Carat Capers

by Dan Kelly

  “Do you have a preference for particular gems?”

  “Not really. I’m dazzled by them all.”

  “Do you have specific criteria that you employ when looking at possible acquisitions?”

  Before answering this question, Pierre gives Chuck a penetrating stare and says, “For someone who’s contemplating getting involved in the precious gem business, you’re asking the right kinds of questions, but a word of advice. Many merchants, collectors, brokers and investors will not share their proclivities, their reasons for being interested in a collection or a specific stone or, in fact, willingly let anyone know that they have an interest period until they absolutely have to. They prefer to keep their intention and reasoning to themselves. They don’t want to give the competition anything that might be used against them.

  “However, I will give you a roundabout answer. What allures me are the individual factors contributing to its monetary value, its rarity, its size, its beauty, its ownership, past and present, and any folklore associated with the item. I evaluate each of these factors and then decide whether or not I will pursue ownership.”

  “I hope I haven’t been too presumptuous in my questioning. I appreciate your forbearance and your input. It appears that I have a lot to learn.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought. Now, let’s move into the drawing room where we can enjoy an after dinner cocktail and then I’ll give you a tour of the place to satisfy your curiosity if it has been aroused. I’m hoping it has been because I’m a closet snob and I love to show it off.” This gets some genuine laughter from Chuck and Vicki and they move into the drawing room.

  The rest of the evening continues to be quite enjoyable. As ten thirty rolls around Vicki says, “Pierre, thank you for a lovely evening. It’s getting late and we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Chuck expresses his appreciation for his host’s hospitality and then they hit the road.

  Once in their car and headed back to their hotel, Vicki says, “Well, he certainly is a charmer. I enjoyed myself much more than I thought I would. What are your thoughts about the man?”

  “Succinctly, in my estimation he’s a viper in charmer’s clothing. I got the distinct feeling he was looking for information just as much as we were. I think the dinner invitation was extended for the sole purpose of finding out more about us. His questions were just as probing as ours were yet he really didn’t gives us much to hang our hats on other than to raise my suspicion to a red alert level because he used a lot of charming words but didn’t really reveal anything. I definitely got the impression I was under the microscope when he gave me that assessing look before he answered my question about his criteria for acquiring precious gems. He’s just too cagey for someone who has nothing to hide.”

  “Well, tell me what you really think why don’t you?”

  “I’m calling it as I see it, Vicki. What really got my red flag waving was he never asked me any questions about my background. He concentrated on why I was here, what I hoped to learn during our stay in Paris and when we planned to return home. That has me thinking that he already knows what I do for a living and knows that I’m here under false pretenses. I don’t think he believes that we’re considering him as a player in these recent robberies because he initiated contact with us and not the other way around so we’re one up on him there, but we’ve got to be real careful we don’t do anything to spook him or he’ll take an extended vacation from his channeling activities if he is a player in these heists.”

  “So, where do we go from here?”

  “I’ll call Morretti and let him know about our dinner with Lavelle and my gut feelings about the man. I’ll keep my men here on Lavelle and see if that takes us anywhere, but other than that I can’t think of anything else to do to shake up the kettle.”

  Bearing in mind the six hour time difference between Paris and New York, Chuck waits until two in the afternoon the next day to call Mickey and fill him in on the previous evening’s dining experience.

  “Chuck, this guy just might know all about you.” He told Chuck about the leak they discovered in the department and finishes up with, “I agree with you. His behavior was a little odd for someone hosting a dinner for the sole purpose of enjoying each other’s company and getting to know each other better. Be careful over there, Chuck. These guys play for keeps.”

  The rest of the day is going to be spent as a tourist and getting to know Paris and Vicki better and he’s hoping nothing will come up to spoil the day.

  Chapter 24

  Ironically, at the same time Chuck and Mickey are talking Felix Feldman is on the phone with Pierre Lavelle and what he is hearing is ruining his breakfast. “What are the odds of you two crossing paths randomly? Out of sight that’s what. Something is out of whack here, Pierre. I don’t like this development one damned bit.”

  “Felix, there’s no way he could know about me and my arrangement with you and there’s no way he could know that I know who he really is. You’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing. I’ve only called to tell you about the encounter because I thought you might find Vicki Valance’s recent auction purchase an ideal addition to your dwindling inventory. We’ve been moving a lot of merchandise lately and your inventory has to be a mite anemic.”

  Felix is silent for a moment, but it doesn’t take long for his greed to push caution aside and ask, “Can you get the shipping info to me this afternoon. If she made arrangements for shipping yesterday, her items are probably already on their way to their destination which I’m assuming is her location here in Manhattan. I could be wrong about that though. She may be shipping the collection to another location because we just hit a shipment of hers recently and she might not feel comfortable having another shipment delivered to her operation here with the thieves not having been apprehended. Whatever the destination might be, we may not have enough time to put together a workable plan. The sooner you can get that information to me the better.”

  “Now you’ve got me nervous. I didn’t know you had already relieved her of some of her merchandise. Having a go at her again might be pushing your luck. She’s definitely going to have her people on high alert, making it a lot more difficult to snag and split.”

  “That’s not necessarily so. She might be one of those people who believe lightening seldom strikes the same place twice.”

  “Felix, I spent several hours with the lady. She is definitely nobody’s fool and not one to tempt fate. Be prepared for trouble if you go after another one of her shipments so soon after your first hold-up.”

  “Pierre, success lies in the planning. If you plan for every contingency, you will reap the rewards.”

  “If you say so, Felix, but I’m glad I’m at the other end of this joint venture of ours. If you’re determined to try to give it a go, I’d better not waste any more time trying to talk you out of it. I have someone who can hack their way into the auction house’s computer and she should be able to get the shipping information for me. I’ll tell her I’m planning on piggybacking a surprise gift on the shipment and I don’t want the recipient to know about it until delivery. When it comes to computers, she’s a genius, but unbelievably gullible when it comes to just about everything else.”

  “Do it and, Pierre, we’ve gotten careless about what we say over the phone. We mustn’t forget that everything we say could be heard by others.”

  “I agree and understand.”

  Felix ends the call and rounds up Amos and Jacob for a brainstorming session. They all gather in Amos’s office because his is closest to the store should a customer come into the boutique.

  Felix tells them about what Pierre has just shared with him. “If we can get the shipping particulars soon enough, we could have an eight million Euro addition to our coffers. Amos, where do we stand on the existing jobs we’re considering? If something is ready for the picking, I want to be sure we have the resources to pull both jobs off simultaneously. I want to keep the cops under as much pressure as
possible. While they’re dealing with the press, the politicians and the internal and inter-agency bureaucracy, we can go merrily on our pilfering way and add to their growing frustration.”

  Amos and Jacob have the same concern as Pierre. Jacob says, “We’ve never hit anyone twice before because we know the second time around it will be a lot tougher because of increased security and alertness to anything of a suspicious nature. The risk is just too great and there are easier targets within our reach with much less risk of something going wrong. Why do you want to stick our necks out unnecessarily now?”

  “The answer to that is very simple. An eight million euro collection doesn’t come on the scene very often and this one popped up out of nowhere. I don’t think we should look a gift horse in the mouth. We should pounce on it while it’s the most vulnerable, during its trip from Paris to the States.”

  Amos says, “It might not be a bad idea if we focus on grabbing it enroute. If we can duplicate the bill of lading and other documentation, we could intercept the delivery at the airport before it’s transferred to a ground courier.

  “As for being in shape to give the American gendarmes a double whammy, we’re now ready to go on the Jewelers Building in Boston. The consorted hits on the Palm Beach, Florida, Kenilworth, Illinois and Nashville, Tennessee collections that Pierre gave us the okay on have to be driving the local constabulary up the wall, but the take was relatively small. The Boston job will be a lot more rewarding and it will definitely get under the skin of the cops in all of the cities we’ve hit so far. We’ve got to have them talking to themselves.

  “I suggest we proceed with the Antwerp job immediately after these Valance and Boston hits, if we do them, because that’s the biggest job we’ve ever planned and I’d like to see it a done deal before the European gendarmes get their act together and start giving us headaches. The other European jobs are still in the planning stage.”

  Felix asks, “How about having the needed resources available to pull these two jobs off

  simultaneously? Will that be a problem?”

  “That depends on when you want to do the deed.”

  “It’s got to be tomorrow because Valance’s collection should be arriving here in the States sometime tomorrow.”

  “Our guys in Boston are on standby and should be able to handle the situation without Jacob’s help. We’ll need Jacob’s skills and coolness under pressure to put the Valance hit in the win column.”

  “Okay, guys, what do you want to do? I’m for the two pronged hit.”

  Amos and Jacob glance at each other, but don’t say a word. Finally, Jacob speaks up with, “I’ll give it a qualified yes. I want to check out the phony docs I’ll be showing to customs officials and other terminal personnel along with the info on the airline, airport and time of arrival. If I’m satisfied the docs will pass a close inspection and the time of arrival will give me sufficient time to get my shit together as to armored vehicle, appropriate uniforms and a partner, I’ll give it my stamp of approval. These courier companies always have a team of at least two guards accompanying a high value shipment, so I’ve got to find someone to play that role.

  “Felix, get back to Pierre and have him instruct his trusting friend to send email instructions to the assigned courier cancelling the pickup and to have the email show it coming from the auction house acting on behalf of Vicki Valance. He can tell his friend that’s necessary for him to piggyback his gift onto the other shipment. He can tell her he’s going to select another courier to handle the two items being shipped and the recipient will be none the wiser until she is pleasantly surprised when she receives both items. We don’t have enough time to put safeguards in place to deal with someone verifying the email is legit, but I don’t think any suspicions will be aroused if they see the instructions are coming from the auction house. Who else would know about the shipment? Who are you going to get to do the docs on such short notice?”

  “The same guy who has done work for us in the past with passports and other fake ID, Milt Weinstein. He never says no when there’s a decent buck to be made and I pay him extremely well for his services.”

  Jacob says, “I don’t think so. I recently heard he has dug himself a hole so deep the ground hogs couldn’t find him to avoid doing some time for forging green cards.”

  “Hmm. Well, Ramon Prescelli does good work, but his fees are in the stratosphere. We’ll have to use him because we don’t have time to hunt for someone else. “Amos? You’re the man with the power. Yes we go, no we forget about it.”

  “Damn, I don’t like jumping into the lake without knowing how deep the water is. There’s a lot we don’t know about this Valance shipment. The whole thing could be a ruse to ensnare us. There may not even be a shipment, just docs to say there is and when Jacob presents the docs the show is over. If the shipment is legit, we don’t know if the shipment will even be taken off the plane. Its final destination could be changed in mid-flight, and Jacob would have to do some fast talking to explain why his company and hence him doesn’t know about the change. If that scenario is also a trap, Jacob will acquire some new jewelry, bracelets with keyholes.”

  Amos pauses in what looks like is going to be one of his longer diatribes and when he continues both Felix and Jacob think he’s going to nix the idea, so they are somewhat amazed when he says, “Aw, shit, it’s just too big a prize to pass up. I’m in.”

  Felix’s smile puts the finishing touches on the discussion. “Okay, we’re now in the hurry up and wait stage. I’ll get back to Pierre with Jacob’s instructions and I’ll set things up with Ramon, but beyond that it would be senseless to go any further until we get the shipping info from Pierre and see what the time constraints are going to be.”

  Looking through the one-way mirror, he sees a few customers coming through the door dressed like they can afford the baubles the boutique has to offer. “Customers, gentlemen. Let’s not keep them waiting. Our bank account needs the nourishment.”

  Less than an hour later, Felix is looking at the shipping info along with copies of the forms used and a confirmation that Jacobs instructions have been carried out. Amos will make the appropriate entries to the blank forms for Jacob to present at the airport and email copies to the appropriate airport personnel while Jacob attends to obtaining the items he will need to pass as a legitimate armored courier employee.

  Jacob is satisfied with what he sees and immediately gets to work on getting what he needs to fool the people he will be dealing with, knowing he will be cutting it close as to time because the collection is scheduled to arrive at Kennedy on UPS Air at 11:30 tomorrow morning. It is now a little after ten in the morning in New York and he has to somehow ‘borrow’ an armored car undetected, latch on to appropriate uniforms and convince someone to accompany him in the armored car.

  Jacob has an interesting network of rapscallions who have a potpourri of off the wall knowledge about all kind of things and they know better than to ask a bunch of nosy questions. If the price is right, they’ll do just about anything and Jacob knows that market very well. He puts the word out and, fortunately, it doesn’t take him long to find someone who knows where Brinks takes its vans for maintenance and repairs in Manhattan and he really gets lucky when he finds someone who knows where a lot of the drivers take their uniforms to be cleaned. Now it’s just a matter of breaking into these places after hours later tonight and taking what he needs. Jacob already has the guns and leather normally worn by armed security guards which he acquired for another

  imposter situation.

  Finding an accomplice on such short notice is proving to be much more difficult. As dusk approaches, Jacob rounds up Felix and Amos and tells them the bad news. “If one of you won’t assume the role of a guard, we’ll have to call the whole thing off. There’s no way the airport personnel are going to buy a solo driver with the value of the cargo involved.”

  Neither one of them volunteers so Jacob says, “Well, as I see it, we’re down to a flip of a coin or
a no go. What’s it going to be?”

  Both of them are embarrassed at their obvious reluctance to get their hands dirty at the site of the crime. They’ve always been behind the scene, gathering the information and resources for the targeted victim. They’re scared and are embarrassed to have Jacob seeing them act this way.

  “Okay, guys, what’s it going to be? We have no other options.”