Of little consequence

So which is it? Do ya want the blue or the green? He scratched at his sparse stubble while looking at me over the upturned milk crate that he'd placed the items on. We were sitting at the back of coffee shop named 'Slipped Disc', a newly opened place that combined coffee and record sales. These numbers had been popping up all over the place, feeding the younger generation's penchant for rediscovering things that the previous generations had churned through and spurned for something else – life, probably. That's always the way generations work – rediscovery and proud ownership. The LPs were of an eye-watering price and far better coffee could be bought at two-thirds of the price just 100 feet away at a little hole in the wall run by a genuine Ethiopian who was genuinely from Ethiopia, but I was prepared to give a little.

I....I'll have that one. I pointed to the one closest to him; the smaller of the two large stones, only because I thought it looked purer through its core.

Good choice my man, most of 'em usually go for the biggest one. Dumb asses. You picked right. He put the other stone back in its little fabric sack and pulled the drawstring tightly at the top, deftly tying a convoluted knot that only he had mastered.

I don't tell him that I'm blue-green colour blind.

Buying gemstones of this worth in such a casual manner was not something I normally did, or wanted to do, but what I needed was to convert some big wads of cash into something small, physical, transportable and saleable.... or re-saleable. This was it. A large uncut sapphire, the best that could be got from Sri Lanka, or I preferred it's old, name – Ceylon – because it sounds more exotic. Have you ever noticed how when the name of country or city gets changed, for whatever dumb reason, the change is always for the worse? From sounding romantic, conjuring up probably misguided mental images of quaint and traditional or hot and squalid, to bland and pedestrian. To name just a few that befell that fate: Formosa to Taiwan, Siam to Thailand, Bombay to Mumbai, and the aforementioned Ceylon; then there's Burma....

I carefully pocketed my rock and headed over to a nearby 24 hour convenience store. I scoured the candy aisle but couldn't find what I wanted; I'd need to go to a specialist candy store, they didn't sell them big enough here.

Coming back with my goodies, I walked from stone to stone along the crazy-paving and around the in-ground pool, it's - I assume, because I can't tell - blue bottom glaring back up at me in the midday sun. The thing would have looked much better with water in it; the coating of the blue bottom starting to show signs of curling back near where the ladder entered from the curvy sides: probably too much sun. At the lowest point, a scuffed golf ball and the bleached arm from a Barbie doll shared a small puddle of water coloured like tea. If anyone came in during the night and didn't know the place too well they could easily end up sharing the same small puddle. Inside, the house was unrestored 1950s charm. Made from local stone, dark and low with wide eaves to keep the harsh UV rays out of the interior, making it cool and shadowy in this parched white-hot climate. This house was almost nirvana in my eyes. Nobody had altered the simple kitchen: pastel shades of paint on plywood kitchen cabinets, original cabinet handles, tiny stove, no dishwasher, no rangehood, no fucking kitchen island – Perfect.

Dan had asked me to look after his house while he and Angel were safari trekking in Botswana. That was nine months ago. They told me they'd be gone for about 12 weeks. I didn't check up on them, see how they were going, how many zebras they'd shot or captured on film. I was having a good time in their 1950s charmer set amongst the dry craggy hills - Millionaires for neighbours, a casino at the bottom of the valley, a liquor cabinet full of …. liquor. Anyway, I figured they'd contact me eventually; after all it was their house and I was pretty sure they'd want it back.

The casino at the bottom of the valley is where things started to unwind a little. I'd frequented the place a bit, quite a bit. My past being what it was, after three or so months I'd noticed men at the casino who seemed overly interested in me: when I arrived, when I departed, what I was driving, from whence I came – that sort of thing. Men who weren't necessarily working at, or for the casino, but who were in some way a subsidiary, an arm.

These men were interested in me, I figured, because eight months back I made the dumbest mistake in my dumb life. I'd tried, and in fact had succeeded in selling a fake Francis Bacon oil painting, supposedly one of the 'lost' meatworks series, to a concrete magnate in the south of Nevada. He wasn't a magnate made of concrete but a magnate made from selling concrete; he dealt in the stuff and lots of it. It never ceases to amaze me the number of routes there are to material success. I know that concrete is as old as the Romans but it just isn't that.... sexy. It's common organic substances mixed in certain proportions and raced around in trucks within spinning mixers to building sites. Nothing special or clever about it but somehow it's a money-spinner. So, of course, the magnate did some research or paid someone to do some some research and found out that the Francis Bacon was painted by a friend of mine who failed art school and had a certain talent for technique but had no creativity of his own.

Why I did this, sold a fake, I can't say for sure. My life was pretty safe and I was living a calm sort of stability. Or perhaps this is the reason why I did it.

So I've been sitting in the casino now for perhaps an hour and a half. It's a Tuesday night, pretty quiet. The lady across from me has just won three hands in a row at blackjack and now believes that she's bulletproof. She's racing ahead to her inevitable downfall so I fold again, and that's when I realise that my shadows – the subsidiary men – are not around. I carefully check again, seeking out the corners and quiet gathering spots in the large room with quick glances. They are somehow missing and it gives me a lurching feeling in my gut. When things suddenly change, I have found from experience, it's usually not for the better. My drink is warm in my hand - I haven't touched it - another indicator that the natural order of things has been interrupted. I politely leave the table, cash my chips – so to speak – and head towards the carpark. It's not so late, there are a good number of cars still arrayed like an oversized Hot Wheels display.

Back at Dan and Angel's house the lights are all on; that's not how I left it. I know they've been, - the subsidiary men, the extended arm – I hope they are not here still. I park a quarter mile back and walk the long steep slope to the bottom edge of the house, where the lights can't illuminate me below the lip of the mesa. I wait quietly in the jagged rock slip, hoping that the scorpions aren't looking for a large piece of meat to sting. I wait a full forty minutes then make my way out and around and up to the driveway where the going flattens out a little. I wander around silently. Although the interior of the house is sparsely furnished it looks like a lot more now that all of it's contents have been disgorged across the floors. The fuckers have pulled everything apart, the kitchen doors though have survived to see another day. I know they are looking for the cash they think I'm stashing. It must have irked them not to find it.

Then I start looking for my candies, the big mint-flavoured gumball ones. Sorting through the destruction on the floor I can't find what I'm looking for. Two hours of searching and I've got a cleaned up pile but nothing else to show for my efforts. Dan and Angel have lost some nice things here, irreplaceable, and I'm the one who will have to tell them what has happened.

I go outside and look at the night sky: pure inky blackness filled with stars making their point. I sit down and dangle my legs over the edge of the empty pool, still checking out the star-show. In the bottom of the pool there is a slight glint. I focus on what it is down there and now it becomes clear – they've thrown the jar of gumballs onto the hard blue bottom, probably stood there looking down as the minty contents rolled to a halt.

I jump down into the bottom, checking out the gumballs. I pick up each one and tap it against my teeth. The third last one it is – my sapphire. I'm so glad that I guessed it's colour to be green when I bought the jar of mint gumballs.