Rusty made sure that they never got close enough to the Range Rover for visual recognition.
Vito obviously knew Rusty by sight, but Reginald had never met Rusty in person, so if LeGrande happened to catch him in the rearview, it would be just another face. Reginald had met Enzo before, but it’d been at least ten years. He wouldn’t recognize Enzo. Vito would, of course, but he’d only have a side mirror and they were both wearing sunglasses.
Besides, they had the cell phone tracker. If they lost him, Rusty expected that Reginald would make a call when he got to his destination, lighting up his location on their tracker. Sure enough, the Range Rover pulled into the exit lane at the Sixth Street off-ramp, and Rusty knew almost immediately where they were going. He waited until the Range Rover was on the off-ramp and then accelerated.
“What are you doing?” Enzo asked, confused, as Rusty jerked the Malibu around one car and barely missed the front end of another. “Hey, that was fucking close. We get in an accident and—”
Rusty turned his head ever so slightly, and Enzo didn’t say anything else. He’d been well trained for situations like this.
“They’re going to the Jewelry District,” Rusty said. He weaved through the midday traffic, lighter than rush hour but still thick, to the next exit, which was Third Street, three blocks up from where Reginald exited. At the bottom of the off-ramp, Rusty turned south on Figueroa, then to Fifth, and then back east, in the direction of the Historic Core. That’s what they called the buildings that they didn’t demolish and couldn’t renovate. Rusty rolled through the Hill Street intersection and pointed out Enzo’s window. “Check it out.”
There was the Range Rover, parked in front of the International Jewelry Center.
Rusty pulled around the block so that he’d approach them from behind. The Range Rover was parked halfway down the block. Rusty rolled past the Rover and spotted the two heavies they’d seen with Reginald and Vito earlier sitting in the front seat. As he passed the SUV, Rusty spotted a sign on the first floor of the Jewelry Center. The sign said “WorldSecure” beneath a stylized outline of a globe with a key at the center. “Get your phone out and look up ‘WorldSecure,’ 550 South Hill Street.”
“On it,” Enzo said and typed the name into his search engine. “‘WorldSecure is the premier secure global storage and logistics firm of choice for collectors, investors, and high net worth individuals.’ Says they store and transport precious gems, metals, and fine art for their clients.”
“Son of a bitch,” Rusty said. “That’s where they’re hiding them. Reginald must have had enough front money to get himself an account.”
“Wouldn’t they do background checks, though? Income verification or something?”
“Oh, of course they would. But all of that can be falsified if you know how, and Reginald does.”
Rusty drove up a block and pulled a U-turn, then parked a half a block up next to Los Angeles’s historic Pershing Square park. They were across the street from the Range Rover. Reginald and Vito left the building about ten minutes later. Rusty watched the SUV fall in behind an armored car that emerged from a parking lot next to the Jewelry Center. The armored car wasn’t parked there before, so there must have been a covered access point on the other side of the building. Rusty could see an alley behind it. The armored car pulled out onto Hill, almost directly across from the Malibu, and turned right. The Range Rover followed the truck through a left turn onto Fifth Street. Rusty pulled out and U-turned, earning a long honk and a middle finger from the driver he’d just cut off. Rusty hit the corner just in time to see Reginald turning right onto Olive and then pulling into a metered space (and taking up two) across the street from an immensely tall, needle-shaped building of blue glass that must have been sixty floors or more. Part of that building stretched across Olive, creating a kind of tunnel. The Range Rover parked there, out of the sun.
“Jesus, all that for a block?”
Rusty had lost the armored car. By the time he’d turned the car around, it was gone. He’d lost sight of it after the left onto Fifth. Rusty didn’t want to chance looking for it, so he had to assume that there might be an entrance to a parking garage underneath the part of the building that went over Olive or perhaps a delivery entrance on the other side of the building. All he knew were that the traffic patterns in this part of the city were a very confusing mix of one-way streets that he had yet to figure out.
Rusty paused a moment in the intersection, waiting to see if Reginald and Vito got out. This drew another angry response from another impatient driver. Rusty slowly turned right, eyes on the tunnel. He thought he saw two figures walking across the street in the shadow of the tunnel. The car behind him whipped around him, his patience exhausted, and the last thing Rusty saw before he completed his turn was its brake lights. He’d blasted his way up half a block only to have to stop for Reginald and Vito crossing Olive beneath the tunnel.
Olive, in this direction, was moving uphill, so when Rusty turned right onto Fourth Street, just before the block where Reginald parked the Range Rover, he was now facing downhill. Rusty drove halfway down, almost to Hill, before he found a parking spot to squeeze the Malibu into. There was a park on the left side of the street and, he realized too late, a parking garage on the right. Rusty had to parallel park aiming downhill, and it took him a few tries before he got it right. Every second he wasted was another step Reginald and Vito got farther from his sight.
“I’m going to go have a look around, see if I can figure out where they went,” Rusty said, getting out. Enzo said nothing, likely knowing that Rusty would already be aware of anything Enzo would admonish him to do. Rusty stepped out into the heat of midday. There was a park on the block he’d parked on with several leafy trees that hung over the tall chain link fence separating the sidewalk from the park. The ground on the other side of it was brown and scorched. The trees themselves were a mixture of green and brown, as though they’d given up to the inevitable. Rusty walked uphill quickly to the corner of Olive and Fourth; it was steep, and he’d broken out into a sweat. He glanced up the block and saw the Range Rover. The rear window was tinted, so he couldn’t tell if the heavies had gotten out with Reginald and Vito or if they stayed in the car.
Rusty crossed the street with the walk signal and found a set of stairs adjacent to the building that likely led up to the entry plaza. Rusty wore a tan suit, dark blue shirt and no tie, and sunglasses. He’d also grown his hair out over the last year. His style, for years, had been a thin layer of stubble on top of his head. Rusty liked the look, but it was also practical. He often disguised his appearance with wigs, facial appliances, and makeup when meeting with prospective customers he didn’t know. Someone needed an introduction to talk to him, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were trustworthy. Rusty hadn’t taken any clients during the time he was recuperating and had just let his hair grow. His look was different enough that Vito probably wouldn’t recognize him at first glance, particularly if he saw Rusty from afar and he had his sunglasses on. Still, he needed to be careful.
There was a long line of steps with an outdoor escalator next to them, and Rusty opted for the latter, taking the escalator steps two at a time. He exited in a covered entry indicating that he’d arrived at One California Plaza. Rusty saw signs for Los Angeles’s famous Angels Flight and a large food court. He made a quick scan for Reginald and Vito but didn’t find them in the crowd. Rusty climbed another set of steps that took him to the outdoor plaza between One California and Two California buildings. They looked like immense spires of blue crystal, reflecting back an angry and hateful sun. The outdoor plaza between the two buildings was three levels and reminded him of an inverted ziggurat, with reflecting pools and fountains at the center and surrounded by trees, modern art sculptures, and benches.
Rusty skirted the edge of the plaza to One California and entered. The building was immense, so was its atrium, and crowded with people, but Rusty found what he was looking for easily. A building directory
. It took several minutes of searching the touchscreen interface, but he eventually found it.
A.G. Barret Diamond Brokerage.
14
Carter LeMothe looked like California.
LeMothe was deeply tanned, tall, and lean in the way that came from a five-hundred-dollar-a-month health club membership, and he filled in his twelve-hundred-dollar suit perfectly. The suit was navy, with a pink shirt and a dark-colored tie that looked like it had a subtle pattern that only got more complex the closer one got to him. Carter’s blond hair was over-styled but still perfectly in place and was done in such a way that it looked sun bleached and weathered, though if Reginald were to guess, that was the result of another expensive treatment. Carter’s jawline could have been cut by an expert jeweler (or surgeon). He had pale blue eyes that always seemed intently focused on something, just not the person he was talking to.
Carter looked like exactly the kind of person who would have a last name for a first name, which is to say, an asshole.
They weren’t kept waiting long. A pair of armed guards hefting a strongbox had a way of opening doors.
The two men from WorldSecure would stand by in A.G. Barret’s lobby until it was clear that the transaction was made and they wouldn’t be carrying the diamonds back to the vault. They were paid to wait, it was part of the fee.
Reginald and Vito stood in the center of Carter LeMothe’s office, white porcelain espresso cups and saucers in their hands. Carter moved about his office, usually gesturing grandly with his right hand. He was telling them about A.G. Barret, though mostly that was the story of Carter LeMothe and his role as vice president of acquisition, which meant he was responsible for negotiating deals for precious gems and metals throughout the world. Emeralds were very big right now, were they aware? Reginald said he’d read that as well, though he hadn’t actually. This was Carter LeMothe’s way of starting to lowball them. Emeralds are in, diamonds are out, I’ll do you guys a favor, but I’m totally taking a bath on this one.
Carter had a commanding thirty-seventh-floor view of Bunker Hill.
Carter had an Aston Martin DB11 Volante the color of liquid metal.
He lived in Palos Verdes with a wife he couldn’t afford and a mistress that knew what he was worth.
Carter had a boat that he liked to take to Catalina with either of the women in his life when the mood struck him.
Carter was leveraged to the gills and he would deal, so Reginald listened to how emeralds were up, sapphire was on the rise, and diamonds were down because Gen Z wasn’t into material wealth. Reginald listened to how Carter LeMothe put together several multimillion dollar acquisitions a month and how these things took time and he’d like to work them in. If he could, of course.
Reginald listened to this for a solid fifteen minutes, until he decided it was time to cut the shit.
“How much commission do you make on thirty million?”
And Carter LeMothe smiled.
They hadn’t brought that much with them, not even close. There was approximately five million in diamonds in the small steel carrying case, which looked like a metal briefcase. It was sitting on LeMothe’s coffee table. This was carried by the guards in the strongbox, which they had presented to Reginald when they first entered the room. He’d thanked them, and they’d disappeared from the office to await further instructions. Carter LeMothe had yet to look at the contents of the case.
Reginald walked over to it and unlocked the case with the key the business manager at WorldSecure gave him when he signed his property out. Reginald opened the case with minimal flourish. The interior of the case was lined with padded velvet, and two small velvet pouches were secured to the lining with padded straps. The side of the case without the straps doubled as a presentation tray. Reginald opened the first bag and gently placed the contents on the tray and then did the same with the other. The diamonds glittered, tiny fireballs, as they rolled to a stop on the tray.
“Our mutual friend said to look you up and, looking around here, Carter, I’m glad he did. I think you’re a man with some vision, a man who can recognize an opportunity when he sees one.” Their “mutual friend” was F. Norris Tillet, who was an acquaintance of Reginald’s during the end of his sentence. F. Norris did three years for tax evasion and money laundering, and though the original sentence was much longer, it was knocked down considerably due to updated guidelines for nonviolent crime, good behavior, and ratting out a whole lot of customers. F. Norris said that his old friend, Carter, traded under the table and had bragged to him about skimming. He was the one who tipped Reginald to Carter’s financial problems. When F. Norris made the introduction, he neglected to mention that they’d met in prison. Reginald would take care of him once they had the money.
“Same, yeah,” Carter said, his mind already on something else. “Norris got a raw deal. He’s not doing anything any other banker isn’t doing already. Bunch a bullshit, you ask me.”
“Carter, I’ll level with you because I trust Norris and he said you were someone I could trust. My associate, Vito, and I are sitting on a lot of diamonds. What you see here is about seven million worth. About two years ago, we put a very large deal together. Wholesaler in Israel was about to get indicted for smuggling—much like with our friend F. Norris, a bunch of bullshit. Vito and I put a company together and bought his supply. Everything is perfectly legal, and the deal closed before he was arrested.”
“His problems are not our problems, right? And I bet you got a hell of a discount.”
“Carter, I’m sitting on one hundred and thirteen million in diamonds.”
That got Carter LeMothe’s attention.
“Vito and I made the purchase for eighty-five. That’s how desperate this guy was.”
“Jesus, how’d you raise that much money?”
“We owned a company that did rare earth element and mineral speculation in the developing world. Really dangerous shit. I’ve been shot at more times than the Marines. We sold that off to put this deal together, as well as some financing from a few investors. They’re anxious to be paid back.”
“I bet. Well, look, Norris speaks really highly of you, and I’d love to help you out, but like I said, there isn’t much market for diamonds right now.”
“Carter, we both know that’s not true. It’s a banner year for stones. People have been stuck at home for year with nothing to do, and they’re impulse-buying jewelry.”
LeMothe shrugged, and he half turned to look out the window. “Reginald, while it is true that trends have been on the upswing, my firm is not in a position to give you one hundred and thirteen million. That’s half of what we’d do in a year.”
“Of course,” Reginald said. “Vito and I understand that we’re not moving all of these at once. And frankly, if we did, our investors would be very skeptical.”
Vito, who’d been silent to this point, said, “That’s right.”
“No, we are looking to establish partnerships with some trusted buyers. We don’t need to sell the entire stock at once, but a portion of it will go a long way to mollifying our investors and giving us a little breathing room.”
Carter walked over to the table and inspected the diamonds on the tray. Reginald figured this was probably as close to a loose stone as he’d been in years. “So, let’s do this,” Carter LeMothe said. “I’m going to have our guys check it out and appraise them. If everything comes back okay, I’ll purchase this lot from you at five five. Give it a couple of months, and I can probably take more.”
“Carter, International Gems offered me six million eight for these. Now, they want a ten-day escrow, like I’m buying a fucking condo. If you can close it today, tomorrow at the latest, I’ll meet you at five nine.” Reginald looked over at his partner. “How do we even know you can deliver?”
“Ha. I do million-dollar deals for breakfast.”
Without missing a beat, Vito said, “I prefer a nice croissant and an espresso myself. Plate of eggs.”
Reginald had
to suppress a snort. That was how you dealt with people like Carter LeMothe. You took the wind out.
“Carter,” Vito said, and the way he annunciated the name, it sounded like the word went over a hill between the a and the r. “Reginald said we didn’t expect to sell these in one sitting, and that is mostly true. What’s also true is that we have other potential buyers that we’ll be meeting with. Some are looking for large amounts, others small. But they are all willing, and they come with cash.”
Reginald leaned forward to speak and Vito held out a steadying hand, just like they’d practiced.
“Now, my partner wants to work with you because a friend of his vouched for you. Reginald would like to see his friend taken care of. I’m fifty percent of this deal, and I am less interested in who buys my diamonds. I’m much more interested in the boat I’m going to buy with that money. Do you understand me? As we say in my country, Batti il ferro finché è caldo.”
Carter looked at him with a blank and stupid expression on his face.
Vito sighed, just slightly, as though he were both tired and annoyed. “Beat the iron while it’s hot.”
Carter stared at them both for several beats, and while his face was expressionless, it was clear the mind was at work. Reginald had stared down many a man in his career, thief and cop alike. He could always tell when someone was calculating the odds in their head.
“I’ve got an idea,” Carter LeMothe said. “I’ll be honest with you both, because I like you. A.G. Barret isn’t the right place for you or your diamonds. To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a phenomenal deal,” Carter cupped his hand and held it up, like he was protecting something in the palm of it, “and these idiots refused to jump on it. I’ve lost more than a little money on account of it. I’d feel badly if I put something together for us and then I wasn’t here to see it through.” Carter LeMothe leaned forward in his chair. “So look, I’ve got a broker that I deal with a lot in Hong Kong, high-volume dealer. This is someone I trust. When I’ve got trades that A.G. won’t make, I call my friends at LGK. I think A.G. might be good for ten million, and LGK can likely buy the rest. Unless they want the whole lot right away, and I’ll step aside.”
Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3) Page 14