Джеймс Паттерсон - The Inn

“When that bag moved—” Malone was slapping the deck railing, laughing so hard he couldn’t finish his sentence.

When the bag moved, I’d fallen back with a terror so sudden and all-consuming I’d almost fainted. The bag contained not a bomb meant to assassinate the president but two huge live Dungeness crabs that someone had obviously bought at the local market and planned to take home for dinner. When I’d recovered enough to stand, Malone and I had taken the crabs, their pincers bound, down to the waterfront to show the former president. The papers got a shot of me kneeling on the dock, clipping the creatures free of their bindings before I released them into the harbor.

While the Globe had been quite mature about it, other newspapers had a good time with the story. One headline read “Cops Catch Crabs; President Scuttles Away.” I still had the newspaper clipping somewhere.

“I wonder if those crabs are alive now,” I said as Malone tried to recover from the hilarity. “How long do crabs live?”

“I don’t know. But if they’re alive, they’re probably still telling that story.”

“Over drinks at their underwater crab bar,” I said. “The Claw, it’s called. I went there once. Nice place. A bit wet.”

“Jesus.” Malone sighed, watching the lights in the distance. “That was so much fun. We had a good time, didn’t we? We were a great team.”

“We’re still a great team.” I nudged him in the ribs, feeling how hard and prominent they were beneath his shirt. As though he could sense my concern, Malone turned to me.

“Look, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I didn’t just come up here to hang out, to see the place. I wanted to know you’d forgiven me, because if you hadn’t, I wanted to fix it before it was too late. I’ve got cancer, Bill. It’s terminal.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

I LISTENED TO Malone tell me about his illness for as long as I could, then I crossed the bar to the restrooms to wash my face. I looked over at Susan, perhaps an involuntary reflex, my mind seeking comfort. She seemed to notice my distress, but I waved her off. I knew that if she asked me what was going on, I wouldn’t be able to put it into words. Malone was leaving me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Just like Siobhan had. And Marni. And Doc. I needed a minute to close my eyes and think.

I turned the corner to the hall where the restrooms were and saw a man with sweat-slick hair and grimy clothes carrying a stack of boxes toward the back door of the pub. He turned and caught my eye and nodded his head toward the door.

“Dude,” he said. “Could you …”

I already had my hand on the doorknob of the men’s room. In my sadness, my stupor, I didn’t see the danger lurking.

“Sure thing,” I mumbled. I pushed past him and opened the door. As I stepped out into the dark, he set the boxes down, came out, and slammed the door closed behind us. Another figure emerged out of the night and shoved me into the wall.

“Don’t move, shitbird!” a voice snarled.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

I SHOVED BACK at the second figure, who was just a silhouette in the dark. In a moment I realized it was a woman, and I felt a pang of regret as she stumbled away from me.

“Hey! Hands off, asshole!” the guy who’d been carrying the boxes said.

“Hands off?” I pushed him. “What the hell is this?”

The moon emerged from behind a cloud and I caught a slice of his face. I recognized him now—it was the gardener I had seen at the side of Cline’s house the day Nick and I confronted him.

“This is a thank-you.” He stuck his finger in my face. “My partner and I have been on Mitchell Cline for three months. You and your idiot friends cost us the biggest drug bust in Massachusetts history last night.”

The realization of what was happening was like a punch to the gut. “You’re undercover cops?”

“Boston PD,” the woman said. She was stocky and square-jawed and had small, mean eyes. “We’ve been brought in because the locals are on Cline’s payroll.”

I struggled to comprehend what they were saying, my mind still reeling from Malone’s revelation and the sneaky maneuver the two of them had used to get me outside the bar. I supposed they knew one of Cline’s men could be inside watching me and they didn’t want to blow their cover. Someone tried the door behind me, but the male cop butted it shut with his shoulder.

“What’s your goddamn problem with Boston PD, Robinson?” The male edged closer to me, his face now just inches from mine. I could smell nicotine gum on his breath. “You trying to fuck up our operation as revenge for getting canned by the commissioner?”

“Back off.” I shoved him away. “I didn’t know you geniuses had an undercover operation going. Are you seriously posing as Cline’s gardeners? What are you doing, peering in his windows and watching him eat breakfast while you prune his rosebushes?”

“That’s as close as we’ve been able to get,” the woman said. “Cline handpicks his crew from the streets, and they sweep the house daily for bugs. He never interacts with anyone but his soldiers, and when they’re outside the house, they never talk shop.”

“We’ve sent in potential crew members, prostitutes, corrupt cops looking to get onto his payroll,” the man said. “We even flipped the guy’s cousin and sent him in for a friendly family visit wearing a wire. Nothing. This guy won’t even discuss his business with his own flesh and blood. Just to get in as gardeners, we had to construct foolproof fake identities, and all we get to listen to day in and day out is the shitty music his people play in the backyard while we pull up his weeds. We can’t get anywhere near Cline.”

“The drug boat was going to be our big payoff.” The woman poked me hard in the chest. “And you fucked it up.”

Nick, Malone, and Susan came running around the side of the bar; they must have sensed something was wrong. Nick and Malone were reaching for their guns, causing the two cops to reach for theirs, but I stepped between the two sides, my arms out. “Stop! Stop! It’s okay.”

“Who the hell are these pricks?” Nick got right up in the male cop’s face; they were nose to nose, as if they were two wolves fighting over food.

I explained the situation as both parties stood glaring at each other.

“If you knew the drug boat existed, why didn’t you just hit it?” Nick shook his head.

“We had a tracker in one of the tubs of product,” the female cop said. “We had another one on Cline’s car. We were waiting for the two to meet. We were going to jump on him then, but you idiots dumped it all into the sea.”

“We were trying to protect our town,” I said. “We want this guy out of here as much as you do.”

“Yeah, well, you just did him a favor,” the woman said, taking a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket and sticking one in her mouth. “And you—” She looked at Susan. “I’d have expected more from a fed. You let these guys go running around like vigilantes while you sit back and write stories about circus hamsters for the local rag?”

“Circus hamsters?” I looked at Susan.

She rolled her eyes. “A local kindergartner taught his hamster to walk a tightrope he made out of shoelaces. I needed a feel-good filler.” She turned to the undercovers. I could see a new tension in her face. “You shouldn’t have that information,” Susan said. “Who gave you approval to do a background check on me? I’m not a part of your investigation!”

“You became a part of it when this guy”—the woman gestured to me—“turned up and put a potted plant through the windshield of Cline’s car. We wanted to know who we were dealing with. Turns out it’s a bunch of renegade dumb-asses.”