Vic Daniel 6 - As she rides by

out the time I was keeping my eye on the wedding presents at Nathan’s only daughter’s wedding reception in his modest little mansion in Beverly Hills. That same evening I’d cracked the Case of the Missing Champagne (the caterers done it) for no extra money, and we’d gotten on swimmingly ever since.
    While N. Lubinski was weighing the last few peas, I drew J. Lubin-ski aside and asked him, “Why?”
    “Why what?” he said.
    “Why everything,” I said. “Why buy, why weigh, why me?”
    J. Lubinski sighed theatrically, and flung his beringed and manicured hands to the heavens.
    “Why you?” he said. “Why me?” I followed him through into the store proper. “There follows a short lecture on crystallized carbon, otherwise known as diamonds.”
    “Or ice,” I said. “In my trade.”
    “Or ice,” he said. “A fixed number of times a year deBeers, through its Central Selling Organization, holds in some major city what is called a sight, in my trade. A fixed number of extremely reputable dealers attend these sights. They are offered various assortments of stones at non-negotiable prices.”
    “All diamonds,” I said.
    “Varying weights, varying colors, but all diamonds,” he agreed. “These dealers then resell their boxes of goodies in smaller lots to other dealers, one of whom is a pal of ours who lives in New York , New York .”
    “So you call him up collect,” I said, “and say, ‘Got thirty peas such and such a weight and such and such a color?’ ”
    “You got it, Vic,” J. Lubinski said. “So he sends them out here by courier; we verify them and send them back to New York to a cutter.”
    “Weighing is verifying?” I said.
    “Part thereof,” he said, “as there is a type of manufactured diamond almost identical to the real McCoy except it weighs getting on to twice as much. As for why you, the diamonds are insured while they are in the hands of the courier, but not while he is out eating pancakes, then they are our responsibility, and it is a lot cheaper, my friend, to hire you for two hours than it is for us to insure them for that time. We will have to, of course, when they arrive back here all nicely trimmed and polished.”
    “Ah,” I said. “Excuse me a mo.” I checked out the front of the store again, then poked my head in the workroom, where N. Lubinski was wrapping the peas up in what looked like a bit of old bandage, then rejoined J. Lubinski, who was looking impatiently at his watch.
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “If we run over the two hours, I won’t charge you for the extra few minutes. Anyway, it looks like Nate is just finishing up.”
    “Good,” he said. “And what I am is nervous, not impatient.”
    “So who cuts and polishes them?” I asked. “Why not Nate?”
    “Too specialized,” he said. “Nate will get them back cut into brilliants or rose or double rose or occasionally if the stone is big enough into Kohinoor or even table, then design and make the settings, leaving me to do all the hard work, selling them.”
    “Ain’t life tough,” I said.
    The courier came back about then, so I let him in and he and the Lubinskis completed the paperwork, the middle-aged courier tucked the package casually into one pocket, then off he went, and then, a few minutes later off I went, with a check for a satisfying number of U.S. dollars tucked carefully into my worn old wallet. Being casual is one thing, being foolhardy another.
    Tuesday afternoon King and I—again lucratively—passed together down in Huntington Beach , him dozing in the shade, me sweating in the sun. I was doing what amounted to a time-and-motion study on a company called Bloom Marine, Inc., for a movie mogul pal of my movie mogul pal, the aforementioned Lew Lewellen. His pal was filthy rich. Like many, if not all, the filthy rich, he felt that nothing was enough, because nothing is enough to the man for whom enough is too little, to paraphrase from the Greek. He was a tightwad, a stingy miser who was convinced all his employees were as avaricious (and as crooked, if you ask me) as he was. To give him a deeply begrudged credit, it was turning out that in the case of Bloom Marine, Inc., anyway, he was spot-on.
    That Tuesday afternoon was my third half-day on the job, spread out over the past six weeks, so Bloom Marine, Inc., had already submitted one monthly statement to my client, which I had seen. And one item I’d seen was a charge for twelve man-hours of carpentry—and you know