Into his mind came not the image of his mother’s face, or his brother’s. Not the six-carat marquis-cut diamond that he’d completed last week and that Mr. Patel had pronounced as “quite acceptable”—his highest praise.
No, in what was likely to be his last moment on earth Vimal thought of a piece of granite sitting in his studio: a four-sided pyramid. Rich green, with striations of black and just a hint of gold. He pictured every centimeter of it.
The man paused in the intersection and squinted toward him.
Then Vimal thought: No. He took a deep breath and walked forward, standing as tall as he could. He wasn’t going to cower. He was going to fight.
Vimal wasn’t a large man but his passion was stone and rock; he hefted it and he cut and cracked and smoothed it. His tools were heavy. Sometimes he held a large stone at arm’s length, willing the piece to tell him what its soul was so that he could set it free.
These ample muscles now grew taut and he withdrew from his pocket a weapon of his own: the largest rock, the January bird, that had been in the bag when this man—or his associate—had shot him. He kept it hidden behind his back.
Vimal nearly smiled, with grim humor, thinking about the game he’d played with his brother Sunny when they were younger: rock-paper-scissors.
Scissors cut paper.
Paper covers rock.
And rock breaks scissors.
He gripped the stone firmly.
Oh, yes, he’d fight…hit the man hard, dodge the knife as best he could, and flee.
From him. And from the police.
The man walked closer. Then he smiled. “Hey, young man. I was waving at you.”
Vimal stopped, saying nothing, just kneaded the stone. The man’s grin was just a trick to get his guard down.
“You left this on the bench. In the waiting room.”
He held up not a knife but a mobile phone. Vimal squinted and patted his pockets. Yes, it was his. Each walked toward the other and the man handed it over. “You okay, son?” He frowned.
“Yeah. I…just, busy day. Stupid of me. Sorry.” He slipped the rock back into his pocket; the man didn’t seem to notice.
“Hey, happens. I left a new iPhone at the playground when my wife and I took the boys to the park. When I realized it, after we got home, I called the number. A kid—like, a ten-year-old—answered. I said it was my phone and all he said was could he have the password for the App Store?”
The Samaritan laughed and Vimal forced himself to do so too.
“Thanks.” The word was shaky.
The man nodded and walked off toward a queue for a bus going to New Jersey.
Vimal returned to the pay phone. He stood with his head down, breathing slowly, calming. He called 911 again. When he said he was calling about the robbery on 47th Street, the woman tried to keep him on the line but he said simply, “The man with the gun had a black attaché case. Like businessmen carry.”
He hung up and walked quickly to the exit, casting a last look at the departure board, filled with so many destinations. They all beckoned.
But first things first. Head down, Vimal plunged into the crowds on the sidewalk and turned south, walking as quickly as the pain allowed.
Chapter 7
Two tiny kur to find.
Two tiny hens to cut up and boil…
Two tiny kur who knew too much.
Who should have died earlier. But who got away.
Sad, sad, sad. But not everything goes the way it fucking ought to.
Aromatic with tarry cigarette smoke and Old Spice aftershave, Vladimir Rostov now spotted someone who might help him track down his kur.
He was in the Diamond District, about a hundred yards from the building that housed Jatin Patel’s store, where police stood and yellow tape fluttered. He was, of course, keeping his distance. It was now dusk, closing time in the district, and Rostov was watching his target—either the owner or the manager of a small jewelry store—operate the motor that closed the security gate. He appeared to be South Asian and, Rostov was hoping, would probably know Patel; the diamond community in New York was not as big as you might think.
The man fitted two serious locks into hasps on the door and, with a third, locked the electronic panel that controlled the motor.
The man was slight and looked about, nervously. Ah, good. Rostov loved timid kur. They were always so eager to help.
The Russian blended in. New York was the city of dark outer garments, as he was wearing. The city of no eye contact, the city of head down, the city of never respond. Blending in…There was little distinctive about him, this compact forty-four-year-old. More muscle than fat, with a long angular, equine face. Former military, he had a military bearing and a military physique, though he did not have—nor had he ever had—a military frame of mind, which meant discipline and the will to follow orders.
Looking normal, but he worked to keep his eyes from zipping a bit too manically around the street. He tried not to mutter to himself. And to anyone nearby. That wouldn’t, of course, be a good idea. He was well aware that he was a bit different.
Vladimir Rostov was, as he put it, “gone to the stone.”
And so he had to force himself to be careful. He could function but sometimes he went right to the edge of sane. And now he was feeling that cringy-crawly sense, as he observed the street, filled with Jews and Indians and Chinese, who sold their cheap crap to the masses.
Proletariat! he thought with a grim silent laugh. Then stanched the, yes, manic grin. Thank you, Lenin. You were a mad fucker too but you understood.
As he glanced into the windows, he could see the gold, the sapphires, the emeralds.
The diamonds.
The earth’s blood. Forty-Seventh Street was a hemorrhage. Like the blood on the floor of Patel’s shop.
The Indian dealer walked to Fifth Avenue and turned north, oblivious to being followed. Will you help me find my little kur? Rostov thought, thumbing the utility razor knife in his pocket, resting right next to the pistol.
His little kur…In Rostov’s universe, the word meant more than “hens,” the literal translation. A kuritsa—the singular—included in his definition blyad, “whore,” and dobycha, “prey” and prezreniye, “contempt,” but always filtered through a sense of amusement.
One kuritsa he needed to find was the boy at the diamond dealer’s. Name unknown but initials probably VL. And the other one, the Jew who’d met with Patel before the dealer’s shop erupted into Stalingrad.
Two kur.
On the trail of his prey now.
Rostov lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply a few times and stubbed it out. Collar up, hat pulled down low over his blond crew cut, Rostov kept up his pursuit of the Indian. Where was he going? Was he taking the subway somewhere, a bus? Or did he live on the Upper East Side, the posh area of New York? The man owned a jewelry store, so he’d have money. But Rostov didn’t think many Indians lived in that part of town. It seemed exclusive and he assumed they wouldn’t be welcome.
Rostov’s gut thumped a bit as they passed Harry Winston, the famed jewelry store on Fifth Avenue. The modest gold placard beside the gated doorway read:
Harry Winston Inc. Rare Jewels of the World.
Now that, kur, is putting it mildly.