Kiss the Girls

by James Patterson

  As he strolled between La Brea and Fairfax, he breathed in the scents of musk and heavy floral perfumes, of chamomile- and lemon-scented hair. The leather handbags and skirts also had a distinct scent.

  It was all a big tease, but he adored it. It was so ironic that these lovely California foxes were teasing and provoking him of all people.

  He was the small, adorable, fluffy-haired boy loose in the candy store, wasn’t he? Now which forbidden sweets should he choose this afternoon?

  That little twit in red heels, no stockings? That poor man’s Juliette Binoche? The provocateuse in the French-vanilla-and-black, harlequin-print suit?

  Several of the women actually gave Dr. Will Rudolph approving glances as they wandered in and out of their favorite shops. Exit I, Leathers and Treasures, La Luz de Jesus.

  He was strikingly handsome, even by strict Hollywood standards. He resembled the singer Bono from the Irish rock group U2. Actually, he looked the way Bono would if he had chosen to become a successful doctor in Dublin or Cork, or right here in Los Angeles.

  And that was one of the Gentleman’s most private secrets: The women almost always chose him.

  Will Rudolph wandered into Nativity, which was one of the currently hot A-rated shops on Melrose. Nativity was the place to buy a designer bustier, a mink-lined leather jacket, an “antique” Hamilton wristwatch.

  As he watched the supple young bodies in the busy store, he was thinking of Hollywood’s A parties, its A restaurants, even its A stores. The city was completely hung up on its own pecking order.

  He understood status perfectly! Yes, he did. Dr. Will Rudolph was the most powerful man in Los Angeles.

  He reveled in the secure feeling it gave him, the reassuring front-page news stories that told him he truly existed, that he wasn’t a twisted figment of his own imagination. The Gentleman was in control of an entire city, and an influential city at that.

  He strolled near an irresistible blond woman all decked-out in twentysomething finery.

  She was idly looking at Incan jewelry, seemingly bored with the whole deal: her life. She was by far the most striking woman inside Nativity, but that wasn’t what attracted him to her.

  She was absolutely untouchable. She sent off a clear signal, even in a pricey store filled mostly with other attractive twentysomething females. I’m untouchable. Don’t even think about it. You’re unworthy, no matter who you are.

  He felt thunder roar through his chest. He wanted to scream out inside the loud, crowded boutique:

  I can have you. I can!

  You have no idea—but I’m the Gentleman Caller.

  The blond woman had a full and arrogant mouth. She understood that no lipstick or eyeshadow was necessary for her. She was slender and narrow-waisted. Elegant in her own southern California way. She wore a faded cotton vest, wrap skirt, and colorblocked moccasins. Her tan was even and perfect, healthy-looking.

  She finally glanced his way. A glancing blow, Dr. Will Rudolph thought.

  Lord, what eyes. He wanted them all to himself. He wanted to roll them through his fingers, carry them around for a good-luck charm.

  What she saw was a tall and slender, interesting-looking man in his early thirties. He had broad shoulders, and a build like an athlete, or even a dancer. His sun-lightened brown curls were tied back in a ponytail. He had Irish-boy blue eyes. Will Rudolph also wore a slightly wrinkled white medical jacket over his very traditional Oxford blue shirt and hospital- approved striped rep’s tie. He had on expensive Doctor Martens boots—indestructible footwear. He seemed so sure of himself.

  She spoke first. She chose him, didn’t she? Her blue eyes were calm and deep, untroubled, very sexy in their confidence. She played with one of her gold-plated earrings. “Was it something I didn’t say?”

  He started to laugh, genuinely delighted that she had an adult sense of humor about the dating charade. This was going to be a fun night, he thought. He knew it.

  “I’m sorry. I usually don’t stare. At least I never get caught blatantly doing it,” he said. He couldn’t stop laughing for a moment. He had an easy laugh, a pleasant laugh. It was a modern tool of the trade, especially in Hollywood, New York, Paris: his favorite haunts.

  “At least you’re honest about it,” she said. She was laughing now, too, and a gold-link necklace jangled against her chest. He ached to reach out and rip it off, to run his tongue over her breasts.

  She was doomed now, if that was his desire, his wish, his slightest whim. Should he go on? Perhaps look a little further?

  The blood in his head was roaring, swirling with tremendous force. He had to decide. He looked into the untroubled blue eyes of the blond woman again, and saw the answer.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, tying to sound calm, “but, I think I’ve found what I like very much in here.”

  “Yes, I think I may have found what I need, too,” she said after a pause. Then she laughed. “Where are you from? You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Originally from North Carolina.” He held the bell-jangling door open for her, and they left the antique-clothing store together. “I’ve worked on losing my accent.”

  “You’ve succeeded,” she said.

  She was wonderfully impressed with herself, not the least bit self-conscious. She had an aura of self-confidence and competency—which he would absolutely shatter. Oh, God, he wanted this one so badly.

  CHAPTER 61

  HERE WE go, action fans. He’s leaving Nativity with the blond girl. They’re out on Melrose Avenue.”

  We were using binoculars to watch the incredible encounter through Nativity’s decorative front window. The FBI also had directional microphones on Dr. Will Rudolph, as well as on the blond woman in the trendy shop.

  It was an FBI-only stakeout. They hadn’t even clued in the LAPD. Nada. It was pretty typical Bureau tactics, only I was on their side this time, compliments of Kyle Craig. The FBI had wanted to talk to Kate in Los Angeles. Kyle arranged for me to come after I beat on him about the deal we’d made, and how this could be the most important break we’d had on the Casanova investigation.

  It was just past five-thirty; noisy, chaotic rush hour on a California-gorgeous, sunny day. Temperature in the mid-seventies. Heartbeats rising toward at least a thousand inside our car.

  We were finally closing in on one of the monsters, at least we hoped so. Dr. Will Rudolph struck me as a modern-day vampire. He had spent the afternoon casually roaming among the stylish shops: Ecru, Grau, Mark Fox. Even the girls idling in front of Johnny Rockets fifties-style burger stand were potential targets of his. He was definitely a hunter today. He was girl-watching. Was he the Gentleman Caller, though?

  I was working closely with two senior FBI agents in an anonymous-looking minivan parked on a side street off Melrose Avenue. Our radio was hooked to the state-of-the-art directional mikes that were in two of the other five cars trailing the man believed to be the Gentleman. It was almost showtime.

  “I think I may have found what I need, too,” we heard the blond woman say. She reminded me of the beautiful students Casanova had abducted in the South. Could he be one and the same monster? A coast-to-coast killer? Maybe a split personality?

  FBI experts here on the West Coast believed they had the answer. In their view, the same creep did the so-called “perfect crimes” on both coasts. A victim had never been kidnapped or killed on the same day. Unfortunately, there were at least a dozen theories about the Gentleman Caller and Casanova that I was aware of. I still wasn’t convinced by any of them.

  “How long have you been in Hollywood?” we heard the young woman ask Rudolph. Her voice sounded alluring and sexy. She was obviously flirting with him.

  “Long enough to meet you.” He was soft-spoken and courteous so far. His right hand rested lightly under her left elbow. The Gentleman?

  He didn’t look like a killer, but he did resemble the Casanova that Kate McTiernan had described. He was a hunk physically, clearly attractive t
o women, and he was a doctor. His eyes were blue—the color Kate had seen behind Casanova’s mask.

  “Cockfucker looks like he could have any girl he wanted,” one of the FBI agents turned to me and said.

  “Not to do what he wants to do to them,” I said.

  “You got a point there.”

  The agent, John Asaro, was Mexican-American. He was balding, but with a compensating bushy mustache. He was probably in his late forties. The other agent was Raymond Cosgrove. Both of them were good men, high-level Bureau professionals. Kyle Craig was taking care of me so far.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Rudolph and the blond woman. She was pointing toward a shiny black Mercedes convertible with its tan top down. More expensive shops stood out in the background: I.a. Eyeworks, Gallay Melrose. Another garish store sign, eight-foot-high cowboy boots, framed her windblown hair.

  We listened as they talked on the crowded street. The directional mikes picked up everything. No one in the surveillance car was making a sound.

  “That’s my car over there, sport. The red-haired lady in the passenger seat—she’s my sweetie. Did you really think you could pick me up just like that?” The blond woman snapped her fingers and the colorful bracelets on her arm rattled in Rudolph’s face. “Kiss off, Dr. Kildare.”

  John Asaro groaned out loud. “Christ, she shot him down! She set him up. Isn’t that beautiful! Only in LA.”

  Raymond Cosgrove pounded the dash with the thick heel of his hand. “Son of a bitch! She’s walking away. Go back to him, sweetheart! Tell him you were only kidding!”

  We’d had him, or were very close to it. It made me physically sick to think that he was getting away. We had to catch him at something, or an arrest wouldn’t hold up.

  The blond woman crossed Melrose and slid into the sleek black Mercedes. Her friend had short red hair, and her silver bangle earrings caught the late-day sunlight. The woman leaned in and gave her sweetie a kiss.

  As Dr. Will Rudolph watched them, he didn’t appear at all upset. He stood on the sidewalk with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his white jacket, looking cool and relaxed. Neutral. As if nothing had happened. Were we seeing the Gentleman Caller’s mask?

  The two lovers in the convertible waved as the Mercedes roared past, and he gave them a smile, a shrug of the shoulders, a cool nod of his head.

  We could hear him hiss through the directional mikes. “Ciao, ladies. I’d like to cut you both into pieces and feed you to the gulls at Venice Beach. And I do have your license plate number, you silly twats.”

  CHAPTER 62

  WE TRAILED Dr. Will Rudolph to his luxury penthouse apartment at the Beverly Comstock. The FBI knew where he lived. They hadn’t shared that information with the LAPD, either. The tension and disappointment were heavy inside our car. The FBI was playing a dangerous game of freeze-out with the Los Angeles police.

  I finally left the stakeout at around eleven o’clock. Rudolph had been inside for more than four hours. A loud, unidentifiable buzzing noise in my head wouldn’t go away. I was still moving on Eastern time. It was 2:00 A.M. for me, and I needed to get some sleep soon.

  The FBI agents promised to call right away if anything broke, or if Dr. Rudolph went out hunting again that night. It had to have been a bad scene for him on Melrose, and I thought that he might go after someone else soon.

  If he was actually the Gentleman Caller.

  I was driven to the Holiday Inn at Sunset and Sepulveda. Kate McTiernan was staying there, too. The FBI had flown her to California because Kate knew more about Casanova than anyone they had assigned to the case. She had been kidnapped by the creep and had lived to tell about it. Kate might be able to identify the killer if he and Casanova were the same person. She had spent most of the day being interviewed at the FBI offices in downtown Los Angeles.

  Her room was several doors down from mine at the hotel. I only had to knock once before she opened a white door with a black 26 on the knocker.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I was up waiting,” she said. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

  I guess I wasn’t in a great mood after the failed bust. “Unfortunately, nothing happened.” I told her the bottom line.

  Kate nodded, waiting for more. She had on a light blue tank top, khaki shorts, and yellow flip-flops. She was wide awake and revved up. I was glad to see her, even at half-past two on a shitty morning.

  I finally came in and we talked about the FBI stakeout on Melrose Avenue. I told Kate how close we might have come to getting Dr. Will Rudolph. I remembered everything he’d said, every gesture. “He sounded like a gentleman. He acted like a gentleman, too… right up until the blond woman made him angry.”

  “What does he look like?” Kate asked. She was eager to help. I couldn’t blame her. The FBI had flown her to Los Angeles, then stuck her in a hotel room for most of the day and night.

  “I know how you feel, Kate. I’ve talked to the FBI, and you’re going to ride with me tomorrow. You’re going to see him, probably in the morning. I don’t want to set up any bias in your mind. Is that okay?”

  Kate nodded, but I could tell her feelings were hurt. She definitely wasn’t happy about her level of involvement so far.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to act like a tough detective, a controlling bastard,” I finally said. “Let’s not fight about it.”

  “Well, you were distant. Anyway, you’re forgiven. I guess we better get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another day. Big day maybe?”

  “Yeah, tomorrow could be a big day. I really am sorry, Kate.”

  “I know you are.” She finally smiled. “You really are forgiven. Sweet dreams. Tomorrow we nail Beavis. Then we get Butt-head.”

  I finally went off to my room. I hit the bed and thought about Kyle Craig for a while. He’d been able to sell my unorthodox style to his confrères for one reason: it had worked before. I already had one monster’s scalp on my belt. I hadn’t played according to the rules to get it. Kyle understood and respected results. In general, so did the Bureau. They were certainly playing according to their own rules here in Los Angeles.

  My last semiconscious thought was of Kate in those khaki shorts. Take your breath away. I had a passing thought that she might come down the hall and knock, knock, knock on my door. We were in Hollywood, after all. Wasn’t that the way it happened in the movies?

  But Kate didn’t come knocking on my hotel door. So much for Clint Eastwood and Rene Russo fantasies.

  CHAPTER 63

  THIS WAS going to be a big day in Tinseltown. The manhunt of manhunts was playing in Beverly Hills. Just like the day they finally caught the killer-strangler Richard Ramirez out here.

  Today we get Beavis.

  It was a few minutes past eight in the morning. Kate and I were sitting in an arctic-blue Taurus parked half a block from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. There was an electrical sound in the air, as if the city were being run on a single, huge generator. A play on an old line ran through my head: Hell is a city much like Los Angeles.

  I was nervous and tense; my body felt numb, and my stomach was queasy. The burnout factor. Not enough sleep. Too much stress for too long a stretch. Chasing monsters from sea to shining sea.

  “That’s Dr. Will Rudolph climbing out of the BMW,” I said to Kate. I was so wound up, I felt as if strong hands were squeezing me.

  “Good-looking,” Kate muttered. “Real sure of himself, too. The way he moves. Doctor Rudolph.”

  Kate didn’t say another word as she intently watched Rudolph. Was he the Gentleman Caller? Was he also Casanova? Or were we being set up for some sick, psychopathic reason that I didn’t understand yet?

  The morning’s temperature hovered in the low sixties. The air had a crisp snap, like fall in the Northeast. Kate had on an old college sweatsuit, high-topped running shoes, dimestore sunglasses. Her long brown hair was bunched back in a ponytail. Sensible stakeout attire and grooming.

  “Alex, the FBI’s all around him now?” she aske
d me without looking away from the binoculars. “They’re here right now? That scum can’t possibly get away?”

  I nodded. “If he does anything, anything that shows us he’s the Gentleman, they’ll grab him. They want this arrest for themselves.”

  But the FBI was also giving me whatever rope I needed. Kyle Craig had kept his promise. So far, anyway.

  Kate and I watched as Dr. Will Rudolph slid out of the BMW coupe, which he’d just parked in a private lot on the west side of the hospital. He wore a European-style charcoal-gray suit. It was cut well and looked expensive. It probably cost as much as my house in D.C. His brown hair was held back in a fashionable ponytail. He had on dark glasses with round tortoiseshell frames.

  A doctor in an exclusive Beverly Hills hospital. Smug as hell. The goddamn Gentleman Caller who was setting this city on fire?

  I ached to run across the parking lot and hit him, take him down right now. I ground my teeth until my jaw was stiff. Kate wouldn’t take her eyes away from Dr. Will Rudolph. Was he Casanova, too? Were they one and the same monster? Was that it?

  We both watched Rudolph as he crossed the hospital lot. His stride was long and quick and buoyant. Nothing bothering him today. Finally, he disappeared inside a gray metal side door of the hospital.

  “A doctor,” Kate said and shook her head back and forth. “This is so weird, Alex. I’m shaking on the inside.”

  The static on the car radio startled us, but we could hear agent John Asaro’s deep, raspy voice.

  “Alex, did you guys see him? Get a good look? What does Ms. McTiernan think? What’s the verdict on our Dr. Squirrel?”

  I looked across the front seat at Kate. She looked all of her thirty-one years right now. Not quite so confident and assured, a little gray around the gills. The prime witness. She understood the deadly seriousness of the moment perfectly.

  “I don’t think he’s Casanova,” Kate finally said. She shook her head. “He’s not the same physical type. He’s thinner… carries himself differently. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I don’t think it’s him, goddammit.” She sounded a little disappointed.