4th of July - James Patterson [3]
“It sucks, Linds,” said Cindy. “Is the chief on your ass?”
“Nope,” I said, tapping the tiny mention of the Tenderloin District murders with my forefinger. “As the killer says, nobody cares.”
“Ease up on yourself, honey,” Claire said. “You’ll get a bite into this thing. You always do.”
“Yeah, enough about all this. Jill would give me hell for whining.”
“She says, ‘No problem,’” Cindy cracked, pointing to Jill’s empty seat. We lifted our glasses and clinked them together.
“To Jill,” we said in unison.
We filled Jill’s glass and passed it around in remembrance of Jill Bernhardt, a spectacular ADA and our great friend, who’d been murdered only months ago. We missed her terribly and said so. In a while, our waitress, Loretta, brought a new pitcher of margaritas to replace the last.
“You’re looking chirpy,” I said to Cindy, who jumped in with her news. She’d met a new guy, a hockey player who played for the Sharks in San Jose, and she was pretty pleased with herself. Claire and I started pumping her for details while the reggae band tuned up, and soon we were all singing a Jimmy Cliff song, plinking our spoons against the glassware.
I was finally getting loose in Margaritaville when my Nextel rang. It was Jacobi.
“Meet me outside, Boxer. I’m a block away. We’ve got a bead on that Mercedes.”
What I should’ve said was “Go without me. I’m off duty.” But it was my case, and I had to go. I tossed some bills down on the table, blew kisses at the girls, and bolted for the door. The killer was wrong about one thing. Somebody cared.
Chapter 4
I GOT IN THE passenger-side door of our unmarked gray Crown Vic.
“Where to?” I asked Jacobi.
“The Tenderloin District,” he told me. “A black Mercedes has been seen cruising around down there. Doesn’t seem to fit in with the neighborhood.”
Inspector Warren Jacobi used to be my partner. He’d handled my promotion pretty well, all things considered; he had more than ten years on me, and seven more years in grade. We still partnered up on special cases, and even though he reported to me, I had to turn myself in.
“I had a few at Susie’s.”
“Beers?”
“Margaritas.”
“How many is a few?” He swung his large head toward me.
“One and a half,” I said, not admitting to the third of the one I drank for Jill.
“You all right to come along?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m fine.”
“Don’t think you’re driving.”
“Did I ask?”
“There’s a thermos in back.”
“Coffee?”
“No, it’s for you to take a piss in, if you’ve got to, because we don’t have time for a pit stop.”
I laughed and reached for the coffee. Jacobi was always good for a tasteless joke. As we crossed onto Sixth just south of Mission, I saw a car matching the description in a one-hour parking zone.
“Lookit, Warren. That’s our baby.”
“Good catch, Boxer.”
Apart from the spike in my blood pressure, there was a whole lot of nothing happening on Sixth Street. It was a crumbling block of grimy storefronts and vacant SROs with blank plywood eyes. Aimless jaywalkers teetered and street sleepers snored under their piles of trash. The odd bum checked out the shiny black car.
“I hope to hell no one boosts that thing,” I said. “Stands out like a Steinway in a junkyard.”
I called in our location and we took up our position a half block away from the Mercedes. I punched the plate number into our computer, and this time gongs went off and it spit quarters. The car was registered to Dr. Andrew Cabot of Telegraph Hill.
I called the Hall and asked Cappy to check out Dr. Cabot on the NCIC database and call me back. Then Jacobi and I settled in for a long wait. Whoever Andrew Cabot was, he was definitely slumming. Normally, stakeouts are as fascinating as yesterday’s oatmeal, but I was drumming the dash with my fingers. Where