18mm Blues by Gerald A Browne Page A

more.”
    â€œMaybe. Maybe I’d agree with you if I had them here for another look, but as I remember what they were, the fair figure is twenty-five.”
    Grady was quite sure he could eventually get thirty a carat from someone. He could also memo the emeralds to Lawler at thirty. That was send them to him fully insured by way of Wells Fargo Armored Delivery. From the moment Lawler signed for them they’d be his responsibility. Grady decided against that because Lawler would probably get stuck in ambivalence again.
    â€œTake into account how long we’ve been doing business, you and me,” Lawler said. “Twelve years.”
    â€œTen.”
    â€œTwelve with the two when you were in New York.”
    Lawler was right. It had been twelve years. Grady had brought him as a client to HH. The firm had done well with Lawler, who bought big and paid promptly.
    â€œAll right, Grady, I’ll tell you,” Lawler went on, “although I’m embarrassed to say it. These emeralds, I won’t make on them. They’re not for a client, they’re for my wife.”
    Too often better goods such as these suddenly made certain dealers generous to their wives. It was, nine times or more out of ten, bullshit in order to get a lower, personal price. However, Grady couldn’t recall Lawler ever resorting to it.
    â€œDid I mention I got married again?” Lawler asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThought I did.”
    â€œI didn’t even know you were divorced.”
    â€œPriscilla died a year ago last fall.”
    â€œSorry to hear that.” Grady hadn’t ever met Priscilla, but Lawler had raved a lot about her, lopsided loving raves.
    â€œMy present wife, Jessica, is much younger, which, of course, is edifying for me. You know what I mean.”
    â€œSure, edifying.”
    â€œI want to show appreciation, do something really special for her, something that’ll knock her out.”
    Four hundred thousand worth of emeralds should do it, Grady thought cynically. Lawler, now in his midsixties, was having to buy his way, and considering these emeralds for this Jessica, there might be some matinees but no half fares. Now that he understood the circumstances, Grady was all the more certain he could get thirty thousand a carat from Lawler. Instead he said, “Tell you what, Fred, inasmuch as you have a new and, I’m sure, beautiful young wife…”
    â€œShe’s twenty-five.”
    â€œâ€¦ and because of all the future happiness you’ve got coming with her, you should have the emeralds at just that … twenty-five. Do you need terms?”
    â€œNo. I’ll overnight you a check for the full amount. Four hundred, right?”
    â€œFour hundred, done.”
    When Lawler was off, Grady sat for a long moment with his gaze fixed on the gray nothing of the wall opposite his desk. Since leaving home that morning he’d managed to keep Gayle contained in a compartment back a ways from the front of his mind. But now she was rattling the gate of it furiously. If she got out she’d cause devastation.
    He reinforced the gate with distraction. The briefkes, the sales report sheet. On the latter he included the four hundred thousand now forthcoming from Lawler. That increased the total to the more prideful figure $1,095,800.
    Then there was his leather-bound agenda and the notes to himself he’d jotted in it. He went through them. Without looking up he said to Doris, “Among the pearls we have on hand are some ten, ten and a halfs, pinkish white. Will you get them out for me, please?”
    Doris went to the vault across the hall. She returned empty-handed. “No ten, ten and a halfs.”
    â€œYou sure? There were six strands. Kumuras. I noticed them myself just before I left on my trip.”
    â€œI believe Harold sold those yesterday.”
    An ironic grunt from Grady. “They’ve been lying in there six months and now that I