Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(17)

“We? As in me too?”

“He specifically asked that you be there.”

“The vice president did?”

“As I understand it. He wants Sampson too, since he was first on the scene.”

“What time?”

“Eight a.m. sharp. His residence. One Observatory Circle. Bring two forms of ID to show the Marines.”

Bree walked into the kitchen, still on the phone. “Dr. Cross is on the Maya Parker case as well as the Willingham case, sir. I don’t think I can… yes, Commissioner Dennison. I hear you loud and clear.”

“I’ll call you back, Ned,” I said and hung up.

Bree hung up as well, then looked at me, perplexed. “He drives me nuts with this micromanaging stuff. You have to help me out here one more time, Alex.”

“I just agreed to work the Parker and Hernandez case for you,” I said.

“I know,” she said, holding up one hand. “Just go talk to this guy at some point today. He’s a big-time tobacco and food-additive lobbyist. He was shot in the ass with a twenty-two last night outside a restaurant in Georgetown.”

“Shot in the ass?”

“You heard me,” she said. “And someone spray-painted Shoot the Rich on the wall of the alley that the shooter likely fired from.”

“Okay?”

She sighed. “Two other wealthy people have been shot at in DC in the last month. The shooter missed both times, breaking things right next to them, but the same Shoot the Rich graffiti tag was present.”

“I didn’t hear about the graffiti tag.”

“We’ve been trying to keep it quiet,” she said. “But he hit this lobbyist guy. And the lobbyist guy is a friend of Commissioner Dennison somehow. It could get some of his heat off my back if you go.”

“I promise I’ll try to get to him at some point today,” I said. “I have a noon client here. And Ned wants me on Kay’s case, and Sampson and I wanted — ”

“Kay’s case?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You don’t see it, do you? This lobbyist wounded? Two others shot at? Shoot the Rich? What if it’s the same shooter who killed Kay and Christopher?”

“No graffiti tag that I know of.”

“Just the same.”

I blinked, said, “I think I’ll go visit that lobbyist before my noon appointment.”





CHAPTER 19





AN HOUR LATER, JOHN SAMPSON and I were riding an elevator in the Watergate complex. He yawned.

“Didn’t sleep well?” I asked.

“I stayed up looking at the video from the bodega’s security cameras again,” he said and shook his head. “Nothing that I can see that’s relevant, and I scrolled through it for hours.”

“Because the killer or killers came from the west,” I said as the elevator doors opened with a ding. We stepped out into a small round foyer as a door on the opposite side was opened by a maid.

She led us into a stunning penthouse condo with a huge living area and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered sweeping views of the Potomac River and Northern Virginia.

We found the owner in front of the windows, but he wasn’t enjoying the scenery. Phil Peggliazo was facedown on a massage table, covered by sheets and moaning as a concierge doctor and a nurse tended to a series of monitors and IVs hooked up to him.

“Can you boot up the drugs, Doc?” Peggliazo said.

The doctor stopped scribbling on an e-tablet. “Can’t do that for another hour.”

“My ass is on fire here,” the lobbyist complained.

A polished blonde in her forties came into the room, filing her nails with an emery board.

“Phil, you’re being a child,” she said in a soft Texas drawl. “The ER doctors told you it’s a miracle that the bullet missed all major organs. Be thankful.”

“My ass is a major organ, Priscilla Mae,” he grumbled.

“No, it’s not,” she said. She looked at the nurse and the doctor. “Right?”

“Right,” the nurse said.

The doctor nodded. “A set of gluteal muscles does not constitute an organ.”

“I may never take a dump sitting down again,” Peggliazo whined.

Priscilla Mae rolled her eyes. “My daddy says you should be grateful that bullet didn’t go right through your ass and into your gut.”

She seemed to notice us just as Peggliazo said, “Your daddy can kiss my — ”

“That’s enough, Phil,” she said sharply. “We’ve got visitors with badges. I told you Vanessa Dennison would come through.”

A bear of a man with a blocky head, a full mane of silver hair, and two days’ growth of beard, Peggliazo propped himself up on his elbows on the massage table and twisted around to peer at us.

“About time someone showed up. You catch him yet?”

“No, sir,” Sampson said. “We just wanted to ask you some questions.”

“I’m gonna spend my life facedown with a blowtorch coring out both cheeks,” he said. “That should answer most of your questions.”

“Phil!” his wife said, then looked at us. “I’m so sorry. He’s not himself. They’ve got him on drugs.”