Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

“Why, Porter? I mean, shit, what’s he doing that’s so wrong?”

Maybe he should give her a taste of what’s going on. Not everything, but a taste. From her perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, Porter being all concerned about some dead prostitute. He doesn’t need Carla getting too worked up about this.

Maybe he’ll read her in someday. But not today.

“You’re my eyes and ears, lady. That’s all you are. Unless you don’t like our arrangement.” He turns and looks at her. “Is that it? You don’t like our arrangement?”

She bites back a response. “Just give it to me.”

“You holding back on me?”

“I told you—” She catches herself, lowers her voice. “I told you everything. He thinks she came from Romania. He’s sending them photos. That’s it.”

“He didn’t say anything about going back to the house and searching it again?”

“What? No,” she says.

“You sure?”

“I didn’t hear anything like that.”

Well, Porter sure heard about it from Disco. Disco was practically busting a nut after his boys went over to that house only to have Harney walk in and nearly catch them. Shots fired and everything—yet Harney never called it in. And apparently didn’t mention it to his partner, either.

This is bad.

Porter reaches between his legs and hands her a paper bag. “A week’s worth,” he says.

“A week?” She reaches into the bag. “What, you’re tightening my leash?”

“Maybe I am. The fuck are you doing?”

She’s opening the bottle is what she’s doing, unscrewing the top, popping one out, looking at it in the palm of her hand. Jesus, why doesn’t she just put it up on the jumbotron for the whole fuckin’ crowd to see?

“Same as always,” Porter says. “Same color, same name. Vit-a-gin. Why the paranoia?”

Carla confirms that for herself, then pops the pill in her mouth, does a dry swallow. “Harney found one,” she says.

“He found one of these pills?”

“Apparently I left one on my chair. Or maybe he was snooping. I don’t know.”

“What’d he say? Does he know —”

“No, he doesn’t know. He thinks they’re ginger pills.” She rubs her throat. “His wife took ginger when she was pregnant, for the nausea. He thought I was pregnant.”

“Which would be a perfectly good thing to tell him,” says Porter, “if not for the fact that you’d have to have a big swollen belly soon, and then a baby. So I assume you didn’t tell him that.”

“Thanks, but I’m not a complete idiot.”

“You went with cancer?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs, looks away from him, shakes her head. “I didn’t know what else to say. I was on the spot. It worked before, right?”

“So now you have to act like you have cancer.”

“Relax,” says Carla. “I told him it was in remission but I’m doing follow-up chemo periodically. He won’t ask me anything else about it. I mean, the minute I said the c-word, he was like, None of my business, sorry to pry, that kinda thing. He won’t mention it unless I bring it up. And I won’t.”

“Jesus, Detective Griffin, the plot thickens.”

“I’ve got it under control.”

No, she doesn’t.

He gestures to the field, where the manager, Renteria, is out talking to Gio. Two Astros on, another big inning blossoming.

“The pitcher out there, Giolito? He lost his fastball. He’s over his pitch count. Coach wants to pull him, but he can’t. Know why? Cuz he don’t have a bullpen worth shit. So he’s gotta stick with a guy can’t hardly throw eighty-five.”

“Yeah, that’s interesting, Porter. You saying I lost my fastball?”

Porter leans forward, elbows on his knees, his head nearly touching Carla’s. “I, on the other hand, have a bullpen. A deep one. I got plenty a cops like you. So I sure as hell hope you’re not losing your value to me.”

“I’m not—”

“I mean, you fuck up with those pills, letting your partner find them. And you’re always questioning my motives, asking me questions I shouldn’t have to answer. Makes me think you’re not on my team anymore. You know what it makes me worry about? It makes me worry about Samuel, growing up in a boys’ home, the shit that happens in those places—”

“You don’t have to say that to me,” she snaps, but he can hear the tension in her voice, the fear. He can smell it coming off her.

He puts his hand on her knee, squeezes it. “I may need your help with Harney soon. Could be very soon. You’re not going to ask why. You’re just going to do it. Or your junkie ass goes to prison. You lose your shield, your pension, everything. And by the time you see Samuel again—baby, you won’t recognize your sweet little boy.”

He pats her knee and leans back in his seat, sips the last of his Jameson.

“We square, Detective?”

Carla shoves the pill bottle into her purse and gets up to leave. “We’re square, Captain.”

Chapter 70

“HOW WE doin’ tonight?” I say into the mike. The Hole is packed as usual. Sosh is holding court as always with all the uniforms and disciples who think he’s the shit.

It started raining an hour ago, around ten o’clock, really coming down. The Sox barely got their game in before the storm hit out of the blue. If it had come sooner, maybe Gio would’ve been spared the shellacking the Astros gave him.

The cops who got caught in the rain on the way to the Hole are shaking it off, nursing shots at the bar.

Next to the stage, they put a bucket to catch drops from the ceiling, a decent wet spot. I gesture to it. “Looks like the Hole in the Wall might have a hole in the roof.”

They like that, a little warm-up.

“Hey, Morty, I’d lend you a hand, but I haven’t had such good luck lately with roofs.”

That one works. Most everybody knows about Prince Valentine from K-Town. And Carla’s and my adventure with the lookouts on the roof in Little Village last night, not that much more than twenty-four hours ago, is still the talk of the place.

“Most people, they climb onto a roof, the one thing they’re thinking is, ‘Don’t fall.’ Me, I’m thinking, ‘Duck!’”

Sosh raises a glass to me, makes a comment to his friends.

“Hey, Sosh, am I holding up one or two fingers?”

He flips me just one, the middle one.

“Lanny, he don’t count so good,” I say. “Just kidding, Sosh. You just had poor intelligence. Same thing the nuns at Brother Rice used to tell you.

“Next time, just remember, Sosh: the number of lookouts on the rooftop equals the number of alimony payments each month.”

The crowd likes it. Soscia’s an easy foil.

“I know what you’re thinking—you can’t believe Sosh couldn’t make it work with his wives. When he got married the first time, he told me, he never knew what happiness was till he got hitched—but by then, it was too late.

“The second marriage, though—you’d think he would’ve known better. When the minister asked her to say a few words about him, she said, ‘Overweight and cheap.’

“Which isn’t fair!” I add, raising a hand. “When the check arrives, Sosh is the first one to put his hand in his pocket. The problem is, it never comes back out.

“No, seriously. Sosh will pick up a bill. He’ll pick it up and hand it to someone else.”

We laugh at what’s true.

“Sosh is so cheap that when his second wife wanted a pearl necklace, he gave her a piece of string and told her to start a collection.

“He’s so cheap, he won’t even pay attention.”

I can do these all night.

“He ordered free-range chicken for dinner because he thought it didn’t cost nuthin’.

“Ask Sosh if he has change for a twenty. He’ll give you a quarter.”