Once a week for the past month, usually late in the day, Jake had taken the bus down to Forty-seventh Street. At first he had just peered into the display windows, learning the different sizes, different shapes, different settings, so many so similar to one another but no two exactly alike. Trying to guess what style would suit her best, Jake felt like he was searching for Leora herself in a police lineup, unable to rely on eye contact through the one-way glass. It should have been obvious, but it wasn’t. Did he really know her well enough to know which one was her? After days of gawking through glass, he dared to set foot in the stores themselves, like a diver plunging into the open ocean after preparing only by staring into an aquarium. Only after many days of studying the treasures at the bottom did he feel ready to bring one of them up to dry land.

Jake opened a door in the tiny slot between two giant, flashing jewelry stores, passed through the metal detector at the entrance, and marched up to the reception counter with confidence. “I have a ten o’clock appointment with Mr. Abramovitch,” he told the security guard. On a last-minute impulse before he left his apartment, he had put on a tie.

The guard, a fat man with thick hands and a stomach lurching over his wide leather belt, looked him over. Jake felt better about wearing a tie. He watched as the guard’s bald head began peeking out from under his cap, crowning a pink face with bright blue eyes. His name tag read “Peter.”

“Mr. Abramovitch went to a trade show today,” the guard said. “But his son-in-law can see you.”

“Son-in-law?” Jake’s stomach shuddered as he clutched his wallet’s outline on the outside of his pants pocket. Here, he thought briefly, had begun the classic bait and switch. Then he remembered his telephone conversation with Abramovitch. The diamond dealer had mentioned that he might be out of town this week, but that his son-in-law could see him instead. “He’s a great guy,” Abramovitch had avowed. “Not a good guy—a great guy. You’ve got nothing to worry about with him.”

“That’s right, his son-in-law,” the guard answered. “He’s been in the business for a while. Is that all right with you?”

Jake glanced at the guard’s pink forehead, swallowed, and smiled. No lousy son-in-law was going to stand between him and a diamond. “Sure, no problem.”

The security guard motioned for Jake to come around to the back of the desk, tapping out a combination on a keypad to open a vaulted elevator behind him. Then he reached into the elevator to press one of the buttons. Jake stepped in and watched the doors close in front of him.