The old bastard is teasing me, Chandler thought. To hell with him. To hell with this.
“Look,” Chandler said. “I want to know about this job you brought me down here to tell me about. I guess you want me to find something. Maybe John Clarke is still alive. Maybe he didn’t get on that plane. Maybe you want me to find what’s left of his body if he was on it. Or am I looking for that remarkable diamond he was bringing his lady?”
“You’re not very good at guessing,” Plymale said. “Nor sitting still and listening.”
“Nor playing games, either,” Chandler said. “What do you want me to do? And what do I get out of it?”
“I want you to find John Clarke’s left arm,” Plymale said, and laughed. “How about that? And if you don’t find it, I want you to make damn sure nobody else finds it.”
Chandler considered this. He glanced at Plymale, who was grinning at him. He finished his drink, put on his sandals, pushed himself out of the chair, and looked down at Plymale.
Plymale’s grin went away. “If you walk off now, you’ll have been wasting my time and my money,” the old man said. “I’ll have to find somebody else to do this. You’ll be back doing your nickel-and-dime skip-tracing jobs. Chasing after the bond jumpers. And you’ll be wondering what you missed.”
“Okay,” Chandler said. “Then tell me.”
“Clarke’s left arm seems to have been torn off. The wing of one of those planes cut through the passenger section of the other one. Maybe that did it. Or maybe when he was thrown out of the plane in the collision. Maybe when his body tumbled down a cliff.” Plymale shrugged. “Doesn’t matter how. What matters is that it was his left arm, because Clarke had one of those security cases attached to his left wrist. Handcuffed, sort of. Like the devices State Department couriers used to carry secret stuff. Jewelry dealers and some big-currency brokers used to use ’em, too. Lock them on, lock the case, nobody would have the second key but the person who was getting the delivery.”
“Sure,” Chandler said.
“Anyway, sometime after the disaster, a fellow working at the canyon bottom saw part of the arm—hand, wrist, forearm, pretty much all of it, I think it was. It was sticking out of a pile of driftwood and trash at one of those Colorado River waterfalls. He saw the forearm with the handcuff on it and the box attached to a chain. He even saw a tattoo on the bicep. Claimed he did, anyway. But he couldn’t get to it. Went back to the place the next day with some help, but the river had risen and swept away the flotsam. And the arm with it, or so we presume. Who knows? Could be somebody else came along and fished it out.”
“And got the diamond case?”
Plymale shook his head. “Maybe. Anyway, that’s the end of that phase of the story.”
“Why the security case?” Chandler asked. “He could have carried that diamond ring for his bride in his pocket.”
“Clarke was managing part of his old man’s jewelry business. He’d gone to the coast to bring back a shipment of ‘special-cut’ diamonds for the rich end of his trade. They were the very best, blue-white, perfect gems, specially cut for the cream of the elite. I think there was seventy-something of them listed in the claim, all at least two and a half carats. The airline insurance company paid its hundred-thousand maximum limit for the loss. People in the business guess they’d have been worth a hundred times that, even at prices then. Today, who knows. Smallest one would probably sell for more than twenty thousand. Say double that for an average, and then multiply it by about seventy-five. Many multiple millions.”
Chandler was no longer bored. Or tired.
“And they were never recovered?”
“Not legally, anyway. Not reported and returned to owner. That’s the problem,” Plymale said. “Maybe they have been. Maybe we’re trying to find who has them now.”
That didn’t make sense to Chandler. This old man was not going to be somebody he could trust, he thought. Ironic, he thought. Neither was he.
“It seems to me if somebody had found them, they’d have been cashed in by now,” Chandler said. “Don’t you think?”
“If they had been put on the market, we’d know about it. The Clarke family and the insurance company had the alert out to jewelry dealers. Here and in Europe and everywhere else. The DeBeers monopoly keeps an eye out, too, and those stones were rare enough at their price and that special cut so they’d have been noticed. And they haven’t been,” Plymale said.
He checked his empty glass, put it down, looked at Chandler. “Not until this one showed up in that robbery in New Mexico.”
“Oh? You going to tell me about that? Now we’re getting to the bottom line.” Chandler had been imagining finding that jewel container. Leather maybe, or some tough plastic. Zipper would be locked. He’d cut it open. Pour them out into his palm. One by one. Examine them. Estimate their worth.
“Arm hasn’t been found, either,” Plymale said.
Chandler laughed. “Who cares about that damned arm?”
“I do. A lot. And I think you will, too, if you want this job,” Plymale said. He studied Chandler, waiting for Chandler to ask him why.
“Why?”
“Those diamonds are just a chance to make some walking-around money on the side,” Plymale said. “Just peanuts. But the arm is what’s important.”
Chandler’s expression was puzzled. No need to fake it.
“This woman Clarke was coming home to marry, her daughter is into that psychic stuff. Or claims she is. Crystal gazing, pyramid power, all that flaky stuff. At least that’s what we hear. Her name’s Joanna Craig. Lives in New York. She’s been running some little ads out in Grand Canyon country, spreading the word among National Park guides, tour directors, so forth, that there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for that arm.”
