Джеффри Дивер - The Cutting Edge

“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 lights 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.