Tick Tock mb-4 Read online

  "I'm an American citizen, bitch, unlike yourself. Now, shut your mouth and move," Carl said.

  It had taken Carl six months of living in the building to realize the super had turned one of the basement rooms into an apartment for Eastern European illegal aliens. It was the smell. He had caught a whiff of it when he came down to put away luggage in Lawrence's storage bin. He had smelled the same rank stench of bad sausages when he was in Delta Force and had body-guarded state officials in the Bosnian War.

  He knew the building's super was a Serb the moment he first met him. Probably fleeing some war crime, from the way the beady-eyed guy operated. You wanted work done? Garbage taken away? He always got paid first.

  In fact, Carl wouldn't be surprised if the girl in front of him was a whore, paying off her smuggling fee on her back. All this in the basement of a Fifth Avenue luxury high-rise, Carl thought with a grin. Economies within economies. Capitalism at its finest. USA, land of the free, where the streets were paved with gold.

  All that aside, here was his hole. He had arrived. He would be safe for the next twelve hours at least. The police wouldn't search here. Since his job and his green card depended on it, the crafty mobster Serb super would never allow it.

  Carl waved the girl inside with the gun, grabbed the back of her dirty housecoat, and shoved her forward toward the sound of a TV.

  Inside the small room, he pushed the girl into a pale, bald old man with a regal-looking gray mustache who was cutting a swarthy teenager's hair with an electric buzzer.

  "Drago mi je," Carl said with a smile. It meant, nice to meet you, or something like that, in one of those utterly confusing Yugo languages. It was the only scrap of nonsense he could remember from his boots on the ground in Eastern Europe.

  The gray walrus's mouth dropped open. Why not? Shock was probably the appropriate reaction to seeing an elevator grease-covered naked man pointing a gun at you. Carl noticed that a rerun of Full House was on the corner TV. A pre-anorexic toddler Olsen twin was saying something cute and sassy.

  Carl waited for the canned laughter to start before he shot the girl in the back of her head and threw her across the lap of the seated teen. It turned out the old man had some fight. He managed to throw the buzzing razor at Carl's face. It missed by only an inch, making a sound like frying grease as it sailed by. Carl smiled again as he shot the feisty old codger right in his proud gray mustache.

  Carl watched the man go down in a heap. When he turned, he saw that the teenager was still seated, making a two-handed begging gesture as the dead girl spasmed and bled out in his lap. There was something artistic and powerful about the whole thing, a sense of the tragic here in this single-hanging-bulb-lit shithole basement room, a low-rent La Pieta under way.

  "Drago mi je," Carl said again and put a bullet in each of the kid's closed eyes.

  Chapter 74

  It was almost an hour later when Emily and I arrived at the Nineteenth Precinct house to interview Berger.

  Berger's building and block were still a chaos of running SWAT guys and bomb techs when we left. Worst of all, there was still absolutely no sign of Carl Apt. It was like he had disappeared into thin air.

  Emily and I had a quick pre-game powwow in the tight cinder-block hallway outside one of the precinct's first-floor interview rooms. Through the one-way mirror, we stared at Lawrence Berger where he reclined, looking quite relaxed on a massive wheeled stretcher. He still had his shirt off, but someone had managed to fit a pair of Tyvek pants on him.

  As I watched him, I was barely keeping my anger under control. Berger seemed to actually enjoy wallowing in the crimes committed and the repulsiveness he radiated. Though he was obviously mentally disturbed, I was having trouble giving a shit. I was sick of craziness, sick of this case, especially sick that it was still open.

  We finally decided that I would go in first to warm him up.

  "Remember, Mike," Emily said as I left. "This guy's a predator. He's all about manipulation, domination, control, and displaced rage. Don't let him get under your skin."

  "Well, if he does," I said as I left, "just give me a minute or two before you try to pull me off him."

  "Hi, Lawrence," I said, smiling, despite my fury as I stepped inside. "Can I call you Lawrence?"

  "Absolutely, Detective," Berger said, looking around the old precinct's dingy space. "I used to be an auxiliary cop here, can you believe it? After my shift, I would go to cop bars to watch Yankees games and check out the badge bunnies with the guys. They called me super-buff behind my back, but I didn't mind. I was like a mascot, one who was always good for a round."

  "That's really interesting, Lawrence," I said. "But actually I wanted to ask you some more about Carl. We looked for him upstairs in your apartment, like you said, but he wasn't around. Where would Carl go, do you think? To your weekend property in Connecticut?"

  "Maybe," Berger said, squinting. "But I doubt it. To tell you the truth, I think you'll have a hard time finding him. He grew up in terrible poverty in Appalachia, and when I met Carl, he was living on the street near Union Square Park. He called it "urban camping." Carl's ex-military, he likes things hard. He claimed he was in Delta Force before getting kicked out. I think he actually enjoys pain. He's a pretty singular individual."

  "In what way?" I said.

  "Well, for one thing, he wasn't formally educated, but he has a truly keen intelligence. After I got him off the street, I introduced him to things. Art. Literature. I even sent him to City College. He absorbed everything instantly. He was like a sponge."

  "Wow," I said.

  " 'Wow' is right," Berger said. "We used to stay up late, sometimes all night, just talking about everything under the sun. What we loved. What we hated. When I opened up about some of my darker tastes, like my obsessions with the bloodiest crimes of the century, Carl was always cool with it, always nonjudgmental."

  "You guys were good buddies," I said, wishing I had some aspirin.

  "Yes. We were friends," Berger said. "Is it that hard to believe that even someone as disgusting as me could have a friend? Carl proved it when I found out I was going to die. Did I tell you? I have a congenital heart condition. Coupled with a little excessive snacking. You can laugh, Mike. That's a joke."

  I smiled, thinking, You're a joke.

  "Anyway, a few days after I heard the bad news about my heart, Carl said he had a surprise for me. The best gift anyone ever gave anyone. He laid out his plan to take out my enemies and to entertain me at the same time. I was intrigued. I didn't know if he was just kidding. You get to be my size, stuck in bed all day, you get bored. But then I saw an article in the paper about the bomb in the library, and I knew he was actually doing it! Carl did everything he said he'd do and then some."

  I glanced at the mirror, where Emily was watching. What Berger said made some sense. It certainly explained why we had had trouble putting things together. It had never been just one motive from one perpetrator, but an odd mix of several odd motives.

  "You didn't think to come forward?"

  Berger shrugged. He looked away and began examining his fingernails.

  "Must have slipped my mind," he mumbled.

  "And you readily admit everything?" I said, staring down at Berger. "You freely admit your involvement?"

  "Proudly so," Berger said. "Write it up, Mike, and get me a pen. I'll be more than happy to sign on the dotted line."

  It was odd as I turned on my heel to leave, but I suddenly wasn't angry anymore. I refused to let Berger's evil and his twisted ridiculous pathetic feelings affect me. I was suddenly able to see him for what he was, a pile of human wreckage. I was just a garbage man trying to get through the rest of my shift.

  "Be back in five, Lawrence," I said, my smile not forced now.

  I actually felt happy. Happy that I would soon be out of here and back with my family. This mistake of a man forgotten by the time I finished my shower.

  "Thanks for being so forthcoming. I'll be right back with that statemen
t and that pen."

  Chapter 75

  In the dusty back room of the precinct house, Lawrence Berger lay sideways on a steel-reinforced hospital cot that had been loaned to the NYPD by the Brookhaven Obesity Clinic in Queens.

  The chamber's fluorescent glare glistened off the layer of sweat on his pale face. He gazed with unfocused eyes at the wall beside him in a kind of rapture.

  At first, when he'd been rolled into the pen, the strangeness of his new surroundings, the unclean taste of the stuffy air, and the stench of burnt coffee and old sweat and urine had been so overwhelming that he'd thrown up all over himself. The officers who were in charge of the holding pen let him lie in his vomit for over an hour before getting him some napkins and a new sheet.

  Berger endured the humiliation by remembering the fate of the great throughout history who suffered at the hands of their inferiors. From his near-photographic memory, he conjured up Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Socrates.

  He thought about Detective Michael Bennett. He'd actually been following Bennett's career ever since the St. Patrick's Cathedral hostage situation. For some time, he'd felt a kind of psychic link with the man, an almost metaphysical twinning. Confessing to him of all people had been like a dream come true, the icing on a long- and painstakingly planned birthday cake.

  But now the party was coming to a close, wasn't it? he thought with a sigh.

  And yet, through all his suffering and ponderings, he kept coming back to one thing. The only thing. What it always came down to in the end.

  His family. His granddad and dad and brother. His beloved flesh and blood.

  His grandfather, Jason Berger, had been a great man. World War I hero, brilliant civil engineer, businessman, and politician, he'd been essential not only in the development of the United States interstate highway system but also in the designing of many of New York City's bridges and parkways.

  His father, Samuel J. Berger, had continued the familial tradition of greatness by being one of the first visionary businessmen of the computer age. The company he started, Berger Applications, had been one of the first venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and had, as billionaires so modestly put it, "done quite well."

  Then came David. David was Berger's older brother, and if anything, he was the most talented Berger of them all. By the age of nine, his talent for musical composition had gained him an unheard-of admission to Julliard. By the time he was forty-five, his legendary career as a Hollywood composer paled perhaps only to the iconic John Williams's.

  David easily would have earned more than the one Oscar he had but for his vocal disdain for the movie industry. All he wanted to do, and all he did, was make beautiful music. Sometimes in his La Jolla mountainside home. Sometimes in his villa in Burgundy. Lawrence had never been invited to either one, but he had seen pictures in an Architectural Digest article, and they were very nice.

  David truly was a simple and gracious man. As simple and gracious as their father and his father before him. They were all examples of human potential fulfilled. They were Bergers, after all. All except for him, of course. Lawrence. Poor, sad, slow, embarrassing Lawrence.

  Berger smiled up at the ceiling of his jail cell.

  It had taken a century for all of the Berger family's amazing societal and global accomplishments.

  If all went as planned, and it seemed like it would, he would successfully undo every last Berger triumph in a week.

  Sorry, Grandpap. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Bro, Berger thought with a shrug of his shoulders. Look on the bright side. The Berger name will be remembered. Just not the way you wanted.

  Lawrence's last gift would eventually be delivered to his saintly, talented brother. It was the film footage of all of Lawrence's meticulously plotted crimes. It wasn't complete yet; there were a few choice scenes that needed to be added, but he was confident in its success. He couldn't have left his final wishes in more competent hands.

  The film was for David to ponder over, to wonder about, and, hopefully, to eventually score.

  Lawrence knew he was no Spielberg, no Scorsese or Coppola, but perhaps when all was said and done, his brother might one day come to understand that he, Lawrence, had a little talent, too.

  Was that too much to ask?

  Chapter 76

  Berger snapped out of his reverie when his longtime lawyer, Allen Duques, opened the door to the holding cage.

  Duques, a partner in a global 100 Lexington Avenue corporate firm, handled all of his dealings. The stocky, aristocratic-looking, middle-aged lawyer looked positively lost when he spotted Berger behind the mesh. The attorney screeched a folding chair over in front of the cage's wire and hesitated before sitting, as if reluctant to muss his immaculate blue serge suit.

  "Tell me it isn't true what the authorities are saying, Lawrence," the preppy gray-haired attorney said, thumbing off his BlackBerry. "These killings and the Grand Central bombing-you've admitted your involvement? I don't understand."

  Berger's basset-hound jowls jiggled as he shook his head.

  "I'll try to explain in a moment, Allen, but first, did you bring it? The caviar?" Berger asked hopefully.

  He'd been devouring tin after tin of Iranian Special Reserve in bed right before he'd been arrested. The thought of lighting into one last can of black gold had been girding his spirits.

  "Of course, Lawrence, but unfortunately they searched my attache when I came in. It was confiscated, I'm sorry to say. I'd say it had to do with that policeman who lost his life in the Grand Central bombing. You'll find no friends here, I'm afraid."

  Berger immediately began to cry. In his mind, he pictured Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross, Jesus on the cross as seen from above in a darkened sky, hovering over a body of water.

  "Lawrence, are you okay?" Duques said. "I think we should seriously consider an insanity defense. I'm quite… worried about you."

  "Can we talk about it tomorrow at the arraignment, Allen?" Berger said when he finally managed to pull himself together. "I'd really like to be alone now, please."

  Berger rolled back toward the wall after his lawyer promptly left. As he grimly perused the primitively sketched genitalia and plethora of four-letter words scratched into the plaster, he heard a sudden clapping. From somewhere beyond the closed metal door, a television was playing a sporting event. He could hear a crowd cheering, an announcer's excited voice, more clapping and euphoria.

  A sudden cold pierced the center of his chest like a bayonet. He thought about his life. What he had done to himself. What he had done to others.

  He put his right thumb and index finger into his mouth like he was going to whistle. Instead, he thumbed off the cap of one of his molars, the third in on the top left, and carefully slipped out something from the hollow of it.

  Up to the light, he held what looked like a small red jelly bean. It was a special gel sac with liquid inside it. It was actually a poison pill, an extremely lethal cocktail of cyanide and codeine.

  It was time for his contingency plan. The one that even Carl didn't know about.

  It was over for him, Berger thought, looking at the pill. In the sanctity of his citadel, he'd imagined that he could stare society coldly in the eye and laugh. Faced with actually doing it, he knew there was no way.

  He thought about how disappointed Carl would be in him. Because the plan they'd agreed on wasn't actually over. All that had happened so far was supposed to be only phase one.

  Once Berger was dead, his will would immediately be contested by his sister in Minnesota. All of his assets, including the murder slush fund he'd given Carl access to, would immediately be frozen. Carl, perhaps the only real friend he'd ever had, would be hung out to dry.

  It couldn't be helped, Berger thought, quickly putting the pill into his mouth.

  Berger surprised himself. Instead of his usual waffling, he bit down and swallowed readily. He thought he might throw up again at the sudden bitterness, but he breathed slowly and carefully until he felt better and the
room began to dim.

  Chapter 77

  Everyone was asleep when I came home after midnight, and they were still snoozing when I came out of my bedroom dressed for work at the ungodly hour of five a.m.

  Well, almost everyone, I thought, spotting a light coming from the living room. I went in and saw the lamp on by the empty reading chair in the corner. I was about to click it off when I heard some giggling from behind the chair.

  I leaned over. It was Bridget. In her Phineas and Ferb pajamas she was sitting Indian-style on her pillow with the latest 39 Clues book open in her lap.

  "Hey," I whispered.

  "Hey, Dad," she said without looking up.

  "Um, what are you doing out of bed so early?"

  "Reading," my daughter said, a tacit "duh" hanging in the air.

  "Don't you want to sit in the chair?"

  "I can't," Bridget said, turning the page. "I have to read in secret because of Fiona. MC is sponsoring a contest to see who can read the most books by the end of the summer, and I think I'm one ahead of Fi-Fi. If she sees me reading, she'll try to catch up. I want to lull her into a sense of complacency."

  I blinked and nodded. Of course. Even reading was competitive in a family of ten. Well, at least in a family of ten as crazy as mine.

  "What do you get if you win?" I asked.

  "Dinner and a movie with Mary Catherine. Just the two of us."

  Sounded good, I thought. I made a mental note to swing by the library on the way home.

  "Well, carry on with your lulling," I said as I smooched the top of her head and headed for the front door. "Good luck. I think."

  It was still dark when I climbed into the car and drove away from the house. Somewhere around the Brooklyn-Queens border, I pulled off the expressway and got some takeout from a diner. Back outside, surrounded by rumbling semis in the darkened parking lot, I checked in to the squad from my car.