Burn Read online

  “What happened?” I said to the Jamaican guy.

  “These two was comin’ out the store,” the man said, “and it was ‘blam blam blam.’ Some fools shootin’ a long rifle gun from the window of a green car right there on the corner right in the middle of the damn day.”

  “What kind of car was it?” I said.

  “Like a Honda maybe, or a Nissan. With the loud muffler on it. You know? It was like a teal green.”

  I was about to call it in on the radio when I saw that Doyle had beaten me to the punch. He was also moving back the growing crowd of people. The kid took control well, I noticed. He had an easy, convincing authority for such a young cop. I was immediately impressed.

  I knelt and clapped my hands by the face of the young man, who was now bleeding out, as his eyes started to flutter. The kneeling Jamaican looked at the kid and shook his head before he pointed his sad and stunned face at me.

  “This young, young man,” the Jamaican said, staring at me furiously. “Over what? What?”

  A Twenty-Eighth Precinct squad car shrieked up a moment later, an ambulance right behind it.

  “What is it? What’s up?” said the thin sergeant who leaped out of the car. He had one of his black-gloved hands on his gun and Ray-Ban sunglasses propped on top of his shaved head.

  “Drive-by,” I said, handing him the Taurus, watching the EMTs hurry the teen wearing the Dodgers hoodie into the back of the ambulance. “Two down. One gone, the other likely. Crips gangbangers, looks like.”

  “What are you guys? Gang squad?” the sergeant, whose name was Gomez, said, staring at us as he called it in.

  “No, we’re the, um, ombudsman squad over on a Hundred and Twenty-Fifth,” I said.

  “The what?” Gomez said, utterly confused. “Wait, you mean the mayor’s thing? Are you frickin’ kidding me? You heard the call and just came running, huh? Or did you zip-line out of the building like Batman and Robin?”

  “Yeah, we ran,” Doyle said, immediately squaring up on the skinny wise guy. “What did you do, Gomez? Crawl?”

  The screaming ambulance pulled away.

  “Good job, do-gooder squad, but wait,” the sergeant said as he pretended to answer his cell phone. “That was Commissioner Gordon,” he went on, lowering his phone. “He said your new orders are to go back and deactivate the bat signal.”

  “C’mon, Doyle,” I said, getting between him and Gomez. “Let’s leave the paperwork on this one to the Joker.” I turned to leave.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE BUILDING AT 793 West End Avenue looks a lot like the rest of the prewar buildings on the Upper West Side. Its brick-and-limestone-trimmed facade is worn and probably due for a power wash, but there’s no denying that its lines are still grand, its hunter-green awning and polished brass poles still classy and stately.

  The words sight for sore eyes could have been added to its description as I scored a rare parking spot across from my apartment house that afternoon after work.

  I sat for a moment and just stared up at the dusty windows of my apartment on the eighth floor. There were so many memories there. My mind spun at all the christenings and birthday parties and anniversaries. All the happy faces lit by candlelight around the table.

  How my deceased wife, Maeve, had put the calculus of all those dates together in her head and never missed a one, I will never know. She never forgot an occasion to celebrate all of us, the people she loved so dearly, with a card and a cupcake, with a book, with a prayer.

  “We’ll be starting on all the graduations soon enough, won’t we?” I said to Maeve as I sat there in the car. Weddings someday, too, I thought, and then new christenings and new birthday parties and on and on and on. I smiled as I got out onto the sidewalk. It was good to be home.

  I crossed the tree-lined street and went under the awning into the lobby.

  I was expecting to say hi to Ralph, the evening doorman, but there was a new guy standing by the mailroom in the wood-paneled lobby. A short, stocky thirtyish guy with black hair who I’d never seen before. He reminded me a little of the old-school tough-guy actor Charles Bronson. He must have been hired while we were away, I thought. The New York minute strikes again.

  “Yes, may I help you?” he said with a thick foreign accent. Albanian? I thought. Polish?

  “I’m Mike Bennett. I live in eight A. I’ve been away for a while.”

  The guy checked the board.

  “Oh, yes. Bennett. Hello, Mr. Bennett. I am Joseph. I am new.”

  “Nice to meet you, Joseph,” I said as the door opened behind me and I heard peals of laughter.

  “It’s Dad!” somebody screamed.

  I turned around to see Fiona and Bridget and Jane and Ricky and Eddie and Trent running like a bunch of manic dwarves at me across the lobby. They were still in their Holy Name uniforms, dragging backpacks and lunch bags.

  “Group hug!” the girls screamed as they crashed into me.

  “Oh, yes, and group kissy-wissys, too!” Ricky said, making kissing sounds as he piled onto the scrum.

  I smiled as I shrugged at Joseph. My guys seemed even loopier than normal, which was saying something. They must have had a long day, too, by the looks of it.

  Joseph seemed a little overwhelmed as I introduced my large, boisterous family.

  “So many children,” he said, smiling. “Incredible.”

  “Don’t worry, Joseph,” I said, winking at him as the kids dragged me toward the elevator. “All the others should be along any minute now.”

  CHAPTER 16

  THERE WAS AN AMAZING surprise waiting upstairs.

  My first clue that things were looking up was the heavenly aroma of roasted meat that washed over me as I opened my front door.

  Could it be? I thought as I stopped in my tracks and closed my eyes and inhaled. I smiled widely as I nodded. Why, yes, it could!

  It was a pot roast, the comfort food to end all comfort food, at least for me. Not just any old pot roast, either. I could tell it was pot roast à la Mary Catherine, made with roasted garlic and red wine. As I locked up my Glock, the scent was suddenly accompanied by some serious sizzling from the direction of the kitchen. My mouth instantly watered. There was some sort of deglazing action going on in there, some sort of luscious homemade gravy being made.

  After the day I’d had, God, or at least his angel here on earth, Mary Catherine, was finally taking pity on me.

  After I washed up, I walked into the dining room to spot most of my kids seated around our massive dining room table. As I high-fived and tickled everyone hello, I noticed that the nice linen tablecloth had been set out along with the Bennett family heirloom mismatched china and silver.

  “What’s up with the Sunday dinner on Monday?” I whispered to Shawna as I sat. “Don’t tell me I missed another birthday.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Seamus said across from me as he tucked a napkin into his Roman collar.

  A moment later, Mary Catherine, Jane, and Juliana, who’d all apparently been working their fingers to the bone, came in, carrying the beautifully prepared feast. In addition to the roast, there was a mountain of mashed potatoes to rival Everest, I noted with amazement.

  “I have just died and gone to Irish heaven,” I said to Mary Catherine as Jane set the gravy boat down in front of me like a sacrifice. “What’s the fancy occasion? Please tell me we had a visit from the Publishers Clearing House people.”

  “No occasion, really,” Mary Catherine said with a little smile as she sat. “Call it the First Supper.”

  “The First Supper?”

  “It’s the first chance we’ve had since we got back home to have a real supper together,” Mary Catherine said. “I thought we should celebrate.”

  “I like the way you think,” I said as I forked pot roast onto my plate.

  “Eh-hem,” Seamus said loudly as he put his hands together and closed his eyes.

  I reluctantly put my fork down and followed suit along with everyone else. After a se
cond, I peeked, scanning all the cute, solemn faces around me, and smiled.

  It’s good to be home, I thought for the second time that evening.

  “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ Our Lord. Amen,” Seamus said.

  “Especially the gravy,” I said.

  “Amen,” everyone agreed.

  CHAPTER 17

  AFTER OUR HOME-RUN DINNER, Mary Catherine and I left Seamus and the big kids to do the dishes while we went out for a walk.

  First stop was all the way down at Seventy-Ninth and Amsterdam, at this ice-cream place I was addicted to called Emack & Bolio’s. We got the ice cream to go and took the slow roll back to the apartment through Riverside Park.

  It was a beautiful night, a little cool but clear, with a three-quarter moon shining up the silky surface of the Hudson off to our left. On the right were Riverside Drive’s famous whimsical, grand, rambling apartment buildings straight out of a New York fairy tale.

  You couldn’t have asked for a more romantic moonlit stroll, which was precisely why I’d brought us this way. Mary Catherine and I had our ups and downs in the relationship department, but like I said, lately we’d become closer than ever.

  As we walked, I glanced at Mary Catherine’s elegant profile beside me, the elfish upturn of her tiny nose, the pale of her throat. It was almost embarrassing how much I was feeling for her. Like a damn teenager.

  She busted me staring at her a second later.

  “Can I help you, Mike?” she said, smiling.

  “I was just wondering how your exposé was going,” I said between bites of my peanut butter Oreo.

  “My what?” Mary Catherine said.

  “Don’t be coy with me, Mary Catherine,” I said. “I know you’re working on your nanny diary. I mean, that’s why you’ve stayed on all this time, isn’t it? To reveal all the juicy Sex and the City truth that is working for the family of a Manhattan single-dad cop with double-digit adopted kids?”

  She gave me a playful shove as she rolled her eyes.

  “Fine. You got me, Mike. It’s true,” she said with a mischievous smile as she spooned up her raspberry chip frozen yogurt. “In fact, just today I wrote a really juicy entry. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Yes, very much so,” I said.

  “Hope you’re ready,” she said. “It goes, ‘Dear Diary, I must tell you this. Today I went down into the steamy basement of my handsome employer’s luxury prewar coop.’ How’s that for a start? Juicy enough for you?”

  “Oh, yes. Very mysterious and provocative,” I said. “Especially the handsome employer part. Please, by all means, keep going.”

  “‘Upending the spilling sack in my aching hands, I stood there breathless, having never in my life experienced such a heaving sea as the one bared before my eyes. There they were in front of me. Fifty shades of gray…socks.’”

  It was my turn to give her a playful shove as I started laughing.

  “You naughty girl,” I said.

  “‘As if in a fevered dream,’” Mary Catherine continued, “‘I finally tore my eyes away from the socks, lifted the bulging orange bottle of Tide, and slowly poured the thick liquid into the detergent dispenser. That is all for now. I will write more later.’”

  “What!” I yelled. “Come on, don’t stop now. Dripping detergent? You can’t leave me hanging like that!”

  Mary Catherine shook her head as she pointed her plastic spoon at me.

  “Sorry, Mike, but like the rest of my adoring fans, you’ll have to wait for my book tour, when I’ll reveal the rest of the raw, steamy, stiletto-heeled New York City truth.”

  CHAPTER 18

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WASN’T planned by any means.

  Blame it on the fairy tale, I thought.

  My hands found Mary Catherine’s waist and I was kissing her.

  “I don’t deserve you. You know that, right?” I whispered as we came up for air. “You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. Hell, to anyone.”

  “You mean that, don’t you?” Mary Catherine said, staring point-blank into my eyes.

  She suddenly broke away from me and jogged a little bit ahead.

  “Come on, now. Hop to it. Let’s work off some of that ice cream, Detective!” she called back to me. “We need to get moving. We definitely don’t need to get a desk appearance ticket for another flagrant PDA like that one!”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a cop, Mary Catherine,” I said, chasing after her. “You’d be amazed at what a flash of my badge can do.”

  We passed something I’d forgotten all about as we were coming up on Ninety-Third Street. Up a set of park stairs on the street was the Bennett family van.

  I started leading Mary Catherine up the stairs.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “You’re worried about public displays of affection, right? Well, I have a solution,” I said as I unlocked the van’s front door. “Let’s remove the public aspect.”

  “In the van!” she said. “You’re crazy. The van isn’t what I would call private. People will see us!”

  “No, they won’t. The back windows are tinted, sort of,” I said as I yanked her hand. “Anyway, we’ll lie down low.”

  I kissed her.

  She laughed.

  “We are not doing this,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, you’re the one who had to start everything up with all that naughty detergent talk.”

  A screaming siren went by as we continued to kiss, followed by what sounded like the rattle of a homeless guy’s shopping cart filled with returns.

  “Wow, talk about setting the mood,” she said, taking a step back from me and leaning against the side of the van.

  “What can I say? I’m an incurable romantic,” I said. “This sucks. I don’t like being such a cad, but with my ten kids and your new nanny roommate from ten A, there in your room on the top floor, it’s hard to find a place to be alone. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible.”

  “Well, you’ll have to try just a little harder, Casanova,” she said, smiling.

  I snapped a finger.

  “I know,” I said, taking her hands. “We’ll plan a weekend, or at least a Friday night. We’ll go away—or no, we’ll stay in town. That’s it. We’ll paint the town red at a French bistro and then get a place somewhere special. Have you ever been to the Plaza?”

  “The Plaza,” Mary Catherine said. “Oh, sure. My sister, Eloise, and I grew up there.”

  “C’mon, I haven’t been there, either. It’ll be a panic, I promise. What do you say?”

  “I say you’re out of your mind,” she said, smiling.

  I kissed her.

  “That goes without saying,” I said. “The question is, are you game, Lady of Erin?”

  She kissed me back.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it, Man of Blarney,” she said.

  CHAPTER 19

  “REMEMBER, NOW,” I SAID, kissing Mary Catherine one last time in the elevator as I stepped out onto my floor. “The town. The color red. The finest French restaurant in the city, then the Plaza. We’re going to do this.”

  Mary Catherine laughed as the elevator door closed.

  A strange sound greeted me as I tiptoed through the darkened apartment and opened the door of my bedroom. Someone was crying. What the heck? What could be wrong now?

  It was actually two someones. I threw on the light to find Chrissy and Shawna camped out on my bedroom chair in their pajamas, cheeks tear-soaked, whimpering.

  “What is it, girls?” I said, rushing over to them. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  “No, Daddy. It’s not that,” Shawna said, sobbing. “It’s just so sad.”

  “What’s so sad? Why are you crying?”

  “We miss them, Daddy. We miss them so much,” Chrissy said.

  “Who?”

  “Flopsy, Mopsy, and Desiree,” said Shawna.

  “And Homer,” Chrissy said. �
�Poor, poor Homer. He must be so lonely.”

  I shook my head. Of course. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. My nutty kids were missing Mr. Cody’s farm animals from our California safe house.

  “It’s OK, girls,” I said, sitting down between them. “I’m sure the animals are fine. Maybe tomorrow we can e-mail Mr. Cody and have him send us a picture.”

  “Or a FaceTime?” Shawna said, wiping at her brightening eyes.

  “Hooray, yes! Can we FaceTime with Homer, Daddy? Can we? Can we?” Chrissy said.

  FaceTime with a chicken? I thought, rubbing my temples. Will this day never end?

  “We’ll see. Now, please, back to bed. You have school in the morning.”

  “No, Daddy. We can’t sleep in our beds,” Chrissy said. “The big girls sent us away when we started crying.”

  “And the door is so creaky,” Shawna said. “They’ll just be mad again if we wake them up.”

  “Where are you going to sleep, then?”

  They sat there blinking up at me with their sugar-frosted-cupcake eyes.

  “No,” I said, knowing that look. “Don’t worry about the creaky door. Go back to your room and your own beds.”

  But it was no use. They kept staring, kept twinkling.

  I let out a breath.

  “Fine,” I growled. “Just this once because you’re so sad, I guess. Go get your pillows.”

  “We already brought them,” Shawna said, pulling them out from the other side of the bed.

  “Of course you did. How convenient. Anyway, now, here’s the rules. No nugglance or poking or combing Daddy’s hair, and most of all, no giggling and tickling. If you wish to sleep here, we will sleep. Do I make myself clear?”

  They stared at me, biting their little lips to stifle the giggles that had already started. How did I get myself into these things?

  I washed up and got into my pj’s and lay down. Then I sneezed as something furry scrubbed up against my left nostril.

  “What the—!” I said as I shot up to a barrage of hysterical giggling.