Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

And besides, fuck all these people and their stares. How many of them left their native country as he did, moved to the States, built an operation from scratch, got a law degree even though English was his second language?

None of them.

How many have killed eighteen people, including three this morning?

Zero, that’s how many. He has more balls than all these trust-fund babies and tech millionaires combined.

He had preordered a 2006 Allemand Cornas, which he chose from the online menu after checking reviews in Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, and some wine-tasting blogs. The sommelier pours the first taste for him and waits.

He drinks it as you’re supposed to drink it. As he’s seen the general drink it. Appreciate the glass. Hold it to the light. Tilt it. Sip the wine. Suck on it, swirl it.

Disco swallows the sip, looks at the sommelier. “It needs to open up,” he says.

He’s heard the general say that.

“Yes, sir. Shall I decant it?”

Disco trips over that. Decant? But he quickly and casually says, “Yes.”

The waiter leaves with the bottle.

Nadia doesn’t understand. She wouldn’t. She is beautiful and sexy when she is dressed up, but she is stupid, just like the rest of them. Good for one thing and one thing only. “Read your menu,” he tells her, as if she’s capable of reading it. She’s been here four years and has picked up English only from what she’s been told and what she’s seen on the television in the basement.

Disco is in the midst of checking his phone under the table, looking up the word decant, when it buzzes.

His other phone. His burner phone. The phone for which only three people have the number.

Probably Nicolas, still worried about today. You fired too many shots, he complained after they sped away. You killed too many people.

He had to smack Nicolas to get him back in line. Nobody cares about a bunch of black drug dealers, he explained to him. They shoot each other all the time.

But it’s not Nicolas texting. It’s Augustina, with a link to a news article in the online Sun-Times .

He stops breathing. He knows from the headline alone. He thought he killed three people today in K-Town. But he didn’t. He killed four.

He opens the link: FOUR-YEAR-OLD AMONG VICTIMS IN WEST SIDE SHOOTING. The story is the headline on the page. A photo of an African American toddler, wearing pigtails, a fancy dress, and a beaming, innocent smile.

No. No. But yes. The 300 block of South Kilbourn, midday.

He clicks over to the Tribune ’s site. The same lead headline, the same photo. Four-year-old LaTisha Moreland among the victims of a drive-by shooting, believed to be drug-related. A protest rally planned for the day after tomorrow at Daley Plaza. The mayor pleading for calm. The police superintendent vowing to bring the killers to justice.

He dials Augustina on the burner phone, his hands shaking. He crouches inward, cups his free hand around his mouth. “She was not out there,” he says when Augustina answers, noting the shake in his own voice. “I saw no little girl outside.”

“She was inside house,” says Augustina. “You must have shot through window.”

He closes his eyes. Of all the luck. There are shootings on the West Side all the time, but when he does it, it’s a headline story?

“I call Boho?”

“No!” he hisses, catching the harshness, the fear in his voice. “Do not call the general. I will handle this. Understand?”

He cuts out the phone, straightens up, runs a shaky hand over the stubble on his cheek. What is he going to do now?

The sommelier places down a long goosenecked glass vessel holding the red wine.

“What is this?” Disco snaps. “I do not want this. Take this away.”

“I’m sorry, sir, you wanted to open it up—”

Disco lashes out, backhands the decanter off the table, wine splashing on Nadia, glass shattering on the floor. The heavy din of conversation ceases abruptly.

“There—now it is opened up.” Disco gets to his feet, rocking the table. He pulls a wad of money from his pocket, counting out twelve hundred-dollar bills, throws them down on the table. He grabs Nadia by the arm.

“Hey, excuse me!” The next table over, a man standing, brushing splattered wine off his slim-fitting shirt. “You spilled wine all over us, guy.”

Disco pivots, fixes a stare on the man, grips the man’s flimsy bicep, squeezing, his fist like a tourniquet. The man’s indignation immediately turns to alarm. “You should sit back down,” Disco says, “before this becomes embarrassing for you.”

He shoves the man back into his seat. Turns to the waiter, who backs away, hands up in peace.

Disco straightens his suit jacket. Turns and leaves, Nadia following.

On his way out, he dials his phone. “We have to meet,” he says. “Right now.”

Chapter 12

“YOU KNOW about the protest rally day after tomorrow,” says Lieutenant Wizniewski over the speakerphone of my cell.

“Right, you mentioned.”

“‘Cops don’t care about black victims.’ ‘Cops don’t protect the West Side.’ ‘Justice for LaTisha.’ Read me?”

“Read you,” I say.

“The supe’s putting the entire force on riot duty. They’re gonna shut down the courts and the government buildings, evacuate the downtown. I don’t gotta remind you what happened last time.”

The last time this happened, a year and a half ago, after a cop shot an unarmed African American kid, what started as a peaceful protest turned ugly. Some blamed the police for overreacting. Others blamed the protesters. Either way, everything went to shit. The Daley Center was smashed up, there was a fire down by the Old Post Office, protesters flooded and shut down the Eisenhower Expressway. Multiple dead and dozens of casualties, damage to businesses in the millions.

“It’s gonna be a fucking mess, Harney. Unless.”

Unless we solve this case by tomorrow.

“We’re working on the ‘unless,’ Lew.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do.” I punch out the phone. We’re speeding along the West Side, close to our destination.

“We should call ahead,” Carla says from the passenger seat. “This could get us shot.”

She might be right. But I don’t think so. “Andre’s not gonna shoot us.”

She glances over at me. “What, I make a comment about your daughter, and you not being up for this assignment, and now you have to show me what a hard-ass you are?”

“Yeah, Griffin, you nailed it again. You’ve got me figured, all right. We got the biggest heater we’ve seen in years, with a dead little girl, a riot about to break out on the West Side, the mayor and the superintendent breathing down our necks, but all I’m worried about is your opinion of me.”

She goes quiet, conceding the point. She’s wrong about my motives, because I wouldn’t give two shakes of my weenie over what she thinks of me, but she may be right that an unannounced visit to Andre Oliver isn’t the best idea.

“Your daughter was three when she died?”

“Oh, good, we’re gonna talk about that again.”

“And you lost your wife the same day?”

“Jesus,” I sigh. “Yes. Just to get this over with. Yes, my wife and daughter died on the same day.”

She lets out a breath of her own. “Life can be cruel.”

“Gee, yet more keen insight from you. What’s next? The weather’s unpredictable?”

“Doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole, Harney.”

I veer the car over, put it in Park at the curb. “My daughter died of a stroke, okay? A fluke. One in a million. A three-year-old had a fuckin’ stroke. Nothing we coulda done. Never coulda seen it coming. That’s life being cruel.”