James Patterson: Kill Me If You Can

And then a body came flying through the air and hit the marble floor.

It was a young man, Asian, wearing a busboy’s uniform.

Michael Jordan’s Steak House is a popular restaurant on the balconies overlooking the main concourse. People were pouring out, shoving their way toward the wide marble staircase at the west side of the station. The busboy must have been caught at the far end of the restaurant and opted for the quick way out. It was about a twenty-foot drop. He stood up on his right leg and started hopping toward the exit.

I thought I’d just experienced the most insane day of my life. What I didn’t know then was that after I reached inside that locker, the insanity would only get worse.

I put my hand on the open door and peered in. There was a bag inside. But not just any bag. It was one of those old-timey medical bags that you see in black-and-white movies from back in the days when doctors made house calls.

Maybe the Russian wasn’t so dumb after all. Doctor bags are usually crammed with gauze and tape and about twelve hundred cotton balls.

I opened it carefully and looked inside.

My first thought was Holy shit.

My second thought was This is a bag worth dying for.

I’D SEEN DIAMONDS before. My mother had one in her engagement ring. My aunt had two in her ears. But my recently shot-up acquaintance, now cooling on the floor of Grand Central, had them all beat. Did you ever enter one of those contests where you have to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar, and there are so many of them, you know you won’t even come close? That’s how many diamonds were in the Russian’s medical bag.

Correction— my medical bag. At least for the time being.

When I was growing up, my mom used to tell my sister and me about a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But she never mentioned a Russian Neanderthal with a bag of diamonds at the end of a bloody trail in a train station. Mom also said something about never taking what doesn’t belong to you. But to whom did the diamonds actually belong? The dead guy with the gun? I definitely suspected he had taken them from somebody else. My mom meant well, but at a time like this, I had to seriously consider my dad’s worldview. Finders keepers.

I could almost hear my dad listing my options. What are you going to do, Matthew? Leave the diamonds with the dead body and walk away? Or maybe you want to get on the PA system and say, “If anyone at Grand Central lost a bag of diamonds, please meet me on the main concourse”?

I made a decision, a temporary one, anyway. The diamonds were up for grabs and I was the one who would grab them.

I closed the black bag and snapped the brass latch. My mind started racing. These diamonds could completely change my life.

Little did I know how soon, and how much.

The voice behind me was deep, resonant, and authoritative. “Police. Turn around real slow. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

I turned. The voice belonged to a young, very large African-American cop. And just in case his size didn’t intimidate me, he was pointing his service revolver at my chest.

Hmm, I thought. Looks like my life is changing already.

THERE WAS A dead guy at my feet, a fortune in diamonds in my hands, and an NYPD uniform pointing his gun at me. Now what happens?

“Officer Kendall,” I said, reading his name tag. “I’m really glad you showed up. Thank God. Can you give me a hand here?”

“Who are you? Who is he?” the cop asked.

“I’m Dr. Jason Wood,” I said, dredging up a name. “And I have no idea who he is, but I can tell you he’s dead.”

I knelt down beside the body and tried to appear oblivious of the policeman’s gun. “There was nothing I could do. He had expired by the time I got here.”

Kendall was young, a beat cop, and this had to be the most action he’d seen since the Academy. One minute he was probably shooing unlicensed T-shirt vendors off Madison Avenue, and the next he’s involved in a bomb attack in the heart of Manhattan.

“Please do me a favor,” I said, barely looking up at him. “Would you point that gun somewhere else?”

“Sorry, Doc,” he said, holstering the weapon.

I leaned over the dead body like I knew what I was doing. “He must have caught some shrapnel when the bombs went off,” I said, stalling. “You know who’s behind it?”

“I don’t know shit,” the cop said. “I was on Forty-sixth Street. The call went out that bombs had gone off at Grand Central. I just got here.”

“Just a minute. Hold on. I’ve got an incoming.” I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and pressed it to my ear. Then I improvised. “Hello, this is Dr. Wood,” I said. “I know. I was actually in Grand Central when the bombs went off. I’m still there. I’ll get to the ER as soon as I possibly can.”

I stood up. “Look, Officer,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do for this man. But there are people who need my help. I’ve got to get back down to St. Vincent’s. Are the subways running?”

“Shut down,” he said.

“All right. I’ll walk if I have to.”

Kendall’s radio came to life then. “All units, Grand Central Terminal. I have a ten-thirteen. Repeat — ten-thirteen: Officer needs assistance. Multiple looters at Five Borough Jewelry in the Forty-second Street Passageway. Shots fired.”

That’s when I found out that an officer in trouble trumps a dead civilian. Kendall didn’t hesitate. “I gotta go,” he said. “You wait here for the coroner.”

He raced off toward the Forty-second Street Passageway. As soon as he was out of sight, I headed in the other direction. As fast as I could.

I cut through the frenzied mass of people in Grand Central. It took maybe five or six minutes to get out to Lexington Avenue, where the insanity was even worse.

With the trains shut down, the street was teeming with commuters who wanted to get as far from midtown Manhattan as possible. And who were fighting over the few yellow cabs that had stopped.

Three men in suits had cornered one driver and were attempting to negotiate their way out of Dodge.

“Scarsdale,” one said. “I’ll give you three hundred bucks.”

“Ridgewood, New Jersey,” another guy said, and he actually held out a handful of hundreds. “A thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t believe it. I could fly to Japan for less than that. Jersey won the bidding war. He was about to get in the cab when I grabbed his arm.

“I’m a doctor. I have to get downtown to St. Vincent’s Hospital to deal with the victims,” I said. “If you’re taking the Holland Tunnel, you’ll go right past it.”

He looked down at my medical bag. “Yeah, yeah, Doc,” he said. “Hop in. Let’s get out of here.”

I got in. The driver locked the doors and began to weave his way through the human traffic jam on Lexington Avenue. St. Vincent’s is only a few blocks from my apartment. I was headed home. No charge.

Even if I decide to turn in these diamonds, I thought, I’m definitely keeping this little black bag.

THIRTY MINUTES AFTER Walter Zelvas bled out on the floor of Grand Central, two NYPD detectives pulled up to his apartment building on East 77th Street. Some cops go by the book, some bend the rules. But Detectives John Rice and Nick Benzetti were considerably dirtier than most of the crooks they busted.

They had finished the day shift in Robbery for the Department, and now they were working for Chukov at a much better hourly rate. Their mission was simple. Find the diamonds.