Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

“Mr. Michael Ryan to see Mr. Vatroslav Mesic,” I said to the front desk staff member.

“He’s expecting you,” said the front desk staff member.

That’s how it was going down. Seconds later I was alone in the elevator, watching the numerals climb to “PH.” I should’ve had my gun drawn, ready to fire away at whatever might appear beyond the sliding doors.

I didn’t.

I had a bottle of Kamešnica plum brandy. The one errand I had run along the way.

The elevator nestled to a stop and I walked into what felt like a carpeted air lock. Thought I killed you at Harvard, I said to myself upon seeing him. No, but all these bodyguards looked alike.

Vatroslav gestured for me to hold still, then had me slowly pirouette for him while his massive hands groped. He discovered my Smith & Wesson revolver—they always do—and took it.

What a joke of an apartment.

Picture three point eight million dollars spent as idiotically as possible on decadent all-white postmodern lowest-bidder neo-conformist decor. Wherever you looked you saw a bad decision. The odd walls. The couch from outer space. The rug with a Nike logo on it.

Then there was Vatroslav, standing by the distant window. I almost expected him to be in a velvet robe and monogrammed slippers, casting his gaze toward the bay while quoting Sun Tzu before snapping his fingers to have my throat slit from behind.

He was in jeans and a track jacket. Didn’t even dress for the part.

“You actually showed up,” he said.

“Figured you had questions that only work on a second date,” I replied.

“Yeah. How did you know I had a pair of eights?”

He was as boring as I’d hoped.

“Seriously,” he repeated. “How?”

Off to the side was a barefoot supermodel at a glass dining table busying herself with her phone. Part of me felt relieved to see her there. Her presence meant I might not be shot at. But after some good ole-fashioned pessimistic thinking, I remembered that imported sex trade girls are shown as much violence as possible as often as possible, so that they have motivation to cooperate. The guy behind me was armed with a delayed-blowback Croatian VHS-2 assault rifle. I made no eye contact with him. I crossed the room and sat in an armchair and started to undo the cork on the bottle I was still carrying.

This was way ahead of schedule. I’d meant to uncork it at the most strategic point in the upcoming banter. I stopped.

“Really?” said young Vatroslav. I couldn’t tell whether he was impressed or insulted. “You sit down in my chair, you give up your gun, you keep your back to the man with the VHS-2, you ignore my question.”

He said all this after observing me just doing nothing for a full minute. He was oddly patient despite his youth.

“This is not the skillful Michael Ryan I know of.”

“He’s retired.” I finished opening my bottle, then took a Balkan-sized swig. When in doubt, talk about yourself in the third person.

Vatroslav came over and sat in the armchair opposite mine. I was in doubt. Terrified. He was somewhat bewildered by my actions. So was I.

“You’re not on suicide watch, are you?” he asked.

I took another swig. The alcohol content of this swill was gut-wrenching. Kruskovac brandy, they called it. I set it down on the ottoman between us. I felt ill. Vatroslav snatched the bottle and sat back with it, then looked at me, then patiently rotated the label in his hand to read the good news.

“Jesus,” he said. “This is a three-thousand-dollar Kamešnica.”

“Tastes like congealed urine.”

“Urine? I should kill you for saying that.” He drank some. “But I’m going to kill you anyway.” Then he drank more.

We didn’t talk for another painful minute, after which I cleared my throat and began. “Do you know the ending of Patrick Süskind’s Le Parfum ?”

“What?”

“It’s a book. There’s a passage in the middle. ‘Se rendre parfaitement inintéressant. Et c’est tout ce qu’il voulait.’ ”

“Why is this warm?” Vatroslav said. “Brandy is supposed to be the temperature of dawn.”

“‘He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. And that was all he wanted.’”

Vatroslav stared at me, embarrassed for me. “Do you have any women in your life who don’t find you dull?”

“Do you have any women in your life who don’t come by shipping container?”

I was fully invested.

He stood up and nodded to his thug. His thug stepped forward, machine-gun in hand. I should’ve left a handwritten note on my dashboard for whoever might find my dog in my car. I should’ve parked in a more visible spot. I should’ve found religion. I should’ve gone to couples therapy. I “should’ve” a lot of things. I should’ve been a more interesting husband.

Chapter 39

“Listen to me, Michael Ryan,” said Vatroslav. “I built Boston. My family put serious money in this town.” I didn’t interrupt him. “We provide the most important product anyone here could want.” I didn’t remind him that a family donating ten million bucks to a city that does three hundred fifty billion dollars in business does not an empire make. “My brother…My brother got in the way of that.”

Ah, yes, one son to nail women, one son to sell them.

“My brother,” he continued, “was interfering with the natural evolution of this city’s commerce.”

“Your brother was in school . To avoid being as dumb as you.”

My gun lurked well behind me, somewhere, maybe on a shelf in the foyer. Vatroslav was getting angrier. He began to pace back and forth, still drinking from my bottle.

“Why are you calm?” he said. “I can kill you. I will kill you.” He looked at me. I looked at him. The girl was now looking, too. At us. Vatroslav’s question was not rhetorical. Everyone in the room felt the shift.

So I answered him by pointing my index finger at the liquor in his hands. “That,” I said.

He didn’t get it at first.

I told him. “It’s poison.”

He laughed.

“It’s tetrodotoxin,” I said. He stopped laughing. “Fast-acting. I added it before I got here. Tetrodotoxin numbs the spinal cord, then the heart.”

He was listening now.

“Impossible,” he concluded. He was putting two and two together. He was doubting the math. He looked at the brandy, then looked at me. “You drank it yourself.”

I nodded to the bottle again.

“You drank it yourself!” he repeated.

“Thought you said I was on suicide watch.”

He contemplated me for a long time. There was no twitch in my iris at this point. Full commitment.

And it painfully started to make sense, the possibility of a hit man who’d ensured mutual revenge.

“Guard!” he suddenly yelled. He grabbed his phone. Tetrodotoxin takes merely minutes to act. He dialed 911. A second guard ran in, ready to shoot me, but the prodigal son had a more urgent directive for him. “Get me the family doctor!”

“B-boss,” said the guard. “What happened?”

“Get me the fucking doctor!”

We then heard the 911 operator answer through his phone.

“I’ve been poisoned!” he yelled into it. Then he ran to the bathroom.

I remained in the armchair the whole time. The guard had no idea what to do with me. He wanted to shoot me, he wanted to ask me questions, but most of all he wanted to not have the last remaining son of a two-son emperor die on his watch.

From a distance I could see Vatroslav through the open bathroom door. He was bent over the sink. He began dry-heaving as hard as he could, having grabbed a toothbrush to gag his tongue. Not much welled forth.