A minute later, Yalom handed them two plastic cards and they were allowed to enter the main lobby. A thick fog of people scurried across white and gray marble floors. To the left was a bank of lockers; straight ahead were the elevators. They squeezed into the first car and rode up one floor. To Decker’s surprise, everyone got out. Yalom took them into a second elevator and pushed the fifteenth-floor button.

Decker said to Rina, “What was that all about?”

Yalom seemed to understand the question. He talked to Rina in Hebrew.

Rina said, “The first elevator goes only to the Bursa. You take these elevators to get to the offices.”

“For peoples,” Yalom said. “Too much peoples.”

Decker didn’t understand but didn’t press it. Maybe it was some security thing. The car rode up to the fifteenth floor and they got out. It was quiet and looked similar to Yalom’s office in Los Angeles. But unlike the LA diamond center, every door had a mezuzah on it.

The mezuzah. The symbol of a Jewish establishment. On every single door. Yes, Decker finally realized they were in a Jewish country. It made him feel simultaneously strange and at home. Yalom pressed a button to the office and they were buzzed into an anteroom.

The secretary behind the glass partition reminded Decker of Yochie. She had jet-black hair and wore lots of makeup and jewelry. She spoke to Yalom; the old man turned around.

“Yossie’s downstairs in the Bursa,” Yalom reported in English. “He likes make old man go up and down, de mamzer.”

Decker told Rina she didn’t have to translate.

Taking up almost the entire floor, the Bursa was an open area framed by a northern wall of glass. It held strip after strip of black picnic-sized tables, the surfaces covered with hundreds of squares of calendar paper set into black leather blotters. The tables also were crowned with dozens of scales, loupes, and pincers. Chairs were set on both sides of the tables. The place was crowded, but there was plenty of elbow room to walk down the aisles. Opposite the glass wall was a series of teller booths, some marked OFFICIAL WEIGHING STATION. Above the booths seemed to be a viewing area—maybe an upstairs lounge—framed in smoked glass. A nice place to have a drink or watch TV and still be able to see the action below.

Hanging from the ceiling were television monitors that broadcast rows of numbers. Yalom saw Decker staring at the screens.

Rina translated his words. “Those are pager numbers. Someone needs you, your number goes up on the monitor.”