Gemsicuted

Written by Julian Robov


Sixty Four


Sanders was back in his office along with Baddy and Jeb having their early morning coffee break, and their chit-chat was suddenly interrupted by a call from Tito. Sanders took the call and instantly turned pale after hearing the news.
“Rubyhall and Lord are dead! In fact, they were gemsicuted,” Sanders muttered. Others took the news in a collective gasp of disbelief leaving their coffee mugs. Jeb was the second in line followed by Baddy. They were in a high voltage thermal shock.

They were just talking about the spectacular car crash in Pattaya that killed two Russians and Thais wondering about the timing. Jeb had a different version. He believed the crash had something to do with the Russian Mafia orchestration even though the police were still investigating the case. But no one expected this stop news, especially Rubyhall and Lord getting killed by Lam and a Japanese American. The whole gem industry was taken aback in disbelief by the way in which Rubyhall was killed. New York felt the tremor immediately with calls logged to all the major buying offices to confirm if it was true followed by London, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

All the capitals were one way or other connected to Rubyhall’s business empire and now all of a sudden getting killed by one his own men was hard to digest. David Rosenberg was admitted to a nearby hospital after hearing of Rubyhall’s untimely and violent death, because one of the rubies he had just sent to New York happened to be a FRACTURE-FILLED RUBY from Burma, and now his client who bought the piece has filed a suit for damages. It couldn’t have come at a worse time when the Dow Jones was taking a beating after the Russian crisis and the people were losing confidence in everything, especially rubies and bloody treatments, because someone was not disclosing the truth.

Gem brokers gathered at the seventh floor of MelJeb Towers wanting to see Sanders in the flesh after his long absence. He tried hard to keep his temper cool and calm as all sorts of crazy questions kept coming from the brokers. It was hard, but he needed them to get back to his normal business.

In the end, they looked more or less convinced and left one by one. Both, rough and cut gemstones began arriving through the brokers for inspection and bidding. It was getting noisier, and he loved the strange voices. His next move was to convince his international clients that everything was back to normal.

Sanders had a list of important names, and he began to call them one by one assuring the same old quality friendship and terms requesting to continue doing business with them. In fact, he was planning to visit them personally to repair the damages after all that had been written and speculated regarding his relationship with Goldie.

Then his next goal was to reconcile with Chin and Ruth. After asking for their forgiveness, he promised to be a good husband and father, and they seemed to accept him the way he was without any preconditions. The lawyers acting on behalf of Chin were told to go on a long vacation to Somalia. She didn’t need them any more. She had learned her lessons the hard way and wanted her family back. So gradually he was making his peace, while Jeb and Baddy took care of the PR. At times he wondered whether all these events were happening for the good.



Meanwhile, Chichi could hardly conceal her joy after hearing the news from Tito. The competition was over and the untimely death of Ris Rubyhall and Winston Lord has arrived as a blessing in disguise after all that chase and pain they had to go through to acquire the now famous 37carat ruby. Now she had every reason to remind Tito and Miko to arrange that long awaited trip to LESOTHO (S.Africa), and she really meant it. Miko had gone to MelJeb Towers to meet Sanders to reconcile pending deals. She had one more question for Tito after he hung up the phone.
“Do you believe in luck?” she asked.
“Why? What’s the big problem?” he quipped.
“BEAUTY, DESTINY, AND LUCK ARE IN THE EYE AND MIND OF THE BEHOLDER. Look at that 37carat ruby. It is sitting safely in its right place. And we are the winners of the world’s largest jackpot,” she said, and then embraced him tightly.
“Do you think so?”
She then unwrapped a gem portrait immediately in front of him.

"Trespassers will be gemsicuted or believe in gemstones"