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of good quality.
    â€œMy everyday things,” Mrs. Kalali explained, as Floyd transferred them from the compartment to his jacket pockets.
    Peaches, meanwhile, was into the top drawer of Mr. Kalali’s dresser. Confiscating cuff links and evening studs, and a ring set with a five-carat honey-colored cat’s-eye chrysoberyl. The perfect, sharp, straight cat’s-eye, what gemologists call chatoyancy, fascinated Peaches. She wished the ring wasn’t so large. It was even too big for her thumb. Perhaps, she thought, she could wear it on her big toe, go bopping barefoot down some street with the cat’s-eye winking at everyone. In that drawer she also found some gold wristwatches. It was like shoplifting without having to be sneaky.
    They followed Mrs. Kalali into the bedroom. She kicked aside an antique silk Isfahan prayer rug. At first Floyd thought what he was seeing was just bare floor, but then, Mrs. Kalali pressed a certain place on the nearby baseboard and a small section of the floor sprung up. Lifting that aside disclosed a compartment. Protruding from the bottom of the compartment was the face of a safe. Floyd would never have found it. A highly rated safe. What’s more, it was inset in the concrete foundation.
    The sight of it evoked a little glee from Peaches. “You can get into that, can’t you baby?” she said to Floyd.
    As good and experienced a swift as Floyd was he’d never done safes. He knew swifts who did, had met a few who’d offered to impart the basics and finer points, but he just hadn’t had the ambition.
    So, understandably, he was grateful when Mrs. Kalali reached down in and performed the combination.
    The guns and the badass nigger talk had gotten to her, Floyd thought. No other reason for her to be so cooperative.
    The safe was open.
    Its contents there for the taking.
    First thing out, because it happened to be there on top of everything else, was a red Cartier ring box containing a six-carat cushion-cut diamond of superb quality.
    Mrs. Kalali provided a blue Fendi valise for them to carry the jewelry away in.
    They returned to the library.
    Mr. Kalali was on the couch, groaning and holding his right foot up. His black silk sock was soaked red, dripping blood.
    â€œI told the pussy motherfucker to stay where he was,” Tracy said.
    â€œI’m badly cut,” Mr. Kalali said. In stocking feet he’d stepped on some shards of his antique Persian glass. Some of the same were now crunching noisily beneath the thick soles of Peaches’ boots, aggressive black leather boots with shiny steel toeplates. She went so directly to Mr. Kalali that for a moment he thought she had taken pity and intended to administer to his foot.
    She stopped in front of him.
    She extended the Mach 10 pistol to within inches of his face.
    His eyes fixed on the little opening of its muzzle. The miniature tunnel from which his death could come. He didn’t dare move his head, just raised his eyes.
    There was her blonde, frizzy hair, the slight upturn of her nose between the childish rounds of her cheeks, the inexperience of her mouth, lips slicked like they were coated with baby drool.
    Having taken such close stock of her, Mr. Kalali believed he had determined her innocence. Never mind the gun, disregard it, he told himself. Children play. She was merely playing. Her innocence was definitely in his favor.
    Peaches was sure she had this guy scared shitless. It was payback for all those times since she was thirteen, even before, when older guys had made her afraid. She didn’t intend to pull the trigger. It was like her finger was on its own.
    A five-round burst.
    The last two rounds went wild. The first three tore off much of Mr. Kalali’s head.
    Mrs. Kalali screamed. Her composure left her, as did her compliance. She made a dash for the security alarm pad in the entry hall, for the panic button that would summon help.
    Floyd had to shoot her.

Chapter 3
    The