, it would suffer yet another incremental setback.
He found a bathroom, entered one of its stalls, and stood on top of the toilet to punch out a ceiling tile. Then he climbed up above the ceiling, out of view. At thirty minutes past closing time, he would simply climb back down and search the library for relevant materials. He would have all night. It was easier to break out of a building than into one.
At five minutes past closing time, a janitor conducted a walk-through. Gebhardt, peering through a hole in the tile, watched him check the stalls to make sure they were empty.
He cursed Blumenfeld for assigning him this task. He predicted, nonetheless, that she would be happy with his work. So far, he had found no less than twenty-three distinct books on the subject of famous, notable, and collectable gemstones, especially those on display in museums around the world. They needed to gather these sources, Blumenfeld had argued, before others got the same idea and exhausted the supply.
Exactly why they needed to gather them—what they would do when they found the ruby everyone was looking for—she didn’t say. But Gebhardt had learned not to question her. Too many times had he seen her eyes roll and her head shake condescendingly, and he worried that his temper might get the better of him the next time it happened.
He felt as out of place stealing books from libraries as a boxer might feel crocheting an afghan.
His
solution to the problem of the lost Tavernier stones was more direct and simple than hers: when the stones were found, take them away from the person who found them.
His
solution to the problem of the lost Tavernier stones was more direct and simple than hers: when the stones were found, take them away from the person who found them.
The janitor banged around a while before going home, so Gebhardt had time to feel remorse for what he had done to the driver who cut him off on the autobahn while he was enroute to Heidelberg. The driver had switched on his rear fog lights in response to Gebhardt’s high beams, neither of which impaired vision during daylight.
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