Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

tree to see if some Ecuadorians drop out.”
    “Here?”
    “L.A.”
    Sharon frowned and thought fast despite the throbbing in her head. “Why L.A.? Purcell and the stone?”
    “Yeah. It all comes back to the stone.” He grabbed a beer, twisted off the cap, and raised the bottle in sardonic salute. “Here’s to the color of death.”
    “What?”
    “Blue. Sapphire blue.”

Chapter 54
    Scottsdale
    Saturday
    5:15 P.M .
    Kirby sat in his locked hotel room, staring at his palm.
    A rectangular blue eye stared back at him.
    “Wish you could talk,” he said. “I’d sure like to know why the Voice wanted Purcell killed and you cut up into smaller stones.”
    Light shifted and shimmered over the stone as though it was alive, breathing. Blue on blue on blue, deeper than time, a well with no bottom, hypnotic.
    Kirby had sold the rest of Purcell’s stones to Peyton, but not this one. He kept thinking he could use the gem as a twist on the Voice. If not, well, it was worth a lot of money in a few markets he could think of. Saudi Arabia, for one.
    “I’d sell you and head for Rio or Aruba,” he said to the gem, “but I think that would be a fast ticket to hell if the Voice starts squeezing me. You’ve got to be good for more than money, right? I sure as hell don’t need the Voice following me into retirement.”
    Or hiring some soldier to kill me.
    But that was something Kirby didn’t want to say aloud, even in the privacy of his locked room. He moved his hand, making the stone flash like blue lightning.
    “You know what I mean?”
    Whatever the stone knew it kept to itself.
    From the bedside table came the bleat of Kirby’s cell phone. He fisted his left hand around the stone and grabbed the phone with his right.
    No caller ID.
    The hair at the base of Kirby’s neck stirred. Does the Voice know I’m double-crossing him?
    “Yeah?” Kirby said into the phone.
    Eerie mechanical tones said, “I need someone in L.A.”
    “Why?”
    “Some mutts from the de Santos gang are walking down the wrong streets.”
    “So?”
    “José de Santos. Eduardo de Santos. José launders Colombian money in the jewelry district. Eduardo takes hot gems for Peyton Hall and cuts them into cold stones.”
    “How do you know?” Kirby asked.
    “Why do you care?”
    “I don’t,” Kirby said quickly.
    “Take out the de Santos. José gets a necktie. Do whatever you want with the other one. They’re stealing from the wrong people.”
    “How much is it worth for me?” Kirby asked.
    “As much as you can take on the job.”
    “No cut for you?”
    “I’ll get mine on the other end,” the Voice said.
    Kirby wondered what that meant but knew better than to ask that question.
    “You have a pencil?” the Voice asked.
    “Sure,” Kirby said. He stuffed the stone in his pocket, grabbed a pad and pencil from the bedside table, and started writing addresses as fast as the Voice recited them. “Are these recent?”
    “Eduardo hasn’t moved in ten years. José might be more of a problem. Maybe Eduardo can help. Just do them fast.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Kate Chandler, Phoenix.”
    Kirby wrote the address quickly.
    “Make it look like rape-murder,” the Voice said.
    Kirby didn’t like that. “Rape? Too many ways to leave evidence behind.”
    “Wear a rubber.”
    “But—”
    “It’s worth a hundred big ones in your Aruba account.”
    “A hundred thousand?” Kirby asked.
    “You heard me. If you can’t get it up for rape, use a broomstick. Just don’t make it look like a hit.”
    Kirby felt the shape of the stone in his pocket and wondered if it was time to get out. “I want that hundred thou in my account tonight.”
    “You’ll get it when I see her body on the news.”
    Kirby hesitated. Three murders. Boom boom boom. Then the Purcells before that, and the courier. A lot of death dirtying up what had been a fairly clean game.
    It sounded like something was coming apart.
    “Cash up front or find another man,” Kirby said.
    The silence stretched so long that Kirby was afraid he’d misjudged. Sweat gathered under his arms.
    “Agreed. Do them within twenty-four hours and you get fifty extra.”
    The Voice disconnected.
    Kirby pulled the sapphire out of his pocket. For a long time he sat with the gem in one hand and the cell phone in the other.
    “Time to retire,” Kirby said.
    But first he had some work to do.
    He punched a number into the cell phone. It was picked up quickly. Rancheria music blared in the