Some of the goods that had been out on memo at the time of the robbery were trickling back into inventory. Other out-on-memo goods had been sold and payments for it received. Springer & Springer was reviving, just stirring but nonetheless showing signs of getting back on its feet.
"I think I'll sue," Springer told his insurance agent. Bob Steiner, during a phone call.
"Don't. They've got lawyers who are cousins to God."
"A million what?"
"A million eight. They balked at that figure. One five was their firm top. I warned them that you were an influential force at the Diamond Dealers Club."
Springer belonged to that club by tradition, hadn't been to it more than a half dozen times in as many years.
"The company assumes you'll be continuing with your coverage," Steiner said. "Of course, your premium rate will be automatically higher."
"They're worse thieves than those who robbed me."
"Better thieves," Steiner contributed.
"When can I expect a check?" Springer asked.
"The company has ninety days. It's in your policy, ninety days from the time an adjustment is agreed upon. Look for a check ninety days from tomorrow."
"Just to make me wait."
"That's not it. They figure even a day short of ninety would be a waste. Ninety days' interest on a million eight is roughly fifty thousand."
Well, at least that was settled. Not to Springer's satisfaction, but done with.
On Thursday afternoon, Springer arrived at the office to learn from Linda that he'd been called twice by someone named Karinov, who hadn't left a number, would call again. At five o'clock, just as Springer was about to leave, the same party called again. It was a woman. Using a pay station phone. Traffic sounds backgrounded her voice.
"You were in Rome last Thursday," she said.
"I was in Paris last Thursday," Springer corrected.
"A diamond was shown to you, an eight-carat diamond."
"Ten carats."
"A square cut."
"A round cut."
Evidently that was verification enough that Springer was her man. "Your material has arrived," she said. Her Russian accent had a British accent.
"That's good news."
"I wish to put it in your hands as soon as possible."
"You name it."
"Tomorrow morning would be ideal."
They made an appointment for nine o'clock the next morning at his most recent bank, the United States Trust Company of New York at 11 East 54th Street.
Karinov, who said her name was Nessa (Springer believed neither) turned out to be a Valkyrie type. A straight-haired blonde, about thirty, strong-boned and rangy. She was handsome more than pretty. Her eyes were a vulnerable blue but quick, cautious. A true maiden of Odin, bored with merely helping war heroes find their way to Valhalla, she'd gotten herself into a much more precarious game. Springer found it rather easy to imagine Audrey in her place.
At the bank, Mr. Leeds served Springer again. At Springer's request he led the way to the second floor and an office intended for the use of clients. It suited Springer's purpose well, had a tall window that faced north.
There, in privacy, Nessa impassively lifted her skirt and held it up by its hem with her chin, while she undid a compartmentalized cloth belt from around her waist. She sat at the desk and from the compartments of the belt removed twelve small chamois pouches, then, from each of the pouches, a round-cut twenty-five-carat diamond. She lined up the diamonds on the beige desk blotter, handled them perfunctorily, as she might had they been merely backgammon pieces. She raised her eyes to Springer, silently giving him permission to touch them.
He left the diamonds as they were for the moment, scanned them bare-eyed. No doubt they were Aikhal goods, they had that distinctive colder-looking blaze. From his jacket pocket Springer took out his loupe, a stark white business envelope, and the small leather case that contained his set of master stones. The master stones his father had given him when he was a boy.
He tore open both ends of the envelope and placed one of the diamonds in the crease of the long fold that remained. Turning to the window he examined that diamond with his loupe. The white trough of the envelope cut down on whatever extraneous light might be affecting the color of the diamond, allowed its true uninfluenced color to be viewed. Even the slightest hint of yellow, devaluating yellow, would be detectable. It was a little testing trick his father had shown him early on, usually done with a once-folded business card.
Springer placed the D-color diamond from his master set close beside the Russian stone. His master stone was much smaller, of course; however, it served for comparison. Springer placed four of the Russian stones side by side in the white trough of the envelope. Compared them, shifted them about, and compared them again. He examined all twelve stones in this manner.
Satisfied with their color, he next looked into them for flaws. He would not forgive even the most minuscule speck, but he saw none. Nor were there any feathers or clouds, graining or knot lines. As for the cut of the stones, he believed he'd never seen finer.
Throughout the procedure, which took a good hour, Springer and Nessa had not spoken a word. Now, he looked into her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. Springer kept close watch of Nessa's fingers, as she put the diamonds back into their individual chamois pouches. No sleight of hand. The pouches remained on the desk.
"I understand you're to tell me how to make payment," Springer said.
"To this account." On a note pad Nessa jotted down from memory: Bank Gallar and Cie., Bauhofstrasse 93, 8022 Zurich, Switzerland, account number PR-200819. She checked to make sure it was correct.
Springer used the phone to summon Mr. Leeds. He instructed Leeds to send thirteen million five hundred thousand dollars to the Swiss account Nessa had designated. Springer signed the required documents for a wire transfer from account to account. Leeds treated it routinely, unfazed by the amount of the transaction. He said it would take approximately an hour.
Nessa said they would wait for verification from the other end. She'd been through this before.
While waiting, Springer wondered how it had been pulled off, swiftly and precisely as ordered. Surely it wasn't mere coincidence that someone in the Soviet Union just happened to have on hand a dozen perfect diamonds of that size. Perhaps they had hundreds like it, equally flawless, hundreds of every significant size. Perhaps it was true—the rumor that the Soviets had more diamonds than The System, more diamonds than they knew what to do with, evidently so many diamonds that whoever was supposed to be keeping track of them could easily skim. Sweet deal. Dangerous but sweet.
Springer was right. But he would never know that the diamonds had been included in the diplomatic pouch put aboard an Aeroflot plane at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. Three diamonds in each of four 14-ounce tins of Imperial Caspian caviar bound for the Soviet installation in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, and the palates of the upper-echelon Soviet diplomats assigned to the United Nations and the Consulate in New York City. The Glen Cove place was a sumptuous estate in an area of sumptuous estates. With swimming pool, tennis courts, and all such decadent amenities, it was preferred, especially in summer, over the somewhat austere apartment house on East 67th Street that served as the Soviet Mission.
The so-called Nessa Karinov was one of the staff at the Glen Cove installation. She was a chef, a specialist in French cuisine, had been sent for three years to learn at the ecole de Cordon Bleu in Paris. As a chef, naturally she saw to the caviar.
She also saw to the diamonds that sometimes came concealed in it. Dug them out from the huge choicest-of-all sturgeon roe and washed them in warm water sudsed up with a squirt of lemon fresh Joy detergent, rinsed them with hot, dried them, and dropped them into her deep apron pocket where she always kept a few extra cloves of garlic.
"Do you like being in New York?" Springer asked her just to break the silence.
"Very much."
"I suppose you miss Ru
ssia."
"Very much."
Springer had recently read somewhere that the Russians had 900 people stationed in New York. He'd bet that Nessa was less talkative than the other 899.
Leeds returned with verification that the money had been credited to the Swiss account. Nessa went over the verifying printout carefully before saying, "Done." She asked to have returned to her the slip of notepaper upon which she'd written the name of the bank and the numbered account. To destroy it. Springer surmised.
Nessa left the bank. It was her day oflf. She would shop Alexander's for a while and go to an early movie.
Springer decided that while at the bank he might as well take care of Drumgold. He had Leeds transfer Drumgold's commission to an account at a bank in Nassau that Drumgold had stipulated should the deal go through.
Two hundred thousand dollars. And one.
Out on the street with the diamonds safely pocketed, Springer's first thought was that he'd drop them off at Townsend's, only a block and a half away up Fifth. Hadn't Libby said that was how she wanted it? He'd get a receipt from Townsend, of course.
Springer's second thought was that he shouldn't be so hasty about that.
He returned to his office and phoned Wintersgill at the Hull Foundation to ask him how he believed the matter should be handled. He was somewhat surprised when he was put right through.
"Why don't you just bring the diamonds over to me and I'll see that she receives them," Wintersgill suggested amiably.
"Would that be putting you out?"
"No bother at all. Can you be here within the hour?"
Springer was a breath away from saying sure when some part of him told him he was about to step out onto a wrong bridge. "What I'd prefer," he said, "is to deliver them to Libby myself. I guess I'm a bit proud of them."
"As you wish," Wintersgill said, changed to curt.
Springer couldn't blame the man for that. He was probably sitting there surrounded by importance wondering why the hell Springer had bothered to call.
Chapter 25
At noon the next day when Springer came out of Sloan-Kettering, that dark brown Daimler limousine of Libby's was at the curb. Attending it was the same big chauffeur named Groat. For a moment Springer had the notion to ride up front, but then he wasn't sure Groat would approve. So he sat where he was supposed to, in the back sunk in the plush.
He'd spent the morning with Jake. The boy was giving his bravest best; however, the chemotherapy had really gotten to him, sunk and dulled his eyes, sallowed his coloring, made him nauseated and dizzy and sapped. Several times that morning Jake had been on the verge of tears. So had Springer.
Tomorrow, Jake would be allowed to go home. Dr. Stimson had said. That would be better. But in four weeks he'd be due back in the hospital for more chemotherapy. It might take as many as six treatments. Six months of such misery for Jake before they'd take a slice of him, then more chemotherapy to make sure. And that was if everything went well.
"Every positive thought is another for our side," Mattie had said.
Springer tried now for a positive.
The best he could do was a neutral as he gazed straight ahead through the separating glass at Groat's bullish neck and thought. Groat takes at least a size twenty collar. He caught Groat's glance in the rearview mirror. Three times, before Groat put on aviator-type dark glasses, and that was that.
At one o'clock precisely Springer was looking at another equally massive neck: that of the butler, Hinch, who preceded him along the ground-floor main hallway of Libby's mansion in Greenwich. All the way to an extremity of the south wing, where doors like a triptych decoratively painted in the manner of Fragonard were folded back, giving to a garden room. It was a large semicircular room enclosed all around and high above by small framed glass panes. The panes were frosted so everything was bathed in a flatteringly soft light.
Including Libby.
She was on one of a pair of facing white-lacquered sofas: arranged on it, was Springer's impression. No doubt she'd been notified of his arrival the moment he'd gotten out of the Daimler and there was no possible way she hadn't heard his and Hinch's footsteps on the marble floor of the hall, yet she remained preoccupied for a long moment before she glanced up to be pleasantly surprised.
Her initial smile broadened.
She offered her hand and drew Springer down to her face with it for welcoming cheek kisses right and left. Springer got a whiff of her, an extravagant scent that was not just her perfume. The rich smell different, he'd once quipped to Audrey at a playful, erotic moment, and that applied now.
Springer sat on the sofa opposite, which was what Libby had planned. There were unfolded blueprints on the cushion beside her. She picked them up and flung them over the back of the sofa.
"Plans for a new boat someone wants to build for me," she said. "The best, of course, are built in Bremen, outfitted in Southampton, and moored almost constantly in Monaco. I'll bet you're one hell of a sailor."
"I get seasick."
Springer believed he discerned a hint of I-would-have-thought-as-much in her expression, or perhaps that was only because he was looking for it.
"I can take an average sea," she said, "but there's nothing I detest more than being out when it's heavy. All that energy wasted just trying to move about. The most deplorable thing about a heavy sea is you can't just turn it off. I don't for the likes of me understand why some people enjoy being out there, tossed about to the point of upchucking. Perhaps they're closet bulimiacs." She laughed at that, as though it was the first time she'd said it.
Springer saw that she'd taken considerable care with her appearance. The pale pastel floral-printed dress she had on was of that finest cotton called lawn, with an amply pleated skirt and oversized sleeves. Considerably less casual than such a Saturday afternoon called for. Her makeup was by no means slapdash. The various layers of hues on her lids, the gradually edged dominance of blue that shot from her lashes out and up to her impeccably tweezed brows, the blushing concavity of her cheeks, the red slicks that helped her mouth — all had required time. And motive. Her only jewelry was a ring: a thirty-carat Burma sapphire of a very unusual intense lavender shade. Springer thought of it as a stone with a dilemma, one that could not make up its mind whether it should be a sapphire or a ruby.
"What will you have to drink?" Libby asked.
Too early for his Usquaebach, he decided; what was she having?
The open bottle on the table between them was a Chateau La Conseil-lante 1966. A white-jacketed servant came forth as though his cue had been said. He was another large man. Perhaps, Springer thought, this one, Hinch, and Groat took turns butlering, driving, and waiting on.
"Thank you, Fane," Libby said automatically as he poured fresh glasses and set down a doilied silver tray bearing tiny crustless sandwiches. Fane soundlessly gathered up the soiled glasses and napkins and was gone. Springer couldn't see where. Well-trained orange trees in bleached white tubs were lined along the perimeter. There were numerous other plantings, some with huge leaves and undoubtedly tropical. Two or three enormous ficus almost reached the ceiling, their containers softened by legions of primroses, day lilies, dahlias, and ranunculus. Fane was hiding somewhere in the bushes. Springer thought: Fane and probably a few others equally formidable. What would happen, he wondered, if he responded to Libby's flirtatious manner? At what point, what temperature, would they skulk away? Had they been told? He had a mind to turn and see if he could catch sight of them. Schubert's Ninth Symphony began as though its time had come, but at a level that would not interfere. An orange dropped from one of the trees and landed on the marble floor with a thump soft as a final heartbeat. Springer gazed upward. Among the hundreds of perfect glass panes he found one that was cracked. He looked directly at Libby, tried to magnify, to determine any of the cosmetic surgeon's tiny incisional lines that he knew were there. Why was he so ready to notice, trying to find, mistakes? With an air of light-hearted reproach Libby told Springer,
"You're incorrigible."
"Why?"
"You were in London and didn't take me up on my hospitality."
"I thought it best not to impose."
"Nonsense. What do you take me for, one of those bourbon-brained Southerners who invite irrepressibly and then are at a loss when someone shows up?"
"It wasn't that—"
"You're practically family," she reasoned and blotted wine from her lips with her napkin.
Springer tried to appear appropriately contrite.
Libby did a simultaneous moue and a smile. "I'm chiding only because I'd enjoy seeing more of you. You really should come up to Penobscot."
"What's there?"
"Our own island."
"How large?"
"About two miles long and—oh, I'd say a half mile across."
"I'm not partial to islands," Springer said, having decided to give her some of her own. "They bore quickly. You know what I mean, they're so limited."
"Our Penobscot place is craggy around the edges, very Mainelike, but soft in the middle with many beds of pine needles and moss."
Her tone was insinuating, caused Springer to suspect Audrey had confided their alfresco love-making penchants to her. He imagined such woman-to-woman dialogue on the subject. More boastful than anything, so how could he mind?
Springer looked away. His eyes aimed into the peach-pink bell-like face of a nearby day lily but he wasn't seeing it. He absently sipped wine. His thoughts were on Jake.
Sensing the cloud that had come over him, Libby said, "Audrey told me your son is ill."
"Yes."
"Is it as serious as she said?"
Springer nodded.
"If there's anything I can do, anything at all, please ... let me know."
"Thank you."
"I also understand that your miraculous little stone was stolen."
"A week ago."
"That's a shame. You have no idea who took it or where it is?"
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