Swimsuit - James Patterson [51]
I read the printed name, and my heart almost stopped.
I knew the card. I’d read it before: Charles Rollins. Photographer. Talk Weekly.
My mind was doing backflips. I imagined Marco without the mustache, and then envisioned Charles Rollins’s half-seen face the night when Rosa Castro’s twisted body had been brought up from the deep.
That night, when Rollins had given me his card, he’d been wearing a baseball cap and, maybe, shades. It had been another disguise.
The prickling at the back of my neck was telling me that the slick, good-looking guy sitting on my sofa had been this close to me the whole time I was in Hawaii. Almost from the moment I arrived.
I’d been completely unaware of him, but he’d been watching me.
Why?
Chapter 65
THE MAN SITTING in my favorite leather chair watched my face as I desperately tried to fit the pieces together.
I was remembering that day in Maui when the McDanielses had gone missing and Eddie Keola and I had tried to find Marco, the driver who didn’t exist.
I remembered how after Julia Winkler’s body was found in a hotel bed in Lanai, Amanda had tried to help me locate a tabloid paparazzo named Charles Rollins because he’d been the last person seen with Winkler.
The name Nils Bjorn jumped into my mind, another phantom who’d been staying at the Wailea Princess at the same time as Kim McDaniels. Bjorn had never been questioned — because he had conveniently disappeared.
The police hadn’t thought Bjorn had anything to do with Kim’s abduction, and when I’d researched Bjorn, I was sure he was using a dead man’s name.
Those facts alone told me that at the very least, Mr. Smooth on my chair was a con artist, a master of disguise. If that were true, if Marco, Rollins, and maybe Bjorn were all the same man, what did it mean?
I fought off the tsunami of black thoughts that were swamping my mind. I unscrewed the top of the soda bottle with a shaking hand, wondering if I’d kissed Amanda for the last time.
I thought about the messiness of my life, the overdue story Aronstein was waiting for, the will I’d never drawn up, my life insurance policy — had I paid the latest premium?
I was not only scared, I was furious, thinking, Shit, this can’t be the last day of my life. I need time to put my damned affairs in order.
Could I make a break for my gun?
No, I didn’t think so.
Marco-Rollins-Bjorn was two feet from his Smith and Wesson. And he was maddeningly relaxed about everything. His legs were crossed, ankle over knee, watching me like I was on TV.
I used that fearful moment to memorize the prick’s bland, symmetrical face. In case somehow I got out of here. In case I had a chance to describe him to the cops.
“You can call me Henri,” he said now.
“Henri what?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not my real name.”
“So what now, Henri?”
He smiled, said, “How many times has someone said to you, ‘You should write a book about my life’?”
“Probably at least once a week,” I said. “Everyone thinks they have a blockbuster life story.”
“ Uh-huh. And how many of those people are contract killers?”
Chapter 66
THE TELEPHONE RANG in my bedroom. It was probably Amanda. Henri shook his head, so I let my sweetheart’s voice send her love to the answering machine.
“I’ve got a lot of things to tell you, Ben. Get comfortable. Tune in to the present only. We could be here for a while.”
“Mind if I get my tape recorder? It’s in my bedroom.”
“Not now. Not until we work out our deal.”
I said, “Okay. Talk to me,” but I was thinking, Was he serious? A contract killer wanted a contract with me?
Henri’s gun was a half second away from Henri’s hand. All I could do was play along with him until I could make a move.
The worst of amateur autobiographies start with “I was born… ,” so I leaned back in my seat, prepared myself for a saga.
And Henri didn’t disappoint. He started his story from before he was born.
He gave me a little history: In 1937 there was a Frenchman, a Jewish man who owned