that he realized that his assailants really were cops and he probably wasn’t going to get shot. “What’s the matter, you see an Arab guy these days, you take him down?”
The cop ignored him. “What’s in the package?”
“How the hell should I know? I’m just a delivery guy for Manhattan Bicycle Services,” he replied. “They give me shit. I take it where I’m supposed to. If they don’t need a signature and the person isn’t there or tells me I can go, I just leave it.”
As he was talking, two more men came running up. They were wearing New York City Public Works Department jumpsuits, but they looked more like businessmen dressing up for Halloween than men who made a living with their hands. For one thing, their fingernails were clean and there wasn’t a spot on the twin aviator sunglasses they wore.
“Nice of you guys to show up,” the cop in the sweatshirt said.
“We figured you NYPD guys might be able to handle one kid,” one of the federal agents from Homeland Security shot back. “We were watching the street to make sure nothing else was on the way while you three were distracted. So what’s this guy’s story?”
“Bicycle messenger dropping off a package,” the third cop, a black man with the dreadlocks and a Bob Marley Lives T-shirt, said.
“If you’re going to jump on every bicycle messenger in town who comes by, you might want to call in more help,” the agent said with a smirk.
“Maybe we should, if it’s going to take you two such a long time to put down your Starbucks coffees and get your fat asses back out on the streets,” sweatshirt cop replied. “We were told all packages, whether they’re from the post office or FedEx, whatever, were being held for inspection before delivery by one of our guys. So this guy comes wheeling up at a hundred miles an hour and drops off a package without giving it to nobody, you bet we’re going to err on the side of caution.”
Business suit cop, who had been speaking into his radio, turned to the others and said, “The guy checks out. He’s been working for the messenger service for two years.”
“They were profiling, is what they were doing. Violating my constitutional rights,” the bicycle messenger said to the federal agents, having decided that the guys with the public works department were on his side. “See an Arab and down comes the law, right?”
Sweatshirt cop, whose face looked like he might have once fought for a living, glared at the messenger. “Don’t you have someplace you need to be?”
The messenger got the hint and went back across the street and retrieved his bicycle. As he pedaled off, he raised his right hand and extended the middle-fingered salute. “Fuckin’ racists!” he yelled over his shoulder.
Sweatshirt cop was about to yell something back when the door across the way opened and two boys appeared, saw the box, and were about to pick it up. “DON’T TOUCH THE FRICKIN’ PACKAGE!” the cops all shouted at once.
The boys stopped in their tracks, looked at each other and then, skirting around the package, jumped down the stairs, and bounded across the street to the cops. “Is it a bomb? Is it a bomb?” the Karp twins, Giancarlo and Zak, shouted with excitement.
“Mom and I told you the public works department guys were the feds,” Giancarlo yelled in triumph at his brother.
“Doesn’t mean the guys selling the purses on the sidewalk aren’t feds,” Zak replied hotly. “They’ve been watching us every day, too.”
“Maybe they’re the terrorists,” Giancarlo suggested.
“One of ’em’s got blue eyes,” Zak pointed out.
“Lots of Muslims have blue eyes, especially if they’re from Persia. There’s a lot of Slav and Thracian-you know, Thracian like Alexander the Great-influences in the population. But they’re Muslim now.”
The cops listened as the boys debated whether they had terrorists eyeing their apartment like they were debating the Yankees’ chances of winning the World Series. “Is it a bomb?” the twins repeated. “And did you catch the guy who left it?”
“We don’t know what it is, so we want to play it safe for the moment,” sweatshirt cop said. “The guy who brought it was just a bicycle messenger. He doesn’t know what’s in the box.”
“That’s what he says,” said Zak, who had always been more given to intrigue and danger than his brother. “Maybe you should have tortured him a bit and squeezed the truth out of him.”
“Would you suggest I rip out his fingernails or break every bone in his body?” sweatshirt cop asked, smiling.
“Both,” Zak replied but further comment was stifled by the deep-throated bark of a large dog. They all turned to see Marlene Ciampi exiting the building behind them where, the cops knew, she had an art studio on the top floor. She was accompanied by the biggest dog any of them had ever seen.
As she approached, Marlene noticed the men, especially the presumed federal agents who’d had no contact yet with Gilgamesh, glancing nervously at the dog. “It’s okay,” she said, “he’s friendly, unless I tell him not to be.” As if to prove her right, the animal licked enthusiastically at their outstretched hands and rubbed up against their legs to beg for scratches and pats. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Oh, uh, sure, Mrs. Ciampi,” sweatshirt cop said. “We just saw a guy dropping off an unscheduled package across the street and we were checking him out.”
Marlene turned and started walking across the street toward the package, but the officer asked her to stop. “Sorry,” he said. “I know it’s probably okay, but I’d like to call in the bomb squad just in case.”
Marlene looked back over her shoulder at him. “That’s okay, officer, Gilgamesh, my dog, is certified in bomb detection. I’ll have him take a whiff and save your guys the trouble.” She continued across the street.
Gilgamesh gave the box a cursory sniff, turned a bored expression to Marlene, then walked back to the curb where he barked at the twins who were still standing across the street. He was ready for a romp and wanted to know what they were waiting for.
“Nothing to worry about,” Marlene shouted as a dark Lincoln pulled up. Her husband and Special-Agent-in- Charge Espey Jaxon got out.
After she explained what had occurred, Jaxon knelt down by the box. “There’s no return address,” he said. “The shipping label isn’t complete either; there’s nothing under sender.”
Business suit cop walked over and said, “The messenger company says it received the package from Denver, Colorado-no return address and the bill was paid in cash.”
Jaxon took a pen from his coat pocket and inserted it into a flap to pick up the box. “We’ll send this back to the folks at Quantico,” he said, referring to the FBI’s crime lab in Virginia. “But let’s see if we can get a peek first at what’s inside.”
Karp, Marlene, Espey, the two twelve-year-old boys, and one disappointed dog entered the building and crowded onto the elevator that took them up to the landing outside the door of the loft. Inside, Jaxon placed the box on the dining room table as they all gathered around to watch.
Using a borrowed pair of tweezers and his pocket knife, the agent carefully opened the package without touching it to avoid messing up any fingerprints, even though it had already been handled by who knew how many people in transit. Once he had the box unsealed, he began removing the contents. First, he took out the packing material-handfuls of newspaper shredded into spaghetti-thin strips-which he placed in a plastic zip-lock bag Marlene got from the kitchen.
A folded notecard emerged with the second handful of shreds. Using the tweezers, Jaxon opened the card, which he read aloud. “It says, ‘I hope you didn’t shoot the messenger. Your move.’ ”
“This is soooo cool. Secret messages,” Zak said as his parents rolled their eyes at their adrenaline junkie son.
Jaxon peered inside the box and then tipped it on end so that a small white object tumbled out.
“A bishop,” Karp noted of the chess piece that lay on its side on the table. He didn’t need V.T. to tell him that it was a Carlos Torres; the detail was exquisite and the inset jewels had to be worth his annual salary.
“Awesome,” Giancarlo, the chess player in the bunch, said and reached for the piece only to have his mother, who’d anticipated his avarice, smack his hand.
“Don’t touch, buster,” she growled looking at Giancarlo but also turning her glare on Zak, who had a tendency to believe that warnings given to others didn’t necessarily include himself.
