James Patterson - French Kiss

For a few moments I actually believe that the call from Nick Elliott never happened. I am on the floor, and I pick up the phone. I observe it as if it were a foreign object-a paperweight, a tiny piece of meteorite, a dead rat. But the caller ID says N/ELLIOTT/NYPD/17PREC.

An overwhelming energy goes through me. Within seconds I am back in my pants and shirt. I slip on my shoes, without socks. I go bounding out the door, and the madness within me makes me certain that running down the back stairs of the apartment building will be faster than calling for the elevator.

Once outside, I see two officers waiting in a patrol car.

“Detective Moncrief. We’re here to take you to the crime scene. Take the passenger seat.”

I don’t even know where the crime scene is. I grab the shoulders of the other cop and shake him violently.

“Where the hell are you taking me? Where is she?” I shout. “Where are we going?”

“To 235 East 20th Street, sir. Please get into the car.”

Within moments we are suffocated in midtown rush-hour traffic. How can there be so much traffic when Dalia is dead?

At Seventh Avenue and 45th, the streets are thick with sightseeing buses and cabs. Some people are dressed up as Big Bird and Minnie Mouse. The sidewalks teem with tourists and druggies and strollers and women in saris and schoolchildren on trips and…I tell the driver to unlock the doors. I will walk, run, fly.

“This traffic will break below 34th Street, Detective.”

“Unlock the fucking door!” I scream. And so he does, and I am on the sidewalk again. I don’t give a shit that I am pushing people aside.

Within minutes I am at Seventh Avenue and 34th Street. The streets remain packed with people and cabs and cars and buses.

I cross against the light at 34th Street, Herald Square, Macy’s. Where the hell is Santa Claus when you need him?

Sirens. Cars jostle to clear a route for the vehicle screeching out the sirens.

I am rushing east on 32nd Street. I am midway between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, a block packed almost entirely, crazily, with Korean restaurants. Suddenly the sirens are fiercely loud.

“Get in the car, Moncrief. Get back in the car.” It is the same driver of the same patrol car that picked me up earlier. They were right about the traffic, but I am vaguely glad that I propelled myself this far.

In a few minutes we are at 235 East 20th Street. The police academy of the New York City Police Department. The goddamn police academy. Dalia is dead at the police academy. How the hell did she end up here?

“We’re here, Detective,” says one of the officers.

I turn my head toward the building. K. Burke is walking quickly toward the car. Behind her is Nick Elliott. My chest hurts. My throat burns.

Dalia is dead.

“This way, Luc,” K. Burke says. Both Burke and Nick Elliott guide me by the elbows down a corridor-painted cement blocks, an occasional bulletin board, a fire-alarm box, a fire-extinguisher case.

The usual cast of characters is standing nearby: police officers, forensics, the coroner’s people, two firemen, some young people-probably students-carrying laptops and water bottles. A very large sign is taped to a wall at the end of the corridor. It is a photograph of four people: a white male officer, an Asian female officer, a black male officer, a white female officer. Above the big grainy photo are big grainy blue letters:

SERVE WITH DIGNITY. SERVE WITH COURAGE.

THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

Burke and Elliott steer me into a large old-fashioned lecture hall. The stadium seating ends at the bottom with a large table at which a lecturer usually stands. Behind it are a video screen and a green chalkboard. In this teaching pit also stand two officers and two doctors from the chief medical examiner’s office. On the side aisles are other officers, other detectives, and, as we descend closer to the bottom of that aisle, a gurney on which a body rests.

K. Burke speaks to me as we reach the gurney. She is saying something to me, but I can’t hear her. I am not hearing anything. I am just staring straight ahead as a doctor pulls back the gauzy sheet from Dalia’s head and shoulders.

“The wound was in the stomach, sir,” she says.

She knows I need no further details at the moment.

Need I say that Dalia looks exquisite? Perfect hair. Perfect eyelashes. A touch of perfect makeup. Perfect. Just perfect. Just fucking unbelievably perfect.

How can she be so beautiful and yet dead?

In my mind I am still screaming “No!” but I say nothing.

I look away from her, and I see the others in the room backing away, looking away, trying to give me privacy in a very public situation.

I must touch Dalia. I should do it gently, of course. I take Dalia’s face in both my hands. Her cheeks feel cold, hard. I lean in and brush my lips against her forehead. I pull back a tiny bit to look at her. Then I lean in again to kiss her on the lips.

The room is silent. Deadly silent. I have heard silence before. But the world has never been this quiet.

I will stand here for the rest of my life just looking at her. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll never move from this spot. I stroke her hair. I touch her shoulders. I stand erect, then turn around.

Nick Elliott is looking at the ground. K. Burke’s chin is quivering. Her eyes are wet. I speak, perhaps to Nick or K. Burke or everyone in the room or perhaps I am simply talking to myself.

“Dalia is dead.”

“Do you want to ride in the ambulance with her?” Elliott asks. And before I can answer he adds, “I’ll go with you if you want. We’ve got to get Dalia to the research area.”

The research area . That is the NYPD euphemism for “the morgue.” It is what they say to parents whose child has been run over by a drunk driver.

“No,” I say. “There’s nothing to be done.”

K. Burke looks at me and says what everybody says in a situation like this: “I don’t know what to say.”

And me? I don’t know what to say, either-or what to think or feel or do. So I say what comes to mind: “Keep me posted.”

I walk quickly through the lineup of colleagues and strangers lining the cement-block hallway. I jump over the giant stone barricades that encircle the police academy in case of attack. I am now running up Third Avenue.

“May I help you, monsieur?” That is the voice I hear. Where have I run? I don’t recall a destination. I barely remember running. Did I leave Dalia’s dead body behind? I look at the woman who just spoke to me. She used the word monsieur. Am I in Paris?

She is joined by a well-dressed man, an older man, a gentleman.

“Can I be of some help, Monsieur Moncrief?”

“Où suis-je?” I ask. Where am I?

“Hermès, Monsieur Moncrief. Bonsoir. Je peux vous aider?”

The Hermès store on Madison Avenue. It is…was…Dalia’s favorite place in the entire world to shop.

“Non. Merci, Monsieur. Je regarde.” Just looking.

On the glass shelves is a collection of handbags, purses, and pocketbooks in red and yellow and green. Like Easter and Christmas. I feel calm amid the beauty. It is a museum, a palace, a château. The silk scarves hanging from golden hooks. The glass cases of watches and cufflinks. The shelves of briefcases and leather shopping bags. And then the calm inside me dissipates. I say, “Bonsoir et merci” to the sales associate.

I have neither my police phone nor my personal cell. I do not have my watch. I do not know the time. I know I am not crazy. I’m simply crazed.

It’s early evening. I walk to Fifth Avenue. The sidewalks are crowded, and the shops are open. I walk down to the Pierre. I was recently inside the Pierre. Was I? I think I was. I continue walking south, toward the Plaza. No water in the fountain? A water shortage, perhaps? I turn east, back toward Madison Avenue, then start north again.