Sweetie's Diamonds (22 page)

The New York police were baffled by the crime.
 
They questioned Moses at length about the business.
 
Of particular interest to them was whether or not they had any enemies.
 
Could they have made a bad business deal?
 
Was someone out for revenge?
 
There weren't too many other possible motives that could fit the savage stabbing of an old Jewish jeweler who kept to himself and was no trouble to anyone.
 
It couldn't have been a robbery gone badly because Moses attested to the fact that Hiram never kept jewelry at his apartment.
 
Given the brutal aspects of the slaying, the police didn't believe it was a robbery anyway.
 
They called it a “personal” killing—that there was evidence of torture involved.
 
In other words, the murderer had wanted to know something from his victim and by killing the poor man the killer was sending a message.
 
The police wanted to know to whom the message was directed.

After talking to the police Moses Rabinowitz had spent a sleepless night at his nephew's home on the Upper East Side.
 
He worried that perhaps some of the black market dealings he and his brother made over the years
had
come back to haunt them.
 
The problem was that there were so many!
 
Could it have been this diamond business?

Rabinowitz knew the police would never solve the crime.
 
He had to bring in some outside help.
 
The only thing he could do was to call in a favor.
 
Rabinowitz had hoped that he would never have to do so but if ever there were a situation that called for drastic action, this was it.
 
Before leaving New York, Rabinowitz made the phone call and spent an hour with the only man he could trust with the Rabinowitz secrets.
 

Now that he was back in Chicago, Rabinowitz felt nervous and afraid.
 
What if Hiram's killer came to Illinois?
 
Surely Hiram would not have talked about their business.
 
He was a tough old boy and had survived a lot over the years.
 
But could he have withstood the torture inflicted upon him?
 
Moses didn't know.
 
He wasn't sure if
he
could.
 

The old jeweler looked up at the clock and realized that the afternoon had passed quickly.
 
It was closing time and he wanted to get home before the Wrigley Field traffic got too bad.
 
The Cubs were playing that evening and the streets near the store were always a mess.
 

He went around the counter and began the routine of emptying the display windows.
 
The street outside was noisy and crowded.
 
Rush hour was in full swing, pedestrians dashed back and forth in front of the shop, and traffic was already jammed.
 
Rabinowitz appreciated the fact that he didn't have far to go to his little brownstone near Addison.
 
He didn't have to use any expressways and he could get through the traffic by using side streets.
 
He could be home in fifteen minutes.

The tinkling of the bell above the front door made Rabinowitz jump.
 
He hadn't noticed that someone had approached the shop.
 
The open door revealed a tall man with shoulder-length blonde hair.
 
He had on a black eye patch and wore matching black leather clothes.
 
The guy looked scary as hell.

“Good afternoon,” Rabinowitz said.
 
“M-m-may I help you?”

The blonde man closed the door and said, “Maybe you can, my friend.
 
Are you the only one here?”

Rabinowitz hesitated.
 
“My assistant just went out for something.
 
He'll be right back.”

The man with the eye patch smiled.
 
“And you're lying, my friend.
 
You work alone.”
 
He flipped the sign so that the “Closed” side faced the street.
 
He then turned the dead bolt on the door.
 
Turning back to Rabinowitz, he said, “You resemble your brother, Mister Rabinowitz.”

Rabinowitz felt a tremor of panic.
 
The angel of death had arrived.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

Emo Tuff put his arm around the old man and walked him toward the back room.
 
“Let's go somewhere nice and quiet, shall we?
 
We don't want nosy people looking in the windows and seeing us conduct business, now do we?”

Rabinowitz walked with the man but he was so frightened that he may as well have been a puppet.
 
When they were in the office, Tuff pushed Rabinowitz into the chair and then reached into his jacket pocket.
 
He pulled out the black leather pouch and removed one of the diamonds.

Rabinowitz's heart sank.
 
Hadn't he been pondering a possible connection between the porn star schoolteacher, her diamonds, and Hiram's murder?
 
Was this the coincidence to end all coincidences?

“You recognize this?” Tuff asked.

Rabinowitz nodded.
 

“I need to know where it came from.
 
And the others like it.”

“Did you…?
 
My brother…?”

“I'm asking the questions, my friend,” Tuff replied.
 
“But since it might help to refresh your memory, yes, I was the last person to see your brother alive.
 
I sliced his throat open after cutting off a few other parts of his body.
 
You don't want that to happen to you, too, do you?”

Rabinowitz shook his head.
 

“So why don't you tell me about these diamonds.”

Rabinowitz nodded.
 
“It's a woman.
 
She's in her forties.
 
Blonde.
 
Very attractive.
 
She lives in the suburbs somewhere.
 
She's a schoolteacher and I think she's got a family.
 
About fifteen years ago she came in here and showed me two of those diamonds and asked if I could fence them.
 
I don't know how she got my name but my brother and I, well, we've been doing that kind of work on the side for a long time.
 
I gave her a fair price for the diamonds and she's been coming back ever since.
 
Maybe once a month.”

Tuff was pleased.
 
“Very good, old man.
 
That wasn't difficult, was it?
 
Now comes the important part.
 
Who is she?
 
What's her
name
?”

Rabinowitz shook his head.
 
“I don't know.
 
She always kept her identity a secret.
 
We had… an understanding.”

Tuff frowned.
 
“Tch, tch, tch… that's not a good answer.
 
I need to know her name.”
 
The stiletto appeared in the man's right hand.
 
Where it had come from Rabinowitz couldn't say.

“Wait!” he cried.
 
“The paper!
 
Today's paper.
 
It's on the counter inside the shop.
 
Her picture is in it.
 
She's some kind of porn star or something.
 
She's in the news!”

Tuff's one eye flared brightly.
 
“Did you say… porn star?”

“Yes.
 
Go look, I'll show you the page.
 
It identifies her!”

“All right.
 
Let's see.”
 
Tuff gestured for the old man to get up.
 
Rabinowitz walked quickly into the shop, grabbed the
Sun-Times
, and opened it to the page with the story.
 
Tuff picked it up and stared at the photo.
 
He read through the text and smiled.

“Well, well, well.
 
So she's alive and living in suburbia.
 
Un-fucking-believable.”
 
Tuff dropped the newspaper on the counter, put both hands on Rabinowitz's head and pulled it forward so that he could kiss the old man's forehead.
 
“This is great news, Mister Rabinowitz,” he said.
 
“Thank you.”

Rabinowitz smiled.
 
He almost laughed.
 
Was the killer going to spare him?
 
Had he done the right thing?

Tuff took the paper and said, “Let's go back in your office.
 
I need to make a phone call.”
 
They returned to the little room in the back of the shop and Tuff sat Rabinowitz in the chair once again.
 
The blonde man removed a cell phone from his jacket pocket and punched a button.
 

“Yeah?” came the voice that Tuff knew so well.

“Aaron, it's me.”

“I know.
 
I have Caller ID.”

“You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you.”

“You're pregnant.”

“No, it's better than that.
 
I found her.”

There was silence at the other end.
 
“Her?
 
The
her?”
 

“Uh huh.
 
She's alive and living in…” he hesitated to scan the newspaper story again.
 
“…Lincoln Grove, Illinois.
 
Outside Chicago.”

Tuff imagined Valentine doing his little dance of happiness that he did when he got exceptionally good news.
 
“That's fucking wonderful, Emo,” his boss said.
 
“Listen.
 
Don't hurt her.
 
I want to speak to her
in person
.
 
You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.
 
I'll get her to California somehow.
 
Talk to you later.”

“Right.
 
Good work.”

They hung up and Tuff put away his phone.
 
He smiled at Rabinowitz once more.
 
“You did all right, my friend.
 
You made the boss really happy.”

“I'm glad,” Rabinowitz said.
 
He looked at his watch.
 
“I guess I should finish closing the shop.
 
Got to get home before that Cubs traffic gets too bad.”

Tuff chuckled.
 
The stiletto was back in his right hand and he used the point to clean the fingernails of his left.
 
“I don't think so, my friend.
 
Your brother wants to see you.”

“M-m-my brother?”

“Yeah.”
 
Tuff stood over Rabinowitz.
 
“He misses you.”

S
cotty Lewis was expecting her when Diane pulled up in front of his Arlington Heights office.
 
She had been near hysterics on the phone after the school board meeting and he agreed to see her right away.
 

Scotty first met Diane Wilson at Harper College in Palatine, where she had gone to school in the eighties to get an education degree.
 
They were roughly the same age and had dated a while.
 
For several months Scotty thought it was fairly serious.
 
He was never entirely sure what had happened between them, but Greg Boston entered her life and she gradually changed the relationship from a romance to a friendship.
 
Surprisingly, Scotty had remained close to Diane and became not only her legal advisor but also a sounding board for various personal problems.
 
When she and Greg eventually separated, Scotty came close to regretting that he had married in the interim.
 
However, he convinced himself that his wife was infinitely more stable than Diane was.
 
Scotty always suspected Diane of having a dark past and of not being totally forthcoming about herself—just as her former husband had thought—and Scotty figured that perhaps it was for the best that they hadn't ended up together.
 
Still, he admired her a lot and would do just about anything for her.