His father’s eyes were on the lapis. “Mr. Patel’s children and their families have come to town. They and his sister have held the funeral and cremation privately.” In the Hindu religion, cremation is the only acceptable way to treat the body. In India the funeral and the cremation occur at the same place — traditionally, of course, the body is burned on an open pyre. Here, the Hindu funeral rites, the Antyesti, are modified to allow for Western custom and laws.
His father added, “But they are holding a memorial at his sister’s house tonight. That’s one reason I’ve been away. I was helping with that. You will come?”
“Sure. Yeah, of course.”
“You can say something if you like. But you don’t have to.”
“I will.”
“Good. You’ll do a good job.”
Silence.
One reason I’ve been away...
Now it was time to learn of the other reason. Who was to be his new master?
Well, Vimal Lahori decided. No one would be. This was the end. He was going to say no to the man.
At last he would say no.
He took a deep breath to do so but his father handed him the smaller of the envelopes. The trembling of his hand was not so bad today. “Here.”
Vimal held back on the monologue he was prepared to deliver and took the envelope. He glanced into his father’s eyes.
The man’s shrug said, Open it.
Vimal did. He looked at what was inside and his breath stopped momentarily. He looked to his father then back to the contents.
“This is—” He actually choked.
“Yes, a check from Dev Nouri’s company.”
Payable to Vimal Lahori. Only to him.
“Papa, it’s almost one hundred thousand dollars.”
“You will have to pay tax on it. But you’ll still keep about two-thirds.”
“But...”
“The rough that you cut for him. That parallelogram.” The word came awkwardly from his mouth. “Dev sold it at private auction for three hundred thousand dollars. He was going to give you ten percent.”
A talented diamond cutter in the New York area could expect to make around fifty thousand dollars a year. The thirty that Mr. Nouri had offered for a one-day job was very generous by any standard throughout the world.
“But I said no. He and I had some discussions. He agreed, as you can see, to thirty-three percent. It’s less than an even one hundred, because he insisted on subtracting the money he’d already paid you. I thought we could not object to that.”
Vimal could not help but smile.
“Open an account, deposit it. It’s your money. You can do with it as you like. Now, I will say something else. You will be getting many phone calls. There is not a single diamantaire in the New York area that does not want you to work for them. I have heard from a number of them who would want you to apprentice to them. They have all heard of the parallelogram. Some people are calling it the Vimal Cut.”
The news was interesting — he was not a pariah — but it was also disheartening. The pressure from his father was back. More subtle, but pressure nonetheless.
Papa muttered, “You can get a job at any one of them and they will pay very well. But before you do that, think about this.” He offered the larger envelope.
Vimal removed from it a college catalog, for an accredited, four-year university on Long Island. A yellow Post-it was stuck in the middle. Vimal opened to the page, which described the MFA, master in fine arts, program. There was a track for sculpting, which included a semester abroad in Florence and Rome.
Feeling his heart stutter, he looked up to his father.
The man said, “So. I have been the messenger. The rest is up to you. You may want a different school, of course. Though your mother and I were hoping that if you do, we would prefer you become the Michelangelo of Jackson Heights, rather than of Los Angeles. But, as I say, it’s up to you, son.”
Vimal had no intention of flinging his arms around his father but he couldn’t help himself.
The awkwardness faded quickly, and the embrace lasted considerably longer than he and, he guessed, his father anticipated. Then they stepped away.
“We will leave for Mr. Patel’s sister’s at five.” He turned and started for the stairs. “Oh, and why don’t you invite Adeela?”
Vimal stared. “How did...?”
The look on his father’s face was cryptic but the message might very well have been: Never underestimate the intelligence — in both senses of the word — of one’s parents.
His father left the studio and trooped upstairs. Vimal picked up the lapis lazuli and began turning it over and over and over in his hands once more, waiting for the stone to speak.
Chapter 72
Barry.” Rhyme was in his parlor, on the speakerphone.
“Lincoln. I’m pissed off at you, you know that.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“I was a bottom-shelf kinda guy. You turned me on to real scotch. The pricey stuff. Actually, Joan is pissed at you. Me, not so much.”
A pause.
Then Rhyme said, “We nailed him, Barry. He’s going away forever. El Halcón.”
“Jesus. I thought the case was dicey.”
“It became undicey.”
More silence.
“And we got his partner. The American.”
Rhyme could hear the man breathing.
“You have anything to do with that?”
“Not much. A little.”
Sales laughed. “Bullshit. I’m not believing that.”
“Well, believe what you want.”
“That’s the Lincoln Rhyme I know and love.” Then, diverting from the edge of maudlin, Sales said, “Hey. Talked to my sister? She had an idea. I’m getting a temporary prosthesis. Just a hook, you know. She’s going to bring the kids over and, guess what? We’ll do the Wolverine thing. They’ll love it.”
“The what thing?”
“The movie. You know.”
“There’s a movie about wolverines?”
“You don’t get out much, do you, Lincoln?”
“Well, I’m happy it’s working out.”
“We’ll get together soon. I’ll buy the whisky.”
They disconnected and Rhyme was wheeling back to the evidence table when his mobile hummed with an incoming call.
He hit Answer.
“Lincoln,” came the voice through the phone, obscured by a cacophony of electric guitar licks.
Rhyme snapped in response, “Rodney, for God’s sake. Turn down the music.”
“You do know that’s Jimmy Page.”
A sigh. Which the Computer Crimes expert couldn’t possibly hear, owing to the raw decibels.
“All right. Just saying. Did you know that Led Zeppelin holds the number two record for most albums sold in the U.S.?” Szarnek dimmed the volume. Somewhat. You’d expect him to have shoulder-length curly hair, inked skin and body piercings and wear shirts open to the navel — if that’s what heavy-metal band lead guitarists still looked like. In fact, though, he fit the image of the computer nerd he was.
Amelia Sachs walked into the parlor, bent down and kissed Rhyme.
Szarnek said, “Found some things you’ll want to know about the Kimberlite Affair.”
“That’s what you’re calling it?” Sachs asked. Her voice was amused.
“I kind of like it. Don’t you? Nice ring. K, here’s what I’m talking about. You sent me the number of that lawyer’s burner phone, Carreras-López? I checked the log. A lot of calls were to the folks who got rounded up at the courthouse and helipad and in the hoosegow.”
“The what?”
“A jail. Like in old-time Westerns. The pokey.”
“Rodney. Get to the point.”
“But this’s interesting. Most of the calls and texts were to and from somebody in Paris. In the Sixth Arrondissement. That means ‘district.’”