Actually, she knew how hard this kind of assignment was. Even if this guy Colton had a missing classic, which one?
“I’ll get one of the girls to do a DMV check for any cars Lewis might actually own. Meanwhile, get on the neighbors, see if they know what he drives.”
For a moment his old superior smirk almost curved Trin’s thick lips. “I did that yesterday. Nobody could remember.”
“So write a field report about it, Hot Shot.”
Morales grunted and levered himself from his chair. As he disappeared up the stairs, Kearny’s private line rang.
A thick male voice asked, “Kearny there?”
“Not at the moment. If I could take a message—”
“You know when he will be?”
“If you could tell me what—”
Click.
The voice had sounded like that of Staley Zlachi, the King of the Gypsies. But why would he be in town? And why calling Dan? She shrugged. If it was important, he’d call back.
Josh Croswell was on top of the world. He had sold a flawed emerald for twice what it was worth and was going to report only half the take to his boss. But then super-nerd Donny walked into the store with a worried look and no May on his arm. Josh found a suitable expression to paste on his face.
“I guess you’ve come to a decision about which diamond ring you want...”
“No, I’m here about the emerald. We’ve got big trouble.”
“Ah... the store policy is, ah, no returns after—”
“Returns?” Donny was frowning. “Oh, no, no, I don’t want to return it. I want to buy another one just like it! May says she wants to set them side by side in a platinum brooch.”
A huge jolt of adrenalin whirled through Josh. He thought: I can hit some of the gem-exchange Internet Web sites that Mr. Petrick uses. There have to be 15-carat stones around, maybe even one or two with that unusual Portuguese step cut. I can fill this order. Donny was still talking.
“You find me an emerald that May’s Mom can’t tell from the other one, and I’ll pay you $75,000 for it. In cash.”
Seventy-five thousand! And Mr. Petrick wasn’t due back until next week. Find that duplicate stone, sell it to Donny for 75K, and keep the net money for himself!
He couldn’t get Donny out of the store fast enough. After he put up the CLOSED sign, he rushed back to the office, and started scanning the gemstone Web sites on the net for emeralds at offer. Finding nothing even close, he put out his own message:
Wanted immediately: single emerald, rectangular, 15 carat, Portuguese step cut...
Geraldine Tantillo exited through the impressive inset portico — flanked by four double sets of Ionian Greek pillars — of Brittingham Funeral Directors. She was a somewhat over-weight woman in her late 20s, and could hardly wait to get to a lesbian bar on 20th off Castro for her nightly glass of white wine. She was beat. Came from hating your job. She lived just a few blocks away from the bar and it had become her local. She could nurse a single white wine through a whole evening, the girls were friendly, and the bartenders knew her name. Just like Cheers.
Sappho’s Knickers was a warm, narrow place that kept the lighting dim, the drinks strong, and the old-fashioned juke loaded with romantic oldies made for dancing cheek-to-cheek. The dance floor was so tiny that while dancing with one girl you’d be rubbing butts with another. A turn-on indeed for a lonely lesbian lady from Dubuque.
Not that Geraldine did much dancing with anyone: she was too shy to ask and not pretty enough to often get asked. But tonight she had been there only a half an hour when the most beautiful woman she had ever seen sat down across from her.
“I am Yasmine Vlanko,” the woman said.
Yasmine Vlanko was ageless: she could have been 18, she could have been 48. Her hair was long and black and lustrous, her eyes deep pools, her teeth small and gleaming between beautifully rounded lips. Her lithe full-bosomed figure was clad in skintight black leather, like Emma Peel wore in the old Avengers show that sometimes still appeared in rerun.
“And I’m Geraldine Tantillo.”
Poor Geraldine knew instantly that she was in love. As if sensing this, Yasmine leaned toward her across the table.
“Please, do not form fantasies about me, Geraldine. I am celibate because I have dark and powerful energy fields that shift in dangerous ways when I have sex with anyone.” Indeed, Geraldine could feel that energy enveloping her. Yasmine continued, “I felt your energy from across the room. You are troubled. I often can help those in trouble. A year ago you came to San Francisco from...” She shut her magnificent eyes for the moment, opened them. “Somewhere in the Midwest...”
“I... Dubuque, Iowa,” Geraldine heard herself saying. “I had a good beauty salon job in Dubuque, and I had a secret lover — Ariane. I was happy. But Ariane said she... yearned for the open minds and heady freedoms of the west.”
“And she betrayed you.”
“On our second weekend here.” Geraldine realized that tears were running down her cheeks. “She ran off with a hot-eyed Latina salsa dancer and my seven thousand dollars in savings.”
“So you were stranded,” murmured Yasmine Vlanko.
“Yes. And finding a job was horrible.” She gestured at herself. “I’m shy. I’m overweight. I have no color or clothes sense. Not a problem in Dubuque, but here, all the beauty salons are run by Vietnamese or French or Italian women who hire by nationality or percentage of body fat, I’m not sure which. Not one of them would even take my app. I finally got a job in a funeral home doing cosmetic and hair work on corpses.”
“And you have hated every minute of it,” said Yasmine. She reached across the table to take both of Geraldine’s hands in hers. She closed her eyes. She crooned something under her breath. She opened her eyes again. “Quit your job,” she said. “Then meet me here a week from tonight at ten o’clock — and I will change your life forever.”
She let go of Geraldine’s hands. She stood. Geraldine stood also, impelled by forces she couldn’t understand.
“Here,” said Yasmine. “One week from tonight. If you have quit your job, your life will be changed forever.”
And, somehow, she was gone.
Fifteen
The Ferrari was in the barn, safe and sound. But the Great White Father was going to be unhappy when he saw this month’s expense account, thought Bart Heslip as he zipped north on the beautiful Junipero Serra freeway. A tow job, four new tires — all had been slashed too ferociously to be saved. He fingered his discreetly bandaged ear. It was itching.
The Taurus started missing. He checked the gas gauge. Half-full. Now backfiring. It was a repo out of Minnesota that Kearny bought as a company car after the client balked at transporting charges back to Minnetonka.
He swung the now badly limping car into the Trousdale off-ramp in Burlingame, which took him down through tree-crowded residential tracts to El Camino Real, the Royal Road of the old Spanish missions. Eventually he found a gas station with an attached garage. He told the mechanic what to look for.
The sandy-haired kid was wiping his hands on a bright red cloth as he came back into the office where Bart was gulping down a Diet Pepsi because he liked the bubbles going up his nose.
“Yeah, well, you were right. They sugared your gas tank. Sugar got carried to the distributor, the plugs, the pistons — everything. It formed a glaze. It’s like rock candy in there. You’d have to pull the engine, dismantle it, steam-clean it — which costs a hell of a lot more than that old car’s worth.”