“Maybe I’ll find out more than you want to know,” said Claire, hanging up, while in bed Artie shook his head and Claire ignored him.
“They’re still lying, Arthur, even if you don’t want to know about it,” she said.
“Right,” said Artie.
“Right, what?” said Claire.
“Right, I don’t want to know about it,” said Artie, who did not want to know about it while brushing his teeth, drinking his orange juice, drinking his coffee, and eating his bagel with bacon and eggs. Not interested.
But that evening he had to be. Just by the way he asked her to go out with him for a hamburger, she knew something was wrong.
But she couldn’t get him to explain. He didn’t answer her questions normally, and only when they were out of the apartment did he even admit something was amiss, and he asked that she wait until they were far away from the apartment in some noisy area.
In a little neighborhood coffee shop just off of Queens Boulevard, after they had sat down at a formica table with someone else’s fresh coffee rings on it and ordered quickly so the waitress wouldn’t hover, Artie said: “I’m sorry Claire. Our place is bugged. We’re in the midst of something.”
“I know that.”
“No, the something is watching us this time. Not an exciting self-actualizing exercise anymore. We’re a target of someone.”
Claire folded a napkin on her lap. She hated when Arthur talked like this because then it became so hard to get the facts through his emotions. But this time, he had it down professionally pat.
Homicide had discovered the tap, when doing surveillance on Norman Feldman on suspicion of the murders. He was, after all, someone who wanted the ruby and did have foreign access and, more importantly, when checked out, was known to be a “dangerous person,” something Arthur had discovered only recently.
What Marino and McKiernan found, however, was that not only was Feldman virtually impossible to tail, but that he had hidden under the guise of old phones and a sparse office one of the more modern electronic protection systems they had ever encountered, things only used so far by governments. Not only was he protected, but Marino and McKiernan found out Frauds/Jewels wasn’t. Someone with equally advanced equipment had bugged Artie’s line. So they checked where he was living, and they found the same kind of advanced eavesdropping surrounding Claire’s apartment in Queens.
“Did you tell them our suspicions about Harry Rawson? About the British government? About the questions we had?” asked Claire. “Maybe Harry is behind some of this.”
“I mentioned some stuff. That’s a very professional job that’s been done on us.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Claire.
“Ignore the bugs. Ignore everything. Let them go their own way, whoever they are. We stay out.”
“How can we ignore the bugs? People will be listening to us. I will be cramped in my private life. I can’t act normal.”
“Forget they’re there.”
“While we make love?”
“Especially.”
“That’s disgusting, Arthur.” The way she said it was so adorable that, laughing, Artie had to grab her hands across the table and kiss them, even as she refused to accept the humor in this.
“Well, then, I am certainly not going to stop my research. If it is your friend Rawson, I am going to find out why.”
“Fine. It’s your right.”
“That bug doesn’t bother you?”
“No.”
“I am bothered by that. I am offended by that. I am bothered that you are not bothered, Arthur.”
“Hey, I don’t bother with something as big as a country. I get out of its way. Between a country and us, they are going to win in a head-on collision. Let them have everything. You can always go back to your search in ten or twenty years. You don’t have to know the answer to everything immediately one hundred percent.”
“What is your friend looking for, and why doesn’t the Queen announce she has lost the family cellar? Why?”
“My friend,” said Artie, as though unfairly shackled with the association.
“You know, that ruby belonged to Henry the Eighth and he gave it to Anne Boleyn. One of my researchers phoned in today with a couplet Henry wrote. It was about the blood of Christ being as eternal as the red of the love and the red of the stone Henry gave to Anne Boleyn. Do you think it’s the ruby?”
“I don’t want to think,” said Artie.
“You’ve got to admit it’s fascinating.”
“People are listening to us brush our teeth and screw, and you still think it’s a game.”
“I’m not taking down the wall right away,” said Claire.
“God forbid there should be a killing around here we’re not associated with. You gonna finish your french fries?”
“Yes,” said Claire.
“You never do.”
“I will now,” said Claire. “You know that, when it’s proved to me that my research is dangerous or in any way encouraging surveillance. Maybe when they installed the bug they thought I might lead them to the jewels. Do we know how long it’s been there? Do we?”
Artie was through his hamburger before Claire had taken one bite of hers. She insisted on talking.
“Besides, most importantly besides, I don’t want to stop now that I know of the Tilbury and that for some reason Britain is chasing something in it or on it, possibly a relic. And why do they want this all to be a secret?”
“It’s a government. Everything’s secret in a government. Toilet paper is classified.”
“Not for four hundred years,” said Claire.
“You’re not going to finish your fries,” said Artie.
That night, as she filed away the new information into her computer, a device that now would probably be moved into another room, she found something quite strange.
Certain words on later files had commands on them instead of writing, a mistake she had made early on in using the computer. But not anymore. Someone had entered the Tilbury file and read it while they were out.
She would have asked Arthur but for two things. One, he never went near the computer, and two, her own apartment was not a place she could talk about such things anymore. She did not enter the latest facts concerning the ruby with Christ’s head, but kept them in her head. She was not going to stop the research now, least of all now. Not with people listening in on her very orgasms. If she were going to be constrained in her lovemaking, someone was going to pay for it.
If great gems transcended civilizations and borders, they most certainly ignored hatreds and foreign policies and all the things historians thought ruled the world. Norman Feldman understood this.
During the worst of the Arab-Israeli tensions and hatred, Norman Feldman never had trouble entering Arab lands, especially the Gulf sheikdoms. Many of these rulers came from old trading families, whose slow and stately dhows, pitching in the winds of the Persian Gulf and the Red and Arabian seas, had sold pearls and slaves and ivories and incense throughout the east, centuries before oil was discovered under the land. And they knew their gems.
For Norman Feldman, to deal with an Arab was to match wits with one of the few people he considered his equal. They understood bargaining, the traditional way of selling things before the modern phenomenon of fixed prices. And this, of course, was the only way major gems were sold.
But something was wrong. At his first stop in the Gulf, he was driven in the sultan’s stretch limousine not to the place in the desert but to the more official residence in the capital, a subtle but significant difference.
In the desert, there was that bedouin obligation of hospitality where there could be no question of Feldman’s safety as a guest. In the capital city, while he was still under some protection of hospitality, there could be a question. Still, he was safer here in this sheikdom than on the streets of New York or London.
In the city, he missed the tents and the clean wind out of the desert. Instead, there wa
s German air conditioning that when combined with incense made a room smell slightly rancid, like spiced butter gone awry.
Still, in the office of the Minister of Defense, Ali Hassan Al Hadir, brother of the sultan, there were tiny cups of strong sugared coffee, even though there was no servant woman making it, but a major in the defense forces.
“My friend, Norman,” said Ali Hassan Al Hadir, embracing Feldman.
“My friend, Ali Hassan Al Hadir,” said Feldman, who returned the embrace. Otherwise, Feldman did not indulge in touching people except for sex, which he got over with as quickly as possible.
They, of course, were not friends, but this was the ritual of the bargain, a subtle but necessary affirmation that they could never let anger openly interfere in a very hostile combat of wits.
There was still a good woven rug on the floor, but not with the same sense of specialness it had when laid over sand. The sofa was a leather thing possibly bought in London or New York.
Both of them knew that a negotiation in this office was different from one in a tent, but neither of them mentioned it right away; instead, there was the half hour of courtesy talk, which Feldman got through mechanically and with great difficulty, until the correct question was asked, by Minister Hadir, exposing the reason they were meeting in his office and not in the desert.
“What is wrong with the ruby?” asked Hadir, too directly for this to be bargaining.
“Nothing,” said Feldman.
“No governmental complication?”
“There have been some killings.”
“Of government people? Important people?”
Feldman shook his head. “They were just killings,” said Feldman. Murders in another country were, of course, of no interest to the head of state armed forces whose sole job was the security of his brother. These were the people who bought gems this size. Something was operating here that someone like a New York detective no matter how shrewd could not comprehend. To him there were laws. Anyone could break a law. But in these countries the people who made the laws were the laws, and no warrant in a foreign country for murder or otherwise was going to affect them. It was blatantly inconsequential that someone had gotten killed over the ruby somewhere else.
“Then I fear you are mixed up with some ugly people. You are being followed, you know? People are asking questions, you know?”
“Which people?”
“Hard to tell, but we have warnings. Are you engaged in any political thing?”
“You would have to believe in some government for that,” said Feldman.
“Ah, Norman, these are hard times, when friends who meet to do business must talk of such things. Are you having trouble selling the ruby?” asked Hadir, and Feldman knew the shift from the problem to the negotiations had begun. His answer had been satisfactory.
“Not at all. I may keep it, such is the pleasure of owning it. Still it is such a wonder that when you see it in New York, you will be happy you made a concrete offer now.”
“How can one buy what one does not see?” asked Hadir.
“Eighty-seven karats and undiminished dancing power in her belly,” said Feldman. “She was luscious. She held her own right through her size. That stone gave me an erection in my soul, friend.”
“And you thought of me?” asked Hadir. He was trim, but with a mocha fleshiness about his face, making him appear mildly pleasant in his light blue field marshall’s uniform.
“I thought of you as the leading one among many.”
“How many?”
“Twenty.”
“Ah, Norman, there are twenty now who would buy such a great gem?”
“Twenty who would pay readily,” said Feldman.
“Ah, well, at least I am glad my friend has so many clients. I myself unfortunately feel that should I have to resell such a stone, its size would make the sale too prohibitive. I am afraid your list has shrunk to nineteen. I am looking for smaller stones.”
“I will send you some for examination. In any case, a visit with my friend Ali Hassan Al Hadir is always worth a trip.”
“This too large gem, what are you expecting to get for it?”
“I have turned down ten million,” said Feldman.
“Then a mere three million-dollar offer would be useless,” said Ali Hassan Al Hadir.
“I could not meet that low price, even for such a one as you. But because I know your word is good, and the other was just a promise, I would sell this ruby for nine and a half million.”
“And I would add a hundred thousand dollars to my price, even though such a large ruby would present more problems than it would solve.”
“When you see it, you will know nine million dollars is a bargain.”
“If you say so, Norman, but I can in good conscience offer only three and a half million dollars.”
They talked of prices and gems and the fickleness of fate for the next hour, but the closest they could come was to within three million dollars of each other, with Hadir unwilling to top four million. Feldman made a very casual offer for Hadir to come to New York to see the stone if it hadn’t been sold by then.
These were only preliminary negotiations, to see who was interested. The real bargaining would begin after Hadir had held the eighty-seven-karat pigeon’s blood in his hand and had seen it in the proper light. Then that three million difference would collapse, Feldman was sure.
It took Feldman four days to get through the sheikdoms, and in one place he heard of one person asking about him, in another it was two, in another it was supposed to be a government. And so, because he was not about to give up his precious list of those who would buy great rubies, he began making stops where he knew he could not sell it to throw off anyone who might be following him.
In Thailand, Feldman mentioned offering the stone to a dealer who now had a virtual monopoly on any good stones coming from the prime ruby region of the world, the Mogok mountains of Burma across the border.
Feldman knew Burma well and still had good contacts there, once even being offered an advisory position in their intelligence service. But this greatest source of rubies had disappeared, under a government takeover, the Burmese reasoning that since the rubies were a natural resource, all the people should profit, instead of a few wealthy men.
This noble intention, taking greed out of mining and assuring all the men who dug for the stones an equal pay no matter what their luck in finding stones, resulted in miners turning in only the lesser gems and smuggling the good ones next door into Thailand.
Thus, the place to buy Burmese rubies became Bangkok, not Kachin, Sagaing, Shan, or, even farther south, Rangoon, where good lapidaries once worked.
Unfortunately, for some reason, the Thais never could cut stones, and while the ruby had no clear cleavage lines, there certainly were preferred directions, none of which the Thai butchers seemed to understand.
This was not the worst situation, since the Thais did cut the stones to leave the largest amount, so that the stones could easily be recut in Europe or America.
What saddened Feldman somewhat was the loss of the Burmese cutters. Had their skills been lost? Did they die with the passing of a generation? He hated to see competence leave the planet, because there was so damned little of it. Anywhere. In any field. In any country.
He never mentioned this as sadness, however, rather expressing himself in bitterness on one hand and vindication in his contempt for the whole human species on the other.
To the Thai businessman in the white building with a slow fan hardly rustling the humid swelter of the noon-baked day, he got to business virtually on the handshake. And as he expected there was no money the size of the Christ’s head, but there were stones for sale, and in a manner more direct than in the Arab world, he made his deal to buy smaller stones.
He made two more stops in Asia, in Hong Kong selling the prestige of the stone, in Taiwan the glamour of its internal power, but only a third of them were real buyers. Everywhere, there was ruthless bar
gaining. And in many places, he picked up the same warning about being followed. He changed his plans several times, making random side trips, and never spent two nights in the same place. Sometimes he slept on planes, and sometimes he didn’t sleep at all.
Finally, he flew to Geneva, saw several industrialists, one of whom might be a buyer, and then hired a driver to take him outside the city to an elegant chalet, Dr. Peter Martins’s main home.
It was an hour and a half trip over good but somewhat narrow roads. Coming from the Far East to Switzerland always made him feel that he had stepped into an operating room of a country. He did not exchange one word with the driver during the whole trip and did not mind it.
By making stops in Geneva, Feldman had given Dr. Martins enough time to get home. And he was there, in a silk bathrobe, with perspiration coming from his forehead. Apparently he was exercising. Feldman did not enter.
“Why are you such an idiot?” asked Feldman.
“Won’t you come in?” asked Dr. Martins.
“Do you think I can’t kill you? Do you think I won’t kill you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I could cut that ruby into three major gems and have them sold in the morning, getting almost five million out of it. But I have too much respect for the Christ’s head to do that. Don’t press me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you think you can get my buyers by trailing me, and then possibly doing me harm, forget it. I would have thought that by now you would understand. Don’t make me decide between cleaving the Christ’s head or yours.” Feldman did not wait to hear another denial, which he was sure would come. Feldman had to make sure Dr. Martins was not hanging about when the Christ’s head came out into the light for display at the point of sale.
Boarding the Pan Am flight to the United States in Geneva, Feldman felt free for the first time from the entanglements that had been creeping around the borders of his life. They would be gone, he was sure, with the sale, and the transfer of the money to Dr. Martins.
The ruby had been just too big for someone whose only qualification was greed. Feldman slept on the flight because airplanes always were the safest place to shut one’s eyes and prepared for the final bidding.
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