“I just don’t want to make any more messes for you to clean up, Daddy,” she croaked.
She started shivering as I tucked her back into her bed. Gazing down at her, I asked myself the question that kept coming back to me time and time again over the last year. What would Maeve do? I grabbed a flashlight from the pantry, went back to Shawna’s room, and whisper-read her one of her favorite Magic Tree House books until she fell back to sleep.
“How’m I doing, Maeve?” I asked after I stepped out into the hall. “And don’t worry. It’s okay to lie.”
Chapter 47
After showering, I found Mary Catherine in the kitchen, taking sheets out of the dryer.
“For God’s sake, Mary, it’s one o’clock in the morning,” I said.
“Has to be done,” she replied, striving valiantly for her usual crispness, but with her weariness showing underneath.
I stepped in to help her fold, and she went over the sick list.
“For the moment, everybody seems fairly stable,” she said. “All the puking seems to have run its course, thank the Lord, but now the bug’s rising into their lungs and nasal passages. We’ll be out of tissues by noon tomorrow is my guess.”
“On it,” I said. In the morning, I’d send Seamus out to our Costco in Jersey to fill up the van. Boy, did our doorman love it when he saw that coming.
When the laundry was done, I took the basket from Mary Catherine’s hands and said, “Why don’t you get some sleep now?”
But I couldn’t persuade her to leave. She insisted on sleeping in a chair in the living room in case somebody needed her. Too tired to argue, I took off my suit jacket and plopped down in the chair opposite. What the heck, I was already dressed for the next day. I was going to be one wrinkled detective – Cathy Calvin wouldn’t have approved – but I needed to be ready to go the second I heard any news.
Everything in my body ached. I was so exhausted that even with all the stress and adrenaline and anticipation of the case, my eyelids clunked shut like they were made of lead.
“I always knew coming to America would pay off big,” Mary Catherine said after a minute. “All the sweet perks. Like, is it kiddy vomit I’m smelling, or has Yankee Candle come out with something new?”
“Neither, young lass,” I said, smiling with my eyes still closed. “That’s the refreshing aroma of my Yankee sweat socks that I forgot to toss in the laundry. I told you that you should have left when you had the chance. G’night.”
Chapter 48
The Teacher awoke with a start – sat bolt upright, gasping for air, his heart thumping.
Sleeping peacefully had never been a problem for him, but now that was ruined. Every time he started to drift off, that cop’s phrase, “manifesto of nonsense,” rang continuously like a gong through his head.
Bennett was just messing with him, he assured himself fiercely. But doubt kept creeping into his thoughts, driving his anxiety and making it impossible to rest. What if his message hadn’t been clear enough? With his head buzzing, he couldn’t decide. He checked his alarm clock and gritted his teeth. One A.M. How could he perform tomorrow if he was up all night worrying?
He plumped his pillow and closed his eyes again, turning to one side and then the other, trying to get comfortable. For five minutes, he tried concentrating on his breathing. But it was hopeless.
That goddamn cop had gotten to him.
He sat up again and finally got out of bed. Somehow, he needed to burn off this bad energy.
Through the south-facing window in the living room, he could see the Empire State Building, illuminated with red lights. Across the street at the modeling agency, a party was going full tilt. There was plenty of action out there – plenty of ways to scratch an itch like his.
Maybe a walk, he thought. A little stroll around the block.
He dressed and was twisting the front doorknob open when he realized he’d forgotten something – his guns. He couldn’t believe it! That was a measure of how rattled he was.
He stepped back into the office and reloaded both Colts, then threaded their baffled stainless-steel suppressors – Swiss-made, top-of-the-line Brugger and Thomets – to the barrels. He strapped the weapons around his waist and pulled on a coat.
Dangerous world out there, he thought as he quickly descended the tenement stairwell toward the street.
Never know who you might run into.
Chapter 49
Pierre Lagueux, fashion photographer extraordinaire, felt like a joy-filled bubble as he walked down the back stairs of the West Side Models agency.
Not just any bubble, either. High as he was on some top-grade MDMA, the drug otherwise known as Ecstasy, he felt like a tres chic bubble of Cristal champagne.
It was almost unfair how well life was working out for him, he mused. Only twenty-seven and already rich. Handsome, heterosexual, French, and very, very talented at taking pictures. The hardest part about being him was – the thought made him giggle – waking up.
He had a real eye, they said. They, meaning the people in the fashion world who actually counted. In spite of his youth, the word icon was being whispered. His name was dropped in company with Ritts, Newton, Mapplethorpe. Sorry, fellas, move over. There’s a new enfant terrible in town.
And best of all, the parties. Tonight, already a fabulous dream, was just beginning, and how many more would he have? He could practically see them in an endless array stretching out before him. As long, elegant, and dark as the row of designer suits in the gymnasium-sized closet of his loft down on Broome Street.
All around him, the world breathed, Yes.
He stepped out onto the street. The night was young – just the way he preferred his ladies. Like the barely legal, new Ford Nordic blonde he’d just “met” in the back stairwell. He could actually fall in love with her, if only he could remember her name.
“Pierre?” a woman’s voice called.
He craned his neck, raising his stubbled face toward the sound. It was she – his new nameless lovely, as statuesque as the figurehead of a Viking ship, standing on the fire escape above him. Or was she an actual flying Val-kyrie? As high as he was, it was hard to tell.
“Catch!” she said.
Something sailed down toward him, dark and diaphanous, and settled into his outstretched hands – a warm, wispy weight that was barely there. A feather from an angel wing? No, better. Thong panties. What a wonderfully American parting gift! How Girls Gone Wild!
He blew her a kiss, removed the silk handkerchief from the breast of his cashmere Yves Saint Laurent sport coat, and inserted the undergarment in its place. Then he continued on his way to Tenth Avenue to cab to his next soiree.
He was midway up the east side of the block when he spotted a man standing alone on the sidewalk, alongside the train overpass.
A fellow reveler, was Pierre ’s first thought. But then he saw the guy’s serious face.
He stared unabashedly. He was always on the lookout for a striking photo image, always honing his eye. That was probably the reason he would be immortal. And this figure – there was something tragic in the way it stood
