Vimal could not help but smile.
“Open an account, deposit it. It’s your money. You can do with it as you like. Now, I will say something else. You will be getting many phone calls. There is not a single diamantaire in the New York area that does not want you to work for them. I have heard from a number of them who would want you to apprentice to them. They have all heard of the parallelogram. Some people are calling it the Vimal Cut.”
The news was interesting—he was not a pariah— but it was also disheartening. The pressure from his father was back. More subtle, but pressure nonetheless.
Papa muttered, “You can get a job at any one of them and they will pay very well. But before you do that, think about this.” He offered the larger envelope.
Vimal removed from it a college catalog, for an accredited, four-year university on Long Island. A yellow Post-it was stuck in the middle. Vimal opened to the page, which described the MFA, master in fine arts, program. There was a track for sculpting, which included a semester abroad in Florence and Rome.
Feeling his heart stutter, he looked up to his father.
The man said, “So. I have been the messenger. The rest is up to you. You may want a different school, of course. Though your mother and I were hoping that if you do, we would prefer you become the Michelangelo of Jackson Heights, rather than of Los Angeles. But, as I say, it’s up to you, son.”
Vimal had no intention of flinging his arms around his father but he couldn’t help himself.
The awkwardness faded quickly, and the embrace lasted considerably longer than he and, he guessed, his father anticipated. Then they stepped away.
“We will leave for Mr. Patel’s sister’s at five.” He turned and started for the stairs. “Oh, and why don’t you invite Adeela?”
Vimal stared. “How did…?”
The look on his father’s face was cryptic but the message might very well have been: Never underestimate the intelligence—in both senses of the word—of one’s parents.
His father left the studio and trooped upstairs. Vimal picked up the lapis lazuli and began turning it over and over and over in his hands once more, waiting for the stone to speak.
Chapter 72
Barry.” Rhyme was in his parlor, on the speakerphone.
“Lincoln. I’m pissed off at you, you know that.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“I was a bottom-shelf kinda guy. You turned me on to real scotch. The pricey stuff. Actually, Joan is pissed at you. Me, not so much.”
A pause.
Then Rhyme said, “We nailed him, Barry. He’s going away forever. El Halcón.”
“Jesus. I thought the case was dicey.”
“It became undicey.”
More silence.
“And we got his partner. The American.”
Rhyme could hear the man breathing.
“You have anything to do with that?”
“Not much. A little.”
Sales laughed. “Bullshit. I’m not believing that.”
“Well, believe what you want.”
“That’s the Lincoln Rhyme I know and love.” Then, diverting from the edge of maudlin, Sales said, “Hey. Talked to my sister? She had an idea. I’m getting a temporary prosthesis. Just a hook, you know. She’s going to bring the kids over and, guess what? We’ll do the Wolverine thing. They’ll love it.”
“The what thing?”
“The movie. You know.”
“There’s a movie about wolverines?”
“You don’t get out much, do you, Lincoln?”
“Well, I’m happy it’s working out.”
“We’ll get together soon. I’ll buy the whisky.”
They disconnected and Rhyme was wheeling back to the evidence table when his mobile hummed with an incoming call.
He hit Answer.
“Lincoln,” came the voice through the phone, obscured by a cacophony of electric guitar licks.
Rhyme snapped in response, “Rodney, for God’s sake. Turn down the music.”
“You do know that’s Jimmy Page.”
A sigh. Which the Computer Crimes expert couldn’t possibly hear, owing to the raw decibels.
“All right. Just saying. Did you know that Led Zeppelin holds the number two record for most albums sold in the U.S.?” Szarnek dimmed the volume. Somewhat. You’d expect him to have shoulder-length curly hair, inked skin and body piercings and wear shirts open to the navel—if that’s what heavy-metal band lead guitarists still looked like. In fact, though, he fit the image of the computer nerd he was.
Amelia Sachs walked into the parlor, bent down and kissed Rhyme.
Szarnek said, “Found some things you’ll want to know about the Kimberlite Affair.”
“That’s what you’re calling it?” Sachs asked. Her voice was amused.
“I kind of like it. Don’t you? Nice ring. K, here’s what I’m talking about. You sent me the number of that lawyer’s burner phone, Carreras-López? I checked the log. A lot of calls were to the folks who got rounded up at the courthouse and helipad and in the hoosegow.”
“The what?”
“A jail. Like in old-time Westerns. The pokey.”
“Rodney. Get to the point.”
“But this’s interesting. Most of the calls and texts were to and from somebody in Paris. In the Sixth Arrondissement. That means ‘district.’”
“I know,” Sachs said.
“In and around the Jardin du Luxembourg. That’s a garden. But you probably know that too.”
“That I didn’t know.”
Szarnek added, “Whoever it was, the lawyer called and texted him or her a lot over the past few weeks. Almost like he was reporting in.”
“Maybe a consultant,” Sachs said, walking to the evidence cartons on an examination table. “You thought the lawyer was Mr. Y, who planned it all out. Might have been this person.”
“Could be.”
“Rhyme,” Sachs said, lifting an evidence bag. It was Carreras-López’s day planner. Pasted inside the cover was a Post-it note with the name Fran?ois Letemps. A series of numbers was beside it. Account numbers maybe.
French name. Was he the man on the other end of the line in Paris?
Szarnek said, “Now, here’s the weird part.”
In an already weird case.
“The texts were encrypted with exactly the same algorithm you were asking about a few days ago. Duodenal. Using numbers zero through nine plus the upside-down two and three. Never rains but it pours.”
Jesus. Rhyme’s eyes slowly eased to the evidence boards.
“And no chance of cracking it?”
“About the same as me appearing on Dancing with the Stars.”
“The hell is that?”
“Let’s say impossible.”
“I’ve got to go.” Rhyme disconnected and shouted to Mel Cooper, “That package we got from the Alternative Intelligence Service? The international delivery?”
It had arrived last night but Rhyme had been too preoccupied with the case to look at it.
Cooper sliced open the box. There was no letter, only a note from Daryl Mulbry.
Here you go. Any thoughts would be helpful.
Cooper lifted a small evidence envelope. Inside was the small crescent of metal that had tested positive for radiation, though not of any dangerous dosage. Rhyme now studied it.
He recalled that Mulbry was concerned that the bit of springy metal might be a timer in a dirty bomb—part of a mechanical detonator, intended to avoid the countermeasures to defeat an electronic one.
This, Rhyme now knew, was not correct.
But the truth behind the bit of metal was, in a way, even more troubling.
Rhyme placed a call to Mulbry now.
“Lincoln! How are you?”
“Not much time here. Maybe have a situation. That bit of metal you sent me?”
“Yes.” The man’s voice was sober.
“Let me ask a couple more questions.”
“Of course.”
“You found anything more about your suspect, the man who dropped it?”
“We finally found the café he was hanging out in when he made a lot of his calls. It was—”
“Near the Jardin du Luxembourg.”
“Mon dieu, Lincoln. Yes. How—”
“And what did the EVIDINT unit find?”
“Nothing. No prints, no usable trace, no DNA. Just a description.”
“Which is?”
“White male, forties, fifties. Spoke perfect French but possibly with an American accent.”
Rhyme’s head rested back against the leather pad. Thoughts swirled. “It’s not a bomb, Daryl. No terrorist issues.”