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I said, “If he knew he’d be getting it anyway, there’d be no reason to complicate matters.”
“Ah…intriguing. When you solve it, please let me know, Lieutenant, so I can have a new story.”
A fingertip tapped the smile. “But for now, discretion.”
Milo said, “Thank you, sir. So you find two hundred thousand a credible purchase price?”
“It would be a bargain price, Lieutenant, but not crazy, like one hundred,” said Saroyan. “And again, if there was a cloud over it—anything that put pressure on the deal—that could cheapen it. Or, I suppose, even if not, depending on the circumstance.”
“What circumstance would that be?”
“The right time, the right seller, the right buyer,” said Saroyan. “Like the planets moving together. Buyers sometimes talk big then they try to make complicated deals. Someone with ready cash could benefit. But only at two hundred, not one hundred.”
“Got it,” said Milo. “So if I wanted to purchase a rare purple diamond and get someone to play along with my hundred-thousand story, where would I go?”
“How broad of a geography do you want?”
“There’s no evidence this woman traveled recently so let’s start with locally.”
“Hmm,” said Saroyan. “Obviously, you couldn’t go to Tiffany or Graff or any of the big shots…okay two names of small shots come up in my head but I can’t promise. One, Melulian, has an office in La Jolla. He does very nice rubies and sapphires but last I heard he wasn’t well, heart attack. His sons have no interest in the business, one’s a doctor, the other’s a…” He waved a hand. “Forgive me, when I turned ninety I began to wander mentally…may I ask where this woman lived?”
“Bel Air.”
“Okay, that fits better with the other guy. He’s in Beverly Hills but not on Rodeo, off the main drag on the far west side of Little Santa Monica Boulevard. Bobby Kilic.”
He spelled it, looking up at the ceiling. “Turkish with an Irish mother. Looks like a surfer.”
“You’ve dealt with him.”
“Never,” said Saroyan. “You hear stories—just like this one. A lot of people don’t deal with him but rich people who don’t know better? Why not. And sometimes I hear he does get a great stone. Like a big fancy intense yellow, seven carats. From Africa, from what they tell me, but maybe he also went to Australia for a purple, I don’t know. Or Siberia.” New smile, wider. “In the winter.”
“Bobby Kilic.” Milo scrawled.
“Please do not quote me, Lieutenant. Armenians don’t do well with Turks.”
“Discretion runs both ways, sir. What’s the name of Kilic’s business?”
“Nonpareil Elite Jewelers.” Saroyan huffed. “You see what I mean.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Overdoing it.” Saroyan tugged his tie knot tighter. “Like your woman victim.”
—
We found Clifford and Officer Salazar in the snack room eating chocolate chip cookies and drinking Coke. Chatting about something and ceasing when they saw us. Clifford sported brown stains where he might one day grow a mustache.
Salazar said, “We were just finishing. I was about to ask Cliff here if he wanted to be a cop.”
Clifford nodded.
Saroyan said, “Interesting.” He handed the boy a napkin and pointed to his own upper lip. “Let’s go back to Glendale, we will talk in the car.”
Milo settled back at his desk. “That thing about Turks and Armenians. Maybe Saroyan wants to get even but let’s check out this Kilic.”
“That thing” was genocide. A million Armenians slaughtered bythe Ottomans less than thirty years before the Holocaust. The world doing nothing, giving Hitler confidence.
I said, “That would be pretty low-level revenge.”
