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solve the murders in the projects. I’m sorry as hell about those two white children, but their kidnapping won’t go wanting for attention or help. Fact is, that’s going to be a problem. Too much goddamned help.”
    “Of course it is. We both know that.” Monroe nodded agreement. “Those dumb bastards will be tripping all over one another. Listen to me, Alex. Will you just listen?”
    When Carl Monroe wants something from you, he’ll talk you into submission if he has to. I had seen this before and now he started up with me again.
    “As the legend of Alex Cross has it, you’re broke now.”
    “I’m doing fine,” I said. “Roof over our heads. Food on the table.”
    “You stayed in Southeast, when you could easily have gotten out,” he continued with this broken record I’d heard before. “You still working over at St. A’s?’
    “Yeah. Soup brigade. Some free therapy sessions. The Black Samaritan.”
    “You know, I saw you in a play once at St. A’s. You can act, too. You have real presence.”
    “Athol Fugard’s
The Blood Knot
.” I remembered the time. Maria had lured me into her theater group. “The play is powerful. It can make anybody look all right.”
    “You follow what I’m saying? You listening to me at all?”
    “You want to marry me.” I laughed out loud at Monroe. “You want to go out on a date with me first, though.”
    “Something like that,” Monroe roared back.
    “You’re doing it just the right way, Carl. I like to be sweet-talked before I get fucked.”
    Monroe laughed some more, a little harder than he should have. He could be buddies with you, then stare right through you the next time you met. Some people called him “Coconut” around the department. I was one of them. “Brown on the outside, white inside.” I had the feeling that he was actually a lonely man. I still wondered exactly what he wanted from me.
    Monroe was quiet for a moment. He spoke again as we turned onto the Whitehurst Freeway. Traffic was heavy, and slushy streets didn’t help.
    “This is a tragic, tragic situation we’re facing. This kidnapping is also important for us. Whoever solves it will be important. I want you to help solve it, to be a player. I want you to establish a reputation with this case.”
    “I don’t want a reputation,” I said flat out to Monroe. “Don’t want to be a fucking player.”
    “I know you don’t. And that’s one of the reasons you should be. I’ll tell you something that is the truth. You’re smarter than us, and you are going to be a big deal in this city. Stop being such a stubborn bastard about it. Let the walls come down now.”
    “I don’t agree. Not if I can help it. Not if I can get in the way of it. Your idea of being a success isn’t mine.”
    “Well, I know what’s right here. For both of us,” he said. This time Carl Monroe didn’t smile one bit. “You keep me up to date on the progress of this case. You and I are in this one together, Alex. This is a career-making case.”
    I nodded at Monroe.
Sure thing
, I thought. “Whose career, Carl?”
    I had stopped in front of the District Building with all its fancy trimmings. Monroe slid out of his seat. He looked down at me from outside the car. “This case is going to be enormously important, Alex. It’s yours.”
    “No, thanks,” I said.
    But Monroe was already gone.

CHAPTER 9

    AT TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES PAST TEN, well within the range he’d set during his dry runs from Washington, Gary Soneji turned his van onto an unmarked drive. The side road was badly potholed and densely overgrown with weeds. A blackberry bramble was on either shoulder.
    Less than fifty yards in from the main highway, he couldn’t see anything but the dirt road and a mess of overhanging bushes. No one could see his van from the highway.
    The van bumped along past a ramshackle, faded white farmhouse. The building looked as if it were shrinking, collapsing right back into its foundation. No more than forty yards