Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

But she fucked herself. She just betrayed Porter. There’s no walking that back.

“Then we have to take down Porter,” I say.

She makes a face. “Seems so, yeah.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that.”

“You don’t get it, Harney,” she says. “Porter goes down, I lose everything.”

Chapter 101

“PORTER HAS me by the short hairs,” Carla says. “We pinch him, he’ll give me up without thinking twice. Probably a lot of people, to get leniency. But me included. He drops that video, I’m toast.”

“He’s got you on video taking meth one time three years ago? C’mon, Carla, that’s not a great thing, but it’s not the end of the—”

“No, Harney, you’re not thinking it through. Number one, the moment Porter fingers me, they make me do a urine drop. And now I don’t have Porter protecting me with a fake piss result. I’m positive for dex. So there’ll be a video of me smoking meth and a positive, current drug test for amphetamines. And there were at least a couple times over the years when Porter had someone else deliver me the dex, not him. Some skell who must have been in his pocket. I’ll give you ten to one he recorded those handoffs, too. He’s got those videos tucked away along with the one of me smoking meth.”

Her head falls back on the pillow. Her secrets, her shame, laid bare. But more important than that, her fear of the consequences.

“The story will be I’ve been a junkie all along. For years. Oh, he’ll have some story cooked up that paints him as the hero, how he’s been running a larger investigation into drug use by cops or something. He’ll fuck me and cover himself. He plays a long game, believe me. He’s gamed this whole thing out.”

“We’ll think of something. You might come out of this okay.”

“Harney.” She says it like, once again, I’m missing something. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

Samuel, she means, the reason for the fresh tears forming in her eyes.

“Even if you do a stretch,” I say, “your mother-in-law can take care of Sam—”

“My mother-in-law’s illegal,” she says. “They pinch me, DCFS takes a look, they see an undocumented immigrant as his caregiver. She gets deported. His father sure as hell won’t take him. Samuel goes into the system. He goes into a home.”

Shit. She’s probably right about that.

“And don’t think I haven’t thought of putting that asshole Porter in the ground,” she says. “I would. For Samuel, I would. But Porter’s too smart for that. He’s told me, more than once, he has an IAB file on me with a copy of that video. Anything happens to him, the next guy up in IAB will just have to pop a disk into a computer and see Detective Carla Griffin, in all her glory, smoking meth in an alley and scoring dex from some gangbanger. Then it’s a mandatory urine drop, and I’m done.” Her eyes close. “I’m fucked. I am.”

I touch her leg. “Are you telling me to lay off Porter? Try to get this done without touching him?”

She tries to smile. “I think we’ve passed that point, Detective. I think I passed it when I didn’t go to Wisconsin.”

“Then why tell me about Porter at all?”

“Because you need to know,” she says. “You’re going after those traffickers, you’re going after Porter, too. You can’t go in there with one eye closed.”

I drop down in a chair, the magnitude of what she’s done settling in on me. Carla could’ve taken the easy road. She could’ve done what Porter asked, headed up to Wisconsin, buried her head in the sand, and kept the status quo.

She risked everything to come back here and save me.

“I won’t let anything happen to Samuel,” I say. “That’s a promise.”

“Oh, c’mon, Harney—”

I take her hand. “That’s a promise.”

She gives me a look that only a mother could give, full of love, full of fear and concern for her son, fierce and protective and vulnerable all at once. “Don’t say something like that if you—”

“Look at me.” I bring my face close to hers. “Anything happens to you, I’ll take care of him.”

She searches my eyes. “You’d…I can’t ask you to do that,” she whispers.

“You didn’t ask.”

“You…hardly even know me.”

“I know enough. I know what you put on the line for me.” I squeeze her hand. “We’re in this together, partner. Okay? Besides, who else is gonna teach that kid to throw a curveball?”

I’ve seen plenty of women cry over the years, but never like Carla does now, relief and emotion releasing like an avalanche.

When I reach the waiting room, Patti’s there. “Viviana’s with a patrol officer. They’re treating her.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m going with you,” she says.

I start to shake my head, think better of it.

“We do it my way, Patti. Or go home right now.”

She nods. “We do it your way,” she says.

Chapter 102

PATTI DRIVES; I’m the passenger. We race across town.

I grab my phone to dial Sosh and see a voice mail from half an hour ago; I must have missed it while getting stitched up. The message is from Jay Herlihy, Cook County Corrections.

“J Crew,” I tell Patti.

“The asshole who punched me in second grade?”

“Yeah, and he’s really sorry. Shut up and listen.” I play the message on speakerphone.

“Hey, bro, those tickets better be center ice. I couldn’t access it externally, so I drove over to Division 9 after my shift. Anyway, you’re right, my friend—your guy Antoine Stonewald had one visitor during that week. It was a lawyer—you’re gonna love this—V-a-s-y-l first name, last name D-i-s-c-o-v-e-t-s-k-y. Got an address and phone, too.

“Vasyl Discovetsky is his name, player.”

I write down the phone and address.

“Want me to head there?” Patti asks.

“No. Go where we’re going. It’s more important.”

“More important than finding Disco?”

I look at her. “Yeah,” I say. “More important than finding Disco.”

I search my phone for the number for Clara Foster.

“Special Agent Foster,” I say when she answers. “Billy Harney, Chicago PD. Remember the girl in K-Town? Well, I hope you didn’t have plans tonight, because I’m about to ruin your evening.”

Chapter 103

DISCO REACHES the end of the labyrinthine tunnel system and shoves through the flimsy push door into the final building, at the other end of the industrial park. The trip felt like an endless journey. Three times, he dropped to the floor out of sheer agony, propping up his foot to relieve the pressure and the excruciating pain.

Took over an hour and hurt like hell, but it gave him some time to think.

A lot of time to think.

He hops up the short staircase on one foot and reaches ground level. Looks at his phone, which has some cell reception again.

A single text message pops up, from Porter. A single question mark.

He removes his night-vision goggles and props the exit door open, welcoming fresh air into his lungs. Looks out over the small parking area.

All clear. Weapon still out, he hobbles to his car, starts it up, filled with relief that he’s done moving on foot and that he can get distance between him and this industrial park.

He has to find some way to get a new dressing on his foot, stop the bleeding.

And get his money. Most of all, the money.

He sends a text message to Porter:

We have to meet now

The reply comes back before he can take a breath. Porter’s been eagerly awaiting Disco’s update, apparently. Success? Fail?

Disco responds.

Shit, he writes, then hits Send.

Abort, he writes, and hits Send.

Meet now, he writes. Same place. He hits Send.