DIAMONDS AND THE PRICE OF EMERALDS
(Part 2)

"I served three tours in Afghanistan Mr. Queen. You don't even come close to my definition of grief. But I tell you what. You ditch me one more time, no one will have to fire me."
John Diggle
Arrow, 1.02

The local Spin N' Save had a riot of blue bubbles hand-painted on the window glass that fronted the Laundromat.

Next door was a liquor store.

Nobody looked at me when I went in; jacketless and a little damp, arms crossed against the biting cold. Because nobody cared. In a neighborhood like this, you minded your own business.

Laundry, but no dry cleaning.

A wall of washers on one side, dryers on the other, and the length of a folding table straight down the middle. A glass-fronted vending machine spit out single-load boxes of detergent; dryer sheets and liquid softener in plastic packets.

People crowded the narrow space. At just past one, it was prime washing hour . . . apparently. But this was good. The more people there were, the less likely anyone was to care that I was there.

I recognized Fyfe only because we'd met before.

He'd changed his identity since then.

From a young, brilliant businessman – very possibly someone's protégé – to a thirty-something Glades lifer who'd come to terms with his lot and wasn't doing too badly.

There was a bag of groceries on the floor by his feet, his body leaning heavily on a rattling washing machine while he thumbed through his phone.

Head bowed, distracted . . . the man saw me the second I came in . . .

Fyfe picked the bag up off the ground, left his washing to spin-cycle without him, and strolled out through the back exit.

He didn't wait for me.

I didn't rush.

From humid heat back out into the cold; steam released in billowing white clouds smelling of dryer sheets and dust, a potholed back alley – and a flight of iron stairs bolted to the rain-wet concrete of the Laundromat wall.

There were two units on the second floor, both with generic white doors. Locks in the doorknobs rather than the sturdier deadbolt that wouldn't have stopped me but . . . I mean, look. Either try or don't bother.

Those could have been bathroom doors for all they kept the neighborhood out.

I started up the stairs. Stepping lightly, but not sneaking. I just didn't like how they rattled.

Unite 102 looked out onto the street. At a glance, it was the better apartment. A lot of natural light with those south-facing windows . . .

. . . I knocked on 101.

The wind picked up, heavy with the smells of rain, asphalt and exhaust. And urine. Why was it always alleys? It was quiet out here.

A familiar voice called through the door and I walked right into a tiny living room dominated by a home entertainment system that would have made the Queens' jealous. Christ, Fyfe. An open bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos had been left on the seat of a leather chair in front of the theatre-sized plasma screen.

"You like it?" Fyfe was waiting for me at a two-seat dinner table positioned to divide the kitchen from the living room. "Cap gave it to me."

He motioned for me to take a seat.

I wandered over to a framed poster for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare instead.

"Did you dust?" I asked, running my finger over the gray wood frame. I could smell, faintly, Windex and lemon pledge.

The apartment was sparsely decorated, but it was decorated. And with the exception of the chips on the chair, the place was spotlessly clean.

"Now and again." Fyfe slid a smoke from a box of Marlboros and stuck the coffin-nail between his lips, holding it there. "Every other day." He lit the thing with a snick! of a black Bic lighter.

"Far be it for me to tell you how to do your job," I said "but if you're going for drug dealer you might want to let dust collect a little."

"Nah." He took a long drag from his cigarette – "I just live here," and blew out a plume of sharp, sweet smoke. "I keep to myself. Don't make waves. Don't make friends."

"Don't have neighbors."

"I own the building."

Of course he did.

I tilted a smirk, "Capricorn gave you a home theatre?"

"Well," Fyfe countered my slight smile with a shit-eating grin. "My services don't come cheap, and the shit she asks for?" He shrugged. "I like to shake things up and screw with the Captains."

Who doesn't?

"So who are you, now?"

"Nobody." He stuck the smoke back in his mouth, clamping his lips around the butt. "Forgettable as breakfast toast," – and as enigmatic as that answer was, he couldn't leave it at that. "I'm the ghost in the machine."

Please. Fyfe was a glorified mail-service and switchboard operator.

He winked.

"I'm the devil you know."

He'd been doing this for as long as I'd known him and the only reason he hadn't been . . . retired . . . is that he was both a collector of favors and notoriously trustworthy.

Even the Syndicate won't replace what doesn't need to be fixed. I was almost jealous. Fyfe had successfully made himself indispensable. But that . . . that wasn't my play . . . too much blood under the bridge for me to pull that off, now.

Fyfe again motioned for me to take a seat, this time with his smoke held between two fingers. It would have been stupid to refuse a second time, so I took it; pulling out the chair across from him and setting my butt down on the unpadded seat.

"You have something for me?"

I did indeed; I withdrew the steel pillbox with the top that slid back, revealing a thumbprint lock, from the front pocket of my jeans.

Set it on the secondhand table between us –

"Say thank you, Fyfe," – slid it across to him. Adding, "They crashed my honeymoon so that I could pass that along."

Fyfe set his cigarette down on a heavy glass ashtray. Said, "Congratulations on your nuptials and all that." He slid back the panel and pressed his thumb to the identifier.

A breathless pause, followed by the sharp hiss of a seal release, and there they were.

Maybe a hundred tight-packed stones and, if you didn't already know what you were looking at, they could so easily be mistaken for chips of salt chiseled off a larger block. Rough rocks like minerals.

Uncut diamonds.

These were either a bribe, or someone's pay.

Either way, it was in my best interest to lose interest.

The apartment was too small for a bedroom. Instead, a futon doubled as bed and sofa – he hadn't folded it back up since the last time he slept in it, and the pillow still held the indent from his head.

Fyfe had left his groceries on the kitchen counter in the minute it'd taken me to come up. The cloth bag falling down like a sock around your ankle; inside, a compact box of table salt. A jug of white vinegar. Not groceries, then.

Well . . . the cranberry loaf was likely meant for eating . . .

There were no magnets stuck to the fridge door. A rice cooker. A white kettle sitting on the stove, on a back burner. White cupboards, drawers, and a linoleum floor. No windows. There was a fan over the stove.

The tiny bathroom would have fit nicely on a commercial plane for all the legroom it offered.

I reassessed and decided that Fyfe didn't live here. He worked here. Sometimes slept here. But this wasn't his home.

"What can you tell me about Starling City?" I asked.

"What do you want to know?"

"The vigilante," I said. "Is he one of us?"

Fyfe laughed. "No."

"Who is he?"

"I have no idea." He tapped his cigarette on the side of the ashtray, dislodging smoldering ashes from the end. "I suggest," Fyfe added, dryly "that you not pursue this."

Uh-huh.

"Who are the players?"

Fyfe tilted a tight smile around the butt of the smoke he stuck between his lips. "You think I'm just going to give you answers?

"I think you'll tell me," I said. "If only to watch me fail with the information."

The look in his eyes was hard approval.

"The city is divided between the Russians and the Argentineans. Chinese have been chipping away at both. Tensions are . . . palpable." He inhaled more smoke, blew out a plume. Added, "Syndicate you'll find on your own end of the game board."

Russians.

Bratva.

The faded black tattoo on Oliver's solid right pec ricocheted through my mind.

I wet my lips. "Which Chinese?"

"Triad."

Delivered with the finality of the drop of a headman's ax. I wasn't sure what to make of that. Where the Russians and I had some history I'd never met the Triad. I knew them by reputation – and that was not enough.

I held Fyfe's dark eyes; mentally cataloguing the information he'd given me. I considered asking him about yesterday's accident, what – if anything – he knew about Diphenhydramine but tipping my hand felt premature.

Fyfe used his thumb to slide the plate back into place, securing the diamonds. Long fingers lingered on the black steel. His eyes fell to my right hand, stayed. Then to my left.

I'd taken off my wedding ring, loath to wander the streets of the inner city with the rock on my finger.

"What did they get you?"

"An emerald."

"Can I see it?"

"No."

Fyfe stuck his smoke in his mouth, clamping his lips around the butt to hold it there, and stuck a couple hundred thousand dollars of untraceable diamonds down the front of his Wal-Mart jeans. I kept my attention on his face, paying no particular attention to where the gems were going.

His eyes dragged up the front of me. "What happened to your coat?"

"I left it with my bodyguard."

He blew white smoke out through his lips.

"And where's he?"

"Looking for me, I'm sure. The vigilante," I said. "What can you tell me?"

Fyfe pulled the cigarette from his mouth, holding it loosely between two fingers and pointed at me; with his fingers, not the smoke. "What's with you and your poor listening skills? Didn't I just get done telling you to leave it alone?"

"Fyfe."

One corner of his mouth inched up. It wasn't like me to press him; and I couldn't tell if he liked it, or if I was pissing him off.

"So was it worth it? Trading security, for protection?" Fyfe's tone was so aggressively neutral that a sliver of fear trickled down my spine.

Outside, the wind beat at the window. The door.

One window.

One door.

"What exactly," I said "do you think you know?"

Black eyes flashed, humor lighting with the suddenness of a struck match. "They let out enough rope to see you hang yourself with it. You were smart enough to make yourself high profile, not untouchable."

It was a calculated risk.

Was it worth it? I hadn't decided, yet.

I ran my hands down the front of my jeans and moved to stand up but Fyfe's hand landed on mine. In the years I'd known him, this was the first time he'd touched me. There were calluses on his fingers.

The man did more than broker information.

"Tell me what happened at the house last night."

There was no question what he meant; I had no reason to evade. I still caught myself asking, "Why?"

"Why not?" Unsatisfied, he added, "You weren't assigned to this city, and so no one knew to prepare for you. Capricorn gave up my presence, here, to an asset she doesn't trust."

Capricorn trusted me only so far as she could control me. That control had been slipping for years and we all knew it. As Fyfe said, rather than tighten the leash, she let out enough rope to watch my hang myself with it . . .

. . . only, I hadn't.

"Look," I said "if Capricorn decides to retire me, she's sending Leon. Leon comes for me, I can't stop him."

He ticked a brow.

"What happened last night wasn't just sloppy, Fyfe, it was laughable," – a disaster, is what it was. "Leon is precise. No mistake, no escape." The man was surgical. It's what made him terrifying.

Poisoning our driver to maybe have him wreck the car was just stupid.

The more time I had to think on it the more I was starting to suspect Henry Stohl himself might have been the target. Pissed off someone-or-other slipping Diphenhydramine in his afternoon coffee without a care for where, or how, it would take effect.

Regardless. This was no pro.

"I'll be fine," I said. "And I appreciate the concern, but I've been taking care of myself a long time."

"What does that get you?"

"I know what I'm doing."

Fyfe took a long, hard drag from his cigarette. "Dangerous thing, that is," he muttered, smoke leaving his lips along with his breath. "Lying to me, right to my face."

The smoke sat heavy in my chest.