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Authors: James Patterson
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five.”
He hung up, and I turned to Kylie. “Change of plans. We’re meeting Q Lavish at the Kimberly Hotel.”
She hit the gas, and we sped past a familiar brick building on 77th and Lex. My apartment is on the tenth floor.
I craned my neck, looking up, trying to see if the lights were still on, but we were going too fast.
“What are you doing?” Kylie said.
“Nothing. I’m just checking to see if Cheryl’s home.”
“Of course she’s home. Do you think she moved out because you bailed on one dinner?”
“No. I’m just antsy. We’re still working out this living together thing.”
“Zach, it’s going to work out just fine. And Cheryl’s not going anywhere. She’s a smart woman. She knows the score.”
“Yeah, she does,” I said.
Old girlfriend, one. New girlfriend, zero.
CHAPTER 19
Quentin LaTrelle, a.k.a. Q Lavish, is our best confidential informant. And our least expensive. I’ve worked with him for two years and have never paid him a dime. That’s because Q isn’t in it for the money.
Q is a pimp. But it’s a word he never uses. “It would be like calling Yo-Yo Ma a fiddle player,” he says. “I’m a purveyor of quality female companionship for gentlemen of breeding and taste.”
Many of those gentlemen traveled in the same social circles that Red was created to protect and serve. That’s where Kylie and I came in. Q knew that if any of his elite clientele got arrested in flagrante delicto, he had someone on his speed dial who could make the unfortunate incident go away.
If that sounds like the wealthy horndogs have an unfair advantage over the average johns, they do. But if Q could help us find the perps who murdered Elena Travers, I’d be happy to help out some Wall Street power broker who got caught with his pants down.
The Kimberly, on 50th between Lexington and Third, is an upmarket hotel that manages to combine traditional European elegance with trendy New York nightlife. Q was waiting for us at Upstairs, the Kim’s opulent-to-the-max rooftop bar with a spectacular 360-degree view of Midtown.
Fluent in the language of fashion, Q knew how to dress whether he was having dinner at a four-star restaurant or hanging at a dive bar. Tonight he was wearing a pearl-gray suit and an open-collar navy shirt. Not very clubby, but perfect for the business-casual code at the Kim. Bottom line: he fit right in.
We sat down at his table, declined a drink, skipped the foreplay, and told him to get straight to business.
“Teddy Ryder and Raymond Davis,” he said. “They were cellies at Otisville, and they’ve been bunking together ever since. Not gay, just a couple of underdogs who threw their lot in together, hoping that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.”
“And is it?” I asked.
“If they were remotely competent, would I be here?” he said. “I’ll start with Teddy. He’s white, midthirties, comes from a family of grifters. His mom and dad sold swampland in Florida back in the eighties, and over the years they’ve probably run every scam in the con man’s bible. They were good, Annie and Buddy Ryder. He died a few years ago, and Annie’s about seventy, so she’s basically out of the game, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she still kept her hand in by bilking the blue-haired granny crowd out of their bingo winnings.
“Sadly for Annie and Buddy, whatever criminal acumen was in their DNA skipped a generation. Their only progeny, Teddy, has zero street charisma. The poor boy couldn’t sell a five-dollar cure for the clap if it came with a four-dollar coupon. Also, he’s never been arrested for carrying a piece. Jacking a limo at gunpoint is so far out of his league I’m surprised he didn’t shoot himself.”
“How about the other one?” I said.
“Raymond Davis is fortysomething, biracial—mom was white, father was African American, both long gone. He’s about as smart as a turkey sandwich, and to prove it he was scouting the bars uptown
He hung up, and I turned to Kylie. “Change of plans. We’re meeting Q Lavish at the Kimberly Hotel.”
She hit the gas, and we sped past a familiar brick building on 77th and Lex. My apartment is on the tenth floor.
I craned my neck, looking up, trying to see if the lights were still on, but we were going too fast.
“What are you doing?” Kylie said.
“Nothing. I’m just checking to see if Cheryl’s home.”
“Of course she’s home. Do you think she moved out because you bailed on one dinner?”
“No. I’m just antsy. We’re still working out this living together thing.”
“Zach, it’s going to work out just fine. And Cheryl’s not going anywhere. She’s a smart woman. She knows the score.”
“Yeah, she does,” I said.
Old girlfriend, one. New girlfriend, zero.
CHAPTER 19
Quentin LaTrelle, a.k.a. Q Lavish, is our best confidential informant. And our least expensive. I’ve worked with him for two years and have never paid him a dime. That’s because Q isn’t in it for the money.
Q is a pimp. But it’s a word he never uses. “It would be like calling Yo-Yo Ma a fiddle player,” he says. “I’m a purveyor of quality female companionship for gentlemen of breeding and taste.”
Many of those gentlemen traveled in the same social circles that Red was created to protect and serve. That’s where Kylie and I came in. Q knew that if any of his elite clientele got arrested in flagrante delicto, he had someone on his speed dial who could make the unfortunate incident go away.
If that sounds like the wealthy horndogs have an unfair advantage over the average johns, they do. But if Q could help us find the perps who murdered Elena Travers, I’d be happy to help out some Wall Street power broker who got caught with his pants down.
The Kimberly, on 50th between Lexington and Third, is an upmarket hotel that manages to combine traditional European elegance with trendy New York nightlife. Q was waiting for us at Upstairs, the Kim’s opulent-to-the-max rooftop bar with a spectacular 360-degree view of Midtown.
Fluent in the language of fashion, Q knew how to dress whether he was having dinner at a four-star restaurant or hanging at a dive bar. Tonight he was wearing a pearl-gray suit and an open-collar navy shirt. Not very clubby, but perfect for the business-casual code at the Kim. Bottom line: he fit right in.
We sat down at his table, declined a drink, skipped the foreplay, and told him to get straight to business.
“Teddy Ryder and Raymond Davis,” he said. “They were cellies at Otisville, and they’ve been bunking together ever since. Not gay, just a couple of underdogs who threw their lot in together, hoping that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.”
“And is it?” I asked.
“If they were remotely competent, would I be here?” he said. “I’ll start with Teddy. He’s white, midthirties, comes from a family of grifters. His mom and dad sold swampland in Florida back in the eighties, and over the years they’ve probably run every scam in the con man’s bible. They were good, Annie and Buddy Ryder. He died a few years ago, and Annie’s about seventy, so she’s basically out of the game, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she still kept her hand in by bilking the blue-haired granny crowd out of their bingo winnings.
“Sadly for Annie and Buddy, whatever criminal acumen was in their DNA skipped a generation. Their only progeny, Teddy, has zero street charisma. The poor boy couldn’t sell a five-dollar cure for the clap if it came with a four-dollar coupon. Also, he’s never been arrested for carrying a piece. Jacking a limo at gunpoint is so far out of his league I’m surprised he didn’t shoot himself.”
“How about the other one?” I said.
“Raymond Davis is fortysomething, biracial—mom was white, father was African American, both long gone. He’s about as smart as a turkey sandwich, and to prove it he was scouting the bars uptown
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