I was driven to the Holiday Inn at Sunset and Sepulveda. Kate Mctiernan was staying there, too. The FBI had flown her to California because Kate knew more about Casanova than anyone they had assigned to the case. She had been kidnapped by the creep and had lived to tell about it. Kate might be able to identify the killer if he and Casanova were the same person. She had spent most of the day being interviewed at the FBI offices in downtown Los Angeles.
Her room was several doors down from mine at the hotel. I only had to knock once before she opened a white door with a black 26 on the knocker.
“I couldn't sleep. I was up waiting,” she said. “What happened? Tell me everything.” I guess I wasn't in a great mood after the failed bust. “Unfortunately, nothing happened,” I told her the bottom line.
Kate nodded, waiting for more. She had on a light blue tank top, khaki shorts, and yellow flip-flops. She was wide awake and revved up. I was glad to see her, even at half-past two on a shitty morning.
I finally came in and we talked about the FBI stakeout on Melrose Avenue. I told Kate how close we might have come to getting Dr. Will Rudolph. I remembered everything he'd said, every gesture. “He sounded like a gentleman. He acted like a gentleman, too ... right up until the blond woman made him angry.” “What does he look like?” Kate asked. She was eager to help. I couldn't blame her. The FBI had flown her to Los Angeles, then stuck her in a hotel room for most of the day and night.
“I know how you feel, Kate. I've talked to the FBI, and you're going to ride with me tomorrow. You're going to see him, probably in the morning. I don't want to set up any bias in your mind. Is that okay?” Kate nodded, but I could tell her feelings were hurt. She definitely wasn't happy about her level of involvement so far.
“I'm sorry. I don't want to act like a tough detective, a controlling bastard,” I finally said. “Let's not fight about it.” “Well, you were distant. Anyway, you're forgiven. I guess we better get some sleep. Tomorrow's another day. Big day maybe?” “Yeah, tomorrow could be a big day. I really am sorry, Kate.” “I know you are.” She finally smiled. “You really are forgiven. Sweet dreams. Tomorrow we nail Beavis. Then we get Butt-Head.” I finally went off to my room. I hit the bed and thought about Kyle Craig for a while. He'd been able to sell my unorthodox style to his confreres for one reason: it had worked before. I already had one monster's scalp on my belt. I hadn't played according to the rules to get it. Kyle understood and respected results. In general, so did the Bureau. They were certainly playing according to their own rules here in Los Angeles.
My last semiconscious thought was of Kate in those khaki shorts. Take your breath away. I had a passing thought that she might come down the hall and knock, knock, knock on my door. We were in Hollywood, after all. Wasn't that the way it happened in the movies?
But Kate didn't come knocking on my hotel door. So much for Clint Eastwood and Rene Russo fantasies.
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 63.
THIS WAS GOING TO BE a big day in Tinseltown. The manhunt of manhunts was playing in Beverly Hills. Just like the day they finally caught the killer-strangler Richard Ramirez out here.
Today we get Beavis.
It was a few minutes past eight in the morning. Kate and I were sitting in an arctic-blue Taurus parked half a block from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. There was an electrical sound in the air, as if the city were being run on a single, huge generator. A play on an old line ran through my head: Hell is a city much like Los Angeles.
I was nervous and tense; my body felt numb, and my stomach was queasy.
The burnout factor. Not enough sleep. Too much stress for too long a stretch. Chasing monsters from sea to shining sea.
“That's Dr. Will Rudolph climbing out of the BMW,” I said to Kate. I was so wound up, I felt as if strong hands were squeezing me.
“Good-looking,” Kate muttered. “Real sure of himself, too. The way he moves. Doctor Rudolph.” Kate didn't say another word as she intently watched Rudolph. Was he the Gentleman Caller? Was he also Casanova? Or were we being set up for some sick, psychopathic reason that I didn't understand yet?
The morning's `=,54' temperature hovered in the low sixties. The air had a crisp snap, like fall in the Northeast. Kate had on an old college sweatsuit, high-topped running shoes, dimestore sunglasses. Her long brown hair was bunched back in a pony-tail. Sensible stakeout attire and grooming.
“Alex, the FBI's all around him now?” she asked me without looking away from the binoculars. “They're here right now? That scum can't possibly get away?” I nodded. “If he does anything, anything that shows us he's the Gentleman, they'll grab him. They want this arrest for themselves.” But the FBI was also giving me whatever rope I needed. Kyle Craig had kept his promise. So far, anyway.
Kate and I watched as Dr. Will Rudolph slid out of the BMW coupe, which he'd just parked in a private lot on the west side of the hospital. He wore a European-style charcoal-gray suit. It was cut well and looked expensive. It probably cost as much as my house in D.C. His brown hair was held back in a fashionable ponytail. He had on dark glasses with round tortoiseshell frames.
A doctor in an exclusive Beverly Hills hospital. Smug as hell. The goddamn Gentleman Caller who was setting this city on fire?
I ached to run across the parking lot and hit him, take him down right now. I ground my teeth until my jaw was stiff. Kate wouldn't take her eyes away from Dr. Will Rudolph. Was he Casanova, too? Were they one and the same monster? Was that it?
We both watched Rudolph as he crossed the hospital lot. His stride was long and quick and buoyant. Nothing
