Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

One hour later, the cops would review whatever surveillance video the café had and realize that the guy just choked on his muffin. They’d curse the unreliable reports of witnesses, and they’d be 3 percent slower to react the next day. Most importantly, I’d have my measurement.

One hour later, Milt and I rehashed what had happened, like two janitors mopping up the stadium after a Super Bowl.

“Two minutes eight seconds,” said Milt.

“I got two minutes twenty-five.”

“No, no, they had the ambulance come after,” said Milt. “The cops were first.”

“No, I saw an SUV parked on the avenue.”

“How would the avenue be clear if it was already parked?”

“You saw it clear?”

“With my own eyes.”

“Not parked?” That was different. “Then we’re in under six.”

“In under six.”

It’d be more than doable. We had eight minutes to cross out of a three-mile radius and our current estimates had us hovering just under six. That’s what I’d call a professional margin of error. The kind of leeway that ensures success.

Chapter 4

I’m supposed to go directly home. That was the agreement I’d made with myself. Work, then home. In that order. No other activities.

But I didn’t go home.

I stopped at a place called the Alluvial Tavern, a dive bar just outside the Boston city limits. It smelled like yesterday’s beer and last year’s urine. The perfect environment for an outcast like me to do the one thing no normal human would do in a noisy, poorly lit environment: read a book.

I had Le Parfum with me, a beat-up French copy of Patrick Süskind’s tale of assaults and aromas.

“Assaults?” asked the bartender. She’d asked about the pages I was turning but barely stuck around to hear my answer.

“The story of a murderer,” I replied. “Grenouille. Guy’s got an obsession with scents. The whole story is like this exegesis on scents, but it’s got a larger meaning.”

She’d left.

Which was fine by me. I really just wanted to cross the halfway point in the novel.

I ordered a trendy triple IPA, with lime quartered. I read my novel in spurts and thought in spurts, looking for the obvious idea to emerge. The book soon ended up wedged open against the bar counter, beneath my forearm. Grenouille was just about to slice open another victim. To him, the girl—his victim—smelled of both fireplace residue and her own natural vanilla scent. How a monster could be so attuned to the delicacies of life was exactly the appeal.

I pulled out a pen and drew a map of the Harvard campus on my napkin. No place-names—no evidence to leave lying around the bar counter—just a vague sketch with all sorts of arrows and circles. Situational arrows. “If this, then that.” If the bodyguards pull out knives, we demobilize them from their flank. (We kill them.) If the crowd is sparse, then we act early. Early—because a fatal shot to a bodyguard is not nearly as much paperwork as a fatal shot to a Harvard bystander. And by paperwork I mean prison.

“You gonna order another, Ryan?” The bartender pointed at my glass. “Or just fondle your library card?”

The bar was half empty but somehow I was taking up all her lucrative territory, nor drinking enough beers.

“Hey,” said the bartender. “I didn’t mean to kick you out.” I smiled politely and gathered my things.

“So, I’m wondering. Why do you stick with her?” the bartender asked, watching me.

“Stick…with…?” I didn’t know what she meant. “My wife?”

“She doesn’t love you anymore, right? I mean…I’m not being harsh. I’m just being honest…about what I see and hear.”

Ah, just being honest. In my experience, people who talk about how honest they’re being aren’t . I think this bartender wanted to have sex with me.

I smiled, picked up my beer, toasted her in midair—trying to be suave, as it spilled down my knuckles—and headed for a distant booth across the bar. Myself. My novel. This beer.

The magic was gone, though. I couldn’t reimmerse myself in the pages of the book about a journey through prewar Paris. And worse, I’d left my map at the bar—the map drawn on that napkin. Sure, I doubted anyone would pick it up and say, “Hey who’s drawing tactical schematics of an assassination on Harvard’s campus?” But the fact that I’d left it anywhere at all was a small but important sign that I’d started to lose what we in the business refer to as my edge.

Five years ago I would not have made even one single mistake. Now I was watching a yuppie couple pull up barstools precisely where I’d been sitting. Precisely where I’d been drawing.

I should’ve immediately gone to grab that napkin, just in case the yuppie was a cop, or a fed, or just even one of those annoying fans of the evening news who sees some report and proudly calls the 1-800 tip line at the bottom of the screen.

Five years ago I’d already be at the counter, clutching the napkin, maybe breaking some nice man’s nose. But at this point in my life?

I watched the guy’s lady friend nuzzle up behind his shirt collar and place a kiss upon his neck. They giggled about some joke they must’ve whispered to each other countless times. These two couldn’t care less about my napkin. She hugged him again.

Why can’t Maria hug me for no reason?

I stopped at a flower store on the way home. Desperate times, desperate measures. I bought her an orchid in a cubic vase.

When I got home and entered our creaky bedroom, Maria was asleep. I knelt in front of her side of the bed, and stared at her for longer than I’d care to admit. She looked so vulnerable. So lovable. The hundred fights we’d had that year didn’t seem to erode her. She was still quite pretty in the right light. Her creases were coming, yes, but those creases were coming for us all, weren’t they?

She wanted me dead.

But several minutes later I was in the laundry room, at 2:00 a.m., washing her butcher frocks so she’d have a dry frock for her shift the next day. It was something she’d always forget to plan for.

She didn’t know I did stuff like wash and iron her clothes.

I crawled into bed at 3:15 a.m., taking one last look at the cover of Le Parfum for inspiration. I would be back at the Harvard courtyard at ten in the morning, executing my last assignment ever.

Retirement would pave the way for me to go to marital therapy. To be a better husband. To heal our romance. I rolled over toward Maria, hoping she might softly retreat into a spoon. She didn’t. We were both unaware that by the start of the next evening, one of us would be dead.

Chapter 5

“Let’s say it to each other one more time,” I said to Milt.

“Really?” he groaned.

We were walking toward the main courtyard and already noticing cops. And cops were noticing us. Not outright. But we got glanced at. You don’t want eye contact in my line of work.

“We converge from opposite sides,” said Milt, beginning his summary of the pivotal six minutes of our plan. “You’re the primary. I’m the cleanup.” He was speaking in monotone, reciting memorized facts. “We shoot for the heart and keep the exit wound contained in his backpack to minimize the visual blood. If his bodyguards react to us, we shoot to neutralize. We exit opposite corners.”

“No phones,” I added.

“I said that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“We don’t use phones.” He gave me an annoyed look. “If something goes wrong, communication is via email from a random computer at a random Apple Store.”

“We don’t rendezvous until after forty-eight hours.”

“Right.”

It was a traditional setup for us, in many ways. But this was far from a traditional hit. Shooting a kid? Amidst kids? How do you answer for that when you stand before the Almighty?