The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [29]
Suddenly, the small details didn’t matter. Oliver Barnwell had separated himself from the group. He was heading out of the womblike room. Parker watched Barnwell discuss something with his bodyguards, then wave them away. He seemed to think of himself as the original macho man from central Harlem, the optimum smooth operator. He could solo if he wanted. Anywhere, anytime.
Isiah Parker followed the powerful drug dealer out of the barroom. It was easy to be unobtrusive in Cin-Cin, staying back fifteen or twenty feet.
Oliver Barnwell turned into a shiny black and white corridor leading to the bathrooms.
Isiah Parker followed behind. He tried not to think about what he had to do next. He couldn’t deal with that now. He thought about being a soldier again, the times back in Cambodia and Vietnam.
He watched Barnwell’s back disappear into one of the doorways along the corridor—the ladies’ room, which usually had as many men as women inside.
27
THE LADIES’ ROOM at Cin-Cin was more crowded than the dance floor, or the main bar area. The musk of expensive colognes, mixed with liquor, created a fruity and exotic scent.
Oliver Barnwell sat on the edge of one of the shiny porcelain sinks, laughing with a couple of wild-looking ladies.
Parker’s eyes took in the heavily made-up faces. Thin, pouty slashes for mouths. Oliver Barnwell tapping a Jamaican cigar against the table surface, lighting up.
Gloves were hot right now.
Azzedine Alaia fashions were, too.
Anything black and white.
Pomes Segli.
Armani still held his own with some of the more traditional men.
Cheap chic still had a following.
All kinds of sniffing and snorting were going on toward the rear of the cavernous bathroom. No sex seemed to be in progress, but Parker knew that sex wasn’t unusual in the bathroom stalls of the ladies’. At three forty-five, it was still early; the night was full of promise.
Oliver Barnwell finally wandered back toward the smaller, interior room where all the toilet stalls and a few more sinks were located.
Parker moved smoothly now, edging up quickly from behind. All of his senses were alert. He was aware of almost everything that was going on in the bathroom.
For a moment, the two men could have been dancing a samba in the bathroom. It seemed as if the taller black man, Parker, simply needed to pass by to get to a toilet in a hurry.
“You piece of shit. Pusher,” he whispered. “Pusherman!”
At first, Oliver Barnwell thought that Parker had punched him in the pit of his stomach. The pain and surprise in his eyes were sudden and extreme.
When he looked down, he saw the stiletto stuck in his abdomen. An awful gush of blood was spurting. His eyes registered chaos and confusion. He seemed unable to believe he had been stabbed right there in the bathroom.
Isiah Parker hurried out of the crowded ladies’ room. Clutching his coat to his body, he let the knife drop as he walked.
Parker didn’t feel much of anything as he pushed his way outside. Oliver Barnwell sold heroin and other drugs to thousands of men, women, and children on the streets of Harlem. That was all he wanted to think about right now. All he needed to know.
That, plus getting out of Cin-Cin as quickly as possible. Get to the elevator, get to the doorway, and out.
“Somebody’s real sick in there. Hey, tell them somebody’s sick. There’s a bad overdose inside, man.” He spoke to anyone who would listen.
The usual sickies in the crowd wolf-whistled and clapped. Everybody else seemed to take it calmly. The word was passed around, messengered along routinely. Someone had overdosed in the ladies’ room. A man was dead in there.
Parker waited for the freight elevator going down. He was trying to look like part of a group of seven or eight leaving the club. The rock music thundering inside was deafening.
He felt nothing as he finally descended to the street. Maybe a coldness in his stomach.
Out on Spring Street again, in the blue and black shadows across from Cin-Cin, Isiah Parker doubled over. He threw up against the