Джеймс Паттерсон - The Inn

All of that was lost to us now. The two of us had thrown in everything one night when we’d decided to take the law into our own hands, Malone for one reason, me for another, more than two years ago. Tonight, I was doing the same thing, driving toward the fateful street where we had crossed the line into that dark territory, knowing in my heart that what I was doing was the right thing and maybe being horribly, irreversibly wrong about that.

We drove around the block, passing Malone and Nick in their car as they pulled into a space directly across the street from the apartment building where Malone and I had sealed our fates. I met my partner’s eyes and hoped he knew that I forgave him for what had happened here, what his actions had taken from us both. I desperately missed this city, these streets, the way the people had looked at me in my uniform, some lovingly and some hatefully. But what was happening to him, the disease that was eating at his bones and slowly taking him from whatever remained of his life, was not what he or anyone deserved.

I parked my car at the other end of the street, in view of Nick’s vehicle and the apartment building’s door.

“Okay,” I said in the heavy silence of the car. I looked at my watch. “Make the call.”

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

I WATCHED THE plan unfolding before my eyes. Everything had gone perfectly so far. Doc Simeon had called Cline that evening and told him that Squid, the boy he had been giving prescriptions to for more than a year, had come to him for help. Squid was desperate and afraid, having run from Cline after getting himself taken down by Bill Robinson’s team and interrogated. He wanted to make good with Cline and knew the Doc was outside the business, someone disconnected who didn’t have a reason to pick sides. Doc told Cline that Squid had sworn he hadn’t spoken to any police, wasn’t trying to come back into the fold because he was wearing a wire or hoping to lead the cops to his boss. The doc said he was willing to act as an intermediary, to present Squid to Cline and make sure no harm came to either of them. The boy in the car beside me stiffened in his seat as Doc dialed Cline’s number now. I watched the gold-lit street, impossibly still and crossed with menacing black shadows, as the line connected. In the silence of the vehicle I could hear every word from Cline’s end.

“Yeah.”

“I’m here,” Doc said. “I want you to promise again that you won’t hurt the boy. He said he had no choice but to run from you. But he’s loyal. He wants to work this out. He’s got nowhere to go.”

“Squid knows he can trust me,” Cline said. I looked at the boy, who gave a tight smile. We both knew what was going to happen tonight. Cline was going to take Squid from the old man with one intention: to kill him. To tie up the loose ends , as he had told his ex-wife. But Squid wasn’t going to die tonight. Nick, Susan, Malone, and I would make sure that didn’t happen. In the most heavily surveilled street in Boston, we would capture Cline taking custody of the boy. We would follow and intervene, recording everything on Squid’s phone.

As Doc gave Cline the street address, Squid took out his phone.

“All right,” I said. “You call me. I’ll set off a recorder on my phone and I’ll listen in while we follow you. If anything goes wrong, I’ll hear it. Nick and Malone will be ahead of you, and Susan and I will follow behind. Don’t worry.”

“Stay close, man,” Squid breathed. He gripped the door handle as he pushed the buttons on his phone. “He’ll be packin’. Cline could pop me in the fucking car and drive me out into the marshes. You better be ready.”

“We’re ready,” I assured him. My phone buzzed, and I answered it, listening as Squid and Doc got out of the car.

The old man and the young, gangly boy walked into the light of the apartment building. I pressed the record button, looked up and down the street for Cline. Susan reached forward from the back seat and put a hand on my shoulder, and we watched the silhouettes of Doc and Squid standing still, waiting, as the painful seconds ticked by.

Squid reached into his pocket, probably for another cigarette. I heard his voice over the phone as he spoke to Doc. “You scared?” he asked the doctor.

“A little,” Doc admitted. “You?”

The boy didn’t answer. I felt my stomach twist. “Your man thinks he got Cline all wrapped up, huh?” Squid said.

“I think we’re good,” Doc said. “This is going to work.”

“Famous last words.” Squid laughed.

I watched as he drew a knife from his pocket and plunged it into the old man’s stomach.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

I HAD ONLY seconds to witness the horror of the old man collapsing as though sucker-punched, the boy’s shoulder dipping and surging upward as he thrust the knife expertly into Doc’s rib cage. The windshield before me exploded. I felt the seat I was sitting in thump as a bullet tore into the headrest right beside my ear. Cline was striding up the sidewalk, his gun in both hands, the pistol bucking as he pumped bullets into the car. I glimpsed a devilish smile. Squid had warned him. They’d orchestrated this together.

Susan didn’t scream. She popped her door just as I did, and we fell out onto the road together and crawled on the asphalt scattered with glass as bullets zinged off the cars around us. I couldn’t tell when Cline’s gun ran out of ammunition and when Nick’s and Malone’s firing began. I heard them shouting from the end of the street, saw Cline swivel and try to shoot in that direction, his gun clicking uselessly. He ejected his mag and pumped another clip in as a bullet tinked off a lamppost right by his face. He didn’t flinch. This was his city now too, and these were his streets, and the slices of darkness and cars and concrete edges seemed designed to protect him. He fired, and I saw Nick spin as he caught one in the shoulder.

Susan brushed past me, straightened up a bit so that she could steady her aim on the hood of the car. She fired twice at Cline. One bullet hit the wall behind him, alerting him to the coming second round. He whipped his head left, which made what would have been a fatal shot in the face a graze across the temple by his ear. The shot spooked him, and he fell into the shadows.

He was gone, ducking between the cars, a flash of black coat between a car that had turned into the street and stopped at the sound of the firefight. Gunshots roared between the buildings overhead, clapping and echoing like thunder. I grabbed my gun from the car and followed Susan to the other side of the road, where we crouched by Doc Simeon, who was pointing in the direction that Squid had gone, coughing blood onto his cheeks and shirt.

“It’s going to be okay,” Susan told him, pulling his coat closed over the wound in his stomach. Her hands were instantly drenched in blood that looked purple in the gold light of the apartment building. “You’re okay. You’re okay. It’s nothing.”

Sweet lies from a beautiful woman. There were worse ways to die, I thought. The old man’s feet scraped against the sidewalk. I looked down the street and saw Malone and Nick running toward us.

“Are you all right?” I grabbed Nick. His jaw was clenched, and he was panting hard. Malone tossed me an extra clip for my gun. Nick’s shirt was wet with blood, but he hardly seemed to notice the wound, that strange manic electricity taking hold of him quickly, making him shiver under my grasp.

“We’ve gotta go! We’ve gotta go!” He tried to drag me down the street. “They ran that way!”

“I’ll stay here.” Susan knelt over the doctor, pressing hard on his wound. Every cell in my body was telling me to stay with her, to be here for the moments that my friend lay dying on the ground, to somehow try to stop the life from draining from his worn body.