Trent turned from the report and said, “I’m checking out a book about Jesse Owens tomorrow. Did you know that he was in the Olympics before World War II and forced Adolf Hitler to admit that the Germans weren’t the master race?”
I smiled with pride at my sixth grader. “I don’t know if Hitler ever said it out loud, but Jesse sure made him look like a doofus. A bigger doofus than he really was.” The smile Trent gave me lifted my spirits more than I thought anything could.
After eleven, when the kids were no longer up to distract me from my thoughts, Mary Catherine joined me on the balcony.
She shivered and wrapped her robe tightly around her as she snuggled up next to me and put her arm around my waist. “You’ll catch your death from a chill out here, Michael Bennett.”
“You’re from Ireland. I would’ve thought you were used to a cool breeze.”
“Cool breezes are pleasant. This is a nor’easter.”
“That’s what they say in Boston. Here in New York we don’t acknowledge anything those people say. It’s just a cold wind from the north.”
Despite the fact that she was shivering, I realized she had something to say or she wouldn’t still be standing there. Without admitting I was wrong or that it was too cold to be standing on a balcony, I turned to her and followed her into the living room, where we both sat on the couch. Only then did I realize how cold it had been on the balcony.
Mary Catherine didn’t rush into it. We just sat there together, holding hands like teenagers. I had explained to her what had happened almost as soon as I got home, and, mercifully, she hadn’t asked any questions since.
Finally she said, “Michael, if I had something important to tell you, is it possible to get you to promise that you won’t do anything rash and will keep yourself under control?”
“That is an oddly worded request. What about me and the way I’m acting makes you think I might lose control?”
“It’s about Brian’s trouble.”
I sat up. “Did something happen? Is Brian okay?”
“Yes. Brian is fine. But I may have found out some information about the man Brian was working for.”
“What? How?” I took a moment, cleared my head, and said, “Tell me what you know.”
She said, “I need your word of honor that you will keep control.”
All I said was, “You have it.”
“One of Brian’s friends talked to me at school. He was very hesitant and doesn’t want me to mention his name or anything about him. He said that Brian worked for a man named Albert. He’s a drug dealer from the Bronx who uses high school students as employees.”
“Do you have a last name?”
“No, but he lives somewhere near Fordham Heights and is called Caracortada.”
“What the heck does that mean?”
“I looked it up, and I think it means ‘Scarface.’ That matches up with the description I got. He has a scar on the left side of his face.”
“It also goes along with every dope dealer I ever met who wanted to emulate Tony Montana from the movie Scarface.” My mind was racing with possibilities. “How on earth did you find any of this out?”
“I know enough about police work to say you never divulge a source.”
I looked at that beautiful face, carefully moved a strand of blond hair, and tucked it behind her ear. That sincere and earnest personality often showed in her expression. She had made up her mind.
She would never tell me where she got this information. Now it was up to me to do something with it.
Chapter 28
The NYPD policy for an officer-involved shooting dictated that the officer remain at home, off duty, for at least seven days after the incident. That was if it was a “good shoot” and the officer was ready to come back to work. There had been instances of officers staying at home, or “on the bricks,” for months while investigations dragged on.
My shooting involved several good witnesses, the bullet hole next to my head, and a suspect who had been tied to a brutal murder of a high school student. No matter what people inside the library thought, it was a good shoot.
I hadn’t been completely idle during my time on the bricks. I had given the information Mary Catherine had found out, even if she wouldn’t say how, to one of my friends in a Manhattan North narcotics task force.
Now I sat in the front seat of Tim Marcia’s car in Fordham Heights, not too far from the Bronx Zoo. We had the heat up in the roomy unmarked NYPD Tahoe. It was cold and messy outside, and snow fell on and off as ice built up on the sidewalks.
Tim was a sergeant in charge of a Manhattan North narcotics task force that was trying to stem the growing tide of heroin in the city after a crackdown on prescription drugs.
The fifty-year-old veteran looked like a cop, with a caterpillar of a mustache and sharp, intelligent eyes. But he knew his business.
As we waited for some of his detectives to get into place, he said, “Working narcotics is like being the Dutch boy who plugs a hole in the dike. As soon as one hole is plugged, another leak springs close by.” Then he turned to me and added, “At least this time we might be able to help one of our own.
“This is where your friend Caracortada lives and works. His real name is Albert Stass.”
“What kind of Latin name is that?”
“He was born in Uruguay. Maybe his grandparents were German. A lot of Germans fled the country before and after the war. Not just Nazis.” We watched as a kid left the apartment building. Tim continued. “He’s worked with the Sinaloa cartel and spent time in a Mexican prison. His release is a little shady because his sentence was commuted from twenty-five years to just under two.” He gave a couple of quick instructions on the radio. Then he looked at me. “Luckily, the duty judge lives in the real world and agrees with what our surveillances have uncovered. Now we get to squeeze Mr. Stass.”
We found his apartment on the second floor. I insisted that it be just the two of us at the front door. The other detectives were either downstairs or outside.
I took a moment to dust the snow that had accumulated on my shoulders during our short walk into the building. Even with the gray skies outside, I had something resembling hope growing inside me. This was the first proactive thing I’d been able to do for Brian since this whole mess had started.
As we stood on either side of the door, I noticed that Tim looked concerned. I said, “You got something to say?”
Tim said, “I’ve got to go in first.”
“Why?”
Tim looked serious. “Because Mary Catherine called me and told me to look out for you. I’m more afraid of an angry Irish woman than I am of this asshole.”
I nodded and said, “I know the feeling.”
Chapter 29
Tim knocked on the door. We both had our pistols in our hands, down by our sides. There was no one in the narrow hallway, and we stood off to either side of the door. I was shocked to see the handle turn and the door open almost immediately. As soon as I saw the scar on the face of the man who opened it, I knew we were in the right place.
But before we could officially identify ourselves, the door slammed shut. Tim muttered, “Shit.”
I tried the handle. It was locked, and without thinking I threw my weight into the door. The lock held, but the hinges broke off. That was common when people spent a fortune on a lock but ignored the rest of the door.
We both darted into the room and stepped away from the door. In police work, putting your silhouette against an open door is a sin. It’s called the fatal funnel. You’re a target to anyone in the room. So now I was crouched low, to the side of the door, with my gun up. I scanned the entire room and heard Tim yell, “Bedroom.”
We hustled past the tiny kitchen to the open bedroom door. I carefully peeked around to see as much of the room as possible, then Tim bolted in with me right behind him.
It was empty.
I said, “He’s here somewhere.” The room was messy, but there were no mountains o
f laundry or closets for him to hide in. Then I noticed slight movement in the corner. A doggie door had been built into the wall. Rocking back and forth gently. It couldn’t be.
I said, “Tim—on the rear wall to the left of the bed.”
Tim advanced carefully with his pistol up in front of him. “I’ll be damned.”
We moved in closer to the doggie door. Both of us were big men. This was not something I wanted to do. Not something I normally would do. But this was the asshole who had turned my son into a drug dealer. I had to take the risk.
Even as I crouched down, I heard Tim say, “No. Wait, Mike.” I ignored him as I poked my head through the door flap and saw that the adjacent apartment was dark. I crawled on through the door, then put my back against the wall. To my surprise, Tim squeezed through the doggie door as well, cursing under his breath the whole time.
I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark. Then we moved through the apartment.
Tim said “Holy crap” as we passed a table stacked with plastic bags of methamphetamine and three pistols sitting casually on the end. Clearly Albert Stass could’ve armed himself while running through this room. We paused at the door that led into the living room.
I stayed behind the cover of the wall and peeked around quickly and saw nothing. Then Tim and I entered. It was empty except for a table with a stack of cash on it.
Tim looked at me and said, “This guy is a magician.”
A voice came over the radio and said, “Sarge, are you looking for a skinny Latin man in his underwear running through the snow?”
Cops and their sarcasm. It’s what kept us sane.
We raced out the front door and down the hallway, then down a flight of stairs. The others had positioned themselves on the far side of a snow-covered baseball field. They understood how important it was for me to be in on this arrest. I appreciated their discretion.
It wasn’t hard to sprint along the sidewalk and then cut into the field not far from the running man. He looked shocked to see me when he turned his head.
I shouted, “Keep running. It only means you’ll be more tired when I arrest you.”
He had a small automatic pistol in his right hand, but he showed no interest in using it as his pace slowed. He tossed it to the side and kept running in his bare feet, wearing nothing but his tighty-whities. It had to be uncomfortable in the cold.
I could’ve shouted for him to stop. Tim was right next to me now, jogging along at a comfortable clip. But as the man started to slide to a stop so he could turn and run between some bleachers, I launched myself.
My shoulder struck his ribs and banged him hard against the bleachers. We both crashed on the frozen ground. He was facedown and didn’t struggle as I twisted his arm behind his back. In a single fluid motion—one I had practiced over the course of a long career and hundreds of hours of training sessions—I holstered my pistol and pulled my handcuffs from my belt.
After I had him cuffed, I left him lying on the icy ground. When I stood up, Tim said, “Nicely done. All by the book. This is a good arrest no matter how you look at it.”
I saw the irony: this hard-core drug dealer would be housed in relative comfort while the legal system slowly churned; meanwhile, the kids he had working for him killed and were killed every day.
Life plays mean tricks. If you’re a cop, you see a lot more of them than most people.
Chapter 30
It wasn’t until I was in the elevator in my apartment building that I realized how tricky it might be to explain what happened to Mary Catherine. She didn’t want me to go on the arrest in the first place and had told my friend Tim Marcia to keep an eye on me. I decided to leave out the details, including crawling through the doggie door and chasing an armed, desperate man on foot. Instead I was just going to say, “We made the arrest without incident.” Almost the same thing the official report would say.
But I felt lighter. I thought we might have some ammunition when it came to Brian’s sentencing. If anyone could persuade this guy to talk it was Tim Marcia. Besides, between the drugs, guns, and money in his apartment, he had to realize that we could bury him under the jail.
As I slipped my key into the door I was looking forward to telling Mary Catherine about the arrest. It came from information she had found. She would be happy that she had given us what we needed to make the bust.
That plan changed when I opened the door to a scene of absolute chaos inside. Kids were screaming and crowded in the dining room. Shawna was weeping on the couch, and Juliana was on the wall phone in the kitchen.
Before I could ask what was wrong, I heard Juliana say on the phone, “This is Juliana Bennett. My grandfather is having a heart attack, and we need an ambulance right now.” She gave our address and answered a couple of questions from the dispatcher.
Even in the immediate crisis, I recognized how calm her voice was and how quickly she had gotten out the important information.
I rushed to the spot where Mary Catherine and a couple of the children were crouched around Seamus. He was propped up against the wall and had an odd, waxy complexion as he gasped for breath. He started to pant like a dog.
I felt a stab of terror at the sight of the man who had been a rock for me my entire life. He had suffered heart issues before, but nothing that ever looked like this. I dropped to one knee, shooing Trent away from his great-grandfather, and felt Seamus’s neck to get an idea of his pulse. I could barely feel his heartbeat as it erratically shifted and paused.
He turned his pale eyes up to me and tried to say something.
“Just keep quiet, Seamus. It’s going to be all right. Help is on the way.”
He tried to speak again and made a feeble attempt to motion me closer with his right hand. I leaned in with my ear right next to his mouth. I could hear his ragged breathing as he tried to gather the strength to speak.
I caught a few words, including “love” and “proud of you.”
I patted him on the shoulder and said, “I know. I know, Seamus. I love you, too.” I was trying to block out the kids around me, who were all scared and not sure what to do or how to react.
Then Seamus grabbed my shirt and pulled me back to him. “Brian broke my heart. I don’t know that I can take it anymore.”
It was right then that I knew we couldn’t wait for fire and rescue or an ambulance. Seamus didn’t have that kind of time left.
Chapter 31
I only had one choice, so I picked up my grandfather and followed Mary Catherine as she opened doors and sent kids ahead to call for the elevator. I trusted that one of the older kids would know to stay at the apartment with the younger ones and found myself racing to my car with Mary Catherine, Jane, and Trent. That was a good team to have on my side.
Mary Catherine said, “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for help?”
“Not at this time of the evening.”
We got to my police car, and I laid Seamus in the backseat, where Mary Catherine could hold him. I got behind the wheel and hit the gas. We spun through the parking garage and out to the street in a matter of seconds. Even I was shocked at how fast I was driving. But this was Seamus. I couldn’t let anything happen to him.
I took 96th to Broadway with the lights flashing and siren blaring. I resisted the urge to keep looking in the backseat and focused on the traffic in front of me. Once I was on Broadway, I knew it was twenty or so blocks up to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospital, right near the Columbia campus. I’d be fighting more traffic, but it was a direct route.
I grabbed my NYPD radio and said I was transporting an apparent cardiac victim in need of immediate assistance. Out of nowhere, a marked cruiser pulled out in front of me with his full array of lights flashing and gave me an escort. God bless the NYPD.
We pulled into the emergency room, and Mary Catherine ran inside to get help. I carefully lifted Seamus from the backseat.
He managed to say, “There’s no way you’re carrying me in there like a baby. At least find a
wheelchair.”
Before Seamus had finished the sentence, Trent came running up with a simple, old-style wheelchair, and I placed Seamus into the seat. Just as we got through the door there were orderlies and a nurse waiting for us. We followed them up to a small room where a young internist met us.
He talked in a soothing tone to Seamus, trying to get some answers and assess his overall situation. Nurses hooked sensors to his chest, and instantly I started to see the EKG representation of his heartbeats on a monitor.
Mary Catherine, Jane, and Trent were wedged in tight against me in the corner. No one had really noticed us.
Then it happened. It was a jolt to my system, and I don’t know how badly it scared Mary Catherine and the kids.
A loud tone erupted from the EKG. The doctor shouted some instructions using acronyms I wasn’t familiar with. But it was clear to me that Seamus had flatlined, and now they had to take drastic measures to save him.
Chapter 32
I stood in silence in the corner of the cardiac treatment room, clutching Mary Catherine, Jane, and Trent to my side. The doctor shouted “Clear” as he placed paddles on my grandfather’s bare chest. It was like something out of a movie.
A jolt of electricity shot through my grandfather, but the horrible tone coming from the EKG machine only faltered for a moment, then continued. One of the nurses checked Seamus’s mouth and airway and repositioned his head.
The doctor yelled, “Clear!” Once again Seamus’s body spasmed as electricity shot from the paddles and coursed throughout his body.
Jane turned and buried her face in my chest as she started to weep.
Trent squeezed my hand so tightly that my fingers turned purple.
And Mary Catherine just stared at the horrific scene in front of us. I realized that she had a special bond with my grandfather. At first I thought it was just their shared Irish birth, but over time I realized it was much more than that. She had rescued the family he loved so much during their darkest hour. She had been loyal and kind, and she treated Seamus like he was her own grandfather.