NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,83
guy—we named him Mr. Bainbridge—calls and tells us to drop the coke off at a Sunoco station on East Tremont. We do, and the guy gives us a bag with fifteen Gs in it.”
He looked up at us. “You know where this is going, don’t you?”
“Bainbridge called again,” I said. “Any drug dealer would be happy to have two upstanding citizens with EMS badges on his payroll.”
“The next run was to Jersey. A week later, it’s Norfolk, Virginia. That’s a long haul. So we call Ramos. He was in the toilet with us on the house-flipping, plus he’s a pilot. Why drive across five state lines when you can fly?
“We did seven runs in all, some by car, some by plane. Then Bainbridge says he needs us to bring twenty keys to Baltimore. It’s a half-a-million-dollar payload, and he’ll pay us fifty grand for a two-hundred-mile drive. The three of us are giddy like little kids, because this is all we need to finally get out of the hole. We decide to make a weekend out of it. Drop the coke, collect the cash for Bainbridge, then celebrate with hard-shell crabs and enough beer to float a battleship.”
I looked at Kylie. We both knew what was coming next.
“The handoff is in the parking lot of a renovated warehouse in a decent part of town. Three dudes pull up in an Escalade. One gets out and shows us the money, five hundred grand. We give him the coke, and the other two get out of the car, both with AK-47s. One says, ‘Live or die. Either way, we get the money.’ We vote live.”
“Do you think Bainbridge set you up?”
“Doesn’t matter. We can’t go to the cops, and we owe him half a million. We spend the weekend in Baltimore anyway, and that’s where we hatch the plan for the home invasions.”
“Your targets weren’t random,” Kylie said. “How did you know who to hit?”
“Diggs has a kid brother, Tyreese. He works nights cleaning offices at a company that does the billing for a bunch of nursing agencies in the city. Ty is mentally challenged, but he’s a whiz with computers. We tell him what we need, and he shows up the next morning with a printout. He has no idea what he’s doing. He just wants to make his big brother happy.”
“And what about Bainbridge?” she said.
He stiffened. “What about him?”
“What’s his real name? You help us land a drug dealer, and I’m sure the DA will be willing to knock some time off your sentence.”
“Detective, you don’t need me to give up his name. You can go to my log and come up with the accident victim I picked up on Bainbridge Avenue. But that won’t do you any good. You need me to testify, and if I do, it doesn’t matter if the DA sends me to prison for only a day and a half, I’ll never get out alive.”
He was right. All we could do was tell Narcotics the story and let them figure out what to do about Bainbridge. Kylie and I had bigger problems to deal with. And at the top of that list was Chief of Detectives Harlan Doyle.
CHAPTER 73
MAYBE IT WAS the gardenias that helped us crack the code of Bobby Dodd’s diaries. Or maybe it was the moon earrings. Or the birthday gift. It didn’t matter. Cheryl found them all.
It was Wednesday morning and Cheryl, Kylie, and I were back in our war room still trying to deconstruct Dodd’s ramblings of his imagined life with Erin.
“Zach, Kylie, listen to this,” Cheryl said. “It’s dated June third of this year. ’Erin and I met in our secret place. Her hair was pulled up under the hat, and the shades covered her eyes, but she still looked beautiful, and she smelled all summery, like gardenias.
“‘She said she was sorry she couldn’t be with me on her birthday tomorrow but she’s got plans with Jamie. I said I understood, and I was happy enough to have her to myself the day before.
“‘She was wearing tiny gold crescent earrings, and I said that the moons on her ears went real good with the stars in her eyes. She laughed and said I was sweet. Then we talked about our plans to be together. I can’t wait.
“‘Before she left I gave her the birthday present I bought her. A little metal case she can keep in her purse to carry her credit cards and maybe a picture of