“My brother’s success is my success, that’s what I tell people around the bourse in New York. Remember how Dad called it the bourse, but then, he was really French, wasn’t he?”
My brother? This dickhead was calling me his brother in public?
Dad? This prick was calling my father “Dad”?
The family is proud of me? I felt like asking him if that was the same family who couldn’t remember my name when they found out I was broke.
This was the first I’d heard or seen of the bastard since I left New York for Lisbon and Angola.
“What are you doing in town, Leo?”
“Came over to visit my money in Switzerland.” He gave me a big wink. I recognized the wink. It was the same one he and Bernie used when mentioning secret Swiss bank accounts. Leo made a couple trips a year to Switzerland, taking over cash and stashing it out of sight of the tax man. Diamond and narcotic dealers shared a common affinity for cash transactions.
“Actually, I moved the account to Luxembourg—better interest. And you know, the IRS is always snooping around the Swiss, especially with all the Nazi gold scandals. I didn’t know you were in Antwerp until I spoke with Franck’s secretary this afternoon.”
After introducing him to Cross, I asked, “Making a buy in Antwerp?”
“You know it. The usual delivery plan.” He grinned.
Ah, yes, the old hollow shoe-heel delivery plan. I remembered that was how Leo got his buys past customs, through a cavity in the heels of his shoes. The guy had cheating customs and the IRS down to a science.
“We brought a truckload of flawless roughs in from the mine,” I told Leo. “Internally flawless D’s, all three carats or more.”
“Well, maybe we should talk—”
“No talk, no bargaining.” I put my arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “You’re family, guy. I want you to have as many as you can fit in your shoes. I’ll tell Franck to give them to you at half market price.”
Leo almost swooned in my arms. It took me another five minutes to unglue him from me.
After he was gone, Cross gave me a funny look.
“What’s with you? Isn’t that the stepbrother you’ve always hated?”
“It’s butt-fuck time.”
“Man, you can butt-fuck me like that anytime. That guy’s gonna make a bundle off of those diamonds you gave him for cheap.”
“He’s going to need it,” I said, grimly.
The arrival of the armored car stopped the chatter in the room. A representative of the armored car company brought in the briefcase. I had to smother a grin at the sight of the guards carrying their weapons as if they were under attack.
The representative followed me into an adjoining room where I took the briefcase and excused him. Alone in the room, I opened the briefcase and took out the pouch.
It was empty.
I took another pouch from a secret pocket in my coat and shook out the Heart of the World. I hadn’t even told Cross about my deception.
I figured with all the attention focused on guards and the armored car, no one would think they were carrying around an empty briefcase and that I actually had the diamond on me. It wasn’t really something I dreamt up—valuable shipments of diamonds were made around the world in packages marked as other items.
Hugo was a genius. When the Heart of the World was placed in the glittering bowl and hit with the beam of light, the diamond looked like the heart of a volcano.
I was listening to the “ah’s” and “ooh’s” when a waiter stuck a portable telephone in my hand. “Sorry, sir, but the caller said it was urgent.”
“How are you, Win? I’ve missed you.”
There was a snake in every paradise.
“The only thing you missed was putting a slug in my heart, Simone. I hope you called to tell me that João has died and gone to hell.”
“We’re your family, Win. João and your father were like brothers, you shouldn’t talk like that about family,” Simone said.
“You’re a murderous, double-crossing, thieving, fucking bitch. What do you want?”
“You know what we want. You’re displaying João’s fire diamond and we didn’t even get an invitation. We have to watch the reception on CNN.”
“Let’s not play games, Simone. João stole the diamond from my father. Even if I decided to let bygones be bygones and pay João a few bucks to smooth the pain of loss, after you fucked me over in Angola I’m not willing to give you shit.”
“You don’t understand, Win. It’s not about money. João loves that diamond more than anything, more than me. Now it’s about blood. Your blood.”
62
JFK, New York City
Leo flew first-class. He had no idea what it cost Win to get him upgraded from the super-saver fare that he always used, but he’d tell Win not to do it again. It was a waste. He’d rather Win just gave him the money instead. He heard about a guy, one of the biggest dealers at the New York diamond exchange, who always flew coach and donated the difference between a first-class ticket and his cheap ticket to charity.
That kind of mentality Leo couldn’t understand.
But as long as he was in first-class, he scarfed up the champagne and hors d’oeuvres. The food was served on china rather than the plastic-wrap crap they gave you in coach and the utensils were silver.
Real class, he thought.
He put a knife, fork, and spoon in his briefcase, along with a bottle of wine and champagne. Also in his briefcase were statements from his Swiss account and new Luxembourg account. He’d saved over a million dollars in taxes the last five years by going offshore with many of his business transactions. He’d conduct the sale in New York and have the other party wire his offshore account from their offshore account. He cheated, they cheated, and everyone was happy. And what the IRS didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
The heels of his shoes were packed with the diamonds Win sold him at half of market price, literally giving them to him. He always considered Win to be an arrogant prick, but Leo put a price on everything and as far as he was concerned, Win was now family.
He stuck another bottle of champagne in his briefcase.
Life was good.
He handed over his customs declaration at passport control.
“Nothing to declare today, sir?”
“No, had to attend a wedding in Paris.”
That’s how he always travelled, flying in and out of Paris rather than Antwerp or Switzerland. When the customs people saw the diamond capital or the name of the world’s money capital on the declarations, they literally strip-searched and body-cavity searched you. But nobody went to Paris on business.
He was passing through the customs area exiting to the concourse when he was stopped by two men.
“Agent Wilson, Customs,” the man said, flashing a badge. “This is Agent Bernstein, IRS.”
“Wha-what do you want?”
“We’ll start with your briefcase. And your shoes.” Wilson grinned. “After that, things will get interesting if we have to bring out the extractors.”
Leo gaped at them.
“How—how did—”
“A little birdie told us.”
63
Paris
I pulled the same stunt at Orly airport in Paris that I had in Antwerp, having an armored car pick up an empty briefcase with cameras rolling, while I carried the diamond in my pocket.
The Heart of the World’s reputation followed it from Antwerp, attracting much more news coverage. A public-relations person hired by Franck met the plane and handled the news briefing, handing out a videotape that showed the diamond in the spectacular setting at the reception.
I parted with Cross in the airport. He took a taxi to Charles de Gaulle to catch a flight back to the States. “I’m not going back to Indiana, there’s nothing there for me. My sister’s living in L.A. and she says it never freezes and hardly even rains. I’m going to camp out on the beach with a beer and a babe. Make that babes.”
/> I wished him luck and told him to keep in touch.
A limo driver was waiting for me after I cleared customs.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” the driver said.
“My cousin’s supposed to be here,” I said.
“I’m sorry, monsieur, there was some confusion and my dispatcher failed to tell me to pick her up. We will be picking her up on the way.”
There was something odd about the limo driver’s coat—it didn’t fit his muscular arms and shoulders, nor his paunch. He had a southern European look, dark eyed and dark complexioned, and a heavy accent to his rough French. I wasn’t sure where it came from, something European, but I was lucky I understood his French—most of the time I hit Paris the taxi drivers were of Southeast Asian ancestry and something always got lost in the translation when I tried to communicate.
I climbed in the passenger compartment. A bucket with champagne was waiting for me. I grabbed one of the newspapers that the limo came stocked with, scanning it quickly to see if there were any stories about the diamond. My French was pretty good, much better than what I heard from the limo driver. During my teens, I sometimes stayed with my Parisian relatives, people designated as “cousins” although their familial relationship was only vaguely defined.
The family was in the jewelry business and I’d arranged for them to introduce me around and prepare the invitation list for the gala reception that I was planning. I hadn’t seen Yvonne, the cousin who had planned to meet me at the airport, in years. I remembered her as a serious young woman who worked hard at the family business in the St. Cloud district. She had recently taken over management of the firm when her father retired.
I grabbed the champagne bottle and started unwrapping its head when the limo suddenly pulled over to the curb where a man was waiting. My curbside door opened and a man got in.
“What the—”
He had a gun and a bad temperament.
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
He spoke Portuguese. I now realized the source of the accent that underlined the driver’s French.
“João sends greetings.”
“I don’t have the diamond.”
I was scared shitless. The guy’s gun hand was shaking bad. He wasn’t scared. His dull eyes and tight facial muscles had the look of someone who smoked too much crack.
He hit me in the face with the gun.
“Listen carefully, amigo, and you might live. We’re going someplace where there’s a telephone. You’re going to arrange to have the diamond delivered to us. If you make a mistake with the phone call, I’m going to cut off your nose. If whoever you call makes a mistake, I’m going to cut off a piece of you for every hour that we’re delayed, starting with your balls. Entender?”
Yeah, I understood. My brilliant fucking plan to divert attention away from me with the armored car routine left me exposed. I should have been in the fucking armored car with the diamond I had in my pocket. As soon as these street trash found the diamond on me, or I turned it over when they started to cut off my nose, they’d kill me.
“Stop thinking.”
I wasn’t thinking, I was sky-high with adrenaline from panicking. The fucker raised the gun and slammed it down on my knee. I yelped and bent over with pain. When I uncoiled, I pushed aside his gun hand and came around, swinging the champagne bottle. It hit him in the face, across the nose, splattering me and the interior with blood.
His head snapped back and the dull light in his eyes went completely dark.
The driver hit the brakes and twisted around with a gun in his hand as I turned to him. I ducked down. My hand reached the door and I pulled the handle, hitting the door with my head and shoulder, flying out face-first, landing on the pavement in a belly and elbow flop. I bounced on the asphalt and rolled, arms and legs flying.
When I stopped rolling, I lay dazed, my head spinning, ears ringing. I got onto my knees. I felt no pain—my body was numb from shock. The sound of tires screeching spiked my adrenaline—I’m going to be run over.
There were plenty of cars on the freeway but I was on an overpass, in the shoulder of the road—no cars were coming at me. A car engine revved and burned rubber behind me. I jerked around. The limo—the sonofabitch was coming back at me. I got to my feet and dove for the railing, bellying over it, facing a thirty or forty foot drop down to the freeway below. With no place to go, I hung on with both hands as the limo backed up, scraping against the side of the railing. As it pulled up to where I was, a bloody face with his nose flattened appeared in the side window.
The guy was trying to get the door open but the car was too close against the railing. Screaming at me, he brought up the gun and started firing. I ducked down, still hanging on as the window exploded. My head was still spinning and my ears were filled with a fuzzy siren.
I looked up as the gunman knocked glass away and stuck the gun out, pointing it at me. The limo suddenly lurched away from the wall and the gunman disappeared from sight as the limo moved into traffic and then swerved violently to avoid a collision. It was about fifty feet from me when it hit the railing again with its front passenger-side fender then bounced off and headed down the freeway.
A couple seconds passed before I realized that what I heard was an actual siren. The limo driver must have heard it, too.
But it wasn’t a police car. An ambulance sped by, the paramedic in the front passenger seat staring at me as I clutched onto the railing.
64
“Very, very smart,” my French cousin, Yvonne, told me. “That’s exactly what you should do when you’re kidnapped, fight back immediately.” She spoke faster than a speeding bullet and my French was tested in keeping up with her.
“I took a kidnapping class,” she said. “I had to when I made a trip to Japan with diamonds sewed into the hem of my coat. That’s the only way the insurance company would sell me kidnapping insurance for the trip, if I took security training. They told us at the class that the best and probably only time you can make an escape is in the first few moments of the kidnapping. That’s the time when the kidnappers have just grabbed you, they’re still in an unfamiliar and uncontrolled environment, and are distracted looking around to see if there are police or witnesses. Once they take you to their hideout, you’re finished. That’s their territory, a secure, controlled environment without witnesses.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take credit for outsmarting them. I just happened to have a bottle of champagne in my hand when I panicked and reacted to being slammed in the knee with a gun. If it wasn’t for the champagne, a Taitinger Blanc de Blanc Nineteen—”
She broke out laughing. Yvonne was the cousin who was supposed to have been with the limo that picked me up. Fortunately for both of us, the thugs had left her out of it. The limo was found abandoned near a freeway off-ramp. The real limo driver was found tied up and gagged, but otherwise unharmed, in the trunk of the limo.
It was late afternoon by the time I got through with the police. I told them truthfully everything I observed or heard during the kidnapping attempt—except for the mention of João’s name. Nothing was going to happen to João if I gave the name, he obviously didn’t leave his wheelchair to direct the actual crime and he’d have an iron-clad alibi. What I wanted to avoid were a million questions about my own connections to João, from blood diamonds to a fire diamond.
The story I gave out about how I came into possession of the Heart of the World—that I’d bought it off a mysterious vagabond who flagged me down one night when I was returning to the Blue Lady mine—had no truth to it, but no one could make it out to be a lie. Not that anyone would go to Angola to find out.
Yvonne had picked me up at the police station and took me for food and drinks afterward. I needed the drinks.
“One positive thing came out of this,” I said. “The publicity generated by the robbery attempt won’t hurt the stone.”
“Did you stage it for that purpose?”
I rubbed my sore knee. “If I had, I would have passe
d on having my kneecap knocked off. Tell me about Rona. I read that she’s straight, a lesbo, a nympho, that she’s a hermaphrodite, bi, and that she’s had a sex-change operation, that her name was originally Ron.”
We were on our way to a fashion show. Rona, no last name, was one of the world’s top fashion designers.
“The stories about her sex and sexual preferences are probably true—all of them. She claims her sexual preferences and desires change with the phases of the moon. Or is it her astrological sign that changes monthly? Whatever it is, Rona started out with having the nose and ended with the eye.”
“The nose and the eye?”
“Perfume takes a nose, that’s how she started. She worked for Nicholas Romanov, the perfumer who claims to be a descendant of the czars. When Romanov died, his wife took over the line and Rona left when the woman started pushing her out. Bad mistake, because it was Rona who had the nose for choosing the scents. Rona came out with her own line and it was a hit. After her perfume line made her name well-known, she moved into fashion and turned out to have an eye for that. She’s only been at it a couple years, but her clothes are the talk of the fashion industry. You probably saw some of her designs barely clinging to some of the almost-nude actresses at last year’s Academy Awards show.”
“I’m afraid I was knee-deep in mine muck during the Academy Awards.” I glanced at the gem case in the backseat. She was taking jewels to the fashion show, “rent-a-gem” Yvonne called her deal with Rona. She loaned the jewelry to the designer for the models to wear down the runway and in turn got free publicity for her jewelry business.
“Any jewelry in there worth anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I wouldn’t risk valuable pieces on these models. They’re liable to slip out the side door after the show and take the next plane back to Barbados or wherever they hang out between shows. No, it’s all pretty and flashy, but most are pastes of our better designs.”
“Fifty cents’ worth of scent can sell for fifty dollars.”
Heat of Passion Page 30