Free Cat and Mouse by James Patterson

shit already,” Sampson said without even looking over at me, “but just watch. Nothing but happy endings this time.”

Chapter 25

    S AMPSON AND I arrived in New York City around nine o’clock in the morning. I vividly remembered an old Stevie Wonder tune about getting off the bus in New York for the first time. The mixture of hopes and fears and expectations most people associate with the city seems a universal reaction.
    As we climbed the steep stone steps from the underground tracks in Penn Station, I had an insight about the case. If it was right, it would definitely tie Soneji to both train-station massacres.
    “I might have something on Soneji,” I told Sampson as we approached the bright lights gleaming at the top of the stairs. He turned his head toward me but kept on climbing.
    “I’m not going to guess, Alex, because my mind doesn’t ever go where yours does.” Then he mumbled, “Thank the Lord and Savior Jesus for that. Addlehead brother.”
    “You trying to keep me amused?” I asked him. I could hear music coming from the main terminal now — it sounded like Vivaldi’s
The Four Seasons.
    “Actually, I’m trying not to let the fact that Gary Soneji is on this current mad-ass rampage upset my equilibrium or otherwise depress the hell out of me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
    “When Soneji was at Lorton Prison, and I interviewed him, he always talked about how his stepmother kept him in the cellar of their house. He was obsessed about it.”
    Sampson’s head bobbed. “Knowing Gary as we do, I can’t completely blame the poor woman.”
    “She would keep him down there for hours at a time, sometimes a whole day, if his father happened to be away from home. She kept the lights off, but he learned to hide candles. He would read by candlelight about kidnappers, rapists, mass murderers, all the other bad boys.”
    “And so, Dr. Freud? These mass killers were his boyhood role models?”
    “Something like that. Gary told me that when he was in the cellar, he would fantasize about committing murders and other atrocities —
as soon as he was let out.
His idée fixe was that release from the cellar would give him back his freedom and power. He’d sit in the cellar obsessing on what he was going to do as soon as he got out. You happen to notice any cellarlike locations around here? Or maybe at Union Station?”
    Sampson showed his teeth, which are large and very white, and can give you the impression that he likes you maybe more than he does. “The train tunnels represent the cellar of Gary’s childhood house, right? When he gets out of the tunnels, all hell breaks loose. He finally takes his revenge on the world.”
    “I think that’s part of what’s going on,” I said. “But it’s never that simple with Gary. It’s a start anyway.”
    We had reached the main level of Penn Station. This was probably how it had been when Soneji arrived here the night before. More and more I was thinking that the NYPD had it right. Soneji could definitely be the Penn Station killer, too.
    I saw a mob of travelers lingering beneath the flipping numbers of the Train Departures board. I could almost see Gary Soneji standing where I was now, taking it all in —
released from the cellar to be the Bad Boy again! Still wanting to do famous crimes and succeeding beyond his craziest dreams.
    “Dr. Cross, I presume.”
    I heard my name as Sampson and I wandered into the brightly lit waiting area of the station. A bearded man with a gold ear stud was smiling at his small joke. He extended his hand.
    “I’m Detective Manning Goldman. Good of you to come. Gary Soneji was here yesterday.” He said it with absolute certainty.

Chapter 26

    S AMPSON AND I shook hands with Goldman and also his partner, a younger detective who appeared to defer to Goldman. Manning Goldman wore a bright blue sport shirt with three of the buttons undone. He had on a ribbed undershirt that exposed silver and reddish gold chest hairs