He’s not getting Sean’s name, she told herself, though also thinking that if he paid Sean a visit her fiancé would wipe up the pavement with this guy. Sean worked out five times a week.
But the man seemed to lose interest in her love life, so intensely was he drawn to the ring. With a grip she had no strength to resist he pulled her hand close to his face.
“How many carats, they tell you? Four and a half?”
She was shivering in terror. The fuck was this all about?
“How many fucking carats?” he raged softly.
“Five.”
Shaking his head. “And how much of it they kill?”
She frowned.
“How much they cut off of stone to make thing on finger of yours?”
“I…I don’t know what you mean. I can get you money. A lot of money. A hundred thousand. Do you want a hundred thousand dollars? No questions asked.”
He wasn’t even listening. “You are happy, slicing diamond up?”
“Please?”
“Shhhh, little hen. Look at you. Cryee little thing.” Then he pushed her away and said, “You were crying when boyfriend bought raped diamond? No crying then. Huh?”
He was fucking insane…Oh, God, now she understood. With a sinking heart, she realized this was him, the Promisor. The man who hated engaged couples. He’d killed the couple in the Diamond District on Saturday. And he’d attacked two more. And now she knew why. For some psychotic reason he was protecting diamonds.
For a moment, anger gripped her. She muttered, “You sick fuck.”
The grip on her hair tightened, pain swelling from her scalp. He pressed the knife against her neck. Judith Morgan went limp, surrendering to tears. She closed her eyes and began reciting a silent prayer, looping and looping through her thoughts. He leaned close, his forehead against hers. “Lovebird, lovebird…I am liking that part of vow, you know. Till death do you part.”
He pressed the knife against her throat.
Oh, Mommy…
Then he paused and a faint laugh slipped from his foul-smelling mouth. The blade lowered. “Have fun idea. Better than cutting…Yes, I am liking this. You treat diamond like shit. Okay, swallow it. That where it end up.”
“What?” she whispered.
He grimaced. “Put fucking ring in mouth and swallow it.”
“But I can’t.”
“Then, die.” He shrugged again and the knife rose to her throat.
“No, no, no! I will. I’ll swallow it. I’ll do it!”
She worked the ring off her finger and gazed down at it. What would happen? Lodge in her windpipe and she’d choke to death? Or if it got down her esophagus would the sharp edges cut the delicate tissue? Could she bleed to death internally?
“Or knife on throat,” he offered cheerfully. “I am not much caring. Choose. But now.”
With a trembling hand, she lifted the ring to her face. The piece seemed huge.
She felt the knife against her neck.
“Okay, okay.”
Quickly she dropped the jewelry into her mouth. She gagged once and the ring nearly fell out but she pushed it to the back of her throat and swallowed hard.
Waves of pain stabbed her chest, neck and head as she worked the muscles over and over and over to get the damn thing down. Tears streamed. The ring made it past her windpipe—she could breathe all right—but then lodged in her esophagus, the sharp sides of the small diamonds slitting the skin. Blood cascaded. She tasted it, and, as some flowed into her windpipe and lungs, her violent coughing fired red droplets from her mouth.
Rasping screams now.
He remained amused. “Ah, little one. You see how it goes. You fuck stone, stone fucks you.”
Judith Morgan was thrashing against the pain and the sensation of drowning—in her own blood. She gripped her throat with both hands, trying to manipulate the ring up and out. It wasn’t going anywhere and the pain only increased. Without a plan, on autopilot, she struggled to her feet then lunged for her purse. He lifted it away and opened it, then removed her cell phone and smashed it on the tile floor. He gave a laugh and strode nonchalantly down the corridor and left by the front door.
Coughing fiercely, consumed by pain from chest to temple, Judith Morgan struggled down the corridor and then up the stairs, heading for the Kieslowski apartment on the second floor.
Praying they had not gone out but were sitting on their lumpy sofa in front of the TV, with takeout, catching up on the twisted plottings of the House Lannister and the House Stark.
Chapter 28
Another attack.
At eight p.m. Rhyme was listening to a detective from the 19, on the Upper East Side.
“Yessir, Captain,” the man told him. “That same perp’s been in the news. Vic’s okay, she’ll live. But—can you believe this one?—he made her swallow her engagement ring. She’s in surgery now.”
“Scene’s secure?”
“Yessir. We’ve called the CS bus from Queens but since you’re the task force on this one, thought you might want to send one of your people.”
“We will. Have the techs wait outside the scene. Address?”
Rhyme memorized it. “Canvass?” he then asked.
“Five blocks all around. And counting. Nothing. And best the vic could say was white male, blue eyes, ski mask, knife and handgun. Or she nodded in response to my questions. Weird accent she couldn’t figure out. All I could get. We only had a few minutes ’fore they got her to the hospital.”
Rhyme thanked him. Then he disconnected and called Ron Pulaski.
“Lincoln.”
“We’ve got another scene. Upper East Side.”
“I heard some squawk on the radio. Was it our boy?”
“Yep.”
“The vic’s okay, I heard.”
“Alive. I don’t know about okay.” What did swallowing a sharp piece of jewelry do to you? Rhyme gave the younger officer the address. “The bus is on its way. I need you to walk the grid and get back here with whatever you can find ASAP. There’ll be uniforms and a detective from the One-Nine there. Find out what hospital the vic’s in and interview her. And take a pad and pen for the vic to write with. She can’t talk.”
“She…what?”
“Move, Rookie.”
They disconnected.
The doorbell to the town house sounded and Thom answered it, returning a moment later with the insurance investigator Edward Ackroyd, who nodded, almost formally, to Rhyme and Cooper.
The aide took the man’s greatcoat—no, Rhyme thought, changing his opinion of the garment once more. It should be called a mackintosh.
“Another cappuccino?” Thom asked.
“Don’t mind if I do, actually.”
“No, no, no,” Rhyme said fast. “A single-malt.”
“Well…now that you mention it, I will do. Save the coffee for another time.”
Thom poured the drinks, pitifully small. Both Rhyme and Ackroyd added just a hint of water to the glass.
“Glenmorangie,” Ackroyd said, after sipping. He pronounced it correctly, emphasis on the second syllable. He held up the glass and eyed the amber liquid as if in a commercial. “Highlands. You know there is a difference in taste between lowland whisky and highland, subtle and I’m not sure I could detect it. However, there are many more highland distilleries than low. Do you know why?”
“No idea.”
“It’s not because of the peat or the process but because the Scottish distilleries kept moving north to escape the English excise tax. Or that’s what I’ve heard.”
Rhyme tucked the trivia away, tilted the glass toward the Englishman and sipped the smoky liquor.
Ackroyd took a seat, with that perfect posture of his, in one of the wicker chairs not far from Rhyme.
He told the Brit about the new attack.
“No! Swallowed her engagement ring? Good heavens. How is she?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“And payback for buying a cut stone? My, this man’s barking mad.” His face seemed bewildered. Then he added, “Now, let me tell you a few things I’ve found. I did hear back from my friend in Amsterdam. You recall?”