They sat together at the old-fashioned, distinctly male bar. Phillip watched Harry in the mirror, and turned once to the maitre d'hotel, who scurried off, joyous at the gentile commands.
"I've an enormous appetite; how about you?" Phillip was being a host.
Harry turned annoyed eyes on him. "We've eaten together before, Phillip. Though of course, the meals were not served in the right spirit.
Did something to the appetite. But I've never been one for food."
Every now and then the echo of Midwestern naivete would come through.
"A man of action, Harry; that's what you should call yourself. Just as I call myself a man of taste. People appreciate being told what you are." He shrugged his shoulders like a titillated schoolgirl. "They get all nervous and jumpy inside if they've got to figure it out themselves."
Harry smiled a bit contemptuously. "You should have been a psychiatrist, Phillip."
"I am, I am," Phillip warmly interrupted. "I listen to people; I find out what's on their minds, what's in their safe, how they spend their sleepless nights, how many Nembutal they take, when the maid is away, if they like big nasty dogs, if they always imagine they hear footsteps on the parlor floor. Then I add up all my bits of information, sacrifice my peace of mind, and one night when they least expect it, I tiptoe into their bedrooms and carry away their most troublesome burdens."
"Their money."
"If it happens to be lying carelessly about."
"Their jewels."
"Always. Always their jewels. I find diamonds are a man's most confusing possessions. To own a diamond, you must be neurotic. First of all, you've taken everybody else's word for it that they're beautiful.
Then you've taken the bespectacled little man's word that they're valuable. Often my clients have offered their sacred virginity for a paltry little diamond that hardly shines in the dark. So they give up their cunts, their youth, for a little row of beads that are so valuable they're too heavy to be worn about the neck. They fire the fingers. A woman must sink under the weight of her diamonds."
"So."
"So, to save them when they've given up any hope of salvation, when they've buried the jewels in a nasty black safe and worn lighter carefree paste that looks just like the real thing (but they hope no one gets confused and shoots at them for the phonies, too), I enter the room like a merciful surgeon and amputate the choking stones."
"Careful, Phillip. I thought you were a psychiatrist."
"A man of taste, Harry. That's all you must remember."
The waiter made frantic little signs to the maitre d'hotel, who made frantic little signs to the bartender, and their great announcement was made that a table was free. They were gallantly escorted to it. Over the antipasto, they decided to remove poor Mrs. Aldrich's weighty neurosis.
"Mrs. Aldrich," Phillip explained, "is one of the most neurotic matrons in Rye."
"Good." The words were coming through to Harry unadorned.
"To calm her nerves, she belongs to the Archer Society, the Town and Country League, and a few other local organizations."
Phillip reached into his thin black briefcase. "Here," he said, laying a paper alongside Harry's plate, "check here."
"Check," his partner commented.
"She is, in short, a busy, fashionable, neurotic woman."
"The kind Carol creates," Harry interjected.
Phillip looked up sharply. "Exactly." The two men forgot about the Aldrich's for a moment, but Harry was the first one to get back to work.
"How long do we have to pull it off?"
"They go to Nassau every year. This month. Never before the 10th, never later than the 25th. We have to know exactly when. She takes the big stuff out of deposit a few days before they leave. That's why we have to know exactly when."
"What's the layout," Harry calmly asked.
"The house has eighteen rooms, three floors. Ours is the second."
"How many servants?"
"A maid, a chauffeur, a cook who goes home evenings."
"When does the maid go home?"
Phillip smiled at Harry. "Find out, my boy."
Harry looked at his watch. It was a nervous gesture, one of the few Phillip had observed. The hour, the minute, the month, the day, the year, all tiny neat numbers in the compact face.
"Today is the 6th; the stuff may already be in the house."
"Find that out too, Harry."
The younger man nodded. "I'll telephone you from Rye tomorrow."
"Good." Phillip was pushing his chair back. "Oh yes," he added the slight oversight, "Carol wondered if you needed the $26,000."
"Minus fifteen percent?"
"Minus fifteen percent."
"Let's go for a walk," Harry suggested. "Let's go look at lots of bright sparkling things."
Phillip signed the check, adding a generous tip, and the two prosperous looking bourgeois left the restaurant. The walk lasted as far as the outside door. When the doorman rushed over saying, "Cab, sir,"
Harry nodded. Phillip looked amused. He followed Harry into the cab and grinned with understanding when Harry gave the West 47th Street address.
In the sheltered upholstery of the car, Harry finally said to Phillip,
"Why didn't you tell me who you were in prison?"
"As it works out," was the reply, "I think I did the wiser thing to not tell you. What's your story, Harry?"
"It's my one story," said Harry. "I made all my money on the Black Market in Europe. What I stole, I brought back. Stashed it in a deposit box. Bundles. Enough for a lifetime. What can they do? I was a paratrooper and it could be true. Your … your Carol was telling me,"
he hesitated, "that you were busted on Income Tax charges."
"Yes," Phillip smiled. "The rich man's disease. It's replacing gout."
He frowned theatrically. "Actually, I got into the cooler," he was going to play it Harry's way, "through an overweening love of art. My inventory of paintings fattened out of all proportions to my sales. The north wall in my study alone represents almost $200,000. You need to sell a lot to make that kind of money and live well too. I mean, you can't say you won it all at the races.
"Yes," his fingers rubbed eyes, "art is my one great weakness. I can't bear not owning a picture I want, when it's only a matter of a little money between me and possession. It's impossible to explain this or account for oneself when a battery of experts descends on you, goes through your books, makes an inventory. I did my penance."
He intoned directly to Harry. "That's my weakness, Harry. What's yours? I've wondered for months, what is Harry's weakness? What's going on behind those eyes staring up at the cell ceiling?"
The cabdriver pulled to the curb and turned around to read off the meter. "That'll be $4."
Harry handed him a $5 bill and opened the door for Phillip, "I don't have a weakness, Phillip. Maybe that's my weakness."
Phillip shook his arm. "Of course, you've got your weakness, Harry.
It's not knowing what your great weakness is." His face was curiously calm. He looked suddenly prophetic, stone-like. "It makes you a dangerous man. And, I admit, a very brave one."
On 47th Street, they charge you for the priceless. The diamond hawkers, in slouch hats and baggy pants, lean against the red brick buildings and sell each other immense, perfect stones. The sweet young things who blushingly accept the two-carat love guarantee never touch the sordid. But the diamond merchants have good clean fun.
They take a black smelly case out of their hip pocket and unroll a 100-faceted, blue-white stone. They appreciate it. They appreciate each other.
Phillip and Harry, strangely elegant, strangely incongruous yet part of the scene, threaded their way through the concentrated activity of the exchange. They found an empty wall space and Harry leaned convivially against it.
"I like it here," he explained.
"It's a good place to do business."
"It's a good place to breathe." Harry surprised Phillip with his comment. Then he took the grey-haired man's arm and drew him aside in mock confidence. Harry's face was transformed, and for a moment he was one of the hawkers. He took out an oversized black wallet.
Phillip watched in amusement as the deft fingers unfolded the traditional white paper and revealed a glittering 42-carat necklace.
"The Meltzer necklace," Phillip whispered with respect.
"Tell Carol to treat it with love."
Phillip laughed. "Carol treats objects with intelligence. Doesn't bother with love."
Harry had a dreamy, pensive look. He smiled quietly, then asked,
"Tell me, how is your taste in diamonds?"
"What do you mean?" Phillip asked.
"I mean," he sounded like a lover begging for reassurance, "do you ever find it hard to part with a certain diamond? Take a big rock. A perfect Marquise. The cuts like edges of a rainbow, you know. The blue so blue it turns to purple, somewhere just out of sight."
"Well, well," Phillip's voice had hardened. "So we have in you an aesthete."
"It's like another world," Harry looked past Phillip, "inside a jewel."
Phillip spoke firmly. "For us, Harry, a diamond is always on fire.
Never a cold perfect object. It's on fire, do you understand? We can't hold it for too long. We get scarred. Understand this, that bit of carboniferous crystal is precious for me only because of its commercial value. No other. It just happens it's diamonds. If it were bits of coal instead that were so rare, all our lovely neurotics would be wearing coal. Raving about the jagged edges and the dust. The perfect gem, color, cut, size, excited my bank account. That's all. We must keep things in perspective."
"You really don't understand, Phillip."
"What," Phillip demanded caustically, "your weakness? Yes, I understand it very well. It's suicide to want to live inside a jewel, Harry."
"I just want to look into a jewel."
"It's the same thing." Phillip was packing the necklace competently, no caress of the folds that protected it. "Come back to the apartment,"
he directed. "Carol will be waiting. She can have the money by this evening, and we'd better start smoothing out the Aldrich problems."
"Hers or ours," Harry asked good-naturedly. The tense atmosphere broke and the sounds of the surrounding hawkers filtered back in.
"Why, they're the same problems Harry. That's what I've been explaining all afternoon."
***
Carol was sitting in the large study musing over the
Who's Who in
American Business
, when Phillip and Harry walked in. Phillip kissed her chastely. "Reading my reference books again," he admonished.
"All my students are going to be smarter than teacher." He slipped the package into Carol's hand. She looked into his eyes, then looked at Harry, placed the package neatly into a patent leather hatbox, and soundlessly left with the jewels.
Phillip tapped Harry's chest. "She'll be back soon." And then added with irony, "Can you bear to part with it?"
Harry was expressionless. "That remains to be seen, doesn't it?"
Phillip patted the front of his legs with his open hands; his face was serious. He walked over to the leather chair and sat down.
***
The first thought Carol had had was Boris. The jewels were blazing in her case. She looked, as always, composed, but felt her heart hammering. She stood at Boris' elevator landing with the familiar model's hatbox hanging almost level with her knees. In her slender black cloth coat and helmet-like hat, she looked like the young ladies who glared disdainfully each month out of the pages of Femme, making all the flesh and blood readers feel vulgarly in touch with the world.
She rested the case against her toes and rang the bell. A maid dressed in traditional French uniform opened the door and said perfunctorily, "Good afternoon, Miss Stoddard." She led Carol past the foyer, past the six-foot Tang Buddha in painted wood. Chinese rugs covered the floor. The living room, where the maid left her, had the smart austerity of a bachelor's apartment. A very busy bachelor.
Before she could put the box down, Boris was walking toward her, arms outstretched.
"Carol, how nice, my dear." He took her by the elbow and escorted her to a low Chinese table. The tea service and sweets were immaculately displayed. "You're in time for tea, and you must be chilled to the bone. Here, take your coat off, dear."
"Thank you, Boris." Her voice was cool. "Your place is wonderful.
It's a joy to be here." He moved to take her coat and gloves, but she gently brushed his hand away and threw the coat over the arm of the deep couch.
"For someone who comes so seldom and stays so briefly that's rather hard to believe." He looked at her inquisitively.
"Oh Boris," she laughed, "not with me too." She looked about the apartment. "This place makes your conquests too easy. I couldn't possibly succumb."
"My dear, I have a perfectly filthy hovel for girls with just that attitude. Let me take you there."
"I could never obliterate the memory of this elegance."
"Ahhh," he signed deeply and swept in the vista with his arm, "to what avail when the fairest sees through it."
"My weary Casanova," she consoled. He handed Carol a cup of tea, and sat quietly. She sipped delicately. "I suppose I should have shopped about a bit before closing with you. But then I liked your offer. It's immediate and…"
"My dear," Boris exclaimed with a restraining smile, "you needn't convince me. Where are they?"
Carol set her cup down and picked up the hatbox. She buried her hand in it, and lifted out the black wallet. As she opened the wallet, Boris got swiftly to his feet and closed a sliding wall door. He walked back and bent over her as she unfolded the Meltzer necklace.
"Here it is." She let the diamonds spill over her palm.
"Ahh," he said softly, and held his hand out. Reluctantly she relinquished the diamonds. Boris was no longer a Don Juan. He was a jeweler, a man with a glass eyepiece. He examined the string slowly, scrupulously. The diamonds sparkled like prisms even against his pale fingers. He removed the eyepiece and sat down, still holding the necklace.
"They're fabulous. Absolutely perfect." He looked at them with open pleasure. "There are even five more than I need." He smiled approvingly. "I always expect and get the finest from you, Carol. I won't even bargain. The offer stands as made. But tell me, whose was it, or shouldn't I ask?"
He didn't expect an answer, but revolved the string of diamonds before his eyes. "Perfect, perfect." With a sigh he put the diamonds on the Chinese table and opened a large safe over the fireplace.
He turned to her. "Very traditional, you know. Jewel thieves never dream of looking for a safe over a mantle. They think they've cracked all of those in existence. Of course," he was pulling a suitcase out of the wall safe, "they do get refilled."
He returned to Carol. The open suitcase revealed stacks of bound paper money. "It's all there as agreed, dear." Carol quickly transferred the bills into the hatbox.
"I'm glad you're so pleased, Boris. If prices hold, we should be able to keep happy right through Spring."
"I'm sure of it, my dear," he agreed rising. He took a small chamois bag from his pocket and dropped the necklace into it. Looking at Carol, he pulled the cord tight. Then he helped her into her coat. She picked up her gloves and hat and the light-heavy box.
"Forgive me for being in a rush, Carol," he said as they walked toward the door, his hand at her elbow. "There's a bit of rearranging to do." He lightly tapped the pocket of his coat.
She offered him her hand. "I understand completely."
***
Carol walked unannounced into Phillip's study and found the two men sitting quietly before the fire, their papers and things about them.
The room was heavy with smoke and an atmosphere of intense work.
Phillip rushed up to mix her a drink. "How did it go, darling?"
"Great." She walked to Harry and handed him a key. "It's in a safety deposit box at the National City Bank, 43rd and Madison, under the name of Richard Cutter. It's the full count in twenties, fifties, and hundreds."
Phillip handed her the drink, and Harry, dropping the key lightly into his pocket, studied Carol as she nuzzled tiredly against Phillip. She looked like a puppy that has retrieved the rubber ball and wants to be petted.
"Let's have a little celebration," Phillip suggested.
"The treat's on Harry," Carol announced.
"What's on Harry?"
"The treat."
Harry ignored Phillip. "Anything you want Carol, you can put anything you want on me." And the three of them were silent.