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thinking straight. “I’m waiting,” I said, drumming my spoon on the table in time with Georgia’s banging.
    “So, you even wanna hear my side of it or are you going to believe a couple of thugs?” Vivian asked flatly.
    “These Goodfella guys said that you’re married to Perelli. That you were laundering money and fencing uncut diamonds through Prince Charles. That one day you took off with the money and some diamond. Perelli doesn’t care about you, but he wants his diamond back. You telling me that’s all wrong?”
    Vivian uncrossed her arms, shifted in her seat, and crossed her legs. She watched Georgia for a long moment before answering, “That’s all true.”
    “How come I have to find out about it this way?”
    “Cheech was in prison. Is in prison. For tax evasion. He might be out, I dunno.”
    I didn’t answer. I put the knife down and stared out the window. The beige van was parked about five cars down from us. I nodded toward the van and Vivian’s eyes followed my own.
    She inhaled sharply and continued, “I thought I had time to figure all this out.”
    “I have it all figured out,” I said. “Give back the diamond. You have a day and a half to give it back before they kill us and Georgia.”
    She shook her head. “We give it back, they kill us for sure. As long as we have it and they want it, we’re safe.”
    The waitress brought our food and set the plates in front of us like she was dealing from a deck of cards. Neither of us touched our plates. Georgia screamed when she saw the pancakes so I broke off a piece and put it in her little hand. She sucked on it and asked for more, so I put my whole plate in front of her. She tore into it with her chubby little fingers and double-fisted pancake into her mouth.
    Vivian started in again, “He won’t have us killed as long as I’m the only one who knows where the diamond is. He’s not going to piss away ten million dollars like that.”
    I gulped. “Ten million?” I reached for my water and swallowed hard.
    “At least. It’s one of the largest uncut diamonds ever found. Please don’t let her eat pancakes.”
    “A little pancake won’t hurt her any,” I said. And maybe just to prove who was boss, I poured half a bottle of syrup over Georgia’s plate.
    Vivian sighed and finally said, “I did it for us, Lee. I did it for our family. I mean, at first I did it for me. But after I met you…I thought when Prince Charles was gone that would be the end of it. I thought Cheech would think it was Prince Charles who had the Devil’s Diamond and he’d leave me alone. I didn’t know he’d come after us. I thought we were safe.”
    “Stupid question,” I began. “Why’s it called the Devil’s Diamond?”
    “Oh,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face like she smelled something bad. “There’s a legend or something about curses and selling your soul to the devil and dying a horrible cruel death.”
    “Oh, is that all?” I responded.
    She leaned forward a little and asked, “You don’t actually believe that kind of crap, do you?”
    “Before today I didn’t believe in a lot of things. Like how my wife could steal a ten-million-dollar diamond and have the Mafia after us and have our house bugged, so selling my soul to the devil is just going at the bottom of that list.”
    “Well, I don’t believe in devils and curses,” she said matter-of-factly like that made it so. “And your daughter is getting syrup all in her hair.”
    Every time. Every time Georgia screams or makes a mess she’s my daughter.
    A thought struck me. “How the hell’d you smuggle a ten- million-dollar diamond over here on a plane anyway? Where’d you hide it?”
    Vivian raised one eyebrow meaningfully. “Do you really have to ask?”
    Damn. Only Vivian would fly five thousand miles with a diamond nestled up her girlie parts and act like it was something she did every day.
    “How big is it?” I asked. Because a ten-million-dollar diamond sounded