Smoke

the pink tint is so subtle.”

Christian Striker knew more than anyone Lydia had ever met. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of facts- history, science, geology, mathematics-which is to say he knew a little bit about many things. Lydia liked hanging out with him because she always learned something. And he was cute, with sandy blonde hair and a boyish face but searing dark eyes, so brown they were nearly black, that missed nothing. He was a few years younger than Jeffrey, who had just turned forty-three.

“Where would you get one of these?” asked Jeffrey.

“I imagine most diamond dealers can get their hands on one. The largest diamond mine in the world is the Argyle mine in Kimberly, Australia… of course there’s Sierra Leone, Russia, and since 1991 Canada has become a major player on the scene. They have two diamond mines in the Northwest Territories, and two others expected to be operating by 2006. There’s been a bit of a diamond rush up there in recent years. What people like about the Canadian diamonds is they’re ‘clean.’ ”

“What do you mean?” asked Jeffrey.

“They’re not what people call ‘blood’ diamonds or ‘dirty’ diamonds. They’re not used to finance terror, war, and weapons the way they are in Sierra Leone and Angola. You know in Sierra Leone, for example, the Revolutionary United Front controls the mines and uses the proceeds to buy weapons. They also provide untraceable diamonds to other terrorist organizations to launder money. The people doing the mining are dying in slave-labor conditions; they’re imprisoned by the rebels and forced to work until they die. Meanwhile, said rebels randomly amputate the hands of children as a warning to their parents not to support the civilian government. These rebels are just children themselves, children high on drugs, carrying AK-47s and machetes. It’s pretty fucked.”

“See?” Lydia said to Jeffrey. He nodded.

“Anyway,” said Christian. “This is a nice one. Most dealers don’t sell gems without settings. So, it’s possible that this was purchased on the black market, which makes it even more likely that it’s a blood diamond.”

He handed the gem back to Lydia and she gazed at it. It was stunning. She considered it a terrible irony that something so naturally gorgeous could be surrounded by so much ugliness. Was it greed or a lust for beauty that led people to kill and die for these stones? Maybe both.

“Who would know where this might have come from?” asked Jeffrey.

“I know a guy in the diamond district,” said Christian, flipping through his Rolodex. He wrote a name and number on a pad by his phone and handed it to Jeff. “Tell him I sent you. He’ll tell you what he can.”

Nine

Jorge Alonzo thought he was king of the jungle. To show he was not intimidated by Matt Stenopolis’s size or the presence of detectives in his apartment, he slumped in his leather recliner, scrolling through channels on his digital cable. When he did finally turn his eyes to them, he stared at them like he was hard. Matt could feel his chest constricting, the guy was pissing him off so bad.

“Rosario’s brother told us that you were calling her all night, trying to get her to go to the club with you,” Jesamyn was saying. Matt was looking around the apartment: large flat-screen television with surround-sound speakers, a Blaupunkt audio system, leather furniture as soft to the touch as velvet. Matt counted four framed posters of naked or nearly naked women in a variety of evocative poses. There were some Japanese anime prints that looked pretty expensive, featuring scantily clad Asian women with gravity-defying breasts and bulbous asses, long thin legs and tiny waists.

“I know what that punk thinks he heard. But I was finished with that bitch,” he said lazily. “We were done. She was getting fat.” He held out his hands to express her expanding girth.

“She was pregnant. With your child,” said Jesamyn slowly, looking at him like he was a curiosity better seen on the Discovery Channel than right in front of her face.

“So she said. I asked for a paternity test,” he said, scratching his crotch and looking at Jesamyn with a smile. “Fat bitch. Not like you, girl. Your shit is tight.”

Matt was on him then. He knocked the remote out of Alonzo’s hand and lifted him off the recliner like he was made out of gauze.

“What the fuck-” Jorge protested shrilly.

“You’ll have some fucking respect for my partner, you piece of shit,” Matt said, the anger in his chest threatening to split him in two. His disrespect for Jez, his general attitude, and the fact that if Matt worked OT for the rest of his life he’d never be able to afford an audio-visual system like that without going into debt was making him crazy.

“Man, you can not put your hands on me like that,” Jorge yelled. “That’s police brutality.” He straightened out his shirt and the baggy jeans that were threatening a trip to his knees.

Matt hovered over him, a good two heads taller and about twice as wide.

“Do something about it, bitch,” he said quietly. Jesamyn strolled over to the window and looked outside as if the view of the brick wall was the most interesting thing in the world. Jorge looked up at Matt and then down at the floor.

“Now, sit down, punk, and answer our questions like you have a clue how to conduct yourself in polite society.” Matt stepped back and hoped, hoped, that he would make a move. But unarmed and with none of the other Kings around, Jorge dropped his attitude. He sank into the couch. Matt was disappointed.

“I told the other cops everything I know,” he whined. “They cleared me. Isn’t this like double jeopardy or some shit to question me again?”

“No. It’s not double jeopardy, you moron,” said Matt. He was about to explain what double jeopardy was but he stopped himself. What was the point?

“When was the last time you saw Rosario?” asked Jesamyn.

“I don’t remember,” he said sullenly, leaning down and picking up the pieces of the remote at his feet.

“You don’t remember,” Jesamyn repeated. “You don’t remember when you last saw her? Or what you told the police the last time they questioned you?”

They danced around with Jorge awhile longer. They asked him a question; he gave a vague answer or pretended he didn’t remember. Finally, he said he wouldn’t talk anymore without his lawyer.

“Who’s going to pay for this?” he asked, holding up the broken remote as they walked out of his Riverside Drive apartment. Neither one of them responded and he yelled the question again as the elevator doors closed on them.

“No one’s going to pay for it,” said Jesamyn grimly in the quiet of the elevator. “That girl and the baby inside her are dead somewhere and no one is going to pay for it.”

“Notice how he talked about her in the past tense?” Matt asked.

She nodded and didn’t say anything else. Sometimes the darkness of the job closed in on both of them. The glow she had earlier in the day was gone. Now she just looked tired. He wanted to put his hand on her arm but he didn’t.

Out on the street, Matt’s cell phone rang.

“Stenopolis,” he answered.

“It’s Lydia Strong.”

“Hey.”

“Thanks for the photo. I think it helped us.”

“Yeah?” he said, the brightening of his tone attracting attention from Jesamyn.

“It connects to something we found. Have you ever heard of an organization called The New Day?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said, unlocking the doors of the Caprice for his partner. Jesamyn climbed inside to get out of the cold and shut the door, peering at him through the glass. He walked over to the driver’s side and leaned on the roof and watched the traffic roll on Riverside. He listened as she told him what they’d learned since he saw her last night and how the logo on the van in the photograph was the same as the building in the Bronx.

“There’s nothing in those hotline transcripts,” he said, feeling slightly defensive suddenly. Was she going to