the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (24 page)

"Tungsten has enough density but its impossible to work with because tungsten has a melting point one thousand degrees higher than most commercial furnaces or kilns can reach. Also its an extremely hard metal. Gold is very soft. You can actually scar it with a fingernail like this." To prove his point he did just that.

He took a scale about the size of a shoe box out of the suitcase, then a bunch of vials full of different-colored liquid and a black sanding stone.

"Another metal that would work from a weight standpoint is depleted uranium," he went on. "Its heavy enough, easy to melt down, and at its heart not too expensive, but there are other drawbacks. Unless you're a government with a nuclear program, it's real hard to come bv, and of course it's radioactive so if you make a mistake and touch it you're dead in a few days, which most counterfeiters tell me is a major drawback."

Jose lifted the gold bar onto the shoe box-sized scale that had PN 2100 PRECISION BALANCE stamped on the side.

"Four hundred troy ounces to the hair," he reported as he read the printout. "Means your bar here is most likely legit because it's soft like gold and it's exactly the right weight. But you can't be absolutely, positively sure without more tests."

"What's a troy ounce?" I asked.

"A troy ounce is 31.1 grams. A regular ounce, like the one they use at your grocery store or on your bathroom scale, is called an avoirdupois ounce and it only weighs 28.3 grams."

He took the bar off the scale and set it on a pad he'd just placed on the desktop.

"How do you want this?" he asked. "I can do a quick insuranc
e a
ppraisal or I can make you a big expensive enchilada with all the trimmings."

"I want to know exactly what we've got," Jeb told him.

"How about I do a standard viscosity X-ray fluorescence scan evaluation?"

"Can you do that here?" "No."

"I don't want to let go of this bar. It's evidence. Can you tell us anything without taking it out of here?"

Jose leaned down and studied the brick carefully, then turned it over. "Yeah, I can tell you a few things. For instance, the forges that make London Good Delivery Bars are all bonded. See this little trademark here?"

We all leaned in and peered at a small stamp on the back of the bar. It showed tiny crossed swords inside a circle.

"That's an old refinery called Oswald Steel. They used to be located in Michigan but they went out of business in the mideighties. It was one of the big forges that produced these gold bricks back in the day. That gives us a few interesting facts. For instance, we now know the bar is at least pre-eighty-five. Also, they had fewer testing techniques for gold in the eighties. There were no X-ray or viscosity tests. Back then it was a lot easier to counterfeit one of these guys."

"How do we find out if it's real gold and not something else without taking it out of here?" Jeb asked.

"I can file off some of the bar, use my acids to make a solution, and give you a quick content assay right now. That will tell us how many karats it is and how pure the karats are."

"Is that enough of a test to be certain?" Jeb asked.

"Along with the exact weight, that's generally good enough for most insurance companies that write the transport policies on thi
s s
tuff. However, when I do it, if this is real gold, you're gonna lose a little, about a hundred dollars' worth."

"That's okay," Jeb said.

"If you were buying it for an investment, you might want to do a more complete evaluation like a mass spectrometer test, but those can get pricey," Jose went on. "If it was coins and not a bar, you might do a standard heat conductivity test. Gold conducts heat at a specific rate which can be timed with a stopwatch. Works great with something as thin as a coin but it's not too practical with one of these big heavy London bars."

"Let's start by just doing the quick insurance assay," Jeb said.

We watched while Jose picked up the little sanding stone from the table and began filing some gold off the edge of the bar. It made a small pile of yellow powder on the work cloth he'd placed beneath the brick. He kept talking the whole time.

"That should be enough. . . . These vials contain different kinds of acid which I use in a mixture to break down the metal to measure it."

He picked up the filings with a small pen-sized battery-powered electromagnet and emptied them into a vial, mixing the gold filings with the acids from the smaller vials.

He set the mixed vial on the desk while he took a machine about the size of a small microwave out of his suitcase and plugged it into the wall socket.

"This reads the viscosity of the gold-acid mixture," he said as he put the mixed vial with the gold into the machine. "If we get the right viscosity we can assign purity. If your brick is a real LGD Bar and not a counterfeit, it should be at least ninety-nine point five percent pure. Could be more but it has to be at least ninety-nine point five to qualify as an official London Good Delivery Bar."

He flipped the switch on the machine and a minute later, read a printout. "Checks out. Twenty-four karat. Ninety-nine point seven."

"That can't be." I looked at Hitch, who also seemed puzzled. We'd all expected it to be fake. Why else would it have been left behind in that truck for all those years?

"You don't want this brick to be real?" Jose seemed surprised.

"Wait a minute," I told him. I pulled Jeb and Hitch into the hallway.

"We have to find out for sure," I said once we were out of Del Cristo's earshot.

"I thought we just did," Jeb said.

"He said there were more complete tests he could do. Let's have him take that one brick so he can do the X-ray scan. It should be safe to let him have it. He works for the Jewelry Mart. Alexa says he's bonded."

"What about our chain of evidence?" Jeb said. "Once I let go of it I can't swear it's the same bar if we ever get this case to court."

"It's just one brick. If you lose that one at trial, so what? You still got four strongboxes full to guarantee your chain of evidence."

But on principle, Jeb was torn. No cop likes breaking the chain of evidence on anything relating to a case, no matter the reason. Finally, he led us back into the office and faced the assayer.

"Jose?"

"Present and accounted for," the little man joked.

"How much do you think that gold bar is worth?"

"I can tell you to the penny. Gold today is about a thousand dollars a troy ounce. One thousand one hundred and six if you're a stickler for complete accuracy. I could do it exactly with a calculator, but throwing an ax at it, this one brick is worth about four hundred forty thousand dollars, give or take a Chevy Nova."

What a stitch, this guy.

"Excuse us again," Jeb said, and pulled me back into the corrido
r w
hile Hitch stationed himself in the doorway, where he could keep Jose at a distance, but still hear what we were saying.

"We counted a hundred gold bricks in that truck," Jeb said. "At four hundred forty K a brick. That's forty-four million. According to Carters case notes, the load was insured by Axeis Cargo Insurance. ACI only had it valued at fifteen million. So what's with that? How can there be more gold now than when the truck was hijacked?"

It was a damn good question.

Then Hitch whispered in my ear, "Don't ya love this, dawg? We're standing here doing absolutely nothing and Act Three is getting better by the moment."

Chapter
41.

I walked back into the office. Jose had a slight grin on his face.

"If you guys keep running out, I'm going to get an inferiority complex," he said.

"What was gold selling for in 1983?" I asked.

"A lot less. I'd have to look it up, but it was around three seventy
-
five a troy ounce."

I looked at Jeb. "Then that's the difference. It's worth a lot more per ounce today than it was in eighty-three."

Jose asked, "What's really going on here, guys?"

"Can we make arrangements for you to do a full assay at your place?" Jeb said without answering. He had made up his mind that I was right. It was better to risk the one brick as evidence and be absolutely certain of what was in that armored truck.

"Sure," Jose said. "But you gotta take care of the transport. I don't want to be responsible for that. You have my address on that card."

"What kind of test will you do?" Jeb asked.

"Probably the standard X-ray fluorescence scan. That's the one I'd pick 'cause I've got the right equipment in my lab. I'm pretty sure you're wasting your time, because I'm almost positive this bar is the real thing."

"Do it anyway," Jeb said. "We'll have it delivered to your office this afternoon."

Jose nodded and started to pack up his gear. While he was doing that I lifted the brick. It was amazingly heavy. When you're wearing a gold ring or watch, you're not aware of how dense it really is because it's so small. But melted down into one of these London Good Delivery Bars, the dead weight was impressive.

After Jose left and Jeb went back downstairs with the brick, I began cranking out yawns. It was only eleven A
. M
., but we'd gone another full night without sleep.

"Hitch, I'm not thinking straight. I think I need to get a few hours' rest. I don't want to take the time to drive all the way home, so I'm gonna rent a motel room nearby."

My yawns were becoming contagious and Hitch started yawning as well.

"I could use a little sleep myself," he said. "But I'm not gonna let my new producing partner crash in some no-tell motel. I got a guest bedroom at my place."

It sounded good.

We left the team of CSIs swarming over the Brinks truck, told Jeb what we were up to, then got in our separate cars and headed to Hitch's house up in the Mount Olympus development.

It was eleven thirty when we pulled up and parked in the circular drive under his porte cochere.

"Crystal starts early at the restaurant, making her pastries," Hitch said as we got out of our cars. "So she's not here."

We went inside and he showed me to the guest bedroom. It was large and inviting with a European ambience. The decor was Country French. Forest green walls with white trim. The furniture was mostly Italian and French reproductions. The upholstery was an expensive-looking French toile. There was a window that looked out over Hollywood.

Hitch set the clock radio alarm for me. We agreed to get up at five P
. M
. and he left.

I studied the view. We had to be over a thousand feet up. Low fluffy white clouds hung at eye level against the mountains like movie special effects. I stretched out on the extremely soft king-sized bed and closed my eyes. For a minute I thought I had died and was in heaven. I was already above the clouds and now I began to hear sweet voices singing harmonic madrigals a capella.

I realized after a moment that the music was coming from the clock radio that Hitch had inadvertently turned on when he set the alarm. It was set to a Christian station, the volume low. I was at peace on my supersoft cloud-nine mattress while a children's choir soothed my senses. Not exactly heaven, but close.

I considered turning the radio off, but the music was so soothing I didn't make the effort. Instead I stretched out and listened to the angelic voices. I fell asleep thinking, So this is what real wealth feels like.

Shane Scully had finally achieved his new exalted place, high above the toiling masses, at rest on Mount Olympus.

Chapter
42.

I awoke to the smell of something delicious cooking in the kitchen. I lay still for a minute savoring the aroma. Then I looked over at the clock radio. It was five of five in the evening, just minutes before the alarm was set to ring.

The Christian choir was no longer singing and a preacher was in the middle of a sermon about enriching life. I listened for a minute as he told his radio parishioners that the secret to finding love was simply to be open to it. Nice concept, but not one you see very much of in police work.

I rolled over and snapped off the radio. I had slept in my clothes, so I padded into the bathroom to wash my face.

Hitch's guest bath was larger than the one Alexa and I shared in
Venice. The fixtures were little gold-plate dolphins that spit water from two ornate faucets into a hand-painted French porcelain basin.

I was beginning to see dolphins in a whole new light. They helped us wash. They helped us hold up our tabletops. It was probably time for me to step up and get some dolphins of my own.

While I was on this train of thought, I began to review the whole movie deal as well.

Was it really such a crime to sell this case to a studio? I mean, who did it really hurt? I'd heard that over twenty L
. A
. cops were members of the Writers Guild. Was I just being an asshole here? If Hitch and I didn't sell the case, wouldn't some other guy with flat feet and a column in the LA Times just scoop it up and make the sale instead?