18mm Blues

by Gerald A. Browne

  All the way down Prome Road to where it intersected with Yard Road. A turn onto Yard and then after a short ways the view about a quarter mile off to the left was enriched with the stupa of a major pagoda, a single, sharp, bell-shaped spire coated with gold. A little farther on the stark white multi-tiered base of the pagoda could be seen. This sight was erased by a right turn onto Kaba Aye Road, followed within the minute by another right for the long hooking drive of the hotel.

  The surrounding grounds of it were extensive. The shrubbery, azaleas, camellias and the like, and the trees, various palms and other tropicals, were nicely trimmed and shaped. Julia, but especially Grady, was encouraged by how verdant, well nourished and tended were the large areas of lawn and the many ample beds of flowers.

  Then there was the huge hotel.

  A five-story chunk of concrete. Built by the Soviets in 1960, its architectural personality was unmistakably Khrushchev—a close cousin or perhaps even an identical blueprint twin of one of those make-do structures put up about that same time around Moscow to house the common comrades. Flat sided, no such thing as a balcony or a setback, small, repetitious windows. The only embellishment, and that no doubt an afterthought, was a red canvas canopy from curb to front entrance. Four soldiers stood precisely spaced to the left of the entrance. Four more to the right. Staunch look-alikes, identically uniformed, bandoliered, automatic rifles slung, they appeared ready to take on trouble or cause it. Except, Grady noticed, none of them had on shoes. Didn’t being shoeless make them not so intimidating? Grady told himself to ignore them or consider them a sort of honor guard.

  He and Julia entered and crossed the spacious lobby. It was moderately bustling, and other soldiers were standing here and there. At reception the clerk turned to the varnished teak counter to serve them. He would have been a nondescript Burman had it not been for his mouth. It was naturally pursed, crimped all around, looked as though it would be painful, or, at the very least, difficult for him to open it.

  He didn’t. His greeting was a single nod.

  Grady produced his and Julia’s passports and his Emporium credentials.

  The clerk didn’t look at the passports, just took them. He glanced at the Emporium credentials, consulted a reservation list, ran down it several times until he had Grady concerned.

  “Bowman,” the clerk discovered aloud, mispronouncing the first syllable.

  To Grady it seemed that he’d only just heard his name but, as well, seen it come from that mouth.

  “Three-thirty-seven,” the clerk said as from somewhere beneath the counter he came up with a key attached to a clear disc the size of a Ping-Pong paddle.

  “We wish to be shown the room first,” Julia said firmly.

  “Yeah, we’d like to see it,” Grady seconded. Actually, he and his lag were ready to settle for any space that would allow him to get horizontal for a while.

  The clerk summoned a porter who took the key and led the way to one of the elevators and on up to the third floor. Three-thirty-seven was two-thirds of the way down the excessively wide corridor. The porter unlocked the door, swung it open and waited outside while Grady and Julia went in.

  The room had a high ceiling but was small. Crowded by its furnishings, which were only the essentials: a double bed, night-stands, dresser drawers, an armchair. All of a lesser quality than even average guest-proof motel room furniture. It was veneered blond, a half-century outdated with the brass plating of its cast iron pulls and knobs worn off. Beige wall-to-wall carpet that had been given up on, stained upon stain and with little or no nap left along bedside and in other most-used areas. The place was so permeated with cigarette and cigar smoke that Julia held her breath as she gave it the once-over.

  Hurrying out she remarked, “I’ve stayed in better than this years ago in Lam Pam.” As though that was unlikely but the most suitable comparison she could think of.

  “Where?” Grady asked, glancing back longingly at the bed.

  “Where what?”

  “Where’s that, Lam whatever?”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I must be hearing things.”

  “Must be.”

  “Or you must be saying things.”

  “All I said was I’ve stayed in better.”

  “I sure as hell hope so.” Grady let it go at that, and within a minute or so they were back down in the lobby facing the clerk with the pursed mouth. Who was impassive to the fact that they didn’t like the room, merely stated that it was a deluxe accommodation.

  “The best you’ve got?” Grady asked incredulously.

  “Our superior deluxe rooms are all taken,” the clerk informed, and, after a beat, added, “I believe.”

  The I believe wasn’t missed by Grady. He realized the clerk’s cash register eyes, should have earlier on and saved all this bother, he thought, and went into his pocket for a hundred kyat note (about fifteen dollars). While his fingers were at it he decided for sure measure they should double that. He slipped the two hundred kyats to the clerk.

  Evidently discretion was unnecessary. The clerk examined the money in plain sight, tucked it into his jacket pocket, sucked his lips tighter in triumph, and came up with the key to 543, presumably a superior deluxe.

  This time the baggage went up with Grady and Julia. To 543, which promised to be better because it was located at the very end, facing the corridor. It really wasn’t more of a room. It was just as small, just as badly furnished, just as used, just as smelling of smoke. Neither Grady nor Julia commented on it aloud, even after the porter was tipped and gone. Grady felt that he’d been tricked, taken, and Julia, sensitive to that, held back expressing her fault findings, as valid and obvious and numerous as they were. Instead, first thing, she removed the coverlet from the bed, turned down the sheet and plumped the pillows. Hummed as she unpacked hers and his.

  “I’m hungry but sleepier than hungry,” she said as she lay down nude beside him.

  “Order something up,” he mumbled. Tomorrow was the first day of the Emporium, he thought. He’d have to have his best eyes and his head straight by tomorrow. He doubted he’d be able to get to sleep. His mind was racing so. But within a couple of minutes it went over the cliff and plunged into sweet black.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Emporium.

  It was held in an area of the hotel situated off the main lobby, a large facility perhaps most adequately described as a convention room or auditorium. The room was more than just adequately lighted, brightly so, with numerous fixtures extended from the twenty-foot-high ceiling. Beneath the lights were counters joined end to end to form rows. The surfaces of these were covered with a black fabric and they were similarly skirted. Situated as they were, the rows of counters created wide aisles. A wider, perpendicular center aisle helped circulation. Barefoot but armed soldiers were positioned around.

  Upon the counters, offered in individual lots, were the gemstones. Contained in unfolded paper briefkes like doilies placed on shallow glass dishes. Each lot was identified by an assigned number. There was no possible way for anyone to miss or mistake any of these corresponding numbers inasmuch as they were so largely and prevalently displayed. From behind the counters an attendant was assigned to watch over each lot and answer any inquiry.

  Evidently the government had given considerable thought to the arrangement of everything. And to how to its best advantage the selling was to be conducted.

  None of the lots of gemstones could be purchased outright. They’d be auctioned. Not in the customary verbal way whereby one bidder might top another and in turn be topped. There’d be no open bidding such as that. Rather, as each lot came up for sale in numerical order, buyers would be allowed to submit a single bid by noting upon a small printed form the amount they were willing to pay along with a number that had been assigned to identify each buyer. Then the form was to be fed into the slot of a large stainless steel receptacle located in the center aisle.

  To let the buyers k
now when a particular lot was up for bidding a color slide of it and its number would be projected upon a screen fixed high above the front of the room.

  Five minutes exactly was allowed for the bidding on each lot. When time had expired, the officials in charge would open the receptacle and go through the bids. Purportedly the buyer who bid highest would acquire the lot. His number would be announced and displayed on a second, smaller screen. Meanwhile bidding would be under way on the next lot.

  At the moment, early on the first morning of the Emporium, being presented for sale on the screen was a lot consisting of a hundred pieces of ten-carat moonstones. These were several degrees bluer and therefore more desirable than the usual skim milk blue sort. The German dealers in particular were interested in the lot while others gave it hardly any attention.

  About two hundred dealers were there. From just about every European country, and from India and Australia, Japan and Israel. Chinese dealers from Hong Kong and Taipei who’d come for Burma jade. Dealer-agents for the Saudis and Kuwaitis and for the sultan of Brunei, who if the mood struck could overpay merely for the satisfaction of financial bullying. The dealers from the United States were considered prime buyers. They numbered about fifty and were mainly from New York City and Chicago, men who were well acquainted and whose camaraderie was heightened by their being together in a place so far from home and so foreign.

  The dealer Clifton from Chicago was one of these. Grady ran into him and they conversed briefly, but somehow the flavor of their exchange was different from the one they’d had on the flight, not nearly so outspoken, strained by the atmosphere. Grady also encountered a couple of Forty-seventh Street dealers he’d known fairly well from his Larkin days, but he didn’t hook up with them and they didn’t seem to want him to, just suggested vaguely getting together for drinks when it was convenient.

  So, Grady was a loner. He didn’t mind.

  After all, he wasn’t there to socialize, and besides, he told himself, he really wouldn’t enjoy talking trade. He went around to the various lots alone, also telling himself as he examined them that he really didn’t need anyone else’s opinion.

  His eyes were at their all-time best, his mind sharp. He’d slept close to twelve hours, without a toss or a change of position that he could remember. The most beneficial sleep he’d had in his adult life, it was as though some concerned spirit had overtaken and sedated him. Less fanciful, he thought, the reason he’d slept such a good necessary sleep was Julia. Her and her arms around, knee contacts, various ways of keeping in touch.

  Anyway, when he’d awakened at dawn his lag symptoms were gone. He didn’t have even a remnant of those, and the clock of his system seemed reset. He’d showered and all that and enjoyed a sense of well-being throughout his shave and while getting dressed in his sincere blue suit. He and Julia had an omelet breakfast in the hotel’s main dining room. Then, after several parting-temporarily-type kisses and assuring him a half dozen times not to worry she could look after herself, she’d taken off in a taxi with a pad, charcoal sticks and other sketching necessities, and he’d headed for the Emporium armed with his trusty ten-power loupe and optimism.

  Pink sapphires.

  A lot of ten matching stones totalling in weight twenty carats on the nose. Two French dealers were examining them and Grady had to wait to have his look. He pushed them slightly about with his special tweezers, disturbed them and caused them to respond with scintillations. They were eye clean, he decided, but badly cut. He picked them up with the tweezers, all ten, one after another. Did so with the sure deftness of a professional, swiftly without fumble or drop. Sighted into each with his magnifying loupe and proved to himself these were not “Burma-like” but Burma top-grade. They were, without question, the finest pink sapphires he’d ever experienced. Hot pink, a real punchy pink, feminine. They brought Doris to mind. Doris, his assistant, who was back in San Francisco tending the office and who’d always been so taken with that lot of pinks in Harold’s inventory. Harold’s pinks were watery and weak by comparison.

  Grady imagined himself returning to San Francisco with these Burmas among his buys. Doris would orgasm. He thought he might bid on the lot. According to its number, it wouldn’t come up for bidding for a while yet, but he’d watch for its turn.

  He continued down along that row and around to another row, getting a feel for the scope of the offerings, stopping here and there to examine certain lots that caught his interest. The peridots, amethysts, tourmalines, garnets and the like were excellent semiprecious goods, however they obviously were being used as fillers to make the event seem more extensive. The rubies and sapphires, emeralds and alexandrite, pearls and jade were what nearly everyone was there for.

  There was much jade and much interest in it from the Chinese. Grady was amused at overhearing a group of Chinese dealers discussing the merits of a rough boulder that was the Emporium’s jade centerpiece. The boulder was a good five feet high and three in diameter and had a small window polished on its surface for a clear view into its interior. The Chinese were taking turns looking into the window and from their rapid high decibels, one would have thought they were having a heated argument. Another such cluster of Chinese dealers, these from Hong Kong, were vociferously boiling over a lot of imperial jade beads, those of the finest quality and green (the green of Prell shampoo).

  Grady knew very little about jade. He was aware that the far better was found in Burma, had been for centuries, but that was about it. Maybe he ought to learn jade, he thought as he bypassed jade lot after jade lot, but then, he told himself, never in his lifetime would he catch up with the Oriental expertise.

  The lot of pink sapphires was coming up for bidding. The slide on the overhead screen changed, and there they were, suffering considerably in reproduction. Grady wrote his assigned dealer number in the proper space on a bidding slip, then figured how much he’d bid. Total weight, twenty carats. He’d have to recut them and lose about 20 percent, or four carats. He’d probably be able to get $6,000 a carat, $96,000 for the lot, $56,000 profit if he now paid $40,000 for it ($2,000 a carat). Those figures set in his mind. He printed $40,000 in the proper space on the bidding slip and dropped it into the stainless steel receptacle.

  Well, he thought, I’ve gotten my feet wet.

  He stood around, waited for the result of the bidding for the pinks, and when after it came up on the screen and the dealer number shown wasn’t his, he felt a little drop in his spirit. He lifted that away with the thought that there were many other lots of fine goods here, plenty for everyone and he’d get his.

  He roamed around a while longer and by then it was early afternoon. Went to the adjacent covered terrace where lunch was being served, chose a table off to one side next to an abundant growth of apricot-colored hibiscus. Ordered a Dewar’s and water but on second thought a beer, a local brand called Mandalay, that turned out to taste better than Grady had expected. He drank one, ordered another.

  As it turned out, the beer provided an entrée for the man seated at the next table. “You like our Mandalay,” he observed cordially in Grady’s direction.

  “It’s quite good,” Grady said.

  The man didn’t need more than that to move in. He dragged his chair around so he was at Grady’s table, more next to rather than across from Grady. “We also make a good gin. You should try our gin,” he suggested and in the same breath asked if he was intruding.

  “Not so far,” Grady told him.

  The man wasn’t fazed. He was bronze-skinned, obviously Burmese. His short-cropped grayed hair and brush mustache were distinguishing, as was the Western way he was dressed, in a well-tailored vested suit, neat shirt, understated tie. Chipped, soil-occupied fingernails, however. He lighted a 555 brand cigarette and within the smoke introduced himself as General U Daw Tun, emphasis on general.

  Grady had suspected as much and what he next anticipated wasn’t long coming. After some brief neutral chat, General Tun got into his pitch. He was retired. During h
is later service years he’d been in charge of certain military efforts in the province of Shan. Many insurgents in Shan. Also many sapphire and ruby mines. And so on until he took a briefke from his shirt pocket, inserted it among the packets of sugar in the sugar bowl and pushed the bowl to Grady.

  Grady louped the two six-carat oval-cut rubies contained in the briefke. He had to admit they looked good, had all the characteristics of fine Burma, even some minor convincing flaws. Indeed, first-rate pretenders.

  General U Daw Tun was only asking sixty-five thousand for them. That was if Grady bought both. Otherwise thirty-five for either.

  Grady passed, politely.

  The general strained a smile, put the refolded briefke back into his shirt pocket, got up and went looking for easier prey.

  Grady finished his beer and returned to the Emporium. He submitted an unsuccessful bid on a lot of blue oval-cut sapphires and he also got topped when he bid on some fairly fine blue cabochons.

  The next day went just about the same for him. After making three bids he was still empty-handed. Was it because his bids were too low? He thought not. Then was it because other dealers were overpaying, the deep-pocketed Japs for instance? Maybe not. Maybe the auction was rigged. Maybe when those who were running the thing didn’t receive a bid high enough to suit them they put up one of their own numbers. Grady’s discouragement wouldn’t put it past them.

  On the third day he came across the pearls, lot 341. He’d looked at some other pearl lots but hadn’t seen any that measured up to these. Rare not only in size (twelve millimeters) but, as well, in every aspect of desirability: luster, roundness, complexion, iridescence, rich white color. There were four twenty-inch hanks. Grady took his time, examined each pearl of each hank carefully. The longer he looked the more he felt that these were what he must have. If he went home with only one buy it would have to be lot 341.