There were ways he could fill the time; people he could interview again. There were Luisa and Marta, the ladies he had met at the funeral. They worked inventory with Ephraim, maybe they had thought of something important since he had last seen them. And Luisa still had his gloves—a perfect excuse to call on her.

Except by now, she was at work at one of the Liebers’ stores, and Decker’s presence would be noticed. Maybe he’d try her tonight, in the privacy of her own residence.

There was Leon Hershfield. If anyone would know anything about hanky-panky within the religious Jewish community, it would be him. The attorney was aware of lots of things, but asking him questions wouldn’t help because of confidentiality. Usually, Decker could gauge reactions from his interviewees even as they pleaded the Fifth. A lot was conveyed through facial expressions and eye contact. But Hershfield was way too savvy to give anything away, even through nonverbal methods. Talking to him would not only be futile, but detrimental as well. It would give him Decker’s insights with nothing in return.

Scratch the lawyer.

Finally, there was Ari Schnitman, the recovering addict who knew Ephraim from Emek Refa’im. Since Luisa and Leon weren’t going to help, it was almost by default that the Chasid was elected. Schnitman dealt in wholesale diamonds on the East Side. Since Decker didn’t want to lose his parking space or battle traffic jams, he elected to catch a cab instead of driving on his own.

Twenty minutes later he was dropped off in the heart of the diamond district, at the 580 building on Fifth between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth, the exchange floor located between a blue awning OshKosh B’Gosh clothing store and another blue awning retail jewelry store. It was a grand old building—about fifty stories at its high point—holding arched windows with panes segmented by bronze metal in a pattern reminiscent of a child’s drawing of a sunrise. American flags hung above gingerbread and plaster molding that included the heads of Roman soldiers complete with helmets. Across the street was Bank Leumi, one of the official banks of Israel.

Years ago, Decker had led a homicide investigation revolving around the murders of a Los Angeles gems dealer and his wife. The case found its conclusion in Israel, specifically on the trading floor of the Diamond Bursa in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, so Decker had some familiarity with the industry, giving him context for comparison. Art Deco in style, the 580 building had an anteroom that was smaller than Israel’s but larger than the diamond center in downtown L.A. The lobby was more of a hallway, a feast in gray granite, and it was teeming with watchful-eyed people carrying briefcases. Metal sconces lined the dark rock walls, giving the space dots of light, but it was still dim inside. Straight ahead were clocks showing various time zones around the world. Security was tight. To the left was the ever-present metal detector, followed by a turnstile, and then a team of four gray-jacketed guards who checked personal belongings as harried people passed into the bowels of the building. To the right was a touch-screen computer directory. According to the listings, the multistoried structure seemed primarily occupied by Jews, but there were names indicating other nationalities as well—Indian, Armenian, South American, and Russian.