Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross 2)

Kate talked to me with her hand cupped lightly under my chin. She was intense. “Alex, you have to go to a hospital as soon as we get to Los Angeles. I’m serious. As you might be able to tell, this isn’t my usual humor-in-the-face-of-adversity approach. You’re going to a hospital as soon as we land. Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

“I’m listening to you, Kate. I also happen to agree with what you’re saying. Basically, that is.”

“Alex, that’s no answer. That’s crap.”

I knew Kate was right, but we didn’t have time for a hospital check-in tonight. Dr. Will Rudolph’s trail was still warm, and maybe we could pick up his scent and nab him in the next few hours. It was a slim chance, but by tomorrow the Gentleman’s trail could be stone-cold.

“You could be bleeding internally, and you wouldn’t even know it,” Kate continued to make her case. “You could die right here in this airplane seat.”

“I’ve got some nasty bruises and contusions, and I ache all over. I’ve got the makings of some first-class scabs up and down my right side, where I made my first couple of bounces. I’ve got to see his apartment before they take it apart, Kate. I have to see how that bastard lives.”

“Half a million or more a year? Trust me. He lives very well,” Kate came back at me. “You, on the other hand, could be in bad shape. Human beings don’t bounce.”

“Ahh, well, black human beings do. We’ve had to learn that special knack for survival. We hit the ground, we bounce right back.”

Kate didn’t laugh at my joke. She folded her arms across her chest and peered out the tiny plane’s window. She was angry with me for the second time in hours. That must mean she cared.

She knew she was right and she wasn’t backing down. I liked the fact that she was concerned for me. We were actually friends. What a fantastic concept for men and women in the nineties. Kate McTiernan and I had become friends during both our times of need. We were in the process of compiling that all-important dossier of shared experiences now. It was some kind of dossier so far.

“I like it that we’re pals,” I finally told Kate in a low, conspiratorial voice. I wasn’t afraid to say cute, dumb things to her, almost the way I talked to my kids.

She didn’t turn

away from the window as she spoke. Still pissed off at me. Good for her. I probably deserved it. “If you were really my damn friend, you’d listen to me when I’m worried sick and frightened for you. You were in an automobile accident a few hours ago. You fell about thirty yards down a pretty steep ravine, pal.”

“I hit a tree first.”

She finally turned back to me and pointed a finger at my heart, like a stake. “Big deal. Alex, I’m worried about your stubborn black ass. I’m worried so much my stomach hurts.”

“That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me in months,” I told her. “Once when I was shot, Sampson showed some genuine concern. It lasted about a minute and a half.”

Her brown eyes held on to mine and wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t lighten up. “I let you help me in North Carolina. I let you hypnotize me, for God’s sake. Why won’t you let me help you here? Let me help, Alex.”

“I’m working up to it,” I told her. That was true enough. “Macho policeman have a tough field to hoe. We abhor being helped. We’re classic enablers. Most of the time, we like it like that, too.”

“Oh, cut the psychobabble, Doctor! It’s self-serving and doesn’t reflect you at your best.”

“I’m not at my best. I was just in a terrible accident.”

It went on like that between us for the remainder of the shuttle flight to Los Angeles. Toward the end of the ride, I catnapped peacefully on Kate’s shoulder. No complications. No unnecessary baggage. Very, very nice.

CHAPTER 73

UNFORTUNATELY, THE California night was still young and probably extremely dangerous for everyone involved. When we arrived at Rudolph’s penthouse apartment at the Beverly Comstock, the LAPD was everywhere. So was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was police bedlam.

We could see the flashing crimson and blue emergency lights from several blocks away. The local police were justifiably angry for being kept out of the chase by the FBI. It was a very nasty, very political, very sensitive mess. This wasn’t the first time the FBI had been high-handed with a local police agency. It had happened to me back in Washington. Plenty of times.

The Los Angeles press posse was there, too, and in full force. Newspaper, local TV, radio, even a few film producers were on the scene. I wasn’t happy that many of the reporters knew Kate and me by sight.

They called out to us as we hurried through police lines and barricades. “Kate, give us a few minutes.” “Give us a break!” “Dr. Cross, is Rudolph the Gentleman Caller?” “What went wrong up in Big Sur?” “Is this the killer’s apartment?”

“No comment right now,” I said, trying to keep my head down, eyes down.

“From either one of us,” Kate added.

The police and FBI let us inside the Gentleman Caller’s apartment. Technical people were busy in every room of the expensive-looking penthouse. Somehow, the Los Angeles detectives seemed smarter, slicker, richer than cops in other cities.

The rooms were sparsely decorated, almost as if no one lived there. The furniture was mostly leather but with lots of chrome and marble touches. All angles—no curves. The art on the wall was modern and vaguely depressing. Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko look-alikes, that sort of thing. It looked like a museum—but one with a lot of mirrors and shiny surfaces.