11.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
The police were just finishing up outside and heading back in to interview the many witnesses.
“They’ve been all over it by now,” I said to Joe, not too hopeful of finding anything.
“Sure they have. And now it’s our turn.”
Bright floodlights were focused on the emergency exit, and on the path leading from it to the road and the bay. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung between trees and light poles, fencing off an area that was being still being combed by dozens of police. Convention center security stood by, watching and keeping away curious passersby.
I looked across the road to the convention center marina. Dozens of boats were bobbing in the water. Speedboats and yachts, and sailboats with their sails wound tightly around their masts.
“They must have gotten away by boat,” I said. “There’s no way they could have driven out of here without going through the center’s guarded gates.”
Joe and I walked down the path, past Chief Collig. “Find anything, Chief?” I asked.
“Shoe prints—seven sets. They must have had three men covering the exit from outside.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not yet,” he said through gritted teeth. “I think we’re going to do the interviews and pack it in for the night. I’ll leave a few men on watch detail, and we’ll come back in the morning. The floodlights are good, but it’s not the same as daylight.”
Joe and I kept walking, crossing the road and moving onto the docks of the marina. Two police officers passed us going the other way, their walkie-talkies pressed to their ears. I recognized one of them as Officer Bart Edwards. “Right, Chief,” he was saying. “We’ll be right there.”
“Excuse me, Bart,” I said. “Did anyone search these boats?”
“Every one of them,” he answered. “They’re all clean and clear.”
“Hmm. Thanks. Mind if we have a look around anyway?”
“Fine by me—just don’t touch anything that looks like evidence.”
After he’d gone, Joe and I walked each of the docks. Obviously, the police had decided there wasn’t anything here left to find. Maybe they were right—there certainly was nothing obvious.
Frank and I weren’t even sure what we were looking for, but we both felt that the crooks had to have come and gone this way. And when people come and go—even experienced professionals—they sometimes leave clues behind.
“But surely the police would have found it, whatever it was,” you might say.
Ah, but you know how people are. They only find what they’re looking for. Joe and I weren’t looking for any particular thing. Trust me, it’s the best way to find something important.
A coast guard boat sped by, its floodlights scanning the bay for any signs of the thieves. It turned sharply to avoid hitting the marina, and sent up a big wake that soon had us grabbing onto the pilings to avoid getting thrown into the water.
“Hey!” I said, getting to my feet again and seeing if I was wet anywhere.
“They really should learn to—hey, Frank, what’s that?”
Joe was pointing to the water, where something was protruding from under the dock.
I squinted my eyes, trying to see the object—and I quickly realized what it was. “Joe,” I said, “it’s a mask. A gas mask—with a body attached.”
12.
The Worm Turns
We decided to do a little investigating on our own before involving any authorities.
We fished him out of the water and hauled him onto the dock, grunting every inch of the way. Water gushed out of his mouth, nose, and ears. It poured from the pockets of his jacket—along with a shiny object. I picked it up with two fingers and held it up to the light.
It was a diamond ring—one any woman would want for her engagement—in a fancy carved gold setting with a gold band. I pocketed this piece of evidence, then pulled the guy’s gas mask off while Frank checked his pulse.
“Long gone,” he said.
“Maybe this is why,” I said, pointing to a neat round hole in the flak jacket, just over the chest area. “I’d say it was a .38 caliber. One clean shot, from the front.” I paused. “Why do you think he was killed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they—the leaders of this robbery—caught him stashing away some of the loot for himself. Maybe he was a hired gun,” Frank guessed.
I shook my head. “Then what’s this ring doing in his pocket? Wouldn’t they have taken it back?”
“They probably shot him when they found the first thing he’d taken. My guess is he hit the water before they had a chance to really pat him down.”
“And killing him had the added benefit of one less person to share the loot with,” I pointed out.
“True.” Frank had his hand deep inside the dead guy’s pants pocket. “Something else in here,” he said, just before fishing out a soaking-wet business card. “Aha!”
“Can you read it?” I asked.
He squinted, holding it up to the floodlight that illuminated this part of the dock. “It’s a diamond firm in New York City . . . something with a G . . .”
“Let me see that,” I said, trying to grab it from him.
“Eh, eh, eh!” he said, yanking it away just in time. “Don’t finger the merchandise.”
“You know I’ve got better eyes than you do.”
“Says who?”
I grabbed it from him and read it out loud. “‘Glickstein Jewelers, Nathan Glickstein, President. One-fifty-five West Forty-seventh Street, seventh floor.’”
“It might be nothing,” Frank said.
“I’ll bet you everything I own it isn’t,” I responded.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “It’s a good bet those thieves will go there to try and fence their big haul.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible,” he said.
“That would be tomorrow morning.”
“Sunday?”
“They’re open on Sunday, closed on Saturday,” I told him.
“How do you know that?”
“It says so on the card, bro,” I said with a smile, handing it back to him. “Maybe you should get your eyes checked. Turns out they’re not so great after all.”
Frank frowned, but he had no comeback. He got right back down to business, checking to see if the guy had any ID on him. There was none—no surprise. Why would somebody who was going to rob a place carry ID, and do the cops a favor?
We called the police over, showed them the body, then went back inside the center. “I want to search Glickstein on the Internet,” Frank said.
That was cool by me. I was as curious as he was.
The police had been busy while we were gone. We arrived at the hall where the witness interviews were being conducted, to find that almost all the security personnel who’d been gassed were already gone. Chief Collig was just leaving, on his way out to examine the body.
“Anything I should know before I go out there and check out the stiff?” he asked us.
Frank and I exchanged a quick glance. Neither of us was sure whether to mention the ring or the business card we’d found on the corpse. Our intuition told both of us that they held the key to something important, but I don’t think either of us was ready to give up our own investigation.
“Not really,” Frank said. “Where are Naomi and Shakira?”
“We’re done with them,” the chief said. “They’re being put up at the Bay View Hotel for the night, with a guard posted at each of their doors for protection.”
“Great,” Frank said. “Thanks, Chief. Good job.”
There he went, buttering up Chief Collig. Frank and I both knew he’d be incredibly mad if he knew we were concealing the ring and the business card we’d found. We’d be sure to turn them over to the police as soon as we were done with them, though. And the chief might be a little less furious because Frank had buttered him up beforehand.
Don’t get me wrong�
�the chief’s a great guy, and a very good police officer. He’s just a lousy detective. He can follow up a clue just fine, but the intuition you need to be an investigator has never been his strong point.
Right now, the Bayport police would be totally focused on rounding up Carlos Sanguillen and Shakey Twist. That, and identifying the corpse, would keep them busy for a while. Too busy to check out Glickstein Jewelers, which could be a false lead, amounting to nothing—and which Frank and I could easily handle for them.
We found Hal Harris in the control room and asked to borrow one of his computers. He led us to a side cubicle, keyed in a password, and presto—we were online. Frank searched “Nathan Glickstein” and “Jewelers,” and up came the correct address in New York City. We linked to the firm’s website, but it was just ordinary stuff.
Then we went down the search results a little deeper, and found a newspaper article from the New York Times dated 1998—when a man named Nathan Glickstein was found innocent of fencing diamonds. Bingo!
Farther down in the article, it mentioned whose diamonds he’d been accused of fencing: Carlos Sanguillen’s. Apparently he’d been charged with etching ID numbers on illegally mined diamonds, then selling them as legit ones. The indictment also accused him of associating with mobsters in Atlantic City, although it didn’t name any names.
“That’s it!” Frank gasped. “They’re going to dump the stolen goods with Glickstein! Joe, we’ve got to get down there right away.”
It all seemed to add up—Sanguillen, Twist, Glickstein.
Except for one thing: a dead man floating in the water with a diamond ring in his pocket.
We walked back to Frank’s bike and rode home. It was three a.m. when we got to bed. Frank set his alarm for six in the morning. “Three hours’ sleep?” I moaned.
“You know we’ve got to get to Glickstein early, the theives have a head start on us as it is,” he said. “Once they get him the diamonds, it’s all over. Nothing will ever be proven, and they’ll get off scot-free again, just like they’ve done every time so far.”
“Yeah,” Frank said, “but don’t you think one of us should stay behind and keep an eye on the girls?”
“Hmmm. Do you think that’s really necessary, Frank? I mean, they’re under police guard. They’re not going anywhere. And with the diamonds already stolen, what’s the risk to them?”
“Well, for one thing, Shakira’s the only witness who got a look at her attacker.”
Whoa, major role reversal. Was Frank confusing the evidence because of a girl? “No, she wasn’t,” I said. “Remember Bobo recognizing Shakey? Besides, the guy Shakira recognized was wearing a gas mask, dude. Think she could ever pick him out of a lineup? I doubt it.”
“Still. Our mission from ATAC says—”
“Oh, can it, bro. I see right through you. Why don’t you stay here and hang out with Naomi, and I’ll go to New York. Just do me one favor, okay? Peek in on Shakira every once in awhile.”
“It’s not like that, Joe,” he started.
“Right. Sure it isn’t. Go to sleep, okay? Looking out for Naomi Dowd is tough work.”
I kind of wished it was me staying behind with the girls. Before Shakira ran into the middle of a diamond heist, I was pretty sure she’d been at least a little interested in me. But I’d left her alone to defend herself during the robbery, and she hadn’t forgiven me for that. I could totally understand where she was coming from. Still, tomorrow would have been a good day to try and make it up to her.
That may have been what Frank had in mind with Naomi—only he’d have to get around Bobo first. I don’t know why I took pity on Frank and offered to go to New York by myself, but I did.
I just hoped I didn’t regret it later.
SUSPECT PROFILE
Name: Nathan Glickstein
Hometown: New York, NY
Physical description: Age 70, 5 ‘, 5 “, wild gray hair, bad posture.
Occupation: Diamond buyer/seller/appraiser (and fencer). He’s got two sets of books—one for his legitimate business, and one for . . . well, you know.
Background: Son of a peddler, he started out gypping customers at an early age. From the time he entered the diamond business, he began figuring out ways to up his profits by being smarter than everybody else. Unfortunately, some of his smart friends turned out to be wiseguys—including Shakey Twist, among others. It was on a business trip to the Philippines that he was approached by Carlos Sanguillen, who convinced Glickstein to fence his illegal diamonds. This secret arrangement worked well until Sanguillen became one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. His high jinks nearly landed Glickstein in jail. Lucky thing his friend Shakey knew some good lawyers!
Suspicious behavior: His card in the pocket of the dead body’s jacket.
Suspected of: Being the fence for the diamonds Shakey and Sanguillen stole.
Possible motive: Beyond getting even richer? The pleasure of outsmarting everybody. And that means EVERYBODY.
The door was locked, but there was a button to push. I pushed it, and a buzzer sounded, freeing the lock and allowing me inside the office of Nathan Glickstein Jewelers.
“Can I help you?”
An old man looked up at me from his chair. He’d been bent over a microscope, or something very much like one. Now he looked up at me, with a pair of Coke-bottle-thick glasses perched on his nose and a wild gray head of hair erupting in every direction out of his head.
His “office” was not really much of an office at all. It was a tiny room behind a frosted glass door on the seventh floor of an enormous building, full of dozens of offices just like it, all buying and selling diamonds.
Glickstein Jewelers was divided in half by a counter, behind which sat Mr. Glickstein himself. The back half of the office was crammed with shelves, all stacked with boxes, files, loose papers, and dust.
On my side of the partition was a bare floor, with two chairs for anyone waiting his turn. Both chairs were empty. It was ten in the morning, but I had the feeling they were empty just about all the time. Whatever business got done here, not much of it was person-to-person, or retail—and probably not legal, either.
“Nathan Glickstein?”
“That’s me. And you are?”
“Joe. Joe Hardy, sir.”
“What do you want, Joe Hardy? You want to sell me something? Because you don’t look like the type who buys.”
“I’m not selling anything. I’m just—sir, could I ask you something?”
“Why not?” He was curious now, tilting his head down so he could see me through the top half of his bifocals.
“Has Carlos Sanguillen shown up here today?”
That got him. I saw him flinch noticeably. He pushed his glasses farther up his nose and stood up. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Shakey Twist? Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t. And where did you say you were from?”
I saw him reach for something under the counter. “Sir, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’m not a police officer, and I’m not here to arrest you or anything.”
“Arrest me? Arrest me for what?” He didn’t move back from whatever he’d been about to reach for—but he didn’t move any closer, either.
“You know about the diamond theft in Bayport last night?”
“I read it in the paper this morning. So?”
“Both men who’ve been named as suspects have ties to you.”
“Baloney. That’s pure baloney! Who sent you, huh?”
Baloney? What century was this guy from? “I sent myself, sir. You wouldn’t be about to fence those stolen diamonds, would you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, young fella. And you’d better get out of here now, before I call for security.”
“Just one more question. Did you know they’ve already killed one of their buddies who helped out on the heist?”
That made him go white. “I guess that didn’t make it in time for the morning pape
rs, huh?” I continued.
He looked at me like I’d just arrived from Mars.
“I’d be careful if I were you, sir,” I said as I backed slowly toward the door. “These are dangerous guys you’re dealing with. If they killed one of their friends, they could easily kill another. You might want to come clean before it’s too late.”
His mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything. He just stood there, frozen in place, staring at me.
“Okay, I can understand if you don’t want to tell me. I mean, who am I, right? Tell you what—why don’t you just call the NYPD? They’ll protect you, sir. And if you help them nail Shakey Twist and Carlos Sanguillen, I’ll bet there’d even be a reward in it for you.”
I hit the elevator button and waited. And waited. When it finally came, the door opened to reveal two men. They were standing side by side, their hands together in front of their stomachs. They were Asian—in fact, they could easily have been Filipino—and they looked dangerous. They stared at me with raised eyebrows.
Man, I thought. Mr. Glickstein must have pushed that panic button the moment I’d left his office, because they sure had gotten here quick.
“I . . . think I’ll take the stairs,” I said, backing away slowly.
The elevator door started to close. Then a hand reached out and blocked it. The doors reopened, and out stepped the pair of thugs. They came right for me, reaching inside their jackets for the guns that were no doubt hidden there.
I turned and ran for my life. Reaching the stairway just in time, I raced down the steps, jumping them in bunches like a track star in hurdles. But I could still hear the thunk-thunk of heavy-booted feet behind me.
Somewhere around the third floor I stopped hearing them, but I kept on going as fast as I could. I reached the bottom stairwell and pushed on the exit door—and that’s when the hand grabbed me by the shoulder.
It yanked me back around. I ducked instinctively, the result of years of martial arts training. As the iron fist went flying, I head-butted the thug right in the abdomen. He buckled over, and I raised my head quickly, hitting him in the nose with the back of my skull.
Death and Diamonds Page 8
