Beach Road by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

into a six-floor tenement about halfway down the block. Two minutes later, the lights go on and the

shades come down on the corner apartment four flights up.
    Gotcha!
    I’ve caught the fugitive.

Beach Road

Chapter 24
    Loco

AND GIVE THAT lucky man a cigar!

I get back to the Big Black Beast, and everything, including my slowly burning Graycliff, is just like I left it.

Seeing as we’re in Crooklyn, I pop in an old-school Eric B and Rakim CD and head for the Williamsburg

Bridge.
    At 8:00 p.m. the Manhattan-bound lanes are flowing, and twenty minutes later, as my cigar burns

down to the finish, I’m in Chinatown, Jake.
    Killing time.
    It’s a way different world down here, lots of tiny people scurrying over the packed sidewalks with

feverish energy, and it never fails to get me jazzed. Makes me think of

Saigon, Apocalypse Now,

and

The Deer Hunter.
    I luck into a parking spot big enough for the Beast, a miracle down here, and wander around for a while

until I find a familiar place, where I wash down a couple plates of sweet, soggy dim sum with a couple of

sweet, soggy beers.
    After dinner for one, I walk around some more,

killing time,

then drive to even darker, quieter Tribeca.
    I park on Franklin, climb into the back, and stretch out on my foam mattresses.
    With my blacked-out windows cracked for ventilation, sleeping conditions are pretty damn good, and the

next time I open my eyes it’s 3:30 a.m. and I have that pounding in my chest you get when your alarm

rips you out of sleep in the middle of the night. I rub the gunk out of my eyes, and when the street comes

back into focus, I see that the shadows fluttering over the cobblestones are rats. Is that what Frank meant

about waking up in a city that never sleeps.
    Without stopping for coffee, I head back to Bed-Stuy, and half an hour after my alarm went off, I pick

the lock in the vestibule of Michael Walker’s building. Then I climb the stairs two, three at a time to the

fugitive’s roof.
    It’s cool and quiet up here, and at this hour Bed-Stuy looks peaceful as Bethlehem on a starry night, even

beautiful.
    When a lone nocturnal civilian finally turns the corner, I climb down the fire escape to Walker’s kitchen.
    I need a break here and I get it. The window is half open, and I don’t have to break it to slip inside. There’s

plenty of light to screw the silencer to the end of my Beretta Cougar, which is a beauty, by the way.
    Like I been saying:

killing time.
    A sleeping person is so unbelievably vulnerable it almost feels wrong to stare at him. Michael Walker looks

about twelve years old, and for a second I think back to what I was like when I was young and innocent.

Wasn’t that long ago, either.
    I cough gently.
    Walker stirs, and then his dark eyes blink open. “What the -”

“Good morning, Michael,” I say.
    But the bullet flying then bulldozing into the back of his brain is more like good night.
    And I guarantee, Walker had no idea what just happened, or why.
    I don’t need to tell you there’s nothing but crap on TV at this hour. I settle on a

Saturday Night Live

rerun with Rob Lowe as guest host, and he performs his monologue as I carefully wrap Walker’s cool

fingers around the handle of my gun. Then I slip it into a sealed plastic bag.
    After I find Walker’s piece in the corner of his closet, the only thing left to do here is drop off Officer

Lindgren’s gift-

the red Miami Heat cap

-on the kitchen floor before I step back out onto the fire escape.
    Sunrise is still an hour away when I lower my window on the Brooklyn Bridge and toss Walker’s one-

hundred-dollar pistola into the East River.
    I sing that real nice Norah Jones song “Sunrise” most of the way home. Kind of sad what happened to

Walker, but actually I don’t feel a thing. Nada.

Beach Road

Chapter 25
    Tom

EVENTUALLY, I WILL think of this downtime with affection, call it the calm before the shitstorm.
    At work the next day,