Tick Tock - James Patterson [78]
“Take the call, Mike,” Mary Catherine said. “She’s practically drooling on the other end. ‘Is Michael there? Can I speak to him, please? Is this Mary Catherine?’ ”
“Hello?” I said, back in the kitchen.
“I hope I’m not bothering you, Mike.”
“Pity the thought,” I said. “What’s up, Emily?”
“You know how we’re having trouble placing Apt in the databases? Well, I think I found out why. I just got a call from an agent friend on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A cousin of his might have some information on Apt. She wants to set up a meeting for Monday.”
“Why can’t this cousin tell us over the phone?”
“She works in Intelligence, Mike. As if this case needs some more intrigue. Apparently, the CIA has something to do with this now.”
Chapter 86
GERSHWIN PLAYED FROM A PIANO as Apt shook another peanut into his mouth. A $19 cocktail called a Whiskey Smash sat untouched on the black-granite bar in front of him.
The place was the Bemelman Bar in the luxury Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue, only a few blocks from Lawrence’s apartment. Carl knew it was risky to come here, but he didn’t care. The white-jacketed waiters, the art deco furniture, the dreamy lighting. Like the Tea Garden at the Plaza Hotel, and the 21 Club, it was one of his favorite places in the city.
He looked at himself in the bar mirror. Form-fitting Dior Homme black polo, Raf Simmons skinny black jeans, chunky gold Rolex Presidente. Confident, stylish, a sense of moneyed swagger. He fit right in, didn’t he? Which was quite odd when you considered where he’d come from.
He would have said he pulled himself up by his bootstraps, but he hadn’t been able to afford boots. He’d had to pull himself up by the dirt on his bare feet. He’d grown up in Appalachia in a place called Manette Holler, Pennsylvania, near the West Virginia line. His family had been backwoods poor, living in a trailer butted up against a junkyard. His half-toothless, alcohol- and drug-addicted mother worked sporadically at the truck stop Burger King when she wasn’t turning tricks with the semi drivers in the parking lot out back.
His Uncle Shelly was the owner of the junkyard. The sadistic son of a bitch used to beat him just for the hell of it. After a while, he’d almost gotten used to it. Once he got to school, the bigger kids would try to beat him, too, but they had nothing on his malicious uncle.
The military was the only way out of Manette Holler for him, and he took it at seventeen. The 82nd Airborne Rangers had been like a dream come true—three squares and a place to sleep. They’d taught him to kill and how to survive in the wilderness. He was a quick study.
He’d still be serving his country in the Special Forces if they hadn’t royally fucked him over. But once out, he went underground. Eastern seaboard, Key West to Maine. Wandering, living on the streets or the Appalachian Trail, riding the freights.
He would have done that for the rest of his life had he not met Lawrence. Not only had Lawrence discovered that he had dyslexia but he’d actually taught him how to beat it. At the age of thirty, Carl had been introduced to reading. Lawrence had been his benefactor and his tutor, like Aristotle was to Alexander the Great.
He thought about all the books and meals and discussions he had enjoyed. How wonderful to read quietly by his window as the wind howled through the trees of Central Park. The drives up to Connecticut in the fall on Route 7, the Mercedes’s engine purring. He could have done that for the rest of his life. Happy, alone, living the good life, the clean, dry life of the mind.
But then Lawrence was diagnosed, and they learned his enormous heart was failing. He’d thought that all the good things had come to an end. That’s when Lawrence came to him with a not-so-modest proposal. If Carl eliminated all of Lawrence’s enemies, his education and aesthetic discoveries would continue for the rest of his life, courtesy of Lawrence. Once the last of the people on Lawrence’s list was eliminated, Carl would receive the number to an account