The Big Bad Wolf (Alex Cross 9)

I was told to wait in reception by a very proper-looking young woman in a dark blue pantsuit. She sat self-importantly behind a sleek walnut desk under recessed lighting. She looked all of twenty-two or twenty-three years old, fresh out of charm school. She acted and spoke as properly as she looked.

“I’ll wait, but let Mr. Lipton know it’s the FBI. It’s important that I see him,” I told her.

The receptionist smiled sweetly, as if she’d heard all this before, then she went back to answering the phone calls coming in on her headset. I sat down and waited patiently; I waited for fifteen minutes. Then I got back up again. I strolled over to the reception desk.

“You told Mr. Lipton that I’m here?” I asked politely. “That I’m with the FBI?”

“I did, sir,” she said in a syrupy voice that was starting to rub me the wrong way.

“I need to see him right now,” I told the girl, and waited until she made another call to Lipton’s assistant.

They talked briefly, then she looked back at me. “Do you have identification, sir?” she asked. She was frowning now.

“I do. They’re called creds.”

“May I see it, please? Your creds.” I showed off my new FBI badge, and she looked it over like a fast-food counterperson inspecting a fifty-dollar bill.

“Could you please wait over at the seating area?” she asked again, only now she seemed

a little nervous, and I wondered what Lawrence Lipton’s assistant had told her, what her marching orders were.

“You don’t seem to understand, or I’m not making myself clear,” I finally said. “I’m not here to fool around with you, and I’m not here to wait.”

The receptionist nodded. “Mr. Lipton is in a meeting. That’s all I know, sir.”

I nodded back. “Tell his assistant to pull him out of his meeting right now. Have her tell Mr. Lipton that I’m not here to arrest him yet.”

I wandered back to the seating area, but I didn’t bother to sit. I stood there and looked out on magnificent Technicolor green lawns that stretched to the concrete edge of the LBJ Freeway. I was burning inside.

I’d just acted like a D.C. street cop. I wondered if Burns would have approved, but it didn’t matter. He’d given me some rope, but I also had made a decision that I wasn’t going to change because I was an FBI agent now. I was in Dallas to bring down a kidnapper; I was here to find out if Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly and others were alive and maybe being held somewhere as slaves. I was back on the Job. I heard a door open behind me and I turned. A heavyset man with graying hair was standing there and he looked angry.

“I’m Lawrence Lipton,” he said. “What the hell is this about?”

Chapter 95

“WHAT THE HELL is this about?” Lipton repeated from the doorway in a loud-mouth, big-shot way. He was speaking to me as if I were a door-to-door brush salesman. “I think you were told that I’m in an important meeting. What does the FBI want with me? And why can’t it wait? Why don’t you have the courtesy to make an appointment?”

There was something about his attitude that didn’t completely track for me. He was trying to be a tough guy, but I didn’t think he was. He was just used to beating up on other businessmen. He wore a rumpled blue dress shirt and a rep tie, pinstriped trousers, and tasseled loafers, and he was at least fifty pounds overweight. What could this man have in common with the Wolf?

I looked at him and said, “It’s about kidnapping; it’s about murder. Do you want to talk about this out here in reception? Sterling.”

Lawrence Lipton paled and lost most of his bravado. “Come inside,” he said, and took a step back.

I followed him into an area of cubicles separated by low partitions. Clerical personnel, lots of them. So far this was going about as I’d expected. But now it would get more interesting. Lipton might be “softer” than I had expected, but he had powerful connections in Dallas. This office building was in one of the most upscale residential/commercial parts of the city.

“I’m Mr. Potter,” I said, as we walked down a corridor with fabric-covered walls. “At least I played Mr. Potter the last time we talked in the Wolf’s Den.”

Lipton didn’t turn, didn’t respond in any way. We entered a wood-paneled office and he shut the door. The large room had half a dozen windows and a panoramic view. A hat rack near the door held a collection of autographed Dallas Cowboy and Texas Ranger caps.

“I still don’t know what this is about, but I’ll give you exactly five minutes to explain yourself,” he snapped. “I don’t think you know who you’re talking to.”

“Actually, I do. You’re Henry Lipton’s oldest son. You’re married with three children and a nice house in Highland Park. You’re also involved with a kidnapping and murder scheme that we’ve been tracking closely for several weeks. You’re Sterling, and I want you to understand something—all your connections, all your father’s connections in Dallas, will not help you now. On the other hand, I would like to protect your family as much as possible. That’s up to you. I’m not bluffing. I don’t ever bluff. This is a federal crime, not a local one.”

“I’m going to call my lawyer,” Lawrence Lipton said, and went for the phone.

“You have that right. But I wouldn’t if I were you. It won’t do any good.”

My tone of voice, something, stopped Lipton from making the call. His flabby hand moved away from the phone on his desk. “Why?” he asked.