Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

I passed Amy on my way to the stage, giving her the finger and a quick wink.

Thirty-Seven

“A GUY walks into a confessional,” said Billy, standing on the stage at the Hole. “He tells the priest, ‘I just had the wildest sex of my life tonight. I met these three prostitutes…’”

Patti moved through the crowd as her brother did his thing. She spotted the prosecutor Amy Lentini, the one going after Billy. There was a guy with her. A drop-dead handsome man. Well, weren’t they the perfect couple—the gorgeous Italian beauty and the Calvin Klein model.

“‘We had sex all night,’ he tells the priest. ‘We tried every position. At one point, I was hanging from the chandelier…’”

But Amy didn’t seem interested in her well-coiffed beau. No: with her chin propped on her fists, her eyes were on Billy. Patti had seen that look before. The expression that went well beyond just listening to a stand-up comic and enjoying the humor. The flicker in her eyes that meant a lot more than simply thinking a comedian was humorous.

Sure, Patti had seen that look before. She’d seen it on Kate.

“‘We used chains and whips; we dressed up in costumes; I played a prison warden and a doctor…’”

The male-model boyfriend glanced over at Amy, then up at the stage, then back to Amy. He saw it, too, the way Amy looked momentarily lost, transfixed on Billy. He said something to her. She nodded vaguely in his direction. Then he got off his chair, grabbed his coat, and headed for the exit. Amy didn’t seem to notice.

“So finally the priest says, ‘Okay, okay, I get the point—you had wild, kinky sex all night. So now you want absolution?’ The man says, ‘Oh, no, Father—I’m not Catholic. I don’t even believe in God.’ The priest says, ‘Then why did you tell me all this?’ The man says, ‘Are you kidding, Father? I’m telling everybody! ’”

The crowd roared in response. Everyone except Amy. Oh, she allowed for a smile, but it wasn’t the raunchy humor that held her attention. It was the person delivering it.

By then Patti had moved close to Amy. She felt her body shaking. She approached the table but didn’t speak.

Billy, on stage, picked up his phone and clicked a button, the button that Patti set up for him to allow him to upload his stand-up routines to that Facebook page he shared with his friend Stewart. Billy wouldn’t know how to work that phone if you put a gun to his head. He needed Patti for that. He needed Patti for a lot of things. Even if he didn’t know it.

With Billy’s set over, Amy finally realized that Patti was standing next to her.

“Do you know who I am?” Patti asked.

Amy, taken aback, shook her head. “I’m sorry; I don’t.”

“I’m Patti,” she said. “Patti Harney. Billy’s sister.”

“Oh, okay.” Amy put out her hand. Patti didn’t shake it.

“His twin sister,” Patti said.

Amy drew back her hand with a questioning look.

“Billy’s been through the wringer,” said Patti. “Do you know his history?”

“I—I’m sorry…what is this—”

“You do, don’t you? You probably know all about him. Because you’re investigating him. You know what happened to him, his family?”

Amy didn’t respond, but Patti could see the defensive shield go up.

“Can I help you with something, Patti?”

“You sure can, Amy . You can stay away from my brother. That will help me a lot.”

By that time Amy had had the chance to readjust from casual-greeting mode to hostile-conversation mode. “Is that any business of yours?”

“It sure as hell is, Amy. And you better know I’m serious.”

“Oh, that much I can tell.”

“You ever have a pissed-off cop on your ass, Amy?”

Amy stepped off her chair and faced Patti. “No, as a matter of fact I haven’t. Have you ever had a pissed-off prosecutor on yours?”

Patti let a smile play out across her face. Amy, for her part, held her stare.

“Stay away,” said Patti, drawing out the words, “from my brother.”

Thirty-Eight

“I’LL BE here all week,” I said before I clicked off the mike and placed it on the stand. I grabbed my phone, punched the icon to upload the routine onto Stewart’s Facebook page, and stepped off the stage.

The bartender had a shot of bourbon and a beer chaser waiting for me, his little way of thanking me. He seemed to think my comedy drew people into the place. I didn’t know if that was true. I usually did my routines to vent, to go off on something that bothered me, kind of the observational-humor thing. Other times, when I was less in the mood but felt some obligation to get up on stage, I went on autopilot and just drew from the reserve of jokes I’d accumulated over the years. My brain worked that way. Ask me my online password for my bank account, and I need to look it up every time. Ask me about a joke that Richie Stetsafannis told me in fourth grade, and I can recite it verbatim.

I downed the shot and chased it with the beer. A couple of guys I used to serve with on patrol were near the stage, and they pulled me to their table. I didn’t really feel like talking to them, but my mother raised a polite boy. We traded stories about our days in patrol, stories that had changed significantly with the passage of time, allowing us to remember ourselves as brave and daring and decisive instead of the scared puppies we really were, praying that we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves or, God forbid, shoot somebody.

I found a break in the conversation and told them I had to take a piss, which was a lie but the easiest way to break free. My eyes quickly moved to the table where Amy Lentini and her boyfriend had been sitting. The table was empty.

I looked over at the bar but didn’t see her there, either.

I deflated. I couldn’t deny my disappointment. I didn’t understand it, but it was there. I was like a jealous schoolboy.

I had tied on a pretty healthy buzz, and I had a big day ahead of me tomorrow. According to the note I had scribbled on the fly and left in the bank-teller slot, I was going to meet somebody at a subway station tomorrow night, and I had to get this right—I had to flush out my tail, who surely would be there.

So I decided to skip out. I didn’t have my car. I had dropped it off and taken a cab to the Hole. When I pushed through the door, the wind smacked me. It was so cold outside that a lawyer would have his hands in his own pockets. But it felt good. It woke me up. I decided to walk a few blocks and see how that went.

I made another decision, too. I pulled out my phone and, before I could talk myself out of it, dialed Amy Lentini’s number.

She answered on the third ring.

“Well, well,” she said.

My spirits lifted. She had me on caller ID. She had taken the time to input my name into her phone. I know, I know—I felt like I was in grade school. Next up I was going to pass her friend a note saying Do you think she likes me?

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” I said.

“No, I’m good.”

I couldn’t get much from her words. She wasn’t out of breath, so at least she wasn’t in the middle of mind-altering sex with the Chippendales dancer.

“I heard your routine tonight,” she said.

“Yeah, I was gonna stop over, but you were gone. Too much excitement for one night?”

“Hey, I’m just a small-town Wisconsin girl. I have to get up early to milk the cows.”

Yeah, right. But I liked that she downplayed herself that way, even if we both knew it.

“Your boyfriend seemed nice,” I said.

I couldn’t believe I said that. It was the half dozen shots of bourbon talking.

You should hang up right now, you moron. Cut your losses.