Young and Scambitious (A short story) (4 page)

GABRIEL

There were times, and certain angles, when Caridad Pasensyosa reminded Gabriel of an aunt. His dad
's sister, in particular, the one who always made the potato salad during Thanksgiving, the same salad that none of the family members touched and he had to eat for days after until it tasted funny.

They were both round, but sturdy and firm. When they smiled, their cheeks tensed up like unripe tomatoes. And they might be using the same shade of hair dye, which under the sun streaked gold.

But, he liked to remind himself, the worst thing his aunt ever did (that he was aware of) was make food that no one wanted to eat.

Caridad Pasensyosa embezzled from business partners, harassed family members of someone who dared lend her money, married off her youngest daughter to a sixty-year-old landowner up north. But what brought her to the attention of Gabriel in his line of work: she became extraordinarily wealthy during her two terms as
a local official, wealth she continued to enjoy despite being denied another term.

It was a good reminder, always served like a kick to the shin. Any warmth from the aunt association always immediately left him.

Caridad liked taking him out to coffee, or dinner, or any meal in public he would agree to. He understood why, of course. In this city he was considered "somewhat good looking," handsome but always because he "looked like [an ever changing roster of people]." She wanted to be seen with him, but when people approached her in these public places she never actually introduced him to them. It would of course call into question why she was always out with a jewelry appraiser, because she knew him to be an appraiser, and he guessed she would rather the people speculate about her marital situation than her financial one.

This dinner seemed different, and he was glad to see that it might be one where actual business would take place. He was ready to take a break from Caridad Pasensyosa.

She asked to meet him at a Chinese restaurant in a five-star hotel. At a corner table set for two, amidst round tables set for ten, he found her and another woman. Between them, a duck that was missing two legs and most of one breast, and a plate of stray broccoli florets. He showed up for the dinner at the time she told him to arrive, and then realized that she had intended for him to join an hour into it.

"
Raphael," Caridad said, brightening up, "This is Margaux."

He knew of her, of course, and searched
Margaux's face for traces of mutual recognition. She smiled, like she would to any stranger, but she was also a bit taken aback.

"
You didn't tell me you were expecting someone else, Caridad," she said.

"
Raphael" took his seat, and Margaux unconsciously slid slightly away from him. He found that interesting.

"
Nonsense. Raphael is my appraiser. I won't buy anything without Raphael seeing it."

Margaux eyed him.
"He looks too young to be an appraiser."

"
He studied gemology abroad and has worked in the industry for years. And
I
trust him," Caridad said.

There was a velvet box on the table, previously obscured by Caridad
's hand. She popped it open and handed it gently to him. "What do you think, Raph?"

It was a beautiful ring, was what he first thought, but Caridad needed more than that.

"Are you planning to buy this?" he asked. He could feel Margaux tense up, in that her smile remained unnaturally there for longer than it should.

"
I'm thinking about it," Caridad answered. "I hear it's one of a kind."

He took the piece by the band and lifted it out of its box, turning it over, peering into the inside of the band.
"I'm guessing you don't have a GIA certificate for this."

Margaux shook her head.
"No, I don't. It was a gift."

"
Do you own it?" he asked.

"
No," Margaux answered. "A friend does. I'm here on her behalf."

"
Would your friend happen to be Chrysalis Magnolia?" That was said stage-whisper style, an attempt to create privacy in a large room. But the surrounding tables were full, and noisy, in their own worlds of birthday celebrations and reunions, and it seemed like no one else was paying attention to the corner table. 

Caridad leaned back against her chair, impressed. When she spoke, she dropped her voice to nearly a whisper
too. "So this is really hers? The same one from the Sandoval family?"

He cleared his throat.
"There are ways to check. I can have this diagrammed and check it against a recorded plot diagram of the stone, if someone has it. I'll need a week and the right tools."

"
Absolutely not," Margaux protested. "My friend won't agree to that. Any appraisal you do happens now, in front of me."

Gabriel turned it over, so the stone was facing him. He lowered it discreetly.
"I didn't exactly think I would be working tonight, Caridad."

Caridad frowned, and pouted.
"We're always working, Raphael. I'm sad that we can't come to an agreement on this."

Margaux made a show of sighing.
"Look. There are other people interested in this. I came to you first, Caridad, because you've always been a good friend. But if you're going on the word of this guy—I'm sorry but I don't know you—then
my friend
will want me to talk to the others."

While she said this, Gabriel raised a hand and let the other fish something out of his pants pocket. He pulled out a loupe, a small magnification device.
"I can do something," he said. He found the right light and angled the ring under the lens.

Gabriel wasn
't really a gemologist. Nor was he an appraiser, even though he spent a lot of time and effort to get Caridad Pasensyosa to believe he was. But he did his homework, and he knew enough from this quick look to see that he wasn't looking at the Sandoval ring. Same mount, different quality of stone. He tilted the lens and ring slightly and hoped for the best.

Then he handed both to Caridad and told her to peer in.

"What am I looking at?" she said.

"
The stone in the Sandoval ring has a natural flaw," he said. "When you look at it in a certain light, it might look like an S."

"
I don't see…"

Gabriel took her wrist and shifted it toward him and then slightly inward.
"This better?"

"
I see an S! Maybe." Caridad's voice was tight, still trying to keep it down.

Margaux relaxed, uncrossing her legs.
"That's interesting."

"
So what does this mean?"

Gabriel took the loupe and ring from Caridad. The lens he put in his pocket, the ring went back in the box.
"I don't have a professional response for you."

Caridad tapped his arm and shook him slightly.
"What does this mean? I want to know now."

"
It means that I didn't have the right tools to give you a professional appraisal, but I do know that the Sandoval ring's stone has a very distinctive natural flaw. You will be able to find someone who can verify that. And this ring's stone has a similar distinctive flaw."

"
So you can say that they're the same ring," Margaux said.

"
I'm not saying
that
, professionally," Gabriel said. "I'm just saying that it's mounted the same way, and the stone I've looked at here has a similar flaw."

Margaux smiled, and looked at Caridad.
"Is that good enough for you, Caridad? What are the odds of another one with the same design and flaw existing?"

"
What is this worth, Raph?" Caridad was asking.

He shrugged.
"I don't have enough information."

"
It's worth whatever my friend says it is," Margaux jumped in. "Since there is nothing else like it out there. And there will be nothing else like it, because of the circumstances."

Gabriel didn't get it, honestly. Why someone would want to
pay extravagantly to own something she couldn't ever wear, or even brag about possessing, because it was already famously "stolen." He knew, because he studied it, that people like Caridad saw this as an
aspirational
purchase, a misplaced connection to a status they wanted to achieve. As if owning a piece of it made one become it. It was often not the case, so this was all a waste of money. But it wasn't his job to understand it.

By now, Caridad
's face had changed. It had taken on a look that meant she was about to engage in her kind of business. "Have you eaten, Raphael? I'm sorry we went and ate already. There's still some duck if you want."

He shook his head.
"No, no, thank you, Caridad. I've already had dinner. Do you want me to give you some privacy? You probably have things to discuss."

"
Yes, thank you, Raph," she said, but Caridad's thoughts were somewhere else already.

Margaux shook his hand as he
stood up. "It was nice to meet you, Raphael."

He nodded, and stepped back from the table. On the way out of the restaurant he weaved through a different path from the one he took when he came in, making sure he passed by the bar, and the three people sitting there, specifically the one person who had deliberately turned away from him.

And then he stood outside the hotel and waited.

JANE

Once upon a time, Margaux and Jane's mom hung out in the same crowd. They were on the fringes of the elite circles of Manila society, both of them going by different names, and they managed to live a lavish lifestyle by preying on people who didn't guard their wallets as closely as they should.

The party ended with a scandal, a fall from grace, an overnight exodus.

Jane wondered if this was how her mother felt, that night, when it all fell apart. The past twenty minutes had been spent doing a mental inventory of the things she could leave behind. Her mind mapped the nearest ATMs, how much she could get, and where that would take her, provided this all ended tonight.

The
"Princess Midas" superhero name didn't just come to her, conveniently, because she and two other people happened to be talking about it in a lemon-scented car. It was a nickname her mother used to have, a not so subtle wink at the way she made things out of nothing. And if you had even a childhood memory of the Midas story, you would know why Jane's mom was in hiding today. Blessings can also be curses.

Jane only had a view of Margaux
's back from her place at the bar, so she didn't know what the hell was happening when Gabriel arrived. Didn't get any alarm signals when he finally shook Margaux's hand as he left. But this couldn't be good.

He was by the driveway of the hotel, just there, when she all but ran out.

"What the hell was that?" she said, forgetting which voice she needed to use, not caring. "Who are you?"

"
Gabriel Grande, like I said," he answered.

"
The name doesn't mean anything," she hissed.

"
It doesn't have to. Look, apparently we're colleagues of some sort. You probably know that this can happen, if you work in a circle long enough."

But she hadn
't worked in this "circle" that long. She wasn't going to admit that just yet. "What do you want?"

"
A favor. You can help me do my job today."

Unbelievable. He was wasting
her precious escape time. "Why should I do anything for you?"

"
Jane, you want Caridad to buy that ring, don't you? I helped make that happen for you. She's probably buying it right now."

He turned in the direction of the busy Makati street that they were in front of, and gestured for her to walk with him. She could at least do that, and keep proper pace, because she wasn
't wearing Elizabeth Madrid's ridiculously tall shoes. She knew she wouldn't be accidentally flashing anyone either, having left the short skirts and sheer tops.

It was just Jane, tonight. Jeans and shirt Jane.

"Your people are impressive," Gabriel said, a block away from the hotel. "How did you recreate the inclusion?"

Jane paused.
"Trade secret. What do you want?"

"
We," Gabriel said, carefully emphasizing the word, "want the amount that Caridad Pasensyosa is about to pay for the ring right now. Minus the cost of the copy and a…
talent fee
for your entire team."

"
But we did all the work."

"
And you'll all be compensated for your time."

"
We don't do this for an hourly salary."
You jackass
was how that continued in her head, which conflicted so much with the physical memory of him she still carried. It was making her head throb.

"
Look, I helped you out here tonight. That ring wasn't going to pass an actual authentication and appraisal. Not to mention the baggage of the police report and denied insurance claim. You would have ended up with zero. This is better than zero."

This
meant
she
was back at zero, if what she got was just to make up for what she lost in the past few months. It meant that taking off for a while was out of the question.

Or she would have to get an actual job.

Gabriel paused at a red light and guided her toward the park. "
You
can walk away from this, if you want."

A young girl pushing a kid on a stroller tried to pass them, and Jane let her.
"Walk away from what?"

"
What have you done, really? Nothing serious. You partied, went to clubs, gave yourself a name. A socialite asked you to have a ring of a specific design made, and gave you money for it. Nothing that can't be explained."

Right then Jane realized that he was still touching her arm, from when they crossed the street, and she became aware of it likely because her blood just ran cold. She pulled away from him, and held her arm in the same spot, as if to check for injury.
"Who the
fuck
are you?"

"
I gave you my real name," he said. "You'll look it up and know exactly who I am. But I was saying—it's Margaux, back in the Chinese restaurant,
she's
actually doing something against the law. Technically."

"
You can't prove it. No documents were faked."

"
Ever?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Maybe not this time, but you can say that for everything she's done? I'm pretty sure Margaux has at least estafa in her history. You on the other hand can just walk away while we do what we do."

It was a clear night in the metro. It had been for a stretch of time, over two weeks at least. No storms, no rain, and tonight, bright stars. Jane barely remembered what living in this place was like, having left in a hurry when she was so young. It seemed like it would be pleasant, not as scorching hot, not as bitterly cold. She should have remembered though that it wasn
't the weather that helped her adjust to a place, but the relative anonymity that it provided.

In that case, this city was just like any other. Eventually she was not going to be anonymous.

It was her fault, by the way. She got greedy, just like Chrysalis, just like her mother. And just like Margaux. No one twisted her arm to do this. And now she could see that Gabriel was offering her an out, not realizing that it was actually going to keep her in for longer.

Because while she didn
't care one bit about Margaux, the woman held something over her mother. A debt she hadn't yet collected.

"
I'll convince Margaux," she said.

"
You will?"

"
We will be able to pay the ring designer and cover our expenses?"

Gabriel was surprised that she changed her tone.
"You decide the figure. But we get the rest."

"
I'll make computations. We have to make a little something, or Margaux won't agree. And enough to return what Chrysalis paid for the copy. I'll tell her the sale didn't go through."

"
All right." Gabriel put his hands in his pockets. "You're not being difficult about this."

"
I'm not a difficult person."

"
We can help you earn it back. Some of it. Your team seems to be good at this. We may need you for other things."

They stopped in the middle of a jogger trail. Not quite private, because there were people out for a run on a clear night.

She felt her phone buzz. It was a text from Margaux:
Score! Best deal. Will explain later.

"
What is it for?" she asked. "The rest of the money."

"
We call it investment recovery," he answered.

Jane scanned the rest of the park and watched the joggers, the yuppies smoking in threes, the city dwellers whose dogs were out on a playdate, toddlers out on a playdate. It looked the world was still turning, and hadn
't yet crumbled.

"
Jane." Gabriel waited for that break in her concentration, and almost sounded apologetic. "We haven't talked about—"

"
One time," Jane said, quickly, before anything more embarrassing came out. "That's it. You've made this about business now."

He nodded.
"That's fair."

Whether she liked it or not, Jane del Mundo was going to be in the business of
"investment recovery" herself. Until she had enough to get out.