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.