Alex Cross - 04 - Cat and Mouse by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-21T17:08:50.615000+00:00

For the past two years, Simon Conklin had managed an adult bookstore in the dilapidated strip mall. The store was located in a single-story, red-brick building. The front door was painted black and so were the padlocks. The sign read ADULT .

"What's your feeling about Simon Conklin? Do you remember much about him?" I asked as we walked toward the front door. I suspected there was a back way out, but I didn't think he would run on us. "Oh, Simon Says is definitely a world-class freakazoid. He was high on my Unabomber list at one time. Has an alibi for the night Alex was attacked." "He would," I muttered. "Of course he would. He's a clever boy. Don't ever forget that." We walked inside the seedy, grungy store and flashed our badges. Conklin stepped out from behind a raised counter. He was tall and gangly and painfully thin. His milky brown eyes were distant, as if he were someplace else. He was instantly unlikable. He had on faded black jeans and a studded black leather vest, no shirt under the vest. If I hadn't known a few Harvard flameouts myself, I wouldn't have imagined he had graduated from Princeton and ended up like this. All around him were pleasure kits, masturbators, dildos, pumps, restraints. Simon Conklin seemed right in his element.

"I'm starting to enjoy these unexpected visits from you assholes. I didn't at first, but now I'm getting into them," he said. "I remember you, Detective Sampson. But you're new to the traveling team. You must be Alex Cross's unworthy replacement."

"Not really," I said. "Just haven't felt like coming around to this shithole until now."

Conklin snorted, a phlegmy sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You haven't felt like it. That means you have feeling that you occasionally act on. How quaint. Then you must be with the FBI's Criminal Investigative Analysis Program. Am I right?"

I looked away from him and checked out the rest of the store. "Hi," I said to a man perusing a rack with Spanish Fly Powder, Sta-Hard, and the like. "Find anything you like today? Are you from the Princeton area? I'm Thomas Pierce with the FBI." The man mumbled something unintelligible into his chin and then he scurried out, letting a blast of sunlight inside. "Ouch. That's not nice," Conklin said. He snorted again, not quite a laugh. "I'm not very nice sometimes," I said to him. Conklin responded with a jaw-cracking yawn. "When Alex Cross got shot, I was with a friend all night. Your very thorough cohorts already spoke to my squeeze, Dana. We were at a party in Hopewell till around midnight. Lots and lots of witnesses." I nodded, looked as bored as he did. "On another, more promising subject, tell me what happened to Gary's trains? The ones he stole from his stepbrother?"

Conklin wasn't smiling anymore. "Look, actually I'm getting a little tired of the bullshit. The repetition bores me and I'm not into ancient history. Gary and I were friends until we were around twelve years old.

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