Cons, Scams, and Grifts

Eighteen

When Midori saw Larry Ballard’s tall form threading its way toward her between the display tables, she shot a quick look around and relaxed: no sign of Luminitsa Djurik. Larry came up to her with his big sexy grin that made her go weak in the knees.

“You wanna buy somethings? Big sale today.”

He leaned close. “What I want to do is take you into a fitting room and toss your skirt up over your head and—”

“Rarry!” She put a hand over the bottom half of her face and blushed bright scarlet, giggling.

“But I’ll settle for buying you lunch at the Olive Garden.”

Her face wreathed itself in smiles. She checked the tiny watch on her slim wrist. Ballard could feel himself getting hard just looking at her. Last night in bed, she had...

“Just fifteen mo minutes, then I got a whole hour.”

“Hey, Midori, where you been hiding Mr. Dreamboat?”

Midori turned, worst fears realized. Luminitsa! Of the long legs and big firm breasts and gleaming red lips and glowing almond skin. And good English, too. It was all over, because once they’d seen Luminitsa, they always went back for more.

“Is my friend, Rarry.” To Larry she said, eyes miserable, “Is Luminitsa. She work with me, she teach me everythings.”

Ballard nodded and smiled. “Luminitsa.” She reminded him of someone, he couldn’t think who. Didn’t matter.

A little old man with cheery faded blue eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles popped out from behind Luminitsa.

“I’m Whit Stabler.” As he and Ballard shook hands, he added, “Anything you want, these ladies’ll take care of you.”

“Anything, Whit?” asked Luminitsa with a throaty chuckle.

Ballard tucked Midori’s arm through his to lead her across Nordstrom’s gleaming floors toward the front door and the Olive Garden, and away from Luminitsa. Midori sighed.

“Luminitsa very beautiful.”

“And old Whit reminds me of my grandpa. So what?”

“You no want Luminitsa?”

“Jesus, no. I know her type. If she’s nice to someone, it’s because she thinks she can use him. I bet she takes old Whit for a bundle before she’s through with him.”

“You no want Luminitsa!” she repeated. “I very happy.”

At 760 Golden Gate, the DKA clerical staff was stuffed into what had been a one-floor flat. The field men’s cubicles and Dan Kearny’s private cubbyhole and makeshift storage boxes for personal property removed from repos were all stuffed into the under-the-building garage. In a pinch, the garage could also temporarily store two sedans or three compacts.

Here at 340 Eleventh Street, each of the two ground-floor rooms was bigger than the whole setup at Golden Gate. The field men were upstairs and there was room for twenty repos in the fenced lot out back. Giselle shared the windowless back room with the C/B, the fax, and the Internet computer. After school, teenage girls came in to churn out collection demands, legal notices, and skip letters; but their giggles and gossip were no more distracting than the twittering of a flock of sparrows. It was how Giselle herself had started out, more years ago than she liked to recall.

Two men came in from the storage lot through the locked back door behind her without tripping the alarm. With a casual finger, Giselle pushed the intercom button that sent a silent CODE RED signal to Kearny in the front room. Then she saw they were Rudolph Marino and Staley Zlachi. Alarms would not slow them down. After the phone call where he didn’t identify himself, she should have expected the Gypsy King to drop by.

“Piccina! Come va?” asked Marino with a big smile.

Marino was using his Angelo-Grimaldi-the-Italian-lawyer persona today. Gleaming hair, gleaming oxfords, $2,000 suit, Patek Philipe watch. They had conned themselves into a brief but intense affair when their paths had crossed a couple of years back, then parted without permanent damage to either one. Giselle returned his smile.

“Va bene,” she told him, then turned to scold Staley. “You hung up before I could say hello the other day.”

“The last time I laid eyes on you, Giselle, you was all dressed up as a young Gypsy lad.”

“A ternipè, you called it, right? In Stupidville, Ohio.”

She was laughing at the memory when Dan Kearny came through the door from the front office hefting a tire iron. He skidded to a stop. He nodded casually to Staley.

“Why didn’t you come in the front door like regular folks?”

“Is serious business, the police are already involved.”

“If they’re involved, we don’t want to be.” Then Kearny shrugged. “Aw, hell, come on in, this ought to be good.”

Rudolph took Giselle’s arm. “You and I are not needed, cara. I only came along because I hoped to see you.”

“You came along to get me out of the way so Staley can con Dan into doing something he’ll regret for the rest of his life.”

He didn’t deny it. “I will buy you lunch at MC-Squared.”

“Do they even serve lunch at MC-Squared?”

“To us they do.”

Josh Croswell was eating his lunch in the office, keeping his eye on the scanners, when a burly mid-50s Jew entered the jewelry store. He had Semitic eyes quick with intelligence, a grey-shot patriarchal beard, and an unobtrusive black skullcap. His blue suit was rumpled; his narrow tie was carelessly knotted.

“I am addressing Mr. Joshua Croswell?” he asked.

“You are,” piped Josh in his best customer’s voice.

“Good.” With his heavy guttural voice, it came out as “Goot.” “Solly David from the Los Angeles Gemstone Mart.”

“Am I glad to see you! Your e-mail message said—”

Solly waved a small quick hand. “I hadda be up here today anyway, I thought I’d drop by, see can we do a little business.”

Josh locked the front door, flipped the OPEN sign over to CLOSED, and led Mr. David back to the narrow cluttered office.

“Pretty soft, retail, three hundred percent markup — you must be rakin’ it in. Me, I deal in fine gemstones, wholesale only, for the trade.” With a thick finger, Solly opened the flap of a small folded envelope. “Fine gemstones like this here one.” A glittering emerald slid out across the desk blotter. “Fifteen carats, rectangular, Portuguese step cut.”

Josh stared at the stone, trying to pretend expertise.

“Ah... are you sure that’s fifteen carats?”

His very beard seemed to stiffen. “Get out the scales.”

“Oh, no, no, no need of that,” Josh said quickly. “Um... how much are you asking? For the trade.”

“It’s a bargain at seventy-five K,” said Solly carelessly.

Seventy-five thousand! That was as much as Donny was offering Josh for it. He had to talk this guy down. With a jeweler’s loupe he peered intently into those brilliant depths.

“Am I seeing an occlusion in—”

Solly snatched the emerald back, highly offended.

“This stone is not from outta Africa, it’s from Colombia, where all the best emeralds come from. Smuggled out from a mine in the mountains the Colombian emerald cartel don’t know about.”

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” interrupted Josh, almost desperately, “but I’ve got a client here who’ll only go so high.”

“Not my problem. Look at the color! That brilliant green comes from the high chromium content in stones from this mine. Seventy-five, first, last, and only offer.”

“I was thinking more like thirty-seven-five,” said Josh.

Solly shook his head sadly, took out his little envelope.

“Forty-two-five,” said Josh.

Solly paused. He checked his watch. He sighed. “Okay, fifty K an’ I don’t gotta take it home with me on the plane.”

Josh sat down behind the desk, got out the corporate three-tier checkbook. He’d have the money back into the account before Mr. Petrick’s return. Fifty K against 75K: a net of $37,500 for him from the sale of the two emeralds, tax-free, plus his commission on the $12,500 half of the first sale that he would let Mr. Petrick know about. It was dead easy.

“So Ephrem is dead,” mused Kearny.

“You knew Ephrem?” Staley let his surprise show.

“He’d hear things about the Lowara, the Kalderash, pass ’em along.” Dan added the lie glibly, “Never about the Muchwaya.”

“Yeah, well, now he’s dead and the cops think Yana killed him. We gotta find her fast and first.”

“I’ve got no problem with that.”

Staley repeated with new emphasis, “We gotta find her.”

“Jesus, I can’t believe this! You’re trying to hire DKA to find a missing Gyppo girl before the cops do?”

“You find people all the time.”

“For banks and big corporations.”

“Finding is finding.”

“I trust banks and big corporations.”

Staley tried to look hurt, then they both had to chuckle.

“Look, Mr. Kearny, act like Yana is one of those Cadillac cars you chased all over the country to take away from us. We’ll even pay you a repo fee for her on top of time and mileage, just the same as if she was a automobile. Full load. No discount.” He took a big roll of greenbacks out of his pocket and dropped it on the desk. “A good deposit up front.”

It was the goofiest idea Dan had ever heard of, and it came from the twistiest man he had ever known. But he liked Staley, there was a hell of a lot more going on here than saving a Gypsy girl from a murder charge, and he wanted to find out what it was.

“Okay. I can put one man on it full-time—”

“Who? Who you gonna put on it?”

Kearny could see no harm in telling the truth. “Ballard.”

“Wonderful! He outwitted Rudolph Marino, how many men ever done that? I couldn’t ask for no better recommendation.”

“Okay,” Dan said. “Now we gotta talk terms.”

That took another hour and sadly depleted Staley’s roll of coarse notes thrown so confidently on the desk. When the haggling was complete, they shook hands on the deal.

Giselle, hearing all about it after her return from her lunch, asked a bit snidely, “You’re going to let Larry start up all that stuff with Yana again?”

“He’s gotta find her first.”

Giselle shrugged, then chuckled.

“I wish I could have been here to take a photo of it.”

“Photo of what?” demanded Dan suspiciously.

“You and Staley. The devil shaking hands with himself.”

Dan Kearny was not amused.