Double Cross - James Patterson [49]
The event was booked into a worn, barely serviceable Best Western in the southeast police district of Baltimore, just off I-95 and, appropriately enough, across the street from a cemetery. We parked in the back, close to the hotel’s conference-center entrance, then headed inside together.
“Safety in numbers,” Bree said with a hollow laugh.
The reception area was crowded with a noisy, carnival-like mix of people. The majority of them look fairly ordinary, maybe a little redneck, I thought. The others, in dark clothes and skin art, were like the show that the rest had come to see.
Vendors at tables along the wall hawked everything from mug-shot coffee cups to authentic crime-scene artifacts to CDs by groups such as Death Angel and What’s for Lunch?
Bree, Sampson, and I had just gotten in the front door when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. My hand slid down close to my Glock.
The guy behind me, all sideburns and tattoos, grinned and elbowed his girlfriend when I turned around. “See? I told you it was him.” The two of them were attached by a heavy chain strung between the black leather collars around their necks.
“Alex Cross, right?” He reached out and shook my hand, and I could already feel Bree and Sampson gearing up to give me a hard time. “There’s a picture of you on the poster —”
“Poster?” I said.
“But I’ve read your book twice, man. I already knew what you looked like.”
“Except older,” the girlfriend added. “But you still look like your picture.”
I heard Sampson snort out the laugh he’d been trying to hold in.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Both of you.” I tried to turn away, but the man who’d tapped me on the back held on to my arm.
“Alex!” he called to someone across the room. “You know who this is?” Then he turned to me again. “His name’s Alex too. Is that crazy or what?”
“Crazy,” I said.
The other Alex, wearing a T-shirt with John Wayne Gacy in full clown makeup, came closer for a look. Then a small crowd began to gather around us, or, rather, around me. This was getting pretty ridiculous in a hurry. I certainly wasn’t enjoying my new celebrity status.
“You’re the profiler guy, aren’t you? Sweet. Let me ask you a serious question —”
“We’ll go and check in,” Bree said up close to my ear. “Leave you to your fans.”
“What’s, like, the gnarliest crime scene you’ve ever worked?” the other Alex asked me.
“No, wait —” I reached out to grab Bree’s elbow, but a black-fingernailed hand landed on my wrist and held there. It belonged to a frail-looking young woman whose hand seemed to have been dipped in pale-yellow wax.
“Alex Cross, right? You’re him, right? Can I get a picture with you? It would mean the world to my mom.”
Chapter 64
I FINALLY CAUGHT UP with Bree and Sampson in a cozy spot called Main Ballroom #1. That’s where I’d be speaking tonight at around seven thirty. We’d agreed that my name would be the biggest draw and also create the most buzz online, and I guess we had finally been right about something.
Kitz and his people had been helping get the word out over the Web—baiting the hook, so to speak. Whether or not DCAK would bite now was the question. A lot of other geeks and freaks certainly had.
The ballroom was a long rectangular space that could be partitioned into three smaller rooms with accordion-style walls. A stage and podium were set up at the far end. Several rows of chairs sat in the middle of the floor.
Bree and Sampson were standing near the stage with a short, paunchy man in a normal-looking dark suit but with red-framed glasses that brought to mind Elton John. He had a long, thin braid hanging from his otherwise short salt-and-pepper hair and an Unhinged T-shirt pulled over his long-sleeved button-down shirt. Full geek mode, I was thinking.
Bree smiled wickedly as she said, “Alex, this is Wally Walewski. He’s just giving us the full rundown about tonight. Wait’ll you hear.”
“It’s really most excellent to meet you,” Wally Walewski said, his eyes never quite making it higher