Baby Brother Blues (Sammy Dick, PI Series: Book 1) Page 10

  “Tonight? I’m very sorry,” the figure was bent over almost whispering, “but I have an early morning flight to Yellowknife to join Mai and Karl. Would this afternoon be okay? At 1 P.M.?” Voice tremulous, subservient.

  Whoever was on the other side of the conversation must have been speaking because the hall grew quiet. I stopped dead in my tracks, straining to listen. I checked my watch. 8:50 A.M. I’d cross-reference later with Geo in the phone records to see the connecting phone number.

  He spoke into his phone again. “Yes, yes, I promise this time I’ll find a way to bring them. Of course…” More faltering, nearly stuttering. Frightened.

  Just then he realized my presence. Either the soft, plush carpet had silenced my approach or he’d been too engrossed in his cell conversation to hear me, but for the first time, it was I who scared the crap out of someone in this hall, rather than vice-versa. I felt a jolt of satisfaction as he jerked upright, quickly whimpered into the phone. “I apologize. Must go now.” He then slammed the phone shut and slid it into his pants pocket as if it were a hot potato. He’d jerked upright so quickly upon noticing me, I was surprised he hadn’t hit his head on the wall and nearly knocked himself out.

  Once the phone was safely out of sight, he slapped both of his arms to his sides and sprang to attention, as he about-faced to look at me. I almost felt sorry for him, except that twice yesterday, I’d been accosted from behind in a similar fashion on this very same floor. I was reveling in a smug sense of poetic justice, then remembered I had a job to do. I’d better get busy and try to figure out how this lithe creature fit into the whole scheme of things here at Swann.

  And make no mistake about it, he was a “lithe creature.” Well, maybe I really don’t know what lithe means, but if it means graceful, fragile, something along those lines, then this guy was the perfect embodiment of it. Plus, he was the spittin’ image of Mai, except that in every way that Mai emanated power, purpose and direction, this guy emanated fragility, vulnerability and lack of direction. Nowadays, a certain segment of the population pierces themselves all over in unlikely and hurtful places. Their piercings essentially advertise to the world that “I’ll let you do anything to me. I am of no consequence. Pain is my middle name.” This guy didn’t have a single piercing that I could see, but his very aura shouted, “Abuse me, use me, make me yours! And I don’t mean in a nice way, either!”

  He backed up slightly against the wall. His left hand strayed unconsciously towards his stomach, massaging it through his peach-colored silk shirt as if he were already in pain. Most men could not pull off wearing a peach-colored silk shirt with off-white, form-fitting linen slacks, but this guy made the combination look like a Vogue cover shot. Open-toed men’s sandals of the finest soft leather sheathed his slim feet. He had that contemporary cross-gender appeal, as if he lived in two worlds, or in another world might be a better description. His look was casual, cosmopolitan and ultra-expensive. A lost waif, like so many of our contemporary models, male or female, it didn’t seem to matter.

  At any rate, he looked lost and fragile. Why is it that some people’s aura, or nature, or nurture, who knows where it comes from, invites the rest of us to form a certain type of unhealthy relationship with them? It was only my background in psychological training that kept me from jumping in to assist him in his self-fulfilling prophecy, where I dominate and he obeys.

  “You must be Liang, Mai’s brother,” I said, extending my hand in a warm greeting. “I’m Tina Brown. The new performance consultant Michael hired.”

  “I am pleased to meet you,” he said, as he self-consciously dropped his left hand from the stomach massage and extended his right hand to meet mine. This was the fourth handshake I’d engaged in in the last two days. All very different, and this one was the weirdest of all.

  How can a handshake telegraph subservience? I don’t know, but this one did. Even though he was taller, his shake was somehow beneath mine, so I had to bend slightly to engage with him, and his shake was so loose and limp it was almost nonexistent, like the vapor of a ghost. I had to relax my grip far below my usual firmness to avoid dominating absurdly. In a sense, through his weakness, he was actually controlling the situation. I was meeting Liang on his terms, not mine. I felt like a wary wrestler being set up to spin into some predesigned move where my opponent’s apparent listlessness and weakness were clever ploys devised to position me for a fall, and a deadly fall at that.

  How very strange, I thought as I withdrew from the brief, physical encounter and straightened up. All of these people bear watching, but in different ways, and this one, perhaps, most of all.

  Liang withdrew his hand and placed it palm to palm with his left hand as if in prayer. Then he executed a slight Asian bow toward me. “I apologize but I have pressing research to do for an afternoon meeting. If I can be of any assistance to you while you are here, just let me know.” And with that, he drifted to my right. I had a sense that he was drifting through me, not beside me, like a ghost. Then he sort of floated down the hidden hall to the infamous Research Room.

  I made a mental note to explore the Research Room soon. It seemed to be a favorite hangout of folks here at Swann, at least those of the male gender. Maybe it was actually a Roman Bath House. I’d have to find out, but right now, I’d set a date to work with Tomas at 9 A.M. I stepped into my amazing office, the sun shining on the Persian carpet, turned on my computer and typed in DoMe1DoMe2DoMe3. Just as Tomas walked in. Right on cue.

  “Good morning, Tomas,” I chirped.

  “Good morning,” he responded dully.

  “You seem a little down today. What’s going on?”

  He hesitated. Looked at the Persian carpet. Then looked back at me. He seemed to have arrived at some kind of decision. “Actually, there is something. Both Michael and Swane apparently trust you, so I suppose I should too.”

  Hmmm, I’d better fan this flame. “Of course you should. They are both anxious to make sure this business continues to grow and remain healthy. I would think that can only be in your best interests. No?”

  Hesitation. His eyes darted around the room. Steadied on my eyes. “Suppose I tell you something that implicates someone inside the company? What will happen to them?”

  “Well, of course, that depends. But neither Michael nor Swane wishes to tarnish the reputation of Swann in any way if they can avoid it. One of the reasons I’m hired is to handle situations discreetly, if at all possible. Often it is in the best interest of a company’s overall health to handle problems internally.”

  Tomas walked over to the full-length window. He seemed to be gazing intently at the estrellas peeking up through the pollutant haze into the blistering morning sun. Then he spun back abruptly and said, “Okay, I don’t have any real evidence. Just a gut feeling, but maybe you will see more than I’m seeing. You need to promise me, though, that you’ll let me know what you plan to do with this information, if I give it to you.”

  “Fair enough.” Of course, Tomas wasn’t paying for my services. Michael and Sylvester were, so I left out the part that I’d tell them before I told Tomas. “What seems suspicious?”

  He slid into my office chair. Fingers nimbly darting across the keyboard, calling up various spreadsheets. “What do you know about the industrial diamonds business?”

  Almost nothing. “Some, but please educate me more.”

  “Well, in lay terms, industrial diamonds have many uses, since they’re harder than almost all known materials and the hardest known mineral. Nowadays, most industrial diamonds are manufactured synthetically, because it’s cheaper and faster to create them that way and no one cares if the diamonds have that false, synthetic clarity and color when you plan to use them as abrasives or drill tips, so only about one-tenth of the diamonds in the industrial business are natural. The industrial diamond business globally is fairly lucrative, though.”

  He took a deep breath and plowed on. “You have to mine a million diamonds to find just a single one that’s one c
arat in size. To find one that’s two or more carats in size, you’d have to mine five million diamonds. Rarity breeds price.” As Tomas gave me this brief education, he was bringing up a huge photo of a high quality diamond from the Swann home page onto my computer screen. It revolved slowly, tantalizingly, sending sparks off into space. The sparks appeared to fly out into the universe on the web page, communicating infinite rarity and beauty.

  “That’s why the bigger the natural diamond, assuming it has fine clarity and color, the higher the price. Still, that means that there’s an awful lot of excess natural diamonds in the world that aren’t up to snuff. These excess diamonds are often referred to as bort, and are, of course, worth many times less than diamonds fit for retail sale.” At this point, Tomas switched photos and brought up a photo of several hundred small, rust colored diamonds displayed on black velvet. The caption at the bottom of the photo read Swann Diamonds also offers bulk bort diamonds for a variety of industrial uses. Click here to learn more about our offerings.

  Tomas clicked and a brand new web page opened up with a much more scientific look. Obviously the clientele for this site were very different than the other. He clicked on a button and the screen flashed into a questionnaire-based page where the user could conduct a quick needs assessment, matching the client with the most appropriate batches of bort. Depending upon the outcome, the assessment led to a further page of prices, options and shipping arrangements. “Since, Mai and some others are routinely in the right place at the right time to secure these caches of natural industrial diamonds, it was the intent of our Swann leaders, especially Mr. Swane, to explore expansion into this sideline. Karl, who has an engineering degree that specializes in natural abrasives, was brought in two years ago to help build this new niche. Our long-term plan is to bring in an additional five million dollars per year by expanding in this related direction.”

  “So what’s the catch?” I prompted, while Tomas was clearly on a roll.

  “There really is no catch,” Tomas said, sidestepping neatly out of my line of questioning.

  I sat quietly. Waited. This is very hard for me to do, but I’d often obtained good results from this interview technique in the past. I just sat there looking into his lovely, doe-like eyes expectantly. The view was nice, so I was prepared to wait.

  I stared. He fidgeted.

  Finally, he broke.

  “Well, the catch is not obvious in our documentation. At least, not obvious in the documentation I’m privy to.”

  “I thought you were privy to all the documentation and records?”

  “Me too,” he said with some hardness in his voice.

  “You strike me as a very intuitive, bright guy, Tomas. So even if it’s not recorded, what appears to be the catch?”

  When in doubt, stroke the interviewee’s ego.

  Tomas’s eyes darted out the window again. Then rested on the closed door. Skipped upwards to scan the corners of the ceiling. Finally came back to me. “We’ve grown our revenue by about a million since Karl arrived. The catch is that we anticipated double by this time. Mai and I carefully did the profitability study before we even hired Zaiid. I may not be the perfect person to conduct a feasibility study, but Mai’s brilliant. It’s hard to imagine that we were that far off the mark.”

  “Are most of the diamond-buying business trips conducted by Mai and Karl as a team now?” I was guessing this was probably true, having observed their strange behavior in the airport this morning.

  “Mai, Karl, and often Liang fly together to assess the worthiness of stones for retail distribution or industrial uses.”

  “I understand Mai and Karl’s role. What value does Liang bring to these shopping trips?”

  Surprisingly, Tomas’s face hardened into stone upon this question. His lips compressed. Then his lips opened long enough to gulp in some air quickly. I waited him out.

  It was a long wait. He seemed to be wrestling internally. Like an alien was living inside his body fighting to get out and he was struggling to keep it under tight control. His face contorted. He would prepare to speak. Then harden into stone again. Then contort.

  Holy moly! Something was going on, I thought.

  Finally he blurted in a whisper, “I’m not sure.”

  “It seems awfully expensive to fly Liang along, if he isn’t adding much value to the purchasing decisions.”

  Almost inaudibly, Tomas said, “Oh, he knows the business, alright. He’s dabbled in both sides of it. Retail and industrial. Plus, Mai adores him.” He paused, then resumed a little more loudly, “I think she hopes he’ll stay out of trouble more, too, if he’s where she can watch him.”

  My interest piqued even more. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  Now Tomas looked decidedly uncomfortable in a new way. I was starting to feel sorry for him, but I had a job to do. Money to be made. Office lease to be paid. You get the drift.

  I leaned towards him.

  He took his hands off the keyboard, scooted ever so slightly away from me. Clasped his hands in his lap. I watched as his knuckles slowly grew white.

  I waited.

  Low, constricted voice: “Horses.” Stop. “Poker.” Stop. “Online gambling.” Stop. “Sports betting. Hard to police for Mai. Even if you are together on a business trip.” Dead stop.

  Baby brother troubles, I thought. Some of the worst kind.

  “Sounds potentially threatening to Swann.” I stated the obvious. “Do Michael and Sylvester know?”

  “Liang rarely interfaces with either one of them. I think he finds them intimidating.” Me too, I thought, as Tomas continued. “So far, I think Mai’s kept it pretty much under wraps, but…” he stopped midsentence.

  “But what?” I prompted. Once again he withdrew into silence. This guy has loyalty issues. Good characteristic, wrong time. At least for me and probably for Swann. I pushed further.

  “It seems like you care about both Mai and Liang.” I didn’t mention Zaiid. He nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’m also sure you wish to preserve the financial well-being of the company. Don’t you?”

  He nodded again silently. Miserable. I waited. “But what?”

  “But ever since Zaiid’s been here,” he hissed the name Zaiid, drawing out the i. “Liang seems to be spiraling completely out of control.”

  The heated intensity of his misery and anger as this spurted from his mouth seemed inexplicable—unless, I reasoned, Tomas was in love with Liang, or Mai, or both? Who knows?

  Whatever drove him, his emotions seemed way beyond the realm of purely business concerns. Although, if Liang somehow gained access to company funds, a gambling addiction could bring them all down. Rapidly. This was true cause for concern and worthy of attention for both Michael and Sylvester. I’d have to tread carefully, though. I was far from sure, at this point, how all these relationships and connections played out.

  “Does anything else make you suspicious?” I asked.

  “Yes!” Quick, vehement comeback this time. My ears perked.

  “What?”

  “You watch. After these little trips, I always notice new things. At least for Karl and Liang.”

  “What do you mean by new things?”

  “Like, what’s your American word? Like bling. New bling things.”

  “New bling things? What kind of new bling things?” I was starting to feel like I was trapped in a Dr. Seuss book.

  “New bling things like rings and earrings and cuff links and things. New things like that. Expensive bling.”

  “Ah, new bling things like that.” I was trying not to giggle, lest we lose the train of thought here, but I could see Tomas was not laughing at the bling thing repartee. He obviously took this bling thing very hard. I’d have to keep my eyes open for the new things following each trip.

  I said, “I’ll keep my eyes open for any new things following each trip. It would be good if you could point them out to me, too. I, of course, don’t know the old bling from the new, so it would be helpful for yo
u to point out the new bling things.”

  Tomas didn’t once smile at this ridiculous statement; rather, he nodded with grave severity, accepting his newly assigned bling-thing role.

  I accepted my role too. Bling-Thing One and Bling-Thing Two on assignment. Then abruptly, Bling-Thing One, aka Tomas, stood up and said, “I have some work to do in the Research Room.” And left.

  The good ol’ Research Room. I decided it was high time I paid a visit to the good ol’ Research Room to find out just what the hell went on in there. But before I followed in Tomas’s footsteps, I reached into my magic, knockoff bag. Rummaged around past the clunky heels of the staid librarian until my hands touched a smooth, little plastic pack. Last night, Geo had not only constructed a fake boarding pass for me, he’d given me a handy dandy little electronic bug to place on what he and I referred to as the “Most Likely” suspect of the group. Right now the winner of the “Most Likely” award went to Liang. He was most likely to be up to no good. Liang, who had also floated off to the good ol’ Research Room, or so he said.

  I pulled the electronic listening device out of its pack, palmed it in my hand, and scurried down the hall toward my destination. At the Paul Klee watercolor, I made a right. When I reached the end of the hall, there was a door on my left marked Research. I pushed down the French door handle and slid in.

  It took my eyes a little while to adjust, but as soon they did, I was witness to the tail end of an intimate tableau. Liang was seated in the far corner of the dark, little room that reminded me of a bank vault. What appeared to be safety deposit boxes lined two of the walls from floor to ceiling. Liang sat at a table outfitted with a microscope where he’d apparently been examining some stones, most likely diamonds. Tomas was hanging over him, well within what I would call Liang’s private space. My entrance caused them both to spring away from each other and look at me.

  My eyes skipped from one face to another. Liang’s face registered surprise, then morphed into something like slyness. Tomas’s face was different. I thought I detected surprise. Then embarrassment. Almost fear. Aha, the Bling-Thing plot thickens!