The Cutting Edge Read online

  And more and more and more…

  The doors of the subway opened and Vimal replaced into the paper bag the Solitary Bird, January—his name for the sculpture that would never be. He stepped onto the platform and climbed to the street. At least it was Saturday and, with many of the Orthodox stores closed, the Diamond District would be more serene than on weekdays, especially with this nasty March weather. The bustling of the neighborhood sometimes drove him crazy.

  Instinctively, the minute he turned onto 47th Street Vimal grew cautious—as did pretty much every one of the hundreds of employees here, a place where many owners were reluctant to advertise too loudly. Yes, there were plenty of “Jewelers” and “Diamonds” and “Gems” in the shop and company names but the higher-end operations and the few important diamond cutters left in the city tended to call themselves by names like “Elijah Findings,” “West Side Collateral” and “Specialties In Style.”

  Hundreds of millions’ worth of diamonds and gems flowed into and out of these stores and cutting shops every day of the year. And there wasn’t a halfway competent burglar or robber in the world who wasn’t aware of that fact. And they also knew that the number one way to transport precious gems and gold and platinum and finished jewelry wasn’t via armored trucks (too many shipments in and out daily to make a whole truck cost-efficient) or in aluminum attaché cases handcuffed to wrists (far too easy to spot and, as any doctor would tell you, hands can be severed with a hacksaw in less than sixty seconds, even faster if you go electric).

  No, the best way to transport valuables was to do just what Vimal was doing now. Dressing down—in jeans, running shoes, a Keep Weird and Carry On sweatshirt and wool jacket, while carting a stained paper bag.

  So, as Vimal’s father—a former cutter himself—insisted, the young man kept his eyes scanning constantly for anyone who might glance a certain way at the bag in his hand or might be moving close while overtly not looking.

  Still, he wasn’t too concerned; even on less-busy days like this there were guards present, seemingly unarmed but with those little revolvers or automatics tucked into sweaty waistbands. He nodded at one now, as she stood in front of a jewelry store, an African American woman with short purple hair of crinkly texture that Vimal marveled at; he had no idea how she’d managed it. Coming from an ethnic background that offered pretty much one-size-fits-all hair (black, thick and wavy or straight), he was greatly impressed by her do. He wondered how he might render it in stone.

  “Hey, Es,” he called, nodding.

  “Vimal. Saturday. Boss don’t give you no time off? That sucks.”

  He shrugged, offering a rueful smile.

  She glanced at the bag, which for all she knew held a half-dozen Harry Winston–branded stones worth ten million.

  He was tempted to say, It’s just peanut butter and jelly. She’d probably laugh. But the idea of making a joke on 47th Street seemed alien. There wasn’t a lot of humor in the Diamond District. Something about the value—and, probably more so, the narcotic quality—of diamonds made this an all-too-serious business.

  He now entered Mr. Patel’s building. He never waited for Insufferable Elevator—a fantastical artifact out of Harry Potter, he’d told Adeela, which she’d laughed at—but charged up the stairs, his lithe frame unaffected by gravity, his legs strong and lungs vital from the soccer pitch.

  Pushing into the hallway, he noted four of the eight overheads were still dark. He wondered, as he often did, why Mr. Patel, who had to have a shitload of money, didn’t find a glitzy office elsewhere. Maybe it was sentimental. He had had his shop here for thirty years, when this entire floor was cutters. Now his was one of the few fabricators left in the building. Cold on days like this, hot and dusty from June to September. Smelling dank. Mr. Patel didn’t have a showroom as such and the “factory” was really just a workshop, the smaller of the three rooms. Given his low-output high-quality work, all he needed was a place big enough for two diamond-polishing scaifes and two cutting machines. He could relocate anywhere.

  But Mr. Patel had never shared with Vimal his reasoning for staying, because he never shared anything with Vimal, except how to hold the dop stick, how to mount the stones for bruting, how much diamond dust to mix with olive oil for brillianteering.

  Halfway to the office, Vimal paused. What was that smell? Fresh paint. The walls on this floor definitely needed a new coat, had for years, but he couldn’t see evidence that any workers had been fixing up the place.

  During the week it was hard enough to get maintenance to do anything. Somebody had actually come in on Friday night or Saturday to paint?

  He continued toward the door. The offices here had glass transoms, though they were covered with bars, of course, and he could see shadows of somebody inside Mr. Patel’s shop. Maybe they were the buyers, the couple who’d come to him for a special engagement ring. William Sloane and Anne Markam—he remembered their names because they’d seemed so nice, actually introducing themselves to Vimal—the hired hand—as he’d left the shop on their last visit. Nice, but naïve: If they’d invested the money they’d spent on their carat-and-a-half diamond, that sum would have grown into a college education for their firstborn. Seduced by the diamond-marketing cabal, as he thought of them.

  If Vimal and Adeela ever got married—a conversation that hadn’t come up yet, nowhere close—but if they did, he’d buy her a hand-carved rocking chair for their engagement. He’d sculpt her something. And if she wanted a ring he’d make something out of lapis, with the head of a fox on it, which was, for some reason, her favorite animal.

  He punched in the code for the security lock.

  Vimal stepped inside and stopped in mid-stride, gasping.

  Three things took his attention immediately. First, the bodies of a man and woman—William and Anna—in a twisted and eerie pose, as if they’d died in agony.

  The second was a lake of blood extending outward.

  The third was Mr. Patel’s feet. Vimal couldn’t see the rest of the body, just his well-worn shoes, pointing upward. Motionless.

  From the workshop, to the left of the front room, a figure appeared. A ski mask obscured his face but his body language explained that he was startled.

  Neither Vimal nor the man moved.

  Then the intruder dropped the briefcase he was holding and pulled a gun from his pocket and aimed. Vimal instinctively spun away, as if he could avoid the bullet, and lifted his hands, as if he could stop it.

  A burst of light flowered from the muzzle and the roar deafened Vimal. A searing pain stabbed his belly and side.

  He stumbled backward into the dim, dusty corridor, his mind filled with a manic thought: What a sad and ordinary place to die.

  Chapter 3

  He had not returned to the city in time.

  To his disappointment.

  Lincoln Rhyme directed his Merits Vision wheelchair—gray with red fenders—through the front door of his Central Park West town house. Someone had once remarked that the place brought to mind Sherlock Holmes—in two senses: First, the ancient brownstone would have fit nicely in Victorian England (it dated to that era), and second, the front parlor was filled with enough forensic instruments and equipment to awe the British consulting detective to his core.

  Rhyme paused in the entryway to wait for Thom, his trim, muscular caregiver, who’d parked the disabled-accessible Mercedes Sprinter in the cul-de-sac behind the town house. Feeling the cold breeze upon his cheek, Rhyme turned the chair and bumped the door partly closed. It blew back open. A quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, he was quite adept at the high-tech accessories available to those with hampered bodies: the touchpads, eye and voice recognition systems, prosthetics and the like. And surgery and implants had given him some control over his right arm. But many old-fashioned mechanical tasks, from closing doors to—oh, picking a random example—opening bottles of single-malt scotch, remained, literally, out of reach.

  Thom arrived a moment later and closed the door.
He removed Rhyme’s jacket—he refused to “wear” a blanket for warmth—and peeled off to the kitchen.

  “Lunch?”

  “No.”

  The aide called back, “Phrased that wrong. I meant, what would you like?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not the correct answer.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Rhyme muttered. He clumsily picked up the remote for the TV. And turned on the news.

  Thom called, “You need to eat. Soup. Cold day. Soup.”

  Rhyme grimaced. His condition was serious, yes, and certain things like pressure on the skin or unrelieved bodily functions could have dangerous consequences. But hunger was not a potential risk factor.

  The aide was such a goddamn mother hen.

  After a few moments Rhyme smelled something aromatic. Thom did make pretty good soup.

  He turned his attention to the television, which he rarely watched. Usually, it was to follow a particular news story, which was what he now wished to do: a story related to the disappointment created by his trip to Washington, DC, the place from which he and Amelia Sachs had just returned.

  The station that had crinkled onto the screen wasn’t twenty-four-hour news but a documentary network. Airing presently was a true crime show, though dramatized. The villain glared. The detectives looked thoughtful. The music flared. The forensic officer wore a wristwatch outside his glove at the scene.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Were you watching this crap?” he shouted to Thom.

  No reply.

  Punching buttons, he found a network news channel. At the moment, though, there was no news, only commercials for prescription medicines. He didn’t have a clue what the medications did, except turn the actors from somber old grandparents into happy and seemingly less-old grandparents, frolicking with young’uns in the final scene, their can’t-play-with-the-young’uns malady cured.

  Then an anchor appeared and after some local news, political in nature, the story he was interested in popped up briefly: It was the account of a trial, presently under way in the Eastern District of New York. A Mexican drug lord, Eduardo Capilla, better known as El Halcón, had made the mistake of coming into the United States to meet with a local organized crime figure in the metro area and set up a narcotics and money-laundering network, along with a bit of underaged prostitution and human smuggling.

  The Mexican was pretty sharp. Although he was a billionaire several times over, he’d flown commercial, coach, to Canada, entering legally. He’d then taken a private plane to an airstrip close to the border. From there he’d flown in a helicopter—illegally—to a deserted airport on Long Island, staying—in the literal sense—under the radar. The airport was a few miles from a warehouse complex that he was going to buy and, it was speculated, turn into the headquarters for his U.S. operation.

  Police and the FBI had learned of his presence, though, and agents and officers intercepted him there. A shoot-out ensued, resulting in the death of the warehouse owner, along with his bodyguard. A police officer was severely injured and an FBI agent wounded, as well.

  El Halcón was arrested but, to the dismay of prosecutors, his American partner, with whom he’d hoped to build a drug empire, wasn’t present and his identity was never discovered; the apparent warehouse owner—the man killed in the shoot-out—was a figurehead. No amount of digging could reveal the true U.S. contact.

  Lincoln Rhyme had so wanted a piece of the case. He’d hoped to analyze the evidence and provide expert forensic testimony at trial. But he’d committed to meet with a half-dozen senior officials in Washington, DC, so he and Sachs had spent the week down there.

  Disappointed, yes. He’d really wanted to help send El Halcón away. But there’d be other cases.

  Coincidentally, just at that thought, his phone hummed and displayed a caller ID that suggested there might be one in the offing.

  “Lon,” Rhyme said.

  “Linc. You back?”

  “I’m back. You have something knotty for me? You have something interesting? Something challenging?”

  Detective First Grade Lon Sellitto had been Rhyme’s partner years ago, when Rhyme was NYPD, but they socialized only rarely now and never just called each other up to chat. Phone calls from Sellitto usually happened when he needed help on a case.

  “Dunno if it’s any of the above. But I got a question.” The detective seemed out of breath. Maybe an urgent mission, maybe he was walking back from the grocery store with a box of pastry.

  “And?”

  “Whatta you know about diamonds?”

  “Diamonds…Hm. Let me think. I know they’re allotropes.”

  “They’re what?”

  “Allotrope. It’s an element—as in chemical element—that exists in more than one form. Carbon is a perfect example. A superstar, in the world of elements, as I think even you know.”

  “Even me.” Sellitto grunted.

  “Carbon can be graphene, fullerene, graphite or diamond. Depends on how the atoms are bonded. Graphite is a hexagonal lattice, diamonds are tetrahedral lattice. Small thing, it seems. But it makes the difference between a pencil and the Crown Jewels.”

  “Linc. I’m sorry I asked. Should’ve tried this: You ever run a case in the Diamond District?”

  Rhyme thought back to his years as detective, as captain running the crime scene operation of the NYPD and, later, as consultant. Some cases had touched on the 47th Street area, Midtown. But none had involved diamond stores or dealers. He told Sellitto as much.

  “We could use some help. Robbery gone bad, looks like. Multiple homicides.” A pause. “Some other shit too.”

  Not a term of art in the crime-solving world, Rhyme reflected. He was curious.

  “You interested?”

  Since the El Halcón case had slipped away from him, the answer was yes. “How soon can you get here?” Rhyme asked.

  “Let me in.”

  “What?”

  Rhyme heard a pounding from the front hall. Through the phone Sellitto was saying, “I’m here. I’m outside. I was gonna talk you into the case whether you wanted it or not. Come on, open the goddamn door. It’s like January out here.”

  * * *

  “Soup?” Thom asked, taking Lon Sellitto’s drab gray overcoat. Hanging it.

  “Naw. Wait, what kind?” Sellitto, Rhyme noticed, had lifted his face, as if positioning his nose at a better angle to detect the scent meandering from the kitchen.

  “Tomato bisque with shrimp. Lincoln’s having some.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Hm.” Stocky and rumpled—the latter adjective referring to the clothing, not the man—Lon Sellitto had always had weight issues, at least as long as Rhyme had known him. A recent poison attack by an unsub he and Rhyme were pursuing had nearly killed him and caused him to shed scores of pounds. A skeletal Lon Sellitto was an alarming sight and he was fighting his way back to his substantial form. Rhyme was pleased when he said, “Okay.”

  Pleased too because it would take the pressure off him. He wasn’t hungry.

  “Where’s Amelia?” Sellitto asked.

  “Not here.”

  Amelia Sachs was in Brooklyn, where she kept an apartment near her mother’s. Rose was recovering well from heart surgery but Sachs looked in on her frequently.

  “Not yet?”

  “What do you mean?” Rhyme asked.

  “She’s on her way. Should be soon.”

  “Here? You called her.”

  “Yeah. That smells good. Does he make soup a lot?”

  Rhyme said, “So you decided we were going to be working the case.”

  “Sort of. Rachel and I mostly open cans, Progresso, Campbell’s.”

  “Lon?”

  “Yeah, I decided.”

  The soup arrived. Two bowls. Rhyme’s went on the small tray attached to his chair; Sellitto’s on a table. Rhyme glanced at his. It did smell appealing. Maybe he was hungry, after all. Thom was usually right in
matters like this, though Rhyme rarely admitted it. The aide offered to feed him but he shook his head, no, and gave it a shot with his right hand and arm. Soup was tricky for the shaky appendage but he managed it without spilling. He was glad he hated sushi; chopsticks were not a utensil option for someone like Lincoln Rhyme.

  Another arrival appeared, to Rhyme’s surprise, apparently summoned by Lon Sellitto for the Diamond District case: Ron Pulaski. Rhyme thought of him as Rookie and called him that, though he hadn’t been one for years. The trim blond uniformed officer was technically with the Patrol Division, though his crime scene skills had brought him to Rhyme’s attention and the criminalist had insisted that Sellitto have him informally assigned to Major Cases—Sellitto’s and Sachs’s outfit.

  “Lincoln. Lon.” The latter name was uttered at slightly less volume. The Rookie was, after all, junior in rank, years and bluster to Sellitto.

  He also suffered from a condition that had plagued him from the first time he, Rhyme and Sachs had worked together—a head injury. This had sidelined him for a time and, when he had made the tough decision to return to the force, it plagued him with the insecurities and uncertainty that often accompany a trauma to the brain.

  When he’d approached Rhyme, mentioning he was thinking of quitting because he felt he wasn’t up to the task of policing, the criminalist had snapped, “It’s all in your fucking head.”

  The young officer had stared and Rhyme kept a straight face for as long as he could. They had both laughed. “Ron, everybody’s got head injuries, one way or another. Now, I’ve got a scene I need you to work. You gonna get the CS kit and walk the grid?”

  Of course he had.

  Now Pulaski doffed his watch coat. Beneath, he was in his long-sleeve, dark-blue NYPD uniform.

  Thom offered him food too and Rhyme came close to saying, “Enough, we’re not a soup kitchen”—a clever jab, he thought—but Pulaski declined anyway.