Ten years ago the Hassidim were hurrying home from the Diamond District to beat the sunset. The High Holidays had come early this year with Sukkor coinciding with the ancient pagan festival of Mabon, which commemorates the autumnal equinox. Sukkor is not only a bridge across the Indus, but the festival honoring the 40 years during which the Hebrews were lost in the desert. All over Williamsburg sukkah are erected outside the apartment buildings and houses of the Hassidim in memory of those decades wandering without real shelter. Gabriel M left Richie Boy a parcel of ten big diamonds. The biggest was a 6-carat round brilliant.
"I won't be answering my phone." He wouldn't be back on the street for ten days. Sukkor lasted longer than the San Gennaro Feast on Mulberry Street. Gabriel wished us good luck. "Sei gesund."
I checked the 6-carat stone. Black flecks were visible in the table. Big ones. I figured the diamond for an F I2. A classless combination of size, color, and imperfection.
At best $3000 a carat.
Gabriel had doubled on my estimation.
$40,000.
It was too late to give back the stone. Gabriel was lost in the flood of black-coated Hassidim fleeing to Williamsburg, Eastern Parkway, and Munsey. I examined the other diamonds. They were Nishtkefelecht or no big deal. Richie Boy shrugged, "It's Sukkor."
Gabriel had given us stones cheap. Sometimes as much as 40% off the Rappaport List, which governs the wholesale price of diamonds. We were his vault for the holidays. Our safe was 10 inches thick. The exchange was guarded 24/7. Our insurance covered the retail value of our goods. Both my bosses prayed for thieves to rob us blind, except most robberies were inside jobs and none of us were desperate enough to risk breaking 8th Commandment.
The rest of the afternoon passed without a single sale. My clients were out of town. Foot traffic was confined to a few out-of-towners killing time before their Broadway Show. Richie Boy and I discussed my commission on a sale with a NBA basketball star.
"I'll take 12%. Same as the last sale." I should have gotten 25%, but I was happy with $500. It was half the cost of a ticket to Thailand. Almost three months since I last saw my kids.
"I don't know." Richie Boy was being tight. His bills were enormous, but they weren't my problem. "I feel better with 10%."
Richie Boy and I were friends almost thirty years. He would do the right thing in the end and I didn't need the money until then. An older woman entered the exchange. Her head barely cleared the counter. 4-10 in high heels. Her dyed orange hair was coiffed into a soft helmet. She had to be in her 70s.
"I'd like to see the diamond hoops in the window." Her accent was Brooklyn. Flatbush. 1st generation born in America. Same as my mother, although my Nana was from Ireland and not a shetl of the Palantine. Not much of a difference since the murdering King of England was as much as a tyrant as the bloody Tsar. "The pavee ones."
"Sure." I brought in a pair of diamond hoops. 4.50 carat. 18 karat white gold. After a little sales spiel, I gave myself room to haggle and said, "$4400."
"They don't look very white. My husband was a cutter on this street. Believe me, sonny, I know diamonds." The woman commented off-handedly. Her attitude was kindly. A woman her height had little choice other than to be pleasant with strangers.
"That's the lighting in this place." The Israeli landlord had painted the ceiling of the exchange yellow. I cursed him each and every day. This wasn't the first time I had heard someone say that my diamonds weren't white. "These stones are actually G plus."
"Better than G plus." Our broker added as he passed through the dutch door on his way to the bathroom. FK had good ears for a man in his 40s who listened to Zeppelin at 10 on his Ipod.
"I don't know." The woman was not convinced by his single sentence and FK launched into a sales pitch about having learned his trade from the worst diamond dealer on the street. "Sy Sigelsohn."
The mention of this name gained the attention of several of the older members of the exchange. Sy had a store down the street, where he would lock the customers in a booth, until they bought from him. It was called the prison cell.
"I remember him."
"How could you forget?"
"My husband never worked for him. He never paid."
"He must have worked once for him to learn that lesson."
"Once only." The woman was fondling the hoops. She liked them. Like was not love.
Fat Karl and the woman played Jewish geography. He came from Seagate. Her family Flatbush. They had eaten at a deli in the 37 exchange.
"There was a deli there?" I had been on the street 20 years.
"Before your time." Fat Karl and I went back that far. "They had a brisket there that you could plotz for."
My mouth was watering, even though the goyim shouldn't know that 'plotz' means to die for.
"What about egg creams?"
Both Fat Karl and the old woman tsked at the suggestion and drooled over long-gone delicacies from the extinct deli, until the woman's husband entered the exchange. His name was Moses, but we remembered him as Max. He had sold Manny the most beautiful 18K jewelry in the early 80s.
"Back when my father was on the Bowery."
"Lola, you want them, buy them." Max was a man of decision. His wife the opposite. "I have to think about it. See you boys after the holiday."
"Sie gesund."
The door closed and Fat Karl descended to the bathroom. It was time for a going home line. For him. Not me. I was being good. At least during working hours. All this week too.
I wasn't hungry enough to eat a brisket sandwich, but a nice chocolate egg cream. Now that was something.
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