Page 27 of The Collector
But where?
The gun brought a sudden end to his deliberations, the large semiautomatic pistol that the man drew with shocking elegance fromthe interior of his overcoat. When pointed toward Peter’s face, the weapon emitted two bright flashes but scarcely a sound. And down he went, into the black water, into the abyss.The Concertby Johannes Vermeer did not make the journey with him; the man with the gun had taken it. The man whom Peter had seen at 5:55 p.m. that very evening, leaving the café in Vissenbjerg. He needed to warn Ingrid that her life was in danger, but he couldn’t. Ingrid had taken his damn phone.
15
Diamantkwartier
Only a man of Martin Landesmann’s immense wealth would have used the wordsmallto describe the astonishing collection of jewelry that Gabriel discovered when he opened the safe in Monique’s dressing room. There were more than a hundred pieces in all, including a diamond solitaire pendant in a platinum setting, about twelve carats in weight. Gabriel stole wisely but judiciously, taking only what he needed—including a hundred thousand euros in walking-around money—and made his escape in his victim’s car, with his victim’s usual Paris driver behind the wheel. It was midnight when he entered the appropriately named Sapphire House in central Antwerp. A Diamond Suite had been reserved in his name. His victim’s investment firm was picking up the tab, including incidentals.
The hotel was on Lange Nieuwstraat, not far from Antwerp’s stately old town. With its narrow streets and plentiful shops and cafés, it was a perfect place for a leisurely surveillance-detection run, which Gabriel conducted after a light breakfast the following morning. It did not take him more than a few minutes to establishthat Belgium’s crack internal security service did not realize that the former director-general of the Office was staying at one of the city’s better hotels.
He headed next to Meir, Antwerp’s main shopping street, for a wardrobe change: formfitting black jeans, a black pullover, zippered ankle boots, a leather overcoat, an oversize gold wristwatch, a gold necklace, a pair of yellow-tinted glasses. He donned the clothing in his suite at the Sapphire House and emerged at half past twelve looking thoroughly disreputable and not a little dangerous. He was, after all, a criminal, a master thief who had recently pinched more than a million euros’ worth of jewelry from an apartment on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. Several of the pieces were concealed in the pockets of his overcoat, including a twelve-carat diamond solitaire pendant. The rest of his loot was stashed in his room safe, along with his Israeli passport and Israeli-made mobile phone, reputedly the world’s most secure. His 9mm Beretta pistol was wedged into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back. Unlike many of his ilk, he knew how to use it.
Downstairs, the concierge regarded him with distaste as he crossed the lobby and went once more into Lange Nieuwstraat. This time he turned to the right and set out toward Antwerpen-Centraal railway station, widely regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful. Its imposing western facade overlooked the Diamantkwartier, a compact district of retail shops, jewelry manufacturers, and brokerage houses through which 234 million carats’ worth of diamonds flowed annually. Gabriel arrived to find much of the neighborhood shuttered and deserted. It was a Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, and much of Antwerp’s diamond trade remained in Jewish hands.
But many recent arrivals in the Diamond Quarter chose to keep their shops open on Saturdays while their Jewish competitors were observing their religiously mandated day of rest and prayer. One suchentrepreneur was a certain Khoren Nazarian, the Armenian-born owner of the Mount Ararat Global Diamond Exchange, located at 23 Appelmansstraat. On the opposite side of the street was a trattoria called Café Verde. Gabriel greeted the hostess in Italian and, despite his suspect appearance, was shown to a coveted table in the window.
There he quickly reached the conclusion, based in large measure on instinct and hard-won experience, that his old friend Maurice Durand had once again pointed him in the right direction. Perhaps it was the discretion of the firm’s entrance, with its opaque glass door and easily overlooked brass placard. Or the furtive demeanor of the two men—one of whom appeared to be carrying a concealed weapon—who requested admission to the premises at one fifteen. Or the steroid abuser, he of the shaved head and tree-trunk neck, who showed the two callers into the autumn afternoon some twenty minutes later with a smile that suggested their meeting had gone well.
Had it involved only precious gemstones, or was the Mount Ararat Global Diamond Exchange a front for other criminal activity? Narcotics, say, or illicit firearms. All Gabriel wanted was a name—the name of the woman who had stolen the Vermeer from Lukas van Damme’s villa in Amalfi. It was his ambition to acquire this piece of information with a simple business transaction, one that safeguarded his identity, thus the small fortune in jewelry hidden in the pockets of his atrocious coat. And if that didn’t work, he supposed he could always resort to violence. He hoped it didn’t come to that. Belgium was one of the few countries in Europe where he had no friends in government or law enforcement. Besides, his back was giving him fits.
But what would he call himself? He decided, while placing several crisp banknotes atop the bill for his lunch, to borrow his son’s name, which rivaled his own for hipness. He would be Raffaele. No surname, just Raffaele, like the painter. He was a thief from a hardscrabble village in Calabria who was connected to the violent criminalsyndicate known as the ’Ndrangheta. His bosses were looking for a woman who had recently pulled a big heist on the Amalfi Coast. Tribute was owed, honor was due. It was a language every organized criminal understood, especially when a member of the ’Ndrangheta showed up at his door unannounced.
Which was precisely what Gabriel did at the stroke of two o’clock. He pressed the call button on the intercom panel and, receiving no response, pressed it again.
At length a metallic male voice asked, “Ja?”
Gabriel answered in English, in a pronounced Italian accent. “I’d like to speak to Khoren Nazarian.”
“Mr. Nazarian is unavailable.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Who are you, please?”
“My name is Raffaele.”
“Raffaele who?”
Gabriel raised the large-carat diamond solitaire toward the security camera.
The dead bolts opened with a thud.
16
Appelmansstraat
The steroid abuser was waiting in the cramped foyer, arms folded across his inflated pectorals, feet shoulder-width apart. The carpet beneath him was beige and threadbare; the lights above his head were harsh and fluorescent. Behind him was another locked door and another camera. Wordlessly, he thrust a hand in Gabriel’s direction, with the palm facing up. Gabriel grasped the appendage and gave it a genial squeeze. It was like shaking hands with a block of concrete.
“The diamond,” said the Armenian.
Gabriel dangled it like the pendulum of a clock.
“Where did you get it?”
“It belonged to my late mother, may she rest in peace.”
“She had good taste.”
