James Patterson - Double Cross

Cooley was already one strike away from finding out what it’s like when I lose my patience. “We have questions about two Saturdays ago. Just for starters, can you tell us where you were?”

“Okay.” He started toward the back room. “Let’s sit down. I was right here that Saturday. Never left the apartment.”

Once we were in the living room, Bree stayed on her feet. I sat down across from Cooley on a tall, wobbly stool. He had one very old easy chair, a coffee table, a half-decent home-theater setup, and another stool as the balance of his furniture.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.

“Ever since I won the lottery,” he deadpanned. His manner was cocky and full of hard eye contact.

Bree stepped in. “Mr. Cooley, can anyone verify that you were here that night?”

He sat back in his chair. “Yeah. The good ladies at 1-900-FUCKYOU can do that.”

With two quick steps, she was on him. She jerked the handle on the side of his La-Z-Boy and laid him out flat. Then she leaned in close. “This isn’t funny, asshole. You aren’t funny. Now talk to us, and keep it straight. I don’t have much of a sense of humor lately.”

She’d gone further than I would have, but it worked out.

The actor put his hands up in mock surrender. “I was just kidding around. Damn. Chill, girl.”

Bree stood up but stayed close. “Talk. I don’t feel like chilling, dude.”

“I rented a movie, ordered Chinese from Hunan Palace. Somebody delivered the food. You can talk to them.”

“What time did they deliver?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Seven? Eight? Somewhere in there. Hell, I don’t know.” Bree barely moved toward him, and he flinched before recovering again. “I’m serious. I don’t know what time it was. But it doesn’t matter. I was here the whole night.”

I didn’t say so out loud, but I felt inclined to believe him. Despite his show of testosterone, everything about him was weak -the way he moved, the way he talked, the way he had folded so fast when Bree got a little aggressive.

We were looking for someone much more in control than this guy, someone who was stronger in every way.

And probably a better actor too.

Bree must have felt it. “Let’s go, Alex,” she said. She turned back to the actor, smiled. “Sorry, you’re not right for the part. Bet you hear that a lot, smart-mouth.”

AT NINE THIRTY on Sunday morning, church day , a mild-mannered type named David Hayneswiggle, an accountant, and not a very good one, gazed down and saw that the George Washington Memorial Parkway was filling up with traffic. Both northbound and southbound lanes were crowded-though not enough to keep anyone from doing at least sixty and often eighty or more.

Once in a while, a northbound car would honk loudly as it approached the usually deserted pedestrian bridge that ran across the highway. Made sense to Hayneswiggle.

The people riding along below him had to be wondering what some guy in a droopy Richard Nixon mask was doing up there all by himself. And if they did wonder, they were only half right.

It was a Nixon mask, but he wasn’t alone. David Haynes-wiggle had plenty of company.

The third story had begun, and it was a doozy-very imaginative, high profile, dramatic as hell.

Another terrific role to play too. The accountant with nothing to live for, nothing to lose. Huge chip on his shoulder. Payback time long overdue for this guy.

An eighteen-year-old high-school boy lay motionless on the cement at his feet. The poor lad was dead, his throat slit and already bled out. The boy just couldn’t get it in his head to cooperate and do as he was told. Next to him, a teenage girl sat with her back against a wall that also hid her from view of the cars passing below.

The girl was still alive. One of her small hands was in her lap; the other hung limply overhead, where she was cuffed to the bridge’s railing. A line of sweat beads showed on her upper lip, just above the duct tape that was wrapped all the way around her mouth and head.

David Hayneswiggle looked down at the girl, who was all bug-eyed and shaking like an addict. “How you doing? You still with me?” he asked.

She either ignored him or didn’t hear what he’d said. It doesn’t matter what the girl thinks, or how she acts , David Hayneswiggle thought to himself. Once again, he watched the traffic down below on the George Washington, gauging for speed and distance, and just the right moment. The third story was going to be something else.

Whenever some total jackass honked at him, he held up the double peace sign. “I am not a crook,” he said in his best croaky Nixon voice. He identified so much with Nixon, another loser with a chip on his shoulder.

When he had seen enough, had memorized the scene for future reference, he knelt down next to the girl. She scrambled, moving away maybe a foot, all that she could manage on account of the handcuffs attached to the railing.

“Save your strength,” he said. “You’re safe, right? As long as you’re cuffed to the rail. Think about it. Everything is cool.”

He squiggled his arms under the boy’s body, then strained to get himself into a half-kneeling position. The kid couldn’t have been more than 150 pounds, but it seemed like a ton. Deadweight , no joke.

David Hayneswiggle flexed his leg muscles, keeping them ready as he eyed the highway from a squatting position. He saw his target. A white Toyota minivan had come into view about a quarter mile away. There were no trucks allowed on the parkway, so a Hummer, or something like the minivan, was as big as he was going to find. The van stuck to its lane, possibly hemmed in by other cars.

He scootched over to the right a bit, lining himself up as best he could.

When the van was about a hundred yards off, he secured his grip on the boy.

At fifty yards, he rose. In one powerful motion, he came to his full height. And then he chucked the body over the rail, watching it tumble like a heavy sack. It hit the minivan’s hood and windshield with a smash of glass, followed by a fast squealing of tires. Holy shit !

The van swerved and skidded underneath the narrow bridge and back out the other side-then it tipped over. Steel groaned against concrete, and two more crashes sounded from behind the minivan as other daydreaming drivers failed to stop in time.

Traffic was backed up almost instantly.

The northbound parkway would soon be the northbound parking lot; southbound cars would be stopped too, as the rubbernecking set in.

He had their attention now.

Finally someone was noticing David Hayneswiggle.

Hell, it was about time.

DAVID HAYNESWIGGLE addressed the girl now, and he had to speak loudly over the thrum of traffic still headed south on the parkway. He actually had to shout to be heard. “Ready? Are you ready? Hey, I’m talking to you. Don’t act like I’m not here!”

The girl’s boot heels scraped concrete as she tried to get farther away from him-from this madman who had already killed her boyfriend. The handcuff on her wrist cut deeply into her skin, but the pain didn’t seem to matter. She was focused only on getting away from the weirdo in the Richard Nixon mask, that being him.

She was pretty enough, in a suburban-cheerleader kind of way. Lydia Ramirez, according to her driver’s permit. Seventeen years old, but he took no pity on her. Adolescents were the most wretched humans of all. “Okay, now don’t move. I’ll be right back for you. Hold that deer-in-the-headlights look.”

Hayneswiggle stood up again and checked out the scene below. The audience was assembled, and they seemed impatient for the show to continue. The highway was complete chaos now. Northbound traffic was already backed up along the Potomac.