A Man of Honor.

Chapter 35: Diamonds and Emeralds.

"All men have eyes, Machiavelli says, but few have the gift of penetration." Joseph Bonanno "Joe Bananas."

The next day I asked Roman for a meeting so I could tell him all about Grigori and his proposition about smuggling those diamonds into the country with his help. We met up to have some lunch together sitting in the rear booth of Angelos together with a couple plates of spaghetti and a bottle of wine.

"It's a rather interesting prospect," Roman mused after I explained the whole thing to him. He scratched his chin in contemplation.

"What I don't understand is why they're asking us to smuggle ice in for them." I told him, skewering one of my meatballs with a fork. "They've never had trouble shipping their drugs in so a few containers of diamonds should be easy shouldn't it?" I asked him as I plopped the meatball in my mouth and chewed.

"That's part of what makes it interesting." He explained to me. "Those diamonds have given the Family quite a bit of trouble."

"Neo told me about that," I told him after I swallowed, shaking my head. "I don't really like it."

"How much did she tell you?" Roman asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Quite a bit," I admitted to him. "She told me about Nicky and Nicholai and how it almost let to a full blown shooting war."

"I see," he said with a nod. "Well I can think of a few reasons why the Atlesians would prefer to use some of our smuggling channels instead of their own. We're more secure for one thing, smuggling drugs is easy in comparison. You expect to lose a shipment here and there, and it's usually fine considering drugs are cheap and easy to grow back in Vacuo and sell for quite a bit more once they reach Vale or Atlas. They could lose over a third of their shipments and still make a hefty profit. But diamonds? No you lose those and you lose a mountain of money, they're a big investment. They're high risk and high reward."

"When you put it like that it makes a lot more sense," I said to him. "Especially when you consider what just happened in White Peak, I wouldn't want to trust the Desperados with anything like that. Just a few missing pieces of ice could be a big loss."

"Precisely, but they wanted to get Victor into this before I sent you there, so they've clearly been worried about moving the stones before Cueball's little skimming operation was brought to light." Roman mused.

"That makes it sound even more like Grigori was responsible for Cueball," I mentioned. "After all, it'd be a special kind of idiot to entrust that kind of stuff to someone you know is stealing from you."

"That's what I was thinking as well," Roman said, pushing away his plate and grabbing his cigar off the table. "This might very well be because Grigori shot himself in the foot and is now wanting a crutch to lean on."

"Assuming that it's not something more sinister." I said to him. "After what Neo told me I don't know if we can trust this."

"I'm rather surprised at you Gent," Roman said with a raise of his eyebrows. "And after you had so much praise for Sophia. I thought you were a little more trusting of the Atlesians."

"That's different," I told him. "Sophia is with the old guard as you mentioned before. She understands honor."

"Agreed, but we're not dealing with her now... so what do you think?" He asked me.

"I don't want to trust it," I told him plainly. "I'd rather tell the Atlesians to go shove those diamonds up their ass and smuggle them in that way."

"I understand your position, but you should understand that it's never that easy, Gent. Denying them could be little more than an excuse to start something else and make another move in on our smuggling operations. They're desperate after all, given the recent circumstances." He explained to me.