Sweetie's Diamonds Read online

  SWEETIE'S DIAMONDS

  Raymond Benson

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  © 2011 / Raymond Benson

  Cover design by: David Dodd

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  FOR MY FAMILY

  DAVID’S JOURNAL

  Hi.

  Mom gave me this journal for my 13th birthday so I guess I’ll finally write in it. I’ve had it for seven months but haven’t touched it. I’m going to be 14 next fall, so if I haven’t written in it by then and Mom finds out, she might be disappointed. I don’t want to disappoint her. So I’m going to write in it and reveal all of my secret thoughts and desires. I’m not really sure why people write private stuff in diaries because the point of a journal is that no one else reads it but them, right? And don’t they already know all that secret stuff that they’re writing down? Mom says it’s “good therapy” to write down our private thoughts. I don’t know if she keeps a journal, though. I wish she did.

  My name is David Boston and I’m in the 8th grade. I should really be in the 7th grade but they moved me up a year when I was younger. I guess they thought I was smarter than the other kids in my first grade class. I stayed in first grade for half the year and then moved up. They said I was a good reader and that I write exceptionally well. I’m good in math, too. I guess I make up for my health problems with a mind for school. The other kids think I’m weird because I take an active interest in schoolwork and would rather tackle a challenging math quiz than tackle another kid on the football field. Besides, my doctor says I can’t play football anyway. I can’t play any sports. I’ve been excused from Gym since I started school.

  I have what they call Marfan syndrome. I don’t totally understand it, but it’s “hereditary.” I learned how to spell that word when I was 6 years old. It means you get it from a relative. My Mom says that her father had Marfan syndrome and he died from it. I was born with it. It’s a condition where I don’t have a certain protein and this causes my body to grow geeky and it gives me bad eyesight. The worst part is I was born with a weak heart. The doctor calls it “aortic regurgitation.” I used to have a lot of chest pains when I was smaller, especially when I ran or exerted myself. I still have them if I’m not careful. The doctor says I can get an operation to fix it when I’m older, after my heart stops growing. For now I just have to watch what kind of physical activity I do and I take a pill called Tenormin once a day. It would be really embarrassing to have a heart attack at 13 years old! Anyway, I’m real tall and skinny for my age—I’m a lot taller than any of the other kids in school and they like to call me “String Bean”—and I wear thick glasses for near-sightedness which really make me look like a nerd. So, you add up all those things—thick glasses, tall and skinny, smart in school, and a wimp at athletics—and you have yourself a founding member of the Nerds of America Club.

  You might think I wouldn’t have any friends, but I do. Billy Davis is my best friend and he’s in three of my classes at school. In fact, he’s probably my only friend. He’s kind of a nerd, too, I guess. He makes okay grades but he’s not too good at Gym. At least he gets to go to Gym.

  I can’t think of any other guys that are friends. I sure have a lot of enemies, though. Especially that jerk Matt Shamrock. What an asshole. He doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in this journal.

  My Mom and I live in Lincoln Grove, Illinois, which is a town in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Mom says it’s a “safe place to raise kids.” I guess it is. Nothing really happens around here. My school doesn’t have metal detectors and things like that. I heard that they have them in Chicago public schools. The kids in my school come from good middle-class families, I guess. And some upper-class ones, too. We’re at the lower end of the middle-class group.

  Mom and Dad got a divorce a year ago. I was real upset about it at first but I’ve gotten used to it, I guess. (I guess I say, “I guess” a lot.) It still makes me sad sometimes. The divorce, I mean. I still see my Dad, but not very often. He owns a big car dealership in town and he’s one of the Village Trustees. I’m not sure what that means and I don’t think I ever will. He goes to these monthly meetings at the Village Town Hall but I have no idea what he does there. He sells a lot of cars though. There’s even a radio ad about Boston Ford that people hear all the time. It’s on a lot of stations. Dad comes from a long line of Bostons. My Dad’s grandfather founded Boston Ford back in the 1940s. Dad’s name is Greg Boston. I think he’s 46 or 47 years old. I never can remember.

  My Mom’s name is Diane Boston. She’s forty-something years old. She teaches history and social studies at the high school where I’ll be going someday—Lincoln High. In fact, she’s the head of the Social Studies Department. But her main claim to fame at Lincoln High is with girls’ self-defense classes. She does that as an extra-curricular activity. She teaches judo and karate to girls. My Mom has a black belt in that stuff, so unlike me, she’s very athletic. Billy thinks she’s pretty, too, but I can’t say that about my own Mom. He calls her a “MILF”—a “Mom I’d Like to F—-.” (I figure I can say the F word but I better not write it. Don’t ask me why.) Billy says even his Dad thinks my Mom is “hot.” Billy’s Dad also teaches at Lincoln High, and he’s divorced too. My Mom and Billy’s Dad went on a date once but I don’t think it went too well.

  Mom’s really great. She’s fun to be around and she’s pretty smart, too. I love my Dad, but he can be a jerk sometimes. He doesn’t have an open mind. Mom is very liberal and seems to understand everything about people. All the kids at her school really like her. She was voted “Favorite Teacher” two years ago. I feel sorry for her sometimes because of the divorce. Dad moved out of the house and we stayed in it for abo
ut a year, but now we have to move to a smaller place. We’re going to move this weekend to an apartment because Mom can’t afford to keep such a big house for just the two of us. Dad has to pay her some kind of support but it’s not enough. I don’t really want to move, but I guess we have to.

  Mom’s usually pretty upbeat about everything, whether it’s my medical condition, or her divorce, or problems at school, or whatever. Sometimes, though, she gets real quiet and kind of distant. I guess you could say she gets depressed. She drinks wine a lot at night and sometimes I think she drinks too much. I wish I knew if she had a journal. I’d really like to peek in it and see what kinds of things she would write. I think Mom has some secrets that she hasn’t shared with anyone. I can’t explain it—it’s just something I feel is true. Something happened to my Mom long ago and it makes her a little funny sometimes. I don’t mean she’s crazy or anything, but she will sometimes sit and stare at the wall for a long time, like she’s in a trance. She’ll snap out of it eventually. She also doesn’t reveal very much about her life before meeting my Dad. That’s one reason why Dad left her. He accused her of “not opening up to him” and stuff. If you ask me, I don’t think he had very good reasons for leaving, but what do I know? I don’t really understand it.

  Whatever happened to Mom in the past, I know it bugs her a lot. It’s a big deep dark secret and I don’t think she’ll ever tell anyone what it is.

  But I’m going to find out.

  1

  Moses Rabinowitz sighed heavily as soon as the customer left the shop. He had not made a single sale all day and it was nearing closing time. As he had already sent home the help, there was nothing else to do but begin to shut down the store. Being Friday, and Shabbat, it was the one day that A-1 Fine Jewelry closed early. Of course, they were closed all day Saturday and Sunday so the five days a week that they were open were precious.

  Moses knew better than to complain, though. The store wasn’t hurting. He was well aware that he and his brother Hiram did quite well, thank you very much. Hiram ran the home store in New York City, deep in the heart of the diamond district. Moses came west to open the Chicago shop thirty years ago and it proved to be a profitable enterprise.

  He had made a lot of important business contacts in Chicago, some of whom were not entirely on the up-and-up. Sure, they did legitimate business with honest customers, but most of the Rabinowitz success came from trade that he wouldn’t talk about in front of a policeman. So who was he to question what others did for their livings? As long as they didn’t interfere with him, Moses did business with everyone—religious Jews, non-religious Jews, Christians, Muslims, blacks, whites, gangsters—he didn’t care. As long as the money was good and the transactions were discreet.

  The shop was located outside the Loop at a prime location on Lincoln Avenue. The area attracted a lot of pedestrian traffic, so the store did a brisk business with walk-ins. From the street A-1 Fine Jewelry appeared to be a modest long-time neighborhood business—nothing fancy or snooty. Moses liked it that way. It kept the IRS off his back.

  Rabinowitz walked to the display windows at the front of the shop and opened them from the back. The routine was to empty them every night. The store had been robbed only once and it was a lesson he never forgot. Some junkie had smashed the windows and taken everything in sight. At his ripe old age of sixty-nine, Moses knew that his health couldn’t deal with violent types, the police, or lawyers. Which was ironic, seeing that one of the best-kept secrets in Chicago was that Moses Rabinowitz was a highly respected fence.

  He removed one velvet-lined tray of earrings from the window and walked it over to the counter by the cash register. Moses wouldn’t open the safe until all four windows were empty and the merchandise was ready to be moved quickly from the counter into the vault. He walked back to the windows and reached for another tray.

  That’s when he saw her coming. The blonde.

  He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know where she lived. He knew only that she came to him once a month and sold him some incredible merchandise.

  Moses quickly ran through the figures in his head to determine if he had enough cash on hand that day. He thought that he just might.

  The door opened and the little bell mounted above it jingled.

  “Hello, my dear,” he said cheerfully.

  “Hello, Mister Rabinowitz,” she said. She removed sunglasses to reveal those magnificent cat-like green eyes. He was never very good at guessing the ages of women, but he figured her to be in her late thirties or early forties. She was tall and slender, had a healthy figure, and was certainly intelligent enough to know the ins and outs of fencing.

  He didn’t think she was Jewish, but that didn’t matter.

  “I didn’t expect you until next week,” he said, closing the backs of the windows.

  “I know, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to visit you next week,” she replied. She moved into the store and peered into one of the glass cases. “Ooh, that’s nice,” she said, pointing to a rose-shaped diamond broach.

  “Yes, that’s a new piece. We just got that a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful craftsmanship.”

  She moved down the counter and nodded appreciatively at other items. A necklace caught her fancy and she smiled. “Oh, I like that.”

  “Would you like to try it on?”

  She looked at him and smiled. “Not today. I’m in a bit of a hurry. Maybe next time. I really should treat myself to a piece or two someday, shouldn’t I?”

  “You most certainly should!” Rabinowitz moved to the front door, flipped the hanging sign so that the “Closed” side faced the outside, and then locked the door. He walked past her and went around the counter.

  “Now then,” he said. “What have we today?

  The woman opened her handbag and removed a white silk handkerchief. Always the same, he thought. If he were a betting man, he would say that she had two of them wrapped in the hanky.

  The woman carefully unfolded the handkerchief on top of the counter. Sure enough, the hanky contained two very large exquisite diamonds.

  Even though he had done business with the woman on numerous occasions, the fine quality and sheer splendor of the jewels always amazed Moses Rabinowitz.

  “Oy,” he muttered. It was all he could say.

  She laughed. “They’re just like the others, Mister Rabinowitz. Not a carat less.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Miss… er…”

  She held up a finger. “Nuh-uh-uh… you know the rules. No names. Cash only.”

  He nodded sheepishly and turned red. “I know, I know. You don’t have to worry.”

  She turned away to admire more necklaces in another case as he went through the ritual of taking a jeweler’s glass out of a drawer and examining the stones. He muttered affirmatively as he studied the two gems, verifying that they were genuine and worth three times as much as he was about to offer her for them.

  “I can give you five thousand dollars apiece.”

  The woman turned to him and cocked her head. “Mister Rabinowitz! You know you can sell them for three times that much!”

  He gave his trademarked embarrassed laugh and nodded.

  “Honestly, Mister Rabinowitz, we go through this every time I come in here!” she said, not without a little flirtation in her voice.

  “I know, I know. It’s fun to haggle with you,” he shrugged and laughed. “Let’s see, what was it I gave you for them last month?” He scratched his head as if he were trying to remember.

  “Eight thousand each?” she reminded him.

  “Oh, yes, uhm, eight thousand.”

  “Unless of course you want to give me more.”

  “I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Eight thousand is all I can offer you for them.”

  She stopped smiling and looked at him hard. For a brief moment, Moses Rabinowitz felt as if he were staring into the eyes of a madwoman. He thought that he could see something there that could truly hurt him if he weren’t careful.
r />   Eventually she broke the spell and smiled again. “Very well,” she said.

  Moses breathed, nodded, and gestured to the back of the store. “The money’s in the safe. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t be too long,” she said. “I might rob you.”

  He laughed nervously and walked into the back office. He wasn’t usually uneasy in dealing with what were obviously stolen goods. After all, they were stolen goods, weren’t they? Why would this pretty woman come into the shop and sell the same type of diamonds, over and over, for more than twenty years? He had seen this woman grow from being a young girl into this spectacularly confident, mature lady. Who did she work for? Where did she get these diamonds? What was her story?

  But one of his jobs as a fence was to not ask questions.

  Moses quickly worked the combination and opened the safe. Removing the $16,000 nearly cleaned him out. He had to hope that Hiram could sell the diamonds quickly.

  He went back into the shop and found her bending over another case, admiring the wedding rings.

  “Thinking of getting married?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” she said, turning to him. “Been there, done that.” She walked to the counter as he counted the hundred dollar bills. When he was done, she picked up the stack and placed it inside a white envelope that just fit in her handbag.

  Moses quickly placed the two diamonds in a velvet-lined box and the woman retrieved her handkerchief.

  “Might I interest you in some bracelets? We got some nice items yesterday,” he said.

  “No, thank you,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “But I’ll see you soon.”

  With that, she turned and walked to the front of the shop. Moses followed her, unlocked the door, and held it open for her.

  “Goodbye,” she said.