Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(48)

“You’re right. I’ve read the same thing,” I said. “Although that’s only in a medical sense.”

“As opposed to?”

“Psychological. The human brain can be tricked into sobriety if it buys into the myth.”

Her eyes lit up with a flash of recognition. “I knew you looked familiar,” she said. “You’re the psychology professor who tracked down that serial killer last year.”

“That’s me, all right.”

“No wonder you let the old man off the hook,” she said. “Compared to a serial killer, everyone else is merely having an off day.”

“Dylan Reinhart,” I said, extending my hand.

“Sadira Yavari.”

I could tell she was still sizing me up as we shook hands. “I remember reading about you after you saved the mayor’s life,” she said. “I actually spent a fair amount of class time talking about the Dealer’s motivations after he took his own life.”

“Class time?” I asked.

“It turns out we have more in common than jury duty,” she said. “I’m a professor as well. NYU.”

“No kidding. What do you teach?”

“Philosophy. Epistemology, to be exact.”

“From the Greek epistēmē, meaning knowledge,” I said. “Ironic, don’t you think?”

“What’s that?”

“The word for the study of knowledge—epistemology—is a word that most people don’t know.”

“And to think I’ve dedicated my life to it.”

“You know what Kierkegaard said, right?”

“Well, I am a professor of philosophy, so I probably do.”

“Truth always—”

“Rests with the minority,” she said, finishing the quote. She raised a hand to her chin, giving me a quick up and down. “You’re an interesting man, Professor Reinhart.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“How about dinner tomorrow night? Will it get me that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to ask my wife.”

Sadira blinked. She literally took a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see a wedding ring, and the way we were talking I sort of assumed that—”

“I’m just kidding. There’s no wife,” I said. “And I’d love to have dinner with you.”





BOOK FOUR


THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY





CHAPTER 67


“I CAN think of a dozen foreign governments that would give their collective left nut to blow up this table,” said my father.

Julian chuckled. “Maybe we should move tables.”

“Maybe I should call Foxx again,” I said. “Where is he?”

“He’ll be here,” said Julian. “And don’t ask me what you’re about to ask me for the hundredth time.”

For the hundredth time, I asked him anyway. “Julian, why are you here?”

“Because Foxx wanted me here,” he said. “Last I checked, he was still the New York section chief.”

As usual, Julian had a point. There were only a few people on the planet who could force him to leave his proverbial bat cave against his will. Landon Foxx was one of them.

Now, if only Foxx would show up.

No sooner had I booked my dinner date with Sadira than Foxx called and asked me to meet him at O’Sullivan’s Bar on the Lower East Side, the back booth. Word had already gotten to him that my father was in town. Foxx wanted him there, too. “Tell Eagle I look forward to seeing him,” he said.

Lo and behold, there was Julian in the booth with a glass of whiskey when my father and I arrived. I’d spoken to him only an hour before to ask a favor. He hadn’t mentioned the meeting. Why not, I wondered. Once again, Julian wasn’t saying.

I let it lie and focused on the favor.

“So how many pages did you have to scrub?” I asked while we waited for Foxx.

O’Sullivan’s had been around since Prohibition and smelled like it, too. It was the perfect Irish dive bar where everyone had their own problems.

“Not as many pages as you might have thought,” answered Julian. “There was that story in New York magazine and a piece in the Provincetown Banner that referred to you as being rumored to be gay. All other mentions were in blogs.”

“Are you sure you got them all?” I asked.

Julian looked at me as if I’d just asked Annie Leibovitz if she was sure there was film in her camera. “Yes, I got them all,” he said. “When Sadira Yavari googles you, there will be nothing to dispel the notion that you’re straight.”

I glanced across the table at my father, who looked to be holding his tongue on a couple of punch lines to the point of dizziness. Or maybe it was the fatigue catching up to him. He still hadn’t slept. If Foxx hadn’t explicitly asked for him to join us, I would’ve insisted he crash at Elizabeth’s apartment, as she’d offered. For the record, she was less than pleased that she couldn’t come along to O’Sullivan’s. She’d mumbled something about an all-boys club, but she understood the real reason. She didn’t work for Foxx. She wasn’t CIA.