Джеймс Паттерсон - The 19th Christmas

Hot damn.

Finally. We had a clue.

Chapter 19

Conklin and I were heading down the fire stairs to the Anthony’s lobby when a curvy young woman stepped out of the shadows on the fourth-floor landing.

She said, “Hey. Inspectors. I got something to tell you about Savage. I mean Chris.”

She looked to be around twenty years old and was wearing frayed black tights and a tight red top with sequins at the neckline. Her haircut was choppy and there were studs in her face, hoops in her ears. The tattoo on one arm read BITE ME. One of her hands was inked with a baby’s face under a banner reading ANGEL.

I asked her name.

“I go by Dancy.”

“And Savage is?”

“Your boy. Chris Dietz,” she told us.

Muffled shouts, Christmas carols, and door slams resonated through the stairwell, as if it were acoustically designed to pull sound upward through the thin walls of adjoining apartments.

I asked her, “How well did you know Chris Dietz?”

“I lived next door to him for two months. Since he moved in,” she said. “When I got jacked outta my room, I found an empty one downstairs. When can I go back to my place?”

I said, “When the crime scene guys are done. Probably take another day.”

“What about all the holes in my door?”

I shrugged an apology and said, “That’ll be up to hotel management and Nationwide. You have something for us?”

She scowled. “I need a hundred dollars. Savage was my rent money.”

Conklin said, “A hundred? That’s a little much, isn’t it?”

“It’s cheap for what I’ve got for you,” she said. “He used to talk to me when we were done. He told me his plans.”

I didn’t want to take a witness statement in a fire stairwell if I could help it. If Dancy had something, I wanted her in an interrogation room on camera.

We had a map of Golden Gate Park with a circle around the museum that had come from Dietz’s phone. It was a good start. Maybe we had the where. But I wanted more. Much more. Times, dates, names, all the details needed to flesh out this sketchy story. If Dancy had answers, truthful ones, a hundred bucks was cheap.

I said, “I have to get the boss to sign for that. Let’s take a ride to the station.”

She scoffed and trotted down toward the lobby.

I shouted after her, “Dancy. We’ll get the money.”

She spun around. “You want to lock me up.”

“No,” I said. “I want to talk to you in private—”

“Listen, and make sure you hear me,” she said. “I’m not going to no damned police station with you.”

A door opened on the floor below us. Children’s voices rang out and their footsteps clattered in the stairwell.

I sighed. Our potential informant was dancing away.

“Come back,” I said. “I’ll give you what I’ve got on me.”

The young prostitute walked up to the landing and stuck out her palm.

Conklin dug his wallet out of his back pocket and I searched my jacket for spare change.

I handed him my little wad.

Conklin counted his bills and said, “I’ve got sixty. All together, we’ve got seventy-five dollars and thirty-five cents.”

Dancy looked at it and snorted. “Keep the change,” she said. She plucked the bills from Conklin’s hand and stuffed them inside the bodice of her red spangled blouse.

She said, “Dietz told me that he was going to hit the mayor.”

“Caputo?” I said stupidly.

“He’s the mayor, right?”

“Why was Dietz going to kill the mayor?”

“He didn’t say why. Savage always wants to be a big man. There was supposed to be a huge paycheck in the hit. He said he knew where the mayor was and when. He was just waiting for the call and it would be a go.”

“Waiting for the call from whom?” Conklin asked.

Dancy looked at him like he was an idiot.

“You don’t know anything, do you?” she said. “Loman. Savage was working for Mr. Loman.”

Chapter 20

Conklin and I sat across from Brady in his small, glass-walled office at the back of the bullpen.

Our lieutenant had a few to-do lists in front of him, yellow pads marked with a red grease pencil. A flurry of Post-it notes covered his lamp and walls. Every light on his phone console blinked red.

The stress of several punishing months of double duty showed in Brady’s face and posture. I wondered how much longer he could take it, how long before either a new chief was hired to replace Jacobi or Brady took the bump up to the bigger job. He had the chops to be chief, but the position was 100 percent administration and politics.

I didn’t think he would like it.

Brady punched a button on his phone console and said, “Brenda, can you clear these calls before the phone shorts out?”

To us he said, “Y’all have to make this quick.”

Conklin and I told him about our morning with Clapper at the Anthony and dangled the two shiny objects: Dancy’s tip about a contract on the mayor and the circled museum on the hit man’s phone.

Brady leaned back in his chair and stared out at the traffic on the freeway.

When he turned back, he said, “We’re swimming in tips, none substantiated. Loman’s crew is going to hit one of two banks, a jewelry store, or all of the above.

“Now we add in a target on the mayor. Why the mayor? Is this political? Is it terrorism?”

Conklin said, “Dancy told us that Dietz was given a contract. That’s all we’ve got.”

Brady said, “I’ll get to the mayor. He’s too willing to put himself in front of microphones. Cameras. He should cancel any public appearances. I can beef up his security detail.”

He stood up, shouted out across the bullpen, “Brenda, please get Wroble on the line.”

Ike Wroble was captain of the Homeland Security Unit, now reporting to Brady in his role as temporary police chief.

Brady sat down, drummed his fingers on the legal pad.

“About a robbery at the de Young,” said Brady. “It’s a rich target. If Lambert, your shopping-bag thief, is right that there’s going to be a heist, that sounds more like the way to go than taking out the mayor. There’s a fortune in artwork at the de Young.

“Either way, we’ve got three days to get ahead of this. I don’t have to tell you, we have limited resources and not one goddamn reliable fact.”

We kicked it around for ten more precious minutes. Conklin argued that we should lean on Dancy. “She says Dietz confided in her. She’s skittish, but motivated by cash.”

“Okay,” said Brady. “Grab up a partner from the bullpen or get a couple of unis and pick her up. If she’s uncooperative, hold her as a material witness. And, Conklin, you interview her alone. Do your magic. Boxer, we’ve still got Lambert upstairs?”

“Yes, his arraignment is tomorrow.”

“Good. You and Jacobi squeeze him hard. What else does he know about Dietz, about Loman, and does he know anything about any possible hits on, say, local politicians? And get ahold of security at the de Young. Tell them what we’ve got.”

Brady’s phone lines were blinking like a flock of rabid bats, and Brenda was at his door.

Conklin and I got out of his way and went to work.

Chapter 21

Conklin found a pickup partner in Robbery, and they left the Hall to bring Ms. Dancy in.

Jacobi swooped in, took Conklin’s vacant chair, and plugged in his laptop.

I said, “Must suck to get dragged back into this mess.”

“Not at all, Boxer. It’s retirement that sucks.”

Job one for us was the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. We were both familiar with the spacious modern showplace that held a permanent collection of great American art as well as priceless jewelry and special exhibits. With the opening of the annual holiday artisan fair and special viewing hours, foot traffic would be up.