Free West 47th by Gerald A Browne Page A

tranquil, nearly deserted. The precious goods, diamonds and such, that determined its nature were locked away, waiting in the incompatible dark for their keepers to come liberate them and allow them to do their daily dazzle.
    It would be two to three hours yet.
    The windows of the upper stories of the 580 building across the way were reflecting early sun. There was no activity or lights on in the offices and workrooms over there that Mitch could see. Except, of course, for those of Visconti.
    Visconti’s private corner office was dark, but the adjacent spaces on each side that comprised his operation were lighted and possibly doing business. Visconti’s people seemed to be continually at it, Mitch thought, even nights, weekends, holidays. Especially nights, weekends and holidays. How many millions did they do a year?
    He sat at his desk.
    Before him lay the case file Ruder had sent late yesterday, the eight-by-ten color photographs and the corresponding loss list.
    The Kalali loss.
    Mitch had gone over it cursorily, intended now to thoroughly familiarize himself with the pieces that had been stolen, the swag.
    Last thing yesterday, before going down to meet Maddie for dinner, he’d been studying the photograph of a ruby and diamond necklace and matching pair of ear clips. In fact, he’d been admiring those items and thinking how attractively designed they were, the way the diamonds and rubies integrated to create a flow that carried attention to the larger center stones. The loss list didn’t indicate who was the maker. They looked good enough to be Van Cleef & Arpels in Mitch’s estimation; however that was a value-increasing attribute that certainly wouldn’t have been omitted.
    What occurred to Mitch now, and bothered him, was that the photo of those diamond and ruby pieces wasn’t where it should be. He’d left it on top of the other Kalali photos, was quite sure of that. Now he found it several photos down.
    Had he, in his eagerness to meet Maddie, just stuck that photo in among the others? Possibly, but he couldn’t recall having done that, wasn’t really convinced he had. He pushed the bother aside.
    On top now for his consideration was a photograph of two emeralds. On the Kalali loss list these were described merely as two matching, unmounted emeralds of twenty carats each.
    According to the photo they deserved more than that, Mitch thought, much more inasmuch as color was foremost when it came to emeralds. These appeared to be the ideal, deep, vibrant green that Mitch always compared to the green of crème de menthe.
    Another thing. Their appraised value, indicated on the loss list, was one hundred fifty thousand.
    Two stones at twenty carats each.
    Forty carats in all.
    That put them at only thirty-seven fifty a carat.
    If they were as good as they looked to be in this photo they were worth several times that.
    Strange.
    Upon closer examination of the photo Mitch noticed what seemed to be scratches on the faces of the emeralds. Perhaps, although unlikely, unless they were deeper and more damaging than they looked, the scratches might be the depreciating factor. But then, they weren’t scratches at all, Mitch realized. They were inscriptions, in what appeared to be Arabic.
    He’d seen numerous carved emeralds, of course, but never any such as these. Usually the ones chosen to be carved were of lesser quality. These were fine. The only explanation for that would be they were old, Mitch thought.
    The inscriptions.
    It occurred to Mitch how they were going to cost some fence, how the buyer would contend that the emeralds, inscribed as they were and thus easily identifiable, were worth less than what the fence was asking. Mitch imagined the gist of the dialogue.
    The buyer would make an offer slightly above the ridiculous level.
    The fence would scoff and say the inscriptions could be polished away.
    The buyer would say then go ahead and have them polished.
    The fence,