Inside the fans whir and the paper curtains sway and rattle.

I move quickly to the red backpack, unzip the main compartment and look inside. For being worth four hundred and fifty thousand dollars at your local Zales, the parcels are small and trim. The gemstone papers are the size of business cards, white and crisp and held together with rubber bands. Each is lined with lint-free blue gem paper. The contents of every paper is handwritten by the grader. The diamonds are loose and brilliant. Most are half-carat, a few smaller and several bigger. One is a mondo two-carat beauty that takes away what is left of my breath. Most are round-cut, but flipping through, I see some marquises and pears and squares. In this light I can’t judge quality. I’m looking down at scores of marriage proposals, engagements, anniversaries, Valentine’s Days, apologies and seductions-and thousands of hours of sex, guaranteed by these stones. I’m looking down at treasures found in dark, filthy Transvaal mines, plucked by slaves whose only rewards will be poverty and early death. No wonder they’re so valuable.

Great job, Allison. You figured it right.

I stash the parcels and zip up the backpack, sling it over my shoulder and stand. Everywhere I look there’s either paint or blood, and I can smell them both. I palm Cañonita and quickly tour the battlefield, walking fast and not stopping.

The two dead gunmen beside me are Asian Boyz. God knows how many holes in them.

The next two are Mara Salvatrucha-MS-13-an L.A. Central American gang so ridiculously violent the FBI has an entire task force dedicated just to them. These are the guys with the machine guns. MS-13 always has good weapons because the U.S. supplied the Salvadoran con tras for almost a decade and most of the hardware is still down there. So they bring it back up here. These dead Salvadorans are small-bodied men, young, their arms covered with MS-13 tats.