Worst Case mb-3

by James Patterson

  Emily lifted an eyebrow at me as I removed the sheet from the plastic. I tore it in half. Then in half again.

  “That bastard invalidated everything he had to say the second he started hurting innocent people,” I said, ripping it a third time. “Screw his message, whether it’s true or false. I’ll take C, none of the above.”

  I felt Parker’s hand on the back of my neck as I tossed the ripped paper off the balcony.

  “Amen, Mike,” she said as the torn pieces disappeared among the stock tickets that littered the floor.

  Chapter 98

  Emily got off easy. She didn’t have to buy dinner that night after all. Parrish and Mason got together and insisted on throwing a dinner for the entire task force at none other than the famous Tavern on the Green on Central Park West.

  They rented out one of the small dining rooms for the nearly one hundred cops who showed up. Schultz and Ramirez, who’d arrived early to the open bar, looked like they were into double-digit Bellinis. Most likely looking at a pay-grade increase, they wrapped their arms around each other when the hired ten-piece swing band started playing “ New York, New York.”

  “I want to wake up in a city that doesn’t sleep,” they sang, Rockette-kicking infront of the laughing tuxedoed musicians. “To find I’m A number one, top of the list, king of the hill.”

  “See, I keep telling you this department is one class act,” I said, taking Emily by the hand. I danced her around the room with its crystal chandeliers and hand-carved mirrors. When we weren’t dancing, we drank. Champagne, of course. By the time we sat down to dinner, we were laughing deliriously, too loudly probably, and not caring in the slightest.

  The waiters were all over us in a way I’d never experienced before. French champagne glass after French champagne glass. Out of curiosity, I peeked at the menu and noticed that they were three- and four hundred dollars a bottle.

  “What you did at the Exchange took guts, Emily,” I said, tossing back another thirty-dollar glass. “You really looked good in there.”

  Veuve Clicquot suddenly sprayed from my nose as Parker found my thigh under the table.

  “Isn’t that a coincidence?” she said, staring into my eyes as she knocked back her own glass. “You look good in here, Detective.”

  Emily and I both sprinted through the dinner for some reason. Our spoons clacked on the tiramisu plates before most of the cops at our table had even started.

  “Where are you guys going?” my boss asked as we said our quick good-byes. “You’re the stars of the party. Parrish and Mason haven’t even gotten here yet.”

  “Uh,” I said, “Emily has to, uh…”

  “Catch a flight,” she finished for me. “Got to get home tonight. Back down to DC. Boy, I can’t miss that plane.”

  The taxi ride back to Emily’s hotel was hot and heavy and way too short. It consisted of what every perfect New York City evening is made-the swirling Times Square lights, silk, nylon, sharp red nails, a grinning, envious cabbie.

  We almost knocked down a high school senior class from Missouri as we speed-walked to the hotel’s elevator. The elevator door was closing when I stuck out my arm at the last second. The door rolled back open.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Emily said.

  “I just remembered something,” I said tentatively.

  “It’s the nanny, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “It is, Mike. It’s definitely the nanny, whether you realize it or not. Oh, well.”

  She kissed me for the last time then. She grabbed my lapel and slammed her lips into mine viciously. She seemed so warm this close. I wanted to get closer. I don’t think I can properly express how much I wanted to ride that elevator up.

  Then Emily even more viciously shoved me away from her. She actually kicked me in the knee with a high heel to get me moving out of the elevator car.

  “Your loss, cop,” she spat, extremely pissed and extremely hot with her blouse tails out, her flushed cheeks, and red hair mussed. “Your fucking loss, Bennett, you goddamn asshole.”

  My breath went away as I watched the vision of Emily Parker erased by the elevator door.

  My loss, I thought to myself.

  “Damn fucking right,” I said to the doorman on my way out.

  Chapter 99

  I was still feeling no pain as I got home. There were streamers and a hallway full of balloons. An extra-large Carvel sheet cake was defrosting in the fridge. Seamus, master of ceremonies for MC’s surprise bash, held court in the kitchen, directing the decorating and food prep.

  “But, Grandpa, if this is a party, who’s going to DJ?” Shawna said.

  “Who do you think?” Seamus said, offended. “Sister Sheilah doesn’t call me ‘Father Two Turntables and a Microphone’ for nothing, you know.”

  “What about the clown, Grandpa?” Chrissy, our baby, wanted to know. “And I don’t see any balloon animals.”

  “It’s on the list, child. Please, have ye no faith?” Seamus said, lifting his clipboard. “Now, Julia. How close are we with the pigs in a blanket?”

  When everything was ready, I called upstairs to Mary Catherine’s cell phone.

  “Mary, I just got a call into work, and Seamus is nowhere to be found. Could you come down for emergency babysitting?”

  “Give me five minutes, Mike,” she said sadly.

  She was there in three.

  “Hello?” Mary Catherine said as she stepped slowly into the darkened apartment.

  I hit the lights.

  “Surprise!” we yelled.

  Mary Catherine started crying as all the kids lined up and handed her their gifts with a hug. There were a lot of Starbucks cards and World’s Best Teacher mugs. When Hallmark starts its World’s Best Nanny line, we’ll be the first customers. I thought MC was going to need resuscitation when Chrissy handed over her present: a homemade salt-dough doll of Chrissy herself.

  “How old are you now?” I said when I caught Mary alone in the kitchen.

  “That’s a rude question to ask a lady,” Mary Catherine said.

  “Nineteen?” I guessed. “No, wait. Twenty-two?”

  “I’m thirty, Mike. So there. Are you happy?”

  I was genuinely surprised. MC looked like a college kid. So that explained it, her nuttiness. Turning thirty. Women didn’t like that or something, right?

  “Well, at least you’re calling me Mike again instead of Mr. Bennett. I must have done something right. Saints preserve us.”

  I produced the gift I had gotten on the way home from Emily’s hotel. Striemer Jewelers on 47th was actually closed when I arrived, but the owner, Marvin, who was working late, owed me a favor.

  “If this is about our, eh, collision, all is forgiven, Mike,” she said, staring at the small box. “I’ve already forgotten it.”

  “Open it.”

  She did. Inside was an amethyst pendant on a white gold chain, her birthstone.

  “But,” she said. “This is… How can we…”

  “You tell me,” I said into her ear as I put the necklace on her. “I don’t know a damn thing about anything.”

  An aching expression of sadness was in Mary Catherine’s face as her eyes went from the sparkling pendant to me.

  “We’ll talk after all that champagne wears off, Mike,” she said as she started to leave. I tried to grab her arm on the way out, but I missed, and she was gone. Second time tonight, I thought. Way to go, Mr. Smooth.

  “Check me out!” Seamus yelled from the living room. I lifted my cake as the sound of an electric guitar started up. What now?

  Seamus was standing in front of the TV. In his hands was the plastic guitar from the kids’ Guitar Hero game. His eyes were closed, and he was biting his lip as he wailed the “Welcome to the Jungle” solo. I don’t know what was louder, his Slash impression, the kids’ shrieks of laughter, or my own.

  “Well, what do you know?” I said, gleefully atomic-dropping down onto the couch in the middle of m
y guys for a front-row seat. “The clown showed up to the party after all.”

  Chapter 100

  I was still catching up on Detective Division reports from the Mooney case two weeks later. Unfortunately, having my paperwork done for me had lasted exactly until the task force was disbanded.

  The last and most aggravating detail of the case continued to stare at me, usually from the cover of a newspaper, morning after morning. What the hell had happened to Dan Hastings, the abducted Columbia kid?

  I was banging out my fourth backed-up incident report of the morning when Chief Fleming came rap-rap-rapping at my office door. In her hand was the only perk of working at One Police Plaza, authentic takeout from neighboring Chinatown.

  We ate in her much larger office. Outside her window, a big yellow sun shone brightly off the honking, unmoving Brooklyn Bridge traffic.

  I scanned the East River for bodies floating among the garbage beneath the bridge as I worked my chopsticks. I believe in a working lunch.

  The chief pointed at the New York Post on the desk behind her as we cracked fortune cookies.

  “Seen the latest?” she said.

  “Let me guess. ‘Mike Bennett, slacker, still too dumb to locate missing Ivy Leaguer’?”

  “It’s not about you for a change. The first victim, Jacob Dunning-his father has created a charitable foundation in his kid’s name.”

  I managed to roll my eyes and shake my head at the same time.

  “Wow. Exactly what Mooney wanted,” I said, chewing. “Exactly what Mooney was hoping for when he blew the poor kid’s head off.”

  “I don’t know, Mike. Isn’t some good coming out of this thing better than the alternative?” she said. “What would you do with all that money?”

  “I don’t know,” I said after a moment’s reflection. I lifted a napkin and wiped orange sauce off my cheek.

  “With my luck, I’ll never have that kind of problem. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’d burn it before I’d do exactly what my kid’s murderer wanted me to do.”

  “You’re cold, Mike, you know that?” Carol said as her phone rang. She smiled and nodded as she lifted the receiver. “I like that in a cop.

  “No shit!” she suddenly said. “Okay, okay. I’ll send somebody by right away.”

  She looked dumbstruck as she racked her phone.

  “Your ship just came in. Troopers picked up Dan Hastings along the turnpike in South Jersey. They took him home to his father’s boat.”

  Chapter 101

  I met Gordon Hastings in the stateroom of his yacht, the Teacup Tempest, half an hour later. The Scottish media mogul was as sleek as a royal otter in his European-cut double-breasted suit. It was a far cry from the slept-in Margaritaville attire he was wearing at our first encounter.

  Call me bitter, but staring at him, I couldn’t forget his drunkenness, rudeness, and stupidity, and his trying to take a swing at me. Worst of all was the fact that Hastings ’s New York Mirror had led the NYPD smear job that had started three days after we took care of Mooney.

  Accusations of overkill and police brutality were being lodged on a daily basis at Mooney’s miraculous takedown. In fact, law enforcement use of.50 caliber ammunition had become the latest TV talking-head topic. How did that happen? I wondered.

  “I want to apologize for how I acted,” Hastings said in his Scottish accent. He gave me his best James Bond grin as he offered his hand. “It was unconscionable, inappropriate, and foolish.”

  “You couldn’t be more correct,” I told him, ignoring his hand as I went to talk to his son.

  Dan Hastings was at the head of the enormous dining room table, scarfing down a plate of salmon, when I came in and closed the door. A mound of caviar in a sterling silver serving bowl waited by his elbow.

  “I’m glad you made it back, son,” I said, shaking the handicapped college kid’s hand. “I’m Mike Bennett, the detective in charge of the Mooney case. I’d like to go over what happened to you.”

  “Well, the important thing is that the son of a bitch is dead, right?” Dan said with a weird smile.

  “Yes, he certainly is,” I said. “I just need to finish the paperwork. I need you to tell me what happened to you from the beginning.”

  Dan nodded as he hit a scoop of caviar. I noticed a slight tremble in his hand as he washed it down with some white wine.

  “Let’s see,” he said, chewing. “I was coming out of the library and someone called me over by one of the campus buildings. The next thing I knew, I felt a blow at the back of my head. I woke up hours later in a cave of some sort. I never saw anyone. I was tied up, but after two weeks, I eventually got free. I told all this to the troopers.”

  “Humor me,” I said with a grin. “How did you, um, how did you manage to survive for two weeks?”

  There was a subtle hitch in his breath.

  “There was food there,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “After a week, I finally decided to try to crawl out.”

  “Wow, that’s heroic,” I said. “It must have been brutal.”

  I’m not sure whether Dan or the silverware jumped higher as I suddenly brought my fist down on the table. I sat down on the table right beside him.

  “Maybe everybody else is willing to swallow your bullshit, son, but you obviously haven’t looked into my eyes yet. I’m the person who has to clean up the messes other people leave behind. My only consolation is that I can smell lies from a very great distance.

  “You’re a terrible liar, Dan. That’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a virtue in my book. It means you’re new to the world of being a bad person. But you need to stop lying to me. I won’t put up with it.”

  He tried to look into my eyes but failed. He lowered his head toward his plate.

  “It was Galina,” he mumbled. “It was all Galina’s idea.”

  I checked my notes. Galina Nesser was his Russian girlfriend. Christ, what a punk. Right out of the box, he throws his girlfriend under the bus.

  “She and her uncle cooked up the whole scheme,” he said. “It had nothing to do with the other kidnappings. They said we could piggyback it. What the hell you want from me, man? I’m handicapped!”

  I scribbled in my pad, laid it down, stared at him.

  “No, you’re more like an insult to handicapped people,” I said.

  “What’s five million dollars to a man like my father?” Dan said as he wept. “I just wanted to get away from him. You don’t know what he’s like. His guilt. I hate it. I hate him. I just wanted to get away. I just wanted to be alone.”

  That’s where Dan was wrong. I did understand. I hated and wanted to get away from his father, too.

  We could have charged Dan Hastings with a host of things-fraud, misleading an investigation. I decided to give him the worst punishment of all. I grabbed the back of his wheelchair and pushed him back into the stateroom.

  “Mr. Hastings, your son has something to tell you.”

  “What?” he said. “What is it, Dan?”

  “I did it, Dad. I wasn’t kidnapped. It was a trick. I took your money. It had nothing to do with that Mooney guy.”

  Gordon Hastings’s regal face imploded like a demolished building. I guess he wasn’t too jazzed about my smiling, told-you-so expression.

  “I’m not pressing charges, Officer,” he said, his shock replaced by the sneer that was his natural expression, “if that’s what you were hoping for. I want you off this vessel.”

  “What a coincidence. I want me off this vessel, too. Even more than you,” I said on my way out.

  Chapter 102

  Getting into my car in the Chelsea Piers marina parking lot, I still couldn’t believe it. What was wrong with that kid? Setting up such complicated money transfers would have been impressive enough on its own. Dan had even convinced that crazy kid to platform-jump off a bridge in order to get him his money.

  Wheelchair or no wheelchair, the kid was clever and charming and rich. Wasn’t that enough? If he hated his father so much,
why couldn’t he muster up the guts and leave?

  Dan must have liked all that money too much, I realized. Leaving would have been hard. Leaving would have required sacrificing luxury. Dan wanted to have his hate, yet not have to pay for it. Hate costs. Even Mooney could have told him that.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong, I decided, looking at the shining yacht. The rich really were just like you and me. Just as stupid, petty, shortsighted, screwed-up, flawed. Just as human through and through.

  Staring out at the yuppies doing their Tiger Woods impressions beside the boats, I thought of someone. I scrolled down through my speed-dial list until I found what I wanted and hit the Call button.

  “VICAP. Parker speaking.”

  “Agent Parker,” I said. “Bennett here. How are you?”

  “Mike!” she yelled. She actually sounded happy to hear from me. She must have forgotten how we had said goodbye at her hotel.

  “Hey, how are things up there? That party was fun. Man, was I trashed.”

  “Not more than me,” I said. “Listen, I just found out we were right when we thought there was something funny about the Hastings kid’s kidnapping. It turns out it was complete bullshit. The kid cooked it up with his Russian squeeze. They did it to rob his father. Nice, huh? Little early Father’s Day present for the old man.”

  “Wow,” she said. She was silent for a long beat.

  “When Francis X. and I got into our shouting match, he said that today’s youth was worthless. Sometimes I think maybe he was right. Maybe this world has lost its way.”

  I tried to say something then, but when I opened my mouth, no words came out. I only wanted what all parents want, a nice place for their kids to live in. It was scary and painful to think of all the crazy, bad things that could happen, the kind of bleak future that might await them.