James PATTERSON - Cross Fire

Right away, he could feel it was light.

“What the hell is this?” he said, and dropped it back on the armrest between them.

“That,” Zachary said, “is one-third. You’ll get the rest afterward. We’re doing things a little differently this time.”

“The hell we are!” he said, and just like that, the driver was up and over the seat with a fat.45 shoved halfway up Denny’s nose. He could even smell traces of gunpowder. The weapon had been used recently.

“Now listen to me,” Zachary said. More like purred. “You’re going to be paid in full. The only change here is our terms of delivery.”

“This is bullshit!” Denny said. “You shouldn’t be messing around with me now.”

“Just listen,” Zachary told him. “Your incompetence up in New Jersey was not appreciated, Steven. Now that the authorities know who you are, this is just good business practice. So, are we going to have a smooth finish to this thing or not?”

It wasn’t a real question, and Denny didn’t answer. What he did was reach down and take back the canvas pouch. That spoke for itself. The.45 was dislodged from his face and the driver pulled back, although he didn’t turn around.

“Did you see the car parked behind us?” Zachary asked softly, as if they’d been sitting here having a friendly chat the whole time.

And, yes, Denny had seen it, an old blue Subaru wagon with Virginia plates. His spotter’s radar wasn’t something he turned on and off.

“What about it?” he said.

“You need to get out of the city. We’ve got too much exposure here. Take Mitch and go somewhere discreet – West Virginia, or whatever you think is best.”

“Just like that? What am I supposed to tell Mitch?” Denny said. “He’s already asking too many questions.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something to handle him. And take this.” Zachary handed over a silver Nokia phone, presumably encrypted. “Keep it off, but check it at least every six hours. And be ready to go when we tell you.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Denny said, “what’s this ‘we’ shit anyway? Do you even know who you’re working for?”

Zachary reached across and opened the door to the sidewalk for him. They were done here.

“This one’s your big payout, Denny,” he said. “Don’t blow it. Don’t make any more mistakes either.”

FOR THE SECOND DAY of canvassing at homeless shelters, I did what I already should have and pulled in more of my team, including Sampson. I even called in that favor with Max Siegel, to see if he could spare any warm bodies.

Max surprised me by showing up himself, along with two eager young assistants. We split up the list and agreed to come together at the end of the day to check out mealtime and evening sign-in at one of the larger facilities.

At five o’clock that afternoon, we were all at Lindholm Family Services when they opened their doors for dinner. The shelter served more than a thousand meals a day, to a clientele that was everything you might expect, and some things you might not.

There were families with kids, and people who talked to themselves, and folks who looked like they just came from an office somewhere, all eating shoulder to shoulder at long cafeteria tables.

For the first hour or so, it was a frustrating repeat of the day before. None of the people who were willing to talk to me recognized Mitch’s picture or the old file photo I’d pulled of Steven Hennessey, aka Denny. And some people wouldn’t talk to the police at all.

One guy in particular seemed to be in his own world. He was sitting at the end of a table, turned away from everyone else, with his tray balanced on the corner. He mumbled to himself as I came over.

“Mind if I talk to you for a second?” I said.

His lips stopped moving, but he didn’t look up, so I held the picture down low where he could see it.

“We’re trying to get a message to this guy, Mitch Talley. There’s been a death in the family he needs to know about.”

This is the kind of half-truth you have to be comfortable with to get things done sometimes. We were all in street clothes today, too. Jackets and ties can be counterproductive in a place like this.

The man shook his head. “No,” he said, too fast. “No. Sorry. I don’t recognize him.” He had a thick accent that sounded eastern European to me.

“Take another look,” I said. “Mitch Talley? Usually hangs out with this guy named Denny. Any of it ringing a bell? We could use your help.”

He looked a little longer and ran a hand absently over his salt-and-pepper beard, which was matted halfway to dreadlocks.

“No,” he said again, without ever looking up. “I’m sorry. I do not know him.”

I didn’t push it. “All right,” I said. “I’ll be around for a while if you think of anything.”

As soon as I stepped away, he went right back to the mumbling, and on a hunch, I kept an eye on him.

Sure enough, I’d barely started talking to the next person before the mumbler got up to leave. When I looked over, his tray was still there – along with most of his dinner.

“Excuse me, sir?” I called out loudly enough that a few people around him turned their heads.

But not him. He just kept going.

“Sir?”

I was moving now, and that caught Sampson’s attention. The mumbling guy was clearly making a beeline for the exit. When he finally did look back, realizing we were coming after him, he broke into a run. He shot straight out the double doors and onto Second Street ahead of us.

OUR RUNNER WAS HALFWAY to the corner by the time Sampson and I got outside. He’d looked maybe early fifties to me, but he was moving pretty well.

“Damnit, damnit, damnit–”

Foot pursuit sucks. It just does. Never mind all the variables – it’s nothing you want to be doing at the end of a long day. But here Sampson and I were, tearing ass down Second Street after a crazy man.

I shouted a few times for him to stop, but that obviously wasn’t in his game plan.

The rush-hour traffic on D had bunched up enough that he made it across the street fairly easily.

I cut right behind him between a taxi and an EMCOR truck, while a couple of guys on lawn chairs outside the shelter shouted after us.

“Go, buddy! Go!”

“Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig!”

I was guessing they weren’t talking to me.

He ran straight on, into the little park by the Labor Department. It cut a diagonal between the high-rise buildings toward Indiana Avenue, but he never got that far.

The ground was terraced here, and when he lurched up and over the first retaining wall, it slowed him down just enough. I got one foot on the wall and both my hands on his shoulders, and we came down hard in a patch of ground cover. At least we weren’t on the sidewalk anymore.

Right away, he started scrabbling with me, trying to pull free, then trying to bite me. Sampson got there and put a knee down on his back while I stood up.

“Sir, stop moving!” John shouted at him as I started a quick pat down.

“No! No! Please!” he yelled from the ground. “I haven’t done anything! I am an innocent person!”

“What’s this?”

I had pulled a knife out of the side pocket of his filthy barn coat. It was sheathed in a toilet paper roll and wrapped in duct tape.

“You can’t take that!” he said. “Please! It is my property!”

“I’m not taking it,” I told him. “I’m just holding on to it for now.”

We got him up on his feet and walked him back over to the wall to sit down.

“Sir, do you need medical attention?” I asked. There was an abrasion on his forehead from where we went down. I felt a little bad about that. Trembling here in front of me, he just seemed kind of pathetic. Never mind that he’d been holding his own until a minute ago, trying to bite off one of my fingers.