Only The Best, Only For You by Kofi Nyameye

Only The Best, Only For You by Kofi Nyameye

Frank Lassen, aka Frankie Luxe, had been in business for a long time, and in all that time some of the best advice he had ever gotten was this: when trying to cheat a man, it was always best to insult him as soon as possible.

The operative word, of course, was cheat. If you merely wanted to make someone overpay, it was far better to marinate them in flattery. Fucking drown them in it. But to cheat a man, you had to put him on the defensive. Make him feel he had something to prove.

This was advice that had served Frank well. It was advice he could bet on. Advice to run a business by, swear down. Of course, times had changed just recently and business wasn’t going so good and his palms were sweating because he simply, absolutely could not afford to fuck this up—but still, right? Principles were principles.

“What I want to know,” Frank said, putting down his fork and waiting just long enough for his next words to carry the weight of disrespect, “is whether you’ll actually be good for the money.”

“Of course I’ll be good for the money,” the man seated across from him replied, with a touch of indignation.

“Are you sure?” Frank asked, allowing a line of skepticism to bleed into his voice. “I deal in some very valuable stones and they’re far costlier than your average—” 

“I said I’ll be good for it!” the man snapped. He slammed a fist—a floppy, effeminate fist—on the table, causing cutlery to bounce against the plates, a glass to hop dangerously, the diners at nearby tables to look around in alarm. The pianist in the corner missed a note, but resumed playing a second later like nothing had happened. A true professional, that one. Even the maître d’ glanced over before affecting the vaguely detached expression so prized in his line of work.

Emil had half-risen from the table they’d gotten for him near the door, all three hundred-odd pounds of him ready to do something rash and undoubtedly violent, but Frank gave him a little shake of the head and he sat back down. Violence? For what? When the nerves gripping Frank had suddenly dissipated? The man’s outrage made Frank very happy. In this line of business, there was no sucker quite like an angry sucker. 

 The background chatter in the restaurant quickly returned to its regular level, as if they had all agreed to pretend the outburst hadn’t happened. Rich, bored people talking about inane shit. Frank couldn’t wait to be out of here. Back in his shop, back to the real world.

He raised his hands now, all gentle and apologetic. “I’m sorry, I meant no offense. It’s just that… uh, Mr. …?”

“Tenant. Arthur Tenant.” There was a sulkiness about the man now, like he was embarrassed by his own lack of control, but he sat up straighter when he said his name. A proud man. Frank filed the information away. Knowledge like that was invaluable in a sale.

“It’s just that, Mr. Tenant, in my line of work there’s nothing worse than spending precious time negotiating with someone only for them to back out of it. It doesn’t reflect well.” Frank paused. “On the buyer.”

Tenant had gotten some sauce on his hand when he slammed it on the table and was wiping it now with a napkin, taking care not to soil the sleeves of his expensive foreign suit. “When I want something,” he said, “I go for it. I don’t back out.”

The man was such a novice. It was all Frank could do to not grin like a wolf.

“You don’t need to worry about my word, Mr. …?”

“Call me Frankie.” The idiot. The name was on the top of his shop in bright, sparkling letters. Frankie Luxe, fine jewelry and precious gifts. Even a child could have made the connection.

“Frank,” said Tenant.

“If you like.” The man could call him Little Red Riding Hood, for all Frank cared. He could feel the pieces sliding into place, feel the game unfolding before him. The last dregs of his anxiety drained away. He sat up straighter, felt something in his pocket move against his ribs, barely resisted the urge to rub his fingers together. His suit was nowhere near as well fitting or as expensive as the others in this room, but that was a condition Mr. Arthur Tenant could go a long way in remedying. He allowed himself to smile then, a proper salesman’s smile. “In that case, shall we—”

“Hang on a minute,” the third person at their table said. “No one’s giving their word on anything. We’re just talking, right? Nothing’s binding yet.”

Frank’s smile died.

A good sale was like a card game: to win, you didn’t play the cards in your hand. You played the person across from you. Read a person correctly and you could sell them anything. Arthur Tenant was no great mystery. Rich kid, most likely born into it, handed life on a silver platter and too self-absorbed to know it. The kind of person who probably owned three companies and had no idea what happened in any of them. Quick-tempered, impulsive. Weak. Easy to manipulate.

Frank was prepared for Arthur Tenant.

He was not prepared for the woman Tenant brought with him.

You took one look and no one had to tell you they were siblings. It was clear in the shape of their faces: the arched eyebrows, the full lips, the long, delicate noses. But where they made Arthur Tenant look soft and feminine, they made his sister look graceful. Confident. Self-assured. And you never, ever allowed the person across the table to feel sure. Sure of themselves, sure of you, sure of anything. The woman’s presence complicated things.

Jen, Frank remembered. That was what Tenant had called her.

She turned her cool gaze on him. “Am I wrong?”

The hell was he supposed to say to that? No, I’d much rather prefer that you commit yourself right here right now, it makes my job so much easier? Frank found a smile somewhere and pasted it on his face. “Of course not. As I always say to my esteemed customers, you can’t rush the purchase of good jewelry.”

“Mm,” said Jen, in the tone of someone who bought expensive things too often to care about it one way or the other. She turned her attention back to her phone. Frank silently seethed. If all she was going to do was be on her phone—like she was doing before she felt the need to open her mouth and make a nuisance of herself—she could have stayed home and saved Frank a world of trouble.

Tenant glanced over at his sister. “You’re right, Jen. As usual.”

She smiled at him. “Someone has to take care of you before you spend the family fortune away.”

Frank picked up his cutlery and cut into the lamb in front of him. Just to give his hands something to do. He could feel them watching him, sizing him up, judging him, his large hands, his bulky frame, the suit he had worn too many times that was beginning to show it. That patch on his head where the hair was thinning. Not so long ago, he wouldn’t have stuck out so badly in a restaurant like this. Not so long ago, he’d worn a fresh suit every day to work. He would again, swear down.

He just had to take care of that unfortunate business with Vasily first, was all. 

A spike of fear shot through Frank’s heart, gone in a second but leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. A promise of unpleasant things to come, if he didn’t handle business here.

Fuck, but it had all seemed so simple at first. No indication that it would go so spectacularly into the gutter. Just a quick loan from the Russians, a little side hustle independent of the shop, one time only. Or so Les swore. Enough product to make even your dreams high. Les claimed he had a contact in Ghana, where no big cartels would give them any trouble. The ready market was a given: coke effectively sold itself.

But the fucking product hadn’t sold. Hadn’t even made it past the border, because some dipshit at customs had decided to grow a conscience. Or, more likely, Les had fucked someone on the bribes. The end result was the same.

All the product, all Frank’s investment, gone.

And Vasily’s interest on the loan just climbed and climbed.

And so Frank’s suits went, and his watch went; anything he could sell just to buy himself some time. He could have sold some of his best jewels for cut-price rates, but once word got out of that, he would have been finished. Who would buy so much as a pin from him at regular price again? All Frank could do was hope to sell enough good pieces in time to make Vasily’s payments. Which wasn’t easy, because the market was bad.

All so simple when he let that fucker Les talk him into it. Now look at him. Jumping through hoops for a couple of rich, spoiled kids.

Thing was, he hadn’t even had anything against the Tenants to begin with. They could have been normal customers: show up, buy some shit, everyone goes home happy. No businessman went around cheating everyone that walked into their shop. But these two, these two had disrespected him.

These two—him in his fancy Italian suit, her in a dress she’d probably never worn before and wouldn’t wear again—walked in, took one look at Frank’s shop, then asked if they couldn’t do this somewhere else, mentioning some fancy restaurant downtown.

Now Frank considered himself a realistic man. He knew his shop—with its too-low counters that didn’t quite line up properly, its less-than-optimal lighting in the display cases, and the dirt lodged in the far corners where Tammy could never sweep properly—wasn’t quite top of the line. He wasn’t even in the Diamond District proper, more on the outskirts. But the shop was his, and he was proud of it.

So naturally, he’d resisted. And the Tenants had the nerve to tell him that if he couldn’t do as they were asking, they’d leave and go somewhere else.

“But how will I show you the merchandise?” Frank asked, perplexed.

Arthur Tenant had gotten to the door and didn’t even deign to turn around. “You’ve got pictures on your phone, haven’t you?” And walked out without waiting for an answer. Just expecting Frank to follow. Like some housetrained dog.

That was when Frank decided to cheat him. Swear down. Walk into a man’s place of work and disrespect him like that? Just wasn’t done.

He still went, though. Left the shop to Tammy, roused Emil, and fetched a cab. Disrespect or not, there was a way rich people carried themselves. That casual arrogance, the ingrained assumption that everyone around them would simply do what they said. And at this point in his life Frank desperately needed a rich customer.

Wouldn’t stop him fleecing the fucker, though. And if that brought more money to pay off his debt, well that was just a bonus, wasn’t it? A crucial bonus. He’d heard the last person to be late on payments to Vasily had come home to find their three cats dismembered and carefully laid out on the carpet with a note that said: We would hate for you to be next.

Frank didn’t even have so much as a hamster to take that hit for him.

The pianist had changed songs and was now playing something classical that Frank could not place. A few tables over, a man pulled a chair out for a woman at least half his age to sit. She smiled and laid a flirtatious hand on his arm. Every movement they made was calm, unhurried, with the unconscious ease of people used to places like this. People who didn’t have to think about how much each item on their plate cost or how they were going to make payments to crazy fucking loan sharks.

Tenant asked him something. Frank missed it.

“I said, now that I think of it how do I know if your products are as quality as you claim they are?”

You came into my shop, you stupid asshole. One of these days all those swallowed insults would choke him to death, swear down. “On my honor as a businessman and a God-fearing man, you can rest assured they are. I stock only the best, my friend.” Frank spread his hands. “And today? Only for you.”

Jen gave a soft snort but Frank ignored her. Tenant, at least, looked satisfied with the answer. He sat up straighter at the cheap compliment, tugged at the lapels of his suit, smiled at Frank for the first time. Frank could feel the pieces falling into place again. The game could go on.

“Well then,” Frank said, “if there’s nothing else, I think we can now…”

“Hang on,” Jen said. “Just a moment.”

Frank closed his eyes against the headache pounding behind them.

“Can I use your phone?” she said to her brother. “I need to make a call.”

Well, now. Frank opened his eyes, barely able to believe his ears. This may just be the best news he’d heard all evening. Surely the bitch couldn’t interrupt or otherwise involve herself in the conversation if she was occupied on a call. Surely even she couldn’t multitask that. And to have Tenant all to himself, even only for a couple of minutes…

Tenant gave her a look. “What’s wrong with yours?”

She stared back. “My battery’s 1%; it’ll die any moment now.”

“Your battery’s always dying. Charge it.”

“My charger’s not here. Where’s your phone?”

“It’s in the limo.” He frowned at her. “You know I don’t like to carry it around.”

“Can you go get it?”

“Jen.”

“It’s important.”

Tenant scowled. “Then use someone else’s.”

Jen glanced at Frank. Looked away, casting her gaze over the other customers in the restaurant. Hesitated for a second, looked back at Frank. “Do you mind if I…? I’ll be quick, I promise.”

If Frank had pulled his phone out any faster it might’ve achieved escape velocity. “Of course. No problem! Take all the time you need.”

Jen took it. She glanced at the screen, frowned, turned it to face him. Frank unlocked it with a smile, which she returned. She had a radiant smile, he noticed. Shame it was wasted on such a cunt.

But he couldn’t complain, because now Jen was bent over both phones, holding them side by side, glancing from her phone to Frank’s and tapping away, no doubt trying to copy the number before her phone went dead. Perfectly distracted and out of the way.

It was time for Frankie Luxe to go to work on Arthur Tenant.

Frank assumed an air of nonchalance. “So, do you want to do this right now, or shall we wait for…?” He made a general gesture in Jen’s direction, who was at that moment swiping her finger across his phone screen. She made no sign that she’d heard him.

Tenant leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table, loosened his tie a little. “No, let’s wait.” Without his sister’s presence, he seemed smaller, more vulnerable.

Excellent.

Frank shrugged. “Sure, no problem.” The pictures were on his phone anyway. He leaned forward in his own chair, mirroring Tenant. “Can I ask you a question?” Tossed out so casually.

“Sure.” Tenant was fidgeting now, running a finger absentmindedly down the sides of his water glass and leaving a track behind it, like the way a child would. He turned the glass around with his free hand, winding the track around the base of the glass, back up, over around and in on itself again.

It was strangely captivating to look at. “Why do you want to buy so much jewelry, anyway?” Frank asked.

Tenant was suddenly wary. “Who says I want to buy ‘a lot’ of jewelry?”

Frank pretended to look abashed. He sat up, feeling the bump under his coat move again, tried to put it out of his mind. It wasn’t time for that. If all went well, it would never be. “I’m sorry if that’s presumptuous of me,” he said. “It’s just that when you asked for pictures of all my best stuff, I just assumed…”

He had, of course, assumed no such thing. There were customers who entered a jewelry shop and started buying everything in sight, but thoes were almost always people who had just come into new money and were just looking for someone to relieve them of the burden. It was a service Frank was only too happy to perform. Someone had to buy the bottom-barrel and the gaudy, and if they were willing to pay above-value for it, Frank wasn’t going to stop them. What was he, their accountant?

People like Tenant though, when they went shopping, bought neither bulk nor bunk. They were almost always in the market for something singular, something unique.

“It’s okay,” Tenant said after a moment of contemplation. He glanced for a second at Jen, who had turned her chair slightly away from the table. She had one phone to her ear and was scrolling listlessly through the other one. She paused, tapped once, continued to scroll. Tenant returned his attention to Frank, but couldn’t meet his eye. Stared instead at the tabletop. “It’s a gift.”

Frank took a shot in the dark. “For the missus?”

Tenant nodded.

“Does she know?”

“No,” Tenant said. He still didn’t look up. “It’s meant to be a surprise.”

He might as well have said “penance”. Nobody bought expensive gifts with such little joy unless the gift itself wasn’t the point. Unless they were trying to make up for something with it. Frank knew he was on delicate ground but he pushed forward anyway, what the hell. “Caught you in bed with another woman, did she?”

Arthur Tenant’s head whipped up, full of fury. “How dare you?! I would never. I love my wife! It was her who…”

“Arthur.”

Jen practically threw Frank’s phone back at him, glowering, as she adjusted her chair to be next to her brother again.

Tenant had shut his mouth, but the thing he had almost said was written clear on his face. Of course a man like Tenant, who had grown up knowing nothing but money—and almost certainly being known for nothing else in return—would turn to an act of extravagant spending to prove himself to a woman who’d begun to look elsewhere.

Frank could hardly keep still for excitement. A desperate buyer! Good lord, a desperate millionaire buyer! Frank blessed whatever wind of chance that had blown the Tenants his way. If he played this right, he could tell Vasily to go to hell once and for all. Swear down, he could afford to give Tammy a small bonus. Maybe even get Emil a little something nice. Bodyguarding was such thankless work, after all. Frank mentally pushed his prices higher. Tenant—or most likely Jen—would bargain them down, of course, but the day would still be worth far more than Frank could have …

Tenant said, “Let’s go, Jen.”

Frank said, “Eh?”

The Tenants pushed their chairs back, stood. Jen retrieved her coat from where it had been draped over the back of the chair. Arthur took some money from his pocket and placed it on the table to cover their bill.

Frank’s smile was stuck on his face like an idiot. “Wait, where are you going?”

Tenant looked down his nose at him. “Home. We’re done here.”

Something gripped Frank’s heart and squeezed. He’d fucked it! He’d pushed too far and insulted them and now they were leaving. All the old panic came rushing back, as though it had just been waiting in the wings for its moment.

Dammit, Frank, say something!

“But…” he said, “we haven’t even discussed…”

“There will be no need,” said Tenant, and turned away.

Jen had ice in her eyes. “Goodbye, Mr. Lassen,” she said, turning to follow her brother.

Frank had a sudden and totally unwanted image of Vasily in his head, smiling—and Vasily smiling was never good news. He pictured three cats diced up and arranged on a carpet, waiting for their owner to come home. We would hate for you to be next.

You know what, Vasily? So would I.

So Frank played his final card, his ace in the hole.

He pushed his half-eaten meal aside, took the necklace out of his coat pocket and dropped it loudly onto the table.

The sound made the Tenants turn, but the sight of the thing froze them in place.

It was a valuable necklace; you could tell just by looking. Its chain was double stranded, crafted to look like two jeweled serpents, their heads meeting in the middle, fangs bared. Hanging between them was teardrop shaped pendant, the size of a small egg. At the center of the pendant was a heart-shaped collection of small diamonds. These diamonds had been set into the middle of a jadestone. The green stone had been hollowed to fit the contours of the centerpiece perfectly.

It wasn’t the greatest piece of jewelry in the world, and the diamonds weren’t the rarest, but it was gorgeous. To do much better than this you had to start looking around the big auction houses.

And the Tenants would know that.

Arthur Tenant couldn’t seem to take his eyes off it, and he wasn’t the only one. The noise of the stone hitting the table had drawn attention. The young girl sitting with the man twice her age was openly gawking. Most of the others were staring more discreetly, but staring nonetheless. Frank did not mind the attention. It made him feel powerful, having something these rich assholes found so captivating. He loved the surprise on their faces. The Frankie Luxe Special strikes again, asshole.

Tenant reached for the necklace with hesitant fingers. Frank knew he wasn’t thinking about leaving now, or being “done here”. Swear down and right out of here with that bullshit. All Tenant wanted to do was run his fingers through that chain, feel the weight of the diamond in his hand, imagine how it would look nestled between his wife’s breasts, and so Frank said:

“Don’t touch it.”

Tenant looked up at him. “Please?”

And Frank knew he had won.

Tenant took the necklace and turned it over in his hands. “This is beautiful. Where did you get this?”

Frank ignored that. He hadn’t stolen it, and that was enough for him. Of course, the person who sold it to him—in a hurry, for a fraction of its true price—probably had. Maybe even done worse. But that wasn’t Frank’s problem. Things like this had a knack for finding their way into the right hands—his hands—just waiting to be sold to the right person. For the right price.

Something caught the corner of Frank’s eye. For a short, confusing second it had looked like Jen was smiling, but Frank blinked and saw what he had mistaken for a grin was only a disbelieving stare.

“You brought that here?” she said. “You were carrying that in your pocket all along? Why?”

Because I have a bodyguard by the door who I’m sure has killed people before, so nobody can rob me and get away with it. Because I can, you stupid, stuck-up little bitch. But most importantly, because it’s the last thing people like you would expect, and nothing wins our little game quite like surprise.

Arthur Tenant looked up from the necklace at last. “I’ll take it,” he said.

“Arthur…”

Tenant cut her off with a look. “I’m taking it, Jen.”

Jen glowered at him, but it was clear she wasn’t going to win this one. With a sigh of disgust she dropped back into her chair, turned her body away from the two men, and began to angrily tap away at her phone.

Frank gave Tenant his widest smile yet. “Excellent. But we haven’t discussed a price.”

Tenant lifted his chin, trying for authoritative and failing miserably. “How much do you want for it?”

And after that it didn’t take long. Frank threw out a number. Tenant countered, but hesitantly, as though he didn’t want to risk going too low. Frank mentioned another figure—and it was done.

“I can wire you the money,” Tenant said. “Right now.”

So Frank gave him the account number, the one he used for off-the-book stuff, then he leaned back and savored his victory while Arthur Tenant took out his phone to do the transfer. It struck him, then, how similar the two Tenants looked at that moment, bent over their phones. Both of them doubtless knowing they’d been bested by a master negotiator and unable to do anything about it.

A short while later, Frank’s phone buzzed. He checked it, then smiled, then rose smoothly from his chair. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Tenant. Who knows? Maybe our paths will cross again someday.”

Tenant smiled with one side of his mouth. “I doubt that, Frank.”

There was the hint of a gleam in his eye that Frank didn’t like, but he put it out of his mind. The game was over; the Tenants held no more interest for him.

Frank nodded at the necklace. “Keep it well.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Tenant.

And Frank wouldn’t. He knew that sooner or later that necklace would once again be the subject of a negotiation, a new sale, a new game.

And always for the right price.

For now, as he walked out of the restaurant and Emil fell into step beside him, Frank Lassen felt free. The sun was setting, darkness creeping quietly over everything. He breathed in, filling his lungs with that permanently rancid smell that was New York City. The smell of the real world. Frank pulled out his phone, looked once again at the notification of payment, smiled.

The woman’s perfume still clung to his phone. Eau de Rich Little Cunt. But he’d showed her, swear down. Showed both of them.

Frank pulled up the number of his contact to Vasily, dialed it. Time to put this business behind him once and for all. As the phone rang on the other side, Frank replayed the meeting in his mind, reliving his victory. Savoring it. Back to the wall and Frankie Luxe come out swinging like a motherfucker.

Then something occurred to him, and Frank stopped. Stopped smiling, stopped walking. Stopped so suddenly that a young man behind him had to swerve to avoid bumping into him. “Move, asshole,” the kid said. Emil took one menacing step toward the kid and he shut up.

Frank barely noticed.

Frankie Luxe. That was the name above his shop, large and extravagant. That was what everybody in the business called him. Tenant had called him “Frank”, but that was understandable for a stuck-up rich boy like him. His sister, however, had called him …

She’d called him …

Goodbye, Mr. Lassen.

And they weren’t supposed to know that name.

A cold numbness began to spread down Frank’s arms and into fingers. A feeling that something had gone awfully, completely wrong. He just stood there, even as Vasily’s man answered the call and barked “Hello? Hello?” into the line.

“Boss, you okay?” Emil asked.

Frank looked into his face, but didn’t really see him. He saw, instead, Jen tapping furiously at her phone when he and Tenant were discussing money. Jen, who had said earlier that her phone was dying. That it would go off any moment. Which was why she’d needed to use…

Frank Lassen looked down at the phone in his hand. Saw the notification once again, just sitting there at the top of the screen. Proof of Tenant’s payment. But something was missing. It only showed how much money had been credited to him. When he enlarged it, it didn’t show his current balance.

“Hello? Look, are you going to fucking say something, or did you just call me to waste my time?”

Frank cut the call.

Then he made another one. To his banker. The overseas one. When the woman answered, Frank asked her one question.

Then he listened, in absolute horror.

And then Frank was running, tearing back into the restaurant, ignoring Emil’s questions, ignoring the hammering of his unfit and overworked heart, ignoring the doorman and the shocked stares of the other diners. Frank only had eyes for the table he had left just a short while before, and he already knew what he would find before he got there. Because they had known his name. They had known exactly who he was. And that was how Frank Lassen knew, even then, that he would never find them.

The chairs were empty.

They were gone.

& & &

When you have just successfully conned a man, it is always best to leave the scene as soon as possible. Lingering is always a mistake. The mark might figure out they’ve been fooled, and return. It had happened before.

As soon as the jeweler stepped out, the two people who, for tonight, had styled themselves the Tenants rose as one and started walking. Lassen had gone out the main door; they went into the kitchen. They moved with their heads up and backs straight, radiating easy arrogance with every step. A walk honed by years of practice. They ignored the questioning looks of the cooks and waiters. They said nothing to anyone.

Rule number one: play the part, and always look like you belong.

Out through the servant’s entrance, they made their way through backways and alleys into another street and jumped into the first cab they could find. Still they said nothing, not even to each other. Small talk was for amateurs. They were both lost in their own thoughts, replaying the evening, reviewing their performance, looking for subtle ways to improve, make the next one even better.

Arthur (for that was his real name, even if Tenant was not) leaned back in the seat and smiled to himself. Next to him, Jen was now on her phone, playing some silly game to pass the time. When they discussed the con later, the thing they would both comment on was how it had been so easy.

But then no one is as easy to fool like an overconfident man. And when the man in question had a reputation for carrying his finest item of jewelry everywhere, hoping to surprise buyers into a spontaneous purchase, and, what’s more bragged about his signature move to everyone who would listen…

Well, that just made him predictable.

Lassen’s phone was the key, of course. In his desire to keep the “Tenants” at the table, there was no chance he’d deny Jen’s request to use it. No chance, either, that he’d see something suspicious in Jen holding both her phone and his side-by-side. It would look like she was copying the number from her phone to make the call, and not at all like she what she was really doing: transferring the worm they’d had programmed just for this con via Bluetooth to him.

After that, all that remained was for them to play their parts, while the worm ran through Frank’s phone and hacked his banking app. As soon as they reached an agreement on a number, all Jen had to do was activate the worm from her phone to generate a false bank notification. A good con was like a magic trick. The secret was always in plain sight, but the mark never knew they were being fooled.

Arthur leaned his head against the cold window and watched the lights of the city go by. He reached into his pocket and felt once again the reassuring coolness of the necklace.

An idea occurred to him. He spoke to the driver and the cab turned left. Soon after, it drove past the restaurant, down the street. Lassen was out on the curb, staring into empty space while his ape of a bodyguard paced up and down behind him like a caged animal. Arthur rolled the window down and looked directly at Lassen as the cab rolled by.

Come on, he thought, giving the jeweler one last chance. One chance to see them, take back what he had lost. One gamble, one roll of the dice with everything hanging in the balance.

But Lassen didn’t look back, didn’t see him, and the restaurant slid behind them. The cab drove on, and was soon lost in the maze of the city’s streets in the deepening dark.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Kofi Nyameye 2025