Smoke (19 page)

“All right,” said Lydia. “Well, did they all share my father’s last name?”

Another pause. “Ms. Strong, there was nothing about them in your box?”

Now it was Lydia’s turn to go silent. She looked across the hall through the glass wall that separated her office from the hallway; she could see the entrance to Jeffrey’s office. The box was in there waiting for her to get up the courage to open it.

“I haven’t had the opportunity to go through it yet,” she said.

“Well, perhaps there’s something in there to help you find out what you want to know.”

Lydia sighed. She hated people who didn’t easily give things that were easy to give, people for whom rules and procedures were more important than other people.

“Can you do this for me?” she said, trying to keep patience in her tone. “If you have their contact information, can you please call one or both of them and tell them I’m interested in speaking with them? And then give them my name and number.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Ms. Strong,” she said vaguely. “I’ll get back to you.”

Lydia said her thanks but the lawyer had already hung up.

She felt a swell of emotion now, some combination of anger, resentment, and sadness. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want a box from her dead father waiting for her in Jeffrey’s office. She didn’t want to learn that she might have a sister somewhere. But like with all the mysteries of her life, there was this eternal flame inside of her, this burning to
know
. She could take that box to the Dumpster, call Patricia O’Connell back and tell her not to bother. And that would be the end of it. But she
couldn’t
. She just wasn’t hardwired to walk away from a question mark.

“Shit,” she said out loud to no one.

“What’s up?” Dax filled the doorway. She hated him at the moment. He had hurt her feelings. And since her feelings were so rarely exposed for the hurting, vulnerable to so few people, they were still smarting.

“Nothing,” she said flatly. “What do you want?”

He walked in and sat down, unperturbed by her mood.

“Well,” he said. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

She looked at him with an expression that she hoped would encourage him to just spit it out.

“It looks to me like the security system installed at The New Day is a custom job. We’re talking motion detectors on the exterior, roving security cameras, infrared beams in entrance hallways, security shutters over doors and windows. Retina and palm scan entries on certain areas, heat sensors on doorknobs, serious stuff. A system like the one they have would cost a hundred grand, at least. It would be nearly impossible to get in—or out—once the system is activated.”

“And the building behind was connected by an interior walkway?”

“There are two connections. One on the first floor and one in the basement of the building.”

Lydia cocked her head at him. “You didn’t mention that before.”

“That’s because I just found out.”

“How?”

“I know the guy who designed and installed the system.”

“I guess that would be the good news?” she asked.

He nodded and gave her a smile.

“Doesn’t seem very secure,” she said. “You pay someone a hundred grand to secure a building and then he runs around telling people how to subvert the system.”

“That’s the problem with mercenaries,” he said with a shrug. “Loyalties shift.”

“So he told you how to get in?”

“Not exactly. He gave me the specs of the system. But he’s so good at building these things that even
he
couldn’t get in. I’ll have to figure it out.”

“When the alarm goes off, who gets alerted?”

“It’s not connected to the police department or to any outside security agency.”

“So presumably there’s a security staff on the premises.”

“My guy didn’t know anything about that, said that the client was highly secretive and that when his people were installing the system, there was no one around. But presumably, yes, I imagine there’s a security staff. We’ll have to assume.”

“Why would a church, especially one concerned with abandoning materialism, be so concerned with security?”

“It’s a good question. Another question would be how they found out about the guy that designed this system. I mean, it’s not like he’s in the phone book or anything. You need to
know
people to get in touch with him.”

“What kind of people?”

“People you don’t want to know. Like, bad guys … gangsters, mobsters, guerillas, the CIA. Really bad.”

Lydia looked at him. “And where do
you
know this guy from?”

“We served together. He’s former British Special Forces. Now he’s freelance.”

“Like you.”

He nodded. “Yes, like me.”

He’d gotten a serious tone to his voice and the stony expression to his face that he always got when she asked too many questions. He’d give her a little bit of information, stuff she already knew like the bit about his having served with the British Special Forces, then he’d shut down.

“So does that mean
your
loyalties are prone to shifting?”

He gave her a look. “That hurts.”

“Hmm. How long will it take you to figure out a way in to The New Day?”

“A couple hours,” he said. “We’ll go tonight if you want.”

“I want. I haven’t been able to find anything about them on the Internet other than their own website. Detective Stenopolis said he’d check to see if there was anything in the system about them but I haven’t heard back from him.”

“So we go find out for ourselves,” said Dax, standing. “I just need to find a way in.”

J
effrey walked down Broadway to Forty-Seventh Street, New York City’s diamond district. The street was mobbed with people, as it generally was. They walked slowly, stopped suddenly to stare at the glittering gems on display. He made his way through as quickly as he could, dodging and weaving between window-shoppers. He came to the address Christian had given him and walked inside and stood at the door. He could see in the shop a young man, a Hasidic Jew dressed in traditional garb, sitting behind a cash register. Jeffrey noticed wires coming from behind the long curls that hung at each of his temples. There was an Apple iPod sitting on the glass counter in front of him. It took the kid a minute to notice him standing there. He quickly took the headphones from his ears. He reached beneath the counter and the door in front of Jeffrey buzzed open.

He stepped inside. The place smelled of cheap cologne and something meaty cooking.

“Can I help you?” the kid said. He had an open, earnest face, a slight New York accent. The whole Hasidic thing was weird to Jeffrey. The older guys, he understood traipsing around in their traditional garb. But the young men, modern Americans with iPods, didn’t they want a more up-to-date look? Something that didn’t alienate them so totally from the present? It had always seemed to him that a religion that didn’t stay with the times was doomed to plenty of conflict between younger and older generations within, and eventually extinction.

“I’m here to see Chiam,” he said resting a hand on the glass counter.

“I’m Chiam,” the kid said. “But maybe you mean my dad.”

“Christian Striker said he might be able to answer some questions for me.”

The kid nodded and walked through a door toward the back of the small space. It was a small rectangle of a room, barely two hundred square feet, with bare white walls. There was nothing to distract from the glass cases lining the three interior walls and their magnificent contents. Diamonds. Earrings, necklaces, stunning solitaires. He noticed a case containing a small sign that read “Fancy Diamonds.” In here, the gems were red and blue, pink and yellow. They were beautiful, certainly, but to Jeffrey nothing compared to a colorless white diamond with its cold fire.

An older version of the man he’d spoken to emerged from the back. He extended a hand.

“Christian called and said to expect you,” he said. “I am Chiam Bechim.”

Jeffrey shook his hand. “Jeffrey Mark. Good to meet you.”

Chiam opened a small door between the cases and Jeffrey walked through, followed him into a back room. Chiam senior barked something in Yiddish to his son, who reddened. Jeffrey saw him put the iPod in a drawer by the register, muttering something under his breath.

It looked like a laboratory, with clean well-lit workstations that were empty at the present. Large magnifying glasses were mounted on moveable arms over tables lined with delicate tools, Jeffrey imagined for mounting gems in their settings. They walked into an office with glass walls. The space had an unobstructed view of the work stations. Chiam, he guessed, liked to keep an eye on things. In the back of his office, there was a large safe that looked like it recessed into the wall when it wasn’t in use.

Chiam motioned for Jeffrey to sit in a chair opposite a small wooden desk as the older man sat heavily into a wooden banker’s chair. The desk was meticulously organized, files neatly arranged, ten blue Bic pens in a leather cup. A computer sat neat and white on a small metal desk to the side. Jeffrey removed the gem from his pocket and handed the little velvet pouch to Chiam. He took a jeweler’s loupe from his drawer, unwrapped the stone, and examined it.

“Lovely,” he said. “Quite nearly flawless. A tiny, tiny imperfection deep in the stone but invisible to the naked eye. Pink diamonds like this are very, very rare. Though recently there’s been a huge demand for them. So some jewelers started buying irradiated stones, real diamonds that have been colored. Most people don’t know the difference. But this one is real.”

“How can you tell?”

“Trust me,” he said looking at Jeff with eyes that had examined a million stones. “I can tell.”

He had deep, knowing brown eyes set in a landscape of soft and wrinkled skin. A full gray beard hung nearly to the middle of his chest.

“Where did you get this?” Chiam asked when Jeffrey nodded. He’d narrowed his eyes just slightly.

“It came into my possession by accident,” said Jeffrey, wanting to be vague without being rude.

“That’s a lucky accident,” said Chiam, leaning back.

“I guess that depends on where you think this stone might have come from.”

Chiam stared at Jeff for a second and then nodded, as if deciding with himself to talk.

“Last week a dealer came to New York City from South Africa. He supposedly had in his possession a collection of rare diamonds. Flawless, colorless stones … some pink and yellow. He traveled here on a private jet with three heavily armed bodyguards, carrying more than five million dollars in precious gems. Somewhere between the airport and his first appointment, he, the driver of his limo, and his three bodyguards were all killed. The diamonds, quite obviously, are gone.”

Jeffrey remembered hearing something about a South African businessman being killed, his limo found on a service road near the Westchester Airport. The implication of the report, if Jeffrey remembered, was that it was some kind of an organized crime hit. But he didn’t remember hearing anything else about it.

“And you think that this might be one of those diamonds?”

He picked up the diamond and looked at it again. “Like I said, they’re very, very rare. Last week a dealer is killed, his gems stolen, among which there was supposedly a cache of nearly flawless pink
diamonds. This week you come to my shop with an extraordinary stone that you say came into your possession ‘by accident.’ If you weren’t a friend of Striker’s, I might be calling some of
my
friends,” said Chiam with a flat smile.

Few people realized that the Jews had a pretty nasty mob themselves. Jeffrey had noticed another exit door toward the back when he’d followed Chiam to the office and noticed a set of keys hanging in the dead bolt. He found himself wondering whether he could get to the back or the front exit faster, and where the back exit would leave him off.

“Has there been any speculation as to who might have killed the dealer and taken the stones?” asked Jeffrey.

“There’s always speculation,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe the Albanians, maybe the Italians, maybe the Russians.”

“Maybe the Jews,” said Jeffrey.

“No,” said Chiam with a short, mirthless laugh. “Not the Jews.”

Jeff nodded and guessed that if it had been the Jews they probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“Anyway,” said the old man. “There’s been no movement. At least not locally. Whoever took the diamonds will want to sell them eventually. That’s when
maybe
we hear who is responsible.”

“Then what?”

He turned up the corners of his mouth, but Jeffrey wouldn’t have called it a smile. “Too many variables. No way to know.”

“When you hear something, I’d like to know,” said Jeffrey, sliding his card over the desk toward Chiam. He nodded, taking the card.

“Are you pursuing this through your own avenues?” asked Chiam.

“I am,” he answered.

Chiam seemed to consider his response. “Well, then. I’ll promise to tell you what I learn, if you promise to tell me what you learn.”

“It’s a deal,” said Jeffrey.

“Now,” said Chiam, looking satisfied. “How much do you want for this stone?”

W
hen Matt Stenopolis called, Lydia was sitting in Jeffrey’s office staring at the box. A couple of times, she moved toward it but had wound up
sinking back into the couch. She knew all about opening boxes. Once the lid was off, it could never be closed again. She considered herself a pretty tough chick, but that box scared her. She couldn’t quite say why.

The buzzer on Jeffrey’s desk sounded and a voice came over the speaker. “Lydia,” said Jessa, one of the trainees, “are you in there? There’s a Matt Stenopolis on line two.”

She jumped up, glad for the distraction. “Got it,” she said and picked up the call.

“Detective,” she said.

“Yeah, Ms. Strong. Can we get together?”

She was surprised he wanted to meet rather than talk on the phone. She got the feeling that he didn’t like her very much, considered her a necessary evil as far as Lily Samuels was concerned.