The 13-Minute Murder

by James Patterson

  “Mr. Ryan,” said the concierge. “It’s time.”

  We rode in a private elevator on the far side of the building. Two quietly angry-looking men stood on either side of me while the wiry little concierge stood in front.

  “Shan’t take but a moment,” he said.

  We didn’t go to the top floor. We went to the bottom, where we entered a large laundry room. The staff was immediately removed.

  Dismiss the witnesses. I get it.

  I kept my hands visible and benign. I knew the guards would take my gun from me. I knew they’d frisk me for a second piece of hardware. They did. And found nothing. Ivan then entered the room with two guys behind him, which made five henchmen total, which, along with us, made seven—seven grown men in a crowded laundry room.

  Chapter 32

  “Mikey,” said Ivan. “Thank you for coming.” He had a very disarming sweetness to him. You don’t scale the top of the criminal mountain without charm.

  “Ivan,” I said. “Pleasure’s mine.”

  “You’re teasing me but that’s good. I appreciate the effort.” He clapped his hands once. “So…do you know why you’re here?”

  “Uh…” I droned. “Execution?”

  “Of?” He looked genuinely perplexed until he suddenly threw his head back in gleeful epiphany. “You?! Hahahahahaha.” The signature Bond villain laugh. Where did they all learn this? “No, no, no, Mike, c’mon.” It was the first time tonight he seemed even remotely happy—briefly—and then he got serious again. “I’m not here to harm you. I’m here, believe it or not, to offer you…yes, offer you…a lot of money. A lot of money.”

  I had no response.

  “This room is crowded so you have witnesses,” he said. “I’m making a business proposal.”

  I had nothing to say. I hadn’t expected this.

  “My son has been murdered,” said Ivan. “I don’t know who did it. I don’t care. I just want the individual dead.”

  He summoned yet another goon into the room. Maximilian. I didn’t actually know if that was his name or not, but I’d never seen someone look more Maximilian than this two-legged tank. Maximilian carried a large duffel bag in each of two gargantuan hands.

  “Here is one million dollars in US cash,” Ivan said. “I’m showing it to you because you need to know it’s there. Incentivizing.”

  Maximilian unzipped both bags. Inside were stacks of our cherubic Mr. Franklin.

  “Find out who killed my son and kill him. On the spot. No questions asked. No torture. No theater. Just kill him wherever you find him. I don’t care if he’s clutching his newborn daughter. Midbaptism. Inside the goddamn Vatican. Make him dead.”

  He took one step closer to me to emphasize his conclusion.

  “And the money will be yours.”

  Chapter 33

  One million in cash. That would be my new retirement plan. I’d previously regarded a mere hundred thousand as the gateway to a new life, but one entire million? It’d be a six-digit funeral pyre to singe every inch of my old self. And a lifetime supply of fine cuisine for my dog.

  “Thank you, Ivan,” I said. “I’m in.”

  Maximilian squatted down, paused, made sure I saw the contents—I did—then zipped up the duffel bags. Ivan turned to me. I’d thought our time here was done, but no, this wasn’t a deal that ended on a handshake. “Beautiful,” he said. “But first…But now…Please. Yes? You join me for a drink. Yes?”

  Tearful nights were etched in his face.

  “One drink?” I said.

  “Please. It’s very Croatian.” He missed his son. I could see it now, in his eyes.

  He and his entourage ushered me up to the hotel’s back ballroom, which had been set up as a temporary casino for that night. They’d brought in luxury gaming tables for blackjack, craps, and even roulette. Ivan walked with me to the middle of the hoopla, glad-handing fifteen different business associates along the way. Then, amidst his smiling and waving at the elite, he mumbled, without looking at me, without breaking character, a rather terrifying sentence. “Mike,” he began, “you…uh…you didn’t have anything to do with the death of my son, did you?”

  He didn’t stop his stride or stop his parade wave. Which meant he was completely paying attention. I had but one chance to answer this correctly or be decapitated.

  Chapter 34

  My blood ran cold. “The hit on Goran?” I said, for needless clarification.

  “Yes.” Don’t be casual, Mike. Don’t be rigid.

  “Whoever pulled the trigger…won’t be alive by the end of the week.”

  My voice trembled, I knew. I didn’t feel convincing. I kept doing the one thing you shouldn’t do when you lie: visualize the truth—the alley where Milt blasted six flesh-eating rounds into two twenty-year-olds. Worse, I was visualizing the kid’s only brother ordering the hit.

  “I’ll make sure of it,” I said.

  The brother’s name was Vassotav or something, I thought. I vaguely remembered Ivan mentioning him years ago.

  “I know,” said Ivan. “I know you will. I offered the job to a few other mechanics but you’re the only one who has the jaja.”

  He turned to his posse expectantly.

  “We’re here to enjoy ourselves,” he said. A tray of glasses of plum brandy had arrived for us to pluck from.

  “Živjeli,” said the group.

  “Živjeli,” said Ivan.

  “God help me,” I said to myself, under my breath, before gulping down the two-ounce serving of battery acid.

  I thought about the prospect of locating my new target. The brother. Varrotav. Or whatever his name was. He could’ve been anywhere in Boston. If he was even in Boston. If he wasn’t, he—fitting the infamous playboy reputation I remembered—could now be anywhere in the world, behind a swarm of machine-gun owners.

  A second and third round of Croatian liquor were soon sloshing inside me. My mental facilities dulled. The golden glow of the room became a haze. Music blended, and details became friendlier.

  Ivan had tallied a seventh or eighth glass of his national blood. His arm was soon around me, bodyguards in Armani suits following us without smiling. We headed toward a back room and a private card table.

  “I would like to introduce you to someone,” said Ivan. “Someone who may be of help in your endeavor. Someone who insists that tonight we celebrate life itself.”

  Ivan jovially pointed to the chair at the far end of the poker table. Seated in it was a young man of about twenty-three years of age.

  “This is my other son, Vatroslav,” he said.

  Vatroslav. That was the name. He said, “You should join us, Michael. Our game is under way.”

  My search was over before it had even started.

  Chapter 35

  I had to focus on the basics. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow. When I get nervous, I mentally sift through passages of Tolstoy, hunting down a remedy for the feeling. Not sure where it had gotten me this time. Light and shadow?

  I sat down with Vatroslav and Ivan for a bone-chilling game of five-card stud. I paired two sevens on the very first hand.

  “Raise,” I said.

  I’m no fool. You don’t walk into a room like this and expect an honest deck.

  “How much?” he said.

  Vatroslav Mesic. Shorter than his father. Equally hirsute. Much more cunning.

  “Fifty bucks,” I said.

  I wasn’t playing to win. I was playing to look like I thought I could. To determine whether or not he knew that I knew. Could he have found out I’d talked to Allison? Could he have found out I’d killed her?

  “Call,” said Ivan.

  “Call,” said his son.

  If he were ruthless enough to order a hit on his own brother, what would he do when he learned that his father had just purchased his demise?

  The next cards were dealt. A couple of jacks landed elsewhere and I got no help from an eight of clubs. They co
uld think I was on a straight draw, but that’d be a sucker’s play. Nobody smart would fear it. They’d just bet me off.

  “Mike always overthinks the numbers,” joked Ivan.

  Watching him, I calculated there was no way he knew “it” was a family affair. I’d seen every strain of lie that the Boston criminal population ran on. No one’s that good. If you’re aware that your own son killed your other son, you don’t relax the way Ivan Mesic did.

  By the advent of the final card, I’d failed to improve my sevens. They remained a dull working-class duo, no more, no less. Yet in a game like five stud, virtually any pair will earn you the win.

  “I raise one hundred fifty,” said the brother.

  “Call,” said his dad.

  “I’m out,” I said.

  “No way,” said the brother. “Really?” He was genuinely lamenting the lack of competition from me. “C’mon. I’ll spot you the money.”

  “Sorry,” I replied. “I can’t.”

  “A loan. An IMF loan,” he joked. “Developing nations.”

  We weren’t playing for a big sum, but it was definitely beyond my disposable income bracket. The irony of seeing a million dollars downstairs and coming to this room to fret over a couple hundred was not lost on me.

  “I can’t accept your generosity,” I said. “I don’t have the cards and I don’t have the cash.”

  “Why do I seriously doubt you don’t have cash?” joked the brother. His eyes lingered on me, the word you slightly elongated.

  Jesus Christ: he was talking about the hundred and fifty thousand I’d been assigned. He didn’t know about the million. He was talking about the bounty he himself had put on his own brother.

  This was beyond reckless. Ivan was sitting right next to us.

  “Stop flirting,” said Ivan.

  Luckily, Vatroslav’s father’s bloodstream was basically syrup at that point. He was swaying just trying to sit still.

  You seriously doubt, kid?

  The son’s remark echoed in my head. It was a daredevil’s move. His father could expose both of us, right there at the table. I didn’t even want to glance toward him. There were four armed guards stationed in the room with Strojnica ERO imitation Uzis. Ivan could signal his platoon to eviscerate us. He could, but again, the alcohol. Ivan suddenly giggled. He drunkenly said, “Fold.”

  Ivan could’ve stayed in the hand for free. But he didn’t. Vatroslav was left alone to show us what turned out to be, indeed, his pair of eights.

  I didn’t know what dollar amount he’d wanted me to gamble and lose, but neither of us were happy with the outcome.

  “Good hand,” he said.

  “Good deal,” I said back.

  My heart was racing. I got up and bowed my head to Ivan, a nod of respect, needing to be out of there before I sank into a vortex of anxiety. Ivan of course grabbed my forearm before I could rotate toward my escape route. “My sons are ev-verything to me,” he said.

  “Understood,” I said.

  “Find the bastard who tore my boy from me and tear that bastard from this planet.”

  “Understood.”

  “For that,” he said, “I’ll be v-very grateful to you.”

  I glanced at Vatroslav, then looked back to the father and gave him my vow. “I’ll kill him, Ivan. I’ll kill him when he most expects it.”

  Chapter 36

  The prize was one million dollars. I began to tell myself I’d buy a new house. Sell the old one. Move on. A departure from a home whose every nook reminded me of a woman I could no longer touch. My second thought was a daily array of gourmet bones for Updike. It was around 2:00 a.m. when I finally returned to my porch.

  “Sell,” I said to myself. “Last job. Then sell.”

  Before sitting down at the poker table of life, mere hours earlier, I was plotting how my week would be devoted to tracking my target—bribing dance club owners for intel, scouring brothels, conducting a statewide manhunt. But Vatroslav—the son, the brother, the killer, the bastard—had been seven feet away from me. And judging by the final smirk on his face, he wasn’t about to run.

  “Hey, little man,” I said to Updike. “Lemme check on our tenants, okay?”

  Updike had greeted me at the door, tail whapping against whatever made the most noise. Together we went downstairs to the Kolpak 1010 freezer system to tell Maria the latest news, and to tell her yet again that I was sorry things had gotten so dire. I took a preparatory breath and opened the freezer door to confront the imagery. Nothing had changed. Everyone—all six of my guests—had remained in the exact same positions with the exact same facial expressions. They even smelled the same. A faint odor of lemon.

  Maybe not surprising that no one had moved. But then most people have never stood in front of a dead spouse and dead backstabber, propped up next to a dead heap of middlemen.

  “Can I trust you to take care of Updike?” asked Maria. There I was, checking the frost levels, inspecting the outer air ducts for incriminating odors, and reducing the risk of an alarming spike in my electric bill. These weren’t the idiosyncrasies of a madman. This was professional survival. I even scrubbed the upstairs flooring, in every room—took several hours, despite a severe lack of sleep—to keep the place pristine. I slid both house keys onto a special key ring and inserted the key ring into the penultimate chapter of my copy of Anna Karenina, as a bookmark.

  “To answer your question,” I said to Maria, “Updike trusts me. He trusts me to hold one principle above all others. Loyalty.”

  I closed the door and locked it. The dog and I left on schedule.

  Chapter 37

  If Vatroslav wasn’t staying at the Bay Standard Hotel, he was probably hidden in some equally grandiose lodging on the trendy side of town. I had a list of candidates, but instinctually the Bay Standard felt like the place to start.

  The day was moving fast. I entered the lobby wearing a bulky Patriots hoodie and a Sox cap. I stood by a column and made a phone call to the concierge desk just yards in front of me. It was a trick I’d learned a few years ago while tracking down a stubborn target in a six-day, five-night self-barricade in a suite whose room number I’d never had.

  “Bay Standard, this is Tangelo,” said the voice answering my call. “How may I provide you with award-winning service?”

  “Tangelo,” I whispered into the phone. “Please listen closely…”

  I told him I had a thousand dollars in cash for him if he’d pass on a warning to one of his guests. I told him that guest was Vatroslav Mesic. The catch was, I already knew what Tangelo would do.

  Tangelo would refuse. If something bad were to happen, and a particular mob boss were to find out, Tangelo would face early termination.

  Tangelo would realize all this midconversation. We’d then hang up with nothing gained.

  I knew all this before dialing.

  The real value for me was what Tangelo would do after our call. He wouldn’t use the phone to warn his guest. He’d visit his guest in person. And that would be my chance to follow him.

  “May I place you on hold a moment?” Tangelo said.

  “Okay.”

  I felt good. I felt like I hadn’t lost my edge.

  But Tangelo didn’t walk anywhere. I watched him. He didn’t even initiate a new call. What Tangelo did was give some squirrelly-looking valet two sentences’ worth of instruction. Then that valet came straight toward my column, and straight to me.

  “Here,” said the valet, and he held out a parking permit.

  I had no words prepared.

  They knew I’d come here? And would stand by this column?

  “Mr. Ryan,” said the valet. “It’s for you.”

  “S-sorry?” I said, taking the paper from his hand.

  But he left without discussion. My ruse had been out-rused.

  The parking permit was for something called the Osiris Heights Condominium Complex. I’d never heard of it, but it sounded like a stack of McMansions built in the past twelve minutes,
stocked with rich bachelor kids from the Mediterranean.

  This thing in my hand was a not-so-subtle hint that my target was there, awaiting my arrival. He’d anticipated my gambit and was taunting me with a formal invitation to mimic his father’s formal invitation.

  “Vatroslav,” I mumbled, “I salute the move.”

  Any self-preserving man would skip the million dollars. I’d be dead upon arrival. But, as we are learning, I am no self-preserving man.

  Chapter 38

  One hour later, with no stops at any taverns, I would be parking my car down the street from those Osiris Heights condominiums. I would pull into the loading zone of a nearby public library, a half street down from the target building, perched on a river just across from Boston’s skyline. To the left, the endless Atlantic. To the right, the Cradle of Liberty. If you’re going to die, you might as well die with a view.

  “Stay here, pup.” I scratched Updike’s chin, then put my Bruins beanie on. I kept my Patriots hoodie snug. “I’ll be back in nine minutes.”

  He whined.

  “I’ll do what I gotta do and I’ll leave, okay?”

  He whined.

  We’d parked a block away to facilitate any possible stealthy arrival. They knew I was coming but I still needed to pretend I had a chance. On the brisk walk toward my doom, I rehearsed.

  The first line of defense was likely the front desk staff. Honestly, what was I supposed to say? “Hello, my name is Guy About to Die Upstairs. Would you please inform Mr. Riddle Me with Bullets that I’ve arrived? Thank you. I’ll wait.” Every single minimum-wage-making individual I’d encounter would have been briefed on how to handle me. In fact, it was likely that one of them—the plumber, the maid, the cable guy kneeling by a toolbox containing a Beretta M9A3 with suppressor—would be the grim reaper. I’d be killed when I least expected it, while most expecting it.