Blindside (Michael Bennett)

by James Patterson

  A few seconds later, Alice casually followed Janos through the open door.

  The man was wearing blue tiger-striped silk boxer shorts and a T-shirt that said i’m a hacker, but i didn’t screw up democracy. He trembled like a frightened Chihuahua.

  Alice said, “Are you Oscar?”

  He nodded nervously. His long curls swayed in the air. Sweat beaded on his gaunt face.

  “Where’s Jennifer?”

  He paused for a moment and said, “I don’t know any Jennifer.”

  Janos whacked him on the side of the head with his gun. He stood over the fallen computer nerd and looked down at him. “The next time I use the gun, it won’t be to hit you.”

  Alice kept a very calm tone. “Tell us where Jennifer is right now and you can go about your business. I promise we’re not going to hurt her.”

  Oscar rubbed the side of his head, then looked at the blood on his fingers. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. We’re just roommates. She lives her life and I live mine.”

  Janos said, “It’s going to be a lot tougher to live your life if we don’t find out where Jennifer Chang is right now.” He carefully placed the barrel of the gun on Oscar’s forehead. He let that sink in for a moment.

  Oscar’s eyes looked up at the gun and Janos standing behind it.

  Alice truly didn’t know what Janos was going to do. From a professional cost-benefit analysis, it didn’t matter. If Oscar wouldn’t tell them where Jennifer was, his death meant little to her.

  Oscar still didn’t say a word.

  Janos pulled the hammer of the pistol back.

  Oscar swallowed hard and his whole body started to shake.

  CHAPTER 30

  ALICE WATCHED SILENTLY as Janos kept the gun to the computer geek’s head. Frankly, she’d seen her partner do something similar so many times it barely rated her interest. Once, while collecting a debt for a Marseille loan shark, she had watched Janos torture a man until he revealed the target’s location. If she could sit through fingers being severed, watching this thin man beg for his life wasn’t a big deal.

  Janos very calmly said, “Tell us where we can find Jennifer. Then we’ll be out of your hair. She won’t even be upset you told us. We have a job offer for her.”

  Oscar continued to tremble. But Alice saw something else. He was making a calculation. He was justifying telling them where the girl was.

  Alice gestured to catch Janos’s attention. She motioned for him to wait.

  He just stood there with the pistol in his hand.

  After more than thirty seconds, Oscar blubbered, “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you. Just please, please take the gun away.”

  Janos looked at Alice. She nodded and he lowered the gun. They both had to help the terrified man off the floor. They hefted him from under his arms, and she was surprised a skinny computer nerd could feel so heavy.

  They tossed him into his rolling chair in front of a gigantic computer monitor. The screen was broken up into eight squares. Each square corresponded to a camera. She recognized the one at the front door and a second one in the hallway.

  One of them showed a shower. She caught a glimpse of someone walking past the camera.

  Alice said to Oscar, “Where are all your cameras located?”

  He gave her a sly smile. The kind only computer-literate people give to people with less experience.

  She cut her eyes to Janos. He immediately placed the barrel of the gun to Oscar’s temple. That straightened out his attitude.

  He spoke quickly. “They cover all sorts of places. Security here in the building. I have one in the warehouse and at the front door just so I know what’s going on. The one in the shower is for my boyfriend, Hector.”

  Alice said, “Why does Hector get special attention?”

  “I make sure he showers alone. And I like to watch him shower.”

  “Does he know about the camera?”

  “No one knows about any of my cameras. As long as I let the landlord leave the door to the warehouse unlocked so the workers can eat on the roof occasionally, he doesn’t care what I do.”

  Now Janos said, “Let’s get back to Jennifer Chang. Where can we find her?”

  “There’s a coffeehouse. It’s up closer to Columbia. I think it’s on La Salle, a block east of Broadway. It’s called Brew. It’s a place a lot of programmers meet. Good Wi-Fi, good coffee. No one asks any questions.”

  Alice asked, “How often does she go there?”

  “Almost every day. Probably more often than she comes here. She’s got a guy she likes to see up that way. It’s nothing serious.” Oscar swiveled in the chair so he was only looking at Alice. It was like he was trying to blot out the reality that a Romanian holding a gun stood next to him.

  Oscar regained a little of his confidence and said, “Is the job offer you have for Jennifer from a guy in Estonia named Henry?”

  Alice hesitated. Finally she said, “What if it is?”

  “She won’t be interested. At all. She told me all about the operation. She said Henry was starting to go crazy. He kept using them for bigger and bigger jobs. She didn’t want to be around when things went bad.”

  Alice shrugged and said, “We still have to make the offer.”

  That’s when she caught sight of someone on the security camera. He was tall and wearing a blue sport coat. He looked like a cop. She glared at Oscar and said, “Who’s that?”

  Oscar turned and looked at the monitor. He hit a couple of buttons on his keyboard and other cameras picked up the feed. Now Alice and Janos could see the man from several different angles.

  Oscar said, “I don’t know him, but this is the only place he could be coming.”

  Alice put a finger to her lips to make sure he stayed quiet.

  Janos placed the barrel of the gun to his head to be doubly sure.

  CHAPTER 31

  I FOUND THE building listed as Jennifer Chang’s residence on her Columbia University registration form. It was about where I thought it would be, south of Midtown. I was still skeptical about the address until I saw a residential door next to the administration offices for the warehouse. The offices were closed for the evening, but the residential door was open. I stepped into the dark entryway, then headed up the wood stairs. This was no-frills. There were wide glass windows that looked into the warehouse from the second floor. Years ago, the apartments here must’ve been some kind of offices. The housing shortage in Manhattan made crazy spaces into apartments.

  It was the kind of building I used to show the kids when they were younger. The most interesting field trip we went on was at Ricky’s request, after we saw a documentary about how bean sprouts used in Chinese food are mostly grown in New York City. The bean sprouts’ seeds were just dumped in a big metal container that looked like a dumpster. Then watered. And a week or two later, you had full-grown bean sprouts. The other kids couldn’t believe I wanted them to spend their afternoon inside a dark, damp warehouse. You know what they say: you can’t please all the people all the time.

  This building was just as interesting in its own way. I stopped to stare through one of the windows and saw that the warehouse was some sort of distribution point for caskets. I saw different manufacturers, Thacker and Astral. They all were stacked along a path to a loading dock, where a semi was already backed in. The door was open and the trailer was mostly loaded.

  The place also reminded me of a girl I’d dated when I was in college. She lived above a mom-and-pop funeral home across the street from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. I had to walk through the embalming area to get to the stairs to her apartment. I’d say the relationship “died,” but in reality, she killed it. She decided a finance major from NYU was a better prospect than a philosophy major from Manhattan College. Probably a smart move.

  I walked along the hallway, looking for the door to Jennifer Chang’s apartment. It was a well-sealed door and very little light came from underneath. But a door was ajar across the hallway. I opened it fu
lly and looked in for a minute. It was silent and empty inside.

  I had nothing to lose, so I knocked on Jennifer Chang’s door. A good solid knock. Not a police knock. Not a boyfriend tap.

  And I waited. It wasn’t as if I had a warrant. I just wanted to ask her a couple of questions about her missing friend. So I tried the doorknob. No cop alive wouldn’t test a door to see if it was open. It was natural curiosity.

  Then I wondered if I should jimmy the lock. Who knows what I might find inside? An address book? No, I guess not. Everyone stores their numbers in a phone now.

  I knocked again.

  CHAPTER 32

  ALICE WATCHED THE computer monitor carefully. She’d decided the tall man in the sport coat was definitely a cop. He had a handsome face and broad shoulders. She’d also decided she wouldn’t mind him putting handcuffs on her just for a night.

  She watched him wander around the hallway for a moment. Then he gave a solid knock on the door.

  She looked at Oscar and reinforced the command to keep silent, running her finger in a slashing motion across her throat. There was no way Oscar would realize that was literally what she’d do if he spoke.

  She motioned toward the door with her head. Janos quickly and quietly moved across the floor. He stood to the side of the door and held his pistol out about head height. Then he edged around to the center of the door and started placing the barrel at different locations, kept looking at the computer monitor to see if he could line up the shot through the door.

  Oscar motioned Alice closer to him and whispered, “The door is reinforced with extra metal and a thick plastic material in the middle.”

  Alice asked softly, “Why? To make this like a bomb shelter? Does it have to do with the warehouse?”

  Oscar said, “I think it has to do with noise and vibration from the warehouse. But the door is solid and thick.”

  Alice made a hissing sound to get Janos’s attention. She shook her head for him not to shoot, but he didn’t turn around.

  She was too late. Janos was already squeezing the trigger.

  Alice quickly glanced at the computer monitor and saw that his gun was lined up just about with the cop’s face.

  CHAPTER 33

  I PAUSED RIGHT in the middle of the door. For a fleeting moment, I thought I’d seen a shadow from under the door. Just something that moved very close to the doorframe.

  Then I heard a faint tapping sound. Not in any rhythm. Just like someone was moving something around on the metal door.

  I tried the knob again. This time with a little pressure on the door. It was solid and secure. Probably best that it was. The last thing I wanted to do was terrify a witness I needed to talk to. If Jennifer was home, I didn’t want to just barge in.

  I looked back at the warehouse. I stepped over to a window and wondered if it would be worth waiting here. How long would she be out? What if she didn’t live here at all? These are the same kind of questions I ask during every surveillance.

  It was definitely easier before I had kids. Especially when Maeve had worked evenings at the hospital. I’d stay out on surveillance all night to catch a witness. The alternative was going home to an empty apartment.

  Now it was the opposite. Now I had to manage ten lives, even if one of them was at a prison upstate. I also wanted to talk to my grandfather. Often he came up with the best advice, without even knowing anything about police work.

  I stepped back to the door and knocked one more time. I wasn’t going to get an answer. I knew it.

  On a cop’s instinct, I moved from the door to the side of it. Just in case someone crazy on the other side did something stupid.

  Thirty seconds later, I started back down the hallway. I took the stairs quickly, then hesitated as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. I wondered why they didn’t have better security. Maybe they locked the door at night.

  I’d come back tomorrow and see if I could find her.

  CHAPTER 34

  ALICE WATCHED AS Janos looked over his shoulder at her. He released his finger from the trigger but left the gun trained on the door. Then Alice motioned him away from the door altogether.

  They watched the computer monitor to see what the cop was doing. He looked through the windows into the warehouse, waited, knocked again, then started to walk away.

  Oscar showed her how to view the cameras he’d set up all around the building. It was impressive. She watched the cop hurry down the stairs, then step out the front door. From there, the camera on the outside of the building caught him pausing next to the door.

  Alice smiled and said, “Very impressive system, Oscar. I hope you don’t waste your talents working for a corporation or the government. You could do very well on the wrong side of the law.”

  They all laughed. Oscar was smiling now. He thought the danger had passed. He wanted to be part of their little group.

  Alice realized this was not going to happen. He was a witness who could identify them. And she was starting to wonder if it was even worth it to ask Jennifer Chang to come back to Estonia. She’d just say no. It was a waste of time. Maybe eliminating Jennifer would be easier for everyone. And more fun.

  No matter what happened, Oscar knew too much.

  Janos had the same thought. He smiled and said, “Oscar, will you give us a quick tour of the warehouse before we leave? I think it’s cool how your apartment is above it. Did you say there was a door to the warehouse up here?”

  Oscar nodded and said, “They’re supposed to lock it every evening, but they almost never do. No one from the building wants to go look at coffins.”

  Janos allowed Oscar to slip on some jeans and loafers for the tour. Once they were down in the warehouse, Janos kept walking at a fast pace to the loading dock where the truck was backed in.

  Oscar caught up to Janos with Alice directly behind him. The truck was three-quarters full with pallets of caskets. There were four stacked on each pallet. A huge spool of plastic wrap on rollers was in the truck. It looked like quitting time had come just as they were about to wind the plastic around the four caskets already in place on the truck.

  Alice said, “Is this truck safe just sitting here?”

  Oscar nodded. “The big sliding door is shut in front of the truck. The trucks usually leave right at eight o’clock in the morning.” He glanced at the shipping document on the casket directly in front of him. “Looks like these are going to a place in Lincoln, Nebraska.”

  Janos lifted the lid of a casket. He rubbed his hand along the inside and said, “That’s nice. Silk.” He gestured to Oscar.

  Oscar put a hand inside the casket and said, “Nice padding, too.”

  Casually Janos pulled the gun from his rear waistband. In a single, smooth motion, he moved it from behind his back and put a bullet into Oscar’s chest. The gunshot echoed in the giant warehouse, booming off the walls.

  Oscar stood absolutely motionless. No expression on his face other than a little surprise. The dark stain blossomed on his T-shirt. It spread out and seeped downward. Oscar made one raspy attempt to suck in some air. Then he made a little gurgling sound.

  Before Oscar could even flop onto the ground, Janos caught him with his left arm and redirected his weight. He slipped the computer programmer into the casket with hardly a noise.

  Oscar was still breathing for a moment inside the casket. A rough rasp that didn’t seem to give him much air. The bullet must have just nicked his heart. Blood was really spreading across his crazy hacker shirt. You couldn’t even read the word democracy through the dark stain.

  Blood bubbled up onto Oscar’s lips and suddenly it felt like he understood exactly what was happening. Somehow, through the shock, it had dawned on him that he was inside the casket.

  Alice stepped closer. The shot had come so fast that she had been as surprised as Oscar. The noise had barely bothered her as it dispersed across the room. She took a quick look at the floor of the truck to make sure no blood had dripped down.

  She also looke
d in the casket and caught the last couple of twitches from Oscar. It was the cleanest shooting she’d ever seen. Even she hadn’t expected it. She was a little disappointed she hadn’t gotten to use her garrote.

  On the bright side, it was one more loose end handled. Tomorrow they would go to Brew and see if they could find Jennifer.

  The more Alice thought about it, the more she wanted to use her garrote on Jennifer. She didn’t care what Henry thought. Maybe it would teach him to show her some respect.

  Besides, it would take away the sting of not being able to use it on Oscar.

  Janos carefully closed the casket. Then he took the plastic wrap and ran it around the sides of the four caskets just like on the other pallets.

  He looked at Alice as he said, “No one will remember if they wrapped the caskets yet or not. This way, it will be days, maybe weeks, before anyone finds Oscar. By then we’ll be back in Europe collecting a fat paycheck from that asshole Henry.”

  Alice liked the sound of that.

  CHAPTER 35

  IT WAS DARK by the time I got home. But it felt good to shed the stress of the day as I walked through the front door. The place was its usual beehive of activity. I said hello to Mary Catherine and the older kids, who were doing their homework at the dining room table, and it sounded like Ricky was working in the kitchen. No doubt my little chef was making us some kind of Cajun delight. Whatever Emeril Legasse said, Ricky made happen.

  Neither Mary Catherine nor I had the guts to tell Ricky we weren’t particularly big fans of spicy Cajun food. But he had a passion, and I intended to support him. Even if it cost me the lining of my stomach as I got older.

  I ran over in my head the visit I’d made to Jennifer Chang’s apartment. Something about it still felt odd to me. Indescribable. Just a weird tingling on the back of my neck. Was she trying to avoid me? If that was the case, she wouldn’t have gone back to the apartment above the casket warehouse.