"$8,400 Per Carat"

She put on a tie-dyed western skirt and did the worst spin I've ever seen.

"What was that you just did? And you're not going to wear that thing, are you?"

"That was a pirouette and my impression of a whirling dervish," she said with still the slightest hint of a Colombian accent. If I didn't know she was Colombian, I would swear from her bronze skin and features, that she was from Brazil...

"Okay," I grinned. Then I mumbled, "more like a hurling side dish."

...because she reminded me of a risque poster I had when I was younger, of a Brazilian honey on a Rio beach with a thong on. Of course that was when American women were wearing granny panties and if you were extra lucky, you might see a bikini cut or something lacy...

"I'm a side dish that makes you sick now, eh? You were telling me...no, almost screaming to me how good it was last night."

...her resemblance to the model on that poster kept her mentally a half a step ahead of me, but this was her gig, after all. She spun around again and I caught before we almost collided. I realized from the gleam awkwardness that the awkwardness in her spins was quite intentional.

"Why after so many months of telling me how pretty I am, would you find my unpretty now?"

"Yeah, well...you should lose the skirt. That tie-dye looks awful."

The skirt belonged to my American aunt, she said it was to 'let the squares know that her freak flag was unfurled and flying.' I don't quite know what that means, other than she wanted to feel free-spirited.

"It's the only western skirt I could find on such short notice. It's not important if you like it, what's important is that he'll like it," she murmured as she looked me at me with those beautiful green-flecked brown eyes. She curled my hair with fingers, sending a shiver right down to my toes.

He was the most important piece to the puzzle, a courier from Amsterdam carrying several dozen diamonds just under two carats apiece. At almost $8,400 per carat for each diamond, she could say and do whatever she wanted as long as she pointed him out to me. A courier who belonged to horse show jumping clubs and had a cowgirl fetish.

She used to be in a Colombian crew that hijacked diamonds, but now they're behind bars or scattered about in cemeteries in New York, California, and Brazil. Too much money involved for everyone not to double-cross each other and she came out broke, but relatively unscathed. She still had the intelligence resources as to where and when a gem courier would appear here and there.

Not to mention, she could travel within the horsey set without them realizing that she was literally the fox in the hen house.

A wig, false eyelashes that actually took away from her beauty, a western granny blouse, and couple that with that tie-dye thing, you had a Colombian hippy that escaped "The Big Valley." Or Barbara Mandrell gone altogether wrong, but she went right for "Mr. Courier," long enough for me to hit him with over 20,000 volts from my stun gun.

God, I hate the smell of singed flesh that wafts into my nostrils after. I swear it stays in my nose for at least three days, except it's stronger this time. And, I'm not on my way to my favorite island, that coincidentally doesn't share an extradition treaty with the United States. I've got the same urine-soaked pants as Mr. Courier, who still hasn't come too.

We're almost lying in identical positions on the ground, he's four feet away and he's the luckier of us two, because he has insurance against being being double-crossed.


Note: This is one of my favorite pieces. JJ wanted these words and phrases...

1) A Girl
2)A Whirl
3)A Curl
4)Something that unfurls
5)A Hurl

This is the first of the Heist Man's adventures. If this were a screenplay, he would simply be called "Narrator" and though I know his name, it is up to you to find out.