“Mike, you really think this is the guy who killed the mayor?” asked Brooklyn as she stood over the body.
I nodded.
“And who killed him?” asked Arturo.
I stared out the window as the chopper appeared overhead on its way across the Hudson. The sound of the rotors was almost deafening through the broken glass.
“The nut job who’s trying to show us how smart he is,” I yelled.
Chapter 22
At exactly 1:23 p.m., thirty-seven minutes after the mayor’s assassination, a hundred blocks almost directly south, a white delivery van turned west onto 81st Street from York Avenue on Manhattan’s famous Upper East Side.
“Dude, four-two-one. That’s it. Up there,” said the preppy white college kid in the van’s passenger seat.
The handsome young Hispanic driver beside him squinted ahead out the windshield.
“That old church there?” he said.
“No, stupid,” said the white guy. “The church? How we gonna put it on the pointy roof of a church? Next to the church there. That crappy white brick building.”
The white guy’s name was Gregg Bentivengo. His handsome Hispanic buddy was Julio Torrone. They were recently graduated New York University students, now roommates and partners in a start-up marketing and promotional firm they’d dubbed Emerald Marketing Solutions.
“A church?” Gregg said again, rolling his eyes. “There’s even a picture of the building on the instructions. Didn’t you see the picture of it?”
“That’s your job,” Julio said, coming to a dead stop as a green pickup two cars ahead parallel-parked. “You’re the navigator, bro. I’m the pilot. Where should I park us, anyway? This block is jammed.”
“Too bad we didn’t pick one of those blocks where it’s easy to park,” said Gregg, rolling down his window and sticking his head out. “The building’s got an underground garage. Maybe they’ll let us leave the van off to the side in the driveway there for a second while we unload. You know, I would have asked for more if I’d known how bulky these damn things are. Plus they weigh a ton.”
“You can say that again. I’m not lugging it across the street again, especially the way you almost let it bail when we were getting it over the curb.”
“I almost let it bail? I beg to differ, my friend. You’re the one who didn’t tighten the hand truck’s strap,” Gregg said as he rolled the window back up and removed a small navel orange from the pocket of his white North Face shell.
Gregg was always doing that, thought Julio, annoyed. Grossly hoarding food in his pockets like a squirrel or something. Peanuts, little candies. Drove him nuts all through school.
“Besides, you’re the muscle in this little caper,” Gregg said as he began peeling. “I’m the sweet-talking, persuasive guy.”
“The what?” Julio said. “You were tripping over your tongue with the concierge mama at the last place so much I thought you were doing an impression of that ‘That’s all, folks’ pig dude in that old-timey cartoon.”
“Screw you,” Gregg said, flicking a piece of orange peel at him. “When she looked up, she was so hot that I got a little startled is all. I was lovestruck. Besides, I recovered quick enough.”
“That’s true,” said Julio, smiling. “I almost pissed myself laughing when you told her it was the new flux capacitor for the roof, and she was like, ‘Oh, okay, elevator back to your right.’”
“Hey, you know my motto. If you can’t bowl them over with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit.”
“Hey, traffic’s moving now,” Julio said. “Let’s get this over with.”
It was even easier than the last drop. The middle-aged Asian guy at the garage must have been new or something, because not only did he let them park in the driveway, he also let them into the side door of the building with his key without calling the super or even seeming interested in what the hell they were doing there.
It took them exactly eleven minutes to position the green metal box that was about the size and weight of a large filing cabinet on the southeast corner of the six-story building’s roof, as per the instructions.
It must have some internal battery or something, Gregg thought idly as they were leaving the roof, because, like the first metal box they’d dropped off at the hotel on Lexington and 56th, it didn’t need to be plugged in or turned on or anything.
“What do you think they are, anyway?” Julio said as they got back into the van.
“Weren’t you listening? They’re carbon meters,” said Gregg, picking up the half-peeled orange he’d left on the dashboard. “The clients are environmental activists who want to take readings of this one-percent-filled area but were denied by the city and the building boards. Enter us, underground marketing heroes extraordinaire, to the rescue.”
“Carbon meters, my ass,” Julio said. “Whoever heard of a freaking carbon meter?”
“Do I know?” said Gregg. “You can call it a fairy-dust-reading meter if you give me five grand cash to sneak it onto some dump’s roof.”
“Probably some sketchy guerrilla data-collection thing hoovering up the whole block’s passwords and data or monitoring people’s online porn habits,” Julio said.
“I peg this guy for a hot Asian nurses fan,” Gregg said as the stupid parking attendant gave them a friendly wave and they began to back out onto the street.
“Who knows?” Julio said after they were rolling. “Maybe our clients are NSA.”
“I doubt those two bastards were NSA,” said Gregg.
“They were definitely bastards, but smart ones,” Julio reminded him. “Don’t forget, nerdy NSA types are computer geniuses and shit.”
“Right,” Gregg said skeptically. “You play too many video games.”
“True,” Julio said. “Anyway, it’s done. What do you want to do now? Hit the gym?” asked Julio.
“Too early,” Gregg said. “Pizza?”
“Okay, but then we need to get this truck back or we have to pay for eight more hours.”
Part Two
The City Sleeps
Chapter 23
Home finally, and still damp from a glorious hot shower, I plopped my tired carcass down at the head of the dining room table at around 7:30 p.m.
I was clad in a pair of orange swim trunks and a Yankees number 42 Mariano Rivera jersey, which worked better than you might think as a pajamas ensemble. Actually, my atrocious getup was the only thing I could find now that the laundry was piling up at an alarming rate. I was down to the bottom of the drawer and would be staying there, no doubt, for the time being.
My hastily put-together late dinner for la familia Bennett was French toast, one of my go-to dishes. I’d offered to get pizza again, but the kids were pizzaed out and demanded a home-cooked meal. They had probably meant a home-cooked dinner, but too bad for them—they hadn’t specified. They seemed to enjoy it well enough, or at least they enjoyed my wise heavy-handedness with the confectioners’ sugar.
I was relishing my French cuisine with a bottle of Guinness, the only adult beverage left in the house. Like the laundry, the whole grocery thing was something I had to work out, since Mary Catherine was still away.
Speaking of Mary Catherine, I’d been jazzed to find a letter—an actual paper snail-mail letter—from her on the hall table when I’d come in. The good news was that there was a new lead on a buyer for the hotel. No definite offer as of yet, but things were looking good.
The bad news was that though she had asked about the kids, there was really nothing about us or our fabulous romantic week together on the windswept Cliffs of Moher. Or about her heart-wrenching note, which I had read on the plane.
What could that mean? I wondered. Cold feet? Buyer’s remorse? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I wanted her back here with me so hard it was starting to hurt.
But like I said, at least I was home. Finally clean and warm and home, though I wasn’t in a real talkative mood after my truly insane day. I was more than cont
ent to just listen to the dull roar of the kids all around the table, talking and giggling. Even their teasing was comforting. Their normalcy, their obliviousness to the horror of today’s events, was just what the doctor ordered.
I was still sitting in my family’s warm chaos, mopping up the stout and syrup, when Seamus came in at speed through the apartment’s front door.
“Long day, eh, Mick?” said Seamus, looking a little flustered when he spotted me.
“About a week long, Father,” I said. “Make that a month, but I can’t talk about it. I refuse to, in fact. Pull up a chair and a plate. How’s the nanny hunt going?”
After Seamus’s health scare, and down one Mary Catherine, I thought it best to look for some temporary help.
“Been on it since this morning,” Seamus said. “That’s why I’m here. I think I might have found someone. He was recommended quite highly by a friend down at the archdiocese office.”
“He?” I said.
“Yeah. He’s a bit…well, unconventional, you might say.”
“Unconventional? How so?” I asked as the doorbell rang.
“See for yourself,” Seamus said, blinking at me. “That’s him now.”
Chapter 24
Oh, I see, I thought when I went out into the hall and opened the door.
The young man was tall and Colin Farrell handsome, with spiky black hair and black Clark Kent glasses. Nineteen, maybe twenty. He was wearing a white-and-green tracksuit.
“Hello, there,” he said with an infectious smile and an Irish accent. “I’m Martin Gilroy. Father Romans sent me here about a job?”
“This way,” Seamus said, ushering him in before I could open my mouth.
The ruckus in the dining room ceased immediately as Seamus and I brought him into the living room. The kids stared at him in dead silence as we walked past.
“Hello, guys,” Martin said, smiling.
If he was fazed by the ten sets of wide eyes on him, he hid it well. He actually stopped and craned his neck to look in the doorway.
“Hey, what are ya having in there? French toast, is it? Breakfast for dinner?”
He crouched down next to Shawna and made a funny face. “Then what’s for breakfast, I wonder? Let me guess. Steak and green beans and mashed potatoes?”
I smiled along with the kids. This guy was pretty good. I was starting to like him already.
“So tell us a little something about yourself, Martin,” I said as we sat on the couch.
“Not much to tell, really,” he said, crossing a big neon-green Nike on his thigh. “Me home is a little town in County Cavan, Ireland, called Kilnaleck. Eight of us in the family, not including Mom and Da. Got out of farm chores by playing football, or soccer, as you lot call it, for what reason I’ll never know.
“Anyway, I got good enough at it to get a scholarship to Manhattan College. I’m also on the track team. Trying to get a mechanical engineering degree on the side, as I thought it might be good to have a backup plan if my dreams of becoming Beckham don’t turn out. I don’t drink, so that hampers the ol’ social life a bit at school. I like kids and staying busy, and, um, I could use the money.”
“Any experience?” I said.
“Plenty, since I was one of the oldest in my family. No one died on me. I also worked at the town camp since I was sixteen, so I got all my first aid stuff and all that.”
“Do you cook?” Seamus asked.
“Oh, sure. Breakfast, lunch, dinner,” he smiled. “All at the right times, too, if you want. Only kidding. Nothing fancy, but I can keep kids fed.”
“You know how to do laundry?” I said.
He took off his glasses and polished them on the edge of his track jacket.
“I can iron a crease in a pair of trousers you could shave with,” he said as he slipped the glasses back on. “Actually, that’s not true. I read that somewhere. But I’ve done laundry before. Separate the whites and the colors or something, right? Hell, I’ll do the windows, if ya want. Improvise and overcome, that’s me motto. Bring it on.”
“Martin, there’s ten kids out there. Ten,” I said. “What would you do with them? What would be your strategy?”
“There’s a park around here, right? Riverside, is it? Well, weather permitting, after their homework and whatnot, I’d keep ’em out there, run ’em around, like we do at camp. Get ’em tired, wear ’em down, and then dinner and off to bed while I hit the chores.”
I smiled. I didn’t like this kid. I loved him.
“When can you start?”
Martin shrugged and smiled again.
“I don’t know. When can I start?”
“Tomorrow? Say, six a.m.?” I said.
“See ya then,” he said as he stood up.
“Just a second,” I said as I saw him off at the door. “The trains are out. How’d you get here from the Bronx?”
He zipped up his track jacket.
“I ran,” he said.
“You ran here from the Bronx?”
He nodded.
“And now I’m going to run back. Got to keep in tip-top for track. Why?”
It was my turn to smile.
“No reason, Martin,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
Chapter 25
It was dark and nasty and raining cats and dogs the next morning. The dim, dreary, churning East River beneath the Brooklyn Bridge looked about as scenic and lovely as a field of freshly poured cement as I crossed over it in my department Impala, heading to work.
Even so, my day had started at top speed. Martin Gilroy hadn’t been on time. He’d been early. All the kids seemed excited to see him, especially the older girls, who seemed particularly ready and mysteriously dolled up to go to school.
Seamus had stayed over and was on hand as well to show Martin the ropes. The lovely old codger was looking pretty good, too, I thought, after all he’d been through. Pink and healthy and cheerful. Back in form.
I was pleased. All men are mortal, and Seamus, at eighty-plus, was more mortal than most, I knew, but I doggedly refused to think he was ever going anywhere except to say Mass.
On the other side of the bridge, I found the first exit for DUMBO and took it. My trip to the hipster-paradise neighborhood of Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass wasn’t because of a burning desire for an ironic beer T-shirt but a work location shift. With all the media hoopla over the mayor’s assassination, case headquarters had been changed from the Thirty-Third Precinct to the NYPD’s discreet new Intelligence Division building in Brooklyn.
On a dark, narrow cobblestoned street just off the river, I parked in front of the large nondescript old brick building that I’d been to only twice before. I shielded my way past three armed-to-the-teeth SWAT cops manning the plain, dingy lobby and then two more stationed at a stainless steel console in the hall on the second floor.
On the other side of the security checkpoint, through a metal door, the transformation from the nineteenth-century brickwork outside to the twenty-first-century high-tech office inside became complete. There were sleek glass fishbowl offices and flat screens everywhere. Clocks on the wall gave the times of cities around the world. A lot of federal Homeland Security money was on full display.
The office was also packed with cops—dozens of detectives in polo shirts and suits. The way everyone was running around with serious expressions on their faces reminded me of an army on the muster. A tired one that just got its ass handed to it and was trying to figure out what to do next.
“Hey,” I said to Doyle as he came out of the men’s room.
“Mike, hey,” he said, leading me toward a crowded conference room at the end of the hall. “C’mon, we’re all down here about to have a briefing.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“No one told you?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Brooklyn and Robertson scored some footage of what looks like the bombers from both of the bombing locations. They’re about to show it right now.”
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Chapter 26
A tired-looking Arturo put a coffee in my hand as they dimmed the lights and put the first video up on the smartboard.
On the screen appeared a large industrial-style truck—almost like a garbage truck—with Con Edison markings on the cab door. It stopped in the middle of Saint Nicholas Avenue near 181st, and two men got out of it and popped the manhole cover.
It was hard to see them, unfortunately. It was dark, and they wore dark coveralls and Con Ed hard hats with the peaks pulled down low over their eyes, which were covered with sunglasses. Both were medium to tall in height, five ten to six feet; both were pale Caucasians. One had a dark goatee; the other a white one. The guy with the dark goatee was running the show. He had a clipboard and seemed to be barking orders as the other guy drew a huge air hose–like thing from the back of the truck and climbed down into the manhole with it.
“The truck is a vacuum truck,” said Brooklyn, who was running the smartboard for the stunned-silent room of cops. “It’s used for cleaning manholes and sewers. Engineers at Con Ed say it can easily be modified to become a large pump.”
Brooklyn showed the next video, which was of a much better, less grainy quality. Another pump truck with Con Edison markings was visible out in the street by the 168th Street subway entrance with two men behind it. The same white-goateed guy was there, but the other guy was different; on the short side, tan, no facial hair, a little pudgy. The pudgy guy got into the hole with the pump this time while the older man waited by the manhole up top.
None of the guys had any distinguishing marks that we could really see. No tattoos or birthmarks or buck teeth. Was that on purpose? I wondered. It seemed like it. It seemed like these guys were going out of their way to be nondescript.
“Is that the same truck?” a cop behind me called out.
“No,” Brooklyn said. “There were two of them. We found both on a deserted stretch of the Harlem River Drive near the Macombs Dam Bridge early this morning. No tags; their cabs were burned to a crisp. We’re still trying to trace down where they might be from through their manufacturer. The good news is that the FBI lab people found traces of the material they pumped into the tunnel in the backs of the trucks. It was powdered aluminum.”