my recently shot-up acquaintance, now cooling on the floor of Grand Central, had them all beat. Did you ever enter one of those contests where you have to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar, and there are so many of them, you know you won’t even come close? That’s how many diamonds were in the Russian’s medical bag.
Correction—
When I was growing up, my mom used to tell my sister and me about a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But she never mentioned a Russian Neanderthal with a bag of diamonds at the end of a bloody trail in a train station. Mom also said something about never taking what doesn’t belong to you. But to whom did the diamonds actually belong? The dead guy with the gun? I definitely suspected he had taken them from somebody else. My mom meant well, but at a time like this, I had to seriously consider my dad’s worldview. Finders keepers.
I could almost hear my dad listing my options.
I made a decision, a temporary one, anyway. The diamonds were up for grabs and I was the one who would grab them.
I closed the black bag and snapped the brass latch. My mind started racing. These diamonds could completely change my life.
Little did I know how soon, and how much.
The voice behind me was deep, resonant, and authoritative. “Police. Turn around real slow. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
I turned. The voice belonged to a young, very large African-American cop. And just in case his size didn’t intimidate me, he was pointing his service revolver at my chest.
Chapter 7
THERE WAS A dead guy at my feet, a fortune in diamonds in my hands, and an NYPD uniform pointing his gun at me. Now what happens?
“Officer Kendall,” I said, reading his name tag. “I’m really glad you showed up. Thank God. Can you give me a hand here?”
“Who are you? Who is he?” the cop asked.
“I’m Dr. Jason Wood,” I said, dredging up a name. “And I have no idea who he is, but I can tell you he’s dead.”
I knelt down beside the body and tried to appear oblivious of the policeman’s gun. “There was nothing I could do. He had expired by the time I got here.”
Kendall was young, a beat cop, and this had to be the most action he’d seen since the Academy. One minute he was probably shooing unlicensed T-shirt vendors off Madison Avenue, and the next he’s involved in a bomb attack in the heart of Manhattan.
“Please do me a favor,” I said, barely looking up at him. “Would you point that gun somewhere else?”
“Sorry, Doc,” he said, holstering the weapon.
I leaned over the dead body like I knew what I was doing. “He must have caught some shrapnel when the bombs went off,” I said, stalling. “You know who’s behind it?”
“I don’t know shit,” the cop said. “I was on Forty-sixth Street. The call went out that bombs had gone off at Grand Central. I just got here.”
“Just a minute. Hold on. I’ve got an incoming.” I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and pressed it to my ear. Then I improvised. “Hello, this is Dr. Wood,” I said. “I know. I was actually in Grand Central when the bombs went off. I’m still there. I’ll get to the ER as soon as I possibly can.”
I stood up. “Look, Officer,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do for this man. But there are people who need my help. I’ve got to get back down to St. Vincent’s. Are the subways running?”
“Shut down,” he said.
“All right. I’ll walk if I have to.”
Kendall’s radio came to life then.
That’s when I found out that an officer in trouble trumps a dead civilian. Kendall didn’t hesitate. “I gotta go,” he said. “You wait here for the coroner.”
He raced off toward the Forty-second Street Passageway. As soon as he was out of sight, I headed in the other direction. As fast as I could.
I cut through the frenzied mass of people in Grand Central. It took maybe five or six minutes to get out to Lexington Avenue, where the insanity was even worse.
With the trains shut down, the street was teeming with commuters who wanted to get as far from midtown Manhattan as possible. And who were fighting over the few yellow cabs that had stopped.
Three men in suits had cornered one driver and were attempting to negotiate their way out of Dodge.
“Scarsdale,” one said. “I’ll give you three hundred bucks.”
“Ridgewood, New Jersey,” another guy said, and he actually held out a handful of hundreds. “A thousand dollars.”
I couldn’t believe it. I could fly to Japan for less than that. Jersey won the bidding war. He was about to get in the cab when I grabbed his arm.
“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.
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.
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.
