1973 - Have a Change of Scene Read online

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘Don’t fuss, Sydney. The flight was fine.’

  But he wouldn’t leave it alone. First, he ordered a double dry martini for me, and when the maître d’ had gone he asked questions about my health, what I had been doing with myself and finally if I had missed him.

  I was used to his buzzing and finally cut him short.

  ‘Look, Sydney, let’s get down to business. I’m a little tired, and after dinner I want to go to bed, so don’t let’s waste time about my health.’

  The dry martini arrived and Sydney then ordered caviar, a lobster soufflé and champagne.

  ‘Will that be all right, Larry?’ he asked. ‘It’s light and nourishing and you will sleep well on it.’

  I said it would be fine.

  ‘So she wants to sell the necklace?’ I said when the maître d’ had gone away, snapping his fingers at two waiters to ensure we got top service.

  ‘She came in yesterday quivering like a jelly,’ Sydney said. ‘I’ve known the poor thing for years, and she regards me as one of her closest friends. She confessed to me she just had to have a large sum of money and Henry mustn’t know. I thought at first she was going to put the bite on me, and my brain was simply spinning to think of an excuse, but she came right out with it. She had to sell the necklace, and Henry must - repeat - must not know. What would I give her for it?’

  ‘Gambling again?’

  ‘She didn’t say, but of course she must be in the hole for thousands. Of course, as soon as I knew what was in the wind, I enveloped myself in a smoke screen. I said you would have to deal with the sale. You were my diamond man and you could be relied on to be as silent as the tomb. I said you were out of town, but as soon as you came back I would ask you to call on her. The poor thing nearly peed herself. She said she couldn’t wait. When would you be back? It was terribly, terribly urgent. I said I would try to get you back tonight, and we left it at that. Well, you’re back. Will you see her tomorrow morning, Larry? You have no idea the state she’s in. She’s a nice, silly stupid and I hate to see her suffer. You will see her, won’t you?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  The caviar arrived, and while we were buttering the toast I went on, ‘You have no idea how much she wants?’

  ‘I kept my little mouth shut about that. I didn’t want to spoil your ploy. I didn’t ask questions. It’s all yours, Larry.’

  I spread the caviar on the toast.

  ‘This could be tricky, Sydney,’ I said. ‘You realise, of course, the necklace will have to be broken up? We couldn’t hope to sell it as it is. Publicity would start up again and if Plessington saw a photo of some other woman wearing the necklace, Mrs. P. would be shot down. I’ve been thinking about this in the plane. We could do a hell of a deal for ourselves: we might even sell those diamonds for two million dollars, but it would have to be worked carefully.’

  Sydney’s eyes bulged.

  ‘Two million?’

  ‘The way I see it is this: I go talk to Mrs. P. I explain that if she is willing for us to sell the necklace as it stands, we will pay her a million, eight hundred thousand - what she paid for it. From what you tell me - and I’ll underline that the resale of the necklace will receive the same press treatment as when she bought it - once she knows this, she will be too scared to let us sell it as it is. Over that hurdle, I will explain to her the necklace will lose a lot of its value once it is broken up. I will tell her it will mean trying to sell the stones separately, and we couldn’t offer her more than nine hundred thousand. half the original price. If she agrees to this - and she might - then you pay her nine hundred thousand, and we have the necklace.’ I held up my hand as he was about to interrupt. ‘Let me finish. You must design a diamond collar that will take all Mrs. P.’s diamonds. I’ll get Chan to make up the collar and I’ll look around for someone either in South America or India or the Middle East and unload the collar on whoever it is for two million. You will then be making one million one hundred thousand dollars profit which seems to me to be a pretty nice deal.’

  He sat back, his caviar forgotten. For a long moment he stared at me.

  ‘But we can’t do that!’ He looked shocked. ‘We can’t make a profit like that out of that poor, poor thing.’

  ‘This is business, Sydney,’ I said, spreading more caviar. ‘You ask Tom if we can’t do it.’

  He threw up his hands.

  ‘Tom has the soul of a computer and a heart of a cash register.’

  ‘That’s why you are eating caviar.’

  He munched for a few moments while he brooded.

  ‘You really think you can sell this necklace for two million?’

  ‘Why not?’ I was sure I couldn’t, but this was the bait I had decided to dangle under Sydney’s nose.

  ‘Even the Burtons might buy it for that, but it would be up to you to design a collar that would make every other diamond collar yet designed second class.’

  His eyes brightened. This was the kind of challenge Sydney loved.

  ‘I’m sure I could do that! What a wonderful idea, Larry! What a clever puss you are!’

  I saw I had him sold and I began to relax. We paused to drink some champagne, then I edged on to the really thin ice.

  ‘This will take time, Sydney. I’ll have to fly to Hong Kong. Chan will take at least a month to make the collar. It’ll take at least three or even five months to sell the collar. In the meantime what happens to Mrs. P.?’

  He gaped at me. This hadn’t occurred to him.

  ‘I knew it was too good to be true! She can’t wait! I don’t believe she can wait a week!’

  The waiter came and took away the plates. We both sat silent until the lobster soufflé was served and the waiter had withdrawn.

  I then dropped my little bomb: not knowing if it would go off or not.

  ‘As I see it, Sydney, if we’re going to do this deal, you’ll have to lend her the money until the collar is sold.’

  His eyes opened wide.

  ‘Nine hundred thousand?’ His voice went up into a squeak.

  ‘You lend it to her at six percent and finally you sell the necklace for two million,’ I said. ‘Ask Tom if this isn’t an outstanding deal.’

  ‘But I can’t afford to lend her all that money!’

  ‘I’m not saying you lend her the money. The firm lends it to her.’

  ‘Tom would never, never lend anyone anything even if it was Nixon!’

  ‘Okay, so you lend the money. Your bank will give you an overdraft. What have you to lose? You will get the necklace. Even if I can’t get two million for it - and I think I can - I’ll get what she paid for it. Even at that you will be doubling your money. Come on, Sydney this is a chance in a lifetime!’

  He forked some of the soufflé into his mouth while he thought, and I saw a sudden greedy look come into his eyes.

  ‘Tom needn’t know about this, need he?’ he said. ‘I mean suppose I put up the money - my own personal money - then when you sell the necklace what you get would be my personal money wouldn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right less one percent commission for me.’

  He looked at me a little narrowly. I saw he hadn’t thought of paying me a commission.

  ‘Yes one percent to you,’ and by his expression I saw he was trying to do sums in his head.

  ‘You will give me eighteen thousand dollars and you will deduct Mrs. P.’s nine hundred thousand and you will add Mrs. P.’s six percent on your loan and you will net yourself roughly eight hundred and eighty thousand which seems to me to be a nice profit.’

  He thought some more, then, finally, he said, ‘I’ve got even a better idea, Larry, dear boy. Suppose you try to persuade Mrs. P. to sell the necklace outright for seven hundred and fifty thousand? After all it isn’t her money. I could sell stock to cover this amount, and then the necklace would be mine and I wouldn’t have to worry about Tom, would I? If I did that and you sold the diamonds for two millions, I could make a million
and a quarter. that’s pretty handsome, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to make a profit out of the poor, poor thing,’ I said, trying to look shocked.

  He shifted uneasily.

  ‘After all it was you who said this is business.’ He paused to peer at me. ‘Do you think you could persuade her to sell at that price?’

  ‘No harm in trying.’ I finished the last of the soufflé.

  ‘See what you can do tomorrow, Larry. I’m sure you can pull it off.’ Sydney snapped his fingers at a waiter and ordered coffee. ‘I tell you what I’ll do, you get the necklace for seven hundred and fifty thousand and I’ll give you two percent on the deal. I can’t be fairer than that, can I?’

  ‘And my air ticket to Hong Kong and all expenses,’ I said knowing there would be no Hong Kong.

  ‘Naturally, dear boy.’

  ‘Does Terry know about Mrs. P.?’

  ‘Don’t mention that unspeakable boy! I really must get rid of him!’ Sydney flushed with annoyance.

  ‘He really is becoming quite, quite impossible!’

  ‘Never mind that , does he know?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Are you sure? Mrs. P. came to see you. Didn’t he want to know what she wanted?’

  ‘We are not even speaking to each other!’

  ‘He couldn’t have listened?’ I was nervous of Terry. He knew too much about diamonds for safety.

  ‘No, no! When Mrs. P. came in, he was busy with a client.’

  ‘Okay. He mustn’t know, Sydney. In fact, no one must know, or Tom will get to hear about it. Strictly speaking, this deal should go through the firm. Tom would have reason to complain if he knew what we are planning to do.’

  Sydney again shifted uneasily. He knew this as well as I did.

  ‘If I buy the necklace with my own money,’ he said a little defiantly, ‘it is nothing to do with Tom.’

  ‘But Mrs. P. is a client of the firm,’ I pointed out. I wanted to give him a guilt complex. ‘Now look, Sydney, so as to keep the firm out of it, you had better design the collar at home and not at the office. If I get the necklace you had better keep it at home and not at the office.’

  He wasn’t to know it, but this was vital to my plan.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Yes we’ll keep it strictly between ourselves.’ He looked trustingly at me. ‘You will help with the collar, Larry?’

  He had a goddamn nerve, I thought. He knew, without me he couldn’t make the collar nor persuade Mrs. P. to part with her necklace at this outrageous price, yet he was planning to make himself an enormous profit, keeping Tom Luce out of it and only offering me a miserable two percent.

  ‘You know you can rely on me,’ I said.

  During the flight in the air-taxi and while thinking how I could steal the necklace in safety, I kept having qualms about Sydney because if my plan worked, he had to be the loser, but now he was showing his greed, my qualms vanished.

  If he had said to me, ‘Look, Larry, let’s split fifty-fifty. You do all the work and I’ll put up the capital,’

  I wouldn’t have gone through with it, but as he was so goddamn greedy and selfish, only offering me two percent, I there and then made up my mind to go ahead with my plan. He now didn’t give a damn about twisting Mrs. P.’s arm, so why should I care about twisting his?

  * * *

  The scene I had with Mrs. P. is best forgotten. She didn’t actually call Sydney a thief, but she implied it. She wept and wrung her fat hands. She stormed around the big lounge, making herself look ridiculous.

  She accused me of lying, reminding me that I had told her diamonds lived for ever and never lost their value. To this I reminded her the necklace would have to be broken up, and if she could wait for a year or so I would get at least a million and a half for the diamonds and platinum, but as she wanted the money at once this was the best Sydney could do.

  Finally, she calmed down. After all, three-quarters of a million dollars when it isn’t your loss isn’t to be sneezed at. She hadn’t thought that if we tried to sell the necklace as it was, there would be publicity, and this finally brought her to heel.

  She said she would accept the cheque I had ready which Sydney had given me, but she added she would never deal with Luce & Fremlin again.

  I made the usual tactful remarks, but I couldn’t care less.

  Then she came up with something so unexpected that for a long moment it threw me.

  ‘The least you can do is to give me the glass necklace,’ she said. ‘It’s the least you can do! If ever my husband wants to see the necklace I can show him the imitation. He won’t know the difference.’

  She wasn’t to know, of course, but the glass necklace was the pivot on which my plan revolved.

  Without it, my plan to make myself two million dollars just didn’t exist.

  After Sydney had delivered the genuine necklace to Mrs. P., five years ago, he had asked me about the glass replica.

  There was a mean streak in Sydney, and he hated wasting a dollar. I said it was in the safe and what about it? He asked if I couldn’t send it back to Chan and get a rebate on it? Would Chan give us a credit for it - a possible three thousand dollars? What did we want with a glass replica?

  The necklace had been a creation of which I was proud. I had had some luck on the stock market at the time and was feeling wealthy. I said I would return the replica to Chan and ask him what he would offer, but I didn’t do that. I kept the necklace as a souvenir. When Sydney asked what had happened, I said Chan had paid me two thousand five hundred dollars for it, and I gave him my personal cheque.

  Now, here was Mrs. P. asking for the replica.

  After a moment, I said that it had been broken up and the stones used for other mock-ups.

  She nearly blew her stack at hearing this and insisted that we should get another imitation made at once. I said I would, of course, arrange this for her, but she must realise this would take at least three months. She had to be content with that.

  We went together in her Rolls to her bank, and she got the necklace from the safe deposit bank. It was in a plush leather box lined with black velvet. I hadn’t seen the necklace for some four years. Its beauty made me draw in a sharp breath. I handed her the cheque, and she handed me the necklace.

  She nearly fell up the stairs from the vault to pay the cheque in. I left her talking to the manager and took a taxi back to my apartment.

  I unlocked my wall safe and took out the glass necklace. I laid the replica and the genuine necklaces side by side on the table and studied them.

  Sydney was strictly a designer. He was no diamond expert, and I was sure he wouldn’t know which was which. Chan had done a marvellous job, even Terry might be fooled until he examined the stones, then, of course, he would know, but Terry wasn’t having the chance of examining them. I had taken care of that hurdle.

  I put the glass necklace into the leather case and the genuine necklace into the plastic case which I put in my safe.

  Then I called Sydney at the shop. I told him everything was fine. He buzzed as usual like a bee trapped in a bottle, said for me to meet him at his penthouse in half an hour.

  Sydney’s penthouse was magnificent. It overlooked the sea. It had a vast living room, tastefully decorated, four bedrooms, a swimming pool on the terrace, a fountain in the hall and all the gimmicks a rich queer knew how to use.

  He was waiting for me as I arrived.

  ‘How did she take it?’ he wanted to know, leading me into the big room, eyeing the brown paper parcel I was carrying.

  ‘As you might expect. She didn’t exactly call you a thief, but that’s what she implied. She said she would never darken our doors again.’

  Sydney sighed.

  ‘I thought the poor thing might react that way. Well, we must be brave about it. After all, she hasn’t spent anything with us for the past few years.’ He continued to stare at the parcel. ‘Is that it?’

  This was the mome
nt. I moved into a patch of sunlight, stripped off the brown paper and opened the case. The sunlight gave a sparkle to the glass, and Sydney gaped at the necklace.

  ‘It’s marvellous, Larry! It really is marvellous! Clever you! And now, I must get down to work.’ He took the case from me, looked again at the necklace, then closed the case. The first, most important test seemed to have succeeded.

  ‘I’ll get out some designs and then we’ll discuss them. I’ve got the weekend ahead of me.’

  ‘That reminds me, Sydney, I’ve left my car at Luceville. I’ll fly up there tomorrow and bring it back. Okay for me to take Monday off?’

  ‘Of course! I’ll have something we can work on by then.’ I watched him walk over to a Picasso, take it down and open the wall safe which the picture concealed. I knew this safe. It was highly complicated and sophisticated: not the kind of safe you can get into without getting a load of law in your lap. He put the case into the safe, shut the safe and rehung the picture. He beamed at me. ‘Keep Tuesday evening free, Larry. Come here. We’ll have a little supper together and then we can go over my designs. say at eight o’clock?’

  ‘Fine. Okay, Sydney, I’ll get back to the shop.’

  On the way back, sitting in a taxi, I thought in less than twenty-four hours I would be seeing Rhea.

  SIX

  Soon after 11.00, I pulled up outside the Morgans’ bungalow. The front door stood open, but otherwise there was no sign of life.

  Leaving the car, I walked across the rough grass and paused to look into the sitting room.

  Rhea was sitting at the table, a newspaper spread out before her. She looked up, her green eyes quizzing.

  The sight of her brought back this tormenting lust I had for her. God! I thought, this is a woman! The most exciting, the most devilish, the most desirable woman in the world! She had on the same cheap cotton dress and the same cheap blue beads and she looked the symbol of decadent lust.

  ‘You?’ She leaned back in the chair. ‘What do you want, Cheapie?’

  This insane rage I couldn’t control surged up in me. I took three quick steps forward and slapped her face, sending her jerking back.