The Cutting Edge

by Jeffery Deaver

  He could handle Mom.

  “Hey,” he whispered to her. “What do you think about—”

  Then, in an instant, the man behind them, the innocent man, charged forward. He’d pulled the stocking cap into a ski mask. Shit, shit, shit. He held a gun in cloth-gloved hands and was pointing it at Emma’s head. “Scream, and you die.”

  Which led, of course, to a scream of sorts.

  From Mikey, not his fiancée.

  Gasping, he said, “Here, here! Take my wallet. You can have it.”

  “Shhh. Shhh. We go inside.” The voice was accented. He couldn’t tell what country or neighborhood he might be from. Like he was covering up his real accent, trying to sound American.

  “Honey,” Emma whispered.

  “No, no, little chicken!” the man barked and grabbed her arm, which had been lingering behind her back. Her phone fell to the concrete. The gun still aimed their way, he crouched and picked it up. The dialing app was on the screen and she’d punched in 9 and 1 and 1 but had not hit Send. He powered it down.

  He leaned close and Mikey smelled garlic and onion and meat on his breath and aftershave on his skin. “You are being smarter, will you?”

  Heart racing, as his jaw quivered, Mikey said, “Yes. We will. Now listen, please. I’ll go inside. Let her go.”

  The man laughed and he seemed genuinely amused. “Now.”

  With shaking hands, Mikey unlocked the front door and they walked inside and up the stairs to their apartment on the second floor.

  Chapter 14

  Look, please, man. You don’t want to do this.”

  “Hm.” The intruder seemed to be sniffing the air as he looked around their small apartment. He turned his eyes to Emma, who sobbed and held the fingers of one hand over her mouth. At first Mikey thought the intruder was looking at his fiancée’s chest or legs but, no, he was concentrating on her hands. No, just one hand. Her left.

  What could he possibly want? They had nothing. Less than nothing; they were in debt already from the wedding plans.

  He said, “My uncle’s a cop in Syosset. He’s a ball breaker. Just take what you want and walk out the door. I won’t say anything to him.”

  “A cop? Your uncle is cop.”

  Mikey wished he hadn’t said that. He hoped he wouldn’t pee his pants. He stared at the gun.

  “Honey, honey,” Emma gasped.

  “It’s okay, sweet.” Then to the intruder: “Come on, man. What do you want? I don’t have money here. We can get you some. A couple thousand.”

  Though he knew that wasn’t what this guy wanted. He sure wasn’t going to get a ton of loot from a couple like them, in Gravesend, Brooklyn. What he wanted was to kill Mikey and rape Emma.

  But Mikey would make sure that the second part of that wasn’t going to happen, whatever it took. The man had a gun and he looked like he’d have no trouble in the world using it. But he wasn’t huge. Oh, Mikey was probably going to die but he had rage and that fucking Irish madness on his side. The rage that, on the rare times it kicked in, kicked in huge. He’d lunge and grapple and do enough damage so that Emma could get out the window or the front door. And when the bullet got fired into Mikey’s brain or gut or heart, the sound of the shot would scare the man off.

  Or, who knew? Maybe he’d take the guy by surprise and get the gun away from him and shoot him in the balls and the elbow and knee and then—after a time—call the police. Keep the agony going, for ten, fifteen minutes.

  Mikey shivered with fury. He hadn’t been in a fight for eight years, when he’d beat the crap out of the fucking asshole who’d made fun of Mikey’s kid sister, who had Down syndrome. The guy had outweighed him by thirty pounds but had gone down like a cardboard box. Broken jaw and dislocated shoulder.

  Now, move now…Surprise the son of a bitch, while he’s not looking at you!

  The man cut his eyes to the left, in an instant, and slammed the gun into Mikey’s cheek. A searing pain, a flash of yellow. He staggered back, tripping over the ottoman that had been his parents’ and that he and his brother had played aircraft carrier on two decades ago.

  Emma cried out and ran to him, hugging hard.

  “Prick,” she shouted.

  “Listen here, little hen,” he muttered at Mikey. “I know what people going to do before they are trying it. I am psychic, don’t you know? You had hero vibrations.”

  The intruder rose and pulled a utility knife from his pocket. Emma gasped. The man thumbed the blade out and yanked a lamp cord from the socket and cut it. He shoved Emma to the floor and rolled Mikey onto his belly and bound his hands behind him. He tied Emma’s hands too, though in front of her.

  He muscled them each into a sitting position. He himself sat on the ottoman.

  “Please, please!” Emma cried. “Take our money and leave!”

  His cold blue eyes swept over Mikey and his fiancée. “You.” He pointed the knife at Emma. “Give me hands. Now!”

  She looked toward Mikey, who shook his head no. But she offered her hands anyway. Her right was on top

  “Why would I want that hand? You stupid hen.”

  She began to sob harder.

  “Left. I want left hand.”

  He took her fingers, staring at her ring.

  That’s what he’d been looking at earlier.

  Mikey understood. “You’re that killer. You’re that one on the news! The Promisor. You killed that couple, the engaged couple in Midtown! Please, mister. Come on. We didn’t do anything to you.”

  “The Promisor,” the man whispered. He seemed to relish the word.

  Emma’s head dropped and tears poured, moisture oozed from her nose and mouth.

  “You want it, take it,” Emma muttered. “It’s worth a lot.”

  “Was worth lot,” he said. He tapped the stone with the back of the knife. His face revealed contempt. “Not worth lot now.”

  Mikey now understood that he’d been staking out the wedding planner storefront, waiting for an engaged couple. Like he’d followed that couple into the jewelry store in Midtown yesterday. He’d followed Emma back here. He wanted to kill engaged couples. That’s what the news said.

  Mikey began, “Please…”

  “Shhh. Tired of you saying that.” He fell silent for a moment. “Do you know what this was?” he asked, his voice low, manic. Holding up her hands and tapping the ring once more. Harder.

  Wincing from the impact, Emma gasped, “What…what do you mean?”

  This wasn’t the answer he wanted.

  He shouted this time. “You are having any idea?”

  Emma looked down.

  “Billion years…You are listening?”

  Mikey whispered quickly, “We’re listening. Yes.”

  Emma nodded. Tears still streamed. The assailant continued to hold her hands.

  “Billion years ago there is piece of carbon. Like charcoal. Just like charcoal. Nothing. It was nothing. Just pieces of blackness hundred miles underground. Buried there. Ah—” His eyes shone. “But then something miracle happened. Like baby happens. Two thousand degrees centigrade. Huge, huge pressure, hundreds thousands pounds in one inch. And over those billions years, what happens? Most perfect thing in world is created. Diamond. Heart of earth. Diamonds are heart of earth. You know Jesus?”

  Emma nodded. “We’re Catholic.”

  “Jesus is redeemer,” he said.

  “Yes,” Mikey said.

  “Diamonds redeem sins of earth.” He eased back, pointing the triangular blade of the knife from one of his captives to the other slowly.

  A fucking psycho.

  Though he was sitting, with hands tied behind him, Mikey was judging angles. More carefully this time.

  The assailant said, “Now, is raped, is destroyed. Heart of earth is piece of crap on your finger.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t…we didn’t mean anything.”

  He yanked her hand into a shaft of sunlight. “Do you see?”

  There was a burst of colored li
ghts refracted from the stone, like you’d see from a prism.

  He whispered, “‘Fire’ it’s called. That fire is God’s anger you have taken miracle and cut it up into little teeth for your finger.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Emma undoubtedly was trying to think of something to say to convince him that they were innocent of this crime.

  It would do no good. This man was a plane crash, a propane tank explosion, a heart attack. There’d be no reasoning with him.

  Then he grew calm and leaned back, looking, it seemed, self-satisfied. “I am just doing mission. Justice to God, justice to earth. Yesterday I saved big diamonds before they was cut. And I kill this terrible man so he could not defile stones anymore. In India—where diamonds first discovered—it was sin to cut them. He should know that. He betrayed his people. He paid for that.”

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “Oh, poor chickee…” The sarcastic words drooled from his lips. The madman eyed the ring as he caressed her finger. “Tell you story, you lovebirds. I tell you story. After Depression and war, nobody was buying engagement rings. No money, no time for engagements! Just get married, bang the babies out, move to suburbs. Happy, happy. Ach, but De Beers, the diamond company, they had most famous advertising of all time. ‘A Diamond Is Forever.’ And business came back. Everybody bought diamonds! You had to have diamond or your husband was asshole and you got laughed at. And all those stones, beautiful stones, got cut and cut and cut.” His eyes grew angry and a demonic grin spread across his face. “Am thinking something else is forever too.”

  He pulled her ring finger straight and pressed the blade against the base.

  Oh, Mary, Mother of Jesus…He’s going to cut her finger off before he kills us!

  He gripped the knife with his right hand and tightened his hold on Emma’s digit with his left. As he eased forward, though, Emma let out a fierce scream and twisted away. He lost his grip and she fell back. He lunged with the knife and missed her.

  It was then that Mikey, braced on the floor, kicked the man with both feet, as hard as he could, using every ounce of energy in his strong legs. The man tumbled off the ottoman and into a bookcase. He hit his head and lay stunned, squinting in pain.

  Emma, with her hands in front of her, easily rose to her feet.

  “Run! Now, go!” And Mikey struggled to stand.

  He meant her alone. His improvised plan was to pile onto the madman and use his teeth to rip flesh or break fingers. He’d die but at least his love would escape.

  Emma didn’t hesitate. But she didn’t make for the door. She grabbed Mikey by the shoulder and yanked her fiancé to his feet.

  “No!”

  “Yes!” she shouted.

  Mikey noted that the assailant was wiping tears of pain from his eyes and gripping his battered head. They’d have only a few seconds to escape before the man could focus. Together they sprinted toward the door, Emma in the lead, and she pulled it open fast. Then they pushed into the hall, just as the stunningly loud gunshot sounded behind them and a bullet, missing Mikey’s head by less than a foot, cracked into the wall across the hall.

  They fled toward the stairs at the end of the hallway, which would lead them straight down to the entryway and the street.

  Of course, if the man followed them into the hall, he’d have a perfect shot into their backs as they descended the stairs. But there was nothing else to do. At least here, at this moment, Mikey thought hysterically, they were less dead than in their apartment.

  He positioned himself directly behind Emma as they took the steps two at a time downward to the lobby.

  She got to the ground first and leapt to the front door, pulling it open.

  Which was when he fell.

  On the third step from the bottom, he lost his balance and, not having use of his hands, he went down hard, first on his side, then onto his belly, the wood taking skin from throbbing cheek and chin.

  Emma cried, “No, honey!”

  “Keep going!” he called.

  But once again she ignored him. She stepped forward and crouched to help Mikey up.

  Above them, a door slammed and the floor creaked—he knew the exact spot, just outside their apartment, where the loose board made that noise. The sound meant the killer would be approaching the top of the stairs now.

  He’d be aiming.

  With a fierce lunge, Mikey rose to his full height. He stepped behind her and shouted, “Run!”

  He prayed that his body would shield the bullets, stopping them, and give his love—his beautiful girl—a chance to make it, unhurt, into the street.

  Chapter 15

  The murder of Saul Weintraub had taken place within a four-by-four-foot square of the entrance alcove in his house.

  Unsub 47 had come in through an unlocked basement window, walked straight up the stairs, shot Weintraub three times, once to the face and a double-tap to the chest, and then fled through the front door. She knew it had happened this way since the killer had left moist footprints—from the drizzle outside—in a direct path from entry to exit.

  Although Weintraub hadn’t been tortured with the knife, he had been beaten—pistol-whipped, it seemed, since there were no blunt objects in his house that might have caused the wounds; nothing Sachs found held blood or tissue. She guessed the blows were to force him to reveal what Weintraub had told the police or who VL was. There was another possibility, too: that the killer had demanded something. Weintraub’s coat lay beside him and one of the pockets was turned out, as if the killer had asked that he produce something.

  Or was it simply because Weintraub, in anticipation of walking out to the police car, had pulled his gloves from the pocket? They lay nearby too.

  Dressed in her white overalls, booties, hood and cornflower-blue gloves, she walked the grid in the house while two crime scene evidence techs, whom she knew from the main headquarters, ran the secondary scenes—the backyard and alley and the sidewalk on which he’d, possibly, entered and later fled. Sachs was optimistic about finding evidence in the back—near the window where he’d entered—but the odds were slim that she would find any relevant clues on the sidewalk in front of the house; heavy foot traffic would have deposited thousands of bits of trace, dirt, mud, trash, animal crap, pee.

  She sent several of the uniforms whom Ben Kohl had assigned to her to canvass for wits and search for evidence for three or four blocks in the direction the unsub had fled. She knew the escape route since a woman, a dog walker, had seen him jogging from Weintraub’s house, just after the shots. He’d pulled off a cap or mask and the woman had seen that he was white with short light-colored hair.

  Sachs assembled what she’d found. No single bit of evidence seemed particularly helpful. The shoe prints seemed the same, the fibers too—from the gloves and the ski mask.

  Three spent brass shells. Fiocchi 9mm—probably what had been fired in Midtown at the witness, though there he’d collected the spent round. The fact he’d left them here meant he was in a hurry, probably because of the noise of the shots. The brass also had been ejected some distance, the ones she found, under furniture.

  A Motorola radio crackled from the belt of an officer nearby. She couldn’t hear the transmission but he sent a reply from his shoulder mike and walked up to Sachs. “Detective? One of the uniforms canvassing? Found something in a storm drain. Two blocks that way.” He pointed in the direction that the perp had fled. “She didn’t want to touch it. Clothing or something.”

  Sachs picked up some collection gear and headed along the sidewalk, nodding to the curious and concerned bystanders and deflecting questions. One woman asked, “Was it a hate crime?”

  “We’re investigating,” Sachs told her and walked on. After two blocks she slowed, seeing no other cops. Had she misheard? But then she looked down a side street and saw a patrol officer, a Latina in her late twenties, waving. Sachs turned and joined the woman.

  “Officer.”

  “Detective.” The solidly built woman had a bea
utiful face, round. And she had applied makeup with care that morning. Sachs was pleased to see that Officer M. López was able to balance her personal inclinations with her profession. This small thing told Sachs she’d have a long career in blue. “I was going south, like you sent us, but thought I’d try this way. It’s a shortcut to the subway, up a block. Nobody heard any tires squealing away after the shots so I thought he might’ve done an MTA.”

  Jumping on a Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway car could put distance between a criminal and a crime scene faster than a Ferrari.

  López continued, “And since he got spotted by that wit—the woman with the dog—I was thinking, it’d been me, I would’ve lost the jacket. I’ve been checking trash cans and”—she pointed to the grate at her feet—“storm drains. Looks like some clothing in there. Didn’t touch it.”

  “Good.” Sachs lay a number next to the grating and photographed it herself with her phone. “Did you—”

  “I canvassed apartments. Nobody saw him.”

  Sachs smiled in reply. She bent down and flashed her Maglite into the opening. It was a wad of dark cloth and it didn’t appear wet, which meant it hadn’t been there for very long. Drizzle had been the order of the day.

  Pulling on gloves, she fished out the garment. It was a wool jacket and fairly new. Unsub 47 had worn a similar one, according to the anonymous 911 report and the video from the store on 47th Street, near Patel’s building.

  López added, “Don’t know for certain it’s his. Maybe you can get gunshot residue off the sleeve to make sure.”

  Which was on the program. Sachs bagged the jacket and fished in the drain but could find nothing else.

  “Which subway?”

  López told her and she jotted the numbers of the train lines.

  “Thanks, Officer. Good work.”

  “I’ll keep on with the canvass.”

  “Thanks. I’m sending an ECT crew out. You can help ’em. And I’ll send a note to your file.”

  The woman tried not to beam. “’Preciate it.”