'No, you can't.' He picked up the bit of green gla.s.s and shook his head at it. 'I still can't tell you the value. Size is only one of several considerations. There's also color, there's clarity, there's brilliance. Do you even know that the stone is an emerald? Did you test it for hardness?'

'No.'

'So it could even be colored gla.s.s. Like the, uh, treasure you've given me here.'

'For all I know it is gla.s.s. But I want to know what it could be worth if it did happen to be an emerald.'

'I think I see what you mean.' He frowned at the piece of gla.s.s. 'You have to understand that my every inclination is to avoid naming any sort of a figure. You see, even a.s.suming the stone is a genuine emerald, its range in value could be considerable. It could be extremely valuable or very nearly worthless. It could be seriously flawed, for example. Or it could simply be a very low-grade stone. There are mail order firms that actually offer emeralds by the carat for some ridiculous sum, forty or fifty dollars the carat, and what they're selling is no bargain, either. Yet they are genuine emeralds, however worthless they may be as gemstones.'

'I see.'

'Even a gem-quality emerald could vary enormously in value. You could buy a stone this size - ' he weighed the chunk of gla.s.s in his hand ' - for a couple thousand dollars. And that would be a good stone, not industrial-grade corundum from western North Carolina. On the other hand, a stone of the highest quality, the best color, perfect brilliance, unflawed, not even Peruvian but the very best Colombian emerald, might bring forty or fifty or sixty thousand dollars. And even that's approximate and imprecise.'

He had more to say but I wasn't paying attention. He hadn't really told me anything, hadn't added a fresh piece to the puzzle, but he'd given the box a good shake. Now I could see where everything went.

I took the cube of green gla.s.s with me when I left.

THIRTY-TWO.

Around ten-thirty that night I walked in and out of Poogan's Pub on West Seventy-second Street. A light rain had begun falling an hour or so earlier. Most of the people on the street were carrying umbrellas. I wasn't, but I had a hat, and I paused on the sidewalk to straighten it and adjust its brim.

Across the street I saw a Mercury sedan with its motor riding.

I turned to my left and walked to the Top Knot. I spotted Danny Boy at a table in back but went to the bar anyway and asked for him. I must have spoken loudly because people looked at me. The bartender motioned toward the rear and I went back there and joined him.

He already had company. He was sharing his table with a slender fox-faced girl whose hair was as white as his own, but in her case nature couldn't take the credit. Her eyebrows were severely plucked and her forehead had a shine to it. Danny Boy introduced her as Bryna. 'Rhymes with angina,' he said, 'among other things.' She smiled, showing sharp little canine teeth.

I pulled a chair out and sat down heavily. I said, 'Danny Boy, you can pa.s.s the word. I know all about Kim Dakkinen's boyfriend. I know who killed her and I know why she was killed.'

'Matt, are you all right?'

'I'm fine,' I said. 'You know why I had so much trouble getting a line on Kim's boyfriend? Because he wasn't an action guy, that's why. Didn't go to clubs, didn't gamble, didn't hang out. Wasn't connected.'

'You been drinking, Matt?'

'What are you, the Spanish Inquisition? What do you care if I've been drinking or not?'

'I just wondered. You're talking loud, that's all.'

'Well, I'm trying to tell you about Kim,' I said. 'About her boyfriend. See, he was in the jewelry business. He didn't get rich, he didn't starve. He made a living.'

'Bryna,' he said, 'suppose you powder your nose for a few minutes.'

'Oh, let her stay,' I told him. 'Her nose doesn't look shiny to me.'

'Matt - '

'What I'm telling you's no secret, Danny Boy.'

'Suit yourself.'

'This jeweler,' I went on. 'The way it looks, he started seeing Kim as a john. But something happened. One way or another, he fell for her.'

'These things happen.'

'They do indeed. Anyway, he fell in love. Meanwhile, some people got in touch with him. They had some precious stones that never went through Customs and that they had no bill of sale for. Emeralds. Colombian emeralds. Real quality stuff.'

'Matt, would you please tell me why in the h.e.l.l you're telling me all this?'

'It makes an interesting story.'

'You're not just telling me, you're telling the whole room. Do you know what you're doing?'

I looked at him.

'Okay,' he said, after a moment. 'Bryna, pay attention, darling. The crazy man wants to talk about emeralds.'

'Kim's boyfriend was going to be the middleman, handling the sale of the emeralds for the men who'd brought them into the country. He did this sort of thing before, made a few dollars for himself. But now he was in love with an expensive lady and he had a reason to want some real money. So he tried a cross.'

'How?'

'I don't know. Maybe he switched some stones. Maybe he held out. Maybe he decided to grab the whole bundle and run with it. He must have told Kim something because on the strength of it she told Chance she wanted out. She wasn't going to be turning tricks anymore. If I were going to guess, I'd say he did a switch and went out of the country to unload the good stuff. Kim got herself free of Chance while he was gone, and when he got back it was going to be Happily Ever After time. But he never came back.'

'If he never came back, who killed her?'

'The people he crossed. They decoyed her to that room at the Galaxy Downtowner. She probably thought she was going to be meeting him there. She wasn't hooking anymore, she wouldn't have gone to a hotel room to meet a john. In fact she'd never been much on hotel tricks. But suppose she gets a call from somebody who says he's a friend and the boyfriend's afraid to come to her place because he thinks he's being followed, so would she please meet him at the hotel?'

'And she went.'

'Sure she went. She got all dressed up, she wore the presents he gave her, the mink jacket and the emerald ring. The jacket wasn't worth a fortune because the guy wasn't rich, he didn't have money to burn, but he could give her a terrific emerald because the emeralds didn't cost him anything. He was in the business, he could take one of those smuggled stones and have it set in a ring for her.'

'So she went over and got killed.'

'Right.'

Danny Boy drank some vodka. 'Why? You figure they killed her to get the ring back?'

'No. They killed her to kill her.'

'Why?'

'Because they were Colombians,' I said, 'and that's how they do it. When they have a reason to hit somebody they go for the whole family.'

'Jesus.'

'Maybe they figure it's a deterrent,' I said. 'I could see where it might be. The cases make the papers pretty regularly, especially in Miami. A whole family gets waxed because somebody burned somebody else in a c.o.ke deal. Colombia's a rich little country. They've got the best coffee, the best marijuana, the best cocaine.'