The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [61]
He encountered Jimmy Burke of the New York Police Department, who occupied the far left corner of the copter. St.-Germain smiled knowingly, his head cocked slightly to the side.
“Hello, Jimmy B. I’m back safe and sound. Did you miss me?”
As the shimmering helicopter made its way out of the early morning airport maze, the two men talked for the first time in several days.
“I don’t believe Atlantic City could have gone any better,” Burke was characteristically enthusiastic. He had developed a disarming smile and manner as a promising wise guy in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Like many of the local hoods, he had fulfilled his patriotic duty by joining the army in the late 1960s. He’d met Alexandre St.-Germain in South Vietnam and immediately begun to smuggle and sell narcotics for the Grave Dancer.
St.-Germain returned the easy, predatory smile. “The old bosses, the ones who were never able to learn the new ways, are gone. The way is clear for necessary change. A new order has emerged. Not only in New York, but in Rome, Paris, London, Tokyo.”
Burke nodded. “Everyone who matters is blaming the vigilante policemen, the so-called death wish squad. One reason is that the death squads actually existed in the New York Police Department long before this. I told you about the squads. Once that was leaked to the newspapers, everything else followed smoothly.”
“Yes, the media can be very accommodating. What about the others who were involved? The detectives. Rodriquez and Parker?”
Burke answered without revealing the trepidation he suddenly felt. He had prepared himself for the expected question, but not for the intensity in Alexandre St.-Germain’s eyes.
“One of them is dead. Aurelio Rodriquez was taken care of in Atlantic City. Parker is a little bit of a problem. Parker escaped.”
“What do you mean, he escaped?”
Alexandre St-.Germain’s eyes had become dark beads. His nose flared, so that momentarily the handsome face was almost hideous, a much older man’s profile.
“Parker got out of Atlantic City. He’s acting as if none of it happened. He hasn’t even tried to contact me.”
“So the affair in Atlantic City could have gone better,” St.-Germain said, his chin jutting menacingly. “Well, I suppose it’s not important. It’s nothing we want to deal with at this time. For the moment at least, let it be. Let Mr. Parker be.”
60
THAT AFTERNOON ALEXANDRE St.-Germain’s yacht cut through a light chop about thirty miles off City Island. A comfortable breeze streamed across the deck, where St.-Germain met with Cesar and Rafael Montoya, powerful drug underbosses from Colombia.
The music of U2 played somewhere on the yacht. Revolutionary claptrap. Bono grieving for Ireland and other lost causes.
Both of the Montoyas were impressed with the style and demeanor of the Grave Dancer. Neither of them would show it, however. They were the sons of one of the men killed in Atlantic City, but there was no problem there. They had agreed to set their own father up. The meeting this afternoon was to divide the spoils in South America, to move forward with the business of the new Club.
Alexandre St.-Germain took Porsche sunglasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them on. “So how is everything in Bogotá?” he asked the Montoyas.
“Como siempre,” said Rafael. “I told you months ago, my father doesn’t matter anymore. My father was nothing to anyone who matters.” Rafael Montoya had been educated at the University of Miami, but mostly he had learned in the jungles and mountains of his homeland. Rafael was twenty-six, one year older than his brother.
Something about the meeting caused St.-Germain to smile. “You know, the world is now run by men like us,” he said. “Maybe it always was.”
“And what kind of men are we?” asked Rafael, who had been enrolled as a philosophy major at Miami.
“Psychopaths.” Alexandre St.-Germain shrugged and his smile broadened. “No one understands us. They can’t put themselves in the minds of men who act without a conscience. They try to understand, but they can’t.”
“I have a family.” Cesar Montoya spoke