Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls (25 page)

I was thinking ahead—that far ahead, anyway. My face was pressed tightly against the sheet metal, which was still warm from
sitting in the sun at Nepenthe. My arms and legs were splayed out against the roof rack. I was wedged like a Samsonite all-nighter
on the roof.

I wasn’t coming off there, not if I could help it. He had killed at least half a dozen women around Los Angeles, and I had
to find out if Naomi was still alive. He knew Casanova, and he knew about Scootchie.

Rudolph floored the Range Rover again, and the engine roared through its gears as he tried to shake me loose. He was weaving
all over the road.

Trees and ancient telephone poles zoomed past me in blurry, fast motion. The rushing pines, redwoods, and mountain vines were
like the changing patterns in a kaleidoscope. A lot of the foliage was brownish-gray, prickly as vineyards in the Napa Valley.
It was a strange perspective on the world.

I wasn’t exactly enjoying the scenery from my perch on the Range Rover. It took all of my strength to concentrate on hugging
the roof.

Rudolph drove very fast along the winding narrow road, doing seventy or eighty where fifty was dangerous.

The FBI agents, what was left of them, hadn’t been able to catch up. How could they? They’d had to run back to their cars.
They would be several minutes behind us.

Other cars passed us we got closer to the Pacific Coast Highway. Drivers gave us the strangest looks. I wondered what Rudolph
was thinking as he drove. He wasn’t trying to throw me off anymore. What options did he still have? In particular—what was
he planning as his next move?

We were both temporarily in check. Somebody had to lose very big, and very soon, though. Will Rudolph had always been too
clever to be caught. He wouldn’t expect to be stopped now. But how would he get out of this one?

I heard the noisy diesel chug of a VW van. I
saw
the
rear end
of the van coming fast. We passed it as if it were standing still.

There was a flow of traffic against us as we approached the ocean road. Mostly kids out for an early evening spin. Some of
them pointed at the Range Rover and thought it was a big joke. Just some major asshole from the Sur pulling a stunt, right?
Some aging merry prankster high on tequila, or maybe even twenty-year-old acid. A crazed man hanging on to the roof of a Range
Rover doing seventy miles an hour in what amounted to a very scenic parking lot.

What was his next goddamn move?

Rudolph didn’t bother to slow down on the curvy, extremely populated, blacktop road. The motorists headed in the opposite
direction blared their horns angrily. No one did anything to stop us. What could they do? What could I do now?
Hang on as tightly as I could and pray!

A
BRIGHT flash of grayish-blue ocean broke through the scrim of fir and redwood branches. I heard rock music blasting from
the slow-moving parade of cars up ahead. A collage of music was in the air: Pop 40 rap, West Coast grunge bands, acid rock
from thirty years ago.

Another splash of Pacific blue hit me right in the eye. The setting sun was casting its golden glow on the spreading firs.
Wheeling terns and gulls passed slowly over the trees. Then I saw the full expanse of the Pacific Coast Highway up ahead.

What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t drive back to Los Angeles like this. Or was he crazy enough to try? Eventually he’d
have to stop for gas. What would he do then?

Traffic on the highway was light heading north, but heavy moving south. The Range Rover was still doing sixty or better—careening
faster than anyone ought to drive on the curvy side highway, especially as it merged into the busier coast road.

Rudolph didn’t slow down as he approached the crowded highway! I could see family station wagons, convertibles, four-wheel-drive
vehicles. Just another crazy Saturday night on the northern California shoreline, but it was about to get a whole lot crazier.

We were fifty yards from the highway now. He was going as fast as ever, if not faster. My arms were stiff and numb. My throat
was dry from exhaust fumes. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on. Then suddenly, I thought I knew what he was going
to do.

“You son of a bitch!” I yelled, just to yell. I wedged my body even tighter against the straining metal roof rails.

Rudolph had created the impromptu escape plan. He was only ten to fifteen yards from the highway traffic, no more than that.

Just as the Rover reached the sharp turn onto the Pacific Coast Highway, he braked hard. The loud screech of radial tires
was terrifying, especially from where I was listening.

A bearded face in a passing multicolored minivan yelled out, “Slow down, you asshole!”
Which asshole?
I wondered.
This
asshole definitely wanted to slow down.

The top-heavy Range Rover held its path for a few yards, then it started to fishtail right, then left, then right again.

It was total bedlam now. Horns were blowing everywhere at once on the busy highway. Drivers and passengers couldn’t believe
what they were seeing, what was bearing down on them from the side road.

Rudolph was doing everything
wrong
at the wheel on purpose. He
wanted
the Rover to spin out.

Its tires still squealing like animals being slaughtered, the Range Rover slid left until it was facing south, but it was
actually traveling west into traffic. Then the Rover’s tail end swerved all the way around.

We were going to hit the traffic
moving backward!
We were going to crash. I was sure we would both be killed. Images of Damon and Jannie flashed before me.

I couldn’t guess how fast we were going when we broadsided a silver-blue minivan. I didn’t even try to hang on to the roof
rack. I concentrated on relaxing my body, preparing for a bonebreaking, possibly deadly, impact in the next few seconds.

I yelled, but the sound of my voice was lost in the high-pitched screeching crash, the blaring car horns, the screaming spectators.

I barely missed the lineup of northbound traffic as I jetted off the roof. More horns blared. I was flying through the air
with the greatest of ease. The sea wind both cooled and stung my face. It was going to be a crash landing.

I flew into the smoky blue mist that was settling between the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway. I hit the thick
branches of a fir tree. As I fell through scraping, scratching tree branches, I knew the Gentleman Caller was going to escape.

S
KIP FORWARD. Cut forward. Spin, fall head over heels forward!

I was badly shaken and bruised from the car crash and fall, but apparently there were no broken bones. A crackerjack EMS team
looked me over at the accident site on Highway 1. They wanted to check me into a nearby hospital for tests and observation,
but I had other plans for the night.

The Gentleman was running loose. He had commandeered a car heading north. The car had already been found, but not Dr. Rudolph.
At least not so far.

When she arrived at the bad scene at the highway, Kate went ballistic. She wanted me to go to the local hospital, too. Agent
Cosgrove of the FBI was already there as a patient. We had a heated discussion, but eventually Kate and I caught the last
AirWest shuttle out of Monterey. We were headed back to L.A.

I had spoken to Kyle Craig twice already. FBI teams were camped out at Rudolph’s apartment in Los Angeles, but nobody expected
the Gentleman to return there. They were searching the place now. I wanted to be there with them. I needed to see exactly
how he lived.

On the flight, Kate continued to show concern about my physical condition. She had already developed a top-notch bedside manner,
warm and empathetic, but also surprisingly firm with a stubborn patient like myself.

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.

U
NFORTUNATELY, THE California night was still young and probably extremely dangerous for everyone involved. When we arrived
at Rudolph’s penthouse apartment at the Beverly Com-stock, 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.

There were several interesting touches, possible clues about the Gentleman Caller.

I noted everything. Recording. Remembering.

His dining-room hutch held sterling silver, bone china, real stoneware, expensive linen napkins.
The Gentleman knew how to set his table.

On top of his desk were formal writing paper and envelopes with elegant silver trim.
Always the Gentleman.

A copy of Hugh Johnson’s
Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine
was sitting out on the kitchen table.