The covenant - James A. Michener [594]
First man in line was Pik Prinsloo, grubby khaki shirt, sagging trousers, hat with broken brim. For fifty-two years the diamond merchants had known this fellow, a splinter diamond here, a fragment there, and always the promise that one of these days . . . No buyer had ever handed old Pik more than three hundred rand at a time, and on this meager flow of capital he had survived.
H. Steyn, seeing the old fellow approach, assumed that once again Pik had found himself a quarter-carat stone worth a few pounds, but when he noticed that the smelly old man was trembling, and there was a wild light in his eye, he realized that this day was special. And when Pik's backer started to enter the shack, Steyn noticed how the prospector waved him back: 'You stay outside. This is my job.' There was some muffled conversation, at the end of which the old man screamed, 'Of course I'll tell you how much, and if I don't, Mr. Steyn will. Now get out!'
'You have a stone?' Mr. Steyn asked.
Pik's hands shook, but after an awkward moment he produced a matchbox, which he slid open with difficulty, and placed upon the table a diamond large enough to make H. Steyn cough. 'You have your papers for this?' he asked.
'Papers?' old Pik shouted. 'You're damn right I got papers.' There was more fumbling, and when the familiar documents were spread before Mr. Steyn he pretended to read them, using this as an excuse for finding time to run through a series of hasty, silent calculations: Goodness, that looks to be at least five carats! It's makable. Possibly a brilliant. Can't see any big flaws. What's the color? Might even be an ice-white. Probably cut down to about one-point-four carats. I could sell this to Tel Aviv for maybe ten thousand dollars. They could sell it to New York for fifteen thousand. Ultimate buyer, as much as twenty-eight thousand dollars. So I could afford to pay him fifteen hundred dollars a carat or seventy-five hundred in all. But that would be shaving it a little close. Best I ought to go would be fourteen hundred dollars a carat, or seven thousand in all. I'll offer him thirteen fifty a carat, or sixty-seven fifty in all. Like all diamond buyers, he did his calculations in dollars, since America was the ultimate market, but since he had to pay in rand, he knew immediately what the exchange would be. It took $1.16 to purchase one rand, so that the final price of $6,750 worked out to about R.5,800, and that was the figure he kept in mind as he prepared to speak.
While H. Steyn was completing his calculations, old Pik was pursuing his: It's a good stone. It's worth two thousand rand. And I saw his eyes light up when I placed it on the desk. Damn, I will ask two-five. Look at that diamond. He doesn't see a diamond that good in a month. It could even go for two-six. Damn, I'll go for two-six.
H. Steyn cherished his reputation as dean of diamond buyers, 'the man who never cheated anyone,' but did not feel that in order to sustain his good name he had to pay exorbitant prices. He had found it most effective to state an honest price, just a fraction less than some hungry buyer might offer, and then to adjust it slightly upward if he really wanted the stone.
The more he studied this one, the more he wanted it. This could be a fine stone, he said to himself. The color might turn out to be much better than I think. It won't cut to more than one-point-four carats, but when it's done, it could be an exciting