Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 3

“And what ideology is that?” Hunter asked.

“Greed.”

It was a day that had changed Hunter Alden’s life. A secret he had thought impossible to unearth. And yet...

He opened his eyes, and his gaze settled on the silver framed picture of Marjorie sitting on his desk. Tripp, then only four, was on her lap. The weekend before she died, Marjorie had told him she was pregnant, and there were so many times that he wished they’d had that second child.

His phone rang, jolting him back to the present. It was Silas Blackstone.

And then there were times like this, Hunter thought, picking up the phone, when he knew his life would have been so much easier if he’d had no children at all.

“Those two cops found the Prius,” Blackstone said. “It was on 136th Street. I went straight there as soon as I left your house. They were still with you, but by the time I got uptown they were already there. How the hell did they find it so fast?”

“I gave them the address.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Why do you think? They pressed me. I had to give them something. It doesn’t matter. What happened after they found the car?”

“They did a quick scan from the outside, then they left. I had Tripp’s keys, so I searched the car. Nothing. I was about to leave when the cops came back. I thought maybe they picked up a warrant to search the car, but no — they went straight to one of the buildings and interviewed a tenant.”

“Who?”

“Some old lady. She came to the window a couple of times while the cops were there. She was pointing and yakking away, so I figured she must have seen what went down with Tripp, and she was filling them in.”

“Talk to her. Find out what she saw.”

“Done,” Blackstone said. “As soon as they left, I rang her bell. At first, she didn’t want to let me in, so I told her I was a PI looking for a missing kid. I showed her Tripp’s picture, and she wigged out. Said he was a terrorist, and the cops arrested him yesterday.”

“Son of a bitch,” Hunter said, taking a swig of his eighty-proof coffee. “The cops never told me they arrested him.”

“They didn’t,” Blackstone said. “It’s all in her head. She saw some guy with a red beard drag Tripp off in a blue van. She told Jordan and MacDonald that he was an undercover cop, but I’m sure they know better.”

“I knew the kid was taken. The package I got last night made that abundantly clear. The problem is, now the cops know it. Find Tripp before they do — that’s all I care about.”

“Whoever took Tripp took his buddy too. Do you care about him?”

“What buddy?”

“A short dark kid. They were shooting a movie together. The old lady says he’s an Arab terrorist.”

“Arab? Is she nuts? He’s Puerto Rican. Lonnie Martinez — he’s helping Tripp with the movie for my father. Why would anyone take him? He’s a dirt-poor hood rat, lives with his grandmother — not worth a nickel to a kidnapper.”

“Then he’s in on it,” Blackstone said. “Whoever is behind this knows they can’t get close to you and your family, so they recruited this Lonnie kid to be the inside man. Who knew where they were going to be filming?”

“Just me... and Lonnie.”

“Looks like he set Tripp up.”

“Little bastard. I’d send you to his house, but I have no idea where he lives.”

“No worries, boss. I scrolled through Tripp’s GPS. The name Lonnie is at the top of the list.”

“Then get your ass over there and see what you can find out from the grandmother.”

He hung up the phone, dumped what was left of his coffee into a large potted plant, and refilled the cup with straight Johnnie Walker Blue.

He sat back in his chair and picked up the note delivered by his dead driver. There’s money to be made.

He took a long swallow of Scotch and sneered. “We’ll see about that, motherfucker.”

“Mrs. Gittleman wasn’t the most credible witness,” I said. “She thought Tripp was a terrorist, and she was positive that the guy with the paddy wagon that could only be locked with a stretchy cord was one of New York’s Finest.”

“I liked her,” Kylie said. “She was feisty.”

“I’m not too keen on feisty women,” I said. “Usually they try to hog all the glory, and they drive too fast.”

She punched me in the shoulder.

“However,” I said, “her whole story about Red Beard and the stun gun, and the other kid using a box cutter to try to get away, helps explain why Tripp Alden is nowhere to be found. “We can’t call him, but I’m not about to sit around and wait till school lets out to find out if he’s been abducted or not.”

“Finally,” Kylie said, “we agree on something.”

She turned on the lights and siren, shot down Amsterdam, hung a hard left at 110th, careened around the traffic circle at the north end of the park doing fifty, and ran the lights along Central Park West until we got to 88th Street.

“Was that too feisty for you?” she asked, parking in a crosswalk in front of the imposing six-story building that had been the home of Barnaby Prep since the early nineteenth century.

The first two students we passed in the hall were talking about Tripp’s driver’s murder.

“I guess the strict cell phone rules Alden told us about aren’t being enforced today,” Kylie said. “And if those two know, everybody knows.”

“You’re right,” I said. “If Peter Chevalier had been an ordinary citizen, his murder might have gone unnoticed in a city of eight million people. But he was a billionaire’s chauffeur in a car that cost more than a house.”

“It’s not just that,” Kylie said. “The New York press loves body parts, and whether a torso washes up on Rockaway Beach or a head goes missing in Riverside Park, it’s going to be fodder for every media outlet from tabloids to prime time. I’ll bet you by now the text messages, Twitter feeds, and Facebook updates have spread through this school like a virus.”

We found the headmaster’s office and were escorted right in. G. Martin Anderson was young, preppy, and totally tuned in. I had barely gotten my shield out of my pocket when he said, “Terrible thing about Mr. Chevalier. Everyone here is quite upset. These kids know they live in a tough city, but when it hits this close to home... What can I do to help?”

“We realize it’s the middle of a school day,” Kylie said, “but we’d like to talk to Tripp Alden.”

“Tripp?” Anderson said. “Oh, he’s not here today. Under the circumstances, I’d have been surprised if he had come in. I know he was very fond of Peter.”

Tripp had never showed up. Point for Gittleman.

“He has a friend,” I said. “Someone he’s shooting a film with.”

“Lonnie Martinez,” Anderson said. “Just a second.”

He ran his finger down a computer printout and stopped midpage. “I thought I’d seen his name on the absentee sheet. He’s not here today either.”

Another point for Gittleman.

“We know how to reach the Aldens,” Kylie said, “but it would help if we could talk to Lonnie’s parents. Do you know how we can get in touch with them?”

“I have every student’s contact numbers right here,” he said, sitting down in front of his computer. “Here we go: Alonso Martinez. Everyone calls him Lonnie. He lives with his grandmother, Juanita Martinez. He’s a scholarship student — great kid. Very popular.”

“What else can you tell us about him?” I asked.

“What you said before about Tripp and Lonnie shooting a film together — they’re quite good at it. Mr. Madison, who chairs our film studies department, says both boys have a bright future in the industry. In fact, he can probably tell you more about them than I can. We have a mentoring program here at Barnaby, and because of their passion for film, putting Lonnie and Tripp with Ryan Madison was a perfect match. I’m sure he was in touch with both boys over the holiday break — the deadline for a lot of college applications was December thirty-first.”