10 10th Anniversary by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781846054785
Publisher: Century
Published: 2011-05-02T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 58

CINDY STOOD AT the windy corner of Turk and Jones just before six that evening. The Tenderloin was a rough neighborhood, arguably the worst in San Francisco.

As a light rain came down, the homeless pulled up their hoodies, hunched over their shopping carts, crouched under the eaves of the rent-by-the-hour Ethel Hotel and Aunt Vicky’s, the down-and-dirty gay bar next to it.

Cindy buttoned her coat and pulled up her collar, staring at the cab company across the street that took up the northeast corner of the intersection. There were two plate-glass windows at the street level, each with a flickering neon sign, one reading QUICK EXPRESS TAXI, the other, CORPORATE ACCOUNTS WELCOME. There was nothing welcoming about that storefront.

Rich had told her to meet him in a coffee shop a couple of doors down, but Cindy couldn’t wait. She called Rich, and when she got his voice mail, she left him a message and then crossed Turk against the light.

As she approached Quick Express, Cindy noticed the cab company’s vehicle entrance on Turk: a cave of an opening that sheltered a ramp down to the lower parking levels. Yellow cabs were lined up at the curb. Men stood in the drizzle, smoking on the sidewalk, taking swigs from paper bags.

Cindy walked up to the window and saw the dispatch office on the other side of the glass, much like a ticket office in a movie theater but bigger. She knocked on the glass.

The man in the office was regular height, in his forties, with dark hair and a pale moon face. He was wearing a rumpled plaid shirt and khakis. He looked agitated as he worked the phone lines while delivering blunt instructions into a radio mic.

Cindy had to speak loudly over the sound of incoming radio calls.

“I’m Cindy Thomas,” she said into the grill. “Are you the owner here?”

“No, I’m the manager and dispatcher, Al Wysocki. What can I do for you?”

“I’m a reporter at the Chronicle,” she said. She dug her press pass out of her handbag and held it against the window.

“What’s this about?”

“One of your drivers might have saved someone who was having a heart attack. The person who called the paper only remembers that the driver was in a taxi minivan,” Cindy lied.

“You got a name?”

“No.”

“And what’s the driver look like?”

“All this person remembers is that the minivan had a movie ad on it.”

“Gee. A movie ad,” Wysocki said. “Okay, look. We have six vans in the fleet. Three are in. Three are out. But you understand, none of the drivers has a call on any of these cabs. They drive what’s here when their shifts start.”

“May I take a look anyway? It shouldn’t take long.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Wysocki told Cindy that the garage had three levels — the main floor, which she was on, and two subterranean levels. Two of the vans were on the first floor down, and the third was on the second floor down.

Cindy thanked the man and began her tour of the parked taxis in the dark, grimy, stinking-from-gas-fumes underground garage.

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