Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

Perfect. Just as Porter called it.

Well, not the last part. It was just dumb luck that this Prince person died in the shoot-out with police. Still, Porter directed this to perfection.

Disco wasn’t so bad himself, now that he thinks about it. He cuts out his phone, feeling high with relief, as he pulls his car off 122nd Street and turns into the old industrial park. It was once owned by an auto-parts company in the fifties, an entire city block of factories and buildings connected by an underground tunnel. The general, through a sham corporation, has kept the electricity on in this place for the occasions when Disco needs it.

Like tonight. With a new arrival.

Augustina, middle-aged and heavyset, with tiny eyes and cheeks like small balloons, her hair dyed fire-engine red and pulled back tight, meets him at the heavy doors, sucking on the straw of a McDonald’s coffee drink and holding a thin manila folder.

He opens the folder and reads the contents. The girl is fourteen years old. From an orphanage in northeastern Moldova. A brother, still there, two years younger. The photo is promising. “When did she arrive?” he asks. Back to English only. Now that things are normal again, the old rules apply.

“Three hours ago.”

“Has Nicolas seen her yet?”

“No, he wait for you.”

“Good.” He moves past Augustina into the back room, unbolts the door. When he opens it, a young woman seated on an overturned crate startles to attention. She is wearing a tattered coat buttoned to her neck, an equally tattered suitcase next to her.

She looks younger than fourteen. Most of them look older when they come over, scarred and weathered from a difficult life. It’s nice when you can get them before life ages their faces. They’re so much more valuable when they look young and pure.

She is trembling, despite the coat, despite the stuffiness of this cramped staff-only room. Her eyes, wide and piercing blue, look up at Disco with a combination of worry and hope.

He can’t see much of her body yet, only that angelic face, a nice swan neck.

Men will fall in love with that face. They’ll want to protect her. They’ll pay handsomely. Fifteen hundred a night? Certainly possible, but he can’t use the hotel, not with a girl that obviously young. It will have to be the condo building, which tends to draw the lower-paying clientele. Or the ones who like them young.

“Does she speak English?” he asks Augustina, who joins him.

“Only a little.”

“Tell her to take her clothes off.”

Augustina speaks to the girl in Romanian. The girl doesn’t seem as surprised as Disco might have expected, but she shakes her head, not so much defiantly but as if there’s been a misunderstanding. She answers in Romanian, then says one word in English: “House…keeper?”

It’s all Disco can do not to laugh. “Tell her again,” he says.

Augustina and the girl speak some more. The girl’s eyes well up.

Disco walks over and kicks the crate on which she’s sitting. The girl is forced to her feet. Disco makes a gesture. “Off,” he says.

She says, “Please,” in English.

He grabs her coat and works the buttons. She doesn’t resist. She stares off into the distance as a single tear falls down her cheek.

He pulls the coat off her. Underneath, she’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, gray. He grabs it and raises it up. She stiffens in response but again doesn’t resist, ultimately even raising her arms to allow him to take it off. This can’t be her first time, not if she’s been raised in that orphanage.

That leaves only her bra and jeans. Disco steps back. Her breasts are underdeveloped, but that works fine.

He was going to name her Cassandra. But seeing her in person, that doesn’t work. Too voluptuous. Up close, she looks much more like the young girl she is than a slutty vamp. What would be a good name?

“Tell her…her name is Katie,” he decides.

Augustina does. The girl says her real name back, only now her voice contains more than a quiver, closer to panic.

Disco reaches out and takes her face in his hand, pinching each cheek like an angry parent giving a scolding. “Katie,” he says. “Katie. Yes?”

One of her tears drips onto his finger. He pushes her back and wipes his finger on his suit jacket.

“Tell her she owes us twenty-five thousand dollars for getting her out of Soroca and bringing her here, plus the lodging and other expenses. Tell her she needs to repay the debt. Tell her the housekeeping work will come later—after she pays off her debt.”

Augustina translates to the girl, who has shrunk now, slightly bent at the waist, trying to cover her upper body with her hands. But she responds to Augustina. Disco doesn’t speak much Romanian, but he can grab bits and pieces, mostly about her brother.

“Tell her we will send for her brother after she pays off this debt,” he says.

Augustina does. The girl bursts into tears, spilling out words in a high pitch, pleading. Augustina starts to translate. “She says she had agreement—”

“Why do I care what she says?” He starts for the door as the girl crumbles to the floor, shoulders heaving, crying so hard she chokes up.

“Nicolas should come in now?”

When Nicolas breaks her in, she’ll understand her new line of work. Her customers will seem nice by comparison. She’ll be an addict within two weeks, if not sooner, and then she’ll do anything they want for another score. She’ll be making them good money within a month.

“Yes, send Nicolas in,” he says. “But tell him not to touch that face.”

Chapter 29

BETWEEN THE interviews that come with any officer-involved shooting and a mandatory trip to the emergency room in a hospital in Oak Park—mandatory because Wizniewski ordered Carla to drive me there—I don’t return to the station until close to five in the afternoon.

When I walk in, Wizniewski is out of his office, in the squad room. He puts his unlit cigar in his mouth and starts clapping. Before I know it, the whole room erupts in applause. Wizniewski puts a hand on my shoulder, beaming. I haven’t seen him this happy since he arrested me for murder once upon a time.

High fives all around, deflections by me about a team effort. It feels good. I can’t deny it. A week ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be a cop again. I wasn’t sure I’d still have what it takes, even if they let me back. And I didn’t know if my brothers and sisters on the force would ever welcome me back.

Fast-forward a few days, and everyone in the squad room is shaking my hand, beaming at me, applauding me. This was my case. I was the lead. They dropped the heater of all heaters in my lap. And we solved it in less than two days.

“Ballistics came back on the SIG in Prince’s apartment,” says the Wiz. “It was used on Junior.”

Soscia throws an arm around my neck. Every part of my body hurts, but I don’t feel it. There’s no better painkiller than this—this adulation, this palpable sense of relief, this feeling that I am finally back, really back, really a cop again in every sense.

So right now, I don’t feel the stabbing in my ribs. I don’t feel the shooting pain down my back. I don’t feel the bell ringing between my ears.

I don’t feel that itch I can’t quite scratch, that sense that something just doesn’t feel right here.

Chapter 30

I COLLAPSE in the chair, my head swimming, everyone drunk with relief, feeling suddenly exhausted. There will be paperwork to do tonight, then festivities later, no doubt, at the Hole.

A bottle of Maker’s Mark is passed around, which probably isn’t the best idea. Soscia hands it to Carla, who turns away, puts up a stop signal with her hand. “I don’t drink,” she says.