“I know you think I’m lying about what the lady in the jewelry store said. But let’s just say I’m telling you the truth. If I am, why did Banura look at them and say they were first-rate?”

Dwayne shook his head. “Okay, if you’re not lying, then maybe that woman doesn’t know shit.”

“It is her business,” Jan said. “It’s what she does.”

Dwayne thought about that. “Then maybe Banura doesn’t know shit.”

Now Jan was shaking her head. “It’s his business, too.”

Dwayne made a snorting noise. “Well, if they both know so fucking much, how come one of them is wrong? Clearly, one of them doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

“I think they both know what they’re doing,” Jan said. “But one of them’s lying. And it doesn’t make any sense that the woman in the jewelry store is lying.”

“It might. If you’d decided to sell everything to her for a song, she’d make out like a bandit.”

“I don’t think so.”

Dwayne’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying? You saying Banny Boy is lying to us?”

“Yeah.”

“About how much he’s going to give us? You think we show up, he’s going to have three million for us instead of six?”

“He’s not going to pay anything for stones that are worthless,” Jan said. Even as she said it, she could hardly believe it. All the time invested, the waiting…

Dwayne’s face was darkening again. The anger was returning. Jan knew what was going on. He was so close to the money he could taste it. He didn’t want anyone ruining his dream.

“If they’re worthless, then why didn’t he tell us that when he first saw them?” Dwayne said. “Why put us through all this, make us come back at two?”

“I don’t know,” Jan said.

“I’ll tell you why,” Dwayne said. “Because it’s not safe to keep that kind of cash around. He probably had to go someplace to get it. Or have some courier come by with it. Maybe he’s got a safe-deposit box, too, and he had to go get the cash out of it. That’s what’s going on.”

Suddenly, Dwayne veered the truck over to the curb.

“Give me a diamond,” he said.

“What?”

“Any diamond. Just give me one.”

Jan reached into the bag in her purse, picked out one small stone, and handed it to Dwayne. He closed his palm on it, got out of the truck, and went around to the sidewalk, just beyond Jan’s window. He bent over, placed the stone on the sidewalk, stood upright, then stomped on the stone with the heel of his shoe. When he lifted his foot, the stone was gone.

“Shit,” he said. “Where the fuck did it go?”

Then he examined the bottom of his shoe, and found the stone embedded in the rubber sole. Bracing himself with one hand on the truck, he dug the stone out with his finger and held it up to Jan’s nose.

“There, look,” he said. “It’s perfectly fine.”

Jan knew the test didn’t prove a damn thing, but she knew Dwayne was beyond convincing at this point.

He handed her the stone before going around the truck and getting back in behind the wheel.

He said to her, “When I get my boat, I’m using you for a fucking anchor.”

For Oscar Fine, it was about rehabilitating his image.

Of course, it was about respect. Self-respect, and keeping the respect of others.

No question, it was about revenge.

But more than anything, it was about redemption. He needed to redeem himself. He had to set things right, restore some personal order, and the only way he could do that, no matter how long it took, was to find the woman who took his hand.

It was more than an injury, more than a physical disfigurement. It was a humiliation. Oscar Fine had always been the best. When you wanted something done, he was the man you called. He was a fixer. He took care of things.

He didn’t screw up.

But then he did. Big-time.

The thing was, he knew something might be up. That was the whole point of toting a briefcase full of bogus jewels. They were worried about a leak, that maybe their system for moving jewels into the country, and then to their various markets, had been compromised.

It had been Oscar Fine’s idea. Do a decoy delivery, he said. Let me do the regular run, he said, but bring the real stuff in some other way, a route that hasn’t been done before. If someone makes a move on me, if the jewels are taken, or if the shipment is somehow damaged-Oscar Fine had imagined a scenario where he might have to send someone, briefcase and all, down to the bottom of the Boston Inner Harbor-we’re not out merchandise.

For theatrical effect, he hooked himself to the briefcase with the handcuff. Any other time, he transported goods in a gym bag. A handcuff, it was like carrying a big sign that said “Rob me.”

The gems were inside several cloth bags. One of them had a GPS transmitter stitched into the lining. Say someone got the drop on him. He’d give up the combination so they could open the briefcase, take the bags. Then he’d just see where they went, using the cell phone-sized receiver in his pocket.

His bosses weren’t so sure. “What if they just kill you?”

“They need me for the combination. I plan on being obliging. They got nothing to gain by killing me.”

Oscar Fine knew right away something was up when the limo arrived and the driver did not get out to open his door. Let him do it himself.

Okay, he thought, I can play along. That’s the whole point of this, after all.

So he opened the back door on his own, and there she was. This woman with red hair, sitting on the far side, not bad looking, all lipstick and low-cut top and a skirt up to here and sheer black stockings and hooker heels, and right away he knew this was not right, this was a trap, this was all bullshit, and it almost made him grin, how amateur hour it all was.

She said, “They said you deserved a bonus.”

Yeah, fuck, like that would happen. But he could play along with this. Let them think they’re pulling a fast one. Pretty soon a gun will come out, he gives up the code and the briefcase, lets them drop him off somewhere.

Too bad about the dart.

It came from where the driver was sitting. Caught him below the right nipple, went through his jacket, pricked the skin.

Son of a bitch.

The effect was almost instantaneous. As he began to weave, the woman lurched toward him, grabbed the briefcase, yanked. Since he was attached to it by the wrist, he stumbled forward and into the back of the car.

Not good, he told himself. Not good at all. His arms and legs started going numb. Couldn’t even reach out to break his fall. But the leather upholstery gave him a soft landing.

He started to say “What the fuck” but all that came out was “Wawawa.”

How did he fail to anticipate something like this? While the dart had numbed and dizzied him, made it difficult to speak, it hadn’t totally slowed his thought process. No one’s supposed to get the drop on me, he thought. Suddenly, I’m an amateur again.

He started wondering how this was going to work. They were going to want the briefcase, no doubt about that. And he was more than happy to let them have every piece of cubic zirconium that it held. But if he couldn’t talk, how the hell was he going to tell them the combination? The case had a lock on its side, next to the handle. A series of five numbers that had to be lined up for it to open. There was no key.

He couldn’t see the driver, but the woman, he’d gotten a good look at her.

The two of them, once they couldn’t open the case or release it from the handcuff that attached it to his wrist, started yelling at each other. First, he heard metallic clinking. They’d brought tools. Several of them, on the car floor. His wrist, being grabbed, examined, thrown down, picked up again. A search of his pockets, the inside of his jacket. The woman found his phone, the GPS receiver, pocketed both.