West 47th (36 page)

“You might wonder, then, how it was that Abbas Kalali got to dip into the treasure, what was it about him that gave him access? Why him? Well, Abbas Kalali was the apotheosis of sycophancy. He knew when to laugh and when to commiserate, when to take a side, which side to take, when to lose, when to appear or disappear. Thus, it was often agreeable for the coterie of the privileged to have him around. You know the sort.”

Yeah, Mitch thought, he knew have-arounds.

“Kalali was obviously willing to be used and use him they did. Especially during the final months of the Shah when it was dangerous to be making trips to the vault at odd hours. They enlisted Kalali to go for them. He was their designated thief and carrier.”

Nothing so unusual about that, Mitch thought.

“No doubt,” Djam went on, “they expected that while Kalali was at it he would help himself to a helping. That didn't matter to them as long as it wasn't too much and he didn't embarrass by letting them know about it. And, as long as he brought from the vault whatever it took to satisfy them.”

Djam paused. Evidently he had more to say. He shifted his position in the chair and transposed the cross of his legs.

“Your tea must be cold,” Maddie said.

Djam wondered how she could know he hadn't drunk it.

“I can heat it up for you.”

“No, please, don't bother,” Djam said. “I prefer it lukewarm.”

A nearly inaudible grunt of disbelief from Maddie.

“So,” Mitch said, “according to what you say, I gather you believe the Kalali jewels are made up from gems that were taken from the Iranian treasury.”

“Mainly they are, yes,” Djam replied. “Of course there was more, much more, loose cut stones and quite a bit of rough. Diamonds and rubies mostly. Kalali sold those in various lots over the years. He must have realized plenty for them, plenty.”

“How come you're just now laying claim?”

“As reluctant as I am to admit it, we were never able to catch up with him. He was like a damn cricket. You know, one of those elusive bugs. Pounce to capture it, think you have, open your hands only to find you haven't. When he first came to the United States, which was in August of 1980 after the death of the Shah, he lived in northern California under an assumed name, always under a document-supported assumed name. Then it was Arizona and South Dakota of all places. We never gave up on him altogether but after a half dozen years we more or less left it to God's will that he would somehow, someday turn up. Which he did most recently, turned up dead.”

“Not under an assumed name.”

“No. Apparently time caused him to believe he was forgotten.”

“And all was forgiven. You still want them back, those gems, what's left of them?”

“We do.”

“The Iranian treasure must be getting pretty paltry.”

“I assure you the Iranian treasure would still make you momentarily forget to take a breath.”

Mitch was thinking of a lady in a coma and her vigilant lover, their hopes. “Strikes me as greedy,” he told Djam. “Those piles of gems you have and here you are eager to recover these relative few. Greedy, wouldn't you say, Maddie?”

“How about hoggish?” Maddie enjoyed replying.

If Djam was either embarrassed or insulted it didn't show. He did another pleasant Iranian smile and several thoughtful blinks and said: “Actually, I would be satisfied with the recovery of just one piece of the Kalali jewels.”

“You would?”

“Yes.”

“Any piece?”

“One particular piece.”

“Name it.”

“It appears on the insurance company loss list as item number thirty-two.”

The loss list. When, where, Mitch wondered, had Djam become so familiar with the loss list? As for item number thirty-two, what a bane it had been.

Those two enscribed emeralds.

“Instead,” Mitch suggested, “how about a pair of diamond and ruby ear pendants, an exquisite pair, Burma rubies, clean E-color diamonds. They might even be D's.” Selling.

“Only the emeralds will do,” Djam told him.

“Why?”

“Must I tell you?”

Mitch sensed a long wind coming up. He almost got to say his
no
before Maddie's
yes
. She, with her usual penchant for accounts that might smack of thievery or any sort of sharp practice, was all ears.

“Very few people in this country are knowledgeable when it comes to Iranian history,” Djam said. “I don't suppose you're the exception.”

Oh Christ, Mitch thought, how far back will he go?

As though answering Mitch's mind, Djam began with: “Seventeen thirty-six was the year that Nadar Shah took over the throne of Iran from the Safavids, who had ruled for more than two hundred and thirty years. He was an Afsharid Turkman from northern Khorasan. At the time, Iran was by no means a wealthy country. Its primary source of revenue was the silk trade, and carpet weaving. What's more, being remote from Europe, literally cut off from Europe by Ottoman territory, any trade in that direction was sporadic at most.

“Nadar Shah was not the sort to remain content with such marginal solvency. His was an aggressive nature. He was also obsessed with treasure and jewels. Thus, in seventeen thirty-eight, only two years after taking rule, Nadar and his army went plundering.”

Now, this is getting good, Maddie thought.

Djam went on: “He didn't go charging around grabbing up whatever he just happened upon. He knew where the real riches were and went straight for them. The Moghul emperors of India were then the wealthiest of the world's wealthy. No one had more. They hoarded nearly all the fine diamonds from their prolific mines at Panama and Cuddapah. They merely had to reach out to neighboring Burma and Ceylon for whatever rubies and sapphires they desired. With the same ease they acquired the choicest pearls from the Andaman Sea located immediately to the east.

“The Moghuls were especially fond of emeralds. The finest came from the mines of distant Colombia, those that the Spanish conquistadors discovered north of Bogotá in the region of Muzo. Spain had the emeralds, the Moghuls had the money. Spain preferred money, the Moghuls preferred emeralds. It couldn't have been a more agreeable arrangement. Spanish ships carried the emerald rough from Colombia to the Philippines where it was cut and polished before being delivered to Delhi.

“So, thus were the riches Nadar Shah was set upon. The Moghul armies fought but were no match. Nadar's forces overran all of Delhi. They appropriated the treasure and headed home.

“Picture if you will that victorious homeward-bound trek. I have, numerous times. What a sight it must have been! What jubilance must have occupied Nadar's heart as he led that caravan laden with booty! Literally hundreds of thousands of precious stones! Layer after layer rolled up in leopard and tiger skins, caskets of pearls, a dozen pack horses needed to convey the emeralds!”

Djam realized he was getting carried away. He checked his exuberance, sort of shook it off and elevated his torso to recapture his previous dignity. “The Iranian treasure that we spoke of before, that which the Kalalis and others dipped into, is, of course, comprised mainly of the spoils of Nadar Shah's Delhi campaign.”

“You hardly touched on the best part, the robbery,” Maddie complained.

“Robbery?”

“Nadar Shah might have appropriated, as you put it; however it was robbery.”

“It wasn't thought of as such in those days,” Djam told her.

“I suppose not; however he was a swift, big-time but no less and swift, and the stuff he stole was swag.”

Mitch assumed the two enscribed emeralds that were on the Kalali loss list had been part of Nadar Shah's Moghul booty. But so what? If that was their only significance it was trivial, considering the enormous amounts of emeralds in the Iranian treasury. What made those two that, from what Mitch could see weren't special, so special? He asked Djam.

“That is the most salient part of what I'm telling you,” Djam said.

“There's more?”

“Yes, what I've just related is only background. I thought you would enjoy it.”

Mitch was now about eighty percent restive, twenty percent curious. He looked to Maddie, thinking she might have had enough and would do an excuse such as having to get ready for a dinner party out; however she was distracted, vigorously roughing up her hair with her fingers to help it dry.

“Husayn al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Hashid,” Djam said with an ethnic, gargling-like quality that, because of its change, sounded exaggerated, “was a poet who lived in a province of Esfahan. An admirably devout man. He was a descendant of Iran's most revered mystical poet, Jahal Ad-Din-Ar Rumi.”

“When was this?” Maddie interrupted.

“The precise year is a matter of controversy,” Djam replied. “Some accounts have it as eighteen ten, others at eighteen eight. It surely was around that time, the early eighteen hundreds. Anyway, Husayn al-Qasim, as I said, was a religious person. Pious would be a more accurate description. He placed his own contentment and even his meager requirements second to his worship. His most joyful pursuit was in composing verses of devotion to God, and praying, of course.

“Esfahan is for the most part an arid province. Except for the provincial capital it is sparsely inhabited. The small village where Husayn lived was far from any other settlement. Such remoteness suited him. He had no desire or need to associate or experience what lay beyond his view.

“The radiance of such a pious man transcends distance. He was known of, spoken of. That was how Ali-Bin al-Nizami, who at the time was the Imam of the most important mosque in Teheran, learned of Husayn's ailment. Husayn was going blind.

“There were those who said that Husayn's swiftly progressive blindness was a result of his having seen the heart of the sun while staring directly into it. Probably the less mythic cause was a condition we now know as macular degeneration, wherein the macula part of the retina leaks fluid which destroys the retinal nerve tissue. It is untreatable.

“As a gesture of sympathy and hoping to ease, the Imam selected two large emeralds from the treasury and sent them to Husayn along with the suggestions that Husayn hold them up to his eyes and gaze through them whenever he felt inclined. According to the Koran green is the color of heavenly bliss, the color of paradise.”

Djam paused.

Mitch believed he could save words and time. “So,” he said, “those enscribed emeralds are the two you now want to recover.”

“Please, you're getting ahead of me,” Djam said and went on: “Husayn was grateful for the Imam's concern and followed his suggestion. For forty days, at intervals throughout each day, he brought the two emeralds to his eyes, and through them, as well as he was able, saw the colorless aridity of the Esfahan countryside transformed into a blessed verdancy.

“That he did so for forty days was not just arbitrary. In our Koran as in your Bible the number forty is given mystical significance. It is the stipulated length of time for a period of mourning or repentance, for example, or steadfastness.

“Husayn spent the fortieth morning of those forty days composing verses in praise of the Khider, the figure spoken of in sura twenty of the Koran as the unnamed companion of Moses. The Khider is the patron saint most frequently related to the green color of paradise. Husayn was especially inspired that morning and his verses flowed so freely from him it seemed as though he was a mere conduit, a go-between. To this day they are considered to be his best.

“Came noon Husayn performed his ablutions, and, after saying his mid-day prayers, he had a little to eat. Almonds, pomegranate seeds and goat cheese. There, seated on the bare ground on the shady side of his modest house, he treated himself to the enjoyment of gazing through the two emeralds. Within a short while he became drowsy and could not resist falling into a deep sleep.

“When he awakened it was late afternoon. The sun had come around to him and there were independent fluffs of clouds in the sky. He could see those clouds clearly. He was able to make out their edges, layers and forms. He saw that the line of the horizon was distinct, and everything, all the way to it, each shape and each variety of hue, was no longer obscure, but sharply visible to him. The eyesight he'd lost had been returned.

“Husayn looked down at his clenched hands and opened them. Each contained one of the emeralds. Just as he had undergone a change so had those green stones. The flat surface of their faces had been plainly polished. Now, however, each bore a finely engraved inscription in old Farsi, the original Persian language. The inscriptions pertained to what we call
yagin
, the light of intuitive certainty by which the heart sees God.”

“Oh, what a fascinating story,” Maddie said.

“And true,” Djam assured.

“Could be,” Mitch compromised.

“I'm sure you can now understand why we are so anxious to have those emeralds returned,” Djam said. “They are sacred to us, an affirmation of our beliefs. It's as if you had in your possession one of the commandment tablets of Moses and someone made off with it.”

Mitch thought that was stretching it. Maybe it was true that Husayn what's-his-name's eyesight had improved to some extent for some more earthly reason and maybe it was also true that someone had realized the advantage of the circumstances and had the inscriptions done. The shroud of Turin came to mind, that contrivance.

Mitch's thoughts in that direction halted and went another way. Why was he such a doubter? he asked himself. Nearly every time, right off, a doubter. Why couldn't he be more often spontaneously receptive, at least a potential believer? It wasn't a new question. The answer, the excuse, the explanation or whatever had always been that it was something West 47 had done to him, as ambiguous and abstract as that. Also, more specifically, some of the blame belonged to the woman with the pistol up her sable sleeve. “Kalali probably took them unknowingly,” Mitch reasoned. “He probably thought they were just ordinary emeralds.”