“She said wait.”

Tziril returned a minute later. “Moshe said only relatives can come into the Bursa-”

“So say I’m a relative-”

“Rega, rega…” Tziril said. “Moshe will do anything that will help the boys. He will take you there.”

“Today?”

“Yes. He’s getting dressed. It will take a few minutes.”

Decker gave his hands a clap. “Thank you.”

“Mr. Decker, there are rules. You must say you are his son-in-law.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“And you must not talk to anyone on the floor. No one! Nothing until he gets you alone in Joseph’s office.”

“That’s not a problem, either.”

“You must bring your passport.”

“I have it with me.” He patted his jacket.

“And your wife must come, too.”

Decker paused. “That’s fine. He needs her to translate and so do I.”

“This is true but not the reason he wants her. My husband says he likes her much better than he likes you.”

Rina drove, Yalom sat in the front passenger’s seat, allowing Decker to take surreptitious notes in the back. Not that there was anything worth recording. No conversation to speak of. Finally, Yalom mumbled something to Rina.

She said, “He wants to know how his daughter, Orit, is doing.”

“Tell him she seems to be in good health.”

The old man nodded and spoke to Rina.

“Did you meet his grandchildren?”

“Just his granddaughter, Sharona,” Decker said. “She seemed very nice. Very bright. I liked her a lot.”

Mr. Yalom grunted out, “Pretty, no?”

“Beautiful,” Decker said. “Yef…yeffe meod.” He turned to Rina. “Did I get that right?”

“Perfect.”

The car returned to its silent state. A moment later, Yalom indicated something by a point of the finger. Rina got off the ayalon on the Rekevet exit. The old man directed her into a series of turns that put them on a gravel and dirt pay lot. No parking spaces had been marked but the cars, mostly subcompacts, that occupied the lot were spaced in an orderly fashion. The parking area bordered a busy tree-lined boulevard. Across the roadway stood three ultra-modern granite and glass skyscrapers jutting out from what looked like a strip mall. Decker look out the rear window. Behind the lot was a nest of square patched-up apartment houses, laundry hanging from the windows. No sense of a neighborhood. Nothing matched-Tijuana meets Century City.

Rina shut off the motor and they got out of the car. The boulevard was more of a highway with cars racing at high speeds in both directions. The nearest intersection with a traffic light was a blip in the distance. Yalom rooted along a wire fence that acted as a barrier between the lot and the boulevard until he found a hole. He squeezed through it, then stood in the street and watched cars speed by.

“We’re going to cut across?” Decker asked Rina.

Rina said, “I’m just following the leader.”

Traffic finally cleared on one side. The old man dashed across with surprising speed. Decker and Rina followed until the trio took temporary refuge on the boulevard’s divider-a concrete island in a sea of blurred metal and smoky exhaust.

Decker said, “You know, if this was America, we’d all get a ticket.”

Rina said, “I know. LA’s really big on jaywalking.”

“That’s because people get killed jaywalking.” A truck shot past, blowing wind through Decker’s hair and almost knocking Rina off her feet. He said, “This is crazy.”

The old man shouted a “go” in English. All three of them tore across.

“See?” Rina said. “We made it.”

Decker ran his fingers through his hair and didn’t answer. Yalom motioned them forward, his gait slowing to that of an old man. He led them up a series of museum-sized granite steps while speaking to Rina. She translated.

“There are three major buildings in the diamond center. The Maccabee is where the Bursa is. It’s also where Joseph Menkovitz keeps his private office.” She paused and listened to Yalom’s words. “Even though the bigger dealers have offices now, they still do lots of trading in the Bursa itself. It makes excitement.”

“Makes excitement?” Decker asked.

Rina shrugged. The old man spoke and Rina clarified. “The Bursa is for everyone. Those that have private offices, those that don’t. If you’re a member of the Bursa, even if you don’t have an office, you can rent a locker and trade on the floor with everyone else. When you trade in the Bursa, it makes excitement.” She paused. “I think he means that Bursa generates excitement because it’s out in the open. I guess we’ll understand when we see it.”

The lobby to the Maccabee building was compartmentalized-trisected and encased in thick glass. Yalom went into the right-hand section, through steel revolving doors into a small sally port filled with people. Decker’s first impression: He was in line to the betting cage at the track. The windows up front were marked BUYERS/TENANTS. Yalom stood in the back of an undisciplined squiggle of human flesh; Decker and Rina fell in behind him.

Decker looked around. To the right was another set of steel revolving doors that led to a main lobby of the building. Security was visible at every turn of the head-in the sally port, in the lobbies, behind the windows. He must have spotted dozens of men and women dressed in gray shirts, blue ties, and dark blue pants.

The line inched forward, people nudging Decker in the back. In his experience, crowds brought tension. Strangely, no one seemed irritated. Here was humanity in all shapes, sizes, and religious inclinations stuffed into a small area and no one was grousing.

They finally made it to the front. Four security guards manned the window behind bullet-proof glass. Three of the watchdogs were seated; one male was standing behind the others, either overseeing them or kibitzing. Yalom got up to the window and spoke his case, the guard nodding and looking Decker and Rina over as the old man explained what he wanted.

“Passports, please,” she said.

Decker took them out of his jacket, then reluctantly forfeited them to the guard. She opened them, but her eyes weren’t on the ID. Instead, she seemed to be listening to the goings-on at the line next to hers. Then she butted into the conversation, arguing with her colleague who was dealing with a woman and a small child.

“What’s going on?” Decker asked Rina. “What’s she doing?”

Rina smiled wearily. “She’s getting distracted is what she’s doing. There seems to be a sh’aylah about kids under twelve needing a passport.”

“A sh’aylah?”

“A question.”

“Oh. A shylah!” Decker said, pronouncing it as if he were in the yeshiva.

Rina smiled. “Yes, a shylah.”

Finally, the guard deigned to look at the passports placed in her hands. She studied them, then punched something into a computer. Mr. Yalom spoke to Rina.

She said, “They’re issuing us badges and ID cards.”

A minute later, Yalom handed them two plastic cards and they were allowed to enter the main lobby. A thick fog of people scurried across white and gray marble floors. To the left was a bank of lockers; straight ahead were the elevators. They squeezed into the first car and rode up one floor. To Decker’s surprise, everyone got out. Yalom took them into a second elevator and pushed the fifteenth-floor button.

Decker said to Rina, “What was that all about?”

Yalom seemed to understand the question. He talked to Rina in Hebrew.

Rina said, “The first elevator goes only to the Bursa. You take these elevators to get to the offices.”

“For peoples,” Yalom said. “Too much peoples.”

Decker didn’t understand but didn’t press it. Maybe it was some security thing. The car rode up to the fifteenth floor and they got out. It was quiet and looked similar to Yalom’s office in Los Angeles. But unlike the LA diamond center, every door had a mezuzah on it.