The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [106]
“Apparently not.” The Grave Dancer’s tone was supercilious.
“You killed off the competition. That was like firing the old executive team. What was supposed to come next?”
Alexandre St.-Germain’s face remained difficult to read. He had the cold, distant eyes of a wolf. He was completely self-absorbed. “I’ve met policemen like you before. Many times before,” he finally said. “You understand very little about life, but you think you know it all. Self-delusion can be extremely dangerous.”
Isiah Parker smiled at St.-Germain. “Something else I was told. You fed my brother junk for ten days. Got him addicted. You played with my brother, poisoned him slowly…You hurt him, to teach another of your lessons.”
St.-Germain shook his head back and forth.
“A few missing details in your story…Your brother was an addict before we ever got to him. Whenever he needed it, we were there, of course. He was crazy, depressed, and very dangerous at the end. You should have seen that. Except that you were using cocaine yourself. A great deal of cocaine, as I understand it.”
Isiah Parker leaned back hard against the elevator wall. He smiled, a little sadly this time. So. He had shown the first weakness. Alexandre St.-Germain was still winning.
The emergency phone inside the elevator began to ring. The familiar jangling sound came with its own echo.
Parker reached back behind his head. He plucked the phone away from its rack. “Yeah? Elevator man.”
“Who is this? Who’s up there?” he heard over the line. “Who the hell’s in that elevator?”
“It’s Alexandre St.-Germain. And a friend of his. We’re in conference right now.”
Isiah Parker hung up the telephone. He realized that he was feeling strangely giddy. He wouldn’t allow himself to lose concentration, though. He took the phone receiver off the hook again.
“No more calls,” he said to St.-Germain. “We’ll hold all your important calls for a while.”
Parker waved his gun to the left of where St.-Germain stood. “Have a seat. Slide down nice and easy against the wall. Where do you get your suits, man? Barney’s Boystown? You’re the best-dressed killer in town.”
Parker could hear the steady wail of police cruisers arriving outside. It made him understand how spectacular and bizarre the moment was.
“Who knows, maybe they can rescue you,” he said in a quiet voice. “Maybe they can figure out something. So sit back and relax. Let’s try to imagine how it’s going to turn out. Make a guess. You’re supposed to be smart.”
102
TIME IN THE elevator passed slowly. A half hour. An hour. Almost two hours. All according to plan. Parker had been on the other side of police emergency situations before. He knew how they were reacting out there. He’d planned on that, too.
Both he and St.-Germain were soaking in their own sweat. Somebody had shut off the elevator’s fresh air supply. The first smart move by the N.Y.P.D.
Everything had become a slow, floating dream in Parker’s mind. He’d been thinking about Marcus, remembering moments between them. They’d been neighborhood heroes. It was a hard feeling to explain. He thought back to when his brother had been champion. Being at the top of the world like that made you soar, made you feel you were somebody special. Everybody looked up to Marcus, and they knew they could get out of Harlem, too. Escape was possible. Then the dream had been destroyed—because of this man on the elevator floor.
Policemen, several of them, were stationed at the elevator bank below, and on the fortieth floor above. Every so often, they hollered up or down to the stalled car. They cajoled; they threatened. Parker never said a word back to them.
His eyes were starting to burn. Rivulets of sweat seeped out from his hairline. He felt as if his body were soaking in a warm pool.
St.-Germain’s linen suit had turned a lifeless cardboard gray. His wavy blond hair was plastered over his forehead. He wasn