Tick Tock

by Patterson, James

  “Hank, what’s up?” I said. The neat middle-aged man’s gray eyes looked wrong as he shouldered past me like I wasn’t even there. That wasn’t good.

  I followed him out of the town house and down the steps. He started speed-walking down Sixth so fast I had to jog to catch up with him. He seemed in a place beyond hurt, beyond angry.

  Around the corner, he headed into the first place he came to, a swanky-looking restaurant. He walked around the stick-thin blond receptionist straight to the empty bar. He was loudly knocking an empty beer bottle on the black-quartz bar top when I finally arrived behind him.

  “I want a vodka! Yo, a fucking vodka here! Now!” he yelled.

  “You some kind of asshole?” said a burly bearded guy who came in from the kitchen.

  Hank was trying to launch himself over the bar at the guy when I got in front of him. I flashed my badge and dropped a twenty.

  “Just get him a drink, huh?”

  “This animal,” Schaller whispered, crumpling onto a bar stool. He stared at the empty bottle in his hand as if wondering how it got there. “We need to catch this animal.”

  “What happened, Hank?”

  “I can hardly even say it,” he said, biting his lip. “This poor son of a bitch, the father, has been out of work for the past year, right? This guy preyed on him, said he was going to hire him. Then he shows up today out of the blue and invites both him and his daughter to his own daughter’s birthday party. Cavuto’s thinking, new job, new boss, definitely gotta go, right?”

  The lead-assed cook finally poured three fingers of Grey Goose, which Schaller immediately knocked back.

  “The dad needs a few minutes to get ready,” Schaller said, raising a finger, “so the guy says he’ll take the girl ahead because he’s running late. Cavuto can catch up with them in ten, call to see where they are. He let her go, Mike. He gave him his kid. They walked away hand in hand. Except, when he gets out of his shower and calls the number, nothing happens. He runs to the zoo, there’s no party.” A tear ran down the bridge of the veteran detective’s nose. “Imagine, Mike. No one’s there!”

  “Take it easy, brother,” I said.

  “Four years old, Mike. This girl was a butterfly. How is this guy going to live with himself, Mike? Fucking how?”

  “You need to calm down, Hank,” I tried.

  “Calm down?” the cop said, flicking his tear off his cheek with his middle finger. “I know how this story ends, and so do you. I calm down when this monster is worm food. I catch up with him, this guy isn’t going to see the inside of a police car, let alone a courthouse.”

  I watched Hank storm out of the restaurant.

  I stayed back in the empty bar for a second, absorbing all I’d just heard. Hank was right. Our culprit really did seem like a monster out of some primordial ooze, the personification of antihuman evil. Hank’s knee-jerk reaction about it was spot-on as well. What do you do when you find a nasty bug crawling up your arm? You slap it off and crush it under your foot and keep squashing it until it isn’t there anymore. You do your darnedest to erase it out of existence.

  “That all, Officer?” the cook said sarcastically.

  “No,” I said, pulling up a stool and dialing my phone for my boss. “I need a fucking vodka now, too.”

  Chapter 42

  I FINISHED MY DRINK and made some more calls before I returned to the house. Since I knew that poor Angela had been walked away, I put people on to contact the major taxi companies and the buses and subways in case anyone had seen anything.

  When I arrived back to the town house, I spotted the CSU team and stayed out on the stoop coordinating with them. For some reason, the kidnapper had dropped off a bag with the father that contained strawberries and some kind of weird-looking cream cheese. I was hoping the bizarre package might get us a print. If this creep was bold enough to let the father get a good look at him, I was thinking, he might be getting sloppy and prone to making a mistake.

  I’d just sent the department sketch artist in to Detective Schaller when Emily Parker called me.

  “Hey, Mike. I got the green light. Just got the word from my boss I’m on the task force.”

  “That couldn’t be better news, Emily,” I said. “Because this case has just taken another left turn.”

  “What now?” she said.

  “A four-year-old child from Brooklyn has just been abducted. I’m not sure yet how an abduction fits in with the other two sets of copycat crimes, but my gut says it’s the same flavor of weird that our perp likes.”

  “Maybe it’s another crime of the century. The Lindbergh kidnapping, maybe?” Emily said. “I’ll research it and bring anything I find with me tomorrow on the train. Can you pick me up from Penn Station in the morning?”

  I thought about Mary Catherine then and how I was going to manage things. It was like a fifth-grade word problem. One love interest is waiting for you out at the beach as another one gets on a train from Washington traveling at a hundred miles an hour. How long will it take before you find yourself in the doghouse? I wasn’t sure. I knew I definitely wasn’t smarter than a fifth-grader.

  “Mike, you still there?” Emily said.

  “Right here, Emily,” I said. “Of course, I’ll come get you. What time does your train get in?”

  Chapter 43

  NYC’S EVENING RUSH HOUR was just getting started by the time I bumper-to-bumpered it back under the arches of the Brooklyn Bridge toward my squad room.

  I evil-eyed my vacation-robbing workplace, One Police Plaza, as I crawled across the span. The slab concrete cube of a building had been butt-ugly even before it was surrounded with guard booths and bomb-barrier planters post 9/11. Because traffic from the financial district had been rerouted due to all the security measures, some Chinatown businesspeople had raised a fuss and suggested that headquarters be moved to another area. I had my fingers crossed for Hawaii, but so far I hadn’t heard anything.

  Finally pulling off the bridge ramp onto the Avenue of the Finest, I spotted all the double-parked TV news vans. Since all the newsies and camera guys on the sidewalk beside them looked especially restless, I did myself a favor and decided to keep on going.

  I drove a few blocks south and pulled over in front of a graffiti-scrawled deli on the corner of Madison and James. I got a coffee and one of those little Table Talk Pies and a Post, with its ever-subtle tabloid headline “WHO WILL BE NEXT?” on the front page.

  Which turned out to be ironic because when I came back out onto the sidewalk, sitting on the hood of my car was Gary Aronson, the New York Post police beat reporter, who was probably responsible for the paper’s headline. Like most crime reporters, Gary was ruthless. He claimed color blindness and dyslexia for his habit of ignoring crime scene tape.

  So instead of heading back for my vehicle, I hooked a hard left and stepped into Jerry’s Old School, an inner-city barbershop I sometimes used as a meeting spot with confidential informants.

  And almost tripped over Cathy Calvin, the New York Times police beat reporter BlackBerry-ing by the door under a poster for the rapper Uncle Murda.

  I glared over at the muscular owner, Jerry, giving some Chinese kid a fade.

  “Is nothing sacred, my man?” I asked him as I did an immediate one-eighty back outside.

  Calvin had exchanged her phone for a tape recorder by the time she caught up to me on the sidewalk.

  “We have a bombing spree, a double murder that looks a lot like the Son of Sam, and now a girl is missing. Rumors are that all three are related. What’s going on, Detective?”

  As if I had the time to perform in the media circus.

  “Didn’t I blackball you?” I said as I picked up my pace.

  “That was just for the last case,” Calvin said.

  “Finally,” Aronson said, taking out his own recorder as he got off the hood of my Impala.

  “I got this one, Gary,” Calvin said, waving him away.

  The Post reporter stepped away, making call-me g
estures at Calvin. All the newspaper hacks who covered crime hung out together. They were as thick as thieves and just about as considerate when it came to cops. They actually had some space on the second floor of HQ called the Shack, where they came up with new ways to get cases and cops jammed up.

  “No, she doesn’t, Gary,” I said, opening my car door. “You want info? Talk to the thirteenth floor, Cathy, my lass. I’m sure they’ll be willing to hand over everything you need to know.”

  The thirteenth floor was home to the department’s Public Information Office. Because of the logjam in the white-hot case, its under-pressure chief wanted certain vital body parts of mine for breakfast, last I’d heard.

  “C’mon, Mike. I do news, not propaganda,” Calvin said, rolling her eyes.

  “That’s not what Fox News says,” I shot back before I jumped into the safety of my vehicle.

  Chapter 44

  I WAS STARTING THE CAR to make my escape when the passenger door opened, and Calvin hopped in beside me.

  “What class of medication did you forget to take this morning?” I said.

  “I’m screwed, Mike,” she said, letting out a weary breath. “I’m not kidding. You don’t understand how desperate things are in the paper biz right now. The city editor is waiting for any tiny excuse to clear some payroll. Can’t you give me anything? I’ll take a ‘no comment’ at this point.”

  “In that case, No comment,” I said as I leaned across her and opened her door. “Good sob story, by the way. I almost fell for it. The first three times you used it. You should update it. Toss in a dying roommate or something.”

  “You really are heartless, aren’t you?” Calvin said.

  “Heartless, yes. A sucker, no,” I said. “If it bleeds, it leads, right, Cathy? This one is most definitely bleeding. The last thing I’m worried about is your job security.”

  She gave me a thin smile.

  “Fine, fine. I like you, too, by the way, Mike. Hard enough as it is to believe. What’s that cologne you’re wearing? I like it.”

  I sniffed. It was some Axe body soap one of my kids had left in the sand-covered shower back at Breezy. It actually did smell pretty good. I knew she was just yanking my chain to get an angle on the case. Or was she?

  “Cathy, you seem like a nice enough young woman,” I said. “You’re educated. You dress nice. I thought covering cops was just a stepping-stone to better things. Is it the street cred? You have a thing for dead bodies? You ever ask yourself?”

  “Come to dinner with me and find out, Mike,” Calvin said, checking her makeup in my rearview. “I’ll tell you the long, sad story of my life over a bottle of Irish wine. I’m partial to Jameson myself.”

  Then she gave me a naughty-girl stare for a few seconds. Cathy was a tall, slim blonde with soft green eyes. I couldn’t help staring back.

  “We won’t even talk shop. I promise,” she said, clicking off her tape recorder with a red-nailed thumb. She smiled. “Well, maybe just a teensy, weensy bit.”

  It was the click that did it. It snapped me back to what was left of my senses. What the hell was I doing or thinking? Attractive or not, Cathy was nuts and the enemy. Even if she wasn’t, I had two young ladies on my dance card already. I needed three?

  “Some other time, Calvin,” I said. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m a tad busy these days.”

  “Whatever you say, Detective,” she said, getting out. She stopped for a moment on the sidewalk and turned slowly, giving me a good look at what I’d be missing.

  “My phone is always on.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I mumbled as I pretended to ignore her walking away.

  Chapter 45

  AFTER ANOTHER THREE FRUITLESS HOURS spent fishing through Son of Sam letters at my desk, I was toast. I was about to leave, when I received a call from Miriam telling me that the commissioner was on his way back from a speech in Philly and wanted me to brief him in person. So I stuck around for another two eye-melting hours at my desk, only to have Miriam call back to say that the Big Kahuna had actually changed his mind and I was free to go.

  Tonight out in Breezy was the church-sponsored carnival we’d been looking forward to since our vacation began. For the past couple of weeks, I’d had this grammar-school romantic vision of taking Mary Catherine on all the rides, being next to her as she screamed and laughed, maybe winning her one of those stupid oversize teddy bears.

  Traffic was light for a change, so I managed to get back to Breezy Point in just over an hour. Instead of going to the house, I drove straight over to St. Edmund’s, hoping to catch the last of the summer carnival.

  I was momentarily hopeful when I saw that the rides and tents were still there beside the rectory. But then I realized that all the lights were off. Even the fried-dough cart was shut up tight.

  Talk about missing the party, I thought, as I idled beside the darkened parking lot. Even the carnies were snug in their beds fast asleep.

  I really felt like crap. I couldn’t protect the city. I couldn’t even protect my kids from a pack of jackasses. Now I was AWOL from the height of our long-awaited summer vacation.

  I stared up at the still and towering black shapes of the rides against the dark sky. It was the most depressing moment of my day, and that was truly saying something. I headed back for the house.

  But apparently I’d spoken too soon. My day wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. As I was coming alongside the house, Seamus sat up from the front porch steps and waved for me to pull over. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, his priest’s collar nowhere to be seen. What now?

  “Finally,” he said, snapping his phone shut as he got in. “Don’t bother parking. We have a meeting.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “I didn’t want to tell you with everything going on in the city.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Seamus let out a breath, his blue eyes cold in his deeply lined face.

  “We had another Flaherty incident. It was at the carnival. The fat kid, Sean, pushed Eddie by one of the rides. Eddie fell into Trent, and Trent flipped over the railing beside the ride.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “No, he’s fine. Shaken up, like the rest of us, but fine. I went ballistic and called the local precinct. But a funny thing happened. The two officers who arrived didn’t seem too concerned. So I asked the monsignor of St. Edmund’s about it. You’ll never guess the last name of the precinct’s second in command.”

  “No!” I said. “Another Flaherty?”

  “No wonder they made you first-grade detective,” Seamus said.

  I shook my head, truly steamed. Nothing pissed me off more than a fellow cop abusing his power.

  “They’re a scourge, these people. From way back. I actually knew their father when I worked in the meatpacking district before I went to college. He was a loan shark as vicious as they come. Used to make his rounds come dinnertime, and if a man couldn’t pay, he’d mercilessly beat him in front of his own family.”

  “Father of the year,” I said.

  “That’s why we need to head over there now and squash this thing. This nonsense has to stop. I pulled some strings and arranged a sit-down.”

  “A sit-down?” I yelled. “Who are you, Father Tony Soprano?”

  “You don’t grow up in Hell’s Kitchen without knowing a few people, lad. I called in a few favors. What of it? We’re due over there now. It’s time to settle this thing man to man, West Side–style.”

  “Over where?” I cried.

  “The Flaherty house, Mike. Pay attention. And keep your gun handy.”

  Chapter 46

  HOW THE HELL DID I get myself into these things?

  As I drove toward the Rockaway Inlet for the second time, I couldn’t believe I was actually agreeing to participate in some kind of crazy Irish mobster meeting. Had I fallen asleep at work and was I dreaming this? Of course not. You hang with an old-school Irish lunatic grandfather like mine long enough, the surreal
becomes your normal.

  We heard the fireworks before we turned the corner for the Flahertys’ street. There were whistling bottle rockets and deafening strings of firecrackers. A giant flower burst of yellow lit up the sky behind the Flaherty compound’s dilapidated split-level as we pulled up in front of it.

  “I thought the Fourth of July was over,” I said as we got out. “Are you sure the Vatican would approve of this?”

  “You just follow my lead and keep quiet,” Seamus said. “These gangster people only listen to man talk.”

  I shook my head as I spotted my old pal, Mr. Pit Bull, trying to chew a hole in the chain-link fence as we came up the steps. This time I couldn’t actually hear the dog going batshit with all the noise of the ordnance from the backyard.

  When no one came to the door, we decided to go around the side of the house to the back. The sulfurous smell of gunpowder hung in the air, which I thought was fitting, since we were now walking through the valley of the shadow of death, straight into the gates of Hell.

  The rear of the place was almost completely overtaken by a large deck and one of those cheap aboveground pools. On the deck, the muscle-headed punk patriarch of the Flaherty clan, “Tommy Boy,” as he was known from his rap sheet, sat with his tattooed brother Billy, book-ending a keg. I realized why no one had called the cops, when I saw the third Flaherty for the first time. I didn’t know what his name was, but I noticed that he was still wearing his white NYPD captain’s shirt as he tossed a lit bottle rocket toward the house next door.

  Tommy Boy looked over with bleary eyes as Seamus cleared his throat by the deck steps.

  “What the—?” he said. His pale face split into a grim grin. “Hey, guys. Check this out. How’s this for a joke: A cop and a priest walk uninvited into a private party.”

  “We’re here to have that sit-down, Flaherty,” Seamus said. “We’ve come to work this thing out, and we won’t leave until we do.”