Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

His body on fire, trembling so hard he couldn’t speak if he wanted to, feeling the deepest animal shriek build from his gut.

No no please no God no

Boho, holding the hedge shears, trying them out, opening and closing them, the razor-sharp blades whining.

Disco, subdued and spread-eagled.

“How do I express my disappointment?” Boho asks. “What shall we do now?”

Chapter 77

PORTER, SITTING in his office at 35th and Michigan, leans back in his chair, pops a hard candy in his mouth. “Tell him he’s gotta wear a wire, he wants to make this thing right.”

“He won’t go for it, Captain. He says he’ll provide information as a CI but won’t wire up.”

So says Garcia, a new kid, just made sergeant, making his start in the Bureau of Internal Affairs, though everyone still inverts the letters, calls it IAB. He’s smart and ambitious, like most of the ones who come here. Porter doesn’t know him well enough yet, so he doesn’t trust him.

“Tell him he won’t wear a wire, we walk him out of the Tenth in bracelets.”

“And then we don’t build a case, Captain. We don’t get the ringleaders.”

“Then we don’t get the ringleaders,” says Porter. “But we send a message. Nobody dictates nuthin’ to Internal Affairs. We got this guy by the scrotum, and he’s telling us what he will and won’t do? No fuckin’ way. Tell him he’s got twenty-four hours to decide. Day after tomorrow, he tapes a mike to his chest or we perp-walk him out in front of the whole fuckin’ squad room. A reporter and cameraman from channel 7 might happen to be there, too, just coincidentally, so his wife and kids can see it on the news.”

“What if we push him too hard? What if he eats a bullet?”

“C’mon, that’s a cliché.”

It’s a cliché because it’s true.

“This guy’s got four generations of cop in his family,” Garcia says. “You shoulda seen him. He was crying like a little girl, beggin’ me for mercy. I wouldn’t put it past him to take the exit ramp.”

“Then he eats a bullet. That’s his choice.”

“Jesus, Cap. Remind me not to piss you off.”

Porter’s phone buzzes in his pocket. His left pocket. His throwaway. Buys a new one every month, which is a pain in the ass, having to give out a new number to his mushrooms, having to input all the numbers again, but it’s better than being predictable.

“Beat it, Garcia, would ya?”

The caller ID says it’s Carla Griffin. He’s supposed to call her today, not the other way around.

He answers the phone. “Call you back in two minutes.”

The time it takes him to leave headquarters, at 35th and Michigan, make it onto the street. He sweeps his office every week for bugs, but you never know.

He gets to the street, another scorcher of a day, but nicer now, as the sun falls, close to the end of the workday. Or at least a traditional workday, if Porter ever had one.

He dials Carla.

“We gotta meet,” she says, smart enough not to use his name.

“Help me out a little.”

“K-Town,” she says. “Four dead people. It was about the junkie prostitute, wasn’t it? Not a turf war. Not gangs. But a girl. The one Har—the one he’s so worried about. The one you seem so worried about.”

Porter looks around him while his insides swirl. Christ, what happened now?

“Take it easy,” he says. “Okay, we’ll meet. Say, ten o’clock.”

“Where?”

Where, indeed.

He says, “Remember the place we first met?”

Chapter 78

PORTER DRIVES through the parking garage. The fourth level is empty, which is good, because that means nobody will be parked on the roof.

This shit is getting out of control, he thinks. First Carla, then Disco, calling him frantically. The lid is coming off, and it’s going to take all Porter can muster to shut it back on and screw it tight.

He pulls up the final ramp onto the rooftop. Sees only one vehicle.

He approaches it, prepared to park next to it but facing the opposite direction, so he’d be driver’s side to driver’s side.

But Disco isn’t in the driver’s seat. Nobody is. Disco’s in the passenger seat.

Porter removes the Beretta from his shoulder holster. Then he pulls up alongside Disco’s car the traditional way, so his driver’s side is adjacent to Disco’s passenger side. They aren’t more than three feet from each other as Porter buzzes down the window.

“Where the fuck’s the driver?”

Disco’s jaw is clenched, eyes narrowed, a blood rush to the face. He’s in pain. “Downstairs.”

“You sure about that?” Porter looks around him, checks his rearview mirror. But it’s safe. There’s no place to hide up here on the roof. Porter checks the seat behind Disco—empty.

“Downstairs,” Disco repeats.

“Yeah? He get a look at me?” Their deal is strict, one-on-one only. No friends or associates.

“No,” Disco says.

“Then why’s he here? What, you can’t drive yourself all of a sudden?”

Disco bends forward, reaches down to the floorboard.

“Don’t you fucking move!” Porter raises his Beretta, both hands, ready to fire, adrenaline pumping.

Disco just shakes his head, like he doesn’t have time for theatrics. He pulls up his leg, showing a right foot that wears no shoe, only a heavy bandage. “This is why I cannot drive,” he says.

“The fuck happened to you?”

Disco turns to him. His eyes wander a bit, like there’s something wrong. Like he’s drugged. Hurting and drugged. “You know the man I work for.”

“Yeah, that general guy, Boho-whatever.”

“He flew into town to see me.”

That’s not good.

“He knows about the girl.”

Even worse. This thing’s turning into a freakin’ horror show.

“He put his hands on you,” Porter says.

“Not his hands.” Disco raises a cigarette to his mouth, his hand trembling, struggles to light it. Blows out smoke. “He gave me a choice. My big toe or my balls.”

“Jesus. He cut your fuckin’ toe off?”

Disco nods. “He called it ‘door number two.’ He said in twenty-four hours, he’s going with ‘door number one.’ Unless Harney’s dead.”

Porter’s blood goes cold. “Wait—Harney? Who said anything about Harney? I never told you the SOS cops’ names.”

He made a point of not doing that. Tell ’em only what they need to know.

Maybe Disco read it in the papers. That coulda happened. There was enough coverage of the K-Town shooting and solve.

“The general gave me his name,” he says. “Harney is trying to find out more about the girl. The general says he must be taken out.”

“There’re other ways of taking someone out. I’m IAB. Let me do it.”

The life comes to Disco’s eyes now, the druggy haze evaporating. “I have my orders. He must be dead now. You have to help me.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Porter raises a hand. “Hold on there, friend. We aren’t killing cops.”

“We’re killing this cop,” says Disco, his jaw clenched, his eyes watering. “He dies or I die.”

“I can’t be part of that. I can’t be within a hundred miles of that.”

Disco shows his teeth, wearing a feral expression, a mix of fear and desperation Porter’s never seen. Say what you want about Disco, but he’s always been a cool customer. He looks like he’s coming unglued.

“I will do it either way, Denny. With or without you. But if I do it without you, it will be messier. If I do it with your help, we can—”

Contain it, Porter thinks. Control it.

Make it look like something other than an assassination.

“Let me think about it,” says Porter. “Give me tonight.”