Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

His clearest memory of Farias, though, is from a photograph in a Buenos Aires newspaper. It was already three months old when he saw it on his father’s desk, and they’d been in Stockbridge for almost that long, sorting through boxes others had packed for them so hurriedly in Mexico City. The unannounced visits from the dark-suited, block-shouldered men, their long discussions with his parents-together and separately-behind closed doors, the trips his parents made to Boston and Washington, had all grown less frequent. It was a good photo-not grainy at all-Farias with a trench coat over his broad shoulders, flanked by a pair of uniformed policemen, his hands thrust awkwardly before him, the handcuffs snug around his wrists. Un Espia Cubano was the caption.

“I can’t find it,” Arthur Carr says again.

“Why do you want it?” Carr asks.

“It’s none of your goddamn business why I want it. Maybe I want to light a cigar. Maybe I want to burn down the house. Why the hell do you care? I just want it.”

Carr drops into the chair and looks out at the empty night. He sighs again. “You’re not going to find it.”

“Because she took it. I told you, she takes things.”

“Mrs. Calvin didn’t take it.”

“Then where the hell is it?”

“It’s in the… It’s with her-with Mom. You buried it with her, Dad.”

“A full boat,” Howard Bessemer says to Bobby. “Jacks over eights.” He sweeps the chips from the center of the dining table into the large pile already in front of him. “It’s just not your night.”

It is nine a.m., and sunlight is streaming through the windows of Bessemer’s dining room, reflecting from the white plaster walls, refracting through the crystal ashtray, the highball glasses, the bottle of gin on the table, and the curtain of smoke above.

He turns to Carr and smiles. “Top of the mornin’, Gregory,” he says. Bessemer is a dissipated teddy bear today, in seersucker pajama bottoms, a New York Athletic Club T-shirt, and a three-day beard that is a dirty-blond shadow on his pudgy cheeks. His blond hair is bent at odd angles, his gumdrop eyes are red and shiny, and so is the new cut at the corner of his mouth. He picks a joint from the ashtray, lights it, and takes a long hit. “Deal you in?” he asks.

“Not just now, Howie,” Carr says, and he hands Bobby one of the grocery bags he’s carrying. “Let’s make coffee.”

Bobby follows Carr to the kitchen and empties the bag onto the counter. Egg sandwiches, bagels, fruit salad in a plastic tub. There’s a TV on the counter and Carr switches it on and turns up the volume. He tosses Bobby a pound of ground coffee. “Late night?” Carr asks, his voice low.

“Howie couldn’t sleep. He wanted to play cards, so we played.”

“You get high too?”

Bobby yawns and flips him the bird. “Yeah, baby, I’m trippin’ on Coca-Cola and potato chips.”

“You hit him?” Carr asks. Bobby spoons coffee into the machine. “Bobby?” Carr says again. Bobby fills the coffeemaker with water and presses the button. He looks at Carr but stays silent. “Bobby?”

“It was nothing. Mike was a little torqued up, and Howie was whining about something and Mike told him to shut up. Howie got mouthy and Mike got pissed.”

“And hit him.”

“Barely.”

“For chrissakes, Bobby, we need him in one piece.”

“Hey, I broke it up right away. And it’s not like we’re keeping the guy around long-term.”

Carr frowns. “While we’ve got him, we need him happy.”

“I’m down like two hundred bucks to the guy. That’s not happy enough?”

Carr shakes his head. “What’s got Mike twisted up?”

“Who the fuck knows?” Bobby says, unwrapping a sandwich. “It’s gettin’ so he’s almost as moody a bastard as you.”

Bessemer has finished his joint when Carr carries a sandwich and a cup of coffee into the dining room, and he’s stacking his chips into neat columns before him.

“I make it two hundred fifteen dollars I’ve taken off him,” he says.

“He’s good for it. Sorry about the bruise.”

Bessemer shrugs. “Your other friend is kind of an asshole, Greg. No fun to hang with at all.”

“He’ll take it easy as long as you do, Howie. Everybody’s a little stir-crazy, and the sooner we move things along, the better.”

“Amen to that,” Bessemer says, and takes a slug of gin. Carr takes the glass from him and slides the sandwich and coffee in front of him.

“Let’s do breakfast now, Howie. Then we’ll do the story.”

It takes Bessemer two sandwiches, three cups of coffee, and a long shower before he’s ready, and then he and Carr settle in Bessemer’s office. Sunlight seeps around the edges of the shades, but Carr leaves them drawn. He sits at the desk and turns on a brass lamp. Bessemer sprawls in a studded leather chair.

“Take it from the top, Howie,” Carr says.

And Bessemer does. He’s got the facts down cold: how he met Greg Frye in Otisville, where Frye was serving out the last months of a federal sentence for trafficking in stolen diamonds; how Frye had helped him learn the ropes there, and avoid the predations of the rougher trade; how they’ve kept in touch over the years; and how Frye has come down to Palm Beach in search of a banker, and-possibly-a business partner. And his delivery is solid: offhand, uncomplicated, adorned with enough detail to be convincing, but not enough to be dangerous. Bessemer is an apt pupil-at home with deception-but Carr knows that drills are one thing and live fire something else entirely.

Bessemer yawns and rubs his eyes. “I might crash right here, Greg,” he says.

“Not yet,” Carr says. “You think Prager’s going to be interested?”

Bessemer smiles. “You’re asking me now? I thought you knew it all.”

There’s a drinks tray on the credenza behind the desk, and Carr pours a gin and hands it to Bessemer. “You actually know the guy.”

Bessemer sits up, and curiosity sparks in his bloodshot eyes. He sips at the gin. “Curt will be interested enough to talk. Why wouldn’t he be? I’ve referred clients to Isla Privada before, and even if he doesn’t take them on, he always talks. Talking’s free, he says. Besides, he’ll like the synergy.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning a client who can broaden his business model is better than a plain old client to him. Curt will like the idea of taking your money-assuming there’s enough of it-but he’ll like the diamonds even more. Someone who can take cash in exchange for diamonds, and who can do it in quantity-that’s going to appeal to him. Diamonds are a lot easier to move than cash. And if you tell him you’ve got a network of people around the world who can do the transaction in reverse-take in diamonds and pay out cash-well, that’s a new model.” Bessemer takes another drink and smiles at Carr. “Assuming your story is solid.”

“It is.”

“Because if it isn’t-if it’s not granite-”

“It is, Howard.”

“You’re confident,” Bessemer says, finishing his drink. “That’s good.”

“You should be confident too. You should be thinking about what you want to do afterward, when you get your money back.”

Bessemer sighs and looks at his empty glass. “I have been thinking about it.”

“And?”

Bessemer furrows his broad brow. “I don’t know. I’m skittish about making plans. Seems whenever I do, things never work out. Sometimes I think the best way for me to make sure that I don’t do something is for me to make a plan to do it.”

Carr shakes his head. “Kind of self-defeating, isn’t it?”

“Self-defeat’s my best thing.”

“Maybe this is an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.”