The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(124)

The wiry man, name of Spiros, said, “Oh, fundamentally fine. The eyebrows? Well, you’re gonna need makeup. And a bit of heat rash, you could call it. Bactine. But that’s all you need. Hands? Well, that’s another matter. Nothing serious and you won’t feel it yet—I’ve got it numbed. You were a man, you’d lose some or all of the hair and the smell’d be with you for a bit. Look at me. Ape hair. What my wife says.”

Romero turned to Sachs. “I guess that’s how I am.”

Spiros said, “But consider yourself lucky.”

“I do, sir.”

Though, Sachs had learned, there hadn’t been much luck involved. When the lehabah detonated, the building, along with the dozen people still inside, had been saved by Romero. She’d gotten the device away from the basement, which was filled with gas, and into the stairway before it blew. The fiery blast that injured her was from the initiator, a mechanical sparking device, igniting the remaining chemical that was meant to melt the gas line. It was highly flammable. She was far enough away so that the gas in the basement had not blown.

“I’ve told your supervisor, Agent Romero. There’ll be a citation.”

She blinked, apparently dismayed.

A double-take. Then Sachs smiled. “Oh, no, not your kind of citation. Parking. I mean, you’ll be decorated. It’ll come from the commissioner himself.”

Her eyes lit up at this and it seemed that here was some kind of an inside joke about the NYPD commissioner of police that Sachs wasn’t getting.

The crime scene bus pulled up and Sachs rose—a bit stiffly.

She waved to the van and the driver, an Asian American evidence collection tech Sachs had worked with before, nodded to her and drove close.

“Oh, Detective?”

She turned to Romero.

“Had a little problem,” the traffic enforcement agent said.

“What’s that?”

“Only way to get the people’s attention? I had to knee a few cars. Get the alarms going.”

“That was smart.”

“I suppose. But I kicked this Lexus. And the owner, he’s not too happy about it. He’s going to sue me. He said personally. Should I get myself a lawyer? Can he do that?”

“Where is he?”

Romero pointed to a man in his thirties, in a business suit, cropped Wall Street hair and round glasses. His long face had a smirky, put-upon smile and he seemed to be delivering a condescending lecture to a patrol officer, stabbing a finger toward the uniform’s chest.

Amelia Sachs smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll go have a talk with him.”

“Are you sure, Detective?”

“Oh, it’ll be my pleasure.”

*



Vimal Lahori was thinking that the old-time car he was riding in gave off a much more powerful scent of gasoline and exhaust and oil than modern vehicles. Of course, these aromas might have been due to the fact that it was being driven flat-out by a wild woman.

“You all right?” Detective Sachs asked him.

“I’m. Well. Yes.” He gripped the seat belt of the old-time car in one hand and the armrest in the other.

She smiled and slowed a bit.

“Force of habit,” she muttered.

After she had saved his life and shot that terrible man, the one who had killed Mr. Patel, Detective Sachs had told him that they’d found a phone on the body. It was suspicious. It had been used to call Russia after the Russian killer had died. Was there another person involved? She and Mr. Rhyme had not thought so, but better to be smart, so Vimal had stayed at the precinct house in Brooklyn until some computer expert at the NYPD found that the phone was a trick, to divert suspicion away from Andrew Krueger. Vimal was free to go and he had asked if Detective Sachs could drive him home.

She’d said she’d be delighted to.

She now made the turn and pulled up in front of the young man’s house in Queens. Even before he climbed out, the front door of the house flew open and his mother and Sunny were hurrying through the misty day toward him.

He said to the detective, “Can you wait here for a minute?”

“Sure.”

He met the family halfway up the walk and they embraced. The brothers awkwardly at first, then Vimal ruffled Sunny’s hair and they started pushing and wrestling, laughing hard.

“You aren’t hurt?” his mother asked, looking him over with the eye of a diagnostician.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Dude, another gunfight? You’re like dangerous to be around. It was on the news.”

No more than ten minutes after Detective Sachs had shot the killer, a dozen news vans had appeared, magically, at the dumping site.

Sunny said, “Kakima called—all the way from the NCR! You were on the news over there!”

The National Capital Region—New Delhi. Which meant tens of millions of people might’ve seen him.

Auntie was seventy-eight years old and spent more time online than any teenager Vimal knew.

His mother hugged him once more and walked to the maroon Ford. She bent down and spoke with Detective Sachs, undoubtedly thanking her for saving her son’s life.

Sunny was asking if he’d seen the man get shot. Then “Was it right in front of you?”

“Later, man. I’ve got to get something in the house.”