Lenny in Love by Steven Wander - written version
Posted by Reader at 2/8/2008 3:06 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: pool short story jewelry ambulances wholesale jewelry insiders call girls commuters
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: pool short story jewelry ambulances wholesale jewelry insiders call girls commuters
LENNY IN LOVE © 2001
“Call me…Just…call me.”
He hoped to sound alluring. He wanted to say something witty, to sparkle, to be original, enticing. He felt this need to find exactly the right beginning.
“It’s me,” he managed after a thoughtful pause. “Lenny, Lenny Goldinstine. We met at that 25-karat club diner. You remember? I do! We have to talk. I admit it. I made a mistake. I really gotta see you again. I’m desperate. Call me!…Please….”
The disembodied voice on the answering machine, heard against a background of softly modulated music, the song ‘con te partiro’ (‘I will leave with you’), belonged to a young woman, he knew, a very beautiful woman. Her sweet accented soprano urged, beckoned even. “Per piacere, tell me your name. Leave me the telephone. And maybe — is possible — I will be, come si dieci, in your touch.” Her words ended with a deep sigh, longingly evoked, and were followed directly by the “beep.”
He recognized that voice. In his mind’s eye he saw her as she breathed. He vividly recalled her touch, that sigh accompanied by the sight and feel of her heaving chest. She was simply too gorgeous, too desirable, and probably – there was no doubt – too expensive. What was left to say?
“Call me, ‘Schmuck’,” he voiced to himself. “She’ll never telephone.” He considered redialing. It was even less likely she’d pick up. There was nothing left to do. He put the car phone back in its cradle.
He knew it was wrong. How could he have been so stupid? He never should have offered her cash. It was all perfectly clear to him now. Those hundred dollar bills just weren’t enough. He should have given her a personal check, a really large check, one with plenty of zeros. Why hadn’t he realized he was up against investment bankers and instantaires, all those Wall Street tycoons? The draft shoulda been enough money to make those electric azure eyes bug right out of her head. So what if his account was overdrawn. She couldn’t know that. She didn’t look the type to make a quick exit from the party and try to cash it right away. In that dress, Lenny guessed, no more than spun yarn contoured to her body, she couldn’t rush anywhere, but what if she did? Lenny always planned for contingencies. Instantly he knew what he’d do. He’d lay the blame on his bookkeeper, offer her another, drawn this time on an out-of-state bank requiring deposit, equally worthless but probably not returned for five working days. It’d be weeks, at least two, before it all played out. Right now he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was everything to him. A month from today – if past results are any guarantee of future performance – she’d be a forgotten memory.
He was anxious. He looked at his watch, the one for work, a stainless steel and 18kt gold Audemars Piguet, very expensive. He realized he was going to be late for his appointment. Now he was in a hurry to get to the office. Traffic on the Long Island Expressway this time of day, as usual, was awful. It was always awful, no matter the hour. As far as he could see, there was an unbroken line of bumpers, probably stretching all the way to the Midtown tunnel. He pounded the horn, smashing his fist against the hub of the steering wheel with rage and impatience. He jerked the flashers for the headlights, sending his annoyance in pulses directly to the rearview mirrors of drivers in front of him. Traffic peeled slowly to either side like a worn zipper on a tattered jacket, reluctantly and uncertainly. Lenny’s threshold had passed. He was getting out of this jam – right now. He honked furiously. He ignited the turret lights on the roof, rotating red and white warnings to the cars on all sides of him. He barely nudged forward as neighboring vehicles jostled to find space where none had existed previously. Lenny fumed. This could be a matter of life and death. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and he wasn’t waiting any more. He grabbed his Koss headphones, turned the CD player to Joplin’s ‘Pearl’ and set the sirens off. The high-pitched scream shocked the cars around him. Those ahead exploded out of his way. He grabbed the far left lane of the Expressway and roared past the stalled and still traffic – lights blinking, horn blowing and sirens whirring. Commuting to work had finally become a pleasure again. To and from his office on glittering Fifth Avenue, the address of Dior and Fendi, Bvlgari and Tiffany, Lenny drove an ambulance.
Lenny acquired his commute car after a client with nursing homes complained how the HMO’s were squeezing his business. He had to shrink his fleet of ambulances. Lenny offered to buy an obsolete model without all the very fancy emergency medical gear. It came with New York State certification and double “A” tags, and for his chauffeur’s license Lenny needed to guess only 6 out of 10 multiple-choice questions on the art and science of trucking. The name of the company, Red Sea Medical Services, was emblazoned on all four sides of the ambulance. Like the vehicles of other Hassidic medical transport, the ambulance was dedicated to the memory of three benefactors - all of whom died in transit. Lenny kept the Jewish blessings but changed the names to those of world famous killers: Typhoid Mary, Son of Sam and that slayer of men’s hearts, Angelina Jolie. Despite having forgotten most of his Hebrew, he had no troubling translating ‘Son of Sam’. It was ‘Ben Schmuel’.
At the Midtown tunnel he commandeered the E-Z pass lane and crossed without slowing (or paying) through the toll. In the grid-locked Manhattan traffic, his ambulance sliced between stopped vehicles, blaring its way down crowded one-way streets with cars pulling aside and trucks giving up their double parking to let it pass. With English sophistication he was even capable of navigating major thoroughfares on the opposite, the left-hand side of the road.
Whenever Lenny blasted his way at high speed through the city or down the breakdown shoulder of the interstate with normal traffic slowed to a stop-and-go, he felt and looked like a modern Moses. To the other drivers his wake of dust and sand and exhaust fumes was a cloud by day, his red flashing roof lights a torch by night. Since his first crossing of the East River, an unimpeded exodus at the height of the rush hour, he never once doubted this was the only way to drive in New York.
Lenny parked on the far East Side a few long blocks from work. He avoided the pricey garages off Fifth Avenue on side streets between Madison and Sixth. After some hunting, he had located the perfect Manhattan parking spot only a short walk away. Months ago he discovered he could leave his vehicle in the lot unmolested, never once towed away or even a costly ticket. It was certainly convenient, and whatever the time of day or night he always managed to find a vacant slot. What’s more, the price could not be beat. In New York where rates for ground level parking could surpass one thousand dollars a month, Lenny successfully parked for free. Lenny left his ambulance right next to ‘admissions’ at the Manhattan Hospital for Incurable Diseases.
It was serendipity when he heard their radio jingle which stood out among the welter of new advertisements for medical services. After announcing with trumpet fanfare the river view address and daily smorgasbord of pain medications on demand, a chipper-sounding registered nurse in the full bloom of health introduced herself, New York license # 271828, and asserted, “It’s the right place for you when the prognosis is poor and the insurance is good. Major Medical, Medicare, Medicaid, Diner’s Club.”
Now at rest, Lenny checked his hair in the mirror, thick and combed straight back with mousse, flashed a signature smile of perfect teeth, tugged his tie straight and smoothed his shirt collar. Last he grabbed his overcoat hanging from the empty gun rack behind the front seat and before leaving slid it on. For his commute he had purchased a white leather ankle-length duster sans fringe at Ermenegildo Zegna. As he strode across the hospital lot, his Armani suit under wraps, Lenny blended right in with regular EMT personnel in his own version of their long white laboratory coats. Among the paramedics and emergency vehicles, Lenny in his designer cowhide and his ambulance with caduceus and blue crosses looked right at home.
“Nice threads…looking very good. Awdacious,” singsang an Hispanic orderly nearby who was leaning against one support for the canopy over the hospital entrance. He reached out and fingered the soft fine-grained leather of Lenny’s sleeve and nodded favorably.
Lenny smelled the sweet acrid marijuana smoke exhaled from a hand-rolled cigarette. “Thanks,” and began moving on.
“You wanna trade coats?” demanded a louder grating voice.
Lenny turned to stand still and erect; he understood that people died in New York for their bomber jackets. He freed his hands from his pockets. “Sure,” was his answer. He wondered if he could avoid a fistfight without total capitulation. At the very least it meant soiling his clothes. “Sure,” he repeated. “Anytime at all…once it’s battle-stained like yours.” He eyed the blotches of human waste – dull reds, yellows and browns in an assortment of blood, bile and excrement bleached pale by frequent commercial washings.
“Mine here’s real nice. It has the hospital insignia. See.” He touched the raised red and white patch stitched to the breast pocket. “What’s that?” He asked and pointed to the lapel emblem on the white duster.
Lenny immediately reidentified Zegna’s karate kicking black-belted kangaroo logo. “This is very special. It’s the certification for advanced lifesaving. You see, if you’re dead, I’m the guy.” Lenny pointed his finger gun-barrel style and, popping his lips surprisingly loud, drew down his trigger finger.
Gesturing large, the orderly shielded himself with one arm and with his cigarette hand aimed back, laughing the whole time.
Lenny stayed stock-still, drew out his wallet, crumpled a fifty, and shoved in deep in the guy’s shirt pocket. He read his picture identification. “You do me a favor, José Rivera. You keep an eye on my wheels.”
“Si, mi amigo. No problema, you da’ man.”
“Right. Thanks. I gotta tell ya, you learned an important lesson today.” He confided with a chuckle.
“Waz that?”
Lenny snuck a glance at the billboard across the way with a common public service message. “Don’t say ‘no’ to thugs.”
On nice days Lenny enjoyed a stroll through midtown. This afternoon he was in a hurry. Just before hailing a cab, he looked back once over his shoulder to see José making the acquaintance of U.S. Grant and swaying to unheard music. With the joint at his lips he raised his free hand and “v’d” Lenny for ‘victory’, or was it ‘peace’. Lenny shrugged.
His destination was 55th and Fifth where Goldinstine & Sons, the upstairs fine jewelry salon his grandfather had founded, was located on the fourteenth floor. The keys to the front door were in his pocket when he rang the bell. After a glance at the closed circuit television monitor the receptionist buzzed him through and stood up to take his coat.
As he turned his back to her, she leaned forward on tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Your three o’clock is already here.”
“Now! Where?”
“The small office.”
“Damn.” This meeting with ‘Extravagant Gems’, a major diamond dealer, was important. Thoughts of the young woman still troubled his concentration, and Lenny wished he had time to prepare himself properly. The oversight could be very costly. He walked quickly through the showroom, shielding his eyes and chastising himself for taking off his sunglasses. Custom-designed chandeliers hung from the ceiling among a checkerboard of recessed lighting fixtures. An idea lifted from a competitor’s Paris boutique, the bulbs of these crystal luminaires hung below the cut glass in order to shower the showroom with the maximum of direct and reflected light. During hours of opening the light switches on rheostats were all turned to high.
At eye level, separated by a minimum of trim, showcases alternated with mirrors so clients viewed either the jewelry for sale or themselves, the two things that attracted them most. The sales staff of young women wore exclusively black gowns, suitable for evening, with appropriately sheer black stockings, the company dress code. Their young trim bodies were startlingly beautiful, and gold and especially diamonds in platinum would never look better than against their dark simple silhouettes. Clothing colors didn’t conflict with decor, and their spaghetti straps, decollates and puff skirts lent an air of formality to the interior and set the tone for high prices. Everything in public view from the deep pile carpets to the antique tables to the Georgian sterling silver urn at the entrance with fresh cut flowers daily said ‘rich’.
Lenny entered a private office where a single north-facing window spread an even natural light throughout. Winter or summer, morning or evening, cloud-cover or not, the level varied little. Without highlights or shadows this was honest illumination for gemstones, betraying their true character, a light to buy by. The halogen spots in the ceiling made everything sparkle with supernatural luster. The bulbs were extinguished now, reserved for private purchasers when their brilliance made anything shine with the illusion of beauty.
“Kalesh, my good friend, my buddy.”
The corpulent, dark skinned Indian acknowledged Lenny, slightly dipping his chin and touching the palms of his hands together. “Bokrish, I am Bokrish. Kalesh is my older brother.”
“Of course, of course, no matter, my mistake.”
Lenny hated making errors; but he would swear, up and down, that the two brothers did – sort of – look alike, and he was absolutely certain they smelled the same. Like inhabitants of the tropics everywhere, they eschewed bathing, sweated profusely, and rarely, Lenny imagined, had their clothes laundered.
“It’s good to see ya, buddy.” Introductions over, courtesies done, now down to work, Lenny took a seat opposite at the table.
Bokrish bowed again and touched his palms. With studied slowness he pushed back the sides of his soiled suit jacket and began unbuttoning the elephant skin vest both he and his brother always wore when carrying valuables. Lenny studied the gray and grainy skin with its deep veining, noting the ivory tusk buttons held on with coarse black elephant hair thread.
“100% elephant, Indian elephant, very rare,” the stone dealer said as he extracted a well-worn leather purse that remained attached to the pachyderm by a solid link chain. “I have, very special. Very special. I show first you, now.” He opened the leather case with sacramental care. “These are my children. I offer them you.”
Lenny nodded.
Bokrish took a large parcel paper in his hand and began unfolding it in the usual way, first one side, then the top, next tapping the contents to the bottom and finally after acknowledging his audience of one, he began pouring the gemstones onto the leather tabletop. Diamonds! Brilliant, luminous, sparkling as only they can. But strange, unexpected, not white, not transparent, not clear to the eye. Colored diamonds! A rainbow of reds, blues, lavenders and grays, greens and pinks, oranges and yellows. These stones were intense, soaked in pigment, vivid. Lenny was truly startled. He had never seen such saturated colors except rarely in the mineralogical collections of museums. The Hope Diamond for instance. Never before did such stones lie in front of him and never in such sizes. Bokrish was right. This was special. There had been rumors of new mining activity in South Asia, but just rumors. There were always rumors from countries with closed borders. No one he trusted had seen the raw crystals, much less polished and finished goods, and he simply dismissed it as idle talk, just fantasy, but not anymore. He thought of the colored diamonds that sold for outrageous prices at auction, in particular, the recent 5.54ct. orange brilliant, nicknamed the ‘Halloween Diamond’, purchased by Harry Winston, Inc. for more than one million dollars, a world record two hundred thirty-eight thousand dollars per carat. Some pumpkin!
Lenny drew a tweezers from his shirt pocket and spread the stones over the table, no stone on top of another. He began his prattle. “Times are so tough. You and I both know you can’t make money in this business anymore, not since they began publishing The Diamond Dealer’s Digest.”
He reserved his venom for this monthly publication that came out on bright red paper to foil duplication. Before color copiers the red background Xeroxed black obscuring the numerical text. Nicknamed for obvious reasons, the ‘Red Rag’, The Digest published the price of a white diamond grouped according to the 4C’s, carat weight, color, clarity and cut. There was a grade for how white it was, how free from imperfections and even for the accuracy of its cutting. On the chart it was so much per carat for this color, this quality and this cut. There was the wholesale asking price for anyone to see. The publisher knew this was information worth taking, and at the bottom of the page was his admonition: “Thou shall not steal - Subscribe.”
Lenny complained, “Everybody knows how much a white diamond costs. How can you make any money?”
“Yes,” the dealer agreed, “very hard. De Beers, they tell you how much a diamond costs, and the ‘Red Rag’ it says what you charge. Business is whor-e-bull.”
“Horrible?”
“Yes,” business is whor-e-bull. Vishnu has forgotten the faithful.”
“Right,” said Lenny, Jewish by birth.
It was regrettable that the cost of white diamonds was fixed, but Lenny also knew there were no established prices for colors like these. This was new territory, and Lenny saw a chance for some real price gouging.
All the while he talked, his tweezers danced among the diamonds, pulling a line of stones from here and a smaller cluster from elsewhere. The movement of his tweezers had the appearance of mindless doodling, but somehow – as if by accident – the larger stones moved to the periphery. The better-made diamonds and the fancy shapes ended up in a group on the fringe of the original pile. In the center were left the weaker colors and smaller sizes. With a final sweep of his tweezers around the edge he separated these outer stones from the center. Two nearly equal piles of diamonds were now side by side on the tabletop.
Bokrish spoke. “Kalesh and I wish to sell all we have. I offer you a very special ‘lot’ price for everything. It is high, I apologize, but for such a parcel not so high. The price per-carat is most reasonable, I assure you. For selection, to pick and chose amongst these my children, to take the brightest and the finest and leave me only cripples and lepers, would be a hardship for which I must ask you at least…” he paused. “The triple.” He looked from the stones to Lenny. “To decide, I think, among such beauties would be most difficult, but the choice, my revered host, is yours. Do you prefer to have all the diamonds from the parcel, my good friend, or do you prefer to choose individual stones.”
Lenny hesitated. The difference was huge: three times the price for selection. Lenny figured that at lot price there was still plenty of room to make serious money. If he cherry-picked the parcel, it was a different matter. It would be much harder.
“Good buddy, we’ve known each other too long. I can’t argue with you over money. My father always said, ‘Never money between friends’. I’ll do whatever you want. Tell me what you want….but…right now it’s just too much goods for me to handle, you see, at one time. Let me take this half.” Lenny’s tweezers ushered one pile of stones to his right, the grouping of larger and better diamonds.
Lenny was counting on tradition. It was practice in the trade when a salesperson saw a large lot split into equal portions right before his eyes to sell half at ‘lot price’. The two companies had done business before, and plus which, and probably more important, the firm was known to pay quickly and when necessary, in cash. For all the usual reasons Lenny expected to get what he wanted.
Bokrish looked Lenny with dead eyes in the face, gleaning little and offering little of his intentions. Then he cracked the tinniest of smiles. “Of course, I accommodate you.” Of all the many nationalities active in the jewelry industry, the Indians were if anything accommodating.
Bokrish bowed again. “As you wish.” And with the back of his hand he pushed the two piles back together. Whereas the two halves had lain side by side before, Bokrish now divided them in the middle up and down. “The half,” he nudged a random grouping towards Lenny.
Staring at the new division mixing better and worse goods, Lenny reconsidered. “You know, if you give me a little help on the price and some time, I could take them all. 20 and 120.” Lenny meant a 20% discount off the lot price and 120 days time for payment, 4 months.
Now the bargaining began. Lenny had one slight advantage in these negotiations. He knew how much these diamonds cost. Bokrish, like other dealers, wrote the cost of his merchandise in code on the outside of the parcel papers. The codes were never hard to decipher. They had to be easy to read or else expensive mistakes happened. Lenny had bought the code from a disgruntled worker in the firm. It required dropping the first and last pair of letters, generally “x’s”, “z’s” and “q’s”, scrabble letters, and then substituting specific integers for the rest. With that information Lenny was able to negotiate from strength. After the preliminaries of finding every reason for now not wanting to buy the diamonds, he made his final offer which afforded Bokrish a small profit; and he held firm to the terms of financing. They settled on 8 and 120. Equal notes due over the next four months at an 8% reduction of the per carat lot price.
“Mazal u’Bracha,” Bokrish concluded. Even the Indians were fluent with the Jewish closing for a deal. “Luck and blessing.”
Lenny pushed the intercom on the speakerphone and summoned his cousin Marlon, second-in-command. Blood more than talent or intelligence explained ties in the jewelry business. Trust mattered most.
Marlon appeared almost instantly. He was above average height and girth. In his puffy face, his features seemed small and undistinguished: thin lips, weak chin, unremarkable eyes. His rush of friendliness, the exuberance of a used-car salesman, did not quite disguise an edgy nervousness. In his haste he had not bothered to put on his sport coat, and his button-down Oxford shirt showed broad gray perspiration stains. It was company policy, Lenny’s policy, that suit jackets were de rigueur with clients but shirtsleeves were perfectly acceptable for dealers.
“Marlon, you know Bok-choy from Extravagant Gems.”
“Bokrish,” responded the seated Indian, chin dipped, palms joined. “Bokrish Char.”
Marlon reached down and shook his clasped hands first with one then both of his. “Nice to meet ya again, Mr. Choy.”
“And I likewise,” countered the diamond merchant, who except for the flutter of an eyebrow betrayed no surprise.
“We just bought these; take a look at ‘em. Check the weights; get Bokrish four promissory notes for these dates and amounts, non-interest bearing. You sign ‘em. I gotta leave.” Lenny handed Marlon the parcel full of diamonds and a scrap of paper with scribbled figures. The bookkeeper would draw up the formal documents.
It was getting late; he had been at work for over an hour. He could count on Marlon seeing the valuables put away, locking the vault, and setting the security alarms, their workday ritual. Lenny searched his messages for any mention of her, and there it was. She returned his call. He ignored the rest along with the list of the day’s sales and cash receipts. His thoughts were on her: the dress she wore, the body that filled it, her face. This was a dream come true. Finally! He had her number and reached for the phone. He couldn’t wait another moment; and if, he got a busy signal or her answering machine, he’d telephone again from the car. Now, he sensed, she was within his reach.
“Call me…Just…call me.”
He hoped to sound alluring. He wanted to say something witty, to sparkle, to be original, enticing. He felt this need to find exactly the right beginning.
“It’s me,” he managed after a thoughtful pause. “Lenny, Lenny Goldinstine. We met at that 25-karat club diner. You remember? I do! We have to talk. I admit it. I made a mistake. I really gotta see you again. I’m desperate. Call me!…Please….”
The disembodied voice on the answering machine, heard against a background of softly modulated music, the song ‘con te partiro’ (‘I will leave with you’), belonged to a young woman, he knew, a very beautiful woman. Her sweet accented soprano urged, beckoned even. “Per piacere, tell me your name. Leave me the telephone. And maybe — is possible — I will be, come si dieci, in your touch.” Her words ended with a deep sigh, longingly evoked, and were followed directly by the “beep.”
He recognized that voice. In his mind’s eye he saw her as she breathed. He vividly recalled her touch, that sigh accompanied by the sight and feel of her heaving chest. She was simply too gorgeous, too desirable, and probably – there was no doubt – too expensive. What was left to say?
“Call me, ‘Schmuck’,” he voiced to himself. “She’ll never telephone.” He considered redialing. It was even less likely she’d pick up. There was nothing left to do. He put the car phone back in its cradle.
He knew it was wrong. How could he have been so stupid? He never should have offered her cash. It was all perfectly clear to him now. Those hundred dollar bills just weren’t enough. He should have given her a personal check, a really large check, one with plenty of zeros. Why hadn’t he realized he was up against investment bankers and instantaires, all those Wall Street tycoons? The draft shoulda been enough money to make those electric azure eyes bug right out of her head. So what if his account was overdrawn. She couldn’t know that. She didn’t look the type to make a quick exit from the party and try to cash it right away. In that dress, Lenny guessed, no more than spun yarn contoured to her body, she couldn’t rush anywhere, but what if she did? Lenny always planned for contingencies. Instantly he knew what he’d do. He’d lay the blame on his bookkeeper, offer her another, drawn this time on an out-of-state bank requiring deposit, equally worthless but probably not returned for five working days. It’d be weeks, at least two, before it all played out. Right now he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was everything to him. A month from today – if past results are any guarantee of future performance – she’d be a forgotten memory.
He was anxious. He looked at his watch, the one for work, a stainless steel and 18kt gold Audemars Piguet, very expensive. He realized he was going to be late for his appointment. Now he was in a hurry to get to the office. Traffic on the Long Island Expressway this time of day, as usual, was awful. It was always awful, no matter the hour. As far as he could see, there was an unbroken line of bumpers, probably stretching all the way to the Midtown tunnel. He pounded the horn, smashing his fist against the hub of the steering wheel with rage and impatience. He jerked the flashers for the headlights, sending his annoyance in pulses directly to the rearview mirrors of drivers in front of him. Traffic peeled slowly to either side like a worn zipper on a tattered jacket, reluctantly and uncertainly. Lenny’s threshold had passed. He was getting out of this jam – right now. He honked furiously. He ignited the turret lights on the roof, rotating red and white warnings to the cars on all sides of him. He barely nudged forward as neighboring vehicles jostled to find space where none had existed previously. Lenny fumed. This could be a matter of life and death. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and he wasn’t waiting any more. He grabbed his Koss headphones, turned the CD player to Joplin’s ‘Pearl’ and set the sirens off. The high-pitched scream shocked the cars around him. Those ahead exploded out of his way. He grabbed the far left lane of the Expressway and roared past the stalled and still traffic – lights blinking, horn blowing and sirens whirring. Commuting to work had finally become a pleasure again. To and from his office on glittering Fifth Avenue, the address of Dior and Fendi, Bvlgari and Tiffany, Lenny drove an ambulance.
Lenny acquired his commute car after a client with nursing homes complained how the HMO’s were squeezing his business. He had to shrink his fleet of ambulances. Lenny offered to buy an obsolete model without all the very fancy emergency medical gear. It came with New York State certification and double “A” tags, and for his chauffeur’s license Lenny needed to guess only 6 out of 10 multiple-choice questions on the art and science of trucking. The name of the company, Red Sea Medical Services, was emblazoned on all four sides of the ambulance. Like the vehicles of other Hassidic medical transport, the ambulance was dedicated to the memory of three benefactors - all of whom died in transit. Lenny kept the Jewish blessings but changed the names to those of world famous killers: Typhoid Mary, Son of Sam and that slayer of men’s hearts, Angelina Jolie. Despite having forgotten most of his Hebrew, he had no troubling translating ‘Son of Sam’. It was ‘Ben Schmuel’.
At the Midtown tunnel he commandeered the E-Z pass lane and crossed without slowing (or paying) through the toll. In the grid-locked Manhattan traffic, his ambulance sliced between stopped vehicles, blaring its way down crowded one-way streets with cars pulling aside and trucks giving up their double parking to let it pass. With English sophistication he was even capable of navigating major thoroughfares on the opposite, the left-hand side of the road.
Whenever Lenny blasted his way at high speed through the city or down the breakdown shoulder of the interstate with normal traffic slowed to a stop-and-go, he felt and looked like a modern Moses. To the other drivers his wake of dust and sand and exhaust fumes was a cloud by day, his red flashing roof lights a torch by night. Since his first crossing of the East River, an unimpeded exodus at the height of the rush hour, he never once doubted this was the only way to drive in New York.
Lenny parked on the far East Side a few long blocks from work. He avoided the pricey garages off Fifth Avenue on side streets between Madison and Sixth. After some hunting, he had located the perfect Manhattan parking spot only a short walk away. Months ago he discovered he could leave his vehicle in the lot unmolested, never once towed away or even a costly ticket. It was certainly convenient, and whatever the time of day or night he always managed to find a vacant slot. What’s more, the price could not be beat. In New York where rates for ground level parking could surpass one thousand dollars a month, Lenny successfully parked for free. Lenny left his ambulance right next to ‘admissions’ at the Manhattan Hospital for Incurable Diseases.
It was serendipity when he heard their radio jingle which stood out among the welter of new advertisements for medical services. After announcing with trumpet fanfare the river view address and daily smorgasbord of pain medications on demand, a chipper-sounding registered nurse in the full bloom of health introduced herself, New York license # 271828, and asserted, “It’s the right place for you when the prognosis is poor and the insurance is good. Major Medical, Medicare, Medicaid, Diner’s Club.”
Now at rest, Lenny checked his hair in the mirror, thick and combed straight back with mousse, flashed a signature smile of perfect teeth, tugged his tie straight and smoothed his shirt collar. Last he grabbed his overcoat hanging from the empty gun rack behind the front seat and before leaving slid it on. For his commute he had purchased a white leather ankle-length duster sans fringe at Ermenegildo Zegna. As he strode across the hospital lot, his Armani suit under wraps, Lenny blended right in with regular EMT personnel in his own version of their long white laboratory coats. Among the paramedics and emergency vehicles, Lenny in his designer cowhide and his ambulance with caduceus and blue crosses looked right at home.
“Nice threads…looking very good. Awdacious,” singsang an Hispanic orderly nearby who was leaning against one support for the canopy over the hospital entrance. He reached out and fingered the soft fine-grained leather of Lenny’s sleeve and nodded favorably.
Lenny smelled the sweet acrid marijuana smoke exhaled from a hand-rolled cigarette. “Thanks,” and began moving on.
“You wanna trade coats?” demanded a louder grating voice.
Lenny turned to stand still and erect; he understood that people died in New York for their bomber jackets. He freed his hands from his pockets. “Sure,” was his answer. He wondered if he could avoid a fistfight without total capitulation. At the very least it meant soiling his clothes. “Sure,” he repeated. “Anytime at all…once it’s battle-stained like yours.” He eyed the blotches of human waste – dull reds, yellows and browns in an assortment of blood, bile and excrement bleached pale by frequent commercial washings.
“Mine here’s real nice. It has the hospital insignia. See.” He touched the raised red and white patch stitched to the breast pocket. “What’s that?” He asked and pointed to the lapel emblem on the white duster.
Lenny immediately reidentified Zegna’s karate kicking black-belted kangaroo logo. “This is very special. It’s the certification for advanced lifesaving. You see, if you’re dead, I’m the guy.” Lenny pointed his finger gun-barrel style and, popping his lips surprisingly loud, drew down his trigger finger.
Gesturing large, the orderly shielded himself with one arm and with his cigarette hand aimed back, laughing the whole time.
Lenny stayed stock-still, drew out his wallet, crumpled a fifty, and shoved in deep in the guy’s shirt pocket. He read his picture identification. “You do me a favor, José Rivera. You keep an eye on my wheels.”
“Si, mi amigo. No problema, you da’ man.”
“Right. Thanks. I gotta tell ya, you learned an important lesson today.” He confided with a chuckle.
“Waz that?”
Lenny snuck a glance at the billboard across the way with a common public service message. “Don’t say ‘no’ to thugs.”
On nice days Lenny enjoyed a stroll through midtown. This afternoon he was in a hurry. Just before hailing a cab, he looked back once over his shoulder to see José making the acquaintance of U.S. Grant and swaying to unheard music. With the joint at his lips he raised his free hand and “v’d” Lenny for ‘victory’, or was it ‘peace’. Lenny shrugged.
His destination was 55th and Fifth where Goldinstine & Sons, the upstairs fine jewelry salon his grandfather had founded, was located on the fourteenth floor. The keys to the front door were in his pocket when he rang the bell. After a glance at the closed circuit television monitor the receptionist buzzed him through and stood up to take his coat.
As he turned his back to her, she leaned forward on tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Your three o’clock is already here.”
“Now! Where?”
“The small office.”
“Damn.” This meeting with ‘Extravagant Gems’, a major diamond dealer, was important. Thoughts of the young woman still troubled his concentration, and Lenny wished he had time to prepare himself properly. The oversight could be very costly. He walked quickly through the showroom, shielding his eyes and chastising himself for taking off his sunglasses. Custom-designed chandeliers hung from the ceiling among a checkerboard of recessed lighting fixtures. An idea lifted from a competitor’s Paris boutique, the bulbs of these crystal luminaires hung below the cut glass in order to shower the showroom with the maximum of direct and reflected light. During hours of opening the light switches on rheostats were all turned to high.
At eye level, separated by a minimum of trim, showcases alternated with mirrors so clients viewed either the jewelry for sale or themselves, the two things that attracted them most. The sales staff of young women wore exclusively black gowns, suitable for evening, with appropriately sheer black stockings, the company dress code. Their young trim bodies were startlingly beautiful, and gold and especially diamonds in platinum would never look better than against their dark simple silhouettes. Clothing colors didn’t conflict with decor, and their spaghetti straps, decollates and puff skirts lent an air of formality to the interior and set the tone for high prices. Everything in public view from the deep pile carpets to the antique tables to the Georgian sterling silver urn at the entrance with fresh cut flowers daily said ‘rich’.
Lenny entered a private office where a single north-facing window spread an even natural light throughout. Winter or summer, morning or evening, cloud-cover or not, the level varied little. Without highlights or shadows this was honest illumination for gemstones, betraying their true character, a light to buy by. The halogen spots in the ceiling made everything sparkle with supernatural luster. The bulbs were extinguished now, reserved for private purchasers when their brilliance made anything shine with the illusion of beauty.
“Kalesh, my good friend, my buddy.”
The corpulent, dark skinned Indian acknowledged Lenny, slightly dipping his chin and touching the palms of his hands together. “Bokrish, I am Bokrish. Kalesh is my older brother.”
“Of course, of course, no matter, my mistake.”
Lenny hated making errors; but he would swear, up and down, that the two brothers did – sort of – look alike, and he was absolutely certain they smelled the same. Like inhabitants of the tropics everywhere, they eschewed bathing, sweated profusely, and rarely, Lenny imagined, had their clothes laundered.
“It’s good to see ya, buddy.” Introductions over, courtesies done, now down to work, Lenny took a seat opposite at the table.
Bokrish bowed again and touched his palms. With studied slowness he pushed back the sides of his soiled suit jacket and began unbuttoning the elephant skin vest both he and his brother always wore when carrying valuables. Lenny studied the gray and grainy skin with its deep veining, noting the ivory tusk buttons held on with coarse black elephant hair thread.
“100% elephant, Indian elephant, very rare,” the stone dealer said as he extracted a well-worn leather purse that remained attached to the pachyderm by a solid link chain. “I have, very special. Very special. I show first you, now.” He opened the leather case with sacramental care. “These are my children. I offer them you.”
Lenny nodded.
Bokrish took a large parcel paper in his hand and began unfolding it in the usual way, first one side, then the top, next tapping the contents to the bottom and finally after acknowledging his audience of one, he began pouring the gemstones onto the leather tabletop. Diamonds! Brilliant, luminous, sparkling as only they can. But strange, unexpected, not white, not transparent, not clear to the eye. Colored diamonds! A rainbow of reds, blues, lavenders and grays, greens and pinks, oranges and yellows. These stones were intense, soaked in pigment, vivid. Lenny was truly startled. He had never seen such saturated colors except rarely in the mineralogical collections of museums. The Hope Diamond for instance. Never before did such stones lie in front of him and never in such sizes. Bokrish was right. This was special. There had been rumors of new mining activity in South Asia, but just rumors. There were always rumors from countries with closed borders. No one he trusted had seen the raw crystals, much less polished and finished goods, and he simply dismissed it as idle talk, just fantasy, but not anymore. He thought of the colored diamonds that sold for outrageous prices at auction, in particular, the recent 5.54ct. orange brilliant, nicknamed the ‘Halloween Diamond’, purchased by Harry Winston, Inc. for more than one million dollars, a world record two hundred thirty-eight thousand dollars per carat. Some pumpkin!
Lenny drew a tweezers from his shirt pocket and spread the stones over the table, no stone on top of another. He began his prattle. “Times are so tough. You and I both know you can’t make money in this business anymore, not since they began publishing The Diamond Dealer’s Digest.”
He reserved his venom for this monthly publication that came out on bright red paper to foil duplication. Before color copiers the red background Xeroxed black obscuring the numerical text. Nicknamed for obvious reasons, the ‘Red Rag’, The Digest published the price of a white diamond grouped according to the 4C’s, carat weight, color, clarity and cut. There was a grade for how white it was, how free from imperfections and even for the accuracy of its cutting. On the chart it was so much per carat for this color, this quality and this cut. There was the wholesale asking price for anyone to see. The publisher knew this was information worth taking, and at the bottom of the page was his admonition: “Thou shall not steal - Subscribe.”
Lenny complained, “Everybody knows how much a white diamond costs. How can you make any money?”
“Yes,” the dealer agreed, “very hard. De Beers, they tell you how much a diamond costs, and the ‘Red Rag’ it says what you charge. Business is whor-e-bull.”
“Horrible?”
“Yes,” business is whor-e-bull. Vishnu has forgotten the faithful.”
“Right,” said Lenny, Jewish by birth.
It was regrettable that the cost of white diamonds was fixed, but Lenny also knew there were no established prices for colors like these. This was new territory, and Lenny saw a chance for some real price gouging.
All the while he talked, his tweezers danced among the diamonds, pulling a line of stones from here and a smaller cluster from elsewhere. The movement of his tweezers had the appearance of mindless doodling, but somehow – as if by accident – the larger stones moved to the periphery. The better-made diamonds and the fancy shapes ended up in a group on the fringe of the original pile. In the center were left the weaker colors and smaller sizes. With a final sweep of his tweezers around the edge he separated these outer stones from the center. Two nearly equal piles of diamonds were now side by side on the tabletop.
Bokrish spoke. “Kalesh and I wish to sell all we have. I offer you a very special ‘lot’ price for everything. It is high, I apologize, but for such a parcel not so high. The price per-carat is most reasonable, I assure you. For selection, to pick and chose amongst these my children, to take the brightest and the finest and leave me only cripples and lepers, would be a hardship for which I must ask you at least…” he paused. “The triple.” He looked from the stones to Lenny. “To decide, I think, among such beauties would be most difficult, but the choice, my revered host, is yours. Do you prefer to have all the diamonds from the parcel, my good friend, or do you prefer to choose individual stones.”
Lenny hesitated. The difference was huge: three times the price for selection. Lenny figured that at lot price there was still plenty of room to make serious money. If he cherry-picked the parcel, it was a different matter. It would be much harder.
“Good buddy, we’ve known each other too long. I can’t argue with you over money. My father always said, ‘Never money between friends’. I’ll do whatever you want. Tell me what you want….but…right now it’s just too much goods for me to handle, you see, at one time. Let me take this half.” Lenny’s tweezers ushered one pile of stones to his right, the grouping of larger and better diamonds.
Lenny was counting on tradition. It was practice in the trade when a salesperson saw a large lot split into equal portions right before his eyes to sell half at ‘lot price’. The two companies had done business before, and plus which, and probably more important, the firm was known to pay quickly and when necessary, in cash. For all the usual reasons Lenny expected to get what he wanted.
Bokrish looked Lenny with dead eyes in the face, gleaning little and offering little of his intentions. Then he cracked the tinniest of smiles. “Of course, I accommodate you.” Of all the many nationalities active in the jewelry industry, the Indians were if anything accommodating.
Bokrish bowed again. “As you wish.” And with the back of his hand he pushed the two piles back together. Whereas the two halves had lain side by side before, Bokrish now divided them in the middle up and down. “The half,” he nudged a random grouping towards Lenny.
Staring at the new division mixing better and worse goods, Lenny reconsidered. “You know, if you give me a little help on the price and some time, I could take them all. 20 and 120.” Lenny meant a 20% discount off the lot price and 120 days time for payment, 4 months.
Now the bargaining began. Lenny had one slight advantage in these negotiations. He knew how much these diamonds cost. Bokrish, like other dealers, wrote the cost of his merchandise in code on the outside of the parcel papers. The codes were never hard to decipher. They had to be easy to read or else expensive mistakes happened. Lenny had bought the code from a disgruntled worker in the firm. It required dropping the first and last pair of letters, generally “x’s”, “z’s” and “q’s”, scrabble letters, and then substituting specific integers for the rest. With that information Lenny was able to negotiate from strength. After the preliminaries of finding every reason for now not wanting to buy the diamonds, he made his final offer which afforded Bokrish a small profit; and he held firm to the terms of financing. They settled on 8 and 120. Equal notes due over the next four months at an 8% reduction of the per carat lot price.
“Mazal u’Bracha,” Bokrish concluded. Even the Indians were fluent with the Jewish closing for a deal. “Luck and blessing.”
Lenny pushed the intercom on the speakerphone and summoned his cousin Marlon, second-in-command. Blood more than talent or intelligence explained ties in the jewelry business. Trust mattered most.
Marlon appeared almost instantly. He was above average height and girth. In his puffy face, his features seemed small and undistinguished: thin lips, weak chin, unremarkable eyes. His rush of friendliness, the exuberance of a used-car salesman, did not quite disguise an edgy nervousness. In his haste he had not bothered to put on his sport coat, and his button-down Oxford shirt showed broad gray perspiration stains. It was company policy, Lenny’s policy, that suit jackets were de rigueur with clients but shirtsleeves were perfectly acceptable for dealers.
“Marlon, you know Bok-choy from Extravagant Gems.”
“Bokrish,” responded the seated Indian, chin dipped, palms joined. “Bokrish Char.”
Marlon reached down and shook his clasped hands first with one then both of his. “Nice to meet ya again, Mr. Choy.”
“And I likewise,” countered the diamond merchant, who except for the flutter of an eyebrow betrayed no surprise.
“We just bought these; take a look at ‘em. Check the weights; get Bokrish four promissory notes for these dates and amounts, non-interest bearing. You sign ‘em. I gotta leave.” Lenny handed Marlon the parcel full of diamonds and a scrap of paper with scribbled figures. The bookkeeper would draw up the formal documents.
It was getting late; he had been at work for over an hour. He could count on Marlon seeing the valuables put away, locking the vault, and setting the security alarms, their workday ritual. Lenny searched his messages for any mention of her, and there it was. She returned his call. He ignored the rest along with the list of the day’s sales and cash receipts. His thoughts were on her: the dress she wore, the body that filled it, her face. This was a dream come true. Finally! He had her number and reached for the phone. He couldn’t wait another moment; and if, he got a busy signal or her answering machine, he’d telephone again from the car. Now, he sensed, she was within his reach.
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