Gemsicuted

Written by Julian Robov


Thirty Seven


There were several brokers and buyers urgently wanting to meet Sanders and Jeb, and the crowd kept increasing as time passed by. Sanders gave strict instructions to Tip, his secretary, not to bring in any brokers or buyers for the whole day. Despite her concerted effort, they refused to leave. Instead, they kept coming back asking for an appointment with either Sanders or Jeb.

Meanwhile, Sanders, Jeb, and Baddy were holed up in Sanders’s office to plot the next move after the unexpected Grigory Troublov incident. Troublov had already threatened he would come back without giving any details of any sort, and the more they thought about the situation it became clear that he was not acting alone. And bad news about any one of them meant a guaranteed suspicion about their business practice and a baggage of negative publicity. That was the last thing in the world they wanted at this particular juncture, when they were preparing for the purchase of a 37carat ruby.

Baddy had been staying low profile for sometime, just concentrating on the ruby business and traveling between Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The experience he had gained from Africa proved to be of tremendous benefit by doing business in chaotic conditions and both, Sanders, and Jeb, were thoroughly enjoying the partnership.

In fact they wanted Baddy to be busy with his rough purchase but after careful thought, Jeb decided to involve Baddy so he would know the whole truth for the sake of transparency. Misunderstanding and disinformation always existed in any partnership, and that’s exactly what they wanted to avoid. They had to agree to an acceptable profit sharing ratio. There were several formulas put forward by each of them to sound fair. At last they all agreed to Baddy’s suggestion. With thirtyfour percent between Sanders and Jeb, Baddy’s thirtytwo percent became a perfect alternative choice.

The next part was the difficult one. Sharing the profit after Miko and Tito had sold the ruby. This was the time when business and friendship went separate ways. Everyone involved meant business. It was logic to split the profit from the deal the same way. They left the idea for the time being, till they had a final round of meeting with both, Tito and Miko. But the most excruciating problem facing them was the threat by Troublov, who also happened to be after the very same ruby. The way he managed to get to Sanders’s office meant Troublov was well aware of the security fault. That meant there was someone in the organization who knew the daily schedules of Sanders. Firing anyone under suspicion without solid proof meant more trouble in the long run. Hiring gunmen from the streets of Bangkok was not that expensive for the disgruntled staff, and that’s what Sanders, Jeb, and Baddy, wanted to avoid by any means. They needed the staff to survive the situation. And the only man who could do the convincing job of keeping the staff under control was Jeb. He had a knack of his own, even though Sanders was the man in charge of daily operations.

After Jeb had agreed to the assignment, their attention turned to Rubyhall and Baddy. Even though they competed against each other in the international ruby market, Baddy felt the time had come to cooperate with Rubyhall, to keep the international competition at bay. He wanted Bangkok to remain the ruby capital of the world, instead of New York taking over with the recent economic boom. The experiences he had acquired by working in the mines of Tanzania and Kenya taught him one or two lessons. The producing countries always remained poor or disorganized, while the consuming countries prospered uninterruptedly in the name of this or that.

But the political and geological landscape of ruby was quite different from Southeast Asia and Africa. The economy and the infrastructure were a bit better than the facilities in Africa. Bangkok being a convenient stopover for any ruby lovers made it all realistic, if there was a will by the concerned interests. The mining countries surrounding Thailand were politically unstable, a blessing in disguise for Bangkok, and the ruby dealers.

Baddy saw an opportunity to find a formula of cooperation so that instead of killing each other in the same street, it was high time that the Thai dealers fought against the dealers from abroad, who usually exploited the disunity and animosity amongst local ruby dealers.

The result was disastrous. Price cutting and deliberate hoarding of good rubies created an artificial scarcity to benefit a handful of dealers like Rubyhall, and his friends. Some were being forced out of the business in the name of misfits or lacking business logic. Though the idea seemed academically feasible, implementing them in a realistic term meant going the extra mile to build up confidence and stability so that big and small dealers benefited from this unique vision. Baddy wanted to be the architect of this idea encouraging other dealers to make it a reality.

Jeb and Sanders laughed at first, but then retreated to their commonsense approach seeing the benefit if all the parties agreed without any preconditions. But those arguments were open to meaningful discussions eventually creating a fortress of unity and stability for everyone.

Bangkok had all the facilities and the human resources to remain the ruby capital of the world. Rubyhall made it a reality working in his own terms with the right political connections The world was changing with new players coming in for a slice of the action, while oldies remained in their ancient world. The advent of Sanders and Jeb with different skills and specialties, the risk of being eaten away by the big dealers, the magic formula, and the peaceful coexistence among different quality groups avoided any conflict in relationships, and every differing interest kept busy with their clients or new gem territories. They succeeded, but not always. But it was okay.

Rubyhall, Winston, Tito, Miko, Jeb, Sanders, Baddy, Den, and an army of locals, big and small, remained in Bangkok, and in its environs continuing their pursuit to obtain the best of the best rubies from anywhere in the world to make someone happy. And those happy ones kept coming back to Bangkok, to acquire the most beautiful red stone on earth.

In the end, Jeb and Sanders agreed in principle to accommodate Baddy’s ideas to be executed at an appropriate time in association with other big Thai dealers such as Prapan, Morakot, and Somkit, but Jeb’s immediate concern remained to tackle Troublov and his motives. The 37carat ruby partnership was open for further discussion, when Tito and Miko agreed to the suggestion of a safe place to sort out the final details. They wanted to avoid at any cost any unexpected casualties. Private eyes and ears were everywhere, and this time they had to fulfill the promise.