“Sixteen plus tax,” I said.
“Goniffs,” he said.
Chana looked at me. “It means ‘crooks,’ ‘robbers.’”
Shmuel shook his head. “It’s a decent-quality stone, about a carat, maybe a carat and a quarter, good color, and very slightly included — which means I can tell it’s not perfect, but you can’t. I would have sold it to you with a nice setting for twelve thousand.”
“How much would you pay if I wanted to sell it to you?” I asked.
“Half. Six thousand.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful. I’ll think about it.”
“Better you should keep it,” Chana said. “You’re a good-looking young man; you’ll find another girl better than the first one. Bring the diamond back and Shmuel will make a nice ring for you.”
I thanked them again, walked across the street, and started the process all over again.
I talked to ten diamond dealers so that each of my diamonds got two opinions. The diamonds were all in the one-to-one-and-a-half-carat range and all about the same quality. Nine of the dealers quoted me a price that averaged out to sixty-two hundred dollars. The tenth guy told me my diamond was a fake and offered to take it off my hands for a hundred bucks. I guess there are goniffs wherever you go.
I figured there were about twenty-one hundred diamonds in the bag. If I could sell them for sixty-two hundred bucks a pop, I’d wind up with about thirteen million dollars. But I wasn’t greedy. I’d happily take less for a quick sale.
I stood on the corner of 47th Street and Sixth Avenue and called Katherine. “I’ve got great news,” I said.
“Tell me, tell me.”
“I’m throwing a party. Tonight. Eight o’clock.”
“What are you celebrating?”
“I’ve got thirteen million reasons to celebrate,” I said.
“I’m busy,” Katherine said. “Give me one.”
“I’m in love with the most wonderful woman in the world.”
“That’s terrific,” she said. “I’d love to meet her. I’ll see you tonight.”
Chapter 18
I couldn’t tell people the real reason I was throwing the party, so I e-mailed and texted everybody I wanted to see that night. And a few I didn’t want to see. “School’s out. Let’s drink. My place.”
I hadn’t figured out how to unload the diamonds, so I was still on a student’s budget. I bought chicken wings, a six-foot hero, chips, vino, beer, and the cheapest vodka on the shelf.
Katherine showed up at seven to help me set up.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said.
I looked at my watch. “If it involves taking our clothes off, I’m definitely in.”
“Hold that thought till after the party,” she said. “Anyway, since when would having mad, passionate sex be a surprise?”
The onslaught of guests began at ten to eight, and by nine o’clock my apartment was a noisy, boozy, happy mixture of joy, escapism, and release. Most of the people who showed up were friends from Parsons, along with a few of my neighbors from the building.
“Did you invite the three guys who live on the first floor?” Katherine asked.
“You mean the sentries who live in apartment one and guard the building?” I said. “Of course I invited them.”
“They’re always super-nice to me when I show up,” Katherine said. “When they see me, they hold the door and say hi.”
“That’s about as much as those guys socialize,” I said. “They passed on the party, but I love having them live on the ground floor. I haven’t had a single Jehovah’s Witness stop by since they moved in.”
My paintings were all over the apartment, and every few minutes someone would grab my arm and drag me over to one painting or another to talk about it. Sometimes they’d have questions, but mostly they just wanted to give me feedback.
Early in the evening I was getting comments like “I love how you’ve managed to capture the essence of the urban condition, the sense of isolation and loneliness one can experience in the midst of the asphalt jungle.”
But after the alcohol had been flowing for a few hours, the comments were more like, “Dude, your shit is so freaking good. If I had any freaking money, I’d buy all of them.”
I had some great friends, and drunk, sober, or anywhere in between, they were fun to hang with. Except Leonard Karns.
Leonard was sitting alone on the sofa, nursing the cheap red wine he’d brought, because “beer is for frat boys and rednecks.” He looked amused, like an anthropologist studying a primitive tribe of beer-swilling natives. Everyone ignored him, except Hopper, who jumped up on the sofa to check him out. Karns reached out to pet him, and the cat responded with a nasty hiss and took off.
“Poor Leonard,” Katherine whispered. “He seems to be unpopular across all species. Why did you even invite him? He doesn’t like you or your paintings.”
I smiled. “I know. Having him around keeps me humble.”
At ten o’clock the doorbell rang and I checked the closed-circuit monitor. I didn’t recognize the guy. He was short and fat — about three hundred pounds — with slicked-back black hair, a small goatee, and no mustache. If I’d ever met this guy before, I’d have remembered him. I didn’t.
I’m not usually paranoid about strangers, but I had these diamonds that didn’t belong to me, and somebody might be looking for them.
My Louisville Slugger was still standing in the corner next to the front door. With fifty friends and a baseball bat nearby, I figured if he was looking for trouble, I had the edge.
I buzzed him in.
Chapter 19
I HELD THE apartment door open and waited. The fat man was slow and ponderous. He clomped up the stairs, stopping at each landing to catch his breath.
Katherine joined me. “Who’s coming?”
“Party crasher. Nobody I know.”
“A heavyset guy?”
“Fat.”
She poked me in the ribs. “Shh, he’ll hear you.”
“I think he knows he’s fat.”
She punched me in the shoulder. “Stop.”
The fat/heavyset man got to the fourth-floor landing and looked up at us. “Hello, Katherine,” he said.
“Hello, Newton,” she said. “Take your time.”
“Like I have a choice,” he said, grabbing the handrail and trudging up the last flight.
“I gather you know him,” I said.
“He’s my surprise.”
The man was red in the face and sweating hard when he got to the top. “Matt, this is Newton,” Katherine said. “Newton, this is Matthew Bannon, the brilliant young artist I was telling you about.”
“Why does every brilliant young artist I meet have to live at the top of a five-story walk-up?” he said, extending a sweaty sausage-fingered hand.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Newton.”
“Not Mister. Just Newton. One name. Like Madonna.”
“You look exhausted, Newton,” I said as we entered the apartment. “Can I get you something?”
“An oxygen tank would be nice,” he said.
“We have beer.”
“Even better,” he said. “Two cans.”
By the time I brought back the beers, Newton had taken off his size 54 jacket. The blue shirt underneath had sweat rings the size of saddlebags under each arm.
“Newton is here to look at your work,” Katherine said.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll give you a tour.”
“I work alone,” he said. “You stay here with Katherine while I look around.”
He popped the top on the first beer and, with a can in each hand, casually began moving his way around the apartment.