James Patterson - Don’t Blink

© 2010

LOMBARDO’S STEAKHOUSE ON Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side was justly famous for two things, two specialties of the house. The first was its double-thick, artery-clogging forty-six-ounce porterhouse, the mere sight of which could give a vegan an apoplectic seizure.

The second claim to fame was its clientele.

Simply put, Lombardo’s Steakhouse was paparazzi heaven. From A-list actors to all-star pro athletes, CEOs to super-models, rap stars to poet laureates – anyone who was anyone could be spotted at Lombardo’s, whether they were brokering deals or just looking and acting fabulous.

Zagat, the ubiquitous red bible of dining guides, said it best: “Get ready to rub elbows and egos with the jet set, because Lombardo’s is definitely the place to see and be seen.”

Unless you were Bruno Torenzi, that is.

He was the man who was about to make Lombardo’s Steakhouse renowned for something else. Something terrible, just unbelievably awful.

And no one seemed to notice him… until it was too late… until the deed was almost done.

Of course, that was the idea, wasn’t it? In his black three-button Ermenegildo Zegna suit and dark-tinted sunglasses, Bruno Torenzi could have been anybody. He could have been everybody.

Besides, it was lunch. Broad daylight, for Christ’s sake.

For something this sick and depraved to go down, you would have at least thought nighttime. Hell, make that a full moon with a chorus of howling wolves.

“Can I help you, sir?” inquired the hostess, Tiffany, the one person who did manage to notice Torenzi if only because it was her job. She was a young and stunning blonde from the Midwest, with perfect porcelain skin, who could turn more heads than a chiropractor.

But it was as if she didn’t even exist.

Torenzi didn’t stop, didn’t even glance her way when she spoke to him. He just waltzed right by her, cool as a cabana.

Screw it, thought the busy hostess, letting him go. The restaurant was packed as always, and he certainly looked like he belonged. There were other customers arriving, getting in her face as only New Yorkers can. Surely this guy was meeting up with someone who was already seated.

She was right about that much.

Table chatter, clanking silverware, the iconic jazz of John Coltrane filtering down from the recessed ceiling speakers – they all combined to fill the mahogany-paneled dining room of Lombardo’s with a continuous loop of the most pleasant sort of white noise.

Torenzi heard none of it.

He’d been hired because of his discipline, his unyielding focus. In his mind there was only one other person in the busy restaurant. Just one.

Thirty feet…

Torenzi had spotted the table in the far right corner. A special table, no doubt about that. For a very special customer.

Twenty feet…

He cut sharply over to another aisle, the heels of his black wingtips clicking against the polished wood floor like a metronome in three-quarter time.

Ten feet…

Torenzi leveled his stare on the bald and unabashedly overweight man seated alone with his back to the wall. The picture he’d been handed could stay tucked in his pocket. There was no need to double-check the image.

This was him, for sure. Vincent Marcozza.

The man who had less than a minute to live.

VINCENT MARCOZZA – WEIGHING in at three hundred pounds plus – glanced up from what remained of his blood-rare porterhouse steak, stuffed baked potato, and gaudy portion of onion strings. Even sitting still the guy looked woefully out of breath and very close to a coronary.

“Can I help you?” asked Marcozza, seemingly polite. His raised-on-the-streets-of-Brooklyn tone, however, suggested otherwise. It was more like, Hey, pal, what the hell are you staring at? I’m eating here.

Torenzi stood motionless, measuring the important man. He took his sweet time answering. Finally, in a thick Italian accent he announced, “I have a message from Eddie.”

This amused Marcozza for some reason. His pasty complexion spiked red as he laughed, his neck fat jiggling like a Jell-O mold. “A message from Eddie, huh? Hell, I should’ve known. You look like one of Eddie’s guys.”

He lifted the napkin from his lap, wiping the oily cow juice from the corners of his mouth. “So what is it, boy? Spit it out.”

Torenzi glanced to his left and right as if to point out how close the nearby tables were. They were too close. Capisce?

Marcozza nodded. Then he motioned his uninvited lunch visitor forward. “For my ears only, huh?” he said before breaking into another neck-jiggling laugh. “This oughta be good. It’s a joke, right? Let’s hear it.”

Over by the far wall a waiter stood on tiptoe on a chair, erasing the Chilean sea bass special from a large chalkboard. Hustling by him, a busboy and his gray bucket carried the remains of a table for four. And at the bar, a waitress loaded up her tray with a glass of pinot noir, a vodka tonic, and two dry martinis with almond-stuffed olives.

Torenzi stepped slowly to Marcozza’s side. Placing his left hand firmly on the table, he unclenched his right fist, which was tucked neatly behind his back. The cold steel handle of a scalpel fell promptly and rather gracefully from his sleeve.

Then, leaning in, Torenzi whispered three words, and only three. “Justice is blind.”

Marcozza squinted. Then he frowned. He was about to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean.

But he never got the chance.

IN A HELLISH BLUR, Bruno Torenzi whipped his arm around, plunging the scalpel deep into the puffy fold above Marcozza’s left eye. With a good butcher’s precision and hard speed, he cut clockwise around the orbital socket. Three, six, nine, midnight… The blade moved so fast, the blood didn’t have time to bleed.

“ARRRGH!” was a pretty good approximation of the sound Marcozza made.

He screamed in agony as the entire restaurant turned. Now everyone noticed Bruno Torenzi. He was the one carving the eye out of that fat man’s face – like a pumpkin!

“ARRRRRRGH!”

Torenzi was outweighed by over a hundred pounds but it didn’t matter. He’d positioned himself perfectly, his rigid choke hold keeping Marcozza’s head dead still while the rest of his body violently jerked and thrashed. What was premeditated murder if not calculated leverage?

Squish!

Scooped out like a melon ball, Marcozza’s left eye fell to the white linen tablecloth and rolled to a stop.

Next came the right eye. Slice, slice, slice…Beautiful handiwork, to be sure.

But the right eye didn’t pop out like the left one. Instead, it dangled, held by the stubborn red vessel of the optic nerve.

Torenzi smiled and flicked his wrist. He was almost finished here, so hold the applause.

Snip!

Marcozza’s right eye, with a gooey tail of flesh and vein, careened off the bread plate and fell to the floor.

Blood, finally catching up to the moment, now gushed from Marcozza’s empty eye sockets. In medical terms, his ophthalmic artery had been severed from his internal carotid artery, the high-pressure main line to the brain. In layman’s terms, it was just a god-awful, horrifying, and disgusting mess.