Diamond Solitaire pd-2 Page 21

  “Which side is his apartment?” Stein asked.

  “The right.”

  “Anyone sighted him yet?”

  “No. But there’s a light.”

  “So we could get lucky.”

  They got out and joined Lieutenant Eastland and two more detectives, who had pulled up behind. A third car of uniformed officers had arrived from another direction. Eastland used his mobile radio to make contact with people already in position closer to the apartment. Then he issued orders. He wasn’t messing now, and Diamond formed a better opinion.

  “We’re getting good cooperation from the people in the adjoining apartments,” he told Diamond presendy.

  “Have they seen the child?”

  “Sorry, but no.”

  “Or heard her voice?”

  “Nobody mentioned it yet.”

  “Maybe the walls are too solid.”

  “Could be.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “We can afford to wait awhile,” said Eastland. “With luck, he may come out for food in the next hour, and then we grab him. You want to go closer?”

  “Why not?”

  Stein was told to accompany him. Like two local residents walking invisible dogs, they strolled along the sidewalk until they were level with number 224, where the lighted second-floor windows gave promise of Fredrik Lundin being at home. Any chance of a sighting was forestalled by Venetian blinds. Even so, it wasn’t wise to linger. A finger’s-width gap between the slats could give a clear view of the street.

  They walked almost to the end of the block before stopping. Stein offered his pack of cigarettes.

  Tempted, Diamond remembered that he was supposed to be a nonsmoker now.

  Stein’s personal radio crackled. Eastland’s voice asked, “See anything?”

  Stein reported back, “Light at the window. Blinds. First floor in darkness, apparently unoccupied. Front door looks easy. Want us to go in?”

  “Not yet.”

  “The problem with this,” Stein confided to Diamond when he’d switched off, “is that if Lundin gets suspicious, we could have a siege on our hands.”

  It was a risk Diamond was willing to take, in spite of the fact that darkness was setting in rapidly.

  “Sieges can be heavy on manpower,” Stein explained. “We don’t let them happen.”

  Three cigarettes later, the radio broke the silence. “Okay, we can’t wait all night for this jerk,” Eastland announced. “You and Diamond can enter by the front and occupy the first-floor apartment Be ready to go upstairs as soon as the suspect is flushed and separated from the kid. Check?”

  “Check, Lieutenant,” said Stein.

  Diamond had an impulse to wrench the radio from him and urge Eastland not to provoke a shootout, but cold reason told him it wouldn’t alter anything. This was Easdand’s operation, and with half his men looking on he wasn’t going to take instructions from a limey detective. It was some reassurance that he’d expressed some intention of separating Lundin from Naomi.

  He and Stein returned up the street towards 224. It was much darker by now and the front wasn’t well lit. They could barely see their way up the stoop to the door. Stein put a hand in his jacket, evidently feeling for the grip of die gun he wouldn’t be without He nodded to Diamond to try the door. It opened easily.

  No sound came from upstairs. They were in a wide hallway with stairs facing them. Halfway along, on the right, was the door of the apartment where they were supposed to take up position. Diamond gripped the handle. Was it too much to hope that this door, also, would be unlocked? It was securely fastened. Probably a well-aimed kick would resolve the matter, but only at the risk of disturbing the entire house.

  Fortunately Sergeant Stein had come prepared, with the strip of plastic known to housebreakers and policemen as the indispensable aid to easing latches aside. He used it confidently, the door opened inwards and they stepped inside. Warm air wafted over them, reeking of cheap perfume and body odor. Just like a knocking-shop, Diamond found himself thinking-a thought that lingered and lodged more firmly when he heard a female voice murmur sleepily but without alarm, “Hey, who is it? What time is it?”

  A sofa creaked and something stirred. The woman who had been lying mere said, “Is there one of you, or two?” She got up and moved unsteadily towards a table lamp. “I’m not taking two-not together. Sorry, guys. One of you has to wait”

  Her hand was on the lamp.

  “Leave it,” said Stein in a stage whisper.

  She started to say, “What the fuck-” before Diamond moved fast towards her and clapped a hand over her mouth. She struggled, and he had to grab her round the back. She was wearing some kind of silk wrap that made her slippery to hold, because she was obviously naked under it His terse, “It’s all right, we’re police officers,” was not a message calculated to reassure a lady of her calling, but it was the first thing to come to mind.

  Stein told her more bluntly, “You make one sound and you’re busted. We’ve come for the guy upstairs. Know him?”

  Diamond relaxed his hold on her.

  She said, too loudly for comfort, “You mean Fredrik?”

  They both made shushing sounds.

  With less voice, she said, “What’s he done now?”

  “Is there a kid with him?” Stein asked.

  “A kid?”

  “A girl.”

  She hesitated. “You mean, like, underage?”

  “A small kid, child, this high, Japanese.”

  She seemed genuinely shocked. “Fredrik? He never puts kids to work. I’m damn sure he never uses baby-pros. I wouldn’t work for a guy who uses kids.”

  Diamond remained quite still and said nothing, but a pulse was hammering in his head and his mouth had suddenly gone dry. Until this moment, child prostitution hadn’t crossed his mind as a possible motive for Naomi’s abduction. Now it had to be faced as a sickening possibility. Clearly Lundin had an income from pimping. Pray God the woman was right and he drew the line at selling children for sex.

  “You heard any sounds from up there?” Stem asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “You can’t hear anyone talk.”

  “But you can hear mem move around.”

  “Well, yeah. I hear that sometimes.”

  “Last evening?”

  “I guess so.”

  “More than one?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Have you talked to Lundin since yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “You think he’s home right now?”

  “How would I know? I was asleep until you arrived. Did someone give you a key?”

  “Why don’t you go back to sleep?” suggested Stein without much generosity in his tone.

  He radioed Eastland and updated him.

  “Okay,” came their instruction, “stay where you are. Send the pavement princess out to us. She can help us.”

  “Did you hear that?” Stein asked the call girl just as she was reclining on the sofa. “Get dressed. Fast.”

  “And, Stein���” the voice on the radio went on.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “When he comes out, leave him to us. You go right in and find the kid.”

  Complaining bitterly, first mat she wanted no part in the police operation and then mat she couldn’t see to get dressed, the woman stumbled about the apartment picking up clothes. Diamond scarcely noticed; he was still reeling from the suggestion he’d just heard. A minute ago, he’d been ready to urge the police to go easy on Lundin so that he’d be fit to give information; now, if this grotesque scenario was true, they’d have to restrain him from laying into the bastard.

  “Jesus, what are you trying to find?” Stein demanded of the woman. He was standing at the open door.

  “My face.”

  “Your what?”

  “The bag with my lipstick and things. It’s here somewhere.”

  “I don
’t believe this! Get your ass out of here.”

  She went

  Eastland would use her as a lure. There was a better chance of Lundin opening his door to the woman who worked for him man to the New York police.

  Above their heads the floorboards creaked. Someone was definitely up there. Stein immediately radioed his lieutenant Up to now, this operation couldn’t be faulted. No doubt there were men at front and back, waiting for the swoop.

  Diamond waited too, striving to apply concentration to the job he and Stein were about to do. He had to believe they would find Naomi unharmed in the apartment upstairs. He kept thinking how small her hand had felt in his. Usually he remembered the eyes of people. He could picture her eyes, but because of the nature of her disability, they weren’t so eloquent. It was still the memory of a touch that moved him.

  He and Stein took up position with the door fractionally ajar for a view of the hall. They knew this would take time to set up, and they waited at least twenty minutes before anything else happened.

  Then there was the sound of the front door opening and footsteps across the tiled hallway. The call girl passed her own door and started climbing the stairs, her leather-soled boots, tokens of her trade, clattering on the wooden treads.

  Stein drew his gun.

  Two shadowy figures crossed the hallway a short way behind the woman. They made no sound.

  She turned on the landing and started to ascend the second flight Her escorts followed.

  Down in the hallway, more cops crept across the narrow bar of vision between the doorjamb and the edge of the door.

  The woman was out of sight now, but the sound of Lundin’s doorbell being pressed was loud and clear and so was her voice saying, “Fredrik, it’s only me, Dixie.”

  Diamond heard footsteps cross the room above them, but he didn’t hear Lundin’s front door being opened. Presumably he was looking out through the peephole.

  The bell sounded a second time.

  By now the two gunmen would be flat to the wall on either side of the door.

  “Fredrik, are you there?”

  Something was being unfastened.

  The woman’s voice said, “Hi, Fredrik, could you possibly step downstairs a minute?”

  “What the fuck do you want?” Lundin’s voice demanded.

  “I have a small problem with a client. Please.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Um��� he won’t leave.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Come on, come on, Diamond mentally urged him. Just step outside, will you.

  “Like I said. He’s being difficult.”

  “He won’t leave the apartment? He had a trick and he won’t leave?”

  “I can’t force him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Some guy. I don’t know him. I can’t work if he won’t leave.”

  “Okay, okay, you go back. I’ll see to it.”

  The door closed.

  Diamond clapped his hand to his head in frustration.

  Dixie the call girl came downstairs markedly faster than she’d gone up. She pushed her way in past Diamond and Stein. “That’s all I’m doing for you guys,” she told them. “You’d better not mess up now, or I’ll be dead meat”

  “Zip it up,” said Stein. There isn’t much credit in helping the police.

  The wait began again, and it seemed longer, even though it was under five minutes.

  Then footsteps crossed the floor upstairs and Lundin could be heard unfastening the latch on his door. This time he definitely stepped out onto the landing, because there was a shout of “Freeze-police!”

  Rashly, Lundin chose not to obey the order. He could be heard making a dash for the stairs. He must have got down two or three when a shot was fired, followed by two more almost immediately. A shriek of pain gave way to the sound of a body hitting the stairs and thumping down several steps.

  “They got him,” said Sergeant Stein. He stared through the gap while shouts were being exchanged by the police in the hall, checking that it was safe to close in on the wounded man. “Let’s go.”

  When they opened the door, a man in a white T-shirt and black jeans was lying near the bottom of the stairs and one of the cops was standing over him. Stein ran straight past, up the two flights, with Diamond close behind.

  The door to Lundin’s apartment stood open. The light from inside was dazzling after the long wait in darkness. The place was lavishly furnished in brown leather furniture, cream-colored units and a Chinese carpet. There were huge indoor plants and pieces of bronze abstract sculpture.

  But mere was no little girl.

  Diamond checked the other rooms-bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. He tugged back the bedding, flung open cupboards, and-with grim apprehension-looked into the bath.

  She was not there.

  He went back into the living room, looking around for some place he may have missed.

  “Mr. Diamond.” Stein had followed him into the bathroom and was still there.

  Diamond found him kneeling by the toilet pedestal.

  “Would this be the kid?”

  A question that struck horror into Diamond.

  “I always look in the John,” the sergeant explained. “They panic and try and flush things away.” He was holding up some small torn pieces of a photo.

  Diamond arranged them on the floor. There were seven altogether, and they made an incomplete, but recognizable picture.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Diamond was being difficult again.

  “Apart from anything else, I just don’t think you’re built for this,” Lieutenant Eastland told him. “Stein can drive you to the hospital in comfort.”

  “I’m going in the ambulance,” Diamond insisted. He had his foot on the step and it was just a matter of climbing inside. He would have appreciated a helping hand, because it was a high step for a heavy man.

  “The paramedic has to travel in the back and so does one of our officers.”

  “Let the officer ride in the front,” said Diamond. “I’ll keep an eye on the prisoner for you. Look, the man isn’t going to run away with two bullets in his leg.”

  “You can question him at the hospital.”

  “I want the answers now, Lieutenant. You’ve wasted too much time already.”

  This touched Eastland on a raw nerve. “We wasted time? You wanted to run this thing like a Thanksgiving party, not me. The subtle approach. You were bothered about the kid, remember?”

  “Correct. And I’m still bothered about her.” With that, Diamond leaned into the ambulance and grabbed the end of the stretcher to hoist himself aboard, with near-disastrous consequences, because the stretcher was mounted on a trolley and started rolling towards him. He had just about enough momentum of his own to climb in and stop the thing from upending himself and the hapless Lundin in the street. Then he sank onto the spare seat beside the paramedic. For a man of his bulk, occupation was more persuasive than argument. “See you later, Lieutenant.”

  Eastland glared and delivered his parting shot. “If you’re typical of England, I’m not surprised it pisses with rain every day. It should crap as well.” He nodded to the driver to close the doors.

  “How long will this take us?” Diamond asked the young man beside him as suavely as if nothing had been said.

  “You mean to the hospital? Six-seven minutes.”

  “Right” He leaned forward to get a better view of the prisoner’s face at the far end of the stretcher.

  “Careful of his leg,” cautioned the paramedic.

  “Careful of my leg,” said Lundin with even more concern. He’d been given a painkilling injection, but a stray hand hovering over the wounded limb must have been painful in prospect

  “Never mind his leg,” said Diamond. “Show me his arm. The right”

  The paramedic pulled aside the sheet from Lundin’s torso. On the right arm was a razor blade tattoo. />
  Lundin spoke up. “You think I’m a needle freak, you’re wrong.”

  “You’re not too far gone to talk, then,” said Diamond. “I want to know about the child. Where is she?”

  “I want a lawyer.”

  That old gambit, thought Diamond. “You know something, Lundin?” he remarked. “Nobody likes weirdos like you who play around with little girls. Accidents keep happening to them in jail.”

  “Little girls? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t give me that I saw you pick her up at JFK. With her mother.”

  “So that’s who you are,” said Lundin as realization dawned.

  Diamond was rather put out that he hadn’t been recognized right off. Once seen, he was seldom forgotten. To be fair, Lundin had a difficult view from his stretcher. Anyway, they seemed to have got over the potential difficulty of requiring a lawyer in attendance. “Right So we know each other. I’m the fellow you knocked over and you’re the child molester.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “You definitely knocked me over with a luggage cart.”

  “The other part-I’m no pervert.”

  “You’re acting for someone else who is-is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I’m telling you nothing.”

  “That’s even more despicable, supplying children to people like that.”

  “You’re talking horseshit.”

  “Don’t tempt me, Lundin.”

  “What? Get away from my leg!”

  “Where is the child? What did you do with her?”

  “I don’t have to talk to you. Who are you?” Lundin asked.

  “A man with a weight problem,” said Diamond, folding his arms ostentatiously and inching closer to the wounded leg. “Sometimes I need to prop myself up.”

  “Bastard! Get away from me, will you?”

  “Better not call me names, then. Where is she?”

  “The kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s okay. It’s nothing like you say.”

  “Her mother isn’t okay. Did you kill the child later?”

  “No, I tell you. No!”

  “She’s alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “So where can I find her?”

  Silence.

  “Where can I find her, Lundin?”