The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [25]
A passing woman finally stopped and asked if she was all right, if she needed any help.
Sarah tried to explain that she was just being dumb—her ex-husband had two weeks of visiting rights with her little boy, and she missed Sam already.
The woman gave Sarah a sympathetic hug, and she kept lightly patting her arm while they talked. New Yorkers could perform such kind acts sometimes, Sarah knew, and it was especially touching when they did. She knew that she still loved Roger, in a strange, perplexing way. Sarah knew, too, at that moment, if not before, that she was over him. She had to move on with her life.
She felt so lonely, though. Sharing the moment with a stranger in Kennedy Airport, Sarah thought she had never been so alone in her life. All that she had was Sam, and now she didn’t even have him.
24
LATER THAT MORNING, she was unusually apprehensive from the moment she entered One Police Plaza. She didn’t want to repeat the previous day’s ordeal with Lieutenant Stefanovitch, but she needed to see some more of the videotapes, possibly all of them.
Fortunately, she was the first to arrive at the small interior office where the television monitor and VCR unit had been set up the day before.
An obliging secretary unlocked the inner office. Sarah then made herself as comfortable as possible in the enemy’s camp. Over the next few minutes she developed a workable system for viewing the videotapes by herself.
Shortly past noon, the door to the office opened slowly. Sarah’s eyes rose from the sheaf of log notes in her hands. Lieutenant Stefanovitch had arrived.
He hesitated before coming all the way into the room. Actually, he looked different today, almost like a real policeman. He was wearing a brown tweed sports jacket, green khaki shirt, semi-pressed trousers, and desert boots.
“I didn’t know you were here.” He smiled. He was actually being moderately civil.
“I turn the volume down when I fast-forward,” Sarah offered an explanation for the silence.
“Anything interesting in the latest batch?” Stefanovitch asked.
She held up a pad that was full of the morning’s notes. “I’m keeping a log. What I’ve seen on the tapes is a mixture of organized crime figures, legitimate businessmen, an awful lot of show business celebrities, especially the Los Angeles-to-New York jet set.
“I made coffee,” Sarah said before she took another sip. She noticed that Stefanovitch was still being reasonably nice.
He was actually starting to laugh.
“You’re laughing at me.” Sarah frowned. “I’m playing by all of your rules, too.”
“I’m not laughing. It’s just that you’re so serious. The investigative reporter.”
It was Sarah’s turn to smile.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see naked bodies dancing on the television screen.
“Lieutenant, I’m from Stockton, California. Do you know Stockton? Truck farms, migrant workers. My family grew up as onion toppers, lettuce thinners, pea pickers. I got out somehow. Got a newspaper job. As Red Smith used to say, ‘I make a living working a typewriter.’ The money, any notoriety, that just happened. I was lucky. I caught a very good story.”
“You also wrote a good book. That wasn’t luck. That was you being super-serious again.”
John Stefanovitch found himself studying Sarah McGinniss a little more closely. There was a hint of sweetness in her smile. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. She was embarrassed, and he was surprised that she would be so vulnerable.
“Listen, Sarah.” Stefanovitch looked contrite. “I’m sorry for being a shit yesterday. That’s the act I’ve had to play since all of this happened. Sometimes I overdo it just a little.”
“Maybe just a little.” Sarah smiled.
The small room was quiet for a few seconds. The pencil in Sarah’s hand tapped lightly against the rigid spine of her log pad.
“Listen, are you hungry? Because I am. How about if we go around the corner for a bite? Do you know Forlini’s? C’mon, Lieutenant. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
25
ON THE WAY to the restaurant in Little Italy, Stefanovitch slipped a folded-up dollar to a street