James Patterson - French Kiss

Bottega Veneta. I walk inside. No warm greeting here. A bigger store than Hermès. Instead of a symphony of leather in color, this is a muted place in grays and blacks and many degrees of brown. Calming, calming, calming, until it is calming no longer.

I leave. My next stop is Sherry-Lehmann, the museum of wine. I walk to the rear of the store, where they keep their finest bottles-the Romanée-Conti, Pétrus, Le Pin, Ramonet Montrachet, the thousand-dollar Moët. The bottles should all be displayed under glass, like the diamonds at Tiffany.

I am out on the sidewalk again. I am afraid that if I don’t keep moving, I will explode or collapse. It is that extraordinary feeling that nothing good will ever happen again.

A no-brainer: I cannot return to Dalia’s apartment at 15 Central Park West. Instead I will go to the loft where I once lived. The place is in the stupidly chic Meatpacking District. I bought the loft before I renewed my life with Dalia. I sometimes lend the place to friends from Europe who are visiting New York. I’m pretty sure it is empty right now.

Will I pick up the pieces? There is no way that will ever happen.

Move on, they will say. Mourn, then move on. I will not do that, because I can’t.

Get over it? Never. Someone else? Never.

Nothing will ever be the same.

As I give the address to the cabdriver, I find my chest heaving and hurting. I insist-I don’t know why-on holding in the tears. In those few minutes, with my chest shaking and my head aching, I realize what Elliott and Burke and probably others have come to realize: first, my partner, Maria Martinez; then my lover, Dalia Boaz.

Oh, my God. This isn’t about prostitutes. This isn’t about drugs. This is about me.

Somebody wants to hurt me. And that somebody has succeeded.

A loft. A big space; bare, barren. Not a handsome space. It is way too basic to be anything but big.

I lived here before Dalia came back into my life. Even when I lived here, I was too compulsive to have allowed it to become a cheesy bachelor pad-no piles of dirty clothing; no accumulation of Chinese-food containers. In fact, no personal touches of any kind. But of course I was spending too many of my waking hours with the NYPD to think about furniture and paint and bathroom fixtures.

I turn the key and walk inside. I am almost startled by the sparseness of it-a gray sofa, a black leather club chair, a glass dining table where no one has ever eaten a meal. Some old files are stacked against a wall. Empty shelves near the sofa. Empty shelves in the kitchen. I have lived most of my New York life with Dalia, at Dalia’s home. That was my real home. Where am I now?

I stretch out on the sofa. Fifteen seconds later, I am back on my feet. The room is stuffy, dry, hot. I walk to the thermostat that will turn on the air-conditioning, but I stare at the controls as if I don’t quite know how to adjust the temperature. I remember that there is a smooth single-malt Scotch in a cabinet near the entryway, but why bother? I need to use the bathroom, but I just don’t have energy enough to walk to the far side of the loft.

Then the buzzer downstairs rings.

At least I think it’s the buzzer downstairs. It’s been so long since I heard it. I walk to the intercom. The buzz comes again, then once more. Then I remember what I’m expected to say. A phrase that is ridiculously simple.

“Who is it?”

For a split second I stupidly imagine that it will be Dalia. “It was a terrible joke,” she will say with a laugh. “Inspector Elliott helped me fool you.”

Now a hollow voice comes from the intercom.

“It’s K. Burke.”

I buzz her inside. Moments later I open the door and let her into the loft.

“How did you know where to find me?” I ask.

“I called your cell twenty times. You never picked up. Then I called Dalia’s place twenty times. You weren’t there, or you weren’t picking up. So I found this place listed as the home address in your HR file. If I didn’t find you here, I was going to forget it. But I got lucky.”

“No, K. Burke. I got lucky. ”

I have no idea why I said something so sweet. But I think I mean it. Again, an idea that comes and goes in a split second: whoever is trying to destroy me-will he go after K. Burke next?

She gives me a smile. Then she says, “I’m about to say the thing that always annoys me when other people say it.”

“And that is…”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

I take a deep breath.

“You mean like brewing a pot of coffee or bringing me a bag of doughnuts or cleaning my bathroom or finding the son of a bitch who-”

“Okay, I got it,” she says. “I understand. But actually, Nick Elliott and I did do something for you.”

My forehead wrinkles, and I say, “What?”

“We tracked down Dalia’s father. He’s in Norway shooting a film.”

“I was going to call him soon,” I say. “But I was building up courage. Thank you.” And just thinking about father and daughter begins to break my already severed heart.

“How did he accept the news?” As if I needed to ask.

“It was awful. He wailed. He screamed. He put his assistant on, and he eventually…well, he sort of composed himself and got back on the line.”

My eyes begin filling with tears. My chin quivers. I rub my eyes. I am not trying to hide my emotions. I am merely trying to get through them.

“He sends you his love,” K. Burke says. I nod.

“He is as fine a man as Dalia was a woman,” I say.

“He asked me to tell you two things.”

I can’t imagine what Monsieur Boaz wanted to tell me.

“He said, ‘Tell Luc that I will come to America tomorrow, but he should bury Dalia as soon as possible. That is the Jewish way.’”

“I understand,” I say. Then I ask, “And the other?”

“He said, ‘Tell Luc thank you…for taking such good care of my girl.’”

This comment should make me weep, but instead I explode with anger. Not at Menashe Boaz, but at myself.

“That’s not true!” I yell. “I did not take good care of her.”

“Of course it’s true,” K. Burke says firmly. “You loved her totally. Everybody knows that.”

“I…let…her…die.”

“That’s just stupid, Moncrief. And it smells a little of…” K. Burke abruptly stops talking.

“What? Finish your thought. It smells of what?” I say.

“It smells of…well…self-pity. Dalia was murdered. You could not have prevented it.”

I walk to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the loft. I look down at Gansevoort Street. It’s this year’s chic hot-cool place to be-the expensive restaurants and expensive boutiques, the High Line, the cobblestone streets. It is packed with people. I am disgusted with them because I am disgusted with me. Because Dalia and I will never again be among those people.

I turn and face Detective Burke, and suddenly I am more peaceful. I am truly grateful that she is here. She has stopped by to offer the “personal touch” and I was hesitant at first. Afraid I would feel nervous or embarrassed. But K. Burke has done a good thing.

I walk back toward her and speak slowly, carefully.

“There is one thing we need to discuss very soon. You must realize that these two murders had nothing to do with prostitutes or Brazilian drug dealers or…well, all the things we have been guessing at.”

“I realize that,” she says. I continue speaking.

“The first murder, at a rich man’s home, was to confuse us. The next murder, at a school where people learn to be police professionals-that was to torment us.”

K. Burke nods in simple agreement.

“These murders have to do with me, ” I say.