Louie stuck his head into my room. "The Man wants to see you."

"I'm busy."

"Now."

I sighed, picked up the remote, and turned off the Law and Order marathon.

Manny "The Man" Manicotti ran most of the crime on the East Side but his passion was jewel thefts. I think it came from watching too many heist movies in the 80s but I never cared enough to ask.

I found him, as usual, behind his big wooden desk in his too-small office at the back of the ice cream store. "Manny," I nodded.

"Siddown."

There was only one chair on this side of the desk. I took it. "What can I do for ya?"

He sat and stared at me.

"That was supposed to be a conversation starter. I'll try again. Why am I here?"

He nodded to the guy behind me who squeezed past me and placed a velvet bag on the empty desk.

I raised an eyebrow.

Manny made a swirling motion with a finger, indicating I should open the bag.

I shook out a diamond bracelet. It sparkled against the darker wood.

"Recognise it?"

"I should. I made it."

"Look again."

I pulled a loupe from my pocket and looked closer. "You made the swap?"

Manny twirled his finger again and the thug dropped a second bracelet on the desk. It was identical to the first.

I sat back in my chair. "That's not good. You were supposed to leave the fake so the theft wouldn't be detected."

"That's the problem. Ya made the fake too goddam good. When Huey went to swap them he got confused. So he brought them both back."

Since Huey was the thug standing behind me I withheld my observation on his mental capacity. "So you want me to..."

"Tell me which one is fake. I'll get them to put it back."

I sighed and aligned the bracelets side by side .This was going to be interesting, since I made both of them.

When Manny approached me about creating an identical fake Bosconi Tennis Bracelet so he could steal the original, maybe I should have told him not to bother, that it had already been done. But the fact that my fake had fooled everyone for at least ten years now was a bit of an ego trip for me. Could I do it again? The fact that he was willing to front me ten grand had just a little bit to do with my decision process.

But it could all come unravelled if these buffoons didn't get one of them back where it belonged. As good as I am, I was not prepared to put my workmanship to the test against the world's best appraisers, should the authenticity of the bracelet become challenged.

So my instinct was to identify the original fake as the fake-fake. The original would then go back and Manny would happily be the proud owner of a fake Bosconi Tennis Bracelet look alike.

But then my damn ego kicked in. "This one," I told him.