James Patterson - Kill Me If You Can

We turned out the lights, opened the blinds, and let the moonlight pour into the room as we made sweet, sweet love.

NY1 ran Bagboy’s picture a dozen times. They’d have run it a lot more except for the crane collapse on 57th Street. One entire section came crashing down on a crosstown bus, killing three and injuring fourteen, including a pregnant woman. In keeping with the age-old tradition “if it bleeds, it leads,” the station abandoned Bagboy and focused on the crane disaster around the clock.

Even so, there were ninety-one tips waiting for Rice and Benzetti in the morning. They separated them into three batches. Solids, Possibles, and Nut Jobs.

Leonard Karns sounded like a Solid until they got to the part of the message where he said the guy he wanted to turn in was a “total fraud as an artist.” He sounded like someone with an ax to grind, which dropped his tip to a Possible. Then, just before Karns hung up, Benzetti could hear him cackling hysterically, as though he’d just escaped from the flight deck at Bellevue.

Nut Job, he decided.

It took the two detectives a full day to track down and question all the callers in the Solid and Possible folders.

“So far I got squat,” Rice said. “What have you got?”

Benzetti looked at his call sheet. “I got one lonely old lady who was angling to get me to come over for tea, three angry chicks hoping to pin a robbery on their ex-boyfriends, and a whole bunch of bullshit artists and hustlers trying to peddle bogus information to score the reward.”

“We might as well start calling the crazies,” Rice said.

He dialed Leonard Karns’s number.

“It’s about time,” Karns said as soon as Rice identified himself. “I called in the tip a day and a half ago.”

“You and a lot of other people,” Rice said. “You said something on your message about this guy being an artist.”

“He’d like to think so,” Karns said. “I was in one of his art classes at Parsons and his paintings are shit, but he’s banging the professor, so he’s getting a straight A all the way.”

Rice was only half listening. He was about to write this numbskull off when he heard the one word that sparked his adrenaline.

Parsons.

“Mr. Karns, sir, please refresh my memory,” Rice said, his tone now reeking of respect and deference. “Where exactly is Parsons?”

“West Thirteenth Street.”

A block from where Bagboy took the taxi from Grand Central. Bingo!

“So, then, what’s this lousy artist’s name?” Rice asked.

“Not so fast,” Karns said. “First let’s talk about the reward.”

The reward, of course, was pure fiction, but Rice and Benzetti had decided that without it, no one would even bother calling.

“Like it said on TV, the reward is twenty-five grand. And you get to remain anonymous.”

“Screw anonymous,” Karns said. “I want credit for turning the cops onto this phony.”

“No problem,” Rice said. “We’ll invite you to the press conference.”

Press conference. NY1. “Now you’re talking,” Karns said.

“Do you know where he is?” Rice asked casually. “His name would be helpful, but if you tell us exactly where he is, the reward can go even higher.”

“I know who he’s with, and she’s easy to find,” Karns said.

“Who would that be?”

“Like they say in the movies, Detective,” Karns said, “show me the money. You’re not getting my valuable information over the phone. You show up with some kind of NYPD legal document that says I get paid if I help you catch him. Then I’ll tell you his name and how to find him.”

“Fair enough, sir,” Rice said. “We’ll send over our person in charge of rewards.”

“And what’s his name?” Karns asked.

“It’s a female,” Rice said. “Her name is Detective Krall.”

“I got him,” Rice told Benzetti as soon as he hung up. “I think this total asshole Leonard Karns actually knows where our Bagboy is.”

“Let’s go pay him a visit,” Benzetti said. “Right now.”

“Not us,” Rice said. “Did you forget about the butch German who shoved the gun in your mouth?”

“She caught me by surprise. You thought she was butch? ”

“Marta Krall is a pro, and she’s expensive. She’d whack two cops like us and not even break a sweat. We found Karns. Now he’s her problem.”

“Fine,” Benzetti said. “You deal with Marta. I hope I never see her again.”

Rice called Krall’s cell. “We’ve got a lead on the guy with the diamonds,” he said.

“You know who he is?” Krall said, and sounded absolutely astonished.

“No.”

“You know where he lives?”

“No.”

“I know his name, and I’ve been staking out his apartment for two and a half days,” she said. “So much for your police work, your vaunted NYPD protocols.”

“Listen,” Rice said. “My partner and I are just trying to hold up our end of the deal. But if you’ve got the guy, you don’t need us. So good-bye.”

“Wait. I don’t actually have the guy,” Krall said. “Not yet. But he’ll be back sooner or later.”

“Well, if you don’t feel like waiting for later, I’ve got the name and address of someone who knows how to find him.”

MARTA KRALL CHECKED her Breitling Starliner and rang the doorbell to Leonard Karns’s apartment. One thirty-three in the afternoon. The building was drab, dilapidated, and depressingly quiet. Karns buzzed her in, and she took the stairs to apartment B4.

A short, fat lump in gray sweatpants and an olive-drab T-shirt that said ART IS RESISTANCE stood in the doorway.

“You Detective Krall?” he asked.

She smiled and nodded. Then she pointed to her throat and whispered, “Laryngitis.” She liked acting and had unsuccessfully attempted a transition from modeling to movies back in Germany.

“That sucks,” he said. “But no problem. I know what you’re here to find out.”

Marta smiled again. Good boy.

She stepped into the apartment, and he shut the door. It was stuffy and smelled of burnt coffee. There was art all over the walls. Undoubtedly his. She stopped to look at one of the paintings and gave him a big thumbs-up.

“It’s called Improbabilities Number Six, ” he said.

“Nice,” she whispered. It was true. She genuinely liked Improbabilities Number 6. It was powerful, meticulous, urban chic — nothing like the loser who painted it.

Marta tapped her hand to her heart to show how much she loved it. Karns’s eyes settled on her chest as he mumbled a shy thank-you.

Marta took the picture of the man she was trying to find and handed it to Karns.

“You’re going to give me the paperwork for the reward, right?” he said.

She waved him off with an of course I will gesture, and sat down on the sofa. She pulled her skirt up a little so he could get a good look at her legs. She took out a pad and pencil and sat waiting for him to speak.

“The guy you’re looking for is Matthew Bannon,” Karns said. “He’s in one of my classes at Parsons. Since you like my work, you’d hate his. He’s all technique. But he’s dead inside. No originality.”

Marta nodded and tried to communicate that she understood this idiot.

“Who did he rob, anyway?” Karns said.

Marta turned to a clean page on her pad and wrote Where can I find him?

“Believe it or not, he’s been shacking up with the professor of our Group Critique class. Her name is Katherine Sanborne. She’s an asshole, just like he is. Talk about a conflict of mediocrity.”