Steven Thomas - Criminal Carma

“How do you know that?” I said, confused again by his insidious ability to pluck information from the atmosphere.

“Our lovely little Mary mentioned it to me. You are acquainted with her, I believe? A slender young woman with blond hair and a fairy’s face? Street tough, but oh so tender underneath? Another prize you hoped to steal from me, perhaps?” Anger crawled up into his voice like a sewer worker emerging from a manhole.

I didn’t say anything.

Baba nodded heavily, as if my silence confirmed his statement. “We will come to her shortly,” he said. “At the moment, I am interested in the necklace. You must return it.”

“I don’t know what kind of shit Pete has been feeding you, but I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about. What necklace?”

“Bullshit, motherfucker,” Pete said, doing a perverse hornpipe of fury and glee. “I heard you and your prick of a partner planning a job before you went to the desert. When you came back you were tore up like a couple of sailors who tangled with a barroom full of Marines. When Baba told me someone fought Jimmy Z and tried to steal the diamonds, I knew it was you guys.”

“How did you hear us?” I snapped.

“Through that floor vent,” Pete said.

His room was below mine.

“How he heard is irrelevant,” Baba said. “He did hear, and when I mentioned the attempted robbery to him last Saturday, we put two and two together and he started watching you. He has been helping me with… certain tasks since last summer. He is always most willing to be of assistance if his efforts are recognized in a monetary fashion.” He smiled a mixed smile at Pete and then went on: “I was less confident than he that you were the culprits, but the possibility certainly existed.”

That explained Baba’s laser-like interest in me on the beach on Saturday evening. I tried to think when and where Reggie and I had discussed the burglary and when Pete had been around. They couldn’t have known about the previous night’s plan ahead of time or they would have moved the necklace and tipped off the police.

“So what are you saying? You think me and Reggie tried to steal a diamond necklace in Palm Springs last weekend and that we did steal it last night?”

“I know you did,” Baba said. “And I have to have it back. I need it as collateral for equity in a real estate project I have in hand. My partners in that project are not the most spiritual of men. They have half a million dollars earnest money at stake, which they stand to lose if the deal falls through. The deadline is five o’clock tomorrow afternoon. If we aren’t fully collateralized before then, our option will expire and the project will collapse. My partners have informed me several times this week that if I don’t provide my share of the equity in time, there will be dire consequences.”

His voice trembled a little. Despite his size and spiritual accomplishments, he was scared of the Italians.

“They will certainly kill you if they find out your actions were responsible for scuttling the deal,” he went on. “That is an outcome I could, with regret, accept. But if they lose five hundred thousand dollars, they will also want to kill me, I think. As you might imagine, I am not so easily reconciled to that outcome. So I need the necklace back, and I need it back now. If you refuse to return it voluntarily, I will have to allow Namo and Pete to indulge their lower natures and use pain, and the fear of even greater pain, to compel you. Other people could be harmed as well.”

“What makes you so sure that I stole the jewels?” I said. “Just because Pete suspects me hardly proves…”

“I see everything-here,” Baba said, jabbing a blunt finger into his broad forehead. “And then of course there is this.” He held up the Krugerrand I had left out of the stash. “Some of these gold coins were stolen along with the jewels. This one was on the table beside your bed when we arrived this morning. That is conclusive, I think.”

I had taken the coin back from Oz for safekeeping, but was so tired when I came upstairs I hadn’t bothered to put it away. It would give the cops enough for a search warrant and make it very hard to convince Baba that he was chanting up the wrong chimney.

“I’ve had that for years,” I said and laughed. “Even if some Krugerrands were stolen last night, it doesn’t prove I had anything to do with it. There are millions of Krugers scattered around Los Angeles.”

“Have it your own way, asshole,” Pete said, pulling a leather blackjack out of his back pocket and circling to my right so that he was on one side of the bed and Namo on the other. “I got a cut coming when this deal closes, and you ain’t jewing me out of it.”

“Wait!” Baba said. “The less trouble we have here, the better. If you don’t value your own skin, perhaps you care more about the delicate epidermis of our mutual friend Mary. It would be a shame if her loveliness were to be marred.”

“If you hurt that girl, I’ll kill you,” I said.

Baba nodded and smiled as satisfied a smile as he was capable of with Discenza and his men waiting in the wings, tapping their Italian loafers.

“It is as I suspected,” he said.

“Where is she, you fat fucking hypocrite?”

“Watch yer mouth,” Namo said.

“She is locked up, safe and sound,” Baba said. “We had a disagreement yesterday evening when she declined to participate in the culmination of a ritual. Her refusal to submit led to an argument about the role of sexuality in spiritual development and human relationships. Your name came up in that argument in such a way as to make me believe that you two have formed a mutual attachment. Considering our suspicions of you, I thought that might make her a useful tool. In addition, I didn’t want her running to the authorities with any wild tales. So I locked her up. Are you going to force us to knock you out and take you to watch her be abused in order to secure your cooperation? Would you enjoy seeing Namo have his way with her? Or will you play it smart, as they say, and turn over the necklace?”

When I didn’t answer, Baba continued, putting a powerfully persuasive note in his voice: “If you give me the necklace, I will give you the girl, only slightly the worse for wear. I will also let you keep the golden coins and any other booty you may have taken from Hildebrand. You and the girl can go your way, richer than you were, and I will go my way. Neither of us want police involvement, and that will give us a comfortable level of what could be called mutually assured destruction. You don’t have to worry about me turning you in for burglary and safecracking, and I don’t have to worry about the two of you making any allegations about illegal activity at the ashram.”

“All right,” I said, resignedly. “I guess you’ve got me over a barrel. I’ll give you the necklace, if you promise to let Mary go and let me keep the Krugerrands.”

The loving smile, tinged with relief, widened beneath Baba’s big nose. “This is wise, Robert. I knew from our first meeting that you were an intelligent man.”

“Be careful!” Pete said. “He’ll try and pull something.”

“Not while we have the girl,” Baba said. “And the gun. Where is the necklace?”

“I’ll get it,” I said, throwing back the covers.

Namo raised the snubnose as I put my feet on the floor.

“Tell this goon to step back so I can get out of bed.”

“I am not sure that is a good idea,” Baba said. “Why don’t you just tell us where it is?”

“It’s hidden under the house,” I said, standing up. “I’ll have to show you.”

“Watch him, Namo,” Pete said.

“I got him covered.”

Baba shrugged. “Let him get dressed. There’s no time to waste. The necklace has to be at the appraiser’s by the close of business today in order for the bank to provide the funds by tomorrow evening.”