Read an Excerpt
Prologue
Bangkok
The girl stepping from the air-conditioned taxi outside the Oriental Hotel was tall, with long, polished brown legs, glossy black hair that swung around her shoulders, and a face that was an elegant mix of the East and the West. Despite the blazing heat and humidity, she looked cool in an expensive linen dress and broad-brimmed hat.
She sauntered past the sparkling fountain and the quartet playing chamber music in the lobby toward the arcade of shops at the back of the hotel.
“My sister left a parcel here,” she explained to the assistant in the antiques shop. “She asked me to pick it up for her.”
Carrying the bag emblazoned with the name Jim Thompson Silk Shop, she strolled back along the arcade to the beautiful orchid-laden terrace overlooking the Chao Phraya River, where she ordered tea. With the bag on the floor beside her she sipped the tea unhurriedly, watching the busy floating traffic. Half an hour later she left the terrace, descended the steps to the river, and took a water taxi to the downtown area.
She walked quickly now, away from the river. After hailing another taxi, she asked to be taken to the Hotel Dusit Thanai.
In the ladies’ powder room, she changed into a plain white T-shirt and jeans, folded her smart black linen dress carefully, and placed it in the bag. She pulled her smooth hair into a ponytail, secured it with a white elastic band, and added a brighter lipstick. As she left the hotel by the back door, she covered her eyes with an expensive pair of Ray-Bans—not the cheap copies sold at every street corner in Bangkok—and took another cab to the Patpong Road.
The cab driver grinned slyly at her through his mirror. He knew all about Patpong, the honky-tonk area of red-light bars, seedy clubs, massage parlors, and sex shops, and he figured he knew what her trade was. After ignoring his attempts at conversation, she paid him off with a modest tip and threaded her way expertly through the maze of littered alleys. She paused outside a narrow gray building squashed among a hundred others on a side street, checking the name on a small, stained business card pinned to a board with a tack. Satisfied, she hurried past the clinic offering treatment for VD and other sexual “malaises” to the second floor, where she pressed the entry phone, waited for a reply, and then gave her name quietly. The door opened to her touch and she slid inside, closing it firmly behind her.
She was in a dark, narrow passageway smelling faintly of urine and chemicals, at the end of which was a second door. Unhesitatingly she walked the long corridor and pushed it open.
A small, high-intensity lamp blazed onto the surface of a shabby desk, leaving the man sitting behind it in half shadow, but she could see that he was immense, a grotesque caricature of a human shape. He lifted his head from the small pile of glittering stones he was studying and the light caught his face suddenly. “Come in, take a seat,” he said.
Her lips curled in revulsion as she sat opposite him. His features were porcine. The small eyes, lost in their folds of flesh, rippled over her like sunken gray pebbles. His accent was guttural and his tone rough as he said to her, “I already told you: You are wasting your time.”
She pulled a small twist of black tissue paper from the folds of bright Thai silk in the bag she was carrying and held it out to him. “I think not, Mr. Abyss,” she replied, watching as he unwrapped it quickly, noting his sharp intake of breath as he saw what it contained.
He shot a speculative glance in her direction, then pulled the high-intensity lamp closer. Holding the jeweler’s loupe to his right eye, he turned the gem in his fat, hairy fingers like a spider clutching a pretty butterfly. After a few minutes he removed the loupe and placed the stone on the square of black velvet in front of him. He leaned back in his battered leather armchair, folding his hands across his immense stomach. Her blue, almond-shaped eyes met his in the silence.
Finally he spoke. “There is only one emerald of this size and quality anywhere in the world. And that has been missing for more than seventy years. May I ask how it came into your possession?”
She shrugged. “You may not. Let us just say I am not working alone. My partners are very interested in your decision.”
Silence fell again as he surveyed first her and then the giant emerald lying between them.
“This is an exquisitely cut stone,” he said at last. “There is nothing I can do to improve on the artistry of the original cutter. So? What exactly do you want from me?”
Leaning forward, she touched the stone with a long red-enameled nail and said, “I want you to cut it into two equal pieces. Two emeralds instead of one.”
She thought she saw a glimpse of something like emotion in his leaden eyes: She had caught him off guard, touched a responsive chord in him somewhere.
“Cut a stone like this? Are you crazy?” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a small, stained glass. He lifted the bottle inquiringly and she shook her head, watching as he filled his glass to the brim and tossed it back. He refilled it quickly and this time she noticed that his hand trembled as he drained the glass. That tremor was the reason Abyss, the master gem cutter, now occupied a single room in a sleazy back street in Bangkok instead of the grand suite of offices in Paris that had been his twenty years ago. A gem cutter with an unsure hand was worthless. And yet there was no one else who could do what she asked. It was a risk that had been discussed at length and one they were prepared to take.
“I know this emerald,” he said, turning the gem again in his fat fingers. “It has not been seen in Europe since the great tiara was sent to Cartier in Paris for redesigning eighty years ago. An emerald of ninety carats, of such perfection … it is unique.”
“Exactly. It is unique and therefore easily identifiable. We are asking you to give us two emeralds, Mr. Abyss, so that it will be impossible for it to be identified positively. And yet the value of each stone will still be in the millions.”
A flicker of greed darted through his pebble eyes. He turned the stone this way and that under the light, examining it intently through the magnifying loupe.
She watched, tense as a coiled spring. It meant a lot to her; she was there because he was still the best in the world, the only one who could do the job. “We will pay well,” she said softly. “Seven percent.”
Their eyes met. “I can guarantee nothing,” he told her. “You are aware that emeralds are the most fragile of all the stones. One tap and this valuable jewel might be just crumbs for cheap rings. And after all, the emerald as a whole is worth far more than two halves would ever be.”
She smoothed back her already smooth hair, dabbing with a tissue at the rim of sweat along her hairline. There was no air-conditioning and the heat and sour smell of the room were beginning to get to her. She said crisply, “How soon can it be done?”
His eyes disappeared into the fat folds of his face as he smiled at her. “Fifteen percent,” he suggested softly.
A chuckle rose from his throat, bubbling into a cough as she stared at him. They had already considered the man in Israel and the other in Amsterdam. Abyss was the only one, their only chance. “Ten percent,” she said, pulling the T-shirt from her sticky shoulder blades as she stood up. She stared hard at the trembling hand holding the emerald. “I don’t know,” she added doubtfully. “Maybe Amsterdam would be better after all.…”
“Ten,” he agreed quickly.
“You have one month,” she told him, picking up her bag.
He gasped. “A month? Impossible. I need to handle the stone, to study it, to consider every point … it could take a year.…”
“One month and ten percent. That is the deal. Can you do it or not?”
Her red-lacquered nails drummed impatiently on the desk as he stared at her, shocked. Then his eyes disappeared again in a mirthless smile. “Let us just say it will be a challenge,” he replied.
She nodded, then turned with her hand on the door. “We are being very generous, Mr. Abyss. There is more where this came from. You could be a very rich man—if you don’t get too greedy.” Her beautiful almond eyes raked the sweating folds of his face contemptuously. “And if you should—then my partners will know what to do.”
Leaving the threat hanging in the air, she closed the door softly behind her. She slid through the dank hallway and down the stairs, and disappeared like a shadow into the milling crowds as Bangkok’s nightlife got into full, raucous swing.
