The Midnight Club

by James Patterson

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

A stunningly brilliant psychopathic killer who has skillfully eluded the police from London to Paris to New York. A beautiful woman journalist suddenly in grave danger. An unorthodox New York detective whose motive for stopping the killer couldn't be more personal or emotional. Bestselling author James Patterson weaves a suspenseful tale of a powerful mobster who runs up against a very determined cop and his faithful crime fighters.

Release date: July 1, 2007

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

“JAMES PATTERSON DOES EVERYTHING BUT STICK OUR FINGER IN A LIGHT SOCKET TO GIVE US A BUZZ.”

—New York Times

“WHEN IT COMES TO CONSTRUCTING A HARROWING PLOT, AUTHOR JAMES PATTERSON CAN TURN A SCREW ALL RIGHT.”

—New York Daily News

“HE’S UNBEATABLE… Patterson proves himself master of the hair-raising thriller.”

—Buffalo News

“PATTERSON JUGGLES TWIST AFTER TWIST WITH GENUINE GLEE.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“PATTERSON KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING, AND HE KEEPS THE PEDAL DOWN ON THE ACTION AND SUSPENSE.”

—Washington Times

“JAMES PATTERSON KNOWS HOW TO SELL THRILLS AND SUSPENSE IN CLEAR, UNWAVERING PROSE.”

—People

“PATTERSON IS A MASTER.”

—Newark Star Ledger

“PATTERSON LAYS OUT A TRAIL OF UP-AND-DOWN PLOT TWISTS that makes it nearly impossible to figure out the truth before he wants you to.”

—Associated Press

“JAMES PATTERSON BRILLIANTLY EXPLORES DARK CREVICES OF THE ABERRANT MIND… WITH ROLLER COASTER THRILLERS.”

—Ann Rule

“A MUST-READ AUTHOR… reaches out and grabs you from the opening page and doesn’t let go until the last drop of blood.”

—Providence Journal

“PATTERSON’S A MASTER OF SUSPENSE THRILLERS… twists and turns arrive in roller-coaster fashion… Patterson is diabolical.”

—Nashville Banner

“EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED FROM JAMES PATTERSON… Patterson confounds even mystery veterans with spine-tingling twists and turns that leave readers hanging upside down with their hearts racing.”

—Columbus Dispatch

“PATTERSON NOT ONLY CREATES A DIZZYING FLIGHT OF SUSPENSE AND VIOLENCE but exposes the explosive elements in today’s society that make the world vulnerable to frightening events.”

—Baton Rouge Magazine

“Readers who have not discovered James Patterson just don’t know what they are missing. PATTERSON IS, WITHOUT A DOUBT, ONE OF THE MOST TALENTED AND EXCITING AUTHORS OF CRIME FICTION TODAY.”

—Lake Worth Herald

“A RIDE ON A ROLLER COASTER WHOSE BRAKES HAVE GONE OUT.”

—Chicago Tribune on Cat & Mouse

“CAT & MOUSE IS A PULSATING GAME… THE ACTION IS FAST AND FURIOUS… The pages turn in a blur… You might just finish this in one sitting. It’s that kind of book.”

—Rocky Mountain News

“Patterson delivers THE SWIFTLY PACED FARE THAT HAS MADE HIM A CHAMP OF THE CHARTS.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cat & Mouse

“CROSS, A BRILLIANT HOMICIDE COP, IS ONE OF THE GREAT CREATIONS OF THRILLER FICTION.”

—Dallas Morning News on Jack & Jill

“CAPTIVATING… A FAST-PACED THRILLER FULL OF SURPRISING BUT REALISTIC PLOT TWISTS.”

—San Francisco Examiner on Jack & Jill

“TOUGH TO PUT DOWN… TICKS LIKE A TIME BOMB, ALWAYS FULL OF THREAT AND TENSION.”

—Los Angeles Times on Kiss the Girls

“PATTERSON HIT THE BALL OUT OF THE PARK WITH ALONG CAME A SPIDER. KISS THE GIRLS IS EVEN BETTER.”

—Dallas Morning News

“A WILD RIDE… ALEX CROSS IS TO THE ’90S WHAT MIKE HAMMER WAS TO THE ’50S.”

—Denver Post on Kiss the Girls

“A FIRST-RATE THRILLER—FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS AND KEEP THE LIGHTS ON!”

—Sidney Sheldon on Along Came a Spider

“HAS TO BE ONE OF THE BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEAR.”

—Clive Cussler on Along Came a Spider

“TERROR AND SUSPENSE THAT GRAB THE READER AND WON’T LET GO. JUST TRY RUNNING AWAY FROM THIS ONE.”

—Ed McBain on Along Came a Spider

Long Beach, New York, March 1986

THE NIGHT THAT John Stefanovitch was shot couldn’t have been colder, or the stars more dazzling in high winter skies.

Shortly past midnight, Stefanovitch tramped down the creaking, solidly frozen boardwalk at Long Beach. He was humming “Surfer Girl,” one of those awful beach-town ditties that could usually bring a smile to his lips.

Stefanovitch’s eyes stayed sharply focused. They very carefully swept the silent, gritty beachfront neighborhood.

The Grave Dancer was nearby. Stefanovitch felt it all through his body. It was a second sense he had sometimes, almost a paranormal gift. The scumbucket he had been tracking for almost two years was so close it made his skin crawl.

He finally arrived back on Florida Street, the desolate side lane where he and his detectives had agreed to gather. Actually, he’d been there ten minutes ago, then walked down to New York Avenue and the funkytown boardwalk to clear his head.

The full team of fourteen Narcotics detectives was assembled. This was a joint Nassau County and N.Y.P.D. strike force, each of them handpicked to go after the Grave Dancer.

Stefanovitch said his hellos, patting the backs of down parkas, playing the crowd.

Stefanovitch fit in, which was unusual for a lieutenant. Maybe it was because he’d never seemed overly impressed with himself, never felt making “Loo” meant that much anyway. Or maybe it was because he was more cynical, and funnier about his perspective on the world, than any of the detectives working under him.

True to form, he was wearing a weathered black leather coat, over a hooded gray sweatshirt. The outfit made his six feet two inches seem more compact, more physically impressive. Underneath a crushed black fedora, his hair was long and brown, and unruly. His eyes were a cool, dark brown, but could warm up once he got comfortable with someone. People said Stefanovitch looked like some kind of flaky film star, and he thought that wasn’t all bad. Flaky film stars seemed to be running the world these days.

In the electrified darkness of Florida Street, car trunks sprung open with almost no sound. Out came .357 Magnums, twelve-gauge shotguns, N.Y.P.D.- and Nassau County-issue guns. Also, full ammo pouches.

The beachfront neighborhood felt as if it were about to explode.

The dope raid was going to be bigger than the celebrated French Connection. As much as two hundred kilograms; over a million and a half fixes for New York’s 250,000 addicts.

They were closing in on Alexandre St.-Germain, the animal called the Grave Dancer; the man who had been Stefanovitch’s obsession during the past twenty-two months. That was no accident either. Stefanovitch regularly got the most important narcotics cases in the N.Y.P.D. He was talented, and he thrived on challenges. For the past few years he’d been the department’s “big play man.” Nothing but the fast track for him.

Stefanovitch finally turned to his second in command, a 260-pound detective named Bear Kupchek. “You all ready, Charlie Chan?” he asked.

“Ah. Wise man never ready to walk down dark alleyway at night.” Kupchek grinned like the portly Chinese detective.

“Fuck you, Charlie,” said Stefanovitch.

John and Anna Stefanovitch; Brooklyn Heights

HOURS BEFORE, Stefanovitch and his wife, Anna, had gone out to dinner. He had taken her to the glittery River Cafe, tucked like an expensive tiara beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

After dinner, they had gone back to their apartment in Brooklyn and snuck up to the indoor pool on the roof. It was closed after nine, but Stefanovitch had a key. He brought a tape deck, and they danced on the rooftop, first to Robert Cray and his blues, then to the romantic Brazilian Laurindo Almeida.

“We’re breaking the law that you’re sworn to uphold,” Anna whispered against his cheek. She was so soft and fine to hold; a great slow dancer, too. Elegant and totally desirable.

“Bad law. Unenforceable,” Stefanovitch whispered back.

“Some policeman you are. No respect for authority.”

“You bet. I know too many authority figures.”

He started to unbutton Anna’s dress, which picked up the green of her eyes, the gold of her hair, and which felt like the smoothest silk under his fingers.

“You going to try for indecent exposure now?” Anna smiled softly.

“For starters maybe. I have some other felonies in mind, too.”

After they slipped out of their dinner clothes, they did a few slow laps; then they floated languorously in the moonlit pool, under the glass rooftop, the twinkling stars.

With Anna, Stefanovitch had a way of doing wonderfully romantic things. He’d become a master of the unexpected: a dozen American roses arriving at the grade school where Anna taught fourth grade; a weekend ski trip to Stowe, in Vermont; gold shell earrings he spent an hour at Saks picking out himself.

He reached out and pulled her body closer in the deep end of the pool. Her green eyes were warm and wise—spectacular eyes. Her body seemed glazed in the moonlight. She was a fantasy he’d had since he’d been a kid in school. The two of them fit together perfectly.

“Sometimes I can’t believe how much I love you,” he whispered, his breath catching slightly on the words. “Anna, I love you more than all the rest of my life put together. I’d be lost without you. Sad but true.”

“Not so sad, Stef.”

They made tender, then passionate love in the still, blue-green water of the swimming pool. In the middle of the coldest March in years.

At the moment, John Stefanovitch was sure he had everything he had ever wanted out of life. Getting St.-Germain would be the icing on his cake.

The Grave Dancer; Long Beach

UNTIL PAST MIDNIGHT, Alexandre St.-Germain had been at a black tie affair given at a Fifth Avenue penthouse in Manhattan. The party-goers were mostly investment bankers and other Wall Street power brokers; their wives; assorted young playthings. A very good black combo played, and seemed particularly out of place in the setting.

St.-Germain himself fit in splendidly: he was sophisticated; wittier than any of the bankers; a wealthy and respected European investor with seemingly unlimited capital…

Now, the Grave Dancer was approaching Long Beach Island, cruising along in a dark sports car. He was feeling particularly sanguine about the past few weeks. He had been mapping out a strategy that would ultimately change the face of organized crime. He had financial backing, both in New York and abroad. He simply had to make certain nothing went wrong during the next few critical months.

One man has been interfering lately, St.-Germain was thinking as he crossed the bridge onto Long Beach. A detective named Stefanovitch had taken it upon himself to make St.-Germain’s life in America difficult, if not impossible. He was a master at harassment. He was persistent, and cleverer than most policemen. He had already caused more trouble and embarrassment than St.-Germain could allow.

Twice he had trailed St.-Germain to Europe. He had conducted surveillance watches outside his apartment on Central Park West. One evening, he had followed St.-Germain into Le Cirque, practically interviewing the restaurant’s owner, Sirio Maccioni.

This desire to prevail against the odds, to tilt against windmills, seemed to be an American trait. St.-Germain had watched it fail miserably in Southeast Asia during the early seventies; he would watch it fail again now in New York. Stefanovitch was challenging him, and that couldn’t be permitted.

His sports car finally entered Long Beach, and he gunned it toward his rendezvous. An important lesson had to be taught tonight.

John Stefanovitch; Long Beach

FOURTEEN N.Y.P.D. and Nassau County detectives walked single file, making uneven lines on either side of Ocean View Street in Long Beach.

They passed forty-year-old tract houses and a few Irish bars on the narrow street. Occasionally, there was a pizza stand or ramshackle novelty store, boarded up for the winter.

“I could use a slice of pizza,” Bear Kupchek cracked. “Pepperoni and onions, extra cheese.”

“I could use a sane partner,” John Stefanovitch whispered back.

They continued walking until they reached an even narrower street, called Louisiana. Nothing but parked cars were visible there, dented and rusting like the dank beach cottages themselves.

At the far end of Louisiana, the detectives entered a sharp bend, which opened into a wide fork. Two large beach houses stood at either end, like sentinels.

Stefanovitch knew everything about Alexandre St.-Germain: that he was the current drug star in Europe, the largest narcotics dealer in years; that he was also known as a businessman in parts of the world, a legitimate financier and investor—which made tripping him up that much more difficult. Stefanovitch knew that St.-Germain and his organization were moving very impressively into the United States; that St.-Germain had masterminded a Byzantine, highly effective system to control organized crime throughout Europe, known as the “street law.”

This street law applied to criminals and to the police alike. There were strict rules, and they were known to everyone. Rival crime lords, but also policemen, prosecuting attorneys, even judges who came into conflict with St.-Germain’s system, were dealt with ruthlessly. Murder and sadistic torture were the usual forms of retribution. Revenge against friends and family members was common. Alexandre St.-Germain said that he refused to live by the rules of the weak.

Tonight, Stefanovitch and his Narcotics detectives were breaking the street law. They were striking a major St.-Germain drug factory inside the United States.

Stefanovitch’s eyes were drawn suddenly to the far left of the cul-de-sac. The house lights there had blinked out.

“Uh-oh. The left. See that?” Bear Kupchek pointed.

Stefanovitch and everyone else stopped, their legs and feet suddenly frozen in step.

The wind from the ocean held a sibilant, almost ominous whistle in the background.

“What’s that all about?” Kupchek whispered. “I hope somebody’s just going beddy-bye late.”

“I don’t know. Hold tight.” Stefanovitch was slowly raising his Remington. He had a sick feeling, the beginning of an adrenal rush.

Through the trees the moon had cast everything in a pattern of strange black and white shapes.

“Hey, detectives! Big fucking surprise, huh?”

A voice suddenly boomed.

“Hey!… Over here!”

More gruff voices came from the opposite side of the narrow street. Several men were hiding in the darkness.

“No! Over here, cocksuckers!”

A row of blinding white floodlights went on. Bright crisscrossing lights bloomed in every direction.

Then heavy gunfire exploded from both sides of the street; a deadly commotion of noise and blazing light commenced on signal.

“Get down. Everybody get down!” Stefanovitch yelled as he pressed the safety, pumped his own shotgun, and felt his body shift into automatic.

“Get down!” he screamed as he fired at the beaming lights. “Everybody, down!”

ALL OVER THE STREET there was pandemonium. Detectives were screaming and cursing. Stefanovitch finally dropped on his stomach. He was gasping for breath. He had a flashing thought about Anna: the idea of never seeing her again.

He pressed his body against the freezing cold concrete. He didn’t know whether he’d been hit or not. He genuinely didn’t know. The odors of motor oil and gasoline stuffed his nose.

Down on his stomach, Stefanovitch wiggled until he was underneath the rear end of a parked car. He ripped his hands and knees as he struggled forward. Where the hell was the backup? What could he do now?

He made it to a second parked car. As he did, his head cracked against the undercarriage. He cursed. His lungs ached horribly. The submachine guns kept giving fire.

For a moment, he was hidden under a third parked car.

He wondered if he should stay there. The auto’s body was so low that his face scraped the ground. His mind screamed.

A fourth car was parked up tightly against the third vehicle, cheek to cheek. He kept straining to hear the sound of approaching police sirens.

Nothing. No one in the neighborhood had called the police.

He kept moving from parked car to car. Away from the killers and the massacre. Did they know where he was? Had anyone seen him?

He stopped counting how many cars he’d gone under. He was numb all over from the cold.

The last parked car was anchored at the corner of Ocean View. The attackers’ voices were fading down the street. He needed a breath, before he got up and tried to run.

Stefanovitch finally pushed himself from underneath the last car.

Then he ran as fast as he could, sprinting to his left.

He was numb and sweaty-cold, so otherworldly and out of it. He was running, though, and nobody was going to catch him. He zigzagged as he went, feeling like a ground missile released from its cramped vault.

Everything was unreal. His feet had never struck against the pavement quite like this before. His breathing was labored and very painful.

Just keep running.

It was a disembodied thought. It held him together.

Nothing else was important.

He finally saw the side street where he and his men had parked their cars. The cars, Mustangs and Camaros, Stingrays, BMWs, were sitting up ahead, silent and empty.

Stefanovitch rounded the corner onto Florida Street. He saw his black van. Call for help, his mind screamed.

He fumbled to get the keys out of his pocket as he ran. Finally, a siren screeched in the distance.

The wind and sweat-soaked clothes were biting cold against his skin. His hair threw off water.

Five yards from the van a shotgun thundered loudly in his ears. It went off directly behind him. The explosion reverberated against the bone of Stefanovitch’s skull. It rattled his insides.

The first shotgun blast passed clearly through his right side. It seemed so simple to say, to think—shot in the side.

The first hit turned John Stefanovitch around, the way a caroming, speeding truck would have, the way a grown person can easily manhandle a small child.

The second shotgun blast exploded almost on top of the first brutal assault. The blast shattered the vertebrae on the left side of Stefanovitch’s spinal column. A jagged shard of bone broke through the flesh, like antlers on a wall.

The bullet actually ricocheted inside his body, twisting, turning, like an oblong object under water. Then it burst out his side, leaving a huge hole.

Shot in the back.

Stefanovitch was lying facedown. He was half on, half off the gritty, iced sidewalk pavement.

His eyes were watering, so that he seemed to be crying. He wanted to crawl away, to do something, but he couldn’t move an inch.

The hidden gunman finally appeared from the shadows. The gunman walked forward, stopping over the sprawled, spreadeagled body, staring down for a long silent moment.

Stefanovitch could hear the man’s breathing, the inhuman calmness… He could hear exactly what the gunman was doing. Suddenly everything was clear and distinct inside his mind. He was about to witness his own murder.

To hear the killer actually pump a third shell into the chamber. To hear him pause for a long, breathless second, then hear him fire again.

One final shot, point-blank into Stefanovitch’s back.

Then the Grave Dancer walked away from his supposed pursuer.

Alexandre St.-Germain; Brooklyn Heights

ALEXANDRE ST.-GERMAIN drove a Porsche Turbo Carrera, sleek and midnight blue. Nothing but black glove leather and dim red control lights were visible inside. The only sound was the racing tires against the pavement, a noise like tape being pulled away from an uneven surface.

Lessons, he thought to himself as he drove. The world needed object lessons, but especially the police detective who had come after him; who had stubbornly trailed him for two years.

The apartment building in front of which St.-Germain finally parked seemed all wrong. It was faded red brick, rising maybe nineteen or twenty stories. It was the kind of place where mothers on the high floors throw change wrapped in tinfoil down to their kids for ice cream.

The Grave Dancer followed a black woman inside the apartment building, some kind of nurse from the look of the white spongies and stockings showing below her cloth coat.

The hallway of the floor where he got off the elevator was like all the others in the building. The night’s stale cooking smells. A clicking in the heating system. Pale blue walls; a worn blue and black hallway runner.

Alexandre St.-Germain rang the bell for 9B. He rang the doorbell insistently, seven times.

Finally, a woman’s voice came from inside, sounding very hollow and distant.

“I’ll be right there. I’m coming. Who is it?”

The dark blue door for 9B swung open. The look on Anna Stefanovitch’s face instantly revealed her lack of comprehension.

“Something happened to Stef,” she said. A statement of fact, not a question.

“Yes. And now something is happening to you.”

There was no pain. Anna definitely heard the hollow, muffled shotgun blast from less than three feet away. She saw the bright streak of light illuminate the hallway, a little like a photographer’s flash camera going off. Anna Stefanovitch was dead before she hit the floor inside the foyer.

Alexandre St.-Germain, the Grave Dancer, left the apartment building as confidently as he had arrived.

Isiah Parker; 125th Street, June 1988

THE ORANGE JULIUS stand tucked on the corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard had at least one advantage over many of the other stores in the area—an open, lively view onto the street. A view of the changing, or rather, the decaying neighborhood: the sealed-off and abandoned buildings, like Blumstein’s, Harlem’s last department store, and the Loews Victoria, both shut down now. The Hotel Teresa, where Fidel Castro had once stayed while visiting New York, now an office building. The Apollo—where Basie, and Bessie Smith, Bill Eckstein and Ellington had played—closed, and now opened up again. Who knew for how long?

Isiah Parker stood behind the brightly colored counter of the Orange Julius stand. He was dutifully wiping it down, while he watched the fascinating panorama of 125th Street stretch out before him. He had the thought that squalor and misery had never been so interesting; he had no idea why that was so.

He heard his name being called by the juice-stand boss. “Hey, man, you deaf or what? Two fucking banana Julius, man.”

Isiah Parker wasn’t deaf. As far as his hearing went, he was discovering lately that he had rabbit ears. He was like the professional athletes whose hearing seemed to magnify personal insults and jeers from the grandstands. Parker thought briefly about making an Orange Julius concoction out of the juice-stand boss’s face. He thought better of it, for the moment, anyway.

“Yes sir, two Julies on the way,” he muttered in a low growl directed at the boss.

“Two banana Julius.”

“Yes sir, two banana Julies coming up.”

All this time, he had kept his attention beaconed out onto the . . .