“You wanna buy somethings? Big sale today.”
He leaned close. “What I want to do is take you into a fitting room and toss your skirt up over your head and—”
“Rarry!” She put a hand over the bottom half of her face and blushed bright scarlet, giggling.
“But I’ll settle for buying you lunch at the Olive Garden.”
Her face wreathed itself in smiles. She checked the tiny watch on her slim wrist. Ballard could feel himself getting hard just looking at her. Last night in bed, she had...
“Just fifteen mo minutes, then I got a whole hour.”
“Hey, Midori, where you been hiding Mr. Dreamboat?”
Midori turned, worst fears realized. Luminitsa! Of the long legs and big firm breasts and gleaming red lips and glowing almond skin. And good English, too. It was all over, because once they’d seen Luminitsa, they always went back for more.
“Is my friend, Rarry.” To Larry she said, eyes miserable, “Is Luminitsa. She work with me, she teach me everythings.”
Ballard nodded and smiled. “Luminitsa.” She reminded him of someone, he couldn’t think who. Didn’t matter.
A little old man with cheery faded blue eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles popped out from behind Luminitsa.
“I’m Whit Stabler.” As he and Ballard shook hands, he added, “Anything you want, these ladies’ll take care of you.”
“Anything, Whit?” asked Luminitsa with a throaty chuckle.
Ballard tucked Midori’s arm through his to lead her across Nordstrom’s gleaming floors toward the front door and the Olive Garden, and away from Luminitsa. Midori sighed.
“Luminitsa very beautiful.”
“And old Whit reminds me of my grandpa. So what?”
“You no want Luminitsa?”
“Jesus, no. I know her type. If she’s nice to someone, it’s because she thinks she can use him. I bet she takes old Whit for a bundle before she’s through with him.”
“You no want Luminitsa!” she repeated. “I very happy.”
At 760 Golden Gate, the DKA clerical staff was stuffed into what had been a one-floor flat. The field men’s cubicles and Dan Kearny’s private cubbyhole and makeshift storage boxes for personal property removed from repos were all stuffed into the under-the-building garage. In a pinch, the garage could also temporarily store two sedans or three compacts.
Here at 340 Eleventh Street, each of the two ground-floor rooms was bigger than the whole setup at Golden Gate. The field men were upstairs and there was room for twenty repos in the fenced lot out back. Giselle shared the windowless back room with the C/B, the fax, and the Internet computer. After school, teenage girls came in to churn out collection demands, legal notices, and skip letters; but their giggles and gossip were no more distracting than the twittering of a flock of sparrows. It was how Giselle herself had started out, more years ago than she liked to recall.
Two men came in from the storage lot through the locked back door behind her without tripping the alarm. With a casual finger, Giselle pushed the intercom button that sent a silent CODE RED signal to Kearny in the front room. Then she saw they were Rudolph Marino and Staley Zlachi. Alarms would not slow them down. After the phone call where he didn’t identify himself, she should have expected the Gypsy King to drop by.
“Piccina! Come va?” asked Marino with a big smile.
Marino was using his Angelo-Grimaldi-the-Italian-lawyer persona today. Gleaming hair, gleaming oxfords, $2,000 suit, Patek Philipe watch. They had conned themselves into a brief but intense affair when their paths had crossed a couple of years back, then parted without permanent damage to either one. Giselle returned his smile.
“Va bene,” she told him, then turned to scold Staley. “You hung up before I could say hello the other day.”
“The last time I laid eyes on you, Giselle, you was all dressed up as a young Gypsy lad.”
“A ternipè, you called it, right? In Stupidville, Ohio.”
She was laughing at the memory when Dan Kearny came through the door from the front office hefting a tire iron. He skidded to a stop. He nodded casually to Staley.
“Why didn’t you come in the front door like regular folks?”
“Is serious business, the police are already involved.”
“If they’re involved, we don’t want to be.” Then Kearny shrugged. “Aw, hell, come on in, this ought to be good.”
Rudolph took Giselle’s arm. “You and I are not needed, cara. I only came along because I hoped to see you.”
“You came along to get me out of the way so Staley can con Dan into doing something he’ll regret for the rest of his life.”
He didn’t deny it. “I will buy you lunch at MC-Squared.”
“Do they even serve lunch at MC-Squared?”
“To us they do.”
Josh Croswell was eating his lunch in the office, keeping his eye on the scanners, when a burly mid-50s Jew entered the jewelry store. He had Semitic eyes quick with intelligence, a grey-shot patriarchal beard, and an unobtrusive black skullcap. His blue suit was rumpled; his narrow tie was carelessly knotted.
“I am addressing Mr. Joshua Croswell?” he asked.
“You are,” piped Josh in his best customer’s voice.
“Good.” With his heavy guttural voice, it came out as “Goot.” “Solly David from the Los Angeles Gemstone Mart.”
“Am I glad to see you! Your e-mail message said—”
Solly waved a small quick hand. “I hadda be up here today anyway, I thought I’d drop by, see can we do a little business.”
Josh locked the front door, flipped the OPEN sign over to CLOSED, and led Mr. David back to the narrow cluttered office.
“Pretty soft, retail, three hundred percent markup — you must be rakin’ it in. Me, I deal in fine gemstones, wholesale only, for the trade.” With a thick finger, Solly opened the flap of a small folded envelope. “Fine gemstones like this here one.” A glittering emerald slid out across the desk blotter. “Fifteen carats, rectangular, Portuguese step cut.”
Josh stared at the stone, trying to pretend expertise.
“Ah... are you sure that’s fifteen carats?”
His very beard seemed to stiffen. “Get out the scales.”
“Oh, no, no, no need of that,” Josh said quickly. “Um... how much are you asking? For the trade.”
“It’s a bargain at seventy-five K,” said Solly carelessly.
Seventy-five thousand! That was as much as Donny was offering Josh for it. He had to talk this guy down. With a jeweler’s loupe he peered intently into those brilliant depths.
“Am I seeing an occlusion in—”
Solly snatched the emerald back, highly offended.
“This stone is not from outta Africa, it’s from Colombia, where all the best emeralds come from. Smuggled out from a mine in the mountains the Colombian emerald cartel don’t know about.”
“Yes, it’s beautiful,” interrupted Josh, almost desperately, “but I’ve got a client here who’ll only go so high.”
“Not my problem. Look at the color! That brilliant green comes from the high chromium content in stones from this mine. Seventy-five, first, last, and only offer.”
“I was thinking more like thirty-seven-five,” said Josh.
Solly shook his head sadly, took out his little envelope.
“Forty-two-five,” said Josh.
Solly paused. He checked his watch. He sighed. “Okay, fifty K an’ I don’t gotta take it home with me on the plane.”