Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

“That’s more or less it,” I say. “How much of that is true?”

“The part about me keeping quiet.”

Samuel, up ahead, joins a pickup game of baseball. Couldn’t be a better day for it. We stand to the side, watching like parents at a Little League game.

“I never touched Ron,” she says to me. “Except when I was pushing him off me. He came at me ten different ways. Always trying to get me to work late or take some special assignment involving only him. Always brushing up against me and making comments. Calling me at home. All that I could handle. You just have to take some of that or you’ll spend all your time complaining.”

Sounds like something my sister would say.

“Anyway, he started getting more forceful. Started talking about lieutenant exams coming up, he could help, but he needed to know I was a ‘team player.’ You get the idea. What am I supposed to do, spit in his face? Knee him in the balls? He’s my boss. I just tried to discourage him without telling him to go jump in a lake.”

“Understood.”

“So one time, we’re in his office late—he kept me late. He calls me in, and I can tell right away he’s been hitting the sauce. I can smell it all over him. He tells me it’s time to stop being such a tease, that kind of thing. He’s all over me, more aggressive than he’s ever been before. First time I’ve actually been, like, scared.”

She sounds scared now, her voice trembling, reliving it.

“You’ve told me more than enough, Carla. I don’t need—”

“So suddenly he’s got his hands halfway up my shirt, he’s pressed up against me, and I’m thinking he’s going to do this, right here in his office—he’s going to rape me. So I fought back. I just—I just went crazy.”

“You kick him in the balls?”

“No, but he walked with a limp for a week. And he had a pretty good shiner.” She glances at me and actually chuckles. “I should’ve kicked him in the nuts.”

“I’m sorry. Sorry about all that. And what I said before—”

“So then I knew that it was every man for himself,” she goes on. “I had to beef him, because he was going to beef me. So yeah, I filed a sex harassment, and that’s when I come to find out how devious he was. He’d been telling people for months that we were sleeping together.” She shakes her head. “So when I beefed him, all his buddies figured they already knew the truth. I was a liar; he was righteous. Nobody believed me. Nobody. I’d lost the game before it even started.”

On the diamond, Samuel fields a ground ball and throws it to first, throwing it like I told him to. He looks over and chicken-arms his elbow at me. I give him the thumbs-up.

“Least you got out of there,” I say. “And you got into SOS.” I turn to her. “Only to get partnered with a burnout like me.”

She laughs, elbows me. “You’re not so bad, Harney. I admit I was worried. I thought they were promoting me and punishing me at the same time. But you seem like a guy that calls it straight. That’s all I care about.”

We watch the game for a bit, some clouds moving in, providing a brief respite from the sun. Samuel can hit better than he fields, driving a ball between the shortstop and third baseman.

“As long as we’re all kumbaya here,” I say, “can I ask you another question?”

She makes a noise like yes.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Pregnant?” She draws back, looks at me like I grew a second head. “Why would you think that?” Unconsciously, she looks down at her stomach, as if I was suggesting she had a belly. She doesn’t. She’s thin as a rail. Hard, too, like she trains.

“I couldn’t help—one day, you spilled…a…”

She rolls her hand over, like get on with it.

I blow out air. “You left a pill on your chair. You take a lot of pills. So yeah, I looked at it, and it was a ginger pill. My wife, when she was pregnant, she took ginger for morning sickness, first trimester. I wasn’t snooping,” I insist, seeing the look of horror on her face. “It just fell out. I just looked at it.”

She puts a hand to her mouth.

“Okay, maybe I was snooping,” I admit.

Ashen, looking violated. I wish I hadn’t said anything. But…she’s not pregnant?

Finally, she shakes her head. “Well, I guess there aren’t going to be any secrets between us, Harney,” she says. “Yes, they’re ginger pills for nausea. But I’m not pregnant, thank you very much.”

I put up my hands. “Okay, sorry I—sorry I asked. Really.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “The nausea pills are for chemotherapy,” she says. “I have cancer.”

Chapter 52

DENNIS PORTER drives on North Broadway, half past six, having called Amy an hour ago to tell her he’d miss dinner again tonight. Used his standard line for why an IAB captain has odd hours: Crooked cops don’t take evenings off . He tries not to think about the irony in that statement.

Besides, it’s not like the cops who don’t work IAB are on the straight and narrow. If they were, he’d be out of a job. If they can get their taste of the action, why can’t he get his? He’s no more a hypocrite than the rest of ’em.

He likes this gig, being on top of the perch, where he can see everything, control everything. Especially after last year’s scandal cleared out most of the other brass. Business, for Porter, has never been better.

“Hey, Gus,” he says to the owner of the diner as he strolls in. Gus, with his shiny bald head and dirty apron, doesn’t know much, other than that Porter helped him out with a problem he was having with his liquor license two years ago, so Gus owes him. I do for you, you do for me . That pretty much describes Porter’s entire way of doing business.

All I need from you, he told Gus, is once in a while, I might need your office for a meeting. For reasons you can understand, I have to meet privately, off the job, with my operatives from time to time.

Gus motions toward the back room, signaling that the other attendee at the meeting has already arrived.

Porter passes the kitchen, the glorious smells of fried food and sizzling meat, and opens the office door. Officer Joe Bostwick startles, then stands almost at attention. He is young but looks even younger in civilian gear—a cotton shirt, long shorts, and moccasins.

“At ease,” Porter says with a chuckle. “How we doin’, Joey?”

“Good, D, good.” But he looks anything but good. Nervous as a mouse cornered by a snake.

Porter can’t blame him. Bostwick got thrown into the deep end. Oh, he was all up for the occasional skim, diverting some drug proceeds. Victimless stuff. He grew up in a family of cops. He knew the game. But putting down Latham Jackson? That was over and above.

Damn, was his voice trembling when he called Porter that day from Latham’s apartment and told him about the video Latham had recorded of the K-Town shooting. We gotta put that kid down, Porter had told him. You up for it, kid? I need a yes or no right now. I’m gonna need this one.

To his credit, Joey had come through and done the right thing. He put two bullets into Latham and managed to sneak out with an armful of electronics from Latham’s bedroom. It looked like a burglary gone bad, just as Porter had told him to set it up.

“How are we doing?” Joe asks.

“All good,” says Porter. “The Eleventh sees it like a garden-variety B and E. Latham surprised the intruder in his bedroom, and the perp blasted him.”

Joe nods, but he’s lost all color, reliving it. This kid is still wet behind the ears. He’ll learn. “The Eleventh is handling it?” he asks. “Not SOS? Even though it happened across the street from the shooting?”