Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

that way. He picked up the disputed piece of rough. “Excuse me.”
    He headed in the direction of the room that held equipment for close examination of merchandise.
    Conversation around the room picked up again, but there was a hushed expectancy that hadn’t been there before.
    Sam looked at Kate. She was looking at another piece of sapphire rough—orange this time. He hoped that she wasn’t planning on buying it. Their joint bank accounts really couldn’t afford this kind of high-stakes poker.
    “Another purchase?” he asked in a low voice.
    “No.”
    The room went quiet again.
    “Looks pretty to me,” Sam said in a normal voice, glancing at the radiant orange rough in her hand. “Isn’t it natural?”
    “It’s natural. As a specimen, it’s very nice.”
    “But?” Sam prodded. Money was one way of establishing credentials. Knowledge was another. He figured they had a hell of a lot more knowledge than money. Might as well underline it for the peanut gallery.
    “With rough, I’m looking for a profit after cutting,” Kate said in a voice that carried just enough to reach everyone in the room. “The zircon inclusions in this rough show the classic halo with a dark center, proving that the color is natural, not heat-treated. But the way the inclusions are placed…” She shrugged. “The inclusions were radioactive, which stressed the surrounding sapphire. Bottom line is I don’t see a reasonably safe way to cut this rough that would yield a profit.”
    “Would another cutter?”
    “Not so far,” she said dryly. “This is the seventh show I’ve seen the rough in. Like I said, great color for a natural specimen, about the best I’ve ever seen. But it’s priced like Butterworth expects whoeverbuys it to end up with a fifty-carat cut-and-polished gem or at worst three ten- to twelve-carat stones. In my opinion, whoever cuts this will be lucky to end up with two five-carat stones. They’ll be very nice stones, mind you, but they won’t cover the cost of the rough.”
    More than one head around the room nodded.
    The employee came out of the other room. The look on his face said the verdict had gone to Kate.
    “Ms. Collins,” the employee said, “thank you for calling our attention to a potential difficulty with this rough. We will recertify before we offer it for sale again.”
    “Wise choice,” she murmured. “Do you have any other excellent quality natural Burmese blue?”
    “I was just bringing some out,” he said, leading Kate toward a table at the edge of the room. “Our buyer was quite pleased with these.”
    Conversation around the room resumed. Most of it centered around the sharp-eyed redhead who had a gift for sapphires. Gradually, the chatter returned to normal.
    “…told me that his wife told him that Johnny boy got caught in the wrong sheets.”
    “That explains it.”
    “What?”
    “He’s in a real trading mood. Divorce lawyers are expensive. Same thing happened to…”
    Quietly, Sam checked his cell phone. Three calls. Doug, Mario, and someone from the Miami office. He looked at his watch. Florida was getting ready to close up the office and head home.
    Sam hit the callback feature. After a few rings the phone was picked up.
    “Special Agent Mecklin.”
    Sam said, “You called me about an hour ago, regarding some interviews I asked you to make.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Where’s your head,” Sam said in a low, deadly voice.
    “Oh. Can’t talk, huh? Sorry. I was getting ready to leave and was thinking about my kid’s birthday party. Don’t make me late, huh? The old lady would have my balls for breakfast.”
    “Tell me something I care about.”
    The man at the other end of the line put out his cigarette and flipped through a notebook. “Okay. Are you Special Agent Groves?”
    “Yes.”
    “Right. We interviewed every pawnshop employee and owner in Little Miami. Only one gave a flicker. Name of Jimenez, street name Seguro. Said some killer blonde with rocket ship tits tried to sell him a stone that matched the sapphire you’re looking for.”
    “And?”
    “He declined. Said he was afraid it was hot and sent her on her way. Since we had to threaten to report Seguro and his sixteen cousins to the local Homeland Security guys to get that much out of him, we weren’t in a position to push him any more. Want us to go back?”
    Sam thought fast and remembered Kate’s professional website. “There’s a photo on the web. You have a