Part 10 (1/2)
”I ned it - as a Director - I hope you don'tdeep shisky, then set the glass down and stood up
”Mind?” he repeated ”You bring me the concession to Thunderbolt and Suicide - and ask erly she went to hied each other ecstatically, and Johnny swung her off her feet Without either of the, still in each other's arhter dwindled into small murmurs and incoherent sounds
Tracey pulled away from him at last, and slipped off the couch
She stood in the centre of the floor Her breathing was ragged Her hair was a dark tangle
”Whoa! That's enough”
”Tracey” He started up from the couch, wild for her, but she held him at the full stretch of her ar away in front of hiently ”Listen to me” He stopped The wild look faded from his eyes
”Look, Johnny, God knows I'm no saint, but - well, I don't want us to well, not on a couch in some other woman's house That's not hoant it to be” Benedict eased the big honey-coloured Bentley out of the traffic streaates of the warehouse He parked beside the loading bay and cli the bank
Mountains of goods were stacked ready for distribution
Cases of Cape wine and spirits, canned fruit in brown cartons, canned fish, forty-gallon drums of fish oil, bundles of raw hides stiff as boards, and cases of indefinable goods all of it the produce of Southern Africa
Vee Dee Bee Agencies had grown out of all recognition in the ten years since Benedict had launched it
Benedict climbed the steps to the bank three at a tioods that reached up into theHe walked with the assurance of aabout his knees, broad-shouldered and tall The storereeted him deferentially as he passed, and when he entered thethe ranks of typists as though a wind had blown through a forest
The Managing Director hurried out of his office to greet Benedict and usher hi now” And he stood behind Benedict to take his coat
The h the weekly sales and cost reports, querying an iteure with pleasure or displeasure as it deserved Many people watching him ould have been startled This was not the indolent playboy they thought they knew, this was a hard-eyed business the maximum profit from his enterprise
There would have been others ondered where Benedict had found the capital to finance a business of this nitude, especially if they had known that he owned the preencies was by no means his only stake in the world of business He had not received money from his father - the Old Man had not believed Benedict capable of successfully negotiating the purchase of a pound of butter
The ed on his overcoat, while his Managing Director went to the grey steel safe in the corner, tu the heavy door open
”The shi+pment arrived yesterday,” he explained as he reached into the safe and brought out the can ”On the SS Loch Elsinore from Walvis Bay” He handed the can to Benedict, who exa of the leaping fish and the lettering Pilchards in Tomato Sauce”
”Thank you” He slipped the can into his briefcase, and the Managing Director walked with hiarage in Broadwick Street, and walked through the jostle of Soho until he reached the gri behind the square He pressed the bell opposite the card that read Aaron Cohen, Manufacturing jeweller, and when the door opened he cliain he rang, and after a while an eye peeped at hih the peephole - but the door opened almost immediately
”hello, Mr van der Byl Co doorman welco you!” he went on as they both looked up at the eye of the closed-circuit TV cae
Whoever was viewing the screen was satisfied, for there was an electrical buzz and the grille swung open The doore
”You know the way Papa is in his office” Benedict was in a shabby little reception room, with a threadbare carpet and a pair of chairs that looked like Ministry of Works rejects He turned to the right-hand door and went through it into a long roo
Along one side of the room ran a narrow bench, to which were bolted twenty small lathes Each machine ran off a belt fro the rinned at Benedict ”hello, Mr van der Byl, Papa is expecting you” But Benedict delayed a moment to watch the operation of the saws In the jaws of each lathe was set a diaainst the diamond was a circular blade of phosphor bronze As Benedict watched, thea fine paste of olive oil and diae of each blade - for it was not the bronze that cut Only a diamond will cut a diamond
”Some nice stones, Larry,” Benedict remarked, and Larry Cohen nodded
”All of them between four and five carats” Benedict leaned close and examined one of the diamonds
The line of the cut was marked with Indian ink on the stone
Benedict knehat heart-searching and discussion, what exa upon the rich storehouses of experience had preceded the positioning of that ink line It h each diamond, so Benedict left the bench and moved on
In a ron the other side of the rooht of thee from nearly forty to nineteen years and there were a couple ere still in school and hadn't yet come into the business
How are you Mr van der byl? Michael Cohen looked up as Benedict approached Michael was shaping a fine dia a lesser stone as a blade A sht the dust fro and polishi+ng
”A beauty,” said Benedict Thesewith dia thes
Heeach of the brothers, stopping to watch for acare hich the elder boys, led facets that ht facets - table, stars, pavilions and the others which endow a cut stone with itsthem crouched over their wheels, so sih the door at the end of the room
”Benedict, my friend” Aaron Cohen came from his desk to embrace him He was a tall thin reyover a diamond wheel ”I did not know you were in London, they told me you were in Cape Town
Benedict took the envelope from his pocket and shook twenty-seven diamonds on to the blotter of the desk
”What do you think of those, Papa?”
”Shu! Situ!” Papa patted his own cheeks with delight, and he reached instinctively for the biggest stone
”I should live to see such a stone!” He screwed a jeweller's loupe into his eye, turning to catch the natural light froh the eyepiece
”Ah, yes There is a feather, but sems from this stone Two perfect diamonds of ten or twelve carats each, and perhaps five smaller ones” More than half a dia
”Yes! Yes! From this stone ill sell a hundred thousand pounds'worth of polished diamonds!” Aaron crossed to the door ”Boys!
Co diamonds” And his sons crowded into the office Michael took it first and gave his opinion
”A good stone, yes But not of the same water as the stone we had in the last batch You re!” his father”You wouldn't know a diaonzola cheese already!”
”He is right, Papa” Larry joined in the discussion ”The other stone was better”
”So the Big Lover argues with his father! Little shi+ksas with skirts up around their tochis you know all about
Seht i the Watsui and the Cha-Cha Yes! But dia” This declaration precipitated a full-scale, fausto