Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

Amy fixed the gun on me again. It was time to get back to business. Though the way she held the gun made me think it might have been her first time handling a weapon.

“I had a copy of the little black book,” she said to me.

“You—you had a copy of it all along, and you—”

“Not all along,” she said. “I got it yesterday. After your sister, Patti, paid me a visit at my office.”

She laid it out for me. Yesterday, after Margaret Olson had announced her candidacy for mayor, Patti confronted Amy as she was leaving the Daley Center.

“Patti explained her whole theory,” she said. “That Margaret was blackmailing Congressman Tedesco. That Margaret had a copy of the little black book, and it named Tedesco as a client. Maybe she even had one of those incriminating photographs of Tedesco going into the brownstone, like the other ones Kim Beans published. That the whole thing was a scheme so Margaret could remove the mayor from office and take his place, with Tedesco not only getting out of her way but also actually endorsing her and giving her his money.”

“Sounds right to me,” I said.

Obviously not to Amy.

“You didn’t want to believe it,” I said, “but you couldn’t deny that it made some sense.”

Amy nodded with reluctance. “Right. So I went back up to Margaret’s office. I have a key. There’s a safe under her desk. It’s been there since the 1970s, when whoever was state’s attorney wanted to keep some sensitive papers private or something. Anyway, nobody knew about the safe but Margaret and me.”

“You broke into it,” I said.

“I…I knew the combination. She opened it in front of me once. She was running late for a refinance, and the closing papers were in there. I didn’t mean to pay attention, but she sort of sang out the number to herself, and I heard it. 9-2-1-6-0; 9-2-1-6-0. It’s her sister’s date of birth, September 21, 1960.”

The music from the iPad, violins and cellos, the notes dancing about, rising and falling in crisp, short strokes, adding a dreamlike quality to the whole thing.

“You opened it,” I said, “and you found the little black book.”

“I found a thumb drive. I brought it back here and booted it up on my home computer last night. And yes,” she said. “It contained a PDF of the little black book.” She swept a hand. “And now it’s gone. It was inside my desk drawer last night, and now it’s not. Somebody broke into my apartment today and stole it.”

That was a concern, a major one. But there were more immediate concerns on my mind.

“Amy,” I said, “was Congressman Tedesco’s name in there as a client?”

Amy closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

“So Margaret was blackmailing him.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

“Did the little black book list payoffs to cops?”

Amy nodded, her eyes moving away from mine. “One cop,” she said. “One name, over and over, once a month, for the last three years.”

Ninety-Nine

I FELT something stir inside me. It was what we had thought—that the real value, and the real danger, of the little black book lay not in the names of the clients but in the name of the crooked cop who was receiving extortion payments from the brownstone.

The name of the cop was in that book.

“What name?” I asked. “Which cop?”

And then I felt a buzz in my pocket.

I pulled out my phone. It was a text message from Kate:

Need to talk to u

Now was definitely not the time. I texted back:

Not now

I lowered the phone and looked at Amy. “So whose name was it?” I asked.

Amy didn’t want to answer.

“Amy,” I said, “whoever’s name is in that little black book is probably the same person who bugged your apartment. It’s probably the same person who stole the little black book from your apartment today. It’s probably the same person behind all of this.”

Amy nodded slowly, as if she already had figured that out.

“How long before they come here looking for you?” I said.

My phone buzzed again. I raised the phone to see Kate’s next message:

I’m right outside her door open up

“Shit.” I lowered the phone. “It’s Kate. She’s out in the hallway right now.”

Amy’s eyes widened in panic. “Kate’s here? You brought her here?” She backpedaled, the gun trembling in her hands. As if her worst fears had just been realized.

“No, I didn’t. She must have followed me or something.”

“Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, shit.” Amy’s eyes cast about the room. She was coming unglued. She had the gun on me, not the other way around, but she was feeling a loss of control, and her fear was overtaking her.

“I’ll try to get rid of her.” I typed a quick response:

You’re outside Amy’s apt?

Her reply shot back in an instant:

Yes open door right now

I replied, trying to stall for time:

Why would I do that

But I was running out of time. Kate wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She’d break through the door. She could do it. And she’d be armed.

“Amy, give me the gun,” I said, reaching out my hand, wiggling my fingers.

Amy shook her head furiously, but I could see her uncertainty. Wanting to believe me, but afraid of being wrong.

“Amy, like it or not, Kate’s coming in. And she’ll have a gun. You don’t know how to use that thing.”

“No.” Amy’s face contorted, tears flowing, her voice thick with emotion. That gun dancing around in her hands. “No.”

“Amy, you can trust me. You can—”

I stopped on those words. My phone buzzed again, another text from Kate, but I didn’t look at it. I watched Amy carefully. I could see that Amy simply didn’t, couldn’t, trust me.

“Whose name was in that black book?” I asked. “Whose name was listed as receiving the payoffs?”

The music through the speakers, one song coming to a violent, triumphant climax of violin and cello. Another song beginning, the bass playing solo, moving slowly and cautiously, like a snake through the grass, a warning of a storm.

All that was missing was a drumroll.

“Your name,” Amy said. “It was your name in the little black book.”

“What?” My phone fell out of my hands. On impact with the carpet, the face of my phone lit up, showing the last message from Kate, which I had yet to read.

I picked it back up to make sure I read it correctly.

Bc she knows u idiot. She knows about u and so do I

Then I remembered that I never locked Amy’s front door after entering.

And then I turned and saw Kate walking into the apartment, her weapon drawn.

One Hundred

“KATE, TAKE it easy,” I called as she walked toward the bedroom. I held out my right hand as a signal to stop. I held out my left to Amy. “Amy,” I said, “give me the gun.”

“No.” Amy shook her head, steeled herself through her tears, aimed the gun toward the doorway into the bedroom.

“Amy, I know how to use that thing. You don’t. You’ll get us all killed.”

Kate approached with her weapon in both hands, held at waist level in front of her, walking on the balls of her feet. She could hear what I was saying. She knew Amy had a gun now.

As Kate approached, I moved into the space between Amy and the doorway, where Kate now stood with her weapon aimed at Amy and, by extension, at me.

“Amy,” Kate barked, “drop that gun or I’ll put you down. Drop it right now or I’ll shoot.”

The way she said it. I’d heard that voice before, that no-fucking-around tone. Amy was a prosecutor, not a cop. She wasn’t cut out for this.

“Do it, Amy,” I said, remaining between them. But it wouldn’t matter. If Kate wanted to shoot Amy, she would.