James Patterson: Worst Case

“Let me guess. ‘Mike Bennett, slacker, still too dumb to locate missing Ivy Leaguer’?”

“It’s not about you for a change. The first victim, Jacob Dunning-his father has created a charitable foundation in his kid’s name.”

I managed to roll my eyes and shake my head at the same time.

“Wow. Exactly what Mooney wanted,” I said, chewing. “Exactly what Mooney was hoping for when he blew the poor kid’s head off.”

“I don’t know, Mike. Isn’t some good coming out of this thing better than the alternative?” she said. “What would you do with all that money?”

“I don’t know,” I said after a moment’s reflection. I lifted a napkin and wiped orange sauce off my cheek.

“With my luck, I’ll never have that kind of problem. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’d burn it before I’d do exactly what my kid’s murderer wanted me to do.”

“You’re cold, Mike, you know that?” Carol said as her phone rang. She smiled and nodded as she lifted the receiver. “I like that in a cop.

“No shit!” she suddenly said. “Okay, okay. I’ll send somebody by right away.”

She looked dumbstruck as she racked her phone.

“Your ship just came in. Troopers picked up Dan Hastings along the turnpike in South Jersey. They took him home to his father’s boat.”

I met Gordon Hastings in the stateroom of his yacht, the Teacup Tempest, half an hour later. The Scottish media mogul was as sleek as a royal otter in his European-cut double-breasted suit. It was a far cry from the slept-in Margaritaville attire he was wearing at our first encounter.

Call me bitter, but staring at him, I couldn’t forget his drunkenness, rudeness, and stupidity, and his trying to take a swing at me. Worst of all was the fact that Hastings ’s New York Mirror had led the NYPD smear job that had started three days after we took care of Mooney.

Accusations of overkill and police brutality were being lodged on a daily basis at Mooney’s miraculous takedown. In fact, law enforcement use of.50 caliber ammunition had become the latest TV talking-head topic. How did that happen? I wondered.

“I want to apologize for how I acted,” Hastings said in his Scottish accent. He gave me his best James Bond grin as he offered his hand. “It was unconscionable, inappropriate, and foolish.”

“You couldn’t be more correct,” I told him, ignoring his hand as I went to talk to his son.

Dan Hastings was at the head of the enormous dining room table, scarfing down a plate of salmon, when I came in and closed the door. A mound of caviar in a sterling silver serving bowl waited by his elbow.

“I’m glad you made it back, son,” I said, shaking the handicapped college kid’s hand. “I’m Mike Bennett, the detective in charge of the Mooney case. I’d like to go over what happened to you.”

“Well, the important thing is that the son of a bitch is dead, right?” Dan said with a weird smile.

“Yes, he certainly is,” I said. “I just need to finish the paperwork. I need you to tell me what happened to you from the beginning.”

Dan nodded as he hit a scoop of caviar. I noticed a slight tremble in his hand as he washed it down with some white wine.

“Let’s see,” he said, chewing. “I was coming out of the library and someone called me over by one of the campus buildings. The next thing I knew, I felt a blow at the back of my head. I woke up hours later in a cave of some sort. I never saw anyone. I was tied up, but after two weeks, I eventually got free. I told all this to the troopers.”

“Humor me,” I said with a grin. “How did you, um, how did you manage to survive for two weeks?”

There was a subtle hitch in his breath.

“There was food there,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “After a week, I finally decided to try to crawl out.”

“Wow, that’s heroic,” I said. “It must have been brutal.”

I’m not sure whether Dan or the silverware jumped higher as I suddenly brought my fist down on the table. I sat down on the table right beside him.

“Maybe everybody else is willing to swallow your bullshit, son, but you obviously haven’t looked into my eyes yet. I’m the person who has to clean up the messes other people leave behind. My only consolation is that I can smell lies from a very great distance.

“You’re a terrible liar, Dan. That’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a virtue in my book. It means you’re new to the world of being a bad person. But you need to stop lying to me. I won’t put up with it.”

He tried to look into my eyes but failed. He lowered his head toward his plate.

“It was Galina,” he mumbled. “It was all Galina’s idea.”

I checked my notes. Galina Nesser was his Russian girlfriend. Christ, what a punk. Right out of the box, he throws his girlfriend under the bus.

“She and her uncle cooked up the whole scheme,” he said. “It had nothing to do with the other kidnappings. They said we could piggyback it. What the hell you want from me, man? I’m handicapped!”

I scribbled in my pad, laid it down, stared at him.

“No, you’re more like an insult to handicapped people,” I said.

“What’s five million dollars to a man like my father?” Dan said as he wept. “I just wanted to get away from him. You don’t know what he’s like. His guilt. I hate it. I hate him. I just wanted to get away. I just wanted to be alone.”

That’s where Dan was wrong. I did understand. I hated and wanted to get away from his father, too.

We could have charged Dan Hastings with a host of things-fraud, misleading an investigation. I decided to give him the worst punishment of all. I grabbed the back of his wheelchair and pushed him back into the stateroom.

“Mr. Hastings, your son has something to tell you.”

“What?” he said. “What is it, Dan?”

“I did it, Dad. I wasn’t kidnapped. It was a trick. I took your money. It had nothing to do with that Mooney guy.”

Gordon Hastings’s regal face imploded like a demolished building. I guess he wasn’t too jazzed about my smiling, told-you-so expression.

“I’m not pressing charges, Officer,” he said, his shock replaced by the sneer that was his natural expression, “if that’s what you were hoping for. I want you off this vessel.”

“What a coincidence. I want me off this vessel, too. Even more than you,” I said on my way out.

Getting into my car in the Chelsea Piers marina parking lot, I still couldn’t believe it. What was wrong with that kid? Setting up such complicated money transfers would have been impressive enough on its own. Dan had even convinced that crazy kid to platform-jump off a bridge in order to get him his money.

Wheelchair or no wheelchair, the kid was clever and charming and rich. Wasn’t that enough? If he hated his father so much, why couldn’t he muster up the guts and leave?

Dan must have liked all that money too much, I realized. Leaving would have been hard. Leaving would have required sacrificing luxury. Dan wanted to have his hate, yet not have to pay for it. Hate costs. Even Mooney could have told him that.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong, I decided, looking at the shining yacht. The rich really were just like you and me. Just as stupid, petty, shortsighted, screwed-up, flawed. Just as human through and through.

Staring out at the yuppies doing their Tiger Woods impressions beside the boats, I thought of someone. I scrolled down through my speed-dial list until I found what I wanted and hit the Call button.

“VICAP. Parker speaking.”

“Agent Parker,” I said. “Bennett here. How are you?”

“Mike!” she yelled. She actually sounded happy to hear from me. She must have forgotten how we had said goodbye at her hotel.