Don't Blink

by James Patterson; Howard Roughan

  “Does that mean you’ll take the job?” she asked as we came up for air.

  “Absolutely not,” I said.

  Courtney rolled those beautiful blue eyes of hers. “Why not, Nick? Because you don’t think we can work and sleep together?”

  “No, that’s not it at all. I’m just not the executive editor type. I write stories, that’s what I do — and the kind I write you can’t find sitting in a corner office.”

  Courtney smiled and I knew she understood, which warmed the cockles of my heart. “All right. I guess I’ll just have to lower my standards and sleep with a regular staff writer instead.”

  “Correction, missy. Your highest-paid staff writer.”

  “We’ll see about that, Nick. Just remember, I didn’t get to be editor in chief for nothing.”

  We were about to kiss again when we both realized that someone was suddenly standing next to us. Speak of the devil — it was none other than Brenda.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, coming very close to blushing. I didn’t know she had it in her. “I saw you both here. I wanted to give Nick something.”

  She handed me a slender rectangular box — gift wrapped, with a red bow on top.

  “What’s this?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

  “A make-good,” she said. “Something I’ve owed you.”

  I was about to open it when she stopped me. “No, not here,” she said. “Open it later, Nick. And Courtney — good luck with this one. He’s actually a pretty decent guy.”

  With that, she turned and walked away. No good-bye or anything. I didn’t even have a chance to say thank you.

  “Decent guy”? All right, I could live with that. I think she even meant it.

  Chapter 106

  A LITTLE MORE than a week passed. I was on my first assignment for New York magazine, and it was definitely cover material.

  “Thanks for doing this, David,” I said. “This will be a great story — I promise you.”

  Sorren leaned back in the chair behind his desk. We were in his office downtown at One Hogan Place and David was a man clearly at peace with himself.

  “Are you kidding? Thank you,” he said. “I know being pushy is the first rule of politics, but given everything you’ve been through, the last thing you needed was my hitting you up for an article so fast. I didn’t want to exploit our friendship that way.”

  “No problem at all. It’s the least I could do. After all, you did save my life.”

  “Just dumb luck,” he said with an aw-shucks wave. “Of course, that’s the second rule of politics, isn’t it? Dumb luck.”

  “It’s pretty high up there for journalism, too.”

  “That’s you and me, a couple of lucky guys. If we’re not careful, we may wind up getting everything we want in life,” he said with a wink.

  I reached for my beat-up leather bag on the floor, pulling it up to my lap. “Let’s get started, then, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Sorren said. “By the way, what did Courtney say when you proposed this article? I mean, it’s her first issue at New York. She have any doubts?”

  “Doubts? Are you kidding me? I haven’t written a word yet and she’s already guaranteed us the cover.”

  Sorren smiled widely as I pulled out a notepad. It was followed by my tape recorder. Immediately, his smile soured.

  “Shit, Nick, I’m sorry. I should’ve said something on the phone when you called. I’ve got no problem with your taking notes but I can’t let you record me. It’s policy here in the DA’s office,” he explained. “Of course, the mayor’s office has no such policy.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, placing the recorder on his desk. “Actually, this isn’t to record you. I wanted to play you something. If I may? That okay?”

  “Sure,” said Sorren. “What is it?”

  I hit the play button and turned up the volume. I didn’t want Sorren to miss a single word of Ian LaGrange’s voice.

  Or his own.

  Chapter 107

  WHAT WOULD YOU do if you found a flash drive, with blood on it, in your boyfriend’s favorite hiding spot in his apartment? In his secret, secret place?

  I now knew what Brenda Evans would do. She was a reporter, after all, with a sensitive — some would say suspicious — nose for stories. She couldn’t help it — the blood had bothered her.

  Not nearly as much, though, as what she had discovered on that flash drive.

  Derrick Phalen had uncovered it all, and he’d put it on the drive for me to see. Or, rather, for me to hear. There were no pictures, no pilfered secret documents — only an MP3 voice file. And while I may be a purist with my vinyl LP collection, this little digital recording trumped everything I’d ever listened to.

  Why had Derrick decided to bug his boss’s office? Sadly, I’ll never have the chance to ask him. But I’ll never forget how he had looked that day he saw Ian LaGrange come walking toward us by the elevator at the OCTF.

  “Holy shit,” I thought I had heard Derrick say. Like he couldn’t believe something.

  Soon after that, he had his smoking gun — a conversation between LaGrange and none other than David Sorren.

  Blinded by his own political ambition, Sorren was willing to forsake the law he had sworn to uphold. He’d built his reputation battling organized crime, but in a world of hotshot defense attorneys and legal loopholes, guilty verdicts against the mob were tough to come by. There had to be a better way, right?

  At least that’s what Sorren’s twisted mind had been thinking. What he needed were results. He didn’t care how he got them, or for that matter who paid the price. Because results equaled votes. Today, city hall. Tomorrow, the governor’s office. Then one day, maybe, the White House.

  A modern-day Machiavelli of the worst order.

  So Sorren had recruited LaGrange and made the ultimate backroom deal. They chose sides in the organized crime underworld. They backed Joseph D’zorio and set up Eddie Pinero after his criminal usury conviction.

  There was just one problem. Me.

  I stared at Sorren across his desk as he listened to the recording, the flash drive people had died for. Suddenly, his face was as pale as the ceiling tiles of his office.

  “I don’t like it,” said a nervous-sounding LaGrange. “If Daniels is actually talking to one of my prosecutors, then he knows something.”

  “You worry too much, Ian,” said Sorren.

  “No, I worry just enough. You should, too. He’s already thinking that his being at Lombardo’s was more than a coincidence.”

  “We can take care of it.”

  “How?” asked LaGrange.

  “Leave it to me, Ian. I’ll talk to the manager at Lombardo’s, erase Marcozza’s name from the reservations on that Thursday, figure out everything. Just consider it done.”

  There was more on the tape, but Sorren had heard enough. He grabbed the recorder and stopped the playback. Then, of all crazy things, he started to laugh out loud.

  “You haven’t heard the rest of it,” I said.

  “I don’t need to. I was there. I know what I said. But no one else will. Do you know why?”

  I shrugged. “Tell me.”

  “You should’ve gone to law school,” he said, shaking his head. “This was illegally obtained. It’s inadmissible.”

  Jesus, he was pirouetting through his own legal loophole. I guess it figured.

  But it was my turn to shake my head. “How could you do it, David?”

  “Do what?” he said.

  “At least explain one thing to me,” I said. “Why did you kill LaGrange?”

  “Because he was trying to kill you. I saved your life,” he said. “How soon we forget.”

  “I’m that stupid?” I asked him.

  “Do you think I am?”

  “No, what I think is that somewhere along the way you completely forgot the difference between right and wrong, Sorren. You got as cynical as they come, and I’ve seen cynical, believe me. Maybe you actually wanted grea
t things for the city. But for sure you wanted even better things for yourself.”

  “So now you’re a shrink?”

  “No, I’m still a journalist. A pretty decent one, I think,” I said. “But you? You’re a criminal.”

  Sorren clenched his jaw as he leaned forward in his chair. I could see the veins popping in his neck, just like they had the very first time I’d met him. The anger was building, and he was trying to contain himself.

  But he couldn’t.

  “Fuck you!” he said. “How could I do it? Do what? Induce one lousy, stinking mob boss to take out another? I was doing everybody in this city a huge favor. One less scumbag mob lawyer, one less crime family, a lot less crime on the streets… Everybody wins — and with D’zorio dead, we win even more.”

  He jabbed his finger at me. “So don’t give me your sanctimonious bullshit. You couldn’t leave well enough alone! You got Dwayne Robinson and Derrick Phalen killed. IT WAS YOU! YOU DID IT! THIS IS ALL ON YOU!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said softly before pointing at my recorder. It was still in his hand. “You always had a choice. You just got caught making the wrong one.”

  Sorren shot me a pathetic look. “Didn’t I already tell you? What’s on this recorder is inadmissible. Illegally obtained. It never happened…just like this conversation.”

  I smiled. “Oh, this is happening, all right. I’m here, you’re here, David. This is definitely happening.”

  With that, I undid the top two buttons of my shirt to expose the wire I was wearing.

  “Damn chest hairs. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much when they pull off the tape,” I said. “Legally obtained, by the way.”

  In the blink of an eye, the door to Sorren’s office burst open as a team of FBI agents came in with guns drawn. Leading the charge? Agent Doug Keller.

  “Congratulations, asshole,” he said to Sorren. “You just broke the record for the shortest campaign for mayor in history.”

  Epilogue

  NOT BIG ON HAPPY ENDINGS

  Chapter 108

  I’VE NEVER BEEN real big on happy endings. It’s not that I’m a total pessimist. I’ve just found that anything worth cherishing usually comes at a price. In this case, a very steep one. Four good cops lost their lives, as did a brave prosecutor. I can’t thank you enough, Derrick Phalen. You made the ultimate sacrifice. I promised your sister you wouldn’t die in vain, and for sure you didn’t.

  Now I’ll have to compartmentalize like Courtney and figure out a way to move on.

  Like with this dinner at my sister’s house in the woods of Connecticut.

  “How does everyone like their steak?” asked Kate.

  “On a plate, and preferably soon,” I joked. “I’m starving, sis.”

  “You were born starving.”

  “Don’t start that ‘Mom always liked me best’ stuff.”

  “Enough, you two,” said Elizabeth. “Grow up.”

  Five of us were gathered on the back patio of Kate’s house in Connecticut. Courtney and Doug Keller had come out from the city with me to join my sister and Elizabeth for a Sunday barbecue. The sun was shining and spirits were high.

  Kate, who insisted on doing the grilling, waved her spatula at me. “You’re such a wiseguy,” she warned with a smile.

  “Now, there’s a word I wouldn’t mind not hearing for a while,” I said. “Wiseguy.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Keller, clinking my bottle of Rolling Rock with his. It was good to see him out of a suit — and holster — and into a wicker lounge chair and some jeans.

  Within a day of Sorren’s arrest, Keller had been able to answer the remaining question I had. Why did Sorren kill LaGrange? Hadn’t they both wanted me dead? Yes, they had. But Sorren had suddenly needed to protect himself. That’s what Keller figured out.

  LaGrange had become a liability the minute he’d veered from Sorren’s game plan and sold out Bruno Torenzi to line his pockets. But LaGrange’s greed got Belova killed and in turn guaranteed some intense heat from the Solntsevskaya Bratva back in Moscow. They would have eventually traced the debacle back to LaGrange and quite possibly Sorren.

  So Sorren, clever as always, plotted with LaGrange to kill me once and for all. Under the guise of a visit, Sorren did the reconnaissance on my hospital room and the cop guarding it. He was supposed to be making sure the coast was clear for LaGrange. But all he was really doing was setting him up.

  Elizabeth leaned back in her chair on the patio and took a sip of lemonade. She threw me a big, happy smile. “So, when’s our next Yankee game, Uncle Nick?”

  “Right when I get back,” I said.

  “Back from where?”

  “Oh, he didn’t tell you, huh?” said Courtney. “Your uncle’s going Hollywood on us. He just sold the film rights to his story.”

  “Can I be in the movie?” asked Elizabeth excitedly.

  “I’ll be sure to ask,” I said. Right after I insist that Tiffany, the ex-hostess from Lombardo’s, gets a part. It was the least I could do for her.

  “How long will you be out there?” asked Keller.

  “After I meet with the studio, I’m actually taking a drive.”

  This part I hadn’t told anyone, not even Courtney. “A drive? Where?” she asked.

  “Up the Pacific Coast Highway, in a rented Ferrari f50. You believe it? Always been a dream of mine. So I’m going to do it.”

  Kate started to crack up. “Wow. You really are going Hollywood on us.”

  “Can I come and ride shotgun?” asked Keller.

  Kate stepped over from the grill and playfully nudged him. “You can’t. You’re taking me out on a big date next weekend. You forget already?”

  “That drive up the coast — in that car — is something I’ve always wanted to do,” I explained. “By the way, Courtney, you’re invited. You know what else? When I get back from California, I’m taking my first saxophone lesson.”

  “Gee, just when you think you know somebody,” joked Courtney. “By the way, after our road trip in the Ferrari, any chance you’ll ever find time again to, you know, do what you do for a living? Write?”

  “I’ll always find time for that,” I assured her. “In fact, I’ve already got my next big story lined up.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  “I can’t tell you yet,” I said with a smile. “But it’s coming. I can feel it coming. Everybody — duck!”

  They did, too. Everybody there ducked.

  “That’s so not funny, Uncle Nick,” said Elizabeth.

  Then she laughed.

  We all did.

  James

  Patterson

  To find out more about James Patterson

  and his bestselling books, go to

  www.jamespatterson.co.uk

  COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2010

  Postcard Killers

  James Patterson

  & Liza Marklund

  James Patterson teams up with no. I bestselling author Liza Marklund to create the most terrifying holiday thriller ever written.

  NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe’s most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren’t what draw him – he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each café through the eyes of his daughter’s killer.

  Kanon’s daughter, Kimmy, and her fiancé were murdered while on holiday in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Madrid, Salzburg, Athens, Amsterdam and Berlin have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard sent to the local newspaper prior to each attack.

  Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm – and they think they know where the next victims will be.

  With relentless logic and unstoppable action, Postcard Killers may be James Patterson’s most vivid and compelling thriller yet.

  Turn the page for a sneak preview of

  Postcard Killers

  One

  Paris, France

  “IT’S V
ERY SMALL,” THE ENGLISHWOMAN said, sounding disappointed.

  Mac Rudolph laughed, put his arm around the woman’s slender neck, and allowed his hand to fall onto her breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “Oil on a wooden panel,” he said. “Thirty inches by twenty-one, or seventy-seven centimeters by fifty-three. It was meant to hang in the dining room in the home of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. But da Vinci never got it finished.”

  He felt her nipple stiffen under the fabric of the blouse. She didn’t move his hand away.

  Sylvia Rudolph slid up on the other side of her, her hand easing its way under the woman’s arm.

  “Mona Lisa wasn’t her name,” Sylvia said. “Just Lisa. Mona is an Italian diminutive that can be taken to mean ‘lady’ or ‘her grace.’”

  The woman’s husband was standing behind Sylvia, his body pushed up against hers in the crowd. Very cozy.

  “Anyone thirsty?” he asked.

  Sylvia and Mac exchanged a quick glance and a grin.

  They were on the first floor of the Denon wing of the Louvre, in the Salle des États. Hanging on the wall in front of them, behind nonreflective glass, was the most famous portrait in the world, and the guy was thinking about beer?

  “You’re right,” Mac said, his hand gently gliding down the Englishwoman’s back. “It is small. Francesco del Giocondo’s dining room table can’t have been very large.”

  He smiled over at the woman’s husband.

  “And you’re right, too. It’s time to drink some wine!”

  They found their way out of the museum, down the modern staircase toward the Porte des Lions, and stepped out into the middle of a Parisian spring evening.

  Sylvia inhaled deeply, breathing in the intoxicating mix of exhaust fumes, river water, and freshly opened leaves, and laughed out loud.

  “Oh,” she said, hugging the Englishwoman, “I’m so glad we met you. Honeymoons are all very well and good, but you have to see a bit of the world, too, don’t you? Have you had time to see Notre-Dame yet?”