The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(99)
Rhyme watched the man pull on his coat with precise movements.
Ackroyd added, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
His voice hesitated as he glanced Rhyme’s way, suddenly recalling, it seemed, that Lincoln Rhyme was not a person who had the ability to cross any fingers.
Their eyes met and they shared a smile.
*
From a very sour-smelling vantage point in a stand of bushes in Central Park—apparently popular with urban dogs—Vladimir Rostov watched the medium-built, sandy-haired man in the beige overcoat step outside the town house he’d learned belonged to one Lincoln Rhyme. The man drew the garment tighter about him, against the chill.
Cold, cold? Ha. This is nothing, kuritsa. Come to Moscow in January.
The man walked down the disabled-accessible ramp and onto the sidewalk, avoiding a few patches of ice. He turned north and walked to the cross street, then west, away from the park.
Rostov pushed through the bushes and strode quickly after him, passing between two cabs. Closing the distance, Rostov kept his head down. You assumed CCTVs were everywhere and fitted with high-definition lenses. He also supposed some had facial recognition software, though he wasn’t, as far as he knew, in any FR databases. At least not here, in the United States.
Ah, kuritsa, slow down, slow down. You’re walking too fast for a whore of a hen.
Rostov’s mood had improved and he’d overcome his anger at the latest setback—at the house of Adeela, the raven-haired Arab girl. Making it worse, as he’d fled, the police approaching, he’d caught a glimpse of Vimal himself in the garage! He was at the house. And he’d be in protective custody now.
Angry then, better now.
Concentrating on the task ahead of him.
Yes, the Promisor has yet another backup plan, kuritsa! Don’t you know?
Rostov saw the man he was following approach a gray Ford and push the fob button. The lights flashed briefly. Rostov was only twenty feet behind him and he sped up, head still down. When the man pulled open the driver’s door and dropped into the seat, Rostov did the same on the passenger side.
“Kuritsa!”
The driver reared back in shock, blinking. Then he and Rostov locked eyes.
The Russian smiled. And stuck his hand out. The driver shook his head, with a wry laugh, gripped Rostov’s meaty palm and, with his left hand, pressed the man’s biceps, a gesture conveying a cautious warmth. It was the sort of greeting that might transpire between two soldiers who’d been enemies in the past—and might yet be in the future—but who, for the moment at least, were allies with a common cause.
Chapter 51
So, kuritsa, what I am calling you? What is name? Surely not Mr. Andrew Krueger?”
“Using my real name? Now, what do you think, Vladimir? No, I’m Edward Ackroyd.”
“Yes, yes, I like that. Distinguished fucker. Is real somebody?”
Krueger didn’t explain that the identity he’d stolen, Edward Ackroyd, was, yes, a real employee of Milbank Assurance—a company that insured hundreds of diamond and precious metal mines and wholesalers. Ackroyd, as he’d told Rhyme, was a former Scotland Yard detective and presently was a senior claims investigator with Milbank. Beyond that, Krueger knew nothing of the real Ackroyd; he’d made everything else up, like riffing on his sexuality: He played his fictional version as gay—a casting choice intended to work his way, subtly, through Rhyme’s defenses; the consultant seemed like a man who valued tolerance. (Krueger had told his business partner in his company, Terrance DeVoer, the most hetero man you’d ever meet, that Terry and Krueger were now married—to the South African’s great amusement.)
The cryptic crossword puzzles—which were a hobby of Krueger’s—were also intended to ingratiate himself with the criminalist. A number of Krueger’s clients were British so he could easily feign being English.
In the driver’s seat of the rental car Krueger eased back a bit from the Russian. Rostov stank of pungent cigarettes and onion and excessive drugstore aftershave. “And you? You’re not Vlad Rostov, I assume.”
“No, no.” The Russian laughed. “So many fucking names in the past week…Now I am Alexander Petrovitch. I was Josef Dobyns when I landed. Now Petrovitch. I like better. Dobyns could be Jew. You are liking Alexander? I do. It was only passport this asshole in Brighton Beach had. Charge me fortune. I like Brighton Beach. You ever go?”
Rostov was known, in the diamond security industry, to be a loose cannon and also more than a little crazy. The rambling was typical.
“You know, Vlad—”
“Alexander.”
“—I’m not here to sightsee.”
“Ha, no, we are not tourists, you and me.”
Krueger was feeling more at ease now. He was over the shock of Rostov’s sneaking up on him, though he’d known the man would appear sooner or later. He found it refreshing too not to have to use the British accent. It was getting tedious. In fact, he was South African, and his natural intonation was of an Afrikaner speaking English. He’d been on his guard every time he’d spoken with Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs and the others, struggling to get the Brit upper-crust tongue correct.
Fa?ade upon fa?ade…what a time this past week had been.
It was Andrew Krueger, not Vladimir Rostov, who was the real perpetrator, whom the police were calling Unsub 47: the man who had killed Jatin Patel and Saul Weintraub. And who, under the guise of Edward Ackroyd, had talked his way into the police investigation of the case.