The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(67)

He found something else too. An unlocked door, leading to the cellar. He supposed restaurant supplies were stored down there and employees might come down at any minute. Everyone, though, seemed busy in the kitchen.

The only question was: Would the kid pee after lunch?

Nothing to do but wait and see.

He returned to the counter and sipped his coffee while the boy ate his sandwich, examining his phone’s screen—maybe texting, or wasting time with Facebook or some kind of nonsense like that. Kirtan signaled for the waitress. Oh, please, don’t have dessert.

But, no, he wanted the check. He paid.

Rostov drained his coffee and again used his napkin to inconspicuously wipe the cup. He pushed it aside and the waitress swept the chipped ceramic away. He left her a five.

Well, Kirtan? Bodily functions calling?

Yes, they were! The kuritsa pulled on his jacket and walked down the corridor to the restrooms.

This was, yes, a risk. But sometimes your mind clicks and it snaps and you do things a sane man—even a killer—wouldn’t do.

Gone to the stone…

More often than not his madness worked to his advantage. That should be a lesson for everyone, Rostov sometimes thought.

As the boy walked inside the bathroom Rostov waited in the corridor near the cellar door.

His back was to the men’s room. After three or four minutes, he heard the door open and glanced at Kirtan, exiting. The boy said, “Excuse me, sir,” and Rostov turned, smiling, glanced around to make sure there was no one to see and with a short but fierce blow punched the boy directly in the throat. As he started to drop, Rostov caught him, pulled open the cellar door and shoved him down the rubber-treaded stairs headfirst.

It was a noisy tumble and Rostov turned to see if anyone had heard.

No. People eating, people talking, people examining cell phones.

The Russian slipped inside, onto the top step of the stairs, closed the door behind him and, pulling out the razor knife, started down into the cool, dim cellar.

*



Sachs was leaving her mother’s house, where she’d spent the night—in her childhood bedroom—when her phone trilled.

She dropped into the driver’s seat of her Torino and hit Answer.

“Rodney.”

A senior detective in the NYPD’s Computer Crimes Unit, Rodney Szarnek was a curious creature. The man, of ambiguous age but probably thirties, loved code, hacks, algorithms, boxes (the term for computers) and all things digital. He also mainlined rock music at illegal decibels. She heard Led Zeppelin pounding away in his office.

“Amelia. I called Lincoln and told him we had a break. He said to call you directly. You’re closer to where you have to be.”

“And where do I have to be?”

“Queens.”

“And why?”

“Remember we got a warrant and the provider coughed up Patel’s cell phone records?”

“Right.”

“I finally pieced together his calling patterns: his sister, other diamond merchants, overseas numbers—South Africa and Botswana—presumably for diamond orders. No calls to anybody with initials of VL. But there were a dozen calls in the past month to and from a Deepro Lahori.”

“Okay.”

“I did some homework. Actually a lot of homework. The last name—the L—intrigued me. Was that half of VL? I think so. Deepro’s son—apparently a diamond cutter—is named Vimal. Hold on, Amelia. I love this riff.”

She heard an electric guitar shred. She yawned.

“Could you hear it? You want me to replay it?”

“Rodney.”

“Okay. Just asking. I got a DMV picture. Just sending it now. Check your texts.”

Her phone dinged and she was looking at Vimal Lahori’s driver’s license photo. The image could easily have been that of the young man exiting the site of the killing through the loading dock on Saturday.

The address on the license was 4388 Monroe Street in Jackson Heights. A half hour away.

“Thanks, Rodney.”

“Disclaimer alert: Can’t say he’s your boy, not for certain.”

Only one way to find out…





Chapter 32



Monroe Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, was one of those spots that could not decide if it wanted gentrification or just to be left alone.

To be comfortable, to be quiet, to exist the way it had existed for fifty or maybe a hundred years. Who knew? Workers in small factories and warehouses and on jobsites lived here. Some white-collar entry-level kids in advertising, brokerage houses, publishing, fashion. And then the artists.

At the moment, on the street, near where Vimal Lahori lived, only a few people were outside on the sidewalk. One woman, in a black quilted coat and beret, was trailing behind a small dog on one of those retractable leashes, which was getting quite the workout because a series of suicidal squirrels waited until the last minute to zip away from the energetic canine.

A boy on a bicycle, maybe playing hooky. It was a school day, it was early afternoon.

A businesswoman in a raincoat and silly rain hat—clear plastic, like a bonnet, printed with yellow daisies.

Everyone moved quickly, presumably because of the damp, pasty chill.

But these fuckers didn’t have it so bad.

Moscow this time of year was a hundred times worse.