by Alex Ames
I took a deep breath, “I have decided to give the diamonds that I stole to him. It is impossible to sell them, so I am going to hand over the goods tonight.”
“Tonight, here?”
“We will meet at Santa Monica Pier later today.”
“And you are sure this is going to work?” Mundy worried about me. His attachment became almost cute.
“Nothing will happen to me.”
“The bad guys always win.”
“No! Remember, the bad girls always win,” I assured him.
Around four o’clock, I made my way to my temporary storage. I had rented a mailbox in one of the many mail offices on Hawthorne Avenue in Torrance—under one of my assumed names. The store also had office supplies, so anyone watching could assume I was stocking up my office. The mailboxes came in various sizes and I had rented one of the bigger ones, able to hold packages the size of a small shoebox. You could store a lot in a shoebox, especially a lot of jewels. I simply wrapped whatever I needed to store for a few days as a regular package, sender, addressee and all, opened my mailbox, put it in and simply left it. The mailbox clerks naturally assumed that someone from another shift had put it in. No one had ever stolen anything from that small-scale mail office.
I entered the mail office, opened my box and retrieved the small package, which was the size of a VCR tape. I opened the package inside the store to dispose of the wrapping paper, along with my secret identity, and I put the box in my knapsack.
The drive to Santa Monica took me less than 30 minutes. I parked at a valet parking lot close to the end of Santa Monica Boulevard. With that many diamonds with me, I wanted to avoid lonely parking garages. From there, it was a brief walk to the ocean front park. It was a vista point above the sea with a spectacular view over the Pacific; the pier was to the left. I found an empty park bench overlooking the sea and sat down to wait. The winterish sun settled slowly.
Thomas looked seriously down on me and didn’t deliver his usual ‘glad to see you’ routine. We were long past that stage. Furthermore, this was business.
I didn’t look at him. “Here they are, take them and get happy.”
Thomas looked at the small package beside me, sat down with two feet of distance between us and tapped his fingers on the closed box.
“I really regret doing this, you know,” he sounded genuinely apologetic.
“Don’t spill any crocodile tears on my behalf,” I told him and continued looking at the sundown.
“There is a lot at stake,” he answered, still tapping on the package. Then he put it on his lap, carefully opened the lid and looked inside. And then repeated, as if to himself, “A lot is at stake.”
He closed the lid carefully, put the box between us.
“What is this supposed to mean?” Thomas looked at me curiously, as if I were an interesting piece of art instead of a former girlfriend.
“Take the stuff and leave me alone. This is what I can offer,” I said.
His hand found mine and he slowly squeezed.
“Calendar, I am not being taken as a fool. You must know that this is not what I came for. These stones are peanuts, probably the pathetic stuff you usually deal in.” He shook the box and the gems rattled like gravel, masking any other sound. “It is very unfortunate that pain is the only language you seem to understand. Where is the Max?”
I struggled my hand free from his tight hold. First things first, I gently took the box with ‘my’ gems from the bench and rattled it in front of his face. “As you didn’t claim them, they still belong to me.”
“Help yourself,” he shrugged.
“What is it you want from me, Thomas?”
“I don’t care who killed the watchman, Calendar. Could be you, could be someone else, I don’t care.” Thomas spoke through clenched teeth, he seemed angry. “All I want is the Max.”
“Who is Max?” I asked. Now this was getting interesting.
“Not who! What!” Thomas had an almost worshiping look in his eyes as he looked back at me. “Currently, you are my main suspect in this case, the only one who could have pulled it off.”
“What is ‘The Max’?”
“I am looking for the Maximilian Jewels. A ten-piece set from the nineteenth century. Mostly made of gold and diamonds.”
“I don’t have them,” I said flatly, looking him in the eyes. I had never heard of the Maximilian Jewels. But that must have been what Chong was talking about.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, holding my stare.
I shrugged, “Believe what you want, but with this attitude you will never get your stuff back. Consider widening the range of potential suspects.”
“You have all the reasons to hold on to them,” he said with conviction.
“No goods are ever so important that it pays to stick to them,” I countered.
Thomas smiled without meaning it. “Like you’re hanging on to this crap here?” He nodded his head toward my personal Altward Gallery loot. “Calendar, you are in it with the police and you still don’t bring it over your heart to dump this stuff into the Pacific? Come on.”
“I don’t have your Maximilian Jewels,” I repeated.
In a kind of stalemate, we stared eye-to-eye. Refusing to budge, he continued to believe that I had his jewels. And I was still unable to cash in my hot stones from the Altward caper. Impasse.
“You will get nothing out of this,” Thomas continued. “This whole meeting is a futile attempt to convince me of your innocence. Calendar, you are still effectively blocked from any further dealing. Nothing you can do here will change that. Give me the Maximilian Jewels and we are on the same side again. Not before.”
I gave him a defiant stare, hoping to convey that he couldn’t intimidate me. But he was right, of course. His word to squash me was still out. And I was unable to deal.
I stomped on the ground with my left foot. “Why is it me who has to find those stupid jewels? Do it yourself with your army of minions!”
“Minions are minions. You are much more resourceful, my dear. And available.”
“And you have me over the barrel with your trading embargo!”
“That helps, of course.”
“We sound like a married couple, do you know that?”
“We almost were.”
Again, Thomas and I stared eye-to-eye.
“I am out of here,” I said.
It was after nine o’clock when I got home. I took a late night dive in the cold pool to calm my nerves and swam until I felt exhausted against the artificial stream that shot out from the propulsion system. The swimming did me good. I moved my arms until they hurt and was out of breath in no time at all.
Stalemate. The little encounter with Thomas had bought me nothing. Except for the knowledge that all the ruckus was about something called ‘The Maximilian Jewels.’ I had read the standard jewelry history books in my time and was sure that an artist or craftsman named Maximilian had never existed. Year eighteen hundred and something.
And what had Thomas meant when he said that I had the reasons to stick to them. What reasons? I stole purely for profit. I had never held on to the goods I had stolen so far and Thomas knew that. So it couldn’t be a collectors value or stone lovers value that supposedly kept me from reselling it. What could it be then? I knew that the Maximilian Jewels could not be very famous, because I never had heard of them. And I considered myself a specialist in this field.
My arms felt like lead and I was totally exhausted when I pulled myself out of the water, grabbed my towel. A sudden noise from the other side of the pool made me jump. I gave a little shriek that echoed through the empty garden.
“Jesus, Calendar, your nerves are a mess. Must have been quite a meeting with Thomas.” Mundy was more frightened than I had been.
He followed me into the garden house where I vanished for a few minutes into the hot shower. When I came back out, drying my hair, he was reading a magazine, the TV silently running on subtitles.
“
I made us some coffee,” he said. I sat down beside him on my deep dark red couch and gratefully took the steaming mug.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Not too good,” I took a sip and flinched as I burned my lip.
“Coffee or meeting?”
“The meeting. I didn’t win but found a new piece of the puzzle.” I told him about the Maximilian Jewels that Thomas was looking for.
Mundy sat back, smacking his lips several times. “And Altward is in on this with Thomas Cornelius? A joint venture? Interesting.”
“What?” I hated it when he had ideas that I hadn’t.
“Do you think that Altward is dealing with Thomas Cornelius III, the collector? Or with Thomas ‘The Fence?’”
“Very good point. Not many know his real identity.”
“That’s what you think. His double life doesn’t sound that exclusive to me. There must be others around. Especially for a high priority deal like this.”
“You think this is high on Thomas’ list?”
“It is. He put that Bouncer-guy on your trail and intimidated you pretty good. He came to San Diego from his East Coast hunting ground. He’s on your trail because he suspects that the jewels are with you.”
“Actually, he doesn’t care whether the jewels are with me or not. He told me that I will have the resources to find them again,” I corrected.
“If the Maximilian Jewels were a small deal among many, he wouldn’t bother. Do you have any idea how much he makes with his secret sideline?”
“Maybe he nets ten million dollars a year?” I assumed. “Thomas specializes in jewelry and gem art. Some paintings or sculptures on the side, if he can’t avoid the money. His income is strictly commission stuff, twenty to thirty percent of each transaction. So there would be transactions going on in the range of let’s say fifty million dollars.”
“Fifty million bucks,” Mundy stared at me, in disbelief.
“One million a week sounds too much for you?” I asked back.
“With drugs, maybe if he’s a real czar. But with stolen art?”
“OK, the petty theft stuff is only part of that. But if he has a Picasso or a Matisse going through his organization, the transaction fee is much higher,” I pointed out. “Fifty million. He makes twenty percent of that, equals ten million dollars. Take away his costs for keeping up his organization, feeding all the mouths and keeping the guys happy, maybe five million bucks are left for him as pocket money.”
“So the Maximilian stuff must be worth quite a lot, don’t you think?” Mundy yawned convincingly.
“I have to find out more about that. First thing tomorrow,” I sighed, stretched and rested my head.
Mundy stood up, washed his mug and walked to the door. “The gentleman knows when it is time to leave. Keep me posted.”
I waved goodbye to him, locked the door and drew the shades. Minutes later, I fell on my bed and slept fitfully. Bad dreams of big mean men and situations, Thomas’ words from last evening and time way back when. His hand on mine, cruel hands from last evening fading into tender hands from way back when. And the feeling of unbelievable loss that I always got when I dreamed about the ending of our relationship.
I was glad when the night was over and the sun pushed through the shades.
Chapter 20
MONDAY MORNING. THANK you, Al Gore, for the Internet. Hunched over my iMac, I had surfed the major search portals for anything on Maximilian, jewels, gold, diamonds, Mexico and combinations thereof. I had learned something but not much.
One hit was about Austrian Emperor Maximilian I, who had sent his crown jewels to Prague. He had given his bride a 23-carat diamond engagement ring. Could the Maximilian Jewels be traced to him? The dates were around fifteen hundred something, much too early for Thomas’ jewels.
There was another hit, embedded in a wild rambling story about dogs and Burmese jewels that had been stolen and then passed on to Mexico’s Emperor Maximilian. The date was just about right. Maximilian of Mexico was executed in 1867, making it obvious to the slightly loony author that the stones were cursed. As I said, there was a lot of rambling in this story, but the historical figure of Emperor Maximilian was not in doubt. The Mexico connection made sense, too.
I did some surfing for Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. After Mexico became an independent state in 1821, there were some rapid changes in succession on the head of state. Among them, Maximilian, who the French had placed on the throne in 1864, had a short reign and was executed by his archenemy in 1867. There was no mention of jewels of any kind in the official biography. But an emperor surely had a crown or something representative?
After that, the same information showed up repeatedly and I found nothing more. I gave up and decided to check out the classic form of knowledge, the library. But first things first. This was Monday morning and I had a working day ahead.
Redondo Beach on a Monday was a relaxed affair. The village woke up slowly; time went slower than elsewhere in L.A. My store, ‘Precious Moonstone,’ was within walking distance of my home, a very un-California treat not to have to use the car. The village center of Redondo Beach grouped itself around a colorful assortment of small cafes, smaller supermarkets, small boutiques, and, you guessed it, a small post-office; all within a circle of two or three blocks and the Pacific Ocean just around the corner.
On the way, I got a French croissant and a fruit salad from the Casino Cafe and then walked to my little store, which also hosted my workshop. My Mexican cleaner, Manolo, a little man somewhere in his fifties, was waiting for me. He had worked for me for years and he came in three times a week.
Let in the sunshine and the fresh air. The vents were blasting away five days of stale air and I swept the front pavement while Manolo vacuumed the carpet and cleaned the shop’s display windows. I opened the safe, got out the displays, said good-bye to Manolo and was back into business.
The computer booted up with several beeps, eight messages were waiting on the answering machine and 92 e-mails were in the preciousmoonshine.com mailbox.
I sat on the bar stool behind the counter, munched my breakfast and made notes as the voicemail went through the messages. Then I did the call-backs, the e-mail-backs, all the other-backs and wrapped up some orders to be sent out tonight with the delivery service. The parcel service brought some deliveries, which I opened and stowed away. An early customer had a broken lock on a necklace I had sold his wife a few years earlier. Another regular customer was looking for something ‘spectacular’ for his next wedding anniversary. Happy to oblige with a ring in the five-figure range? Well, turned out he was window-shopping first and not ‘that’ spectacular, make that a lower four figure. Cheap shot, may you show up in next year’s divorce statistics.
At two o’clock, my hired help, Mrs. Otis, came in to mind the shop. Annie Otis was 22 and sometimes came with the maturity of a 13-year-old. But she was halfway reliable and could take care of customers while I crafted away in the back. She had raven-black hair, the whitest of skin and piercings in the most likely and unlikely places. She dressed like Marilyn Monroe meets Punkette.
There is a peculiar story that goes with our whole relationship and all but it comes down to this, we never got around to first names so she calls me Miss Moonstone and I call her Mrs. Otis, which she was. Her husband was a do-nothing beach bum with a Volkswagen camper van parked on the beach and five surfboards on the roof. Store minding for her meant constantly updating her make-up, making sure that nothing was stolen and batting innocent eyelashes at married visitors, which somehow worked magic with a certain type. But otherwise, her private life was a mess, which fortunately didn’t affect her working life.
“Hey Miss M! How was your Thanksgiving?” She swept into the store in a good mood, her eyes sharply lined with killer kohl.
“Fine, hope the surf was up, Mrs. Otis,” was the standard reply and I moved to the back of the shop to tinker with my jewelry.
“My husband and I made love on the beach again. V
ery romantic, you should try it.” She thought for a second and then added for clarification, “But not with my husband.”
The rest of the afternoon, I repaired the lock, worked on a new collection I had started a few weeks ago, and did an inventory check of the raw gems I had stored in my safe. It reminded me of a trip to the diamond exchange in New York that I had to take in the New Year.
The afternoon and early evening went by quickly. There were several customers that Annie Otis needed help with that took me away from working on my stones. I have a low cost collection with small stones set in platinum. Although all of those pieces are priced well below $5,000, I also have some sets that go much higher. A product mix for all occasions and wallets. During the Christmas season, the lower price jewelry goes very well and I spent most of the summer preparing my inventory for the year-end rush.
At six-thirty, I threw out Mrs. Otis, closed up the shop and made my way to the library. The public library of Redondo Beach is located right at the Pacific Coast Highway. Despite the evening traffic, it only took me a few minutes to get there. I took the underground parking and rode up the elevator to the entrance.
A detail search in the library catalogue brought up two titles, which a member of the staff retrieved for me. One was from 1954, Almost King, an account of the times of Maximilian and Empress Carlotta. The other, from 1972, was called The Crowns of Mexico. Same subject, different focus.
Both of the books were on the shelf, not much in demand it seems. So I sat down with them and made notes while I skimmed the pages in search of jewelry and riches.
There was mention of the crown ceremony, which interestingly enough, took place in Europe and was later repeated in Mexico City. An illustration showed the pair but you couldn’t make out the details of the jewelry they were wearing. The books provided lengthy explanations of the social reforms that Maximilian was planning, notwithstanding the desperate situation of his acquired country. I wasn’t extremely interested in American history, so my task became increasingly demanding of my patience. Plus, I found no mention of unfinished businesses, big secrets or jewels.
