“A neighborhood near his school,” Detective Schultz piped in.
“A skanky one,” added Ramirez.
“Go on,” she said with a nod.
“We’re thinking he was grabbed right then because by the look of things, Jacob never made it back to his dorm room,” I said. “We already interviewed his roommate and tossed the building. Nothing. If he went on a trip, he forgot to tell everyone he knows.”
I handed her the rough copy of the victimology report I’d already done, along with a current photograph.
“This report is excellent,” Parker said, turning the pages with an impressed nod. “Physical characteristics, behavior personality, and family dynamics. This NYPD thing doesn’t work out, we could use you down in Quantico. Tell me about the contact with the kidnapper.”
I went to the desk and pressed Play on the answering machine. Special Agent Parker squinted with surprise as the strange question-and-answer recording echoed through the room.
I clicked it off when it was over.
“Parents confirmed the person being questioned is Jacob,” I said. “Have you ever heard anything like that before?”
Parker shook her head.
“Not even close,” she said. “Sounded like an odd game show or something. Have you?”
I let out a frustrated breath.
“Sort of,” I said. “About a year ago, there was this guy who called himself the Teacher. Like this guy, he would blather on about our unjust society. Right before he blew holes in people.”
“Of course. The spree killer. The plane that crashed in New York Harbor, right? I read about that,” Parker said.
I nodded.
“Wait! The cop in the plane! Bennett, my God, that was you?”
I nodded again as she took that in.
“So, you think this is some sort of copycat?” Parker said.
I took a breath, remembering how hard I’d knocked on death’s door.
“For this family’s sake,” I said, shaking the last drop of coffee from my cup, “I hope not.”
Chapter 8
Every two minutes or so, Armando came in to refill our china cups from a polished silver coffee urn. I’d told him twice that he didn’t need to go to all the trouble, but he’d turned a deaf ear to us. He seemed as concerned about Jacob as his parents were.
The whirring sound of a mixer started in the kitchen. From the study, I saw Jacob’s mother, tears pouring down her cheeks, her hair mussed, her evening gown covered in flour, open the fridge and go back to the island, carrying eggs.
Armando made the sign of the cross.
“Poor Mrs. D, always she bake when she is upset,” he said in a whisper.
I’d shown Jacob’s room to Agent Parker and had just started going over potential media strategies when Detective Schultz called me over to the study’s window. Outside the Dakota’s main entrance, a black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows had its blue police light flashing on its dashboard.
I immediately called down to the ESU guys doing surveillance on the street.
“What the hell is going on down there?” I said. “Kill those lights. Who is that jackass? This is supposed to be an undercover operation.”
“Someone from the mayor’s office,” an ESU sergeant stationed in the lobby said. “She’s on her way up.”
A minute later, a sharp-featured fifty-something woman with a salon-perfected blond bob came through the apartment’s front door.
“April! I came straight here when I heard the news,” she said.
Mrs. Dunning seemed taken aback as she was engulfed in the tall woman’s viselike embrace. So did Mr. Dunning when he was given the same treatment.
“Christ, this is all we need,” I mumbled.
It was the first deputy mayor, Georgina Hottinger. Before being promoted to the mayor’s second in line, she’d been in charge of the New York Improvement Fund, which roped wealthy individuals into paying for city events. Which would have been useful had this been a charity function instead of a kidnapping investigation.
“Who’s in charge here?” she commanded as she burst into the study. I guess she was through with the air- and ass-kissing.
“I am. Mike Bennett. Major Case Squad,” I said.
“Every development in this case is to be sent immediately to my office. And I mean every one. The Dunnings will be shown every imaginable courtesy in their time of need, first and foremost being their privacy.”
Staring into her ice-pick blue eyes, I suddenly remembered the nickname the City Hall press corps had given Hottinger. Still resembling the ballerina in the San Francisco ballet that she’d once been, the take-no-prisoners politico was called the “Barbed-Wire Swan.”
“This woman is a personal friend of mine, Detective,” Hottinger continued. “So I hope we’re clear on how this thing is to be run. I’ll be holding you personally responsible for any fuckups. Why are we running this, by the way? Are we even capable? I thought kidnappings were a federal offense. Has the FBI been informed?”
“Yes, they have, actually,” Emily Parker said, glaring at her. “I’m Special Agent Parker. And you are?”
Georgina whirled around, looking like she wanted to give Emily a roundhouse pirouette to the jaw.
“Me?” Hottinger said. “Oh, no one, really. I just happen to be the one who’s in charge of the capital of the world until the mayor comes back on Tuesday. You have any other stupid questions, Agent?”
“Just one,” Emily said, nonplussed. “Did it occur to you when you pulled up with your lights flashing that the person responsible for abducting Jacob could now be watching this building? They demanded that no police be contacted. Now it looks like you’ve blown that. I believe you were saying something about fuckups?”
I got between the two ladies before the fur started flying. And they say men can’t get along. I decided I was starting to like Parker a little.
“I’ll be in contact with your office, Deputy Mayor. As soon as I hear anything, so will you,” I said, guiding her out into the hall. “We’re still waiting for the perpetrator to call back, so if you’ll let us get back to work.”
Parker was blowing out a flushed breath as the apartment’s front door slammed behind Hottinger.
“This political personal-service crap pisses me off to no end, Mike,” Parker said. “First the attorney general, now the mayor’s office is involved? I actually got here on Dunning’s jet, did I tell you that? Do you think for a minute that there’d be this much effort if some poor nobody kid was abducted?”
“Probably not,” I said. “But think about it. If your kid were in danger, wouldn’t you pull every string you had?” In the kitchen, Mrs. Dunning slammed a muffin tin hard enough to shake the glass in the French doors.
“You’re right. I would,” Parker said with a nod. “Can we at least both agree that the deputy mayor is one rabid bitch?”
“Now, on that one,” I said with a laugh, “I’m with you one hundred percent.”
Chapter 9
At 3:55, Donald Dunning sat down at the Chippendale desk in the study. On it were chess sets chiseled in marble, leather-bound books, antique tin soldiers, a seashell inlaid with gold. But his eyes, along with everyone else’s, were locked squarely on the phone.
It rang at the stroke of four. It was a different number from the first call, a 718 area code this time.
Dunning wiped his sweating hands on his slacks before he lifted the receiver.
“This is Donald Dunning. Please tell me what I have to do to get my son back. I’ll do whatever you want,” he said.
“You mean except for calling the police when I told you not to?” the calm voice from the first call said. “Put them on the line. I know they’re there. Try to fool me again, and I’ll FedEx you a piece of Jacob in a biohazard bag.”
Dunning’s face went a shade of white I’d never seen before. His lips moved silently. I nodded to him that it was okay as I took the phone from his shaking hand.
“This is Mi
ke Bennett. I’m a detective with the NYPD,” I said. “How’s Jacob? Is he okay?”
“We’ll discuss Jacob in due time, Mike,” the kidnapper said. “Did you hear that officious blowhard? His son’s life lies naked in my bare hands, and he thinks he can still give orders?”
“I think Mr. Dunning is just upset because he misses his son,” I said as I took out my notepad. “You’re obviously holding all the cards. All we want to know is how we can get Jacob back.”
“Funny you say that,” the kidnapper said. “About holding all the cards. I wish I really were, instead of absolute assholes like Dunning. Then this kind of thing wouldn’t be necessary.”
Former employee? I wrote on the pad. Disgruntled? Personal vendetta?
There was a pause, and then a strange sound started. At first I thought that I heard laughing, but after a second I realized the kidnapper was sobbing uncontrollably.
I don’t know what I had been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t tears.
Unstable, I scribbled on the pad.
“What is it?” I said after a little while. “What’s making you so upset?”
“This world,” the kidnapper said in a choked-up whisper. “How messed up it is. The greed and rampant injustice. There is so much we could do, but we just sit by and let it all go down the drain. Dunning could save twenty lives with what he pays for his shoes. Latvium stock rises on the corpses of the world’s poor.”
“Don’t they also create drugs that save lives?” I said. Rule number one in negotiating is to keep the person talking. “I thought a lot of big drug companies actually give drugs away to Third World countries.”
“That’s just bullshit for the multimillion-dollar marketing campaign,” the kidnapper said wearily. “The donated drugs are crap. Often expired. Sometimes deadly. In reality, the most common way Latvium interacts with Third World citizens is when it uses them as guinea pigs. The cherry on top is the way it launders its profits through offshore banks, using copyright laws and shell companies to avoid paying American taxes. Look it up, Mike. It’s common knowledge. Congress looks the other way. I wonder why. Can you say lobbyists? Can you say institutional corruption?”
The kidnapper sighed.
“Are you that dense? Latvium is a multinational company. The sole purpose of multinational corporations in every industry is the production of fabulous wealth for its upper management. National responsibility and human lives are asides to men like him. Always have been. Always will be.”
He did have something of a point, I thought. He was actually kind of persuasive. His voice sounded cultured, like an academic’s. Intelligent, I wrote on my pad.
“But the wind is blowing in a different direction now,” he continued. “The hand of destiny knocks upon the door. That’s why I’m doing this. To wake people up. To make them rethink the way in which they conduct themselves. Because these wings are no longer wings to fly but merely vans to beat the air. The air which is now thoroughly small and dry. Smaller and dryer than the will. Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.”
God, now he was talking gibberish. I underlined Unstable. Beside it, I wrote, Drugs? Schizophrenic? Psychotic? Hearing voices?
“Now getting back to Jacob,” I said. “Could we speak to him?”
He let out a deep breath. Then he gave me by far the largest shock of our conversation.
“I’ll do better than that. You can have him back, Mike,” he said.
I stood holding the receiver, stunned.
“You’ll have to come for him, though,” the voice continued. “Give me your cell phone number. Get in a car. I’ll call you in ten minutes.”
He hung up after I gave him my number.
“It’s over?” Dunning said happily, with surprise. “He’s going to give him back? I guess he changed his mind, is that it? He must have realized how crazy this was. April! Honey! Jacob’s coming home!”
I watched Dunning run out of the room. He was grasping at any hope now.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as optimistic. The individual who’d taken Jacob seemed highly organized. He wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to just give him back.
What was filling me with even more dread was the way he kept changing the subject when I asked about Jacob.
I could tell by the skeptical look on Parker’s face that she was thinking exactly the same thing.
Chapter 10
An unmarked black Impala was gassed and waiting in the cold rain around the corner on Central Park West. In the front seat, I handed Parker one of the Kevlar vests draped across the dashboard and slipped into the other.
We would be the lead car, with Schultz and Ramirez loosely tailing us. Aviation had been called, and a Bell 206 was en route from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn for high-altitude covert surveillance.
“What was that about the wings?” I said to Parker as we sat there waiting for the kidnapper to call back.
“I think it was a poem. It’s on the tip of my tongue. My college English professor would kill me.”
“Where’d you go to school?” I said.
“UVA.”
“ Virginia. So that explains the down-home accent.”
“Accent?” Emily drawled. “Y’all Yankees are the ones with the accent.”
An FBI agent with a sense of humor, I thought, listening to the drumroll of rain on the roof. What were the odds?
I put my phone on speaker and was adjusting the no-hands microphone when it rang. It was yet a different number, I noticed, a Long Island 516 area code, the third number so far. Maybe our kidnapper owned a cell phone store, I thought as I folded it open.
“Listen to my instructions. Go exactly where I say,” the kidnapper told me. “Take the Central Park traverse to the East Side.”
I took a breath as we pulled out. It started to rain harder. Against the gray sky, the bare trees atop the park’s stone walls looked black in the rain.
A few minutes later, I said, “I’m coming up on Fifth Avenue now.”
“Keep going to Park Avenue and make an uptown left.”
I sped out of the park down two tony East Side blocks and screeched through the red light.
“I’m on Park Avenue,” I said.
“Welcome to the silk-stocking district, Mike,” the kidnapper said. “Holy one-zero-zero-two-one. Did you know you’re now driving through the highest concentration of wealth in the richest country on earth? In the salons above you, more money is paid over to both of our sham political parties than in any other place.”
We drove on. The only sound in the car was the windshield wipers. I didn’t see any salons. All the buildings outside were just gray smudges.
The last high-profile kidnapping Major Case had handled involved a garment factory owner who was kidnapped back in ’93. They’d pulled him, filthy and starving but, thankfully, still alive, out of a hole in the ground along the West Side Highway. I wondered what kind of hole Jacob was in now. Most of all, I hoped the eighteen-year-old was still alive when we pulled him out of it.
“Where are you?” the kidnapper said.
“I’m at One Hundred and Tenth and Park.”
“Spanish Harlem,” he said. “See how quickly it all turns to shit? When Park Avenue ends, head over the Madison Avenue Bridge into the Bronx.”
The tires slipped for a gut-wrenching second as we sped over the wet, rusting bridge. The Harlem River beneath was brownish green and looked almost solid, as if you could walk across it.
“I’m in the Bronx now,” I announced when I reached the other side of the river.
“Take the Grand Concourse north.”
We slid past project after project. We were passing alongside a lot the size of a city block, filled with stacks of old tires, when the kidnapper started in with more commentary.
“Did you know that the Grand Concourse was supposed to be the Park Avenue of the Bronx?” he said. “Look at it now. At the burned-out, marble-trimmed windows. At the granite facades painted over with gr
affiti memorials for slain drug dealers. How did we let this happen, Mike? Have you ever asked yourself that? How did we let the world become what it is?”
Soon the area became wall-to-wall decayed tenements. We were in the Forty-sixth Precinct now, I knew. “The Alamo,” they called it. It was the smallest, but the most drug-infested, precinct in the city.
As I stared out at the inner-city blight, flashes of Jacob’s room came to mind. The cross-country-running trophies he kept in the back of his closet, the Dave Matthews Band ticket stubs on his dresser, the shiny Les Paul guitar that hung on his wall. Despite his age, he was a kid, really. I gritted my teeth. This was no place for any kid.
“I’m coming up to One Hundred and Ninety-sixth,” I said.
“Good work,” the kidnapper said. “You’re almost there, Mike. Go right onto One Hundred Ninety-sixth. You’re really close now. Make a left onto Briggs Avenue.”
I cupped the phone mic.
“What are you packing?” I said over to Parker.
“Glock forty-caliber,” she said.
“Unsnap your holster,” I said.
Chapter 11
A hard-looking black kid in a new North Face jacket twirled a Gucci umbrella on the corner. Behind him down the block at regular intervals, more menacing figures in dark hoodies stood on the thresholds of the rundown brick buildings. Apparently even the rain couldn’t put a damper on Briggs Avenue ’s open-air drug market.
“Whoop, whoop,” came the warning cry as I turned the car onto the avenue, and my unmarked was immediately made. “Five-oh,” one teen spotter hollered down the block helpfully to his coworkers through cupped hands. “Yo, Five-oh!”
I scanned the gloomy block uncertainly. The narrow cutout of the avenue extended for at least another two blocks without a cross street.
Where the hell were Schultz and Ramirez? I thought, glancing into my rearview. I felt like a sheriff who’d made a wrong turn into the wrong mountain pass.
“Stop at two-five-oh Briggs,” the kidnapper said.
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