The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(66)



Vladimir frequently ignored the warning. He just made sure that he would find long-abandoned nooks and rock faces where there was no chance of discovery.

Gone to the stone…

But staying in the mine forever was not an option. He had to surface and return home to the fourth-floor walk-up apartment.

Uncle Gregor…

He was, by appearances, the meekest of men. A skinny man, as thin as his fiercely strong Belomorkanal cigarettes—the brand named after the infamous White Sea canal dug by gulag prisoners in the 1930s, with more than a hundred thousand perishing during the work. Gregor’s angular face was like Vladimir’s, protruding brows, broad lips tending toward purple, shoulders bony. His work in the mine involved instruments and clipboards. He had probably never lifted a shovel in his life. Vladimir thought his fingernails were remarkable. They were long and pale and perhaps sharpened. At least, so they seemed; in the games that were played almost nightly in the dim, cluttered apartment, the nails left red, painful trails along Vladimir’s spine.

Aunt Ro was the opposite, physically, of her husband. She was as sturdy as the cinder-block building they lived in. When the boy first met her, his impression was of a globe. At five two, she was formidable and, when she wanted something, that desire was all that existed in the universe.

Impatient too. And if Vladimir didn’t please her, she too left angry marks—though not with her nails. She would turn her engagement ring around as she lay into him. The diamond, which had come from the Mir mine, occasionally drew blood.

The years passed and at twenty he found himself a supervisor (you found few old men in the mines). After his uncle, and then aunt, died, he lived in the apartment attending school part-time, halfheartedly. He finally attained a degree in geology, barely passing.

His passion for the mine, the sensuous shafts, the warmth, the water, remained as strong as ever but Rostov the young man had hungers that he doubted could be satisfied in Mirny.

In any event, the decision was made for him. The mine closed, the lodes largely depleted.

Russia was one of the biggest producers of diamonds in the world and he might have found work elsewhere. But, he decided, no. He wanted more.

Hungers…

It was around then that Vladimir Rostov came to accept that he wasn’t right. The time in the mine, the time on the living room floor—the bed of rocks his uncle and aunt had strewn out for him to lie on…All those times had turned him into something as hard as a diamond. And just plain off.

Where to go?

The Chechnyans were misbehaving then. So why not the army?

Being gone to the stone was perfect training.

For the army and for what came later.

The life that had brought him now, to glorious, fucking America.

Another sip of bourbon in the Irish bar…

Come along, Rostov thought angrily.

Then he brightened. Inside the store, Kirtan shook a customer’s hand, a farewell gesture, and pulled on his jacket.

Rostov finished his drink—an off brand but not bad, and cheap. He wiped the glass with a napkin to remove his prints. This was a bit paranoid but Vladimir Rostov was still alive and not in prison when, by rights, he should have been jailed or more likely killed long ago.

One fond glance back at the waitress’s fine ass, then he was out the door into the cold, damp air. A diesel truck went past, spewing exhaust, reminding of home. No city on earth did exhaust better than Moscow. Beijing maybe, but he’d never been there.

He stayed on this side of the street—too many cameras in the windows of the ancient, ten-story structure, part of whose ground floor was occupied by Kirtan’s employer, Midtown Gifts. This, like many jewelry stores and diamond factories, avoided any mention in the name that gems were involved. A practice that, while it made sense for security, made tracking down Mr. VL fucking hell.

The building would have had a nice basement—nice and silent, that is—but he couldn’t have his chat with the kuritsa down there because of the cameras, as well as the armed guard in the arcade; there were two other jewelry stores on the first floor and a furrier that sold, wholesale only, mink, chinchilla and fox. The African American guard was fat and looked bored and seemed to be the sort who didn’t like wearing—much less using—his pistol, which was an old-style revolver.

His plan was to follow the boy and approach him somewhere deserted. An alley would be good but Manhattan seemed to have no alleys, at least none that he could find. Queens, yes, Brooklyn, yes. But not here. Manhattan had sexy women, cheap liquor, wonderful diamonds and plenty of magnificent shopping districts…but no fucking alleys.

He wondered how far he would have to follow the boy before he got him alone. He hoped it was near and he hoped it was soon. If not, he’d have to trail him home, after work. And Rostov was impatient. He needed VL and needed him now. There weren’t a lot of other options. None of his other sources had yielded up what he needed. And Nashim had been able to come up with only Kirtan’s name.

But it turned out that the round, dark-haired kid didn’t go very far. Despite his sub-Asian ethnicity Kirtan didn’t opt for curry or tandoori chicken. He walked into a tried-and-true New York City coffee shop. A waitress pointed him to a booth and he sat.

Would this work for him? Rostov was doubtful. Too many people. But he’d check it out. It wasn’t the best opportunity. But it was an opportunity.

Rostov, who wore the ski mask rolled up into a normal-looking stocking cap, stepped inside the restaurant. He sat at the counter and ordered coffee. Before it came, he rose and went into a back corridor, where the restrooms were located. He went inside, coughed hard for thirty seconds, regarded the paper towel, then pitched it out and returned to the corridor.

Jeffery Deaver's Books