Parisian Affair Page 2

  He soon heard the whir of the elevator, then the doors sliding open and Levant's footsteps in the hallway outside his workroom. He bent over the intricate platinum setting he'd been working on, waiting for his boss and mentor to appear.

  'Ram,' Levant said, coming into the room, the red leather pouch in hand. He smiled at his twenty-year-old protege, appreciative of his honey- toned Algerian handsomeness and his dark eyes that flashed with vitality.

  'Yes, sir,' Ram said, looking up at him.

  'This is the reason I asked you to come in today,' Levant said. He placed the pouch on Ram's worktable. 'I have some important work for you to do immediately, so drop whatever it is you're doing. I want the emeralds in this pouch'—he tapped it lightly with his fingers—'taken out of their settings. The settings must be cut up and melted down at once. They're too ornate and old-fashioned to use nowadays. Put the emeralds in the vault. All of them together.'

  He paused momentarily, a thoughtful expression on his face, then cleared his voice. 'On second thought, keep the necklace pendant separate from the others. I think that perhaps it will make a nice ring. We'll decide on new settings for them this week. You can help me choose.'

  'Yes, sir,' Ram said. 'I have some drawings of new designs. Maybe you could have a look at them?'

  Levant nodded. 'Yes, yes,' he said. 'Of course, my boy. Tomorrow afternoon sometime. I have a little business to take care of tomorrow morning and have to be gone.'

  'Okay,' Ram said. 'I'll get started on the settings right away.'

  Levant went to the door, where he turned and stopped. 'And Ram,' he said, 'don't mention your work today to Solomon. I'd rather he didn't know anything about it.' He was referring to his longtime assistant, an excellent repairer and gem cutter and polisher.

  'Of course not, sir,' Ram said.

  Ram watched as Levant left. When he heard the elevator doors slide shut, he opened the pouch and took the emeralds out, then picked up his loupe and looked first at the necklace pendant.

  Exactly as I thought.

  He slid off his stool and went over to the cabinet where he kept his camera. He got it out, then carefully arranged the pieces of jewelry, adjusted the lighting, and began to photograph them, both together and separately, from various angles, and with various lenses, making certain that the gold settings were clearly visible. When he was finally satisfied that he had the shots he needed, he took the film out of the camera and put it in his briefcase. After he removed the stones he would also photograph the empty settings and the loose emeralds.

  From another cabinet he took out one of the shop's signature aubergine quilted suede pouches. When he was finished with his work, he would place the intact gold settings in the pouch, put it in his briefcase, and take it home with him. There, in the tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment that Levant provided for him, he would secret away the pouch. If Levant ever asked to see the melted-down settings, Ram had an appropriately sized lump of gold to show him. It was only one of many that he'd made from the accumulation of gold that came from the shop's daily vacuuming of the worktables. He'd taken a minuscule portion from the tiny vacuum every day, squirreling it away for just this sort of purpose.

  Sitting at his stool again, he adjusted the powerful lights and began removing the emeralds from their settings, a simple but tedious task. Levant will never know the difference, he thought. No one will. And if I bide my time . . .

  As he worked, his mind swirled with possibilities. Thanks to Hannah Levant, the jeweler's wife, gone two years now from breast cancer, he had started working at the shop when he was only fifteen years old. Like her husband, she'd been seduced by his dark handsomeness, his thirst for knowledge, and his polite manners—all this after an initial confrontation that held little promise for friendship, much less their virtual adoption of him.

  It had been late at night, and he had been with Ahmed, a friend from the projects, when he first encountered Hannah. He and Ahmed had been wielding cans of spray paint in the quiet lane behind the jewelry shop, defacing the wall with lurid red swastikas. When Hannah Levant stepped out of the door and fearlessly faced him down, Ramtane Tadjer stood glued to the cobbles, his legs unwilling to move, while Ahmed threw down his can and ran away.

  Hannah grabbed his forearm with a claw of a hand and pulled him into the shop, where she sat him down and lectured him at length about what he had so mindlessly done. He had no idea what swastikas represented, he confessed. He'd only been following Ahmed's lead. Touched by the seemingly genuine tears of remorse that fell from his huge dark eyes, she had fallen for him that evening. Eventually she and her husband had taken him in, treating him as if he were the son they'd never had.

  Five years had gone by since they'd rescued him from the bleak, soulless high-rise housing project on the outskirts of Paris known as les Bosquets. Inappropriately named, the Copses was where many Algerian immigrants like his own impoverished family lived. After he'd lived for weeks in a basement room at the shop—a room he'd gladly made his own—they'd taken him to a tiny apartment in the Marais district on the rue des Rosiers, the heart of the old Jewish quarter. They had showered him with clothing he'd only dreamed of, paid him well, and begun educating him in the business from the ground up. They saw that he had time to finish his secondary education.

  At only twenty years of age, he had a formidable knowledge of gemology, jewelry making and design, and the business of buying and selling top-quality merchandise. Whether working on the selling floor or in the workrooms, he had quickly become an expert, absorbing everything they'd passed along, easing into their world. He seemed born to it.

  After Hannah's death, Levant promised him a share in the business someday, but for Ram that someday couldn't come soon enough. He had a ravenous craving for a magnificent hotel particulier like Levant's. It was very close to his tiny fourth-floor walk-up in the Marais but might as well have been a million miles away. He coveted the chauffeured Bentley that carried Levant to and from the shop while he had to peddle a secondhand bicycle. But more than anything else, he wanted to have the power and status that were Levant's because of his position at the pinnacle of the world of rarefied jewelry.

  He knew that he himself was regarded by some of the customers and many of the elegant citizens of Paris as the Other—an Algerian, from the projects, with no breeding, no money, and no prospects. Ram felt his otherness acutely and had sworn to change that. He was going to be richer and more powerful than Levant someday.

  These jewels are going to help me get that and a lot more, he thought as he worked, and the famous lady's bad luck is my good fortune.

  He began removing the necklace's pendant from its setting, but stopped and looked at it with his loupe once more. A smile spread across his sensual lips.

  My road to true riches, he thought, beyond anything even this shop could ever provide.

  CHAPTER 1

  NEW YORK, 2004

  Allegra Sheridan sat at her desk, bent over a drawing pad that was perfectly centered on its expansive surface. She was lightly sketching in the details of a new design for a pendant. With a barely audible groan of exasperation, she upended the pencil and began furiously erasing the delicate lines she'd just roughed in. Hopeless, she thought with a grimace. Completely hopeless.

  As hard as she tried, she found it impossible to concentrate. She just couldn't put on paper the beautiful pendant that loomed in her imagination. She brushed an errant strand of her lush strawberry blond hair from her eyes and sat staring at the drawing pad, as if to magically conjure the design.

  Is there anything worse than a blank page? she wondered.

  It was unusual for her to feel as defeated and anxious as she did, but she knew why. The telephone on her desk seemed accusatory and intimidating in its silence. She'd told herself time and again that there was nothing to fear, that when the call eventually came the news would be exactly what she wanted to hear. It had to be.

  Nevertheless, she couldn't remember when she'd been this distracted. B
ut, she reminded herself, it wasn't every day that her immediate future, and that of her business, hung on the news that would come sometime that day.

  The telephone rang, and Allegra nearly leaped out of her chair. She grabbed the receiver but hesitated before picking it up. Don't appear to be too anxious, she told herself. Two rings. Three.

  She lifted the receiver. 'Atelier Sheridan,' she said in the most cheerful voice she could muster. She took a deep, calming breath.

  Jason Clarke, her assistant, knew that she was overwrought about the telephone call—he was no less so—but he couldn't resist looking over at her, knowing that doing so could make her more nervous. Before she frowned and pointedly turned away from him, he saw Allegra's expression cloud over and a distinct clenching of her jaw.

  Uh-oh, he thought. If I'm not wrong, that's Fiona Bennett, and there's definitely trouble in the air. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Allegra's shoulders slump. Oh, jeez. It must be really bad news. He tried to refocus on the jeweler's loupe and examine the pigeon blood ruby he held with tweezers. To no avail. Like Allegra's, his immediate future hinged on the news, and as he sat gazing at the cabochon ruby's low luster, he realized that he was actually seeing nothing at all. If there were inclusions or other imperfections beneath the ruby's surface, he would surely miss them. He put the ruby down on the worktable's wooden bench pin and let the loupe fall against his chest, where it dangled on its chain. His attention was now fully devoted to Allegra's end of the conversation, and he attempted to divine what Fiona Bennett was saying on the other.

  Allegra, her back still to him, listened raptly. When she spoke, it was in a firm voice that belied the nervous anxiety she'd felt all day. She didn't want Fiona to hear the terrible vulnerability she felt, nor did she want her to be privy to Allegra's crushing disappointment or the tears that threatened her eyes.

  'Oh, of course, Fiona,' she heard herself say steadily. 'I know you did the best you could, but—' She emitted a short, nervous laugh. 'I guess that's that, isn't it?'

  She listened a few moments longer, said an upbeat good-bye that was summoned out of long practice at putting a good face on a bad situation, then slowly and quietly replaced the receiver in its cradle. She stared off into space, her beautiful blue eyes lackluster.

  Jason wiped his hands on the apron he wore, then took a sip of the mineral water on his worktable. 'You want to talk about it?' he asked softly, looking over at her.

  Allegra shook her head. 'There's really nothing to talk about, Jason,' she replied in a small voice, gazing blankly toward the windows. 'That was Fiona. They've decided to pass on the jewelry.'

  'Damn.' Jason exhaled a noisy stream of air. 'Did she give you a reason, Ally?' he asked. He was one of the few people who used this diminutive form of her name.

  She sat back down at her desk and picked up the wheatgrass juice that she'd bought earlier in the day. After taking a long sip, she held the glass in her hand, unconsciously swirling the liquid around in it. 'Yes and no,' she said, her eyes still faraway and unfocused.

  'So what did she say?' Jason asked, growing impatient. 'What kind of excuse did she come up with?'

  She shook her head as if to rid it of the oppressive effects of rejection. 'It's the same old stupid nonsense. Except that Fiona's come up with a little variation on the theme this time.'

  She set her glass of juice on the desk with a loud bang, straightened her spine, and tossed her head back regally. ' 'Oh, Allegra, dahling,' ' she mimicked, assuming a haughtily drawling English accent, ' 'we adore your work. Naturally. Doesn't absolutely everyone? But we've decided we can't carry your beautiful line. It's simply too interesting for us.' '

  'Je-sus!' Jason laughed loudly, then quickly put a hand over his mouth. 'Oh, I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I can't help it. What a lame fucking excuse!'

  Allegra's big eyes had lost their dullness and focused on him with a glittering fire. 'Have you ever heard such crap in your life?' she spat. ' 'Too interesting'?' She hit the desk with a fist. 'I mean, how do you even respond to something like that?'

  'You can't,' Jason said. 'Why couldn't the bitch just say, 'No, we're not buying at the present time'? It's like they have to say something to soften the blow.'

  'Well, Fiona's way of softening the blow doesn't make it any easier to accept the reality,' Allegra said. She emitted a sigh. 'And the reality is ... well—' She hesitated a moment before continuing. 'The cruel reality, Jason, my dear, is that we're going bust fast.'

  'Is it really that bad?' he asked, looking at her questioningly.

  She nodded. 'Yes, Jason. At this point I've got nearly everything tied up in inventory. Gemstones and gold and platinum and silver.' She took another sip of her juice and set the glass back down. 'What the hell am I going to do?'

  She looked at him beseechingly, knowing that he didn't have the answer. 'What are we going to do? I don't even know how much longer I'll be able to pay your salary.' She slammed a fist against the desk again. 'Damn it all. First, we lose our biggest account when Ponte Vecchio shuts down, and now we lose this.'

  Jason leaned back in his chair and propped one leg atop the knee of the other, careful not to disturb the small cabochon rubies that were sprinkled over the worktable's small bench pin. He ran his hands through his disheveled dark blond hair, then looked over at her, his gentle brown eyes full of concern.

  'Listen, Ally,' he said. 'Something's going to work out. It always does, doesn't it? We've made it through tough times before. We have a guardian angel, remember?'

  'Yes,' she agreed, 'but this time I really don't know, Jason. This time it's going to take a miracle to bail us out.' She drummed her fingers against the desktop nervously. 'I feel like we're back where we started.' She propped her elbows on the desk and slumped forward, putting her chin in her hands.

  'But we're not,' he said emphatically. 'We've come a long way.'

  She ignored what he said, her eyes taking on a faraway look. 'A few lean years,' she said, her voice wistful, 'and then along came some recognition for our work. A few profitable years, and all that wonderful dotcom money that people had to spend. Now Silicon Alley's gone up in smoke. Poof!' She flung her hands up into the air in an extravagant gesture, then let them fall onto the desk.

  She turned and looked at him with sad eyes. 'And along with it the best of our business. I'm beginning to feel like my luck is definitely running out.'

  'No, Ally,' he said loyally. 'I don't believe that. Your work is beautiful; everybody thinks so. It's just getting it to the right market, the right way. You've already made something of a name for yourself. You've even got a cult following, and it's only going to get better with a little more time.'

  'Well,' Allegra said with unerring logic, 'time is something I don't have too much of right now. The landlord's not about to let the rent slide because I need time. You know what a shit he is.' Her voice rose in pitch as she became more anxious. 'And the gemstone dealers aren't going to wait on their money, are they? Or the metals dealers. Can you picture that?' Tears suddenly threatened again, and her voice broke.

  Jason resisted the impulse to go over to her and put his arms around her comfortingly. He expelled a sigh of frustration. Every instinct he had told him that she needed a helping hand, but there was little he could do, financially or otherwise. As he'd learned from years of working with her, she had a streak of hardheaded independence that made it impossible for her to either ask for or receive help. He didn't think he'd ever met anyone who was as determined to do everything for herself as Allegra.

  And now, he thought, I might be victimized by her stubborn independence. Because if her ship goes down, I'm going to go with it. Then what do I do? He propped his elbows on the worktable and rested his chin on interlaced fingers, considering his alternatives. Slowly his lips spread into a smile as he remembered an encounter with Cameron Cummings the other day. The well-known jewelry designer had asked him if he'd ever considered leaving Allegra and told him to get in touch with him if he was
interested in a job. Well, I might be doing just that, and a lot sooner than I would've ever thought. Especially if Allegra goes bankrupt.

  He watched as she got up from her desk and quietly, thoughtfully walked toward the windows, a somber but elegant figure. Funny, Jason thought. 'Elegant' was the word Cameron had used. Cummings had told him how crazy he was about Allegra's designs. 'They're as elegant as she is,' he'd said, 'and she's the best designer in the business. I wish I had her talent.' Then Cameron had laughed. 'Or her designs.' It occurred to Jason that maybe ... just maybe ... there was a way to save Atelier Sheridan after all.

  'Ally?' he softly called over to her.

  She turned and looked at him. 'Hmm?'

  'I saw Cameron Cummings the other day.'

  'And?' She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  'He said he's crazy about your designs,' Jason told her.

  'Good for him,' she replied in a voice tinged with sarcasm.

  'What I was thinking,' Jason went on, 'is that maybe . . . uh, you know, you could offer to sell him some of your designs. Maybe—'

  'Stop right there,' Allegra snapped. 'No way am I going to sell my designs to Cameron Cummings. Or anybody else for that matter. So don't mention it again, Jason. Don't even think about it.'

  'Sorry,' he said sheepishly. 'I didn't mean to offend—'

  'Forget it,' Allegra said. She turned back to the big window and stared out over the rooftops of Soho to the Hudson River and the setting sun in the distance. It was a wintry sun, almost concealed by the gray haze, only the faintest hint of pink coloring the cloud cover.

  Slowly turning back to Jason, she said, 'Why don't you go on home? I think I'd like to be alone for a while.'