Don’t Blink by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-09-11T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 52

I STOOD THERE quietly in Hoodie Brown’s office, watching and waiting, respectful. Nearly shivering, too. The damn room felt like a meat locker, it was kept so cold. Hoodie, of course, was dressed appropriately. I sure wasn’t.

Thankfully, the guy was right and the wait wasn’t too long. After another few minutes, Hoodie looked up from his slew of computers for the first time.

“Do you know a Sam Tagaletto?” he asked.

The name didn’t mean anything to me. “No,” I said. “Never heard of him.”

“Apparently Dwayne Robinson did. About a month ago, he wrote him two checks over the span of a week. Both were for fifty grand.”

“I didn’t think Dwayne had that kind of money anymore. I’m almost sure of it.”

“He didn’t,” said Hoodie. “Both checks bounced.”

Red flag, anyone?

“So who’s Sam Tagaletto?” I asked.

“Definitely not a Boy Scout, that’s for sure. He’s been arrested twice for illegal bookmaking, among other things, once in Florida and most recently here in New York,” he said.

“How recent?”

“A year ago. He got six months’ probation.”

“Anything about his having ties to the mob?” I asked. Hoodie cocked his head in my direction. “You mean other than his being a bookie?”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m looking for actual names. Maybe somebody I have heard of.”

“Give me another minute on that,” said Hoodie.

He went back to the keyboard, his fingers tapping away almost as fast as my mind was racing.

Think, Nick. What does all this mean? What could it mean?

Dwayne Robinson had owed a bookie a big chunk of change and couldn’t pay it off. He hadn’t bounced just one check to this guy, Sam Tagaletto, he’d bounced two.

Maybe that’s why Dwayne had killed himself. Or had gotten thrown out of a window by somebody. Because he’d owed money to a bookie and had showed disrespect.

But there had to be more to it than that. It was now officially impossible to believe that my being at the table next to Vincent Marcozza had been a coincidence.

But if it indeed had been a setup like Pinero told me, then who had set it up?

Dwayne Robinson? I doubted it. Dwayne had been a former major league pitcher, not a former brain surgeon.

Or had it been someone else and that’s what Dwayne had wanted to tell me?

All I knew was that it was time to get to know a certain Sam Tagaletto a little better. Presuming I could find him.

“Do you have a current address for this guy?” I finally asked Hoodie. “Tagaletto?”

He was already two steps ahead of me. I’d no sooner finished the question than the purr of a printer filled the room. Hoodie handed me not only Tagaletto’s last known address but also his latest mug shots.

“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked.

Yeah, you can tell me what the hell you’re doing working for a hedge fund firm. On second thought, never mind. I probably don’t want to know that, either.

“No, that’s more than enough,” I answered. “Thanks a lot, man.”

I shook Hoodie’s hand, thanked him again, and was about to show myself out the door.

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