James Patterson - Kill Me If You Can

Newton guzzled the last beer. “Deal,” he said. “I’ll send my crew to pick them up tomorrow.”

He shook my hand and left.

I wrapped my arms around Katherine. I could see Karns sitting on the sofa, glaring at the two of us. Bannon’s hugging the teacher. What’s up with that?

“Did you just sell my paintings for five thousand dollars?” I asked.

“Just three of them. You still have plenty left.”

I loved this woman so much. I kissed her hard.

Everything in life seemed to be going my way. All I could think was, This can’t possibly last, can it?

IT WAS THREE thirty in the morning, and Katherine and I were wrapped in one of those oversize blankets with sleeves. It sounds stupid, but when you’re on the roof of your building and you’ve just made love under the stars, nothing is stupid.

“I was wrong,” I said.

She snuggled up closer to me, and I could feel the heat of her body against mine. “About what?”

“When I woke up this morning with you in my arms,” I said, “I thought I could never be any happier than I was at that moment. But it’s less than twenty-four hours later, and I’m even crazier in love than I was then.”

“It probably didn’t hurt that I sold three of your paintings,” she said.

“You think I love you for your marketing prowess?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re always going on about how you love me, but I don’t recall that you’ve ever mentioned why. Why?”

“Because you’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re funny, and you’re giving me an A in Group Critique.”

“Says who? Where’d you hear that one?” She was grinning.

“You mean you’re not giving me an A?”

“You deserved an A on your term paper, but I don’t post the final grades for another two days,” she said and looked a little pouty. “You’ll have to wait like everyone else. I don’t play favorites. Much.”

I kissed her. “Thank you for selling my paintings,” I said. “I can’t believe you got five grand. I’d have sold them for a lot less.”

“I knew that,” she said. “And so did Newton.”

“He did? Why didn’t he negotiate?”

She smiled. “It’s all part of the game.”

“Since when is art a game?”

“Not art. Commerce. The price of a painting shapes what people think of it. And no matter how sophisticated Newton’s boss is, he’s not going to be happy hanging something on his wall that costs the same as an Elvis on velvet.”

“You’re telling me Newton paid top dollar so he could look good to his boss?”

“No,” she said. “So you could look good.”

I shook my head. “I guess I’ve got a lot to learn about the art business.”

“You’re in luck,” she said, kissing me. “I’m an art teacher.”

We lay there wrapped in each other’s arms, gazing up at the stars. I never thought I could feel this good about a woman. Katherine Sanborne had changed my life, and with my medical bag full of diamonds, I was on the verge of changing hers.

“You think all that money will screw us up?” she said.

Shit! She knew about the money. I didn’t know how she knew, but she did. It was a punch to the gut. Deny, deny, deny.

“What money?” I said lamely.

“You just made your first sale for five thousand,” she said. “It’s a pretty impressive way to start your career.”

Oh, that money.

I exhaled slowly. “No,” I said, “it won’t screw us up. Besides, it’s only one sale. It could be a fluke.”

“No. You’re going to resonate with people,” she said. “You’re honest and it comes through in your work. It’s the essence of Realism.”

“Thanks,” I said.

But she was wrong. I wasn’t honest. And I had a bag of somebody else’s diamonds in my footlocker to prove it.

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL is a majestic beaux arts building sitting on forty-eight acres smack in the middle of Manhattan. It’s been called the heart of the nation’s greatest city, and yet not one of New York City’s thirty-five thousand cops has jurisdiction in the terminal.

In a world where bureaucracy trumps geography, Grand Central has been designated the responsibility of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police, and MTA cops work for New York State.

“You realize we got no juice here in Grand Central,” Rice said as he parked the car in front of a hydrant on 43rd Street.

“I make my own juice,” Benzetti said. “Especially when a bunch of crazy Russians are up our asses. If we don’t find the diamonds, they’ll just decide that we took them, and they’ll ice us the same way they put away Zelvas.”

They entered through the Vanderbilt Avenue doors and stood on the West Balcony under a trio of sixty-foot-high arch windows.

“It looks like everything’s back to normal,” Rice said, looking out over the marble balcony at the vast concourse below.

“Except for the beefed-up security,” Benzetti said.

“I know. I counted five Staties when we came through the door,” Rice said. “Normally, there’s one.”

Benzetti grinned. “Nervous times.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Central Security Office. Lower level.” Benzetti checked his watch. “I got a friend working this shift.”

The two cops walked down the sweeping marble staircase, crossed the concourse, passed the circular marble-and-brass information pagoda with its famous four-sided clock, and went down another flight of stairs to the dining concourse.

They made their way through the food court, where Brother Jimmy’s, Zaro’s, Junior’s, and more than a dozen other celebrated New York food institutions had taken up residence underground, then down a ramp till they got to a door that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Benzetti rang a bell and flashed his badge at a camera, and the two of them were buzzed in.

“NYPD,” he said to the sullen-faced MTA cop at the front desk. “I’m looking for Sergeant Black.”

The cop eyeballed the shield, nodded, checked a directory, and dialed a four-digit number.

“Be right out,” the cop mumbled.

Five minutes later, a tall, attractive African-American woman with three stripes on the sleeves of her uniform came out and threw her arms around Benzetti.

“I know this ain’t no social call,” she said, stepping back from the hug.

“Baby, you know me. I don’t need backup for social calls,” Benzetti said. “This is my partner, John Rice. John, this is Kylie Black.”

They shook hands and Kylie escorted the two men inside. The grandeur and the classic beauty that made the building an architectural landmark was nowhere to be found in the command center. Whatever charm the space may have had when it was built more than a century ago had been painted or plastered over. What remained was an uninspired sterile cavern with fluorescent lighting, banks of monitors, and rows of people at desks and consoles doing their damnedest to keep an eye on every one of the six hundred thousand people who passed through the terminal every day.

“What can the MTA do for New York’s finest,” Kylie said, letting her tongue gently glide across her upper lip, “that we haven’t done already?”

“I hate to bother you,” Benzetti said, “but we need to look at some of America’s Funniest Home Videos from Tuesday night.”

“The bombing?” Black said. “We’ve already run the tapes for the NYPD, FBI, Immigration, Homeland Security — you name it. We’ve had everyone looking at that bomb blast except for the fat lady who runs the food stamps program.”

“We’re not here about the bombing,” Benzetti said. “Some reporter from the Post was mugged Tuesday night by some homeless prick who’s taking up residence in your lovely train station.”