James Patterson - Kill Me If You Can

“Mugged?” Kylie said. “First I heard about it. Usually our wretched refuse are pretty well behaved. They come here to sleep and use the toilets. The bus terminal is where you get most of your muggings. Grand Central is the home of the harmless homeless.”

“Well, one of your bums ripped off this Post reporter’s brand-new leather jacket. His wife is a friend of the mayor’s wife, and you can guess the rest.”

Black shook her head. “NYPD assigns two detectives from Robbery to get a bead on this dude’s precious jacket before City Hall shits a brick.”

Benzetti shrugged. “Hey, I got two years till I make my twenty. Somebody asks me to do something, I shut up and do whatever makes them happy.”

Black smiled broadly. “I’ll remember that, Detective Benzetti, next time I can think of something that will make me happy. Come on, I’ll set you guys up in a room with the tapes. Knock yourselves out.”

THE TECH WAS gaunt and pasty. His name was R. J. or J. R. Rice and Benzetti didn’t pay attention, didn’t care. All they wanted was for him to leave.

“You guys know how to navigate this puppy?” the tech asked.

They were sitting in a cramped screening room with a computer, a thirty-inch monitor, and not much else.

“I’ve got a sixteen-camera surveillance unit at home,” Rice said.

“LOL,” the tech said, actually laughing out loud. “Well, this will be like going from a Buick Skylark to a Bugatti Veyron.”

“They both got four wheels and an engine,” Benzetti said.

“LOL,” the tech repeated, not laughing this time. “But don’t worry, it’s idiot-proof.” He held up both hands. “Not that I’m saying you guys are idiots.”

“LOL,” Benzetti said. “Just show us how to work the goddamn Bugatti computer and get out of here.”

Ten minutes later the tech left the room, and Rice pulled up the cameras on the main concourse.

“The bomb went off a little after eleven Tuesday night,” Benzetti said. “Start the search an hour before.”

The images were high-def, and finding Walter Zelvas in the late-night comings and goings of thousands of travelers took less than twenty minutes.

“Freeze it,” Benzetti said. “There he is, buying coffee at Starbucks.”

They tracked him as he walked into the waiting area, then fast-forwarded as he sat down, got up, checked the monitor, then repeated the process, getting more frustrated each time.

“His train is late,” Rice said as they watched Zelvas go back to Starbucks.

As the time code approached 11 p.m., Zelvas finished the second cup, crumpled it up, threw it in the trash, crossed the concourse, stopped to have a few words with a porter, and then entered the men’s room. Rice froze it again.

“There’s the guy the cops described. Beard. Poncho. That’s the Talibum — the guy with the bomb. He’s following Zelvas into the john.”

“That’s no bum,” Benzetti said. “That’s the guy Chukov hired to waste Zelvas. Pick them up on the bathroom camera.”

“There are no bathroom cameras,” Rice said. “Some crap about civil liberties.”

They watched the video at normal speed. Eighty-eight seconds later, Zelvas stumbled out of the men’s room, bleeding from the neck and firing his gun backward. Then he disappeared out of the frame.

Seconds later, the man in the poncho stood in the men’s-room doorway. He pointed a gun in the direction Zelvas had headed, but first he had to deal with the MTA police.

“This is like watching the Keystone Kops,” Rice said as the bearded man handily dispatched a cop with a bucket of soapy water.

The bum grabbed two grenades from under his poncho and pulled the pins, and the screen was engulfed in smoke.

“That bastard is slick,” Benzetti said. “See if you can pick him up on another camera.”

Rice bounced from one camera to another, but the smoke blocked them all. He hit fast-forward, but by the time the smoke faded, so did the bum. “I can’t find him anywhere,” Rice said.

“Chukov hired him, so Chukov can find him. Our job is to find the diamonds. Somebody knows where they are.”

Rice smacked his forehead. “Duh. Zelvas knows.”

“Duh,” Benzetti repeated. “Zelvas is dead.”

“He’s not dead in the video. Hang on.”

Rice surfed from camera to camera. “Got him,” he said after a few minutes.

They watched Zelvas stagger across the marble floor. He crashed into a bank of lockers, found one on the top row, and opened it.

Rice froze the image and zoomed in on the frame. “Jackpot,” he said. “Locker number nine twenty-five. How much you want to bet it’s not filled with cheese?”

RICE UNFROZE THE image, and Zelvas slumped to the floor. A wet circle fanned out from his body, slowly turning the white marble bright red.

And then wisps of smoke crept into the corner of the screen.

“Shit,” Benzetti said. “We’re going to lose the picture again.”

“Relax,” Rice said. “He’s a good two hundred feet from the blast.”

They watched as the smoke cast a pink haze over the picture, then lifted.

“Look at all those people run. They’re practically tripping over the poor bastard, and they don’t stop to help him,” Rice said.

“As far as they’re concerned, some terrorist just set off a couple of bombs. It’s every man for himself,” Benzetti said. “Wait a minute. Here comes Mr. Good Samaritan.”

The preppy-looking young man knelt down and tried to comfort Zelvas.

“Who is this guy?” Rice asked.

“Who knows? He looks like some latte-sipping pansy who was running for his life and decided to stop and smell the dead guy.”

“Zelvas is telling him something,” Rice said.

“Short conversation,” Benzetti said, as they watched Zelvas die. “He just cashed in his chips.”

“Now what’s this guy gonna do?” Rice said.

“If the kid is smart, he’ll move his ass out of Grand Central.”

But the kid didn’t move. He was staring up at the blood-smeared lockers.

“Uh-oh,” Rice said. “The monkey sees the banana.”

The young man stood up, reached into the open locker, and taking out a small leather bag, looked inside.

“The monkey is about to crap in his pants,” Benzetti said.

“He looks like a Boy Scout,” Rice said. “Maybe he’ll turn it into Lost and Found. I know I would.”

Benzetti laughed. “He could be as honest as a full-length mirror, but we all have our price.”

The young man shut the bag in a hurry and snapped the latch.

“My instincts tell me this dude just found out what his is.”

And then the cop showed up.

“This guy is NYPD,” Rice said.

“He must be from the Idiot Squad,” Benzetti said. “Why would he pull a gun on a civilian?”

The kid ignored the cop’s gun and tended to the dead Russian.

“He’s smart,” Rice said. “He’s using Zelvas’s bag as a prop and playing doctor.”

“And Officer Dumbass is buying it,” Benzetti said as the young cop holstered his gun.

They watched the scenario unfold. Finally the kid dug into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and started talking.

“How convenient,” Benzetti said. “A phone call.”

“It’s a ruse,” Rice yelled at the cop on the monitor. “And you’re buying it, Officer”—he paused the video and zoomed in on the cop’s name tag—“Kendall.”

He hit the play button and watched as Kendall listened to his radio. The call was brief but it seemed to energize the cop.

“Oh, crap,” Benzetti said. “I think I know how this movie is going to end.”

Kendall spent a few more seconds with the kid, then took off toward the Forty-second Street Passageway. The kid waited another ten seconds, then cut and ran in the other direction.