Dolled Up for Murder by Jane K. Cleland Page B

when they’ve done nothing to deserve it. Since neither of us intended to include the jewel in the purchase/sale contract, the ruby was outside the scope of the deal. Our unexpected windfall was a direct result of their unexpected loss. Patently, that’s not fair.”
    â€œFrisco’s settled for an unnamed amount, right?” Ellis asked, his tone as sarcastic as his expression was cynical.
    â€œNo, actually. Frisco’s returned the ruby. I think the powers that be thought it was the right thing to do. Some of my colleagues took a more jaded view. They thought we returned it because the lawsuit would take forever and generate a ton of bad publicity, a big powerful corporation trying to pull a fast one on an older retired couple.”
    â€œSo are you going to give the currency back?”
    â€œOf course.” I was surprised he had to ask. He knew me well enough to know that I never tried to hedge. I called it the I-want-to-sleep-at-night theory of ethics.
    He smiled. “No wonder you’re such a business success. People are hungry for honesty.”
    â€œThanks,” I said, embarrassed. I glanced at Fred. “What do you think, Fred?”
    â€œI think I have the best job in the world.”
    I laughed, surprised and embarrassed and pleased. “What a nice thing to say!”
    â€œIt’s true. Too many people spend too much time in gray areas. I’m like you—I think most things are black and white, with no gray, and it’s great to work for a company with that kind of principles.”
    â€œI agree with you both,” Ellis said. “Back to the issue at hand. How hard would it be to sell this currency?”
    â€œNot hard at all,” I replied. “If you want to stay below the radar, you’d have to sell at a discount, but that’s easy. There are about a million numismatist fairs and shows, worldwide. All you’d have to do is take some of the bills to a show, cruise the dealers, and sell them without other dealers seeing what you’re up to, an arrangement dealers are happy to go along with. You want privacy so you can sell to more than one dealer without any hint you’re flooding the market. The dealers want privacy because they want to keep their competition in the dark about their sources. You’ve heard me say that it’s way harder to buy good product than it is to sell it, so dealers, me included, guard our suppliers like Fort Knox.”
    â€œHow can they do that in an open show?”
    â€œNo prob. I’ll give you a for instance. Let’s say a guy shows up in your booth saying he has some Union currency to sell. The dealer tells him to meet him outside or in a hallway or in a stairwell in two minutes. The dealer’s goal is to complete the transaction out of the view of everyone, get the guy’s name and number so he can follow up and buy the rest of his inventory, if he has more, later, and get him gone. Look at the numbers: The seller will only get about a third to half the retail value—call it a thousand dollars a bill for a round number—but so what? If there are forty dealers at each show, and you sell five bills per dealer to ten percent of the dealers, that’s what? Five bills times a thousand dollars per bill is five thousand dollars per transaction. Times four dealers per show equals twenty thousand dollars. Using this scenario, you’re selling twenty bills per show. If you pace yourself and only go to one show every few months, inside of a year, maybe less, you’ll have sold all the currency and you’ll have a hundred thousand dollars in your jeans. I always give receipts and have sellers sign a bill of sale, but it’s not a stretch to think that some dealers may be more lax. It happens all the time. There’s a good chance you can get cash with no tax to pay and no record of the sales.”
    â€œWould experienced dealers really pay a thousand dollars for