The Property of a Lady by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

and the gem-cutting world years ago after a series of disasters involving large and expensive diamonds. Lifting a cupped hand to his mouth, Stein had said, “Scotch whisky, that’s what ruined Gerome Abyss. Rumor had it he went to Hong Kong, or was it Singapore? Or maybe Bangkok?”
    Cal had followed Interpol information that Abyss had last been seen in Bangkok, one of the major gem centers of the Far East, but his search had ground to a halt in a seedy back street in Patpong. He had found himself staring at a stained business card tacked to a peeling door. There was no answer to his ring, and the people at the Therapeutic Sex Clinic on the first floor had told him Abyss had not been seen in weeks. It had taken two days of inquiring from bar to bar along the malodorous network of neighboring streets to find the owner of the building, and when he finally encountered him, he wished he hadn’t.
    They met in the man’s office in back of a glitzy neon “massage parlor” and bar. Disco music was blaring from enormous speakers as half-naked Thai girls gyrated lethargically on a small stage while the bored customers lewdly assessed their merits. When Cal inquired for the owner, two muscular guards emerged suddenly from the shadows and, without a word, grabbed his arms. They hurried him along a corridor at the back of the bar, past “massage girls” lounging in front of flimsy-curtained cubicles, smoking and gossiping, waiting to apply their“skills” to a continuously passing trade. One called out to him, running her hands provocatively across her naked charms. “Try me, Mister, I make you feel good,” she said with a giggle as the two henchmen pushed him into a room at the rear of the building. The girl’s heavy perfume failed to disguise the sickening odors of sweat, ammonia, and strong disinfectant, and he thankfully inhaled a breath of the merely stale air of the office, staring at the little man behind the enormous desk.
    The man he had come to see was not Thai. He was Laotian, and he seemed ageless, with an unlined yellowish skin and eyes so narrow it was impossible to tell their color or read their expression. He was tiny, his childlike hands fiddled continually with a string of amber beads, and his immense carved teakwood chair only made him look smaller. Another menacing pair of bodyguards flanked his chair, and Cal’s throat suddenly felt dry. He was aware of the criminal underworld in Bangkok, but he hadn’t expected to stumble on it quite like this. These men meant business and it was a good bet it wasn’t the sort of business he was involved in: They were drug pushers, pimps, loan sharks….
    “My request is simple, sir,” he had said, carefully polite. “I am searching for a gem cutter by the name of Abyss.”
    The Laotian eyed him silently for a minute, then asked in a high, squeaky voice, “Why?”
    “Why?” Cal repeated uncertainly.
    “Why you seek Abyss? Perhaps he owe you money?”
    “No, oh, no. Abyss does not owe me money. I—I have a job for him.”
    “Show me the stone you want him to cut.”
    “The stone?” Cal felt the sweat rise along the back of his neck and he wondered how he had managed to get himself into this. “I left it in Amsterdam. It’s a special stone. They told me only Abyss could cut it.”
    There was a long silence and he had forced himself toStare into the Laotian’s face, wishing he could see his eyes, cursing himself for getting into this dumb situation.
    “You are lying,” the Laotian said finally in his thin voice. “Abyss is a drunkard. His gem-cutting days are over, destroyed in Paris many years ago. He has been making just enough to finance his drinking by cutting and polishing minor commercial stones for the cheap end of the market. But not enough to pay me. Mr. Gerome Abyss disappeared two months ago, owing me for certain services. This was an … an oversight. You understand?” His smile was as narrow and expressionless as his eyes as he added, “My