“And those numbers mean something to Baruch Schnauer?” asked Rawson.
“Now they do,” said the lawyer, who had business elsewhere. On the fly, he called out that ages and years in the Old Testament were almost all symbolic and not literal.
Which left Harry Rawson wondering what the Old Testament meant by saying the earth was created in six days. He was sure the same rabbis who dwelled on numbers had worked that one out, but he was not sure what conclusion they might have come to about it.
Artie Modelstein knew pressure when he felt it, and he never resisted. He handled police superiors the way he handled his mother and his older sister, and sometimes his father. Although he could reason with his father. This could not be said of the Modelstein women or Inspector Burke.
Inspector Burke was cold reason coated with political understanding and a sense of where Artie stood in the NYPD. He never once openly mentioned punishment or reward, but for twenty minutes he talked about nothing else.
To all of this Artie nodded, and at the end, he repeated some of the key phrases given him by the inspector. Apparently the inspector had gone to the same school as Artie’s mother because he said at the end: “Are you jerking me off, Modelstein? Because you know where jerkoffs end. They end up in Homicide.”
Inspector Burke apparently had gotten the word from McKiernan about Artie’s reactions to a dead body in the morgue. He also could have gotten similar stories from a half-dozen other policemen.
“I will serve where I am sent,” said Artie. “I have no reason not to feel I am part of the department, and my loyalties are with protecting the citizens of New York. What does seem a bit unnerving is why you would think I wouldn’t do my job.”
“You will talk to this woman who is causing so much trouble for us and for the city. And I mean the city, right at the top.”
“Sure,” said Artie.
“Do you have some emotional involvement with this woman?”
“I’m going with someone at this time, sir.”
“I didn’t ask that,” said the inspector.
Artie made all the promises Inspector Burke could have wanted and then asked what more he could do. Burke said to keep them and was told what Artie told so many people so many times: Artie would do his best. Then Artie went about his own business.
He did call Claire Andrews, and he intended to visit her so that he could say he spoke to her. He was not, however, going to tell her to withdraw charges against the cutter and Baruch Schnauer.
He phoned her immediately. She was not in and had one of those answering systems that said she couldn’t get to the phone right now, which did not mean she was hovering nearby. Break-ins knew that those messages were as good as the phone ringing with no one picking it up.
Artie worked the street and then moved downtown to Mordechai Baluzzian’s new store. Baluzzian, who had blessed him for arresting the Ashkenazi dealer, now cursed him.
“What have I done to deserve this?” asked Artie.
Baluzzian dashed behind the counter and came out with a pile of newspapers. A woman behind the counter began yelling at Artie, and Baluzzian yelled at her. Artie assumed that was how married Iranians talked to each other.
Baluzzian dropped the papers on the counter and with a dramatic wave of the hand indicated that Artie should look at the papers. In the papers, he would find what he had done wrong.
“There’s a lot of papers there, Mordechai. What’s wrong?”
“Find it?”
“What?”
“Aha,” said Mordechai Baluzzian and opened the first page of the New York Post. Then he turned the next page of the New York Post, and the next, and each time he allowed a triumphant “Aha.”
“I don’t see anything,” said Artie.
“Yes,” screamed Baluzzian, hitting Artie’s chest with the back of his hand. “Nothing. Where is the shame? Where is the disgrace? Where is the headline that says the great rabbi’s son, the pure Ashkenazi, is a thief? Where in this Ashkenazi paper are those words of shame?”
“I think this paper is owned by an Australian,” said Artie.
“If an Iranian were charged with dealing in stolen goods, then there would be such a headline as the world had never seen before.”
“Mordechai, they didn’t carry more than a sentence on even a murder connected with this thing. And some papers didn’t carry that. It just wasn’t a big enough story for them. Look, you’ve been charged three times with possession. Two times it didn’t make the papers at all. This is a very big city.”
“I am not the son of the respected Reb Schnauer.”
“You’re right, Mordechai. It is a story the papers should have gotten.”
“Then phone them. They will listen to you. You are one of them. You are a detective.”
“We have press officers and things like that,” said Artie. He was not about to make a phone call after Inspector Burke’s warning. Although the moment the press found out about the rabbi’s son, he was sure it would be a story, and a big one if anyone ever helped the reporter connect the death of an art dealer with the cellar. All the pieces were there. They just had not come up at the right time to the right reporter.
Artie suggested that Mordechai Baluzzian call the papers.
“They don’t listen to me.”
“They will listen to anybody with a tip.”
“I have called maybe twenty times in one week once, telling them what vermin the dealers on the street are. But, you see, they are in the pay of the dealers. If they are not related to them. Everyone works for the dealers.”
“They got you down as a crank,” said Artie. “You should have waited till you really had someone. But don’t come to me, Mordechai. I am not in the news business. I’m in the arrest business. And I arrested the Schnauer kid. All right?”
“He may never see a day in jail,” said Baluzzian.
“Have you?” said Artie.
Baluzzian tugged at Artie’s sleeve and pressed something hard into his palm, about the size of a medium jelly bean. Artie opened his hand. It was a blue stone, roughly over two karats.
He pushed it back into Baluzzian’s hand.
“Stop that shit,” said Artie.
“It’s a gift from a friend,” said Baluzzian. “Please.”
“I’m gonna nail that kid because he dealt stolen,” said Artie. “And I promised you and I still promise you. So stop it. It just hasn’t hit the papers yet.”
Baluzzian looked like a hurt little boy. His features, normally blown up in rage or contorted in some sort of exaggerated pleading, now collapsed into silence.
His brown eyes lingered on Artie’s for a moment, and then softly, he said, “Let us hope.”
“It’ll be there. Okay?” said Artie.
Outside, Artie phoned Claire again, and then on the possibility that she really was occupied and could not come to the phone, he drove to her apartment house. He rang the downstairs buzzer and she did not answer.
So she wasn’t there. Probably. He would have felt better if this were a more modern building, but it had the old kind of door buzzers without a camera, and all anyone would have to do is keep ringing apartments until one of them buzzed him in as a delivery.
Artie drove back to his office with the squad radio on, listening for anything to do with blondes. He knew what he had done. He had dragged her a bit deeper into this, when she could have avoided it. He told himself she was in it already, and now instead of some useless venture, she was actually helping. Therefore, what he had done was good. Therefore, he realized, he was now able to lie to himself as well as to her. It was never as safe and sure as he had made out.
Claire Andrews had spent a frustrating day with jewelers. She could have told herself she had learned another place not to look. She had hoped to augment the immensely disorganized histories of jewels with a face-to-face explanation from people who made their living selling them. The historical problem with jewels was that at different times they meant different things, and
it was most confusing. In some references, they were supposed to have miraculous powers; in others, they represented a symbol of power itself; in others an ornament of conquest; and in modern times structural analysis and cash.
They were historical, medicative, protective, mystical, religious, and celebratory. And she had yet to see even a hint of any cellar so jeweled as Dad’s. Therefore, the jewels meant something; and therefore, she had to know what jewels meant at least in the 1300 to 1500 period, and probably longer.
So Claire had finally come up with the idea that the persons who might be able to give her a perspective on the big picture were jewelers. Unfortunately, they might have been dealing in shoe leather for all they knew about the vast rich history of gems, the superstitions of gems. In the lower end, it was layaway plans. In the upper, it was necklaces, but never was it what the world used to think of them.
Jewelers knew prices. They knew the formation of stones that would get those prices, and that was all they knew. They talked with her because they all believed they might sell her something. When she pressed one on the meanings of stones, if he knew anything about gems having power in themselves, he said he had a theory.
“Everywhere the Hope diamond went it caused trouble. Now America has got it. A gift to the Smithsonian as a national treasure and from that day to this, the whole country has gone to pot.”
“Do you believe a diamond can do that?”
“Look at what’s happened.”
“Are there lots of people who believe that?”
“That’s mine. I figured it out myself.”
“So you are not aware of superstitions regarding stones.”
“Not a superstition. It’s a fact.”
By the time she got home, she was glad to see Nuisance. In fact, she was always glad to see Nuisance. He was there and he was warm and furry, and sometimes when she needed to pet him, he wouldn’t move. And so she listened to her messages as she cradled him in her lap, something she could give love to.
Bob Truet phoned. Some strange people from out of state had tried to reach people in Carney to find out about her. Of course, they probably got nothing, Carney being Carney. It was good to hear his voice until he began talking about romantic involvement again.
There were two messages from Arthur, and when she phoned back his office, she was told he was gone. She wondered if he had a good life, and wondered if he were ever lonely and assumed not. With his dark good looks and normally easy manner, she was sure he had plenty of women, not just the one who had entered his apartment that first night—with a key.
There was a strange message from someone who knew her from Ohio State. He left two phone numbers. The first was his office, the second his home, and she wondered whether she should bother phoning an office at six-thirty at night. But he was there, and glad to hear from her. His name was Dale Roberts, and he remembered her as a Chi Omega at State. He was working for a law firm here in New York and had seen her name come up in a case.
“You know, you walked into a can of worms like you couldn’t even imagine. I figured anyone from State ought to help someone else from State.”
“I don’t understand,” said Claire. She had discovered this was the best statement to make. At first, she used it tentatively, as an admission of weakness. But it had worked so well, she now moved it into place with precision. It forced the other person to add details.
“There’s something happening in the city that, because it’s New York City, is doing damage that none of us could ever imagine.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Could I explain to you in person?”
“Possibly, but what are we talking about?”
“This diamond incident that may relate to a claim of stolen property of yours.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to explain some background.”
“I’m here.”
“It’s complicated. It really is. I would like to take you to dinner and go over the nuances of this. I think, Claire, that you, like me, once you understand what’s happening to these people, will see a whole new world we just were never exposed to at State. I don’t expect you to understand. I didn’t at first.”
Why did she believe Dale Roberts was handsome? Why did she believe he would have to be handsome? Why did she believe that Dale Roberts never really knew her at Ohio State and would boyishly confess that at dinner if she were to go to dinner? Why did she resent him? Because of all the above.
“I’m rather busy,” she said. “I’m afraid you are going to have to try to explain this to me on the phone.”
The explanation could have been a brochure produced by a public relations firm for a factory, except it referred to the Schnauers, their centuries of service to the Jewish community, the tradition of their rabbis, seven generations, each leading this little band from the ghettoes of Europe to the safety of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. What these people had was the respect and trust of their peers throughout the diamond industry. Because of one unsuspecting act, the son of this revered rabbi was now facing a criminal action.
“It doesn’t matter whether the courts find him innocent or guilty. Seven generations of wisdom and knowledge are immediately tainted because of one criminal charge that is going to be thrown out anyhow.”
The phone felt clammy. She resented this man.
“You want me to withdraw claims so that the charges can be dropped,” she said.
“I want you to understand what’s happening.”
“Do you represent this family?”
“Excuse me if I didn’t make it clear. Yes, my firm represents the Schnauers.”
“And you were chosen as the Wasp to deal with the Wasp?”
“We don’t operate like that. I volunteered because I knew you couldn’t possibly understand what this meant coming from the same kind of town I did, where a minister is a minister, and he is not wrapped up in an industry and centuries-old lineage.”
“But you would like me to drop the charges?”
“Can I ask you why you are pressing them?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Do you think you will have any remote claim on the stones, or that cellar?”
So they already had Harry Rawson, Claire realized. And she was certain of it when he offered partial payment of the value of the diamonds on behalf of Mr. Rawson.
“That’s interesting,” she said.
“Think about it,” he said.
“That’s not what’s interesting. Why is he offering this?”
“Because he wants to get the rest of his property, and he can’t do it until he can find out who unloaded these diamonds in the first place.”
“I prefer to trust the New York police to recover everything. Thank you.”
“That is astoundingly innocent,” said Dale Roberts, and the warm rolling sounds of home seemed to have vanished. He had been pumping up his midwest accent for her. It was still there, but it was not the home boy in the big city anymore. It was someone who belonged here. She hoped she would never get like that.
“Look, Claire, I don’t think you have much of a claim to the jewels. Now I am part of the team defending the Schnauers. Understand that. But if Mr. Rawson gives you a partial claim to those stones, then he really acknowledges a certain legitimacy to your claim that you have never had before.”
“Do you represent Mr. Rawson, too?”
“No,” said Dale Roberts.
“But he has empowered you to make the offer.”
“He has let it be known that this is what he would give,” said Roberts.
“Thank you,” said Claire.
She made spaghetti for herself and opened a can of tuna with egg for Nuisance. She had found that when Nuisance was eating, he was not bothering her.
This gave her time to think more clearly about Harry Rawson as she looked at the pictures of the large British saltcellars. If one of them were melted down, would a British lord chase the gold? No. The symbol
of the heritage would be gone. All they would be chasing was value.
Of course, this cellar did have value. There were the diamonds found already, and the topazes, the jade, and the large sapphire and great ruby.
Would he settle for some of the gems, or was it one gem that was more valuable than all the rest and he wasn’t sharing that information with Claire? Or was he the sort of man who would strike a deal thinking most of something was better than nothing of something? Obviously, she was standing in the way of something he wanted.
But was it the stones? Would the remnants of the Rawson cellar be worth something as an element of a heritage?
Maybe. She didn’t know. She didn’t know England. The puzzles about Harry Rawson pointed once again to that island called Great Britain.
She walked into the living room and looked at her map. If she hadn’t done so already, she would have marked that island in pen. She felt like adding another circle anyway. She didn’t.
Harry Rawson knew something that could prove her father innocent. She was sure. There was something about that cellar that he had not told her.
She was tempted to trade that for withdrawing a claim of stolen property and somehow let the legal manipulations free the rabbi’s son.
But she had promised Arthur to press charges. And that promise was right in so many ways. This rightness was why she was pursuing all this in the first place. She would find what she needed the right way. And knowing this reminded her that her father could not have been a criminal, because where else would she get such integrity but from him? This very feeling made her sense her reward was only beginning.
She went to sleep that night with Nuisance curled up in his place against her breast. She could feel him purring.
The next day, when she returned from the library after a day of slogging through book indexes on the history of England looking for the name Rawson and not finding it connected to anything she wanted, she noticed that Nuisance did not come whining to the door when she entered. She ran into the living room and bedroom to check the windows. This wasn’t Carney, where a cat could come and go. She was horrified of what might happen to him on the street. One kept a cat in the house to keep it alive. To make sure of it. And that was why she had kept the windows open no more than a crack, ever.
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