Authors: Gerald A Browne
What Bernard and Willard first learned was that diamonds were not to be plucked right off the ground and, as for Brazil, they were late, had even missed the tail end of the pickings. They shipped out of Salvador and, via the circuitous routes endured by hired seamen, finally made it to Johannesburg, South Africa.
They made their way north to the diamond fields and became caught up in the frenzy of greed and grit. The claims they worked yielded barely enough to keep their bodies and hopes alive, but they kept at it. Until one day they were unable to encourage one another. They left everything they couldn't carry and began wandering.
Naturally, they kept their eyes to the ground.
Observed doing that around Dutoitspan and Bultfontein, they were chased off by De Beers officials. They ran into the same trouble at Jagersfontein and Kofiiefontein. Thus they were more or less forced into taking a direction that put them up the Orange River and then farther up along its main tributary, the Vaal.
There, in a dry bed that was merely one of thousands of runoffs, Bernard and Willard found that the first lesson they had learned in Brazil was not necessarily true. Because there, right there, were diamonds to be plucked right off the ground.
No shout of joy or kicking up of a jig. The finding was anticlimactic. Bernard and Willard squatted and began methodically picking diamonds from among the gravel. Alluvial diamonds with a misty-like skin on them. Fine river whites.
Each found about five hundred stones: some no larger than a ladybug, quite a few three times the size of a bumblebee. Willard took off his socks and, because of holes, knotted them at the toes.
Two sockfuls of diamonds. That's what they carried home.
Springer & Springer was in business.
In 1908 it opened to deal in diamonds at 84 Nassau Street. Then and for the next twenty-five years that area of lower Manhattan—Nassau Street, John Street, Canal Street and Maiden Lane—was New York City's diamond district. In the early thirties, about the time when Rockefeller Center was built, many of the downtown jewelers and dealers moved up to 47th Street to be closer to the spenders.
Springer & Springer remained on Nassau Street. Willard and Bernard Springer were against making such a move. However, when Bernard died in 1945 and Willard passed away four years later, Willard's two sons assumed responsibility for running the firm. Springer & Springer it would still be. Edwin was then thirty-two, Malcolm twenty-five.
Within a year after Willard's death Edwin and Malcolm agreed to move the firm uptown. They were both of the conviction that Springer & Springer would have done better had it made the move earlier, and indeed, within the first year of operation out of its new location at 580 Fifth Avenue, business improved. Springer & Springer was never one of the supereminent diamond dealers. It did not do an enormous volume or have high-level clout with The System. Nevertheless its niche was worthy as one of the few truly solid upper-middle-ground firms, well known by the trade because of its equity and the consistency of its reputation. A diamond, rough or finished, from Springer & Springer could be counted on to be what Springer & Springer claimed it was. If, for example, the cut of a stone was slightly off. Springer & Springer, instead of trying to squeeze it through, would inform its client of the discrepancy and accordingly call attention to the price adjustment it had made. That is not to say Springer & Springer wasn't tough when it had to be. It hondled and hacked and bluffed with the best of them. But no firm was fairer.
For thirty-one years, Edwin Springer was the axis for such standards. He constantly tended and nourished Springer & Springer's reputation, kept it impeccably structured for the years ahead.
It was an extreme disappointment to Edwin when his first-born son, Norman, showed no interest in the business. Edwin was patient in his attempts to motivate Norman, but it was evident that Norman's heart would never be in it. To him a diamond was valuable but not fascinating. Eventually Edwin gave up trying to influence him. Norman would be whatever he would be.
Edwin could hardly wait for his second son, Phillip, to be old enough. When Phillip was still toddling, Edwin brought diamonds home that he and Phillip would play with on the rug in the family apartment at 28 East 72nd. Of course, Edwin had to keep careful watch or the child would have them in his mouth. The way the stones seemed to dazzle Phillip, the way his tiny fingers found and enclosed them, Edwin was encouraged.
For his eighth birthday Phillip received A Child's Dictionary of the Supernatural from his mother, Martha, and from his father a volleyball and a set of master stones. He liked the volleyball. He went around bouncing it off every possible surface, including, to his mother's horror, his baby sister Janet's bassinette. But it was the set of master stones that surprised and pleased Phillip most: six round-cut diamonds, one-quarter carat each, in their own special black leather case. They were inset exactly in place and labeled according to their grade of color: D, E, F, G, H, and I. Many diamond dealers used this same type of master set to compare and verify their stones. It was expensive, by no means a toy. Phillip treasured it, handled it with care. He kept it safely locked away in a metal strongbox in a locked drawer and wore both keys on a chain around his neck.
After that Edwin would frequently bring a few diamonds home and challenge Phillip to grade them. Phillip was glad to put his master set and opinion to work.
"This one's an F and this one might be a D to some people, but I think it's closer to an E."
"You have exceptional eyes," Edwin told him. And soon Phillip was classifying stones without relying on the master set, using it only to check himself.
Edwin continued to teach him diamonds in much the same manner as he had been taught by his own father, with challenges and praise and tactical consternation.
"I'm considering buying this stone. It's supposed to be flawless but . . . well, what do you think?"
The stone in question, a three-carat round, was handed over to Phillip for his examination under the ten-power of his father's loupe.
"It looks clean."
"Really? I'd certainly hate to pay the price that's being asked, if it isn't."
"1 don't see anything in it."
"Not even a speck of carbon . . ."
"Pretty stone."
". . . or a hairline fracture?"
"Nope."
"Good. I feel better now that—"
"Hey, wait a second! I think I just caught on something. Yeah, there it is, a flake of black right under the crown facets and the edge of the table. Like it was hiding under the table."
"Or hidden?"
"Or hidden."
"Well, what do you know."
That was when Phillip was twelve, with a protege's understanding of such diamond complexities as high shoulders, lumpy girdles, included crystals, and cleavage cracks. Sometimes he was a bit cocky about his special knowledge, and Edwin would have to let him see how much he still didn't know.
"What would you say is the weight of this stone?"
"Four carats."
"You're sure?"
"Give or take a few points."
"You're off, way off. It's less than three carats."
Phillip remained dubious until the stone was on the scale and registering 2.92 carats. Edwin said it was a "swindle."
"A gyp?"
"Not if someone knows better," Edwin told him pointedly and explained that a swindle was what those in the trade called a stone that was cut with so much spread to its table that the stone appeared larger than it actually was.
To Phillip it was personal trickery. He took his volleyball and headed for the park. He could usually find a game in progress or get one up. Where he played mostly was in the vast open area called The Sheep Meadow. Sometimes the games there were serious, the players older guys, and Phillip could only stand around and watch. More often, however, it didn't matter how many were on a side or how old or tall one was. It was a free-for-all, on a surface that was grass run to dust, with hardly any team play, and as many as four or five guys converging on the ball. The larger, taller guys dominated, but Phillip was gutsy, went for it, and was often crushed. He vowed that when he was older he would be an absolute ball hog. Whenever he was in a game only with fellows near his own age he never gave up, made sacrificial dives for balls that seemed impossible to reach, and for that he'd already made some saves remarkable enough to remember. He broke his collarbone twice.
When he wasn't in the park playing volleyball he was most likely somewhere on 47th Street. He'd go looking along, interested in every shop window. There was always something new to see because of the street's constant turnover of goods. A ten-carat square-cut making its debut or refreshed comeback could hold his attention for a half hour that seemed to him no more than a couple of minutes. His approach was to first give a stone its due and then try to realize its flaws.
He was the same with people. He got to know just about every jeweler on the street and every stall owner in the arcades. In the course of their adult business seldom was a youngster such as Phillip around so regularly, and for a while he was regarded as an outsider, a possible nuisance. However, eventually, when he'd never gotten in the way or cost anyone a sale, they accepted him. Not only the street jewelers with their flourishing stores but as well the stall keepers with lesser offerings, the bead stringers, the sellers of findings — all those little gold snaps and rings and catches and bezels — the watchmakers, the repairers, even those who sold only the special boxes jewelry requires. If they weren't busy sometimes they would schmooze with him. His inquisitiveness was often flattering, an opportunity for, say, a man who knew opals to share a bit of his expertise, or a pearl dealer to show him how much better were the beauties that came from the Asian oceans before the oyster beds were contaminated.
"You don't see pearls like this anymore."
Actually, Phillip on his meanderings saw numerous pearls of such quality or better, but he kept that to himself. He was psychologically precocious in that respect, knowing when not to say anything. It gave him a chameleonlike advantage.
He got to know early the bright conspicuous side of 47th and also its criminal underbelly. He could pick out the shylocks, some connected well enough to come up with a half million or more within an hour to get some dealer deeper in the hole. He recognized their collectors, potential bullies, making rounds. He saw the same faces of the same fences come with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds popped from mountings and therefore unidentifiable, surely unincriminating. A stone is a stone is a stone to be set anew and sold again and, chances were, stolen again. So went the cycle, just from overhearing and observing he was able to make out which were the pushy corruptors, the larcenous and the slippery, the mob guys.
Phillip would never forget a particular mob guy who operated out of a booth in one of the busier exchanges, a small booth with a smattering of ordinary gold chains in its finger-smeared glass case. The man's name was John. No one seemed to know him by more than that, so they called him Just John. And apparently he didn't mind. He was a short, thick man with a large face, who always wore a white shirt with its sleeves rolled not quite to the elbow. No tie. Expensive black shoes. Just John's booth was situated far in the back so he had a total view of the place and could see anyone coming in his direction well in advance. He was brought things he might want to buy. Not anyone could approach him, only certain guys, the same guys every day. If someone else offered to sell him something, he wasn't interested, no matter how fine and cheap the goods. Just John had the next to the last word. Only rarely did he have to ask whomever it was whether or not he should make a buy. When he asked he always went outside on the street to a pay phone.
Once Phillip watched as Just John dealt with a guy. Just John was smiling amiably one second and the next his face was cold stone. Phillip would always remember it, how all the while it must have been there just beneath the smiling surface — that sudden death.
One day.
On the street outside the exchange of Just John.
"Hey, kid."
Phillip glanced around and thought perhaps he'd heard his imagination because no one was there except a boy about his own age, a dark-haired, dark-eyed boy with the beginnings of a first mustache like a charcoal smudge above his lips. He had on light tan gabardine slacks, a pale green tight-fitting shirt, well-shined hardly worn brown shoes. He was leaning against the facade of the place. "Come here," he said.
Phillip was used to having to decide whether or not to ignore someone. He was already stopped. He took three steps forward, which was about halfway to the boy.
The boy took his three.
Five minutes later they were together at a table in the cafeteria down the way, having milkshakes. The boy paid for them with a fifty, although, Phillip noticed, he had smaller. He introduced himself as Danny Raggio, said people who really knew him called him Danny Rags. By comparison Phillip thought his own name sounded stiff and unsuitable so he told Danny to call him Springer.
Danny was new on the street. He'd had a fight in school, literally in it. All the way down the school corridor, throwing punches and anything else he could get hold of.
"Who won?" Phillip asked.
"The fuckheads broke it up."
Phillip liked the honesty.
"They expelled me so my father got me this job."
"Doing what?"
"I'm a runner for Just John. You know Just John?"
Phillip nodded.
"He's my uncle." Not mere fact the way Danny said it. Some boast in it. And the next time Danny smiled Phillip tried to read through it, but there was no lurking icy lethalness that he could see.
"You ever been up around Arthur Avenue?" Danny asked.
"I don't think so."
"In the Bronx."
"I've been to the zoo."
"It's not far from there."
"Is that where you live?"
"Yeah, the zoo."