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I thought Winslow was going to go ballistic then and attack my youngest son. Damon did too and stood up behind Ali.
Instead of taking a swing at Ali, the teen smiled with more malevolence.
“That’s right, kid,” he said coldly. “Exactly like my dad did.”
“All rise!” the bailiff cried. “Superior Court of the District of Columbia is in session. Judge Patricia Larch presiding.”
A tiny woman in her midfifties with thick glasses and a severe dyed-black hairdo, Judge Larch stood four foot ten—so short she almost looked comical climbing up behind the bench.
But I was in no way laughing. Larch had a richly deserved reputation for being a hanging judge.
Striking her gavel twice, Judge Larch peered out through those glasses and, in a smoker’s voice, growled, “The People vs. Alex Cross. This court will come to order.”
Michael Bennett faces his toughest case yet…
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At the end of the dark, crowded bar, a man in black twirled an e-cigarette through his fingers and over his thumb like a little baton, again and again as he watched and waited.
It was an aggravating, fidgety habit, he knew. But when he was anxious, it was harder to resist than smoking the damn thing.
The bar was in a hip industrial-chic hotel on 67th and Broadway called Index House, with a cutting-edge meets Roaring Twenties vibe. Charging stations blended into a décor of exposed brick and tufted chairs. With his downtown black silk suit and dark GQ looks, the man belonged there.
He deftly flipped the cigarette into his inside jacket pocket as the bartender finally approached with his drink. It was a zombie, four or five different rums and some cognac with a splash of pineapple and mango juice. One of the rums was 151-proof, and flammable. He’d seen drinks lit on fire many times over the last seven years, in many places, from Jamaica to Jakarta.
Too damn many, he thought.
“So are you a Walking Dead fanatic, or do you just like the demon rum?” the doe-eyed bartender asked, over the crowd murmur and slow jazz piano playing from the lobby.
There were two bartenders, a guy and a girl, but he had ordered from the guy.
“Entschuldigen Sie?” he said, staring at her like he’d just stepped off a flying saucer. It meant “Excuse me” in German. The one and only phrase he’d picked up in three useless months in Munich four years ago.
That did the trick. She went away with his two twenties, and quick. Lovely as she was, he didn’t need any distractions. Not now. He began rubbing his thighs nervously as he scanned the hotel lobby. He looked out at the dark of Broadway through the plate glass behind him, a clear moonless October evening in New York, bright lights twinkling.
At this critical juncture, he needed to stay on his damn toes.
Where the hell is this guy? he thought, taking out his phone to check his messages. It was 9:25. Almost a half hour late and still no call. Did this joker’s phone die? He just wasn’t coming? No way to know. Great. He’d just sit here on his ass some more.
He placed his phone on the zinc bar top and reached for the drink. Then he stopped himself and instead took out the e-cigarette again. Back and forth, and back and forth, over and through his fingers faster and faster, he twirled the metal cigarette until it was just a black blur across his knuckles.
In the crowded library off the hotel bar, Devine sat listening to the boss man on the phone.
“What’s Pretty Boy doing now?”
“Nothing,” Devine said. “Just sitting at the bar, playing with a pen or something. Got himself a tropical drink. He’s looking a little melancholy. And nervous.”
“That right?” the boss said.
Devine, who was from Tennessee, loved the boss’s hard-ass southern voice, the power in it. It reminded him of a backwoods Baptist minister, perpetually on the verge of going all fire-and-brimstone on his congregation.
“Well, he’s going to be singing the blues, all right. You just make sure you don’t join him for a few. He slips away again, it’s your ass.”
Devine winced. He didn’t take criticism well. Especially from one of the few people he respected.
“So, plan is still in place?” Devine said. “Hit him when he goes back to his room?”
“Yes, Devine. You remembered from five minutes ago. Bravo,” said the boss. “But if a chance comes up right there in the bar, if you can be discreet, you take it. That’s why I sent you in instead of Toporski. You know how to improvise.”
