A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [122]
“You made a good buy,” Rosenthal said. “It might be a little risky to sell it as one stone. If so, it could fetch over a half million. I’ll give you the name of a tip-top merchant on Forty-seventh Street in New York. He can figure out the cuts like no one else. He’ll double your money.”
“Moses, you know I don’t deal in this crap. This is just a little present for the big, tall Swedish bombshell I’m married to.”
“Such a stone for your wife! Well, it will look beautiful in a necklace setting.”
“It’s like this, Moshe. I got her this G-string.”
“A G-string, you know, a G-string?” Red said tentatively.
He stood up and pretended he was wearing a G-string. “Up the left side, I call that first base, the string has a row of little rubies. Up the right side, I call that third base, a row of emeralds. This diamond is going right in at home plate.”
“You’re such a romantic,” Moshe said.
The teakettle whistled. How the fuck can he drink hot tea? Red always wondered. He never winced, but it annoyed him whenever he saw Moshe Rosenthal’s concentration camp tattoo. Moshe produced a bottle of Red’s stuff. They clicked on the deal; prayers would be said tonight at shul.
“You delivered a hell of an order here. Some guys were around this morning looking for your pilot, Cliff Morgan. Apparently some kind of parachute drop.”
“Smells like CIA, doesn’t it, Moshe?”
“The guns are going into the Sierra Maestra Mountains in Cuba to a half dozen anti-Castro guerilla bands. Strange, I remember in fifty-nine or sixty when the Americans parachuted guns to Castro back in the Sierra Maestra.”
“Nothing changes,” Red said. He looked outside. It was darkening for the daily downpour. “Guns coming out of the United States, sold to the CIA in Colon, and flown into rebel Cuban camps. At the same time I’m going to buy Bulgarian AK’s for shipment from Colon to the United States.”
Red caught forty seconds of hard rain and reached Kelley’s Klub dripping. Cliff Morgan occupied a table with a half-dead bottle and a dancer on his lap. Christ, Red thought, that little concita reminds me of why a fellow can never go on a diet of straight blondes.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend?” Red said on entering.
“This is Choo-Choo,” Cliff said. “Her and her sister, Candi, do a real artistic number together. They’d like to be broadened by a mature man.”
Red took his hotel key out and handed it to Choo-Choo. “Arrange to get off about nine or ten o’clock,” Red said, “I’ll square it with Kelley.”
She took the key. Red’s hand felt the beautiful curve of her hip and she left.
“Thanks,” Red said to Cliff.
“My treat,” Cliff answered. Red wished to hell Cliff Morgan had paid the installment on his jet.
“I hear the CIA was looking for you.”
“Yeah, they want me to fly our delivery in a transport and drop them in the Sierra Maestra. Fifty thousand in it.”
“You take the job?”
“After I finish up our charter. When we leaving?”
“I’ve got a little business at the Villa. Was going to leave tonight, but Choo-Choo and Koo-Koo…well, tomorrow morning. File a flight plan for Lubbock.”
The guards passed the Villa Pedro Oberg’s limo through the gates. Red emerged and with Hans Pedro disappeared into the safe room that had no eyes or ears. It was one of the most protected civilian buildings from the Rio Grande to the tip of Argentina.
The fucking little Swiss banker, Claus Von Manfried, was at hand to pick up droppings of the deals. Could he operate! He spread the large accounts into a half dozen to a dozen banks, all numbered and inaccessible accounts.
“Let’s see what I’ve got here,” Hans Pedro said. “I have a verification of the pieces you sent down. Payable to you in the sum of two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Minus four hundred and seventy thousand you owe for the Bulgarian AK’s.”
“Yeah, I owe Moshe Rosenthal a hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Have you verified your purchase?”
“Yeah, I checked this morning. They’re all there. They’ll be going up on a Greek freighter, Kaspos. What have