Lifeguard

by James Patterson

  “I know you do, kid.” Sol laid down his hand. “And my guess is, you’ll still get your chance. Let me tell you something about guys like Dennis Stratton. You know what their weakness is? They always think they’re the biggest fish in the pond. And trust me, Ned, there’s always one a little bigger.” He was looking straight at me. “But first, there’s something more important you got to do, Ned.”

  “What’s that?” I grinned. “Deal?”

  “No, I’m talking about your father, kid. . . .”

  “My illustrious father is the reason we’re in this mess,” I said, picking my hand back up. “Without him, we’d have someone to testify against Stratton. Don’t think for a second he was acting nobly.”

  “I think he was doing things the only way he knew how. The guy’s sick, Ned. Jesus, kid, fours. . . .”

  “Huh?”

  “You passed on my four of spades. You’re not thinking, Ned.”

  I looked at my hand and saw the jumbled mess I was playing and realized my mind was a million miles away.

  “Take care of your own business, son,” Sol said, still talking about my dad. “This Stratton thing, it’ll work itself out. But while we’re on it,” he said, fanning out his cards and catching my eye. “I might be able to help you a bit.”

  “What are you talking about, Sol?”

  “Discard, kid. . . . It’s all about the fish. We’ll talk later.”

  I tossed out a ten of diamonds.

  “Rhythm!” Sollie eyes lit up, laying down his cards. “This is too easy, kid.” He pulled in the score sheet. His third straight gin. “If this is the way it’s gonna be, I’m gonna let you go back to jail.”

  Winnie, Sollie’s Filipino housemaid, came out, announcing that we had a visitor.

  Ellie followed a few steps behind.

  I jumped up out of the chair.

  “Your ears must be burning, dear.” Sollie Roth smiled. “Look at your boyfriend. He’s so worried about you, he can’t keep score.”

  “He’s right,” I said, and gave her a hug. “So, how’d it go?”

  She shrugged, sitting down at the table. “Between getting Moretti killed and hanging out with you, I’m what you call an Agent’s Manual disaster. The ADIC took the appropriate action. Until we work this out, I’m on disciplinary review.”

  “You get to keep your job?” I asked hopefully.

  “Maybe.” Ellie shrugged. “Pending one thing . . .”

  “What’s that?” I swallowed, figuring it was some sort of drawn-out procedural review.

  “Us,” she said. “Taking down Dennis Stratton.”

  I didn’t know if I had heard her right. I sat there, looking at her a bit quizzically. “You said us?”

  “Yeah, Ned,” Ellie said, the tiniest of smiles peeking through. “You and me. That would be us.”

  Chapter 95

  ELLIE HAD some digging to do first. In the art world, of all places. What the hell was it about this piece? The Gaume.

  There were countless ways to do research on a painter, even one she had barely heard of, who had died a hundred years before.

  She went online, but she could find hardly a thing on Henri Gaume. The painter had lived a totally unremarkable life. They were no biographies. Then she looked him up in the Benezit, the vast encyclopedia of French painters and sculptors, translating from the French herself. There was virtually nothing. He was born in 1836 in Clamart. He painted for a while, in Montmartre, exhibiting between 1866 and 1870 at the prestigious Salon de Paris. Then he disappeared off the artistic map. The painting that was stolen—Stratton hadn’t even put in an insurance claim on it—was called Faire le ménage (Housework). A housemaid gazing into a mirror over a basin. She couldn’t find a provenance on it; it wasn’t listed.

  Ellie called the gallery in France where Stratton claimed he had bought it. The owner could barely remember the piece. He said he thought it came out of an estate. An elderly woman in Provence.

  It can’t be the painting; Gaume is as ordinary as they come.

  Was there something in it? A message? Why did Stratton want it so badly? What could be worth killing six people for?

  Her head began to ache.

  She pushed away the large books on nineteenth-century painters. The answer wasn’t there. It was somewhere else.

  What was it about this worthless Gaume?

  What is it, Ellie?

  Then it struck her, not with a wallop but like a little bird lightly scratching away at her brain.

  Liz Stratton had told her as Stratton’s men took her away. That resignation in her face, as if they would never see her again. You’re the art expert. Why do you think he calls himself Gachet?

  Of course. The key was in the name.

  Dr. Gachet.

  Ellie pushed back from her desk. There had always been rumors, apocryphal, of course. Nothing had ever turned up. Nothing in van Gogh’s estate. Or when his brother went to sell his work. Or the artist’s patrons, Tanguy or Bonger.

  One of the art books on her desk had van Gogh’s portrait of the doctor on the cover. Ellie pulled it in front of her and stared at the country doctor—those melancholy blue eyes.

  Something like this, she was thinking, would be worth killing for.

  Suddenly Ellie realized she was talking to the wrong people, looking in the wrong books.

  She stared at van Gogh’s famous portrait.

  She’d been poring over the wrong painter’s life.

  Chapter 96

  “YOU READY?” Ellie made sure, handing me the phone.

  I nodded, taking it as though someone were handing me a gun that I was going to use to kill somebody. My mouth was as dry as sand, but that didn’t matter. I’d been dreaming of doing this since I first got that call from Dee and an hour later found Tess and my buddies dead.

  I sank into one of Sollie’s chairs out on the deck. “Yeah, I’m ready. . . .”

  I knew Stratton would speak to me. I figured his heart would be pounding as soon as he heard who it was. He was sure I had his painting. He had killed for it, and this was clearly a man who operated on the assumption that his instincts were right. I punched in the number. The phone started to ring. I leaned back and took a deep breath. A Latino housekeeper answered.

  “Dennis Stratton, please?”

  I told her my name, and she went to find him. I told myself that it was all going to end soon. I’d made promises. To Dave. To Mickey and Bobby and Barney and Dee.

  “So, it’s the famous Ned Kelly,” Stratton said when he finally came on the line. “We get a chance to speak. What can I do for you?”

  I’d never talked to him directly. I didn’t want to give him a second of phony bullshit. “I have it, Stratton,” was all I said.

  “You have what, Mr. Kelly?”

  “I have what you’re looking for, Stratton. You were right all along. I have the Gaume.”

  There was a pause. He was evaluating just how to react. Whether I was telling the truth, or screwing with him. Setting him up.

  “Where are you, Mr. Kelly?” Stratton asked.

  “Where am I?” I paused. This wasn’t what I expected.

  “I’m asking where you’re calling from, Mr. Kelly? That too difficult for you?”

  “I’m close enough,” I replied. “All that matters is, I have your painting.”

  “Close enough, eh? Why don’t we put that to the test? You know Chuck and Harold’s?”

  “Of course,” I replied, looking nervously at Ellie. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Chuck & Harold’s was a bustling, people-watching watering hole in Palm Beach.

  “There’s a pay phone. Near the men’s room. I’ll be calling it in, let’s say, four minutes from now. And I mean exactly, Mr. Kelly. Are you that ‘close enough’? Make sure you’re there to pick it up when it rings. Just you and me.”

  “I don’t know if I can make it,” I said, glancing at my watch.

  “Then I would scoot, Mr. Kelly. That’s three minutes and fifty s
econds from now, and counting. I wouldn’t miss my call if you ever want to discuss this matter again.”

  I hung up the phone. I looked at Ellie for a split second.

  “Go,” she said.

  I ran through the house and into the front courtyard. I hopped into Ellie’s work car. She and the two FBI agents ran behind, climbing into another car. I shoved it into gear and took off through the gate, screeching in a wide arc onto County. I sped the six or seven blocks down to Poinciana as quickly as I could. I took the corner at about forty and screeched to a stop right in front of the place.

  I glanced at my watch. Four minutes on the nose. I knew the way to the men’s room. I used to hang out at the bar.

  Just as I got there, the phone started ringing.

  “Stratton!” I answered.

  “I see you are resourceful,” he said, as though he were enjoying the hell out of this. “So, Mr. Kelly, just you and me. No reason to have other people listening on the line. You were saying something about a painting by Henri Gaume. Tell me, what do you have in mind?”

  Chapter 97

  “I WAS THINKING of handing it over to the police,” I said. “I’m sure they’d be interested in a look.” There was silence on the other end. “Or we could strike a deal.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t deal with suspected murderers, Mr. Kelly.”

  “That gives us something in common already, Stratton. Usually, neither do I.”

  “Nice,” Stratton chuckled. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “I don’t know. Just sentimental, I guess. I heard somewhere it was your wife’s favorite.”

  This time Stratton didn’t make a sound. “I am looking for a piece by Henri Gaume. How do I know that what you claim to have is even the right one?”

  “Oh, it’s the one. A washerwoman staring into a mirror over a sink. Wearing a simple white apron.” I knew anyone could have gotten ahold of the police report. That description wasn’t exactly proof. “It was in your bedroom hallway the night you had my friends killed.”

  “The night they robbed me, Mr. Kelly. Describe the frame.”

  “It’s gold,” I said. “Old. With filigree trim.”

  “Turn it over. Is there anything written on the back?”

  “I don’t have it in front of me,” I said. “Remember, I’m at Chuck and Harold’s?”

  “Now that wasn’t very smart, Mr. Kelly,” Stratton said, “for the kind of discussion you have in mind.”

  “There’s writing on it,” I said. I knew I was about to reveal something good. “To Liz. Love forever, Dennis. Very touching, Stratton. What a crock.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your commentary, Mr. Kelly.”

  “Why not? It comes with the piece. Same price.”

  “Not a very savvy strategy, Mr. Kelly. To piss off the person you’re trying to sell to. Just to hear you out, what sort of price is it that you have in mind?”

  “We’re talking five million dollars.”

  “Five million dollars? That piece wouldn’t sell for more than thirty thousand to Gaume’s own mother.”

  “Five million dollars, Mr. Stratton. Or else I drop it off with the police. If I remember right, that was the sum you and Mickey had originally agreed to?”

  Stratton went silent. Not the kind that suggested he was thinking. The kind where he wanted to wring my neck. “I’m not sure what it is you’re talking about, Mr. Kelly, but you’re in luck. I do have a reward out on that piece. But just to be completely sure, there’s something else on the back. In the right-hand corner of the frame.”

  I closed my eyes for a second. I tried to remember everything I’d been told about this painting. He was right. There was something else on the frame. I was about to reveal something that made me feel dirty. As if I had betrayed people. People I loved.

  “It’s a number,” I whispered into the phone. “Four-three-six-one-oh.”

  There was a long pause. “Well done, Ned. You deserve that reward for how you’ve handled everybody. Including the police. I’ll be at a charity function tonight, at the Breakers. The Make-A-Wish Foundation. One of Liz’s favorite causes. I’ll take a suite there under my name. How about if I excuse myself from the party, say, around nine?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I hung up the phone, a dull beat thudding in my chest. When I walked out of the restaurant, a black car was waiting at the curb. Ellie and two FBI agents were looking at me expectantly.

  “We’re in business,” I said. “Nine o’ clock tonight.”

  “We got some work to do before then,” one of the agents said.

  “Maybe later,” I said, “there’s something I have to do first.”

  Chapter 98

  A GUARD SEARCHED ME and led me back into the holding cells in the Palm Beach County Jail. “What is it with you Kellys?” he asked, shaking his head. “In the blood?”

  My father was lying on a metal cot in a cell, staring off into space.

  I stood watching for a while. In the dingy light, I could almost make out the faded facial lines of a younger man. A scene from my childhood flashed: Frank, arriving home with this grand entrance, carrying a big box. Mom was at the sink. JM and Dave and I were sitting around the kitchen table after school, eating snacks. I was maybe nine.

  “Evelyn Kelly . . .” My father spun Mom around, and said like the game show announcer, “Come on down!”

  He thrust out the box, and I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face as she opened it. Out came this gorgeous fur coat. Frank draped it on her and twirled her around like a dancer. My mother had this flushed, shocked look on her face, something between elation and disbelief.

  My father dipped her back like a ballroom dancer, winking to us. “Just wait till you see what’s behind door number three!” My father could charm the gun off a beat cop when he wanted to.

  “Hey, Pop,” I said, standing there by his cell.

  My father rolled onto his side. “Neddie,” he said, and blinked.

  “I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought these. . . .” I showed him a bag filled with Kit Kat chocolate bars and Luden’s wild cherry cough drops. My mother used to bring them every time we visited him in prison.

  Frank sat up, grinning. “I always told your mom, I’d put a hacksaw to better use.”

  “I tried. Those metal detectors make it a sonuvabitch, though.”

  He smoothed down his hair. “Ah, these new times . . .”

  I looked at him. He was thin and slightly yellow, but he seemed relaxed, calm.

  “You need anything? I could probably get Sollie to fix you up with a lawyer.”

  “Georgie’s got it covered,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you think I messed up again,” my father said, “but I had to do it, Ned. There’s a code, even among shits like me. Moretti broke it. He killed my flesh and blood. Some things, they don’t go unattended. You understand?”

  “You wanted to do something for Dave, it was Dennis Stratton you should’ve shot. He ordered it done. What you did messed up our best chance to get him.”

  “So how come I’m feeling like I finally did some good?” My father smiled. “Anyway, I’ve always been a small-picture guy. I’m glad you’re here, though, Ned. There’s some things I want to say.”

  “Me, too,” I said, my palms resting on the bars.

  Frank reached over and poured himself a glass of water. “I’ve never been very good at seeing you for who you are, have I, son? I never even gave you what you deserved after you got cleared on that prep school thing. Which was just to say, I’m sorry, Ned, for doubting you. You’re a good kid—a good man.”

  “Listen, Pop. We don’t have to go over those things now. . . .”

  “Yes, we do,” my father said. He struggled to his feet. “After John Michael died, I think I couldn’t face up to the truth that it was me that got him killed. Some part of me wanted to say, See, my boys are the same, the same as me. It’s the Kelly way. When you got that job at Stroughton, the fa
ct was, I was pretty goddamn proud.”

  I nodded that I understood.

  “That day, back home . . . that was the worst day of my life.” My father looked in my eyes.

  “Burying Dave.” I nodded, then exhaled. “Me, too.”

  “Yeah.” His eyes rounded with sadness. ”But I was talking about that day at Fenway. When I let you walk away and take the heat for what I’d done. That’s when I think I realized what a mess I’d made of my life. How big a man you were, and how small I’d become. Nah, how much of a punk I’d always been. I was always a two-bitter, Neddie. But you aren’t.”

  Frank shuffled, weak-kneed, over to the bars. “This is long overdue, Ned, but I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry for the way I’ve let everybody down. ” He clasped his hand over mine. “I know it’s not enough to say that. I know it doesn’t make anything right. But it’s all I have.”

  I felt tears burning at the back of my eyes. “If Dave’s up there watching,” I said, trying to laugh, “I bet he’s thinking, Man, I sure could’ve used that particular bit of wisdom a few days earlier.”

  Frank grunted a laugh, too. “That was always the rap on me—big ideas, shit timing. But I’ve left things okay. For your mother. And you, too, Ned.”

  “We’re going to get this guy, Pop.” I squeezed him back. Now I was crying.

  “Yeah, son, you get him good.” Our eyes met in a wordless, glistening embrace. And Sol was right. I forgave him there. For everything. I didn’t even have to say a word.

  “I gotta go, Pop.” I squeezed his bony fingers. “You may not see me for a while.”

  “I definitely hope not, son,” he chuckled. “Not where I’m going, at least.” He let go of my hand.

  I took a step back down the cell row. “Hey, Pop,” I said, and turned, my voice catching.

  Frank was still standing at the bars.

  “Tell me something. Mom’s fur coat. The one you brought home that day. It was stolen, right?”

  He fixed on me a second, the sunken eyes suddenly hardening, like, How can you ask me something like that? Then a smile creased his lips. “Course it was stolen, kid.”