“You want to purchase oranges, cheese, and bread for a quiet picnic in the park.”
Iosef shook his head no and expanded his smile, suggesting that her remark had been particularly witty.
“Maxim?” she said.
“Maxim,” Iosef confirmed.
Four black men had stopped to look through the window at the contest between Sister Ann and the policemen. Everybody knew they were policemen.
Zelach was uneasy. In this neighborhood, violence had been done to both whites and blacks over the past dozen years. In this time men and women fleeing African tyranny or the consequences of their own criminal activity had encountered prejudice as their numbers increased. They acquired firearms as their people were targeted.
“Why?” Sister Ann asked.
“A purchase of information,” said Iosef, picking up a huge bar of Czech chocolate from a box on the counter. The chocolate was covered in a silvery wrap and a simple white paper label.
Sister Ann looked at the candy in Iosef’s hand. Iosef threw the wrapped chocolate over his shoulder in the general direction of Zelach who caught it cleanly.
“He is here,” said Iosef, looking back at Zelach.
Zelach nodded.
“No, he is home,” Sister Ann insisted.
“He has no home,” said Iosef softly. “He does not want to be somewhere where he might be a target for those who have done business with him or heard about him. He carries a bedroll and thousands of euros and a sack of diamonds.”
Maxim the Watchman was now one of the most successful fences in Moscow, a city within whose encircling border at least three hundred fences operated. Few, however, had the success of the Watchman. He supplied information to the police for the right to stay in business. It was the same reason he gave information to men of the Mafia.
Iosef took out a handful of rubles from his pocket and placed them on the counter.
“For the chocolate,” he said, moving toward the door at the rear of the cramped store.
Zelach held the bar of chocolate awkwardly in his hand. The bar was too big for any of his pockets. Besides, it might begin to melt. He considered throwing the confection in the garbage but resisted the urge.
As Iosef opened the door, Zelach began slowly, carefully tearing the wrapper from the chocolate.
“You are here. Good,” said Iosef genially as he went through the door.
The room was little more than a closet. A wiry old man with a bush of white hair was seated on a stool in front of a counter. Maxim, with pull-down enlarging glasses, was repairing a watch.
“Rebuilding,” he said.
His voice was raspy, almost raw. He did not offer them a seat. There were no seats and there was no room for them. On a shelf above the work table was a monitor. On the monitor was the interior of the grocery. Sister Ann was looking up at the camera.
“I’ve forgotten your name,” Maxim said. “But I know you are the son of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. Are you more reasonable than your father. .”
“No. I am Iosef, and this is Detective Zelach,” said Iosef, no longer smiling.
“You are not wearing a watch,” said Maxim. “I still have a few that I could give to you as a gift, were I allowed to present anything to the police that might be construed as a bribe.”
“I know the time,” said Zelach, nibbling at a piece of chocolate he had broken off.
He offered the chocolate bar to Iosef, who broke off a piece. It was bittersweet, delicious.
“You know what time it is without looking at a timepiece?” asked Maxim with a smile, looking at Iosef.
There was little Zelach might do that would surprise Iosef, who now watched for the latest hidden skill of his partner.
“It is 11:57 in the morning,” said Zelach.
Maxim looked at his watch and then at Zelach.
“You are within two minutes,” said Maxim.
“He is a man of many talents,” said Iosef, offering the chocolate bar to the old man.
“Thank you,” said Maxim, who cracked off a piece of chocolate, looked at what he had taken, made a what- the-hell shrug, and began to eat.
“Three men, black,” said Iosef. “Two are tall. One is short, chunky, wears glasses.”
“There are six of them. Sometimes they shop here,” said Maxim.
“There are only three now,” said Iosef. “Two are dead, one is missing. A Russian ten-euro gangster has him.”
“And you want to know where you can find the last three?”
“Yes,” said Iosef.
“It would be very dangerous to provoke these men, even if you had a little army. The tallest one is a little mad.”
“We will be careful. Thank you for your concern. An address?”
“I don’t know the address, but I can tell you the building.”
“He won’t know,” said Patrice, playing with a sharpened pencil, turning it over and over between the long fingers of his left hand like a miniature baton.
Patrice, Biko, and Laurence were about to leave the small apartment. They could stand it no longer. Patrice had spent one year in a Botswanan prison on suspicion of smuggling diamonds from the mine in which he had been working. The suspicions were well founded. All small rooms felt like prison cells.
The others were not much better. While Patrice had a nervousness about him, Biko was calm, seldom moving unless it was necessary, and then doing so with often vicious speed and murderous efficiency. These two men were his fellow thieves, no more. Biko’s real loyalty lay with his wives and children. For them he would die. For them he would kill even small children. He had no religion other than his family. He did, however, have a great respect for James Harumbaki as a leader who had made Biko’s life comfortable. Biko had begun life in Sudan with nothing but the likelihood of starvation after the loss of his three sisters and his parents. Biko had been nine. He had no god or gods, no country. He knew he was not smart like James or even Patrice, but he was more ruthless than they. They counted on him for the actions they did not want to take.
Laurence was a survivor. He had joined his first group of mercenaries when he was ten. He did not know what they stood for or if they stood for anything. The leader of the small band was known as Justin. Justin had used Laurence as a sex object and a boy soldier. Laurence’s one goal in life had been to graduate to bigger and bigger guns. He had succeeded. When Justin was killed by one of his own men after a drunken night, Laurence had joined another group and then another, and he was always used in some way. Chance had taken him to Botswana. Chance had put him in contact with James Harumbaki when both were waiting for a malaria injection at a free clinic. James took Laurence in. He did not abuse or take advantage of Laurence. And now Laurence had money in a bank, which he had never considered possible. He had not even known what a bank was until James taught him. And then James taught him to read and write English. Now Laurence was ready to kill or be killed if it could save James Harumbaki.
“I do not care if he knows,” said Biko. “You give them to the Russian, he looks, then he tries to kill us and James Harumbaki, but we kill him first.”
“We do not want James hurt,” said Laurence.
“No,” agreed Patrice.
Patrice’s plan was simple. He had purchased twenty smooth, bumpy, small rocks, each milky white and crystalline. Light could be seen through the rocks if they were held up to the sun or a strong lamp. He had placed the rocks in a black miniature rectangular case the size of a laptop computer. The rocks nestled on a plush black velvet surface nestled into niches in the material. This was not the best way to pass real diamonds. That was best done by putting the diamonds in a plain canvas bag with a drawstring and stuffing them into a jacket pocket or up your ass. This display of quartz was designed for show and to fool a Russian.
“He knows nothing about diamonds,” said Patrice.
