Free Run for Your Life by James Patterson Page A

waiting for my response.
    “Don’t let it go to your head, Cathy,” I said, “but I could think of worse lunch dates, too.”
     
    Chapter 20
     
    I spent the rest of that afternoon at the 21 Club, mostly interviewing witnesses who had been there when the maître d’, Joe Miller, was shot. When I finished, I sank into a red leather banquette in the back bar and yawned. There’d been a lot of them.
    No one here had seen the actual killing, but there didn’t seem to be any doubt that the shooter was a bike messenger, who had come in and left again quickly at just that time. Miller had been found with the bloody message tucked between his shoes. There was also a general consensus that the messenger was a fairly tall, white male, probably around thirty years old.
    From there, it was a good news/bad news scenario. Every single person I’d talked to, from the high–powered executive customers to the busboys, confirmed that he’d been wearing a light, uniform–style shirt — not an orange Mets jersey. But he’d also had on a helmet and sunglasses. Like at the Polo store, nobody had gotten a clear look at his face, or even his hair color. Which left us still without any details for matching the suspects in the various assaults.
    Along with that little problem, there was another troubling mystery. The bullets that had killed the maître d’ were .22 caliber, very different from the .45s that were used on Kyle Devens. Then again, shell casings were also clean of fingerprints.
    There were still a ton of possibilities. But in spite of the contradictions, my increasingly queasy gut pushed me more and more toward thinking that the two shootings, at least, were related. The suspects’ ages and general physical descriptions were similar. Both crimes had occurred at high–end establishments.
    But most important was the text of the typed message found with the maître d’s body. I lifted up the evidence bag and read it again.
    Your blood is my paint. Your flesh is my clay.
    It had a creepy similarity to what the Polo clerk shooter had said to Patrick Cardone.
    You are the witness to history. I envy you.
    My hunch was that we were talking about a guy who’d gotten an A in Crackpot Composition 101, and wanted people to know it — wanted them to buy into his delusions of grandeur. But the only way he could get that kind of attention was through vicious, cold–blooded murder.
    Unfortunately, if I was right, he was smart, and also careful. Different outfits, different guns, face hard to see, no fingerprints.
    Then there was the question of whether he was the same wacko who’d pushed the girl in front of the 3 train, down at Penn Station. No weapon, no coy message, and he’d let himself be seen. But again, the overall physical description fit.
    Well, at least there hadn’t been any more Manhattan killings in the last few hours. Maybe we’d get lucky and find out that our nutburger shot himself. But probably not. This guy seemed too organized to be a suicide. And besides, my birthday wasn’t until next month.
    I closed my notebook and scanned the football helmets, musical instruments, and kitschy knickknacks hanging from 21’s famous bar ceiling. The bartender had told me that the toys, as they called them, had been donated over the last hundred years by movie stars and gangsters and presidents.
    The thought that Bogie might have tied one on with Hemingway at the very table where I was sitting made me consider having a quick burger before I left. I lifted the menu. I had to read the prices twice before realizing I wasn’t hallucinating.
    Thirty bucks?
    “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” I mumbled as I stood.
    On my way out, I studied the wall of photographs behind the reservation book. In each one, the deceased maître d’, “Nice Guy” Joe Miller, was smiling with an A–list celebrity. Ronald Reagan, Johnny Carson, Tom Cruise, Shaq, Derek Jeter. “Any good maître d’ can get you to sit where he wants you to