Kiss the Girls

by James Patterson

  I heard the noisy diesel chug of a VW van. I saw the rear end of the van coming fast. We passed it as if it were standing still.

  There was a flow of traffic against us as we approached the ocean road. Mostly kids out for an early evening spin. Some of them pointed at the Range Rover and thought it was a big joke. Just some major asshole from the Sur pulling a stunt, right? Some aging merry prankster high on tequila, or maybe even twenty-year-old acid. A crazed man hanging on to the roof of a Range Rover doing seventy miles an hour in what amounted to a very scenic parking lot.

  What was his next goddamn move?

  Rudolph didn’t bother to slow down on the curvy, extremely populated, blacktop road. The motorists headed in the opposite direction blared their horns angrily. No one did anything to stop us. What could they do? What could I do now? Hang on as tightly as I could and pray!

  CHAPTER 71

  A BRIGHT flash of grayish-blue ocean broke through the scrim of fir and redwood branches. I heard rock music blasting from the slow-moving parade of cars up ahead. A collage of music was in the air: Pop 40 rap, West Coast grunge bands, acid rock from thirty years ago.

  Another splash of Pacific blue hit me right in the eye. The setting sun was casting its golden glow on the spreading firs. Wheeling terns and gulls passed slowly over the trees. Then I saw the full expanse of the Pacific Coast Highway up ahead.

  What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t drive back to Los Angeles like this. Or was he crazy enough to try? Eventually he’d have to stop for gas. What would he do then?

  Traffic on the highway was light heading north, but heavy moving south. The Range Rover was still doing sixty or better—careening faster than anyone ought to drive on the curvy side highway, especially as it merged into the busier coast road.

  Rudolph didn’t slow down as he approached the crowded highway! I could see family station wagons, convertibles, four-wheel-drive vehicles. Just another crazy Saturday night on the northern California shoreline, but it was about to get a whole lot crazier.

  We were fifty yards from the highway now. He was going as fast as ever, if not faster. My arms were stiff and numb. My throat was dry from exhaust fumes. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on. Then suddenly, I thought I knew what he was going to do.

  “You son of a bitch!” I yelled, just to yell. I wedged my body even tighter against the straining metal roof rails.

  Rudolph had created the impromptu escape plan. He was only ten to fifteen yards from the highway traffic, no more than that.

  Just as the Rover reached the sharp turn onto the Pacific Coast Highway, he braked hard. The loud screech of radial tires was terrifying, especially from where I was listening.

  A bearded face in a passing multicolored minivan yelled out, “Slow down, you asshole!” Which asshole? I wondered. This asshole definitely wanted to slow down.

  The top-heavy Range Rover held its path for a few yards, then it started to fishtail right, then left, then right again.

  It was total bedlam now. Horns were blowing everywhere at once on the busy highway. Drivers and passengers couldn’t believe what they were seeing, what was bearing down on them from the side road.

  Rudolph was doing everything wrong at the wheel on purpose. He wanted the Rover to spin out.

  Its tires still squealing like animals being slaughtered, the Range Rover slid left until it was facing south, but it was actually traveling west into traffic. Then the Rover’s tail end swerved all the way around.

  We were going to hit the traffic moving backward! We were going to crash. I was sure we would both be killed. Images of Damon and Jannie flashed before me.

  I couldn’t guess how fast we were going when we broadsided a silver-blue minivan. I didn’t even try to hang on to the roof rack. I concentrated on relaxing my body, preparing for a bonebreaking, possibly deadly, impact in the next few seconds.

  I yelled, but the sound of my voice was lost in the high-pitched screeching crash, the blaring car horns, the screaming spectators.

  I barely missed the lineup of northbound traffic as I jetted off the roof. More horns blared. I was flying through the air with the greatest of ease. The sea wind both cooled and stung my face. It was going to be a crash landing.

  I flew into the smoky blue mist that was settling between the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway. I hit the thick branches of a fir tree. As I fell through scraping, scratching tree branches, I knew the Gentleman Caller was going to escape.

  CHAPTER 72

  SKIP FORWARD. Cut forward. Spin, fall head over heels forward!

  I was badly shaken and bruised from the car crash and fall, but apparently there were no broken bones. A crackerjack EMS team looked me over at the accident site on Highway 1. They wanted to check me into a nearby hospital for tests and observation, but I had other plans for the night.

  The Gentleman was running loose. He had commandeered a car heading north. The car had already been found, but not Dr. Rudolph. At least not so far.

  When she arrived at the bad scene at the highway, Kate went ballistic. She wanted me to go to the local hospital, too. Agent Cosgrove of the FBI was already there as a patient. We had a heated discussion, but eventually Kate and I caught the last AirWest shuttle out of Monterey. We were headed back to L.A.

  I had spoken to Kyle Craig twice already. FBI teams were camped out at Rudolph’s apartment in Los Angeles, but nobody expected the Gentleman to return there. They were searching the place now. I wanted to be there with them. I needed to see exactly how he lived.

  On the flight, Kate continued to show concern about my physical condition. She had already developed a top-notch bedside manner, warm and empathetic, but also surprisingly firm with a stubborn patient like myself.

  Kate talked to me with her hand cupped lightly under my chin. She was intense. “Alex, you have to go to a hospital as soon as we get to Los Angeles. I’m serious. As you might be able to tell, this isn’t my usual humor-in-the-face-of-adversity approach. You’re going to a hospital as soon as we land. Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

  “I’m listening to you, Kate. I also happen to agree with what you’re saying. Basically, that is.”

  “Alex, that’s no answer. That’s crap.”

  I knew Kate was right, but we didn’t have time for a hospital check-in tonight. Dr. Will Rudolph’s trail was still warm, and maybe we could pick up his scent and nab him in the next few hours. It was a slim chance, but by tomorrow the Gentleman’s trail could be stone-cold.

  “You could be bleeding internally, and you wouldn’t even know it,” Kate continued to make her case. “You could die right here in this airplane seat.”

  “I’ve got some nasty bruises and contusions, and I ache all over. I’ve got the makings of some first-class scabs up and down my right side, where I made my first couple of bounces. I’ve got to see his apartment before they take it apart, Kate. I have to see how that bastard lives.”

  “Half a million or more a year? Trust me. He lives very well,” Kate came back at me. “You, on the other hand, could be in bad shape. Human beings don’t bounce.”

  “Ahh, well, black human beings do. We’ve had to learn that special knack for survival. We hit the ground, we bounce right back.”

  Kate didn’t laugh at my joke. She folded her arms across her chest and peered out the tiny plane’s window. She was angry with me for the second time in hours. That must mean she cared.

  She knew she was right and she wasn’t backing down. I liked the fact that she was concerned for me. We were actually friends. What a fantastic concept for men and women in the nineties. Kate McTiernan and I had become friends during both our times of need. We were in the process of compiling that all-important dossier of shared experiences now. It was some kind of dossier so far.

  “I like it that we’re pals,” I finally told Kate in a low, conspiratorial voice. I wasn’t afraid to say cute, dumb things to her, almost the way I talked to my kids.

  She didn’t turn
away from the window as she spoke. Still pissed off at me. Good for her. I probably deserved it. “If you were really my damn friend, you’d listen to me when I’m worried sick and frightened for you. You were in an automobile accident a few hours ago. You fell about thirty yards down a pretty steep ravine, pal.”

  “I hit a tree first.”

  She finally turned back to me and pointed a finger at my heart, like a stake. “Big deal. Alex, I’m worried about your stubborn black ass. I’m worried so much my stomach hurts.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me in months,” I told her. “Once when I was shot, Sampson showed some genuine concern. It lasted about a minute and a half.”

  Her brown eyes held on to mine and wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t lighten up. “I let you help me in North Carolina. I let you hypnotize me, for God’s sake. Why won’t you let me help you here? Let me help, Alex.”

  “I’m working up to it,” I told her. That was true enough. “Macho policeman have a tough field to hoe. We abhor being helped. We’re classic enablers. Most of the time, we like it like that, too.”

  “Oh, cut the psychobabble, Doctor! It’s self-serving and doesn’t reflect you at your best.”

  “I’m not at my best. I was just in a terrible accident.”

  It went on like that between us for the remainder of the shuttle flight to Los Angeles. Toward the end of the ride, I catnapped peacefully on Kate’s shoulder. No complications. No unnecessary baggage. Very, very nice.

  CHAPTER 73

  UNFORTUNATELY, THE California night was still young and probably extremely dangerous for everyone involved. When we arrived at Rudolph’s penthouse apartment at the Beverly Comstock, the LAPD was everywhere. So was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was police bedlam.

  We could see the flashing crimson and blue emergency lights from several blocks away. The local police were justifiably angry for being kept out of the chase by the FBI. It was a very nasty, very political, very sensitive mess. This wasn’t the first time the FBI had been high-handed with a local police agency. It had happened to me back in Washington. Plenty of times.

  The Los Angeles press posse was there, too, and in full force. Newspaper, local TV, radio, even a few film producers were on the scene. I wasn’t happy that many of the reporters knew Kate and me by sight.

  They called out to us as we hurried through police lines and barricades. “Kate, give us a few minutes.” “Give us a break!” “Dr. Cross, is Rudolph the Gentleman Caller?” “What went wrong up in Big Sur?” “Is this the killer’s apartment?”

  “No comment right now,” I said, trying to keep my head down, eyes down.

  “From either one of us,” Kate added.

  The police and FBI let us inside the Gentleman Caller’s apartment. Technical people were busy in every room of the expensive-looking penthouse. Somehow, the Los Angeles detectives seemed smarter, slicker, richer than cops in other cities.

  The rooms were sparsely decorated, almost as if no one lived there. The furniture was mostly leather but with lots of chrome and marble touches. All angles—no curves. The art on the wall was modern and vaguely depressing. Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko look-alikes, that sort of thing. It looked like a museum—but one with a lot of mirrors and shiny surfaces.

  There were several interesting touches, possible clues about the Gentleman Caller.

  I noted everything. Recording. Remembering.

  His dining-room hutch held sterling silver, bone china, real stoneware, expensive linen napkins. The Gentleman knew how to set his table.

  On top of his desk were formal writing paper and envelopes with elegant silver trim. Always the Gentleman.

  A copy of Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine was sitting out on the kitchen table.

  Among his dozen expensive suits were two tuxedoes. The suit closet was small, narrow, and oh-so-neat. It was less a closet than a shrine for his clothes.

  Our strange, strange Gentleman.

  I came over to Kate after an hour or so of touring the Gentleman’s place. I had read the local detectives’ reports. I’d talked to most of the techs, but so far they had nothing. That didn’t seem possible to any of us. The newest laser equipment was being brought from downtown Los Angeles. Rudolph had to have left clues somewhere. But he hadn’t! So far, that was his closest parallel to Casanova.

  “How are you doing?” I asked Kate. “I’m afraid I’ve been lost in my own world for the last hour.”

  We were at a window overlooking Wilshire Boulevard and also the Los Angeles Country Club. Lots of shimmering car and building lights surrounding an eighteen-hole expanse of darkness. A disturbing Calvin Klein billboard was brightly lit up down on the street. It showed a naked model on a couch. She looked to be about fourteen. Obsession, the ad proclaimed. For men.

  “I’ve got my second or third wind,” Kate said. “All the world’s a hideous nightmare suddenly, Alex. Have they found anything at all?”

  I shook my head as I looked at the two of us in the dark, reflective window. “It’s maddening. Rudolph commits ‘perfect crimes,’ too. The techies might eventually match fiber from his clothes to one or more of the crime scenes, but Rudolph is unbelievably careful. I think he has a knowledge of forensic evidence.”

  “There’s enough written about it these days, isn’t there? Most doctors are pretty good at absorbing technical information, Alex.”

  I nodded at the truth of her statement. I’d thought the same thing. Kate had the makings of a detective. She looked tired. I wondered if I looked as exhausted as I felt.

  “Don’t even say it.” I dialed up a smile. “I’m not going to a hospital now. I think we’re done here for the night, though. We lost him, goddammit, we lost them both.”

  CHAPTER 74

  WE LEFT Will Rudolph’s penthouse apartment at just past two in the morning. That made it 5:00 A.M. our time. I was reeling. So was Kate. We called ourselves “the bruise brothers.” We were both out of it.

  Grogginess, exhaustion, possible internal injuries, they were one and the same. If I had ever felt this badly before, I couldn’t remember the time, and didn’t want to. We collapsed into the first of our rooms when we reached the Holiday Inn on Sunset.

  “Are you all right? You don’t look so good to me.” Not unexpectedly, Kate resumed her advertisement for the McTiernan Medical Group. She was a compelling spokeswoman, actually. She had a way of crinkling her forehead that made her look thoughtful and wise, and highly professional.

  “I’m not dying, I’m just dead tired.” I groaned and slowly lowered myself onto the edge of the comfy bed. “Just another tough day at the office.”

  “You’re so damn stubborn, Alex. Always the macho big-city detective. All right, I’m going to examine you myself. Don’t try to stop me or I’ll break your arm, which I’m entirely capable of doing.”

  Kate pulled a stethoscope and sphygmomanometer out of one of her travel bags. She wasn’t taking “no,” “absolutely not,” or “no way” as an answer.

  I sighed. “I’m not having a physical exam now, and especially here,” I told her with as much resolve as I could muster under the circumstances.

  “I’ve seen it all before.” Kate rolled her eyes and frowned. Then she smiled. No, actually she laughed. A doctor with a smile and a nice sense of humor. Imagine that.

  “Take your shirt off, Detective Cross,” Kate said to me. “Make my day. My night, anyway.”

  I started to pull my shirt over my head. I half moaned, half yelled. Just taking the shirt off hurt like hell. Maybe I was seriously hurt.

  “Oh, you’re just fine and dandy,” Dr. McTiernan pronounced with a wicked chuckle. “Can’t even get your shirt off.”

  She bent in close, extremely close, and listened to my breathing with the stethoscope. I could hear her breathing without the help of any machine. I liked the sound of her heartbeat up close like this.

  Kate probed my shoulder blade. Then she moved my arm back and forth, and it hurt
. Maybe I was banged up a lot worse than I thought. More likely, she wasn’t using her gentlest touch while she examined me.

  She poked my abdomen and ribs next. I saw stars, but not a peep came from me in protest.

  “That hurt at all?” she asked. Doctor-to-patient talk. Detached, professional.

  “No. Maybe. Yes, a little. Okay, quite a lot. Ow! That wasn’t so bad. Ow!”

  “Getting hit by a train isn’t the way to keep the average human body in excellent running shape,” she said. She touched my ribs again, gentler this time.

  “That wasn’t my plan,” I said, offering the only defense I had.

  “What was your plan?”

  “My fleeting thought up at Big Sur was that maybe he knew where Naomi was, and I couldn’t let him get away. My ultimate plan was to find Naomi. It still is.”

  Kate used both her hands to feel my rib cage. She applied pressure, but nothing too extreme. She asked me if it hurt to take a breath.

  “To tell the truth, I kind of like this part,” I told her. “You have a nice touch.”

  “Uh-huh. Now the trousers, Alex. You can keep your drawers on if it makes you feel better.” A little of her drawl was creeping into her speech.

  “My drawers?” I grinned.

  “Your bikini underwear from Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Whatever you’re wearing today. Let’s see the goodies, Alex. I’d like to see a little skin.”

  “You don’t have to show such obvious damn glee about this.” I was very much awake all of a sudden. I did like the way Kate touched me, though. I liked it a lot, in fact. Different kinds of sparks were starting to fly.

  I pulled off my pants. I could not get to my socks, not even close.

  “Mmm. Not so bad, actually,” she offered her opinion of something or other. I began to feel hot, uncomfortably warm, in the hotel room. Under these circumstances, anyway.