James Patterson - Worst Case

“Do I know you?” Francis said.

“I hope so. It’s me, Jerry Webb. We were on varsity together, class of ’sixty-five. It’s actually Coach Webb now. I was in finance for a while, but then I came back to good old St. Ed’s to teach them how to play a little ball. Can you imagine? I can’t sometimes, especially when I get my paycheck.”

“Oh, my God. Jerry. Yes,” Francis said, recovering. He found himself smiling genuinely as he shook the tall man’s hand. They actually had been teammates. If you could really call them that. Webb had been their all-city starting power forward, while Francis had had to practically kill himself every practice just for the privilege of riding the bench.

“It’s been-,” Francis began.

“Too long,” Coach Webb said with a wink. “Ol’ Francis X. Blast from the past. I knew that was you. Not too old yet to pick an old teammate out of a crowd. Can you still drive to your left like a banshee, ma man?”

Francis’s smile immediately dissipated. He’d never been able to go to his left. It was the first string’s running joke. Had Webb been one of the ones in that incident at summer practice? Francis went over the still-raw forty-year-old memory. He nodded to himself. Indeed, he had.

“What brings you around?” the still-cocky bastard wanted to know as he gave Francis the once-over. “You’re looking a little ruffled.”

How polite of you to notice, Francis thought.

“I had an appointment with a law client around the corner. First, I slipped getting out of my taxi, then I got caught in the rain, and then the guy bailed on me,” Francis lied. “Long story short, not my day. I thought, since I was in the neighborhood, I might stick my head in the door to check on the application of one of my friends’ kids.”

“Oh, I know how that goes,” Coach Webb said. “One tradition about St. Ed’s that remains unchanged. It never seems to get any easier to get into, does it? Let’s walk in together.”

The flat-topped middle-aged guard behind the arched glass doors immediately buzzed them in when he spotted the coach. Francis swallowed again as he stepped inside. This was the hard part coming up. He hadn’t had time to do reconnaissance, and he wasn’t sure if his flimsy excuse would hold water.

“He’s with me, Tommy,” Coach Webb said, signing them both into the security register. “This here’s Francis X., a valued alum. He’s got very important business at Admissions. I’ll walk him there myself.”

“No problem, Coach,” the guard said with a thumbs-up.

Francis wiped his brow as they walked down the locker-lined hallway. He glanced into classrooms as they passed. He started to panic. What the hell? They were all empty.

“Where is everybody?” he said as casually as he could.

“Sports pep rally in the auditorium. Baseball went to the Staties last season. Now, if only I could get my guys there.”

A pep rally. Would that complicate things? Probably. No time to do anything about it. He’d just have to improvise somehow.

Coach Webb patted Francis on the shoulder as they stopped before a door marked ADMISSIONS.

“Come visit me anytime, Francis. To jaw or maybe go a little one-on-one. See if that left of yours is still in operating order. Great seeing you, ma man.”

“You, too, Jerry. Thanks for everything,” Francis said with a grin.

Thanks for helping me set in motion the blackest day in St. Edward’s history, you conceited jock moron, he thought as he watched him walk away.

It took him thirty seconds to backtrack down the hall to the main office. An old platinum-haired woman in a Harris tweed skirt suit was typing by herself behind the counter. A soft Muzak version of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco ” was coming from the radio beside her keyboard.

“Hello. May I help you?” the woman said in a highly polished voice. She was smiling as she turned, an attractive, bright-eyed woman in her early seventies. She lowered her bifocals.

Francis suddenly felt numb. It was one thing to do someone in a private place, to do someone in the dark, in secret. This was different, he realized. Beads of sweat stood on his hot forehead. Out here, under the blazing fluorescents with the Muzak playing, was very goddamned different.

Now! a voice in his head chided him.

Francis kicked the door shut behind him and breathed in loudly.

The woman was starting to stand when he leapt over the counter and grabbed her by her scratchy lapel. He fumbled the sheet from his pocket. On the printed sheet were photographs of two St. Edward’s students, along with their names. He didn’t know who was shaking more, her or him.

“D-di-did these children come to school today?” he stammered.

“What? Let go of me this instant! You can’t do this! Who are you?”

“Listen to me!” Francis yelled. He took the silenced Beretta from his waistband and put it to her head.

“Did these children come to school today?” he said again.

The old woman started to cry when she saw the gun.

“Please!” she shrieked as she tried to pull away. She’d closed her eyes and was really blubbering now. “No, please. Why do you want those students? Don’t hurt me! What are you doing?”

Damn it, Francis thought, shaking her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

He turned at a soft rushing noise behind him. It was the door. Francis saw Coach Webb standing there, wide-eyed.

“What in the name of Holy God are you doing?” the coach said.

Francis let go of the woman. His mouth dropped open as he met his old teammate’s eyes. Caught. Holy shit. Caught.

His body and mind seemed to arrest simultaneously. He felt like his breath had been knocked out of him. The gun suddenly felt unbelievably heavy in his hand.

It was over. He was too weak. He knew it. He shouldn’t even be up on his feet at this point. Where was he now? Stage four? Deep stage four. He was a very sick man, a weak, dying old man. He should be in a hospital bed over at Sloan-Kettering.

“Put it down, Francis,” Coach Webb said. “Now, man.”

Can you still drive to your left like a banshee, ma man? Francis heard him say again. A quick memory flashed through Francis’s mind. Webb in the gym bathroom doorway, howling as he held the elastic of Francis’s torn tighty whiteys above his head.

He grabbed on to the pulse of hurt and rage that throbbed through him. It was like a second wind. Francis retightened his grip on the pistol. His resolve. He raised the gun.

“How about instead you get in here and close that fucking door, ma man,” he said. The coach looked like he was about to bolt down the hall, but then he shot a look over at Ms. Typing-to-the-Oldies and suddenly obeyed.

Webb was turning back from closing the door when Francis pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him right in his smug power-forward-all-city face. He fell back comically fast, as if he’d slipped on a banana peel. Swoosh! Nothing but net! Francis thought with a chuckle. What did they say at Knicks games again? Whoomp! There it is!

Francis felt amazingly focused as he turned back to the woman. It was as if someone had turned up the dimmer switch of his energy as far as it would go.

“Did those children come to school today?” he said again clearly and confidently, his best courtroom voice. He knocked her glasses away and placed the warm gun barrel on one of her squinted-shut eyelids.

“Yes,” she said.

The woman was weeping silently. Francis suddenly noticed that he was as well.

So much blood and still more to come, he thought. He nodded. It was worth it and then some.

“It was brave of you to try to protect the kids,” Francis whispered lovingly in the old lady’s ear. “But a higher purpose is waiting for them. That’s why I’m here. To deliver unto them the very highest purpose of all.”