James Patterson

by Swimsuit (lit)

  Mandy said, “But Ben, what’s it going to be like to work with this… creature?”

  “If I could walk away from it, Mandy, I’d run. I’d run.”

  Mandy kissed the top of my head and went back to her sauce. A moment later, the phone rang. I heard Mandy say, “Hang on. I’ll get him.”

  She held out the phone to me with a look on her face that I can describe only as one of pure horror.

  “It’s for you.”

  I took the phone, said, “Hello.”

  “So how did our big meeting in New York go?” Henri asked me. “Do we have a book deal?”

  My heart almost jumped out of my chest. I did my best to keep calm as I told him, “It’s in the works. A lot of people have to be consulted for the kind of money you’re asking.”

  Henri said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I had a green light from Zagami, and I could have told Henri that, but I was looking at the twilight coming through the windows, wondering where Henri was, how he’d known that Amanda and I were here.

  “We’re going to do the book, Ben,” Henri was saying. “If Zagami isn’t interested, we’ll have to take it somewhere else. But either way, remember your choices. Do or die.”

  “Henri, I didn’t make myself clear. We have a deal. The contract is in the works. Paperwork. Lawyers. A number has to be worked up and an offer made. This is a big corporation, Henri.”

  “Okay, then. Break out the champagne. When will we have a solid offer?”

  I told him I expected to hear from Zagami in a couple of days and that a contract would follow. It was the truth, but still my mind was reeling.

  I was going into partnership with a great white shark, a killing machine that never slept.

  Henri was watching us right now, wasn’t he?

  He was watching us all the time.

  Chapter 75

  HENRI HADN’T GIVEN me my final destination when he mapped out my drive, just said, “Get on the Ten and go east. I’ll tell you what to do after that.”

  I had the papers in my briefcase, the contract from Raven-Wofford, the releases, signature lines with flags marked “sign here.” I also had a tape recorder, notepads, and laptop, and in the zipped pocket at the back of the briefcase, right next to my computer’s power pack, was my gun. I hoped to God I would get the chance to use it.

  I got into my car and headed out to the freeway. It wasn’t funny, but the situation was so weird that I wanted to laugh.

  I had a contract for a “guaranteed monster bestseller,” what I’d been looking for and dreaming about for years, only this contract had a very literal termination clause.

  Write it or die.

  Had any author in modern history had a book deal attached to a death penalty? I was pretty sure this was unique, and it was all mine.

  It was sunny, a Saturday in mid-July. I set off on the freeway, checking my rearview mirror every minute or so, looking for a tail, but I never saw one. I stopped for gas, bought coffee, a doughnut, got back on the road.

  Fifty miles and an hour later, my cell phone rang.

  “Take the One-eleven to Palm Springs,” he said.

  I’d put another twenty miles on the odometer when I saw the turnoff for the 111. I took the exit ramp and continued on the highway until it became Palm Canyon Drive.

  My phone rang again, and again I got directions from my “partner.”

  “When you get to the center of town, turn right on Tahquitz Canyon, then a left on Belardo. Don’t hang up the phone.”

  I made the turns, sensing that we were near our meeting spot, when Henri said, “You should be seeing it now. The Bristol Hotel.”

  We were going to be meeting in a public place.

  This was good. It was a relief. I felt a burst of elation.

  I pulled up to the hotel, handed my keys to the valet at the entrance of this famous old luxury resort and spa, known for its high-end amenities.

  Henri spoke into my ear. “Go to the restaurant out by the pool. The reservation is in my name. Henri Benoit. I hope you’re hungry, Ben.”

  This was news.

  He’d given me a last name. Real or fictitious, I didn’t know, but it struck me as an offering of trust.

  I headed through the lobby to the restaurant, thinking, Yes. This was going to be very civilized.

  Break out the champagne.

  Chapter 76

  THE DESERT ROSE RESTAURANT was situated under a long blue canopy near the swimming pool. Light bounced off the white stone patio, and I had to shield my eyes from the glare. I told the maitre d’ that I was having lunch with Henri Benoit, and he said, “You’re the first to arrive.”

  I was shown to a table with a perfect view of the pool, the restaurant, and a path that wound around the hotel and led to the parking lot. I had my back to the wall, my briefcase open by my right side.

  A waiter came to the table, told me about the various drinks, including the specialty of the house, a cocktail with grenadine and fruit juice. I asked for a bottle of San Pellegrino, and when it came I slugged down a whole glass, refilled it, and waited for Henri to appear.

  I looked at my watch, saw that I’d been waiting for only ten minutes. It seemed at least twice that long. With an eye on my surroundings, I called Amanda, told her where I was. Then I used my phone to do an Internet search, looking for any mention of Henri Benoit.

  I came up with nothing.

  I called Zagami in New York, told him I was waiting for Henri, got a crackly connection. I killed another minute as I filled Len in on the drive into the desert, the beautiful hotel, the state of my mood.

  “I’m starting to get excited about this,” I said. “I’m just hoping he signs the contract.”

  “Be careful,” said Zagami. “Listen to your instincts. I’m surprised he’s late.”

  “I’m not. I don’t like it, but I’m not surprised.”

  I took a bathroom break and then went back to the table with trepidation. I was expecting that while I was gone, Henri would have arrived and would be sitting across from my empty chair.

  I wondered whether Henri was donning a new disguise, whether he was undergoing another metamorphosis — but the seat was still empty.

  The waiter came toward me again, said that Mr. Benoit had phoned to say he was delayed and that I was to start without him.

  So I ordered lunch. The Tuscan bean soup with black kale was fine. I took a few bites of the penne, ate without tasting what I imagined was excellent cuisine. I’d just asked for an espresso when my cell phone rang.

  I stared at it for a moment, then, as if my nerves weren’t frayed down to the stumps, said, “Hawkins” into the mouthpiece.

  “Are you ready, Ben? You’ve got a little more driving to do.”

  Chapter 77

  COACHELLA, California, is twenty-eight miles east of Palm Springs and has a population of close to forty thousand. For a couple of days every year in April, that number swells during the annual music festival, a mini-Woodstock, without the mud.

  When the concert is over, Coachella reverts to an agricultural flatland in the desert, home to young Latino families and migrant workers, a drive-through for truckers, who use the town as a pit stop.

  Henri had told me to look for the Luxury Inn, and it was easy to find. Off by itself on a long stretch of highway, the Lux was a classic U-shaped motel with a pool.

  I pulled the car around to the back as directed, looked for the room number I’d been given, 229.

  There were two vehicles in the parking lot. One was a late-model Mercedes, black, a rental. I guessed that Henri must’ve driven it here. The other was a blue Ford pickup hitched to an old house trailer about twenty-six feet long. Silver with blue stripes, air conditioner on top, Nevada plates.

  I turned off my engine and reached for my briefcase, opened the car door.

  A man appeared on the balcony above me. It was Henri, looking the same as the last time I saw him. His brown hair was combed back, and he was clean-shaven,
wore no glasses. In short, he was a good-looking Mr. Potato Head of a guy who could morph into another identity with a mustache or an eye patch or a baseball cap.

  He said, “Ben, just leave your briefcase in the car.”

  “But the contract —”

  “I’ll get your briefcase. But right now, get out of your car and please leave your cell phone on the driver’s seat. Thanks.”

  One part of me was screaming, Get out of here. Jam on the gas and go. But an opposing inner voice was insisting that if I quit now, nothing would have been gained. Henri would still be out there. He could still kill me and Amanda at any time, for no reason other than that I’d disobeyed him.

  I took my hand off my briefcase, left it in my car along with my cell phone. Henri jogged down the stairs, told me to put my hands on the hood. Then he expertly frisked me.

  “Put your hands behind your back, Ben,” he said. Very casual and friendly.

  Except that a gun muzzle was pressed against my spine.

  The last time I turned my back to Henri, he’d coldcocked me with a gun butt to the back of my head. I didn’t even think it through, just used instinct and training. I sidestepped, was about to whip around and disarm him, but what happened next was a blur of pain.

  Henri’s arms went around me like a vise, and I went airborne, crashing hard on my shoulders and the back of my head.

  It was a hard fall, painfully hard, but I didn’t have time to check myself out.

  Henri was on top of me, his chest to my back, his legs interwoven with mine. His feet were hooked into me so that our bodies were fused, and his full weight crushed me against the pavement.

  I felt the gun muzzle screw into my ear.

  Henri said, “Got any more ideas? Come on, Ben. Give me your best shot.”

  Chapter 78

  I WAS SO IMMOBILIZED by the takedown, it was as if my spinal cord had just been cut. No weekend black belt could have thrown me like that.

  Henri said, “I could easily snap your neck. Understand?”

  I wheezed “yes,” and he stood, grasped my forearm, and hauled me to my feet.

  “Try to get it right this time. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  Henri cuffed me, then yanked upward on the cuffs, nearly popping my shoulders out of their joints.

  Then he shoved me against the car and set my briefcase on the roof. He unlatched the case, found my gun, tossed it into the footwell. Then he locked the car, grabbed my case, and marched me toward the trailer.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll know when you know,” said the monster.

  He opened the trailer door, and I stumbled inside.

  The trailer was old and well used. To my left was the galley: a table attached to the wall, two chairs bolted to the floor. To my right was a sofa that looked like it doubled as a foldaway bed. There was a closet that housed a toilet and a cot.

  Henri maneuvered me so one of the chairs clipped me at the back of my knees and I sat down. A black cloth bag was dropped over my head and a band was cinched around my legs. I heard a chain rattle and the snap of a lock.

  I was shackled to a hook in the floor.

  Henri patted my shoulder, said, “Relax, okay? I don’t want to hurt you. I want you to write this book more than I want to kill you. We’re partners now, Ben. Try to trust me.”

  I was chained down and essentially blind. I didn’t know where Henri was taking me. And I definitely didn’t trust him.

  I heard the door close and lock. Then Henri started up the truck. The air conditioner pumped cold air into the trailer through a vent overhead.

  We rolled along smoothly for about a half hour, then took a right turn onto a bumpy road. Other turns followed. I tried to hang onto the slick plastic seat with my thighs, but got slammed repeatedly against the wall and into the table.

  After a while, I lost track of the turns and the time. I was mortified by how thoroughly Henri had disabled me. There was no way around the bald and simple truth.

  Henri was in charge. This was his game. I was only along for the ride.

  Chapter 79

  MAYBE AN HOUR, hour and a half, had gone by when the trailer stopped and the door slid open. Henri ripped off my hood, and said, “Last stop, buddy. We’re home.”

  I saw flat, uninviting desert through the open door: sand dunes out to the horizon, mop-headed Joshua trees, and buzzards circling on the updraft.

  My mind also circled around one thought: If Henri kills me here, my body will never even be found. Despite the refrigerated air, sweat rolled down my neck as Henri leaned back against the narrow Formica counter a few feet away.

  “I’ve done some research on collaborations,” Henri said. “People say it takes about forty hours of interviews to get enough material for a book. Sound right?”

  “Take off the cuffs, Henri. I’m not a flight risk.”

  He opened the small fridge beside him, and I saw that it was stocked with water, Gatorade, some packaged food. He took out two bottles of water, put one on the table in front of me.

  “Say we work about eight hours a day, we’ll be here for about five days —”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Joshua Tree. This campsite is closed for road repairs, but the electric hookup works,” Henri told me.

  Joshua Tree National Park is eight hundred thousand acres of desert wilderness, miles of nothing but yucca and brush and rock formations in all directions. The high views are said to be spectacular, but normal folk don’t camp here in the white heat of high summer. I didn’t understand people who came here at all.

  “In case you think you can get out of here,” Henri said, “let me save you the trouble. This is Alcatraz, desert-style. This trailer is sitting on a sea of sand. Daytime temperatures can climb to a hundred and twenty. Even if you got out at night, the sun would fry you before you reached a road. So, please, and I mean this sincerely, stay put.”

  “Five days, huh?”

  “You’ll be back in L.A. for the weekend. Scout’s honor.”

  “Okay. So how about it?”

  I held out my hands, and Henri took off the cuffs. Then he removed the cinch around my legs and unshackled me.

  Chapter 80

  I RUBBED my wrists, stood up, drank down a bottle of cold water in one continuous swallow, those small pleasures giving me a boost of unexpected optimism. I thought about Leonard Zagami’s enthusiasm. I imagined dusty old writing dreams coming true for me.

  “Okay, let’s do this,” I said.

  Henri and I set up the awning against the side of the trailer, put out a couple of folding chairs and a card table in the thin strip of shade. With the trailer door open, cool air tickling our necks, we got down to business.

  I showed Henri the contract, explained that Raven-Wofford would only make payments to the writer. I would pay Henri.

  “Payments are made in installments,” I told him. “The first third is due on signing. The second payment comes on acceptance of the manuscript, and the final payment is due on publication.”

  “Not a bad life insurance policy for you,” Henri said. He smiled brightly.

  “Standard terms,” I said to Henri, “to protect the publisher from writers crashing in the middle of the project.”

  We discussed our split, a laughably one-sided negotiation.

  “It’s my book, right?” Henri said, “and your name’s going on it. That’s worth more than money, Ben.”

  “So why don’t I just work for free?” I said.

  Henri smiled, said, “Got a pen?”

  I handed one over, and Henri signed his nom de jour on the dotted lines, gave me the number of his bank account in Zurich.

  I put the contract away, and Henri ran an electric cord out from the trailer. I booted up my laptop, turned on my tape recorder, gave it a sound test.

  I said, “Ready to start?”

  Henri said, “I’m going to tell you everything you need to
know to write this book, but I’m not going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, understand?”

  “It’s your story, Henri. Tell it however you want.”