by Cleo Coyle
I remembered joining Quinn and Franco one evening at a nearby sports bar. Officers who worked in the area shared hilarious tales of Darwin Award–worthy attempts by shoplifters who thought they could “run off” with thousands of dollars in jewelry.
Not on this block.
In addition to a constant NYPD presence, there were undercover guards in the stores, bodyguards for jewelers transporting gems, even armed patrols on the street by retired police officers. And then there were the cameras—high-tech, untouchable cameras everywhere, rumored to be partly funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
Tourists and casual buyers would notice none of this. But after hearing those cop stories, I glanced around self-consciously as we walked to our destination, wondering who on the street was packing . . . and who was watching.
THIRTY-FOUR
MATT’S letter directed us to a suite in a skyscraper known as the World Diamond Tower.
The Art Deco building was also the New York headquarters of the Brink’s company as well as Lyons Global Security and their massive underground security vault.
This concrete cavern of four steel-reinforced cinder block walls was built into the solid bedrock of Manhattan Island with chambers where millions of dollars in gold, platinum, silver, and palladium were stored along with nightly deposits of gemstones, a fortune in treasure worked with or displayed during the day by Diamond District merchants on the floors above.
The security company also guarded a room holding hundreds of privately owned safe-deposit boxes, and that’s where we were headed—the “we” being me, Matt, Sal Arnold, and three men in Lyons uniforms. With their broad shoulders, thick muscles, and vests branded with the flashy lion’s paw logo, you could put a cape on any one of them and he’d pass for Panther Man, which didn’t calm my nerves any.
In their suite upstairs, Lyons had lovely viewing rooms where owners had their boxes brought to them, and they did their business in comfort and privacy, 24/7. But when we checked in, we were informed that “due to the extraordinary nature of this account” we would be brought to the mountain, so to speak.
The slow descent in a creaky steel mesh-walled elevator was unexpected, and rather unnerving. When we finally landed inside the vault, the concrete passageways and floor of leveled and polished bedrock felt like a claustrophobic catacomb for the dead.
It didn’t take long for world-traveling Matt to feel trapped. “What are we waiting for? It’s after six o’clock.”
Sal Arnold’s reply was equally impatient. “We can’t do business until Sophia Campana or her legal representative arrives.”
I touched Matt’s arm. “Do you think your godfather will come?”
“I figure he’ll show. Which begs another question—” Matt checked his watch. “Where is Mother? I texted her where to be and when.”
“Oh, I forgot to mention. She called me this morning and said she had a change of heart. She said you should stop by tomorrow and discuss the matter. Frankly, Matt, I think she’s upset that your late father never mentioned a word to her about this legacy. I also think she’s afraid some dark family secret will be revealed.”
“Like what? I have a long-lost brother, or sister? Then what’s in the box? Their birth certificates, or their bones?”
“That’s not even close to funny. You never know what sort of skeleton might pop out of this high-security closet.”
Matt shrugged off my warning and fixed his gaze on the lawyer. “I have a question, Mr. Arnold. What is so extraordinary about this box that the security chief refused to move it upstairs?”
The portly man shrugged. “The two gentlemen who established this trust sixty years ago bought an unusual amount of insurance, not only from a Swiss company but from this security company, which required that the box should not be removed from the vault by anyone but the owners.”
At the end of the passage outside, the noisy elevator thudded to a halt and the steel doors clattered opened. A minute later, a guard ushered in a natural beauty in a black A-line dress. Her amber-brown eyes were bright, her charming smile lined and glossed in a vibrant red that precisely matched her shoes, handbag, and glittering jewelry.
In a perfumed cloud of style and grace, Sophia Campana had arrived.
THIRTY-FIVE
“I wore my hair up, Matteo, so you wouldn’t be tempted to tug on it.”
As Sophia touched the glossy back of her dark golden French twist, I admired the ruby-and-diamond Campana originals dangling from her ears, matching pieces around her lovely, long neck and slender wrist.
“I couldn’t help myself, Sophia,” Matt said with a laugh. “You always wore those stupid pigtails. They made you a target.”
With easy elegance, Sophia approached us, the strappy heels of her dramatic designer sandals clicking on the bedrock. She gave Matt a tight hug and Continental kisses on both cheeks. Then she warmly greeted me.
“Clare, it’s been too long.”
“I know, but it’s good to see you again . . .”
The last time I’d seen Sophia was well over ten years ago.
She’d stunned me by schlepping all the way out to New Jersey to deliver an early birthday present to my daughter. It was Joy’s first birthday away from Manhattan, and she wasn’t adjusting well to my divorce from Matt and our move to the suburbs. She didn’t like the new school and was having trouble making friends.
I remember how touched I was by Sophia making the effort to find us. Her grinning arrival was a ray of warm light on a cold, rainy day.
As soon as Sophia handed Joy her gift, she tore open the wrapping to find a narrow white box with a tiny golden bell on the lid. Inside was a gorgeous chain of yellow gold with a topaz pendant the color of sunshine, masterfully cut into the shape of a many-faceted heart.
“The color of this stone makes it very special,” Sophia explained as she gently lifted the treasure from its white velvet bed. “It’s what we call imperial topaz. See the way my father cut it? You can tilt it this way in the light and it looks bright yellow, like a rising sun. Tilt it the other way and it looks more golden with a pinkish hue, like the setting sun in the late afternoon . . .”
As Sophia undid the chain and fastened it around Joy’s neck, my daughter listened with big eyes and rapt attention.
“The ancient Egyptians believed their sun god, Ra, gave this jewel its magical color. Many still believe that wearing imperial topaz brings good luck, long life, beauty, and intelligence. It’s my hope this gem will lend you its ancient earth energy and help brighten your days.”
The moment Sophia finished telling Joy about the necklace, my daughter flew to the mirror to see how it looked.
“Joy!” I called, worried the girl had forgotten her manners. “What do you say to Aunt Sophia?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” She turned and ran back. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much! It’s beautiful, I love it, I love it!”
Joy hugged Sophia with a brightness I hadn’t seen in months.
In the days that followed, Joy’s pride in her new pendant gave her the confidence to make two new friends. (No doubt relating the history and mythical power of the sun-colored gem she wore to school every day had helped melt some of the “new girl” ice, as well.)
The two classmates encouraged Joy to join their Girl Scout troop, and by the time her birthday arrived, we had a house bursting with the energy of laughing, happy kids.
Of course, I thanked Sophia, too—for giving the gift of joy to my Joy—and I wouldn’t let her leave that day without a delicious dinner.
It wasn’t until Joy went to bed that Sophia admitted over coffee and a plate of my lemon-iced Anginetti and Chocolate-Almond Biscotti that one of the reasons for her visit was to tell me about Matt and how hard he was taking our split.
A little digging and I realized she had heard only half the story.
Matt’s
half.
As gently as I could, I told her the other half—about Matt’s cheating and lying, and about his cocaine addiction. I confessed that I’d stayed with him until he got clean of the drugs, but I couldn’t remain in the marriage, not for the long haul, not for my own sanity and self-worth.
I needed to stand on my own, apart from a young man who’d taken too much of my good faith, loyalty, and love—taken them for granted instead of cherishing them for the gifts they were.
I still loved Matt, but that wasn’t the problem. What we lost—what he lost—was our ability to function as a married couple. I would never trust him with my heart again.
Sophia had listened with extreme kindness. But she was barely in her midtwenties back then, and (with memories of her girlish crush on Matt still fresh) she couldn’t comprehend why I wouldn’t give “a great guy like him” another chance.
Still . . . she was kind enough to listen to my side, and she did sincerely care about me and Joy—and that’s what mattered most.
As we parted that evening, she hugged me tight, and wished me all the luck in the world.
We tried to keep in touch—a few cards and phone calls—but with her mother, Angelica, gone, Sophia had already begun taking on the responsibilities for the retail end of the family business.
In the years that followed, she encouraged her father to expand his market, and she spearheaded that vision by traveling to Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and then London, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo.
The years had changed her, it seemed to me. She was so sophisticated now, so grown-up. And one thing I knew from overhearing that private argument with her husband last week in that strident, cynical voice that I barely recognized—
Sophia Campana finally understood heartbreak.
THIRTY-SIX
“WE’LL have to catch up,” Sophia sincerely insisted as we finished our hug. “Promise?”
“Of course,” I assured her.
“And you—” She poked Matt’s hard chest. “How is it I never see you? You’re married to Breanne Summour now, right? Why don’t you go with her to Milan’s Fashion Week this spring? We three can get together and go to some great parties.”
Matt immediately looked uncomfortable. But before he could offer the awkward news of their split, Sal Arnold loudly cleared his throat.
“Might we postpone this little reunion? We have business to attend to.”
The frosty lawyer faced the nearest uniformed guard. “So, where is this box, please?”
The Lyons man double-checked the key in Sal Arnold’s hand against his itinerary sheet. He took five steps, pointed to a drawer no bigger than a toaster, and undid the top lock.
“Your key will open this one, sir.”
After the security team stepped outside to give us privacy, Sal Arnold slipped his key into the second lock and slid it open. A smaller steel container was nestled inside, and the lawyer used yet another key to open it. Then he lifted out the contents.
We stared in disappointment at a sixty-year-old Florsheim shoe box tied with butcher’s twine.
“May I?” Matt asked.
“Of course.” The lawyer handed it over. “This belongs to you and Ms. Campana now, whatever it may be.”
Matt shook the box. “It’s not very heavy.”
He carried it to a table in the center of the room. Sophia untied the knot and pulled off the lid. On a bed of ocean blue velvet sat a plain white envelope. Matt opened it and read the typed single-page letter inside, dated December 1956.
To our sons and daughters:
Six decades have passed, we are probably dead, and the world has most likely forgotten the treasure inside this box.
We now leave it in your trust, as a gift to a generation we will never know.
Divide the profits equally among yourselves and your children (our grandchildren) with the love, devotion, and blessings of their grandfathers.
Antonio Allegro & Gustavo Campana
The letter was signed by both men. A few words of another language were scrawled at the bottom—“ken eyne hore”—along with a final name, “A. Goldman,” followed by “mazl un brokhe,” but none of us wasted time questioning those notations. All eyes turned instead to the bundle of velvet inside the box.
“Open it, Matt!” Sophia urged.
It took a few painfully protracted seconds for Matt to unwind the velvet cloth. When he exposed its contents, Sal Arnold was the first to react.
“Holy cow!”
The rest of us gasped, or cried out—none louder than Sophia Campana.
“Madre di Dio! È L’Occhio del Gatto!”
Matt and I exchanged incredulous glances. Neither of us had ever seen a diamond so large or a setting so beautiful—except, of course, in Gustavo Campana’s photo of his late wife.
This was it, we realized, and I silently echoed Sophia’s cry.
Mother of God! It’s the Eye of the Cat!
THIRTY-SEVEN
EVEN in the harsh fluorescent lights of this high-tech dungeon, the glacial blue glow of the Occhio del Gatto was alluring, almost hypnotic.
“What a hunk of ice!” Sal Arnold gushed, his impatient aloofness suddenly gone. “A diamond that big can’t be real, can it?”
“Let’s find out.” Sophia reached into her elegant Italian handbag and withdrew a jeweler’s loupe considerably more impressive than my barista Nancy’s economy model.
Feet together, one hand on bended knee, Sophia stooped on her stilettos to study the jewel. Her elegant style and graceful pose reminded me of a young Audrey Hepburn gazing through the window in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
“It’s real,” she declared a moment later. “All 59.6 carats’ worth. The distinctive blue shade, the Campana cut—even the VVS cat-shaped flaw is right where it ought to be—”
“VVS?” I asked.
“Very, very small. And many of the coffee diamonds in the setting display the VS asterism flaws—another validation mark of the piece.”
“Then this jewel is authentic . . . ?” A wide-eyed Sal Arnold had temporarily lost his tongue. “Why . . . it must be worth millions.”
“Tens of millions, easy,” Sophia replied absently as she studied the necklace itself. “The diamonds have intrinsic value, but these days it’s the historical value that fetches the fortune.”
“And what exactly is the history of this thing?” Matt asked, folding his arms. “I mean, I know it was famously lost on the Andrea Doria, but how did the Campanas end up with it?”
“They were given it as a gift, during the Renaissance—from the Medici family.”
“Seriously?” I blurted.
“Seriously,” Sophia affirmed.
“A Medici dug it up?” Matt asked in a doubtful tone.
“No. It originated in India from the famous Golconda diamond mines.”
“That’s where the Hope Diamond was found, right?”
“Yes, Clare, those mines stretch back for centuries, to the first diamonds ever found by man—or woman. And this diamond was said to have originated as the orb of a pagan idol.”
Matt scoffed, “Until Indiana Jones came along and stole it, right?”
“Don’t be cynical, darling. The Eye of the Cat isn’t the only jewel to formerly grace an idol. There’s a black diamond called the Eye of Brahma, and the Orlov, on display at the Kremlin. It was the Eye of Vishnu, until a French soldier stole it in the 1700s.”
“So who stole the Eye of the Cat?” Matt asked.
“Originally? No one. It was a gift from a Hindu goddess who served as the protector of children.”
Matt snorted. “Sorry, Sophia, but Indiana Jones sounds more plausible—”
I elbowed Matt into silence. “Go on. I’d like to hear the story.”
“According to the legend, centuries ago in Eastern India, a
bandit chief kidnapped a widow’s children. The chief told the woman he would only return them if she agreed to steal all the jewels from the crown of the Hindu goddess Shashthi, protector of children.”
“Blackmail is nothing new,” Matt cracked.
“The widow went to the temple. Instead of trying to steal the goddess’s jewels, she prayed for help before her stone statue, rendered as a beautiful woman with a glittering crown, riding a giant feline with two ice blue diamonds for eyes. In answer to her prayers, the goddess appeared in a fountain of water and instructed the widow to appease the bandit by taking one of the cat’s diamond eyes and leaving the rest of the jewels behind.”
“I think I know how this story ends,” Matt said, before I delivered another silence-inducing elbow to his midriff.
“Of course the bandit was angry that the woman brought only one jewel. But when he raised his sword to strike her and her children dead, the goddess’s giant black cat appeared in a burst of fire. The cat slaughtered the bandit, and sent the mother and children on their way with his Eye as their eternal protector.”
A black cat dealing vengeance? I thought. Sounds like a Bollywood version of Panther Man—and not much different than the story of the guardian cat on the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Is this all a coincidence, or was Gus really onto something?
“The Eye of the Cat was lost to history until the sixteenth century,” Sophia continued, “when it was used to pay part of a ransom by pirates defeated by Cosimo de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Years later the duke presented the jewel to the Campana family, as thanks for their help in clearing the butchers off the Ponte Vecchio.”
“How civic-minded,” Matt said dryly. “Why did they want the butchers off the bridge?”
“The smell,” I said, recalling the history. “The Medici palace was near the bridge, and the family didn’t like the smell of the butchers’ tables. They also wanted to give the bridge more prestige.”