James Patterson: French Kiss

The first book in the BookShots: Detective Luc Moncrief series, 2016

The weatherman nailed it. “Sticky, hot, and miserable. Highs in the nineties. Stay inside if you can.”

I can’t. I have to get someplace. Fast.

Jesus Christ, it’s hot. Especially if you’re running as fast as you can through Central Park and you’re wearing a dark gray Armani silk suit, a light gray Canali silk shirt, and black Ferragamo shoes.

As you might have guessed, I am late-very, very late. Très en retard, as we say in France.

I pick up speed until my legs hurt. I can feel little blisters forming on my toes and heels.

Why did I ever come to New York?

Why, oh why, did I leave Paris?

If I were running like this in Paris, I would be stopping all traffic. I would be the center of attention. Men and women would be shouting for the police.

“A young businessman has gone berserk! He is shoving baby carriages out of his path. He is frightening the old ladies walking their dogs.”

But this is not Paris. This is New York.

So forget it. Even the craziest event in New York goes unnoticed. The dog walkers keep on walking their dogs. The teenage lovers kiss. A toddler points to me. His mother glances up. Then she shrugs.

Will even one New Yorker dial 911? Or 311?

Forget about that also. You see, I am part of the police. A French detective now working with the Seventeenth Precinct on my specialty-drug smuggling, drug sales, and drug-related homicides.

My talent for being late has, in a mere two months, become almost legendary with my colleagues in the precinct house. But…oh, merde …showing up late for today’s meticulously planned stakeout on Madison Avenue and 71st Street will do nothing to help my reputation, a reputation as an uncooperative rich French kid, a rebel with too many causes.

Merde …today of all days I should have known better than to wake my gorgeous girlfriend to say good-bye.

“I cannot be late for this one, Dalia.”

“Just one more good-bye squeeze. What if you’re shot and I never see you again?”

The good-bye “squeeze” turned out to be significantly longer than I had planned.

Eh. It doesn’t matter. I’m where I’m supposed to be now. A mere forty-five minutes late.

My partner, Detective Maria Martinez, is seated on the driver’s side of an unmarked police car at 71st Street and Madison Avenue.

While keeping her eyes on the surrounding area, Maria unlocks the passenger door. I slide in, drowning in perspiration. She glances at me for a second, then speaks.

“Man. What’s the deal? Did you put your suit on first and then take your shower?”

“Funny,” I say. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You should have little business cards with that phrase on it-‘Sorry I’m late.’”

I’m certain that Maria Martinez doesn’t care whether I’m late. Unlike a lot of my detective colleagues, she doesn’t mind that I’m not big on “protocol.” I’m late a lot. I do a lot of careless things. I bring ammo for a Glock 22 when I’m packing a Glock 27. I like a glass or two of white wine with lunch…it’s a long list. But Maria overlooks most of it.

My other idiosyncrasies she has come to accept, more or less. I must have a proper déjeuner. That’s lunch. No mere sandwich will do. What’s more, a glass or two of good wine never did anything but enhance the flavor of a lunch.

You see, Maria “gets” me. Even better, she knows what I know: together we’re a cool combination of her procedure-driven methods and my purely instinct-driven methods.

“So where are we with this bust?” I say.

“We’re still sitting on our butts. That’s where we are,” she says. Then she gives details.

“They got two pairs of cops on the other side of the street, and two other detectives-Imani Williams and Henry Whatever-the-Hell-His-Long-Polish-Name-Is-at the end of the block. That team’ll go into the garage.

“Then there’s another team behind the garage. They’ll hold back and then go into the garage.

“Then they got three guys on the roof of the target building.”

The target building is a large former town house that’s now home to a store called Taylor Antiquities. It’s a place filled with the fancy antique pieces lusted after by trust-fund babies and hedge-fund hotshots. Maria and I have already cased Taylor Antiquities a few times. It’s a store where you can lay down your Amex Centurion card and walk away with a white jade vase from the Yuan dynasty or purchase the four-poster bed where John and Abigail Adams reportedly conceived little John Quincy.

“And what about us?”

“Our assignment spot is inside the store,” she says.

“No. I want to be where the action is,” I say.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Maria says. “Do what they tell you. We’re inside the store. Over and out. Meanwhile, how about watching the street with me?”

Maria Martinez is total cop. At the moment she is heart-and-soul into the surveillance. Her eyes dart from the east side of the street to the west. Every few seconds, she glances into the rearview mirror. Follows it with a quick look into the side-view mirror. Searches straight ahead. Then she does it all over again.

Me? Well, I’m looking around, but I’m also wondering if I can take a minute off to grab a cardboard cup of lousy American coffee.

Don’t get me wrong. And don’t be put off by what I said about my impatience with “procedure.” No. I am very cool with being a detective. In fact, I’ve wanted to be a detective since I was four years old. I’m also very good at my job. And I’ve got the résumé to prove it.

Last year in Pigalle, one of the roughest parts of Paris, I solved a drug-related gang homicide and made three on-the-scene arrests. Just me and a twenty-five-year-old traffic cop.

I was happy. I was successful. For a few days I was even famous.

The next morning the name Luc Moncrief was all over the newspapers and the Internet. A rough translation of the headline on the front page of Le Monde:

Oldest pigalle drug gang smashed by youngest Paris detective-Luc Moncrief

Underneath was this subhead:

Parisian Heartthrob Hauls in Pigalle Drug Lords

The paparazzi had always been somewhat interested in whom I was dating; after that, they were obsessed. Club owners comped my table with bottles of Perrier-Jouët Champagne. Even my father, the chairman of a giant pharmaceuticals company, gave me one of his rare compliments.

“Very nice job…for a playboy. Now I hope you’ve got this ‘detective thing’ out of your system.”

I told him thank you, but I did not tell him that “this detective thing” was not out of my system. Or that I enjoyed the very generous monthly allowance that he gave me too much.

So when my capitaine supérieur announced that the NYPD wanted to trade one of their art-forgery detectives for one of our Paris drug enforcement detectives for a few months, I jumped at the offer. From my point of view, it was a chance to reconnect with my former lover, Dalia Boaz. From my Parisian lieutenant point of view, it was an opportunity to add some needed discipline and learning to my instinctive approach to detective work.

So here I am. On Madison Avenue, my eyes are burning with sweat. I can actually feel the perspiration squishing around in my shoes.