Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

But it’s tense tonight, and Detective Patricia Harney knows why. The shooting in K-Town. It’s got every politician in Chicago spooked, so it has the department spooked, too.

She’s not here to drink. She had a couple with two of her friends in Lincoln Park before coming here, and that’s enough for her these days, now that she’s gotten serious about marathon training. She has a six-miler planned for tomorrow morning.

She’s here to see her twin brother. But Billy isn’t here. She half expected to see him on the makeshift stage in the corner, where anyone can grab the microphone and do a few minutes of stand-up. Billy’s the best. He’ll grab the mike and just start being funny, without prep; she doesn’t know how he got that gene for fearlessness and quick thinking, the one that escaped her entirely.

Lanny Soscia’s here, though, holding court with some young ones, drinking out of a tall glass, something that looks like cola.

“Patti-Cake!” he says, throwing an arm around her. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”

“Got a minute?” she says.

They find their way to a booth in the corner. “Rookies, scatter,” he says, and the new patrol officers clear out of the booth, just like that. It always amuses Patti how the seniority system works in here, as if they’re still at the academy. “And get us a couple whiskeys.”

Sosh drops into the booth like a load of bricks. “I can have one,” he says.

“Just one?” That would be a first for Soscia.

“Just got here from the station,” he says. “This shooting. Jesus.” He runs a hand over his thinning hair.

“And Billy’s lead?”

The whiskeys drop on the table, one for each of them.

“He’s doing fine,” says Sosh. “I admit I was worried, too. But he just hopped back on the bike and started pedaling.”

“You guys partners?”

“No. I got Mat Rodriguez. Good seed. Good cop. Your brother, he, uh…” Sosh shakes out a laugh. “She’s a real piece a work, that one.”

“She?”

“Yeah. She’s about as fun as a case of hemorrhoids. I don’t know much about her, except that I didn’t see her smile once today.”

“Huh,” says Patti. “A quadruple murder, including a dead little girl, and she didn’t find a reason to smile? That’s weird.”

“You know what I mean.”

She knows what he means, sure, but does anyone say that kind of thing about a man? A guy who keeps a stiff upper lip is stoic, maybe rough around the edges. A woman who does it is a frigid, humorless bitch.

“Okay, look,” Sosh says, after he throws the whiskey back. “No, it wasn’t a festive occasion today, but she hardly said two words. I mean, we’re a team, right? We jaw a little. We gotta have, y’know, camaraderie. Get to know each other. She didn’t say shit.”

“Who is she?” Patti takes a sip of the whiskey, makes a face, slides it across the table to Sosh.

Sosh takes it and downs it. “Name’s Carla Griffin,” he says.

Patti does a double take, falls back in her seat. No way.

“She’s from Wentworth,” he continues. “She worked Narcotics—”

“I know who Carla Griffin is,” she says. She puts a hand over her face.

“You know something I don’t?”

This is a first. Sosh knows everybody in the department. He’s privy to the gossip, the grapevine. He is the grapevine. This seems to be the exception. He doesn’t know about Carla Griffin.

But every woman in the department does.

Billy said all along the superintendent would try to screw him. He figured he’d get some crap traffic assignment or a desk job. Instead, he got Carla Griffin.

“Shit,” she mumbles to herself. “He’s being set up.”

Chapter 17

THE CHURCH looms large and silent near midnight, with its massive arches and sharp angles, looking much like a beacon on the city’s South Side.

The massive parking lot is not empty. A black Cadillac is parked near the entrance. Flanking it on both sides are Chevy Blazers filled with heavily armed men.

Mike Spaulding, one of the city’s top defense lawyers, who’s made splashy appearances in political corruption cases, mob prosecutions, and celebrity trials, greets us on the sidewalk in front of the church, shaking hands with Carla and me. He is dressed down, having taken my phone call from his home in the Gold Coast, rushing out here on short notice.

Not that I gave him a choice. Either produce Jericho Hooper within the hour, I told him, or we come looking for him. He quickly agreed that a covert meeting was preferable for any number of reasons.

“We met in court,” Spaulding says to Carla. “You worked Narcotics? The thing out of Cal City a few years back?”

“Don’t remind me,” she says, trying to make that sound friendly.

“He’s inside.” Spaulding heads up the stairs to the door.

“They open churches for him now, do they?” Carla mumbles to me.

Apparently. We follow Spaulding through massive oak doors. The interior is spacious, covered in red carpet, filled with stained-glass windows and oak pews. On the carpeted steps leading up to the altar sits King Jericho, dressed all in black silk—matching shirt and pants—and sandals.

“Pajamas?” Carla whispers out of the side of her mouth.

“Who knows? He’s probably telling us how unimportant we are.”

“Doesn’t help that we’re coming to him,” she jabs.

True, but we need to handle Jericho differently from the leader of the Hustlers. We just asked Andre Oliver to give us some breathing room before he retaliates. We’re going to ask Jericho for a lot more than that.

Jericho stands slowly, shorter than I expected, no more than six feet, and extends lanky fingers in my direction. He’s nothing impressive to look at, but everything about him—his posture; his impassive, calculating eyes—radiates power as if it were a distinctive cologne.

“I’ve explained to my client that he’s here to listen,” says Spaulding.

Jericho nods his head, covered in gray braids, a soul patch on his chin.

Jericho Hooper committed his first murder when he was fourteen, too young to be prosecuted as an adult. He learned well in juvenile detention. He beat a second murder charge when he was twenty-two—the witnesses had sudden changes of heart—and was in and out of Stateville on convictions for residential burglary, aggravated battery, witness intimidation, and possession with intent to deliver heroin. But for the last seven years, Jericho has had no arrests. He thinks of himself as untouchable now. The feds estimate his net worth at eighteen million dollars. He launders the gang money through the typical avenues—two nightclubs, three convenience stores, and a handful of laundromats.

Forty-two years old, and this kid from Cabrini-Green is rich beyond what he ever imagined, the head of an empire.

I only have one chance to do this, so I better do it right.

Chapter 18

“I’M NOT here about justice,” I say. “I’m here to talk about business.”

Spaulding and his client Jericho remain impassive.

I pull a photo of LaTisha Moreland out of my jacket pocket and hand it to Jericho. “That photo’s everywhere,” I say. “The papers. The local news. The national cable networks. Everyone wants justice. The mayor, the superintendent, they aren’t going to stop until they get it. It’s a political thing. The superintendent, he’ll lose his job if we don’t get a solve and get it quickly. I will, too.”

“Not to mention Andre Oliver,” says Carla. “The Hustlers are gearing up for battle with you.”

Spaulding nods, impatient. “There’s a point to this?”

“The Nation was behind this,” I say. “Jericho wants the Hustlers’ turf. And if a little girl hadn’t been killed, this case never would’ve made it to SOS. It probably never would’ve been solved. But you did kill a little girl. And now it has to be solved.”