James Patterson - Cross

"I'm not going anywhere," I said, and grinned broadly. "Quite the opposite actually. In fact, I'm going to attend Damon's choir practice tonight. I want to listen to that joyful noise. I want to see how well he supports his breath these days."

"You're going to choir practice?" Damon exclaimed. "What, is there some killer in our singing group?"

I was purposely stretching it out some, my eyes methodically going from face to face. I could tell that none of them had a clue what was coming next. Not even our crafty, know-it-all Nana had figured it out yet.

Jannie finally looked down at Ali. "Make him tell us what's going on, Ali. Make him talk."

"C'mon, Daddy," said the little man, who was already a skillful manipulator. "Tell us. Before Janelle goes crazy."

"All right, all right, all right. Here's the deal. I'm afraid I have to tell you that I'm now unemployed, and that we're practically destitute. Well, not really. Anyway, this morning I resigned from the FBI. For the rest of the day I did nothing. Tonight, it's the rehearsal of 'Cantante Domino' for me."

Nana Mama and the kids went wild with applause. "Destitute! Des-ti-tute!" the kids began to chant.

And you know what? It had a nice ring to it.

So did no more monsters.

THE NEXT BEAT in the story went like this. John Sampson was a star in the Washington PD these days. Ever since Alex left the department and moved over to the FBI, Sampson's reputation had been rising, not that it hadn't been on a high level before, not that Sampson didn't get a lot of respect for all sorts of reasons. The curious thing, though, was that Sampson couldn't have given a rat's ass. Peer approval had never meant much of anything to the Big Man. Unless maybe it was Alex's, and even that was a hit-and-miss thing.

His latest case was definitely a challenge. Maybe because he hated the bad actor he was trying to bring down. The scum in question, Gino "Greaseball" Giametti, operated strip joints and massage parlors as far south as Fort Lauderdale and Miami. His "sideline" was catering to pervs who needed adolescent girls, sometimes prepubescent ones. Giametti himself was obsessed with the so-called Lolita complex.

" Capo," Sampson muttered under his breath as he drove up Giametti's street in the ritzy Kalorama section of DC. The self-important term referred to capitano, a captain in the Mafia. Gino Giametti had been a significant earner for years. He'd been one of the first mobsters to figure out that big money could be made bringing in pretty young girls from the former Soviet bloc, especially Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. That was his specialty, and it was the reason Sampson was riding his ass now. His one regret was that Alex couldn't be with him on this bust. This was going to be a sweet takedown.

At a little past midnight, he pulled up in front of Giametti's house. The mobster didn't live too extravagantly, but all his needs were met. That was how the Mafia took care of its own.

Sampson peered into his rearview and saw two more cars ease up against the curb directly behind him. He spoke into a mike sticking out from his shirt collar. "Good evening, gents. I think this is going to be a fine night. I can feel it in my bones. Let's go wake up the Greaseball."

SAMPSON'S PARTNER THESE DAYS was a twenty-eight-year-old detective named Marion Handler, who was almost as big as Sampson was. Handler was certainly no Alex Cross, though. He was currently living with a large-breasted but small-minded cheerleader for the Washington Redskins, and he was looking to make a name for himself in Homicide. "I'm fast-tracking, dude," he liked to say to Sampson, without a hint of humor or self-effacement.

Just being around the cocky detective was exhausting, and also depressing. The man was plain stupid; worse, he was arrogant about it, flaunting his frequent logic lapses.

"I'll take the point on this one," Handler announced as they reached the front porch of Giametti's house. Four other detectives, one holding a battering ram, were already waiting at the door. They looked to Sampson for direction.

"Take the lead? No problem, Marion. Be my guest," he said to Handler. Then he added, "First in, first to the morgue." He spoke to the detective holding the battering ram: "Take it down! Detective Handler goes in first."

The front door collapsed in two powerful strikes with the ram. The house alarm system began to wail, and the detectives hurried inside.

Sampson's eyes took in the darkened kitchen. Nobody there. New appliances everywhere. An iPod and CDs scattered on the floor. Kids in the house.

"He's downstairs," Sampson told the others. "Giametti doesn't sleep with his wife anymore."

The detectives hurried down steep wooden stairs on the far side of the kitchen. They hadn't been inside more than twenty seconds. In the basement, they burst in the first door they came to. "Metro Police! Hands up. Now, Giametti," Marion Handler's voice boomed.

The Greaseball was up quickly. He stood in a protective crouch on the far side of the king-size bed. He was a short, potbellied, hirsute man in his midforties. He looked groggy and still out of it, maybe drugged up. But John Sampson wasn't fooled by his physical appearance – this man was a stone-cold killer. And much worse.

A pretty, naked young girl with long blond hair and fair white skin was still on the bed. She tried to cover her small breasts and shaved genital area. Sampson knew her name, Paulina Sroka, and that she was from Poland originally. Sampson had known she would be here and that Giametti was rumored to be madly in love with the blond beauty he'd imported from Europe six months ago. According to sources, the Greaseball had killed the girl's best friend because she'd refused to have anal sex with him.

"You don't have to be afraid," Sampson said to Paulina. "We're the Washington police. You're not in any trouble. He is."

"Just shut the hell up!" Giametti yelled at the girl, who looked both confused and scared. "Don't say a word to them! Not a word, Paulie! I'm warning you!"

Sampson moved faster than it looked like he could. He threw Giametti on the floor, then cuffed him like a steer at a rodeo.

"Don't say a word!" Giametti continued to yell, even though his face was pressed into the shag rug. "Don't talk to them, Paulie! I'm warning you! You hear me?"

The girl looked pathetic and lost as she sat among the rumpled bedsheets, attempting to cover herself with a man's shirt she'd been given by the detectives.

She finally spoke in the softest whisper. "He make me do anything he say. He do everything bad to me. You know what I am saying – everything you could imagine. I can hardly walk… I am fourteen years old."

Sampson turned to Handler. "You can take it from here, Marion. Get him the hell out of here. I don't want to touch the slime."

AN HOUR LATER, Gino Giametti was basted, then grilled until he was well-done under bright lights in Investigation Room #1 at the First District station house. Sampson wouldn't take his eyes off the vicious gangster, who had a disturbing habit of scratching his scalp compulsively, hard enough to make it bleed. Giametti didn't seem to notice it himself.

Marion Handler had carried the show so far, done most of the preliminary questioning, but Giametti didn't have much to say to him. Sampson sat back and observed, sizing up both men.

So far, Giametti was getting the best of it. He was a lot smarter than he looked. "I woke up and Paulie was sleeping in my bed. Sleeping – just like when you busted in. What can I tell you? She has her own bedroom upstairs. She's a scared little girl. Crazy sometimes, too. Paulie does housekeeping and shit like that for my wife. We wanted to put her in the local schools. The best schools. We were letting her work on her English first. Hey, we were trying to do the right thing by that kid, so why are you busting my balls?"