James Patterson - AC 01 - Along Came A Spider - v4.0 by Along Came A Spider -v5

Author:Along Came A Spider -v5
Language: eng
Format: mobi

I decided to take things into my own hands that evening.

I called a reporter I knew and trusted at the Post. I asked him to meet me at Pappy’s Diner on the edge of Southeast. Pappy’s was one place where we would never be spotted, and I didn’t want anyone to know we’d met. For both our sakes.

Lee Kovel was a graying yuppie, and kind of an asshole, but I liked him. Lee wore his emotions on his sleeve: his petty jealousies, his bitterness about the sad state of journalism, his bleeding-heart tendencies, his occasional arch-conservative traits. It was all out there for the world to see and react to.

Lee plopped down next to me at the counter. He was wearing a gray suit and light blue running shoes. Pappy’s draws a real nice cross-section: black, Hispanic, Korean, working-class whites who service Southeast in some way or other. But no one anything like Lee.

“I stick out like a sore thumb in here,” he complained. “I’m way too cool for this place.”

“Now who’s going to see you here? Bob Woodward? Evans and Novak?”

“Very funny, Alex. What’s on your mind? Why didn’t you call me when this story was hot? Before this sucker got caught?”

“Would you give this man some hot, very black coffee,” I said to the counterman. “I need to wake him up.” I turned back to Lee. “I’m going to hypnotize Soneji inside the prison. I’m going looking for Maggie Rose Dunne in his subconscious. You can have the exclusive. But you owe me one,” I told Lee.

Lee Kovel almost spit out his reaction. “Bullshit! Let’s hear it all, Alex. I think you left out some parts.”

“Right. I’m working to get permission to hypnotize Soneji. There are a lot of petty politics involved. If you leak the story in the Post, I think it will happen. The theory of self-fulfilling prophecies. I’ll get permission. Then you get an exclusive.”

The coffee came in a beautiful old diner cup. Light brown with a thin blue line under the rim. Lee slurped the java, thoughtful as hell. He seemed amused that I was trying to manipulate the established order in D.C. It appealed to his bleeding heart.

“And if you do hear something from Gary Soneji, I’ll be the second to know. After yourself, Alex.”

“You drive a hard bargain, but yeah. That’ll be our deal. Think about it, Lee. It’s for a worthy cause. Finding out about Maggie Rose, not to mention your career.”

I left Kovel to finish his Pappy’s coffee and begin to shape his story. Apparently, that’s what he did. It appeared in the morning edition of the Post.

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