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 na?ve: 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.