The Cutting Edge Read online

  As horrifying as the circumstances were, Vimal Lahori had been given a chance. He’d take it. His life was going in a new direction.

  Some motion from across the park. He spotted her now.

  First things first…

  The young woman, with magnificent long, dark hair, walked purposefully into the center of the park, looking from right to left. Despite the horror of what had just happened, despite the pain in his side, he felt that tap within him, that familiar thud.

  Every time he saw her—even after all these months of dating—it happened.

  Oh, it wasn’t the smoothest of relationships. The couple didn’t see each other nearly as often as they would have liked. She was a busy medical student at NYU and he worked long and irregular hours for Mr. Patel and other diamond cutters his father would “rent” him out to. And Vimal needed to spend much of his free time in the basement studio at home.

  This was typical of many couples, of course, in the metro area in this day and age. These were complications that got sorted out. But in their case there was a stickier problem. Vimal’s parents did not know about Adeela Badour, and hers did not know about him.

  She wasn’t tall but her slim figure offered the impression that she was. Tonight her hair was purely black (occasionally, in defiance of a conservative mother, she would streak the strands blue or green—though hers was a tame rebellion; the tinting was never seen at family gatherings at home).

  She now saw Vimal and her long face brightened. At first, that is. But she grew somber then alarmed, perhaps because he looked pale and drawn.

  Vimal acknowledged her by lifting his head briefly. He didn’t want to wave. He was still thinking of the man in the mask. A look around revealed only a dozen people nearby, all oblivious to him and moving quickly to get somewhere less damp and chill.

  She dropped onto the bench and flung her arms around him. “Vim…Oh…”

  He winced and she released him immediately, then eased back and looked him over. He gazed at her beautiful face. She wore complicated, though subtle, makeup on her rich skin, so carefully applied he couldn’t actually say which of her features had been accented.

  Vimal gripped her hand and kissed her hard. Her eyes, he now noted, were studying him clinically.

  “I saw the news. I’m so sorry. Mr. Patel. And those customers. It’s all over the TV. But they didn’t say anything about anybody else being there.”

  He explained to her about walking in and surprising the robber.

  “I ran. I think he came after me but I took the back stairs.”

  “Your text: You’re hurt?”

  He explained that the man had shot at him but the bullet missed, hitting the bag he carried. Some pieces of stone or part of the bullet had cut him. “I need it looked at.”

  She said, “Go to the hospital.”

  “I can’t. The doctors’d figure out I was shot. They have to report it to the police.”

  “Well…” Adeela lifted her perfectly shaped eyebrows. Meaning, That’s a good thing.

  Vimal said simply: “I can’t.” There was no way he was going to explain the reason—no, make that reasons—he couldn’t go to the cops. “You brought what I asked for?”

  She said nothing.

  “Please.”

  “Well, where can I look at it?”

  “Here, I guess.”

  “Here?” She barked a laugh. A medical exam in Washington Square Park on a cold, overcast March evening?

  But she would realize that there weren’t many other options, as they both lived with their parents.

  She glanced about, saw no one nearby and nodded toward his jacket. He unzipped the garment and tugged up his sweatshirt and undershirt. “Well,” she said softly. “Just like a sculptor to get hurt by flying rock. Good thing you don’t collect razor blades and knives.”

  Adeela then lost her wry smile and went into a different place mentally, a place that would make her a fine doctor someday. He wasn’t Vimal Lahori, whose lips she’d kissed and chest she’d tickled as they drowsed after making love. He was a patient. And she, his doctor. That was everything. She squinted, studied him carefully, then reached into her bag. She pulled on blue latex gloves.

  “What does it look like?” he asked.

  “Shhh. Keep watch.”

  He did. But none of the few people nearby paid them any heed.

  Her quick hands went to work, with gauze pads and a cold dark-orange liquid, some antiseptic. He felt stinging but nothing too severe.

  “Minor lacerations. Bruises.”

  “My side. That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “I see it.”

  A burst of stinging pain as she probed the lower right, bottom rib.

  “Here’s a fragment. Under the skin.” She exhaled, her concern apparent in the sound. “Vim, a doctor. You have to.”

  He saw how that scenario would play out. “No.”

  “I don’t have any anesthetic.” Medical students were strictly over-the-counter docs, he supposed.

  “Just try.”

  “Vim, I study physiology and organic chemistry. Books, computers. We don’t even get cadavers for a year.”

  “I’d do it myself but I can’t reach it. Please.”

  She continued, “And stitches.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Not the hospital. Just get it out. And do what you can. Bandages.”

  For an instant, emotion returned to her beautiful face and she grimaced. “I’ll butterfly it. But if the bleeding doesn’t stop…”

  She dug into her purse and extracted a pair of tweezers. “Here, hold these for me.”

  He took them.

  “Hand them to me when I ask for them. And hold this.” She handed him her iPhone and switched on the flashlight. “Point it down, at your side.”

  “Do you want the tweezers?”

  “Not yet.” He felt her hands touching near the throbbing portion of skin. “It’ll be a minute. But I’ll need them fast when I ask.”

  She sounded troubled. Was there more of a problem than—

  “Ah,” he cried out and reared back as a bolt of pain shot from his side up to his jaw and then vanished to a dull ache.

  “Got it,” she said, displaying a bloody shard of kimberlite on a gauze pad. Her strong fingers had squeezed the wound hard to force the splinter out.

  “You tricked me,” he whispered, breathing hard.

  She took the unused tweezers back. “It’s called mental anesthetic. Distraction, then you move fast.”

  “You learn that in school?”

  “Discovery Channel, I think. The Civil War surgeons.”

  Adeela set the gauze aside, picked up the bottle of disinfectant—it was called Betadine, he noticed—and squirted some of the cold liquid on the wound. She pressed more gauze on the site and held it there for a minute. Vimal felt an absurd urge to ask how her family was doing and how did her physiology test go?

  “Light again,” she said, positioning his hand.

  She pulled out some butterfly bandages and secured them over the wound. “Pain? On a scale of one to ten?” she asked.

  “Three and seven-sixteenths. I’ve always wanted to say that.”

  “Here.” Tight-lipped, she handed him a bottle of Tylenol and a Dannon water. He took two of the pills and drank half the water.

  “That’s the only one that made it under the skin. Just bruises and cuts and scrapes, the rest of them.” She then probed his ribs. This too hurt but, again, it wasn’t bad. “Nothing broken.”

  Trying to ignore the throbbing pain, Vimal picked up the splinter and examined it. The shard wasn’t big—about a half inch long and very thin. He put it in his pocket.

  “Souvenir?”

  He said nothing but pulled his two shirts down.

  “Here,” Adeela said, handing him the brown Betadine bottle. “It’ll stain but I don’t think that’s your biggest worry. Oh. And the sweatshirt.” She took from her bag an NYU purple pullover. Large. Not hers. Maybe s
he’d bought it for her father. Vimal had asked her for a change of clothing too. His light-gray Keep Weird one was dotted with dried blood. He could have bought one but he needed to conserve his money.

  Silence flowed between them as they watched a woman walking three French bulldogs on three leashes. They danced in excited harmony and the owner continually swapped the leads from hand to hand to keep them from tangling.

  At any other time they would have laughed. Now Vimal and Adeela stared numbly.

  She took his hand and leaned her head against his.

  “You’re not going home, are you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then, what?”

  “Stay out of sight for a while.”

  She gave a cool laugh. “I was going to say, like a witness in a gangster movie. But that’s not like it. That is it. But where, Vim?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  He was, of course, very sure but he didn’t want to talk about that just yet. There would be a time. Now he wanted to get inside somewhere. The temperature was growing colder and he was exhausted.

  He released her hand. They rose. He put his arm around her, pulling her close and ignoring the pain from his side. “I’ll call you soon. Look, whatever happens, nothing’s going to affect us.” He smiled. “Hell, you’ve got exams. You won’t have any time for me anyway.”

  She wasn’t amused, he could tell, and he regretted the lame banter. Still, she kissed him hard. They hadn’t gotten to the “love” word yet, but he knew it was now about to be uttered. She was leaning close and putting her lips against his ear. She whispered, “Go to the police. They’ll protect you from him.”

  She slung her bag over her shoulder and turned, walking in that slow, sensuous stride of hers, toward the West 4th Street subway station, leaving Vimal Lahori to reflect that the police probably could protect him from the killer.

  But that was hardly enough.

  Chapter 10

  At 8 p.m. Lincoln Rhyme wheeled closer to one of the high-def screens in his parlor. “Run them.”

  Mel Cooper typed and a video appeared.

  The footage was from a camera focused on an underground loading dock behind the building where Patel’s office was located. The ramp from the dock exited onto 46th Street.

  At 12:37 that afternoon, according to the time stamp, that door pushed open and a man with thick dark hair, head down and wearing a dark jacket, was seen walking quickly down the stairs and up the ramp onto the street. His face was not clearly visible but appeared to be Indian—which was logical if he was, in fact, an associate of Patel. He was slim, and short in stature, to judge by a Dumpster he passed. His age was impossible to determine for certain but the impression was that he was young, possibly twenties.

  “He’s hurt,” Sachs said.

  He was clutching his midsection. The freeze frame showed a hint of something light-colored between his fingers, maybe the paper bag that had been shot. Cooper hit Play and the young man moved on, out of the scene.

  The tech said, “And here’s the second.”

  This tape was of 47th Street, a camera in the window of a jewelry store next to Patel’s building. At 12:51, a man in a short black or navy-blue jacket and dark baggy slacks and stocking cap passed the store. It was impossible to see his face; he was looking away. His left hand held a briefcase; his right was in his pocket.

  “Holding a weapon?”

  “Could be,” Sachs answered Rhyme.

  “And one more,” Cooper said. “Two doors west on Forty-Seven. One minute later.”

  The same man had been caught on another jewelry store’s camera. His head down and turned away again, he was on his mobile phone.

  Sellitto muttered, “Son of a bitch knew he was on Candid Camera. Looking away.”

  Sachs said, “Run it again. Zoom on the phone.”

  Cooper did this, to no avail. They could make out no details. “Check for pings from the cell towers?”

  “The Theater District and Times Square on a matinee day?” Sellitto shot him a wry look. “Drum up fifty officers to check out records and dedicate a week to it, hey, I’m on board with that.”

  “Just a thought.”

  “We know that the wit’s young, male, black hair. Dark-complexioned, probably Indian. Jacket, black or navy. Slacks dark.”

  She continued, “And he’s mobile. Whatever damage the rock fragments did, it didn’t seem that serious.”

  “Our mysterious VL?” Sellitto asked.

  “Could be,” she replied.

  Could be. Maybe. Not necessarily.

  The doorbell rang and Rhyme looked at the intercom.

  He and Sachs glanced each other’s way. She said, “Insurance man?”

  She’d called the New York representative of the insurance company covering the gems. The cool-hearted Llewellyn Croft had already sent the company a notice of loss and the claims investigator had offered to come over tonight, even though the hour was late.

  A five-million-dollar potential loss is a good motivator, Rhyme supposed.

  “Let him in,” he instructed Thom.

  A moment later the aide directed the man into the parlor. He nodded greetings and blinked in double take as he examined the forensic equipment. “My,” he said under his breath.

  The name was Edward Ackroyd. He was senior claims examiner with Milbank Assurance, on Broad Street, which was in lower Manhattan.

  The man exuded medium. Average height, average weight, average amount of neatly trimmed, toffee-colored hair. Even his eyes were hazel, a shade that managed to be both unusual and undistinguished. Appropriately, he was somewhere in the middle of middle age.

  “What an abject tragedy this is,” the man said in an accent that might trip from the tongue of a BBC announcer, Rhyme imagined. “Jatin Patel…murdered. And that couple too. Their whole future ahead of them. Destroyed.”

  At least Ackroyd’s first reaction was loss of life, rather than of the gems.

  Thom took Ackroyd’s beige overcoat. The man wore a gray suit, with a vest, rare in the United States nowadays. His shirt was starched, and his tie appeared to be as well, though that had to be Rhyme’s imagination. Given the nice garb, and the hour, maybe he’d been interrupted at a fancy dinner or a night at the theater. He wore a wedding ring.

  Introductions were made. He gave only a minor reaction to Rhyme’s condition—he was more surprised by the full-sized gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer in the corner—and when Rhyme offered his working hand, the right, Ackroyd gripped it, though carefully.

  “Have a seat?” Sachs offered.

  “No, thank you, Detective. I can’t stay long. Just wanted to introduce myself.” He looked around. “I was expecting…I suppose, a police station.”

  Sellitto said, “We run some investigations out of here. Lincoln was head of Crime Scene, now he’s a consultant.”

  “Rather like our own Sherlock Holmes.”

  Rhyme gave a weary half smile. He’d heard the simile, oh, about five hundred times.

  “I was Metropolitan Police—Scotland Yard—before going private.” Eyes on the equipment once again. “Quite the setup. And in a private residence.” He strode to the gas chromatograph and looked at it with admiration.

  Rhyme said, “Took a few years to put together. We can do the basics here. Anything more sophisticated, we send the job out.”

  “Basics can be all you need sometimes,” Ackroyd said. “Too many facts, too many clues. Woods-for-the-trees sort of thing, isn’t it?”

  Rhyme nodded. He felt a hint of camaraderie with the insurance man. Former cop, who’d become somewhat like him, a private investigator.

  No, a consulting detective.

  As Sherlock Holmes described himself.

  Sellitto asked, “Did you know him? Patel? Or anyone who worked for him?”

  “No, but, of course, I knew of him. Everyone involved in the diamond industry in any way did. Jatin Patel was a diamantaire—you know the term?”

  “No.
”

  “It means anyone in the stratosphere of the diamond production or cutting world. In his case, it means a master diamond cutter. Most diamond processing now occurs in India, some in Antwerp, some in Israel. New York used to be one of the centers. It’s much smaller now but the remaining diamantaires here are the best of the best. And Patel was at the top of his game.”

  Sachs asked, “What made him so good?”

  “To explain that I should tell you something about the business.”

  “Why not?” Sellitto said.

  “To turn a rough diamond into a finished piece, there are five stages. Plotting—examining the rough stone to see how to maximize size, quality and profit. The second skill is cleaving—cracking a diamond along its grain with a sharp blow. Cutters will sometimes study a diamond for months before striking the stone. One mishap—and you could lose a million dollars in a tenth of a second.”

  “But,” Sellitto interrupted, “I thought diamonds were unbreakable.”

  Ackroyd shook his head. “Actually that’s a misunderstanding, Detective. Diamonds are the hardest natural substance on earth, yes, but ‘hard’ means resistant to scratching. In reality they’re extremely brittle. You can shatter a diamond with a hammer blow that would have no effect on a piece of quartz. So, as I was saying: First stage, plotting. Second, cleaving. The third task is sawing—that’s using a laser or a diamond-encrusted blade to cut the stone against the grain into the desired shape. Fourth is bruting—spinning the stone on a lathe against another diamond, or sometimes using a laser, to round it. That’s to make the most popular cut: round brilliant diamonds. The last technique is grinding the geometric facets into the stone. That’s called faceting or brillianteering.”

  Insurance workers, Rhyme guessed, didn’t generally exude this level of enthusiasm. But he was beginning to think the diamond industry was a bit different from others, more passionate, more obsessed.

  “Now, about Jatin Patel. Nearly all diamond cutters in the world nowadays use computers for ninety percent of their work. Certainly the mass-produced stones for the lower-end consumer market—they’re all plotted, cut and polished automatically. That’s true too of many, if not most, top-end diamonds. But Mr. Patel? He did everything himself, by hand. His diamonds are the best you’ll ever find. His death is a huge loss. In terms of art, it’s as if Picasso or Renoir had been killed. Now, sir—”