NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,43
paramedic for one minute and that causes one person to die, we can all look for new careers.”
“Good job, Danny,” I said.
“Ditto,” Kylie said. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t do all the heavy lifting,” Corcoran said. “Moss and Devereaux from the Two Oh put in just as many hours.”
“Well, tell them we both said—” Kylie stopped and looked up. Cheryl was walking toward us. “Keep us posted,” Kylie said. “I’ve got to run.” She left me standing there with Corcoran and hustled down the hall to talk to Cheryl.
“What’s going on with those two?” Danny asked.
I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.”
At this point, neither did I.
CHAPTER 39
DETECTIVE RICH KOPROWSKI pulled up to the hydrant on the corner of Ninety-Second and Park. “This is your office? ” he said, looking up at the towering red-brick building. “I didn’t think any of these Park Avenue co-ops were zoned for commercial.”
“They’re not,” Jamie said, “but it takes more than a zoning law to stop my mother from getting what she wants.” He opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride. See you later.”
“I’d be more comfortable going up there with you.”
“Not a chance. I’m blindsiding my mother, so unless you have a trick for getting her to part with twenty-five million, you can leave. I’ll find a ride home.”
“I’m your ride. Here’s my cell number,” Koprowski said, handing Jamie his card. “I’ll wait right here.”
Jamie pocketed the card, marched past the doorman, strode into the elevator, and stared straight ahead as he rode up to the penthouse. He’d squared off with his mother before, and he had a perfect record: It never went well. Ever.
But this time he was no longer a spoiled rich kid pissing away his life and her money on sex, drugs, and defense lawyers. He was a married man. He had a baby on the way. How could she say no to helping her own grandchild?
He stepped into the vestibule and pulled the key card from his wallet. Would it even work? By now she might have deactivated it as punishment for his marrying the woman she called “that gold-digging whore.”
He swiped the card and heard the familiar electronic click. He opened the door and spotted her immediately. She was sitting at the table in the glass-walled conference room, flanked by a casting director, a stylist, and a photographer. They were contemplating the relative merits of three male models who were standing at the far end of the room, chests bare and bronzed, abs tight as fists, eyes as vacant as the dark side of the moon.
Jamie swung the door open. “Out! All of you!” Nobody moved. “Now!” Jamie said.
All eyes were on Veronica. Without even looking at her son, she slowly lifted her right hand and flicked it in the air. The casting director jumped up and shooed the models out of the room, and the others followed.
“This is what you were so busy with that you couldn’t return any of my phone calls?” Jamie said.
“Why bother returning them?” Veronica said. “You wouldn’t have liked what I had to say.”
“Say it now.”
“The kidnapper did you a favor. Good riddance.”
“She’s pregnant with my child!”
“How do you even know it’s your baby? You dodged a bullet, Jamie. And now you want me to pay money to bring back the one person I told you to stay away from?”
“She’s my wife. I love her.”
“And do you think she married you because she loves you?”
“Trust me, Erin knows my financial situation. She didn’t marry me for my money.”
“Of course she didn’t. She married you for my money. I’ve worked my ass off for thirty years, made a fortune, and someday it will all be yours, and you’ll have barely lifted a finger.”
“I don’t want it all. All I’m asking for is twenty-five million dollars. You can take the rest and build a monument to your empire and your ego.”
“Twenty-five million dollars?” Veronica said. “For that trailer trash? Never.”
“All my life, Mom, everything I ever wanted, every goal I ever pursued, every dream I ever followed—none of it was ever good enough for you.”
“Oh, please, Jamie, save the my-mother-is-a-heartless-bitch-who-never-loved-me sob story for your shrink. And while you’re at it, tell him that I didn’t get where I am today by negotiating bad business deals.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about giving some maniac twenty-five million dollars and hoping that he won’t murder the only person who can possibly identify him after the money is in his bank account. Of course he’s going to