The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(37)

Vimal looked at the displays in the windows, behind thick glass. The jewelry pieces Mr. Nouri had placed there were of a number of various styles and sizes and prices, intended to snare potential buyers with many different tastes and budgets.

Some would come to N&B to buy that very special stone. The engagement rock being paramount in this category, of course.

But there are many other markets that De Beers or other mines tapped: the anniversary ring, the daughter-having-a-baby charm, the sweet-sixteen or quincea?era earrings, the prom tiara, the grandmother pin. The diamond industry was constantly coming up with new excuses to sell you its wares—like greeting card companies—and to make sure you felt pretty damn guilty if you lapsed. With weary cynicism, Vimal would look through the direct-mail material Mr. Patel received from branded diamond companies, suggesting to retailers new approaches to reach buyers, like gay engagements. “Old norms are ‘out the window,’” one brochure enthused. “Suggest that both partners can wear diamonds to signify their upcoming union…and double your revenue with each nuptial!”

Or the “Degree Diamond”: “She made you proud with that diploma; show her how much her achievement means to you!”

He’d once joked to Adeela that the industry might soon come up with a “funeral diamond” to be buried with you, though after the events of the past day, that idea was no longer funny.

He saw a door open at the back of the showroom and Dev Nouri walked out. He was a bald, fat man of about fifty-five. A loupe sat on his head—the familiar ten-power magnifier that was standard in the industry. The lens was pointed upward. He waddled forward and they shook hands.

The shop owner looked about with a concerned expression, and Vimal realized that he was maybe worried that the Promisor might have followed him.

Ridiculous. But Vimal too gazed out the window.

He saw no one who might be the killer. But was relieved when Mr. Nouri said, “Let’s go upstairs.”

They walked into a hallway and Mr. Nouri used a thumbprint pad to open a thick steel door. They passed through this and climbed to the second floor, where the dealer’s office and cutting and polishing factory was located. Vimal’s father had once told him that the cutters in Surat, India, made Hondas; Mr. Patel made Rolls-Royces. Mr. Nouri’s stones would be squarely in the BMW category.

They stepped into Mr. Nouri’s cluttered office and sat. “Now, tell me. You were there? When Jatin was killed?”

“I was, yes. Though I got away.”

“How terrible! Jatin’s sister…his children. How sad they must be!”

“Yeah. It’s terrible. Just awful.” Vimal spun Adeela’s cloth bracelet nervously. “Mr. Nouri. I need some help.”

“From me?”

“Yes. My parents and I think it’s best for me to leave the city for a while. They gave me what money they could. But I need some more. I’m hoping you can help me.”

Mr. Nouri did not catch the lie. He was more troubled, it seemed, about impending financial requests. “Me? I don’t have—”

“I’m not asking to borrow. I have something to sell.”

“Inventory from Patel’s?” He looked suspicious.

This was one reason that Vimal had not gone to the police. The rocks were technically Mr. Patel’s. They would have confiscated them as evidence, and he needed them desperately. They might even have arrested him for theft.

But Vimal said, truthfully, “It’s not a customer’s. It was Mr. Patel’s, yes. But he owed me for the month. I’ll never see that money now.” Vimal produced one of the rocks in the bag that he’d been carrying when he was shot. It was the January bird.

“But what is this? Kimberlite?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Nouri took the stone from Vimal’s hand. He flipped down the loupe and studied the stone. “I’ve never seen any.”

Kimberlite was the raw ore from which the majority of diamonds around the world were extracted. The mineral was named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where in the late 1800s the famed Star of South Africa, an eighty-four-carat stone, was found embedded in a vein of kimberlite, setting off the world’s first diamond rush.

But diamond rough was usually extracted at the mines, and the kimberlite discarded, so those further down the gem manufacturing chain rarely, if ever, saw the rock that gave birth to the diamonds they worked on.

Up went the loupe. “You want to sell it?”

“Yes. Please.”

“But what would I do with it?”

Vimal held the stone under a lamp. “Look. You can see crystals. They’d be diamonds. Extract them. Then cut and sell those. There could be some big rough inside. Look at that one.” He pointed out a shimmery dot on the side of the stone. “It could be worth thousands.”

Mr. Nouri laughed. “Do you know how diamonds are extracted from kimberlite?”

“I understand it’s complicated.” The rock was first crushed—with enough pressure to break up the kimberlite but not the diamonds. Then the resulting diamond-laden bits were tumbled in water-filled drums and treated with ferrosilicon sand. It was a long process.

“It is. And I don’t have the equipment. Don’t know anyone who does. I’d have to send it to Canada. But no mine would take a small rock like this. They handle tons at a time.”