“I’m a doctor. I have to get downtown to St. Vincent’s Hospital to deal with the victims,” I said. “If you’re taking the Holland Tunnel, you’ll go right past it.”
He looked down at my medical bag. “Yeah, yeah, Doc,” he said. “Hop in. Let’s get out of here.”
I got in. The driver locked the doors and began to weave his way through the human traffic jam on Lexington Avenue. St. Vincent’s is only a few blocks from my apartment. I was headed home. No charge.
Even if I decide to turn in these diamonds, I thought, I’m definitely keeping this little black bag.
Chapter 8
THIRTY MINUTES AFTER Walter Zelvas bled out on the floor of Grand Central, two NYPD detectives pulled up to his apartment building on East 77th Street. Some cops go by the book, some bend the rules. But Detectives John Rice and Nick Benzetti were considerably dirtier than most of the crooks they busted.
They had finished the day shift in Robbery for the Department, and now they were working for Chukov at a much better hourly rate. Their mission was simple. Find the diamonds.
The doorman looked away as they entered the building. He knew exactly where they were headed. For fifty bucks he had supplied them with a key to the apartment of that nasty-ass Russian who had stiffed him at Christmas: Walter Zelvas.
The two cops entered the elevator.
Benzetti stood six feet tall, with slick black hair and an oversize hawk nose protruding from a small, pinched face. Tall, dark, and ugly. In reality, he was wearing six-inch cheater shoes, and his gray hair was slathered with Just For Men hair dye. The ugly came natural.
Rice, six three and bald, didn’t need help from a shoe company or a hair dye. But the two cops had one thing in common. They were both terrified.
They had met Zelvas once. And he didn’t like them. He didn’t care if they were on Chukov’s payroll. They were still cops.
They’d sat across the table from him at Chukov’s apartment, a bottle of vodka, a loaf of black bread, and a large block of cheese between them.
“Screw me over and I’ll kill you,” Zelvas had said. “And not with a bullet.”
He picked up a stainless-steel slicer and dragged it slowly, menacingly across the top of the cheese. A ten-inch sliver peeled away.
“Do you know how long it takes a man to die if you skin him alive?” Zelvas asked, popping the cheese curl into his mouth. “Six days. Four if you add salt.”
Benzetti and Rice stood to the left and right of the door outside apartment 16E, guns drawn. They knew Chukov wanted to ice Zelvas. What they didn’t know was that he was already dead.
“If Zelvas is there, we take him out quick,” Rice said. “I’ll aim for his head. You go for his heart.”
Benzetti knelt down, slid the key into the lock, and turned it. With Rice standing over him aiming high left, and his own gun pointed low right, he opened the door. Clear. The two men slowly padded into the living room.
The overstuffed sofa and two massive armchairs were covered in a shiny fabric with black and gold geometric shapes. Walter Zelvas was big and ugly, Benzetti thought, and he had furniture to match.
They scanned the room. Clear.
And then they heard it. A noise. Metallic. It was coming from the bedroom.
The two cops froze.
Whoever was on the other side of the door was too busy to know they were in the apartment. They moved silently, expertly, through the living room and flattened themselves against the wall outside the bedroom door.
From his lead vantage point Rice could see the wall safe. It had just been opened. But not by Zelvas.
He signaled his partner, and the two of them rushed in. “I’m guessing Walter isn’t at home,” Rice said, pointing his gun at the safecracker.
She looked up. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Midtwenties, dark hair, long legs, wearing ass-hugging jeans and a tight white blouse with the top three buttons undone.
“Shoot her,” Benzetti said.
“Back off,” the woman said in a voice that seemed to hold no fear. “Do you know who I am? Obviously you don’t.”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Benzetti said. “Shoot her.”
“Maybe we should find out who she is first,” Rice said. “She obviously thinks she’s somebody.”
“I don’t care who she thinks she is,” Benzetti said.
“I see, I see,” she said. “Good cop, bad cop. You’re the two mudaks who work for Chukov, Benzetti and Rice. Zelvas warned me about you.”
“And you’re the woman breaking and entering, then ransacking Walter Zelvas’s safe.”
“I’m not ransacking. I have the combination. Zelvas gave it to me. As well as a key to his front door.”
She was defiant but she was also breathing hard. She was scared.
Benzetti loved watching this one squirm. The nice breasts were an added bonus for him. In a way, it would be a crime against nature to kill her.
“And why would Zelvas give you his front door key plus the combination to his safe?”
“I’m his girlfriend. I’m Natalia.”
Rice looked at Benzetti. “Chukov never said anything about Zelvas having a girlfriend.”
“So you do work for Chukov,” Natalia said. “What does he want here? You can tell me. After all, you plan to kill me.”
“He sent us to pick up some diamonds,” Benzetti said.
“I work for Nathaniel Prince,” Natalia said. “He sent me here for the diamonds, and he’s Chukov’s boss.”
“I thought Chukov was the boss,” Benzetti said.
“Chukov?” Natalia said, spitting out the name. “Do you think that boot-licking dalbaiyob is smart enough to run an operation like the Diamond Syndicate? Chukov works for Nathaniel Prince, and Nathaniel sent me, so put the guns down, gentlemen, and let me finish what I started. You couldn’t open the safe, anyway. I have the combination.”
“But we have the guns,” Benzetti said. He nodded to Rice. “Cuff her.”
Zelvas had a home gym in the bedroom, and Rice handcuffed Natalia’s slender right wrist to a two-hundred-pound barbell.
Benzetti reached into the safe and pulled out a black velvet bag. It had some heft to it — at least a couple of kilos. He wondered how many diamonds they could skim off without getting nailed. He dumped the contents on the bed.
No diamonds. Just cheese. A big fat wheel of cheese the size of a birthday cake.
Natalia let out a string of Russian curses.
“Calm the hell down,” Benzetti said.
She didn’t.
Rice grinned. “I don’t speak Russian, but I’m guessing she’s really pissed.”
Benzetti shrugged. “Hey, she was banging the ugliest guy on the Upper East Side, expecting diamonds, and all she got was a hunk of cheese. Hell, I’d be pissed, too.”
Chapter 9
THE TWO COPS left Natalia chained to the barbell and did a quick search of the apartment. After five minutes, Benzetti called it off. “If they’re not in the safe, they’re not here,” he said. “Which one of us breaks the bad news to Chukov?”
They flipped a coin and Benzetti lost. Jesus, he did not want to make this phone call.
Chukov was a two-hundred-fifty-pound powder keg with a half-inch fuse. Benzetti had once seen him smash a beer bottle and drive it into a man’s jaw for cheating at poker. And that was over a lousy hundred-dollar pot.
“Cheese?” Chukov screamed. “Cheese? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Benzetti could practically feel the enraged Cossack’s spittle through the cell phone. “No diamonds?” Chukov shouted.