The mezuzah. The symbol of a Jewish establishment. On every single door. Yes, Decker finally realized they were in a Jewish country. It made him feel simultaneously strange and at home. Yalom pressed a button to the office and they were buzzed into an anteroom.

The secretary behind the glass partition reminded Decker of Yochie. She had jet-black hair and wore lots of makeup and jewelry. She spoke to Yalom; the old man turned around.

“Yossie’s downstairs in the Bursa,” Yalom reported in English. “He likes make old man go up and down, de mamzer.”

Decker told Rina she didn’t have to translate.

Taking up almost the entire floor, the Bursa was an open area framed by a northern wall of glass. It held strip after strip of black picnic-sized tables, the surfaces covered with hundreds of squares of calendar paper set into black leather blotters. The tables also were crowned with dozens of scales, loupes, and pincers. Chairs were set on both sides of the tables. The place was crowded, but there was plenty of elbow room to walk down the aisles. Opposite the glass wall was a series of teller booths, some marked OFFICIAL WEIGHING STATION. Above the booths seemed to be a viewing area-maybe an upstairs lounge-framed in smoked glass. A nice place to have a drink or watch TV and still be able to see the action below.

Hanging from the ceiling were television monitors that broadcast rows of numbers. Yalom saw Decker staring at the screens.

Rina translated his words. “Those are pager numbers. Someone needs you, your number goes up on the monitor.”

She took her eyes off the monitor and studied the vast open space. So many people-sitting, standing, milling around, going from table to table as if mingling at a cocktail party. There was a definite camaraderie. The smiles, the greetings, the pleasant conversation. And of course, the sense that there was business to be done. At any given time, there must have been a hundred jewelers holding loupes to stones.

And what stones they were! Diamonds! Thousands of them! Their worth just too staggering to contemplate. Piles spilling carelessly onto blotters, being freely passed from one hand to another. How easy it would be to palm a stone. And no one did. What a sense of trust!

Rina suddenly laughed inwardly at her naïveté.

It wasn’t trust that prevented theft, it was all the security. Lots and lots of security-unobtrusive, but a constant presence. She caught Peter’s eye. “It’s something else, isn’t it? Kind of like a stock exchange only without the suits and ties.”

Decker nodded. It was a good observation. There was little diversity in the population. Most were men and they were all dressed casually-dark pants, white shirt, no tie. Except for the occasional sleek-garbed woman, everyone looked the same. Even the religious seemed to blend in once they took off their long black coats.

His eyes went to the tables. Dozens of men sitting across from one another, opening briefcases and photographers’ bags filled with folded blue tissue paper. The valises were attached to metal chains, the chains were anchored around the vendors’ waists. The noise level was surprisingly civil. It was easy to hear conversation. Too bad Decker couldn’t understand any of it. But he was good at reading body language. He could tell at a glance who was making a deal, who was not.

Rina was wide-eyed. The old man looked at her face, smiled, then whispered something into her ear.

“What?” Decker said.

Rina moved in close. “He said there’s enough wealth in this room to buy all of Israel.”

Decker inched closer to the action, caught prisms of sunlight bouncing off the tabletops. Stones strewn over the blotters of white calender paper. A young man opened up a shoe-sized box stuffed with the blue tissue paper. He unwrapped one of the pieces of paper. A heart-shaped gem winked flirtatiously at Decker.

Yalom caught them staring and said, “You want see close? Come.” He walked over to a vendor and tapped him on the shoulder. The man looked up, then placed something in Yalom’s hand. The old man showed it to Decker. It was a raw stone and had an odd shape-two triangles fused at the base. It also looked like bottle glass.

The old man hefted the diamond and spoke in English. “Maybe three and half carat. They make two.” He made a slicing motion with his empty hand and spoke in Hebrew to Rina, showing her the stone as he talked.

Rina said, “The cutter will cleave the diamond at the base where the two triangles meet. That way he’ll have two nearly identical gems which will be set for earrings.”

“Tell him it looks like glass. That I’d pass it up without a second glance.”

Yalom nodded to Decker and smiled.

Rina said, “I think he understood you.”

The old man talked to Rina. “He says usually the buyers sit on one side of the table, the sellers opposite them. The buyers, even if they have offices, often come down here to see the action. If it’s real busy, the buyers will take their ‘want’ lists of what they need to the floor, sit down at a table, and place the list in front of them. The sellers walk down the aisles and look over the lists. If there’s a match, it’s a mazel und b’racha-a luck and a blessing. That means they cut a deal.”

The old man continued to talk.

Rina translated, “If it’s not that busy or if the buyers are occupied with other business, they’ll post their lists on the front doors of their offices. The sellers also go floor to floor and read the lists. Anything to strike a deal.”

Yalom cased the room, then spoke again.

Rina said, “He says Joseph Menkovitz usually sits on the other side of the room. Very far away. He likes people to come to him.”

“Let’s go,” Decker said.

Yalom led them through the crowd, Decker’s eyes scanning the area as he walked. People all around, the men blending together in a black-and-white tableau. It was the few women who stood out. They dressed sharply in gross contrast to the men. Bold jackets accented with colorful scarves, miniskirts showing lots of good-looking leg, jewelry dangling from ears and from around necks.

The old man pointed to the far corner. The spot had attracted a considerable crowd, lots of white shirts bending over the table. Yalom said, “Yosef’s there.”

A shock of color suddenly drifted away from the sea of white cotton.

It hit him as hard as a sock in the jaw.

Speak to my secretary and I’ll get back to you.

So much for the big case that was keeping Milligan in Los Angeles. Decker took a dozen steps backward, pulling Rina with him. Yalom was still walking toward the crowd when he realized he’d lost his companions. He turned around and looked over his shoulder. Decker motioned him back, then pressed them all against the wall.

“What is it?” Rina asked.

“Ask him who that woman is,” Decker said.

“Which woman?”

“The one in the bright blue dress with curly copper-colored hair and the big handbag.”

The old man understood. “Kate Milligan.” He spread his arms wide out. “Macher…shot big.”

“He means big shot,” Rina answered.

Milligan took a notebook out of her purse and briskly flipped through the pages. Decker said, “Ask him if he sees her at the Bursa a lot.”

Rina did, then translated Yalom’s answer. “He said it’s unusual. But everyone knows who she is because she’s a macher-a big shot-with VerHauten. You know about VerHauten?”

“Yes, I know about VerHauten. Ask him, why does he think she’d be here talking to Yosef Menkovitz.”

Rina asked the question, then translated Yalom’s answer as best she could. “She wants to see how many stones come from VerHauten…I don’t know exactly what he means.”

“I think I do,” Decker said. “Ask him if stones from sources other than VerHauten’s pipes have been showing up in the Bursa?”

Rina stared at him. “Repeat that again, slowly.”