James Patterson - Private

“Andy. It’s Jack. Let me in.”

“Go away,” Andy said from the other side of the door. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying it.”

“Come on, bozo. I’ve already told the manager you’re on a suicide watch. He’s going to key me in if you don’t open up.”

The door finally opened.

Andy was in rumpled pajamas, holding a half-full bottle of Chivas by the neck. His hair was standing straight up, as if he hadn’t combed or washed it in a while.

“I fired you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did, asshole. I’m not billing you anymore. I’m here because I’m your best friend.”

I followed Andy into the sitting room. The room was dark, curtains pulled closed.

An old Harrison Ford movie was on the television, Witness. The suite looked like a set from the 1930s, or a West Side apartment in New York, except for the open pizza box lying on a chair next to the extralarge TV. I took the pizza box to the kitchenette and dumped it into the trash. Then I returned to the sitting room and sat down.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Fucking fine and dandy, can’t you tell?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Andy took a pull off the bottle and said, “So what now, Jack? Last time I saw you, you told me that my wife was a whore. What else have you got for me?”

“She was using.”

“What? What did you say?”

“She was a crack addict. Maybe heroin too.”

“Hey, fuck you, Jack. Oh, for God’s sake. I mean, who cares, anyway? She’s dead, Jack. Dead. And look what she left me. I got cops on my ass all day and night. Friends avoiding me, for good reason, I guess. And this fricking room is costing a bomb and a half. All because of my whore-junkie wife.”

“The thing is, Andy, her being a user maybe explains a few things about Shelby. Why she had a secret life, for instance. Why she needed the money. Maybe why she couldn’t tell you the truth.”

Andy picked up the TV’s remote control and surfed around while I talked. His eyes were vacant. He was already a lost soul.

“It’s also a lead of sorts,” I told him. “We already have a line on her dealer. As I’ve been saying, if we find out who killed Shelby, you stop being a suspect.”

Andy finally looked up at me. “Come here, Jack. I want to give you a big wet kiss.”

I got up and took the remote out of his hand. Turned off the tube.

“I didn’t do this to you. I’m trying to help you.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Like you helped me in school. When that girl I was seeing turned out to be doing Artie Deville behind my back.”

“Laurel… something.”

“Right. You got me through Laurel Welky and kept me from killing that guy. Killing him, Andy. And how about when I ran my car through a phone booth in downtown Providence? You placated the dean and my old man.”

Andy laughed. “Har-har. Your old man.”

It was weak, but it was laughter. And I kind of recognized my friend Andy again.

“I’m going to nail this guy, Andy.”

“I know. You’re good, Jack. Private is good, better than it ever was under your father.”

“I’ll take you out to dinner tonight,” I said. “Cool place. Up the coast.”

“Thanks.” His eyes watered up.

We hugged at the doorway, thumped each other’s backs a couple of times.

“I fucking feel sorry for her,” he said, and started to cry. “She was in hell, and she couldn’t tell me. Why couldn’t she tell me? I was her husband. I was her husband, Jack.”

According to her movie star client and maybe her lover, Shelby’s dealer was an ex-con by the name of Orlando Perez.

I’d read his rap sheet. He was a violent prick who’d had arrests for domestic abuse and various assault convictions on a number of occasions, ending with a three-year stretch at Chino for possession with intent. He’d been smart or lucky enough to stay out of jail since he’d graduated from that hellhole in 2008.

These days, Perez lived with his wife and kids in a two-million-dollar faux Greek revival on Woodrow Wilson Drive. There were two cars in his driveway: a late-model Beemer and a black Escalade with gold-chain rims.

Del Rio had been shadowing Perez for the past forty-eight hours, monitoring his conversations with a parabolic dish the size of half a grapefruit and a Sennheiser MKE 2 lavalier mic. I didn’t care about Private’s expenses on this case.

According to Del Rio, Perez used a succession of boost phones to set up his impromptu drug deals, which took place in parking lots and on roadsides. His customers were executive types as well as models and starlets, who in all likelihood got discounts for favors provided in the front seat of Perez’s SUV.

The front door of the house opened, and a pretty brunette carrying a baby and holding the hand of a toddler came out, got into the Beemer, and then drove right past us.

“The wifey-poo,” said Del Rio with a smirk.

He put on his headset and told me that Perez was alone. He was on the phone with a disgruntled client named Butterfly, telling her to take a deep breath. He’d be there soon. He’d bring her what she needed.

“Okay, he’s meeting Butterfly in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on Cahuenga in twenty minutes,” Rick said.

“No, he’s not. Let’s go.”

We got out of the fleet car and walked up to the front door of the house. I rang the bell. Rang it again. Then I yelled, “Open up, Perez. You won ten million dollars from the Publishers Clearing House.”

I’d just told Del Rio to go stand by the Escalade, when Perez suddenly opened the door.

He was barefoot, his shoulder-length bleached-white hair contrasting with his tanned skin and dark Fu Manchu mustache. A scar ran through the mustache, enhancing the frig-you look on his face.

Was his the last face Shelby Cushman had ever seen? It wouldn’t have surprised me at all.

Had this son of a bitch killed her for getting behind in her payments? I showed Perez my badge, and mistaking us for cops, the scumbag hesitated.

“You need a fug-geen warrant, yo,” said Orlando Perez, his face balling up like a fist, the scar going white.

Del Rio put his shoulder hard against the door, and we were in.

“See, we don’t need a warrant,” Rick said.

Orlando Perez shouted over the ambient music, “Get outta my house. Get outta here!”

Del Rio took his gun out of his belt and said, “Jack, I left my book in the car. The one on negotiation called Getting to Yes. Think you can get that for me?”

I said, “Let’s wing it without the book.”

“Yeah,” Del Rio said. “Sure. We can do that. See how much we remember.”

Perez’s pupils were large, and he was having trouble focusing. “Hey!” he shouted at Del Rio’s gun. “I said ged out.”

I pulled the plug to the sound system out of the wall.

Del Rio said, “We’re not cops. But after we have a talk, go ahead and call them.”

The dealer grabbed a gun resting in the seat of a lounge chair and got the grip into his palm. He was bringing up the muzzle of the semiautomatic when I hit him at the knees and brought him down.

A burst of rounds went off. Blew past my ear and took out a lamp with a glass shade and a painting of a bullfighter over the mantel.

Del Rio kicked the gun out of Perez’s hand, and I rolled the dealer over and put my knee into his back with feeling. Then I cuffed him with flex ties.

When I stood up, Del Rio handed me his gun. Then he got a two-hand hold on Perez and dragged him by his white hair and the waistband of his jeans across the polished marble floors, past the indoor pool shaped like a bong, and into a high-tech stainless-steel kitchen that was actually quite nice.