James Patterson - The Quickie

"You see either of our buddies, Mark or Victor," Trahan advised, "I want you to call out, 'Code red,' and find the nearest corner. Same goes if there's trouble, if you feel you're in any danger at all. We'll be there before you can draw another breath, okay?"

"Code red," I said. "Got it." Hell, I'd been in code red for the past twenty-four hours.

"All right, what else?" Trahan said. "Oh, yeah. Cough up your weapon and badge. The bouncer might want to search you."

The walls of the cramped van suddenly seemed to shrink in on me, until I felt like I was lying in a coffin. My own coffin.

Dear Holy Christ!

I could hand over my Glock and badge without any problem whatsoever.

But Scott's gun, the one that Paul had used to murder him, was in my handbag. That might raise a few eyebrows in the van. What the hell was I going to do now?

I reached into my purse and handed Trahan my Glock. Then I gave him my gold badge.

But I left Scott's murder weapon right where it was, under my wallet and a box of Altoids. "Wish me luck," I said.

"Code red," Trahan repeated. "Don't be a hero in there, Lauren."

"Trust me, I'm no hero."

The door of the van suddenly slid open, and I stepped out, blinking, onto the cracked and stained sidewalk. I looked around. I didn't know which was bleaker, the inner-city horizon or my dwindling chances of pulling this crazy charade off alive.

"Don't worry, partner," Mike said. "We'll be watching you every step of the way."

Yeah, I thought, hefting my bag as the door slammed shut.

That was precisely the problem.

I stared at the establishment in question, the so-called club. The steel shutters. The lightless doorway between them like a vertical open grave.

What in the name of everything holy could happen to me next?

Code red was the least of my problems.

IN THE SMALL ALCOVE just inside the crummy front door was a crimson velvet rope and behind it, an ink-black stairwell leading down.

The bouncer standing next to it was wearing champagne-colored sunglasses and a three-piece suit that could have been made of red Mylar. I silently debated what made me more uneasy as I approached him, the fact that he was six and a half feet tall or the fact that he was morbidly obese.

A steady thumping rose from the raw concrete stairwell at his side, as if blasting were going on in the depths of the earth.

"Lewis spinning tonight?" I asked.

The bouncer shook his huge head almost imperceptibly.

Did he understand English? Did he automatically know I was a cop? I felt suddenly very glad Mike and the other guys were just a yell away.

"Is it a private party, or can I get in?" I said.

Private party, I prayed, glancing down into the black of the stairwell. I had no problem with going back to the van a failure. We could figure something else out. I was leaning toward a nap at that point. Or maybe a three-week vacation out of the country.

"Depends," the bouncer finally spoke.

"On what?" I said.

The bouncer lowered his shades and adjusted himself in a way that made me glad I hadn't eaten any breakfast.

"On how bad you want in," he said.

"That's really romantic," I said as I turned on my heel. "But there's nothing on this earth I want that bad."

"Come back, come back," the unsavory bouncer said, booming nasty laughter as he unclipped the velvet rope. "Don't get so testy, white girl. Just a little joke. Bouncer humor. Welcome to Wonderground."

I WAS ALMOST READY to draw Scott's gun for protection by the time I made it to the bottom of the treacherously dark stairwell. Instead, I took a deep breath. Then I stepped toward the amplified throbbing, passing through a doorway curtained with crystal beads.

On the other side, I stared, amazed, at the flat-screen TVs, the expensive lighting, the packed center bar that looked like it was made of black glass.

The female bartenders behind it wore black rubber cat suits and fake breasts. Heck, they might have been transvestites. The Bronx really was back.

I had to admit, I was kind of impressed. This could have been Manhattan. The Ordonez brothers had done their degradation research.

Among the predominantly Hispanic crowd was a well-represented contingent of upscale white people. They were sweating on the dance floor, faces rapt with foolish smiles as they spun neon-colored glow sticks in both hands.

Above gyrating dancers, in a steel cage suspended from the ceiling, a naked dwarf wearing angel wings was banging on the bars with a white nightstick. Who thinks this shit up? I wondered.

"I can feel your energy," a bloated, middle-aged bond-trader type said as he spilled off the dance floor and tried to embrace me.

I tried to stiff-arm him away, and when that didn't work, I lightly kneed him between the legs.

"Now you can – maybe," I said as he backed off in a hurry. I fled toward the bar.

"Twelve dollars," the bartender said after I ordered a Heineken.

Look at that, I thought, coughing up the money, they even had Manhattan prices.

Maybe thirty seconds later, a short, pudgy Hispanic man with a goatee smiled and wedged himself in beside me.

"I'm the candy man," he said.

I stared at him. The candy man? Was that a new pickup line? I'd been out of it for a while. Actually, to tell the truth, nice Catholic girl that I was, I'd never actually been in it.

He placed an ivory-colored pill in my hand. I didn't think it was a Sweet Tart.

"Twenty," he said.

I gave it back to him and watched him shrug his shoulders and leave. The Ecstasy dealer had to be working for the Ordonezes, right? But I lost him when he stepped into the laser-light kaleidoscope of the dance floor.

I looked around for either Ordonez. I scanned the A-list booths at the rear of the dance floor behind the DJ. The strobes and violent waves of bass weren't exactly helping my concentration. Like it or not, I had to get closer.

I was skirting the far edge of the dance floor to avoid any more unwanted advances, when one of the doors in the concrete wall beside me opened.

Victor Ordonez stepped out, staring right into my eyes. Before I could move, an iron hand was wrapped around the back of my neck.

I turned and saw my buddy from upstairs, the bouncer in dire need of Jenny Craig. "It's only me, lady," he said and grinned.

"Why don't you come into the VIP room?" Victor yelled over the music as I was pushed inside. "Private party. But you can be my guest."

THE BACK VIP ROOM was actually a tenement basement. Raw concrete walls and floors, cinder-block window frames, the rusted hull of an old boiler. Nice décor. A naked bulb hung above an old grease-caked kitchen table that held a stainless steel electronic scale.

Beyond the table, through a dark doorway, was a corridor with something lying on the floor.

I swallowed hard.

It was a crud-stained mattress.

"Get your filthy hands off me right now," I said, struggling to break the bouncer's grip.

"Calm down, please," Victor said pleasantly as he stepped in front of me. He was wearing a three-piece white suit, white shirt, and a black tie. I wondered if Mickey Rourke knew one of his suits was missing.

"This is a routine security matter," Victor explained. "My employee, Ignacio, forgot to search you upstairs. An oversight on his part."

An alarm bell went off in my head. I wondered what else was routine for the violent drug dealer standing in front of me.

"Hey," I said. "Go ahead and kick me out for breaking your rules. I was thinking about hitting a diner for some breakfast, anyway."

Victor sighed. Then he nodded at the bouncer.

My handbag was ripped away. I heard its contents being dumped onto the table as I scanned the room for another exit.