NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,23

hit me. “You’re jumping the gun,” I said. “I know you think I was supposed to tell Kylie about him, but that’s not how guys work. I can’t pimp Shane without clearing it with him first. We’re going to the restaurant next month to meet your aunt Janet, and I’ll ask him then. If he opts in, I’ll take the next step.”

“We don’t have to wait a month,” she said. “I was just telling Gerri that after you left, Shane came back to the table, and I told him all about Kylie. He doesn’t like fix-ups, but I did such a great presell that he was definitely intrigued.”

“Did you tell him she was my partner?”

“And your ex-girlfriend. Full disclosure. At first he thought that might be awkward, but I told him it was your idea to introduce them.”

Cheryl’s phone chirped. She checked her incoming text and stood up. “Duty calls,” she said. “I’ve got to run. I know you’re crazy-busy. So am I. I’ll call you later. Let me know what Kylie thinks about Shane.”

She leaned over, gave me a quick kiss, and left me sitting there. I drained the coffee in my cup, and Gerri appeared instantly and topped it off.

“Your breakfast is almost ready,” she said, “but while we’re waiting, I have a question. How much wine did you drink last night to come up with the bright idea of fixing your ex-girlfriend up with your current girlfriend’s blood relative?”

“I swear to God, it was a total misunderstanding. I said something, Cheryl heard something else, and now …”

I couldn’t finish the sentence, so Gerri finished it for me. “And now you’re afraid that if you tell Cheryl that the last thing you want to do is fix Kylie up with a good-looking, successful man who can cook, you will wind up, as the French say, in the château de bowwow.”

I nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”

Gerri put the coffeepot back on a burner and sat down across from me. I was about to get breakfast with a side order of therapy—whether I wanted it or not.

CHAPTER 19

GARY BANTA WAS a pro. He weaved the ambulance, siren wailing, through the morning traffic on Fifth Avenue with Indy Speedway proficiency. Most vehicles, willingly or grudgingly, pulled over quickly and gave him a wide berth. In a big city like New York, people know that response time to a 911 call can mean the difference between life and death. They also know there’s a fat fine if they fail to yield.

The traffic signals are timed so that if a driver maintains the speed limit, the lights in front of him will turn green before he gets to them. But an ambulance clipping along at breakneck speed gets ahead of the sequence, so Gary had to whoop-whoop at every corner to run the red lights and avoid barreling into the crosstown traffic.

At Seventy-Fourth and Fifth, he pulled up to the canopy of a stately nineteen-story prewar building.

“Such gross injustice,” his partner, Julio, said. “The most beautiful apartment houses in New York, and they’re always filled with rich old white ladies.”

Gary shook his head. He’d heard Julio on the subject before. He left the lights flashing as they got out.

A uniformed doorman came rushing to the curb. “What’s going on?” he said.

Gary checked his iPad. “We got a call for an elderly woman, difficulty breathing. Apartment eight C. The name is Ogden.”

“Bunny. Bunny Ogden,” the doorman said. “I have her son’s cell number. I can call him right now.”

“Hang tight, bro,” Gary said to the doorman as Julio opened the ambulance’s back doors and dropped a gurney to the pavement. “Wait till we get back down. Let’s see what’s going on before you hit the panic button.”

They grabbed their gear, an oxygen tank, and the gurney and headed for the building. The doorman ran ahead, opened the door, and rang for the elevator.

They rode up to the eighth floor in silence and wheeled the gurney down the hall to 8C. Julio rang the doorbell.

It took about twenty seconds before a female voice on the other side responded. “Who is it?”

“Ambulance for Mrs. Ogden. Please let us in.”

A lock clicked, and a uniformed nurse opened the door. She looked at the two EMTs, the stretcher on wheels, and the oxygen and tried to take it all in. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“We got a call that Mrs. Ogden was in respiratory distress,” Gary said.

“She’s fine. She’s watching TV. Who called? Was it her