so the heater would continue to blow. His expensive mountain skiwear notwithstanding, he’d decided the dampness under his arms could only be a result of nerves.
Sullivan waited, staring into the night. He observed no sign of anyone standing near the park house and checked the backlit face of his dashboard clock. A quarter of eleven; he’d arrived for his meet right on the button. If experience was a guide, his man would show. Still, Sullivan felt a mild sort of annoyance. Having already torn himself from the Chelsea apartment’s blissful comforts for the unbelievable wind and cold of this stinking island, it wasn’t so much the waiting that bugged him. Once he was here, he was here. But other things mattered. Or ought to matter, anyway.
Several minutes ticked by. The gusts blew stiffly off the river, howled around the car, whipped sleet against its roof and windows. Bare treetop branches blew and swayed in the heavy gusts. Sullivan reclined in his seat and thought of the attache in the rear. He’d brought the special merchandise at serious risk. As usual he’d agreed to a time and place chosen by his buyer. No, he decided, his impatience wasn’t unwarranted. He was entitled to get back some of the respect and consideration he gave….
A single, hard rap on the passenger’s window jolted Sullivan from his thoughts. He straightened with a sharp intake of breath, then glanced over his shoulder as a black-gloved fist knocked on the window a second time.
The man outside the car was tall, thin, and wore one of those draping Aussie outback coats that flowed down below the knees like a cloak. Combed straight back over his head, his dark hair was soaked, his open umbrella offering limited cover against the slanting wetness.
Sullivan exhaled. His buyer had arrived true to form. The way he’d glided toward the car out of nowhere, moving right up to his window without a sound, you could almost believe he had cats’ blood in his veins.
Unlocking the passenger door with his master control, Sullivan leaned across the seat, grabbed the handle, and pushed it open.
“Lathrop,” he said. “You’d better get in.”
“I’ve been sitting here a while,” Sullivan said.
“That right?”
“Yes. Waiting in this god-awful storm. It isn’t something I appreciate.”
Lathrop looked at him across the front seat.
“Rough day at the office?” he said.
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” Lathrop said. “And I’m just trying to understand why you’re so irritable. My guess would be you’re tired, but the sporty new jacket makes it hard to tell.”
Sullivan was in no mood for the sarcasm. “I told you, this isn’t a joke—”
“I’ll bet the women love your youthful, athletic image.”
Sullivan swallowed his frustration. He wasn’t sure what that remark was meant to suggest, or exactly how much Lathrop knew about him. But his words had a way of slipping right under the skin.
“Listen, I just wanted to get across a point,” he said. “Let’s concentrate on what’s important.”
Lathrop gave him a nod. “Let’s.”
Sullivan fell silent. After a moment or two he produced a low grunt, reached up, and turned on the roof light. Shifting around behind the steering wheel, he took a hard, flat, black leatherette gemstone case from an inner pocket of his jacket and carefully set it on the armrest between Lathrop and himself.
“Here.” Sullivan opened the magnetized latches securing the case’s lid and lifted it off. “Check these out.”
Lathrop bent over the case to examine its contents.
“That brilliant in the middle’s damned sexy,” Sullivan said. “Go ahead, hold it up, you’ll see for yourself.”
Lathrop reached into the case for the stone without removing his gloves, a small magnifying loupe in one hand now. He held it to his eye and slowly examined the stone, turning it under the interior light, giving it a long, discerning look.
“Nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
Sullivan nodded.
“It was brighter around us, you’d be even more impressed,” he said. “The three caraters, they should pull, say, between fifteen and twenty thousand apiece. That’s at the Exchange or anyplace else, doesn’t matter how or where you move them. But the one you’re holding, its size and weight are exceptional. And check out the life in it. The fire. That’s
“I know what it should bring. Provided I’m able to get certs.”
“It’s the same quality as everything else you’ve bought from me. Send it to the AGL for a grading report. Or the Gubelin lab in Switzerland. Whichever you like. The experts can run their usual tests. I guarantee it’s going to pass with flying colors.”
Lathrop finished his inspection, returned the stone to its foam-rubber compartment, pocketed his loupe.
“Blue, especially,” he said. “That right?”
Sullivan smiled faintly at the remark. Some of the edginess had gone out of him.
“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve got it there.”
Silence. Lathrop looked at him, water dripping from his slicked-back hair, a splotch of moisture spreading under the tip of the folded umbrella beside his leg.
“What are you asking for the lot?” he said.
Sullivan hesitated a moment. He’d been a salesman his whole adult life and ordinarily wasn’t concerned about coming off as overanxious. But tonight it required some effort.
“I figured it would make sense to put together a square package, work out a price—”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Lathrop said. “I know I can move the stones. Taking on the other thing is an expensive gamble even if your claims about it are true.”
Sullivan shook his head.
“I’m not the type to make up stories,” he said. “What I’ve got with Dragonfly… I could sit forever rattling off a list of interested parties. Countries, starting with our own U.S. of A… look at what they’ve been up to at Los Alamos lately. And on that mountain laboratory in California… Liver-more, I think it’s called. Bring it to the fucking government, you’d rake in a heap. And private outfits, Jesus Christ, they’d do anything to get their hands on it. There’s that German megacorp for one. UpLink International’s another example. Money up the ass, there, I’m telling you from my own experience. You need more choices, I could reel a dozen of them off the top of my head.”
Lathrop didn’t answer. He’d suddenly turned toward the windshield and was gazing outside with a distant look on his face, his head tilted sideways, his mouth slightly open, the corner of his upper lip twisting upward in what almost resembled a sneer. Sullivan had noticed these mannerisms before and couldn’t quite figure out their significance… but they always reinforced his impression of Lathrop as being somehow catlike. It was as if he was tasting the air, his full attention captured by a trail nobody else could detect.
“Those interested parties,” Lathrop said after a while. His voice had a slight faraway quality that matched his expression. “Why not take it to them yourself, cut out the middleman?”
“Bad business.” Sullivan said, shaking his head. “I know how far I can push my situation.” He shrugged. “It’s about feeling a certain level of comfort.”
Lathrop kept staring out the ice-crusted windshield toward the blurred black line of the water.
“You brought everything?”
“In that briefcase.” Sullivan nodded at the backseat. “It’s all inside except the keys.”
“So your comfort level doesn’t allow for trusting me enough to hand them over tonight.”
“Come on,” Sullivan said. “As it stands, you’d have the brilliants. That ought to be plenty acceptable.”
Lathrop turned to him. “What’s your asking price?”
“Five hundred thou, all inclusive. You wire half the money into the usual account. I confirm payment, send you the keys right away. Then you transfer the balance and we’re settled.”
A pause. Lathrop stretched it out a while before extending his right hand across the seat.
“Okay, we’ve got a deal,” he said. “
Sullivan couldn’t help but smile again.
“Is that the expression they use?” he said, accepting the handshake.
