Step on a Crack Page 9

  As if I didn’t have enough on my mind.

  Chapter 43

  “SEAMUS, I’M BUSY. What is it?” I greeted my grandfather. Not the warmest of salutations, maybe, but I wasn’t filled with Christmas cheer right at that moment. Besides, conversation to my grandfather, even at seventy-four years old, is a form of combat. If you don’t put yourself on the offensive immediately, he will eat you alive.

  “Well, a fine good evening to you as well, young Micheál,” Seamus said. I knew I was in for it when my Hibernian forebear reverted to the Gaelic form of my name. My grandfather didn’t just kiss the Blarney Stone, family legend had it. He bit off a chunk and swallowed it. Daily.

  “And an especially fine way of conversing with the man currently taking care of your flock of goslings,” he finished.

  Flock of goslings, I thought, rolling my eyes. My grand-father could make Malachy or Frank McCourt eat his tweed cap. He was the biggest, most blustery stage Irishman alive. He’d come to this country in the forties at the age of twelve. Sixty-some years had passed since he’d set foot on the “old sod,” as he called it, but if you didn’t know him better, at any given moment you’d think he’d just put up the donkey after cutting turf from the bog.

  He was constantly coming in to check on his great-grandkids, though. Underneath the mile-thick crust of blarney, thank God, actually lay a heart of pure gold.

  “Where’s Mary Catherine?” I said.

  “Is that her name, now? We weren’t formally introduced. Why didn’t you tell me you were adopting another child?”

  I knew it. The lethal innuendo just beneath the surface. If you looked closely, you could see that Seamus’s tongue was really the blade of a slicing machine.

  “That’s a good one, old man,” I said. “You must have been saving that one up all afternoon. Mary Catherine happens to be the au pair.”

  “Au pair. Is that whatcher callin’m these days?” my grandfather said. “Be careful, young Micheál. Eileen, your grandmother, caught me talking to an au pair once on a street corner one Sunday in Dublin. She broke three of me ribs with a hurling stick.”

  “ Dublin?” I said. “That’s funny. I thought Grandma Eileen was from Queens.”

  As he began to stammer out an explanation, I explained to him the letter from Maeve’s mother and Mary Catherine’s mysterious arrival the night before.

  “You’re the authority on all things Irish,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t like it,” he said. “This young girl could be after something. Keep track of the silverware.”

  “Gee, thanks for the heads-up, you suspicious old coot,” I finally said. “And speaking of the goslings, I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to get out of here, but you tell them to get their homework out of the way and to start their jobs. Their duties. They’ll know what you’re talking about.”

  “Does it have to do with that chart on the icebox in the kitchen?” my grandfather asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “It does indeed.”

  “Whose idea was that? You or Maeve?” my grandfather said suspiciously.

  “Maeve,” I said. “She thought it would be good to give them something positive to do. Get their minds off everything else. Besides, they’re actually helping out. It’s amazing what twenty pairs of hands, even little ones, can get done.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” my grandfather finally said brightly. “It’s a great one. No wonder Maeve came up with it.”

  “You done now?” I said, half laughing. He loved Maeve as much as any of us.

  “Any last insults before I hang up?” I said, conceding him the last word to get the call over with.

  “A few,” Seamus said. “But I’ll be seeing you later. I might as well save them up.”

  Chapter 44

  THIS WAS THE KIND of outlandish nightmare scene during which you were continually thinking, This can’t possibly be happening. I’ll wake up soon and it’ll be over.

  The “danger zone” was occupied by police only and was off-limits to the press. The next outer ring belonged to the media and was dominated by TV trucks with giant antennae extended. The scene in the “staging area” was all crisscrossing cables, reporters at their computers, dozens of TV monitors. Periodically, we would convene a press conference and feed the newsies.

  The portable generators for the lights were still roaring in the cold when I started walking back toward the bus. I found Commander Will Matthews inside. All the hostage advocates had been contacted, he informed me, and the situation was now officially in a holding pattern.

  “Now for the excruciating part,” Will Matthews said. “It’s time to sit and wait this thing out.”

  “Hey, Mike,” Martelli said as he stood. Though he’d been at this siege situation from the beginning, he didn’t look it.

  “Nothing personal, but you seem beat. Why don’t you get out of here for a little while? These jokers say they won’t call back for hours, and when they do, we-and more important, those hostages inside-are going to need you calm and collected.”

  “He’s right. Grab a bite. We need you on ice,” said Commander Will Matthews. “That’s an order, Mike.”

  All the talk, and the thoughts of Maeve on my stroll, made me want to see her. The New York Hospital Cancer Center was only twenty blocks uptown, I thought. It wouldn’t take very long to swing by there.

  I’m going to head to a cancer center to blow off steam, I realized.

  I left my cell number with Martelli and stowed my badge before I stepped out from the checkpoints. Countless reporters, producers, correspondents, and technicians were camped out around both sides of blocked-off Fifth Avenue with the giddy camaraderie of Deadheads with tickets to Jerry Garcia’s back-from-the-grave concert.

  I had to wake up a burly cameraman who was sleeping in a folding chair in front of my blue Imp. I jumped inside the car and hit the road.

  I made two stops actually. The first was at a great, crazy place called Burger Joint in the lobby of the Le Méridien hotel on 57th. Minutes later, I left there with a greasy brown paper bag under my arm. The second stop was at Amy’s Bread on Ninth, where I left with another bag.

  I put on my light and siren as I made a left onto Park Avenue. Poinsettias and white lights fringed the center median as far as the eye could see to the north. Massive wreaths were hung above the revolving doors of the gleaming glass office towers, as well as from the polished brass doors of the luxury apartment houses I passed farther uptown.

  As I drove, I couldn’t help staring at the high, stately old buildings lit up through the billowing silver of the avenue steam stacks, the gleaming wood-paneled walls beneath the opulent awnings.

  As I waited on the light at 61st, a top-hatted doorman escorted a pale, devastatingly beautiful brunette in an ankle-length white mink and a little girl in red plaid into the plush rear leather of a waiting Mercedes.

  The holiday beauty I saw everywhere I looked made my chest literally ache with guilt. I’d been so shot to pieces lately, I hadn’t even gotten a tree.

  No wonder so many people went and killed themselves around the holidays, I thought as I screeched around the CL55 and the corner. Christmas was geared to make you explode with contentment, to burn with the passing year’s tremendous love and good fortune.

  To be anything short of excited seemed, well, impolite.

  To be depressed at this time of year, I thought, gunning my car east down a cold, black side street, to be actually sick with sadness, felt like an unforgivable sin.

  Chapter 45

  MY SWEET MAEVE had her eyes closed as I stepped through her open hospital room door.

  But her nose was definitely still in working order because she smiled when I put the smuggled packages on her drab-colored tray.

  “No,” she said in her cracked voice. “You didn’t?” I lifted her plastic water cup and made her drink some. Her eyes teared with pain as she sat up. So did mine.

  “I smell cheeseburgers,” she sai
d with a dead seriousness. “If this is a dream and you wake me up, I won’t be responsible, Mike.”

  “You’re not dreaming, angel,” I said into her ear as I climbed in carefully beside her. “Do you want the double onion or the double onion?”

  Though Maeve ate only half of the burger and only about a quarter of the blondie, her cheeks flushed with healthy color as she pushed back the waxed paper.

  “Remember our midnight junk-a-thons?” she said.

  I smiled. When we started going out, we both worked four-to-twelves. At first, we used to hit a bar, but that tired quickly, and soon we found ourselves visiting the local video store and an all-night supermarket, heading straight for the frozen-food aisle. Chicken wings, pizza, mozzarella sticks-health food. The rule was anything you wanted, as long as you could cook it in a microwave and eat it in front of an old movie.

  God, they were great times, though. Sometimes we’d stay up after we ate, just talking, not wanting it to end, until birds started tweeting outside the bedroom window.

  “Remember all the work I used to bring you?” I said.

  Maeve had been in the trauma ward at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx just around the corner from the Four-Nine, my rookie precinct.

  The whole time during my tour, I would practically kidnap people off the streets and bring them into the emergency room just to get a chance to see her.

  “Remember when that huge, homeless, toothless man you brought in hugged you?” Maeve said with a hard laugh. “What did he say? ‘You ain’t like those other jive turkeys, man. You care.’ ”

  “No,” I said, laughing with her now. “He said, ‘Man, you’re the nicest damn honky I ever met.’ ”

  Her eyes closed, and then she stopped laughing. Just like that. She must have taken something before I came in, and now she was fading fast into sleep.

  I squeezed Maeve’s hand gently. Then I rose from the bed as quietly as I could. I cleaned up our mess and tucked her sheet around her shoulders, and then I knelt beside her.

  For more than ten minutes, I watched my wife’s chest rise and fall. It was strange because for the first time I didn’t feel angry at the world or at God. I just loved her and always would. I wiped my tears on my sleeves before I leaned in beside her.

  “Remember when you changed me forever,” I whispered in Maeve’s ear.

  Chapter 46

  I CHECKED IN with Paul Martelli on my cell as I pulled out from the hospital.

  “Still nothing,” he told me. “Take your time. The hijackers are sitting tight. I’ve got your cell number.”

  “Ned Mason still there?” I asked.

  “He’s around here somewhere. We have you covered, Mike.”

  I followed Martelli’s advice. I made a U-turn and then a left onto 66th Street, heading west to give a quick check on my kids.

  It had started snowing lightly when I was in the hospital with Maeve, and the dusting on the brownstone walls and tunnels of the Central Park traverse I passed through looked like soft shakes of confectioners’ sugar on gingerbread.

  This damn city, I thought, shaking my head, was determined to break my heart into a million pieces with its incessant Currier amp; Ives holiday season quaintness.

  Where was a good mugging-in-progress when you needed one?

  When I flicked on the FM radio under the police one, the song “Silver Bells” was playing. I was dangerously close to emptying my Glock into the dashboard when the soft, dulcet “Ring-a-ling, hear them ring” stanza began.

  “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC was just starting when I violently flicked to the nearest rock station. That was more like it. My new theme song! I cranked the volume as high as it would go for the rest of the ride home.

  I could hear my kids through my closed apartment door when I stepped off the elevator into the vestibule. Never a good sign, I thought as I turned the knob.

  In the foyer, Juliana was sitting on the floor with her back to me, giggling into the phone. I patted her on the head lovingly before I disconnected the cord from the hall jack.

  “Bed,” I said.

  My second stop was the girls’ room, where a Mercedes Freer song was blasting. With her back to me, Jane was leading Chrissy and Shawna in an inspired dance routine. Though I could have scooped up the lot of them in a bear hug they were so cute, I vaguely remembered Maeve’s dictum on the inappropriateness of Mercedes Freer.

  Three crystal-shattering shrieks sounded when I flicked off the radio, followed by an explosion of giggles and blushing when the girls realized I had been watching them dance.

  “Well, well. I didn’t know Mercedes Freer was having a concert here at our house. I’m sure the Underhills next door are quite pleased. I take it you all forgot to get your chores done as well?”

  Jane looked cross for a moment, as if she was about to counter with some excuse, but then dropped her head.

  “Sorry, Dad,” she said.

  “Now that was the right answer, Jane,” I said. “No wonder you get such good grades. Come along. Looks like I have a few more arrests to make.”

  Next stop was the living room, where Ricky, Eddie, and Trent were beached out in front of the blaring TV. They were watching the nonstop news coverage of the church takeover on CNN. The network already had its slogan in place-“Cathedral Countdown.” Again, I distinctly remembered that the channels allowed were restricted to ESPN, Food Network, occasionally TLC and Cartoon Network, and public television.

  The three of them almost hit the ceiling when I hopped over the sectional and landed in their midst.

  “Gathering research for a current events project, are we?” I said.

  “We saw you!” Trent screamed after taking his hands away from his face. “On the TV! It’s on every station.”

  “You’re still busted,” I yelled back at him.

  Brian, my eldest son, was so into his MLB game on his computer in his room, he didn’t hear me enter. The ninja holds nothing on the father scorned. I flicked off the tower of his Dell as Barry Bonds was in mid-grand slam swing.

  “Hey!” he said angrily as he looked up. “Dad? Dad!” he said.

  “Brian?” I said back. “Brian!”

  “I was… uh,” he tried.

  “About to throw yourself on the mercy of the court?” I said.

  “Sorry, Dad. I’ll start my chores,” Brian said, “forthwith.”

  I almost knocked down Mary Catherine when I stepped back into the hall.

  “Mr. Bennett. Mike, I mean. I’m so sorry,” she said frantically. “I was trying to get them into bed when Bridget needed my help. She told me…”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “She had an arts-and-crafts project due for school.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Okay, I forgot to tell you,” I said. “Bridget is clinically addicted to arts and crafts. We’ve been trying to wean her off glue, sparkles, and beads for years now, but nothing seems to work. If you let her, she will destroy the earth in her unquenchable desire to make key chains and ankle bracelets and wall hangings. I’ve gone to work with sparkles on my face and clothes from her confounded glitter paint so many times, the guys in my squad thought I was in a glam band. She knows you’re new, so she took advantage. Arts and crafts are severely restricted to weekends.”

  “I didn’t know,” Mary Catherine said sadly. “I should have done a better job.”

  “Good God,” I said. “You’re still alive and still here? You should try out for the Navy SEALs.”

  Chapter 47

  AFTER I RELIEVED Mary Catherine of command and ordered her upstairs to bed, I found a priest in my kitchen.

  The squat white-haired man in black was holding a steaming iron ready as my seven-year-old Bridget put the finishing touches on a pink-and-white plastic-bead pony that covered the entire top of our kitchen island.

  “Well, if it isn’t Father Shame-less, I mean, Seamus,” I said.

  Nope, it wasn’t Halloween. My grandfather Seamus was a priest. After Seamus’s wif
e died, he decided to sell the Hell’s Kitchen gin mill he’d owned for thirty years and become a man of the cloth. Lucky for him, vocations to the priesthood were at an all-time low, so he was accepted. “Gone straight from hell to heaven,” as he liked to say.

  He now lived in the Holy Name rectory around the block, and if he wasn’t attending to parish business-which he was very good at-he was sticking his nose into mine. Because Seamus wasn’t content to merely spoil my children. If he wasn’t actually devilishly encouraging mischief, priest or not, he felt he was slacking off.

  Even Bridget’s freckles seemed to drain of their color when she saw me standing there.

  “Goodnightdadgoingtobediloveyou,” she somehow managed to get out before sliding off the stool she was kneeling on and disappearing. Fiona, holding Socky under her arms, shot out from the other side of the island and managed to exit a step behind her twin.

  “Having a senior moment, Monsignor? Forget how to read a clock? Or did you forget it’s a school night?”

  “Did you not take a look at this fine steed here?” Seamus said, passing the iron back and forth over the plastic to melt the collection of beads together. It was nearly the size of a real horse. Too bad there wasn’t a barn in the apartment to keep it in.

  “That girl is pure artist,” Seamus said. “And like they say, it takes more than books to inspire creativity.”

  “Thanks for that little nugget of wisdom there, Seamus, but if these kids don’t get their sleep and stick to their schedules, we’re all doomed.”

  Seamus unplugged the iron, propped it up on the butcher block loudly, and squinted at me. “If that’s the case, why bring someone new into the house now?” he said. “That Mary Catherine tells me she’s from Tipperary. There’s a queer breed come from Tipperary. All the wind off the North Atlantic isn’t good for the mind. If you ask me, I don’t like the looks of her or the situation. Young, single woman in a house with a married man.”