Arthur Dorsett stepped forward and shook Strouser’s hand vigorously. “It’s been a long time, Gabe, too long.”
“Thank you for seeing me, Arthur.” Strouser’s tone was patronizing, but with an indelible tinge of aversion. “As I recall, your attorneys ordered me never to contact you again.”
Dorsett shrugged indifferently. “Water under the bridge. Let’s forget it happened and talk old times over lunch.” He motioned to a table, set under an arbor shielded by bulletproof glass, with a magnificent view of Sydney’s harbor.
The complete opposite of the crude, earthy mining tycoon, Strouser was a strikingly attractive man in his early sixties. With a thick head of well-groomed silver hair, a narrow face with high cheekbones and finely shaped nose that would be the envy of most Hollywood movie actors, he was trim and athletically built with evenly tanned skin, several centimeters shorter than the hulking Dorsett, he had dazzling white teeth and a friendly mouth. He gazed at Dorsett through the blue-green eyes of a cat ready to spring away from the attack of a neighbor’s dog.
His suit was beautifully cut of the finest wool, conservative but with a few subtle touches that made him look fashionably up-to-date. The tie was expensive silk, the shoes custom-made Italian and polished just short of a mirror shine. His cuff links, contrary to what people expected, were not diamonds but made from opals.
He was mildly surprised at the friendly reception. Dorsett seemed to be playing a character in a bad play. Strouser had expected an uncomfortable confrontation. He certainly had not anticipated being indulged. He no sooner sat down than Dorsett motioned to a waiter, who lifted a bottle of champagne from a sterling-silver ice bucket and poured Strouser’s glass. He noted with some amusement that Dorsett simply drank from a bottle of Castlemaine beer.
“When the cartel’s high muck-a-mucks said they were sending a representative to Australia for talks,” said Dorsett, “it never occurred to me they would send you.”
“Because of our former long-standing association, the directors thought I could read your mind. So they asked me to inquire about a rumor circulating within the trade that you are about to sell stones cheaply in an effort to corner the market. Not industrial-grade diamonds, mind you, but quality gem stones.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“You head an empire of thousands, Arthur. Leaks from disgruntled employees are a way of life.”
“I’ll have my security people launch an investigation. I don’t cotton to traitors, not on my payroll.”
“If what we hear has substance, the diamond market is facing a profound crisis,” explained Strouser. “My mission is to make you a substantial offer to keep your stones out of circulation.”
“There is no scarcity of diamonds, Gabe, there never was. You know you can’t buy me. A dozen cartels couldn’t keep my stones out of circulation.”
“You’ve been foolish for operating outside the Central Selling Organization, Arthur. You’ve lost millions by not cooperating.”
“A long-term investment is about to pay enormous dividends,” Dorsett said irrefutably.
“Then it’s true?” Strouser asked casually. “You’ve been stockpiling for the day when you could turn a fast profit.”
Dorsett looked at him and smiled, showing his yellowed teeth. “Of course it’s true. All except for the part about a fast profit.”
“I’ll give you credit, Arthur, you’re candid.”
“I have nothing to hide, not now.”
“You cannot continue to go your own way as if the network didn’t exist. Everybody loses.”
“Easy for you and your pals at the cartel to say when you hold monopolistic control over world diamond production.”
“Why exploit the market on a whim?” said Strouser, “Why systematically cut each other’s throat? Why disrupt a stable and prosperous industry?”
Dorsett held up a hand to interrupt. He nodded to the waiter, who served a lobster salad from a cart. Then he stared at Strouser steadily.
“I am not operating on a whim. I have over a hundred metric tons of diamonds stored in warehouses around the world, with another ten tons ready to ship from my mines as we speak. A few days from now, when fifty percent of them are cut and faceted, I intend to sell them through the House of Dorsett retail stores at ten dollars a carat, on average. The rough stones, I’ll sell to dealers at fifty cents a carat. When I’m finished, the market will tumble and diamonds will lose their luster as a luxury and an investment.”
Strouser was stunned. His earlier impression was that Dorsett’s marketing strategy was for a temporary dip in prices to make a quick profit. Now he saw the enormity of the grand design. “You’ll impoverish thousands of retailers and wholesalers, yourself included. What can you possibly gain by putting a rope around your neck and kicking over the stool?”
Dorsett ignored his salad, swilled his beer and gestured for another before continuing. “I’m sitting where the cartel has sat for a hundred years. They control eighty percent of the world’s diamond market. I control eighty percent of the world’s colored gemstone market.”
Strouser felt as if he were teetering on a trapeze. “I had no idea you owned so many colored gemstone mines.”
“Neither does anyone else. You’re the first outside my family to know. It was a long and tedious process, involving dozens of interlocking corporations. I bought into every one of the major colored stone producing mines in the world. After I orchestrate the demise of diamond values, I plan to move colored stones into the limelight at discounted prices, thereby spiraling the demand. Then I slowly raise the retail price, take the profits and expand.”
“You always were a snatch and trash artist, Arthur. But even you can’t destroy what took a century to build.”
“Unlike the cartel, I don’t plan to suppress competition at the retail level. My stores will compete fairly.”
“You are making a fight nobody can win. Before you can collapse the diamond market, the cartel will break you. We’ll use every international financial and political maneuver ever devised to stop you in your tracks.”
“You’re blowin’ in the wind, mate,” Dorsett came back heatedly. “Gone are the days when buyers have to grovel in your high-and-mighty selling offices in London and Johannesburg. Gone are the days of licking boots to be a registered buyer who has to take what you offer him. No more sneaking through back streets to bypass your well-oiled machinery to purchase uncut stones. No more will international police and your hired security organizations fight sham battles with people you label criminals because they engage in your artificially created myth of smuggling and selling on what your little playmates have concocted as the great and terrible illicit diamond market. No more restrictions to create an enormous demand. You’ve brainwashed governments into passing laws that confine diamond traffic to your channels and your channels only. Laws that forbid a man or woman from legitimately selling a rough stone they found in their own backyard. Now, at long last, the illusion of diamonds as a valued object is only days away from being pronounced dead.”
“You cannot outspend us,” said Strouser, fighting to remain calm. “We think nothing of spending hundreds of millions to advertise and promote the romance of diamonds.”
“Don’t you think I’ve considered that and planned for it?” Dorsett laughed. “I’ll match your advertising campaign budget with my own, pushing the chameleon quality of colored gemstones. You’ll promote the sale of a single diamond for an engagement ring, while I’ll promote the spectrum, a world of fashion touched by colored jewelry. My campaign is based around the theme ‘Color her with love.’ But that’s only the half of it, Gabe. I also plan to educate the great unwashed public about the true rarity, of colored gemstones versus the cheap, overabundant supply of diamonds. The end result is that I will significantly shift the buyer’s attitude away from diamonds.”