Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.

“No? Does he know that?”

“He does now.”

He shoots, he scores!

But I didn’t say anything in response. I’d already made an ass out of myself, bringing up her date in the first place.

“Are you calling to confess, Billy? To admit that you stole the little black book?”

I crossed an intersection without noticing that a car was coming right toward me. The driver didn’t even slow down. He just honked his horn and expected me to jog out of the way. He must have been born and raised here.

“No,” I said. “I think I’m going to exercise my right to remain silent.”

“And yet you called me.”

She was a lawyer, all right. And she had a point. I’d called her. And I didn’t know why. Or maybe I did but didn’t want to admit it to anybody, including myself.

“You ever eat?” I asked, feeling my pulse jack up, putting it all out there.

“I—yes, I’ve been known to on occasion.”

She wasn’t going to make this easy, was she?

“Are you asking me to dinner?” she said.

“No. I’m just taking a survey on people’s daily routines.”

“Oh, I see.”

“But if you wanted to have dinner with me, that would be fine.”

She seemed to like that, a cute little chuckle. “Well played, Detective. So now I’m asking you out.”

“And I accept,” I said. “I mean, since you insist.”

I punched off the phone to the sound of her laughter. I figured I should quit while I was ahead. I felt a little steam in my stride. The wind felt like a balmy ocean breeze.

You don’t have the slightest clue what you’re getting yourself into, I thought to myself. But it will be fun finding out.

Thirty-Nine

THE NEXT morning was not so fun. I walked into the station feeling like I was carrying sand in my feet, like tiny anvils were hammering at the back of my eyes.

Kate was already there, looking alert and fresh. She sensed me before she saw me. Her head moved slowly in my direction.

When she looked at me, it was like we’d never met.

For a moment, that is, and then she nodded at me.

We hadn’t parted on good terms yesterday, to say the least. We had all but accused each other of stealing the little black book, of not trusting each other. But she was saying, with her nod, that we still had a job to do, and we would do it.

So I nodded back. It was enough for now.

The day passed slowly. We had a murder on the South Side, which apparently started as a robbery and turned lethal when one of the three suspects pulled out a knife. We had a dead body and vague descriptions. Forensics would take a few days and might get us somewhere; there was a lot of blood spilled, not all of it the victim’s, so if any of the offenders had records, we might have their DNA on file.

We started with interviews in the morning. When it comes to most murders on the South Side, the word interview means “nobody saw nothing, nobody knows nothing.” It’s not that people don’t give a shit. They do. Most people in any neighborhood, no matter how rough, want the criminals to go to prison so the good people can live peaceably. The problem is that the gangs have these neighborhoods so wired that people who talk to the police have to spend the rest of their days looking over their shoulders. I had a murder one time near Cicero and 79th that happened on the street just outside a 7-Eleven. A security camera inside the store caught some good footage, and the manager turned it over to the police. Three days later, the store was torched, burned completely to the ground, and the street gang’s name had been scratched into the metal door to the back alley with a knife.

Plus, as you may have heard, some people don’t trust the police.

Put fear and loathing together, and it’s tough to get eyewitness testimony out here. So it was a tough day for us. By five o’clock, we shut it down. I would visit the victim’s family tomorrow to see if they had any information.

“See you tomorrow,” I said to Kate—without looking at her—as we split up. She might have waved but didn’t say a word.

When she was gone, I checked my phone again—the picture I’d taken of the note I had dumped in the teller’s window slot: Tomorrow, 6 p.m. Red Line, Jackson stop, northbound platform. Bring it with you.

I’d chosen the subway platform for this bogus meeting because it was hard to follow me there without giving yourself away. Whoever was tailing me couldn’t hide in the darkness of a car with the headlights blazing, couldn’t watch from a safe distance with binoculars. No, if this person wanted to know whom I was supposedly meeting with, he’d have to get himself on that damn platform. And for all he knew, I might jump onto an arriving train and he’d have to follow.

I picked six o’clock because it would be busy; if it was too late in the evening, the platform would be empty, and he’d be afraid to follow me down there because he’d feel exposed. At six, he’d feel comfortable in the knowledge that he could blend into a crowd while watching me and my supposed meeting partner.

The catch in my plan? There was no actual meeting, obviously, and nobody was bringing me anything. That part I had to improvise.

That’s what friends are for. And my only friend was Goldie.

I made it to the platform at ten minutes to six. I went to the south end. I wanted to be conspicuous. I stood in the corner and faced north, so I could see the other people on the train platform. I could also see everyone across the tracks on the opposite platform—the people who were taking southbound trains.

The problem was that it was hard to actually see them. We were in the depths of a Chicago winter. Everyone was dressed for it, bundled up in hats and scarves, jackets zipped up to their chins. I couldn’t get a good look at anyone’s face. The lighting was pretty good, but you can’t see someone hiding behind all that clothing.

Goldie wasn’t going to come himself. He was going to send somebody. He said I wouldn’t know the guy, but I should expect a tall African American man in a camel-colored overcoat.

At five minutes to six, a southbound train arrived, hissing to a stop. That meant everyone on the platform opposite me would get on. Anyone who didn’t—well, that wouldn’t make much sense, would it? The only reason people were supposed to be on the platform was to take that train.

When the train doors opened, a number of passengers got off, and the people waiting on the platform got on. Or at least it looked like that. It was a big crowd of people, and the train itself was between me and the passengers.

When the train sputtered forward again with a heavy sigh and grunt, I scanned the platform. Almost everyone was moving toward the exit.

Almost everyone.

One man hung back. Wearing a brown stocking cap and a thick, chocolate-brown coat with the collar zipped high. His back turned to me. I hadn’t seen him on the platform previously. He’d just gotten off the train.

And he wasn’t moving toward the exit. He was staying put.

I pulled out my phone and pretended to talk on it. That was my crutch; I could look at someone but pretend that I was doing so absently, that my focus was on the conversation.

In my peripheral vision, I saw someone moving toward me. I looked over and saw a big guy, African American, wearing a camel-colored overcoat and a colorful scarf. He made eye contact with me and nodded. He was my contact, the guy Goldie sent.

Then I looked back at the guy across the platform, the stocking cap and chocolate coat. I watched him pull back his sleeve to look at his watch. His head crept up for just a moment, and his head turned in my direction.