A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames (popular books to read TXT) 📗

and then the market determines the price. What I can do is put what’s in this report”—he lifted the brochure—“into a website, Blue Nile Diamonds. I’ve used it before but never for anything this big, and they give you a price, based on other diamonds in the market with similar ratings. It’s like a search engine.”

He studied the report for a moment and then said: “See? It has a D rating for color, which is the highest, means it’s without color, and it’s VVS1, which means it’s nearly flawless, no little puckers or marks of any kind. I think we’re looking at a lot of money here.”

Excited, he took a laptop out of his desk drawer, did some typing, and his rings made little metallic noises that were pleasing. Then he pivoted the computer so I could see the Blue Nile web page. “See? It says its diamonds are all GIA graded.”

Then he swung the laptop back around and did some more typing, stared a moment at the computer, while it must have been searching, and then he slid back in his chair. “Jesus, Hank,” he said. “A comparable diamond, emerald cut, that weight, has sold for $289,000. Now, that’s retail. So wholesale, what you could get is more like two hundred, probably. This is way above anything I do.”

We both stared at the little chip of ice on his desk, at $289,000 worth of sparkling carbon. Which up close, under a microscope, looked like a palace.

Then I said: “Where would I sell it? A fence?” I was thinking that the team operating out of the house on Belden was some kind of high-end fence.

Rafi looked at me like I was crazy. “A fence? No! You’ve got a cert! You’re legit. You want to sell it, you should go to the diamond district, a diamond dealer, or I guess you could go to an auction house, like Christie’s, but they would take a cut. Probably 20 percent. Best bet is a diamond dealer. No cut.”

“So my friend wouldn’t have gone to a fence if he was looking to raise some cash?”

“No—no reason to go to a fence,” Rafi said, and he lowered his orange glasses and looked at me with something behind his eyes. “This cert is like a passport or a birth certificate. He could just go downtown to the diamond district.”

When he said “downtown,” an idea sparked in my dull head. I took Lou’s notebook out of my pocket and said: “Can you google something for me?”

He said he would, and I read him the first address Lou had scrawled: 550 Hill Street, suite 834. Rafi’s fingers made their noise on the keypad and then he said: “Yes, that’s a diamond dealer. Raz Diamonds. Probably Israeli. And that address is at the center of the district.”

I nodded and folded the diamond into the blue paper and sat there a moment, thinking. I was deep in the Dilaudid and everything going on. Lou. The two dead blonde men. A stolen diamond. Then Rafi said: “Are you all right, Hank? You seem…I don’t know.”

“I apologize, Raf. It’s the pill; it’s got me feeling a little loopy,” I said.

“I’m worried about you, Hank. Who takes care of you?”

“What do you mean? Nobody takes care of me. I have my dog.”

“A dog is good, but a person is better. I wish you had a person.”

I stood up, pocketed the diamond and the cert, and said: “Don’t worry about me, Rafi. You know I’m always all right.”

“But what have you gotten into this time? How did your friend die?”

“I’ll tell you later, okay?”

He knew I was protecting him—better he not know too much—and he shook his head, concerned but also stoic. He’s survived a long time in that pawnshop and always has a nice little Beretta strapped to his ankle.

He pushed himself up from his desk and walked me out, and as he unlocked the door, he said: “You need to get that somewhere safe. Diamonds get people hurt.”

Then he noticed the butterflies in the parking lot, swirling about like drunken particles, and he gestured toward them and said: “Must be the end of the world.”

“Must be,” I said, and we shook hands goodbye.

12.

I got in the Caprice and George gave me lots of kisses, grateful for my return, and Rafi was still standing behind his glass doors, looking at me. Our eyes met and then he disappeared into the shadows of his pawnshop, and then my phone started ringing. It was Rick Alvarez.

“Got anything?” I said by way of answering.

“Not anything too good,” he said. “The Belden house is owned by a private anonymous trust. I was able to find out that the trust is repped by a Beverly Hills law firm: Stamm, Baker, Landis, and at least eight other names. I’m not kidding. So I called the firm and the receptionist sent me to the voice mail of one of their lawyers. Thing is, if he does get back to me, I doubt he’ll tell me anything. And because it’s private, there are really no public records I can access. Wish I had more for you.”

“It’s all right; I appreciate it,” I said. “I’ll go up against that Ken Maurais, see what he can tell me.”

“Okay. Next couple of hours, I gotta show some houses to this client over in Echo Park and then Highland Park, but then I’ll do some more digging for you. Some other angles. See if I can find anything. It’s unlikely, but I’ll try. And just so you know, tomorrow I’m going down with my wife to Costa Rica. But maybe I can find something today.”

I thanked him and we hung up, and then on my phone I searched “Ken Maurais” and got his office number and address, which was on Hillhurst over in Los Feliz. My battery was running low again—I was already at 10 percent—but I didn’t have time to go to a Sprint store and get the thing fixed. I called the