18mm Blues Page 19

  A dubious grunt from Grady.

  “Maybe not plenty,” Reese retracted, “but shit, there are four hundred thousand cutters in this country. Most of them have been cutting gems since they cut their teeth. Some are so good at it they’d be stars on Forty-seventh Street. William Shigota and a few others I know of. That’s what I’d do, let Shigota cut it. At the least you ought to let him take a look at it, long as you’re here.”

  “Will you call him for me?”

  “No problem.” Reese went to his desk, rifled through the center drawer and found Shigota’s business card for Grady.

  During all this, Julia had kept to herself, wandered about the room, overhearing what was said but not seeming interested. Grady had thought, considering her involvement with the piece of ruby up to that point, that she’d be right there at his side, anxious to have a turn at the microscope. It was as though she knew the outcome, had already been told the ruby was a ruby, believed that, and all this proving wasn’t necessary.

  Now she was standing at a counter off to the right giving her attention to some loose pearls that she’d found lying there. Evidently Reese had been grading and matching them when Grady and Julia arrived.

  Grady went to her, realized how caught up she was in the pearls. They weren’t all that special, nice enough ten-millimeter creams mostly but not worthy of her. He’d had in mind for quite a while improving on the ones he’d substituted for her strand, that the stringer had made off with. Perhaps this was a good time to do that. He asked Reese, “Can you show me some pearls for Julia?”

  His words seemed to snap Julia back to there and then. She smiled, the sort of pleased smile usually meant to convey everything was going well.

  “You’re in luck,” Reese said and went to his safe. “It just so happens that I got these last week from a Safartic dealer who’s been trying for ten years to get out of the business.” He brought a dozen large self-sealing clear plastic bags to the counter. He opened them and laid the cultured pearls they contained out upon a white velour cloth. Lined the pearls up neatly hank next to hank according to gradations of color. They ran from white to creamy white to pinkish white.

  Grady’s eye told him they were eight to eight and a half to nine millimeters, except for those subtle pinkish ones second from the right, which were nine and a half to ten millimeters. Those, he decided, were best of all, what he’d try to buy, although he’d go at them by way of the eight millimeter whites on the opposite end.

  His approach was thwarted by Julia’s going right for those best pinkish ones. That hank consisted of four eighteen-inch strands, tied together by numerous winds of purple silk embroidery thread and a tassel of the same. The strands clicked against one another as she picked them up, held them up high with her right hand, appreciated them with her eyes and her free hand, ran her fingers down their lengths, a caress.

  Grady was surprised that she was so enamored with pearls. She’d never indicated as much. Her giveaway eagerness toward these pinks was going to cost him, but he forgave her for that. He took out his loupe and examined their complexion, found it was much better than merely acceptable. He guessed around thirty thousand when he asked Reese how much.

  Reese didn’t have a chance to say because from Julia came: “They’re not what I had in mind.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not at all,” she said, “they’re perfectly lovely but…”

  “They’re the perfect shade for your coloring,” Reese told her.

  Which was also Grady’s opinion.

  “That may be, however…” She hesitated, returned the hank to its place on the velour, went reflective for a moment, then asked, “By chance do you have any blue pearls?”

  “Blue?”

  “Pearls don’t, as a rule, come in blue,” Grady told her.

  “Never?”

  “Not that I know of. How about you, Reese, blue pearls?”

  “Nope.”

  “The Japanese pearl farmers have been tinting pearls for years,” Grady said, “because most of what they grow comes yellowish. To make them white they soak them for a while in bleach. To give them a pink cast they use a solution of Merthiolate. The longer they soak and the stronger the solution, the pinker. So I guess blue-looking pearls would be possible with blue ink or something.” Grady looked to Reese for support.

  Reese did a stoop-shouldered why not shrug.

  “I wouldn’t want them if they were dyed like that,” Julia said. “They wouldn’t be authentically blue.”

  Grady challenged her. “When have you ever seen or heard of natural blue pearls?”

  Julia was suddenly confused, couldn’t reply. She went over to where she’d left her canyon, looked into it for no reason other than to hyphenate the moment, slung it over her shoulder and conveyed to Grady with a glance that she was ready to go.

  He thought the thing about natural blue pearls was something she might have read about in some work of fiction, or perhaps it should be chalked up to her artistic bent. He hoped he hadn’t embarrassed her. Anyway, he was sorry she hadn’t let him buy those pinkish tens. He could have gotten them at a nice price, and someday down the line she was going to look back and wish he had.

  He thanked and hand-shook Reese. So did Julia. They went out the upper door and down.

  When Reese was sure they’d gone he made a long-distance call. First he asked the man on the other end if the promise of the substantial sum that had been made quite a while back was still in effect. He was told that it was. He pressed for additional rewards, such as profitable, sure-thing business deals. He was assured they would be forthcoming. Did he have the man’s word? He had it.

  Satisfied, delighted that he would benefit so largely from such slight effort, Reese informed the man that at long last someone had made an inquiry about natural blue pearls.

  Then told him who.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At that moment on the corner of Mahesak Road and Silom, Grady and Julia had paused to discuss options. It was only a five-block walk back to the hotel, Grady said, so shouldn’t they go there and have a proper lunch? Julia wasn’t for that, said they could get something to eat along the way. Along the way to where? Grady wanted to know. To the ruby cutters, Julia told him, that William Swaboda. Shigota, Grady corrected and said that could wait until after lunch or even until tomorrow. Julia gave it much greater priority, said so. And before Grady could say another word, before he could contend that he’d had an extremely early breakfast and nothing since, Julia hailed a taxi.

  What came swerving to the curb was something that looked like an oversize golf cart. It had only one front wheel, was bright blue and yellow, open on both sides and the rear, with a roll bar and a canvas top. The driver, if one could call him that, was all smile, ready to roll. He had a two-week black and gray mustache and a month of beard, some of which appeared to have been plucked. Had on a red baseball-type cap with a huge visor.

  Grady walked away in the direction of the hotel. Julia confidently watched him going, counted his strides, mentally wagering on eleven. She was one short. He turned, did a pleading expression, said, “To hell with you, Julia,” to save some pride, returned to the taxi and handed the Shigota business card to the driver, who studied it for a long moment and claimed, “I know.”

  “Is it near or far?” Grady asked.

  “I know,” the driver assured.

  “Short ride or long ride?”

  The driver nodded twice, made a face to express that the question was absurd and said another, “I know.”

  At that point Grady noticed the driver was wearing two stainless steel digital watches on each wrist, had the snarling cartoonlike, wide-jawed face of a deity tattooed on the back of his left hand and three lines of Thai lettering tattooed lengthwise on his arm from his watches to his biceps, evidently some wise and protective Buddhist quotation. “Who could mistrust such a man,” Grady quipped as he and Julia climbed in.

  Before they’d had a chance to get settled the driver l
urched the three-wheeler under way and cut across the pack of the traffic on Silom. Got into a left lane for a right turn on Krung Road, a major way that became New Road, which became Songwat Road, which became Chakraphet Road, which took them close by a couple of major gold-spired wats and also the group of attractive structures that form the Great Palace. The traffic was near to coagulating all the way. Although they were bound for a destination where possibly Grady would do some business, it was rather like a sight-seeing trip.

  But not a comfortable one by any means.

  Hard plastic seat, exhaust fumes, noise enough to accumulate a headache because of the vehicle’s two-stroke engine.

  Grady also disliked that he had no idea how long a trip this would be. As they crossed the river by way of the Phrapinklao Bridge he told himself it had to be over soon. He looked to Julia. She mimed nausea. He felt guilty and responsible for having given in to this inconvenience. He told Julia, “Serves you right.”

  About a quarter mile past the bridge the driver picked up Charon Sanitwong Road and headed north for three loud, fullspeed miles. That put them in the northwest section of Bangkok’s sprawl, an area called Bang Phat. It wasn’t as built up. Houses were only here and there and so were what appeared to be small factories. There were numerous narrow klongs (canals) and thick, green, overgrown stretches. The driver turned off with authority onto a lesser unmarked road and an even lesser one, as though certain of direction. Finally he pulled over.

  Had they arrived?

  The driver grinned back over his shoulder at them. He kissed the brass standing Buddha amulet he had on a cord around his neck to demonstrate that neither he nor they need worry about being lost, however he appeared perplexed as he again looked at the address on the Shigota business card.

  “I know,” Grady mocked.

  “Try not to be so stingy with belief, darling,” was Julia’s advice. She was beyond being merely thirsty, her face was wind burned, the humidity had her perspiring so that the soaked elastic band of her panties was chafing her hips and a few of her favorite worst swear words were crouched in her throat. She’d been a punished but uncomplaining passenger for over an hour. Could she at least get out and stretch?

  The driver got under way again with renewed certitude, and perhaps his amulet did have powers of a sort, for after they’d gone only another two hundred or so feet and taken another sharp short left there it was: the Lady So Remembered Gem-Cutting Factory.

  That was what the sign attached high up on the side of the building said in crisp red professionally painted letters on a white background. In both Thai and English. A long sign on a long, tall one-story building situated at the end of a narrow klong, right on the water, relating to it with a slatted dock and pilings.

  As remote as it was it wasn’t alone. There were several houses close by, a settlement of twenty to thirty across from it and others within sight down the klong. All similar and typical, modest teakwood Thai houses, raised and amiably open.

  About fifteen feet from the entrance to the factory was its spirit house, permanently at eye level upon a solid pedestal. A seriously built little house, as architecturally correct as it could be. Its various sections of roof precisely pitched, its windows and doors in scale and properly placed. It had carefully finished eaves, porches, balconies and railings and at every possibility, wherever there was an edge or corner or peak, it was elaborately trimmed with motifs, such as repetitive lotuses and six-pointed stars. The interior of it was a powder blue, its outside coated with a dark red madder to better show off the many places where it had been given gold leaf upon gold leaf.

  As amusing and decorative as it appeared its purpose was considered practical. It was hoped that this fancy little abode was so attractive the resident spirit would prefer it over the main structure, be content to watch over the welfare of the main structure, not feel the need to enter there and cause such mischiefs as sudden quarrels or mysterious accidents or fires. Additionally the resident spirit had to be kept pleased with offerings, tidbits of food, flowers and other necessities.

  At the moment the resident spirit in the spirit house of the Lady So Remembered Gem-Cutting Factory was possibly appeased by the bouquet of white lilies that had been placed on its pedestal along with four joss sticks. The edges of the petals of the lilies weren’t discolored and wisps of smoke were rising from the joss sticks, so, evidently, these offerings had been made only a short while ago.

  Spirit within the spirit house or not, in Grady’s opinion this cutting factory way out here wasn’t where it should be, nor from the looks of it could it be much. He was thoroughly skeptical as he and Julia entered the place, and no less surprised once he was inside.

  The interior was clean and organized. One room about fifty feet by twenty-five with two office spaces partitioned off at one end. The walls and concrete floor were painted white, as were the steel beams overhead and the roof they supported. Workbenches were arranged in exact rows, about sixty of them, surfaced with white plastic laminate. Each bench was equipped with a motorized electric grinding wheel.

  The cutters seated at the benches were Thais. They had on identical pale blue short-sleeved shirts. Slight of build as they were and with their cropped black hair it was difficult to tell the men from the women. They all had the same intentness, were entirely focused on their tasks, apparently immune to tedium, not at this time in need of interplay or even music. The impression was one of conscientious precision, reassuring to anyone hoping, as Grady was, to have a valuable precious stone transformed into a much more valuable faceted beauty.

  William Shigota was at his desk in his office. He glanced up, saw Grady and Julia and came out to them. Bringing a business smile and a wai (palms together, fingers pointed upward, a bow of head).

  Grady presented his business card and introduced Julia.

  The screeches and whines of the faceting wheels made it impossible for discussion there. William led them to his office. Before getting settled Julia requested something to drink. William offered either cold tea, lemonade or beer. Without hesitation Julia chose beer. Grady would have the same. William didn’t summon someone to fetch it, went for it himself. Julia used the short while he was gone to blot her face with a tissue and redo her lips. Her hair was a mess, blown stringy and tangled, but she didn’t have time to do much with it other than give it a few comb throughs with her fingers. Grady wondered why she was bothering at all.

  William came back with a tray bearing three mercifully cold bottles of Sapporo and chilled glasses. He poured perfect heads, distributed. “How did you get here?” he asked.

  “Alfred Reese recommended you,” Grady replied.

  “Yes, he phoned to say you might be coming by, but what I meant was did you come by taxi or what?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a taxi.”

  “Don’t tell me you came by tuk-tuk?”

  “That sounds right,” Julia said. “I’m dreading the return trip.”

  “You have it waiting?”

  “Rather than get stranded out here wherever we are,” Grady said.

  William took it upon himself to go out, pay the proper fare and dismiss the tuk-tuk. The driver was resentful, complained with a scowl. While waiting he’d been trying to settle on how much he’d overcharge these farangers. William knew that was the case and for the sake of inverse fairness gave the man a few extra five baht and two baht coins, which came nowhere near the anticipated amount but expressed understanding enough to satisfy.

  “Tuk-tuks are fine for a short haul,” William said when he returned to the office, “a few blocks but not farther. What a ride you must have had.”

  “An adventure,” Julia said, making light of it, “during which I was the death by splat of a vast variety of bugs.”

  “If ever you have the need to come here again best to hire a water taxi,” William advised. “Faster and much more pleasant. When you want I’ll call for one to take you back to your hotel.”

  Julia had already drunk most
of her beer. It hadn’t really slaked her thirst. Beer never did. Should she ask for another? Another would make her feel bloated and get her a little high. She’d have to pee a lot. She could already feel a pee coming on. She should have gone for the lemonade. Now she needed to belch. She had the impulse to open her mouth and let it erupt. Instead, she turned her head aside, kept her mouth closed and shielded with her hand. The restrained discharge momentarily punished her nasal tissues. She thought, When I get back to the hotel, and am I ever looking forward to that, I’ll take an up-to-the-chin, duck-down-under cool bath and then a twenty-minute nap. Order up a heap of cold fruits, maybe some gorgonzola and crackers. Hurry and get this over with, she mentally told Grady.

  Her silent entreaty was like a starting gun.

  William sat forward on his desk chair.

  Grady placed his emptied glass on the tray.

  The rough ruby was introduced.

  William inspected it with a ten-power loupe and then with a forty-power microscope. “Nice piece,” was his conclusion.

  “How nice?” Grady wanted to know.

  “Not pigeon blood Burma but closer to it than most goods I see.” He turned the crystal this way and that, bare-eyeing its various aspects. “You might have noticed there’s some zoning here.” He indicated an area of the stone where its red appeared diluted, was fainter. “That will influence the cut,” he said.

  “To what extent?”

  “Depends. The tempting, easy way would be to saw it here and here, amputate the zoning so to speak.”

  “You wouldn’t do that?”

  “Not even if you insisted.”

  “Why not?”

  “Once the zoning got sliced out you’d be committed to going for weight rather than best color. What you’d end up with would have a purplish character, looking more like Thai than Burma. Know what I mean?”

  “If you’re asking do I know how to tell Thai from Burma goods…”