the room and stepped quickly out the exit without looking back.
It was begun, he thought with a feeling of magnificent relief as he found the marble stairs. From here on in, it would be all about timing. A race against the clock, so to speak.
On your mark.
Get set.
'Blow,' Mr. Berger whispered happily to himself, and began to take the stairs down two at a time.
Book One
Chapter 1
'Under the boardwalk, down by the sea,' I crooned in a high voice, really getting into it with my eyes closed. 'On a blanket with my ten big fat babies is where I'll be.'
It seemed to me like an appropriate song for walking along a sandy dirt road beside the blue-gray Atlantic. Unfortunately, I was the only one who thought so. A split second later, a fusillade of groans and boos and Bronx cheers sailed back from all ten of my kids.
Still I bowed, displaying my trademark grace under pressure. Never let them see you sweat, even on summer vacation, which is really hard when you think about it.
My name is Mike Bennett, and as far as I know, I'm still the only cop in the NYPD living in his own private TLC show. Some of my more jovial coworkers like to call me Detective Mike Plus Ten. It's actually Detective Mike Plus Eleven if you include my grandfather Seamus. Which I do, since he's more incorrigible than all my kids put together.
It was the beginning of week two of my humongous family's much-needed vacation out in Breezy Point, Queens, and I was definitely in full goof-off mode. The eighteen-hundred-square-foot saltbox out here on the 'Irish Riviera,' as all the cops and firemen who summer here call it, had been in my mom's family, the Murphys, for a generation. It was more crowded than a rabbit's warren, but it was also nonstop swimming and hot dogs and board games, and beer and bonfires at night.
No e-mail. No electronics. No modern implements of any kind except for the temperamental A/C and a saltwater-rusted bicycle. I watched as Chrissy, the baby of the bunch, chased a tern, or maybe it was a piping plover, on the shoulder of the road.
The Bennett summer White House was open for business.
Time was flying, but I was making the most of it. As usual. For a single father of double-digit kids, making the most of things pretty much went without saying.
'If you guys don't like the Drifters, how about a little Otis Redding?' I called up to everyone. 'All together now. 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' on three.'
'Is that any example to them, Mike? We need to pick it up or we'll be late,' Mary Catherine chided me in her brogue.
I forgot to mention Mary Catherine. I'm probably the only cop in the NYPD with an Irish nanny as well. Actually with what I pay her, she is more like a selfless angel of mercy. I bet they'll name a Catholic school after her before long, Blessed Mary Catherine, patron saint of wiseacre cops and domestic chaos.
And as always, the young, attractive lass was right. We were on our way to St. Edmund's on Oceanside Avenue for five-o'clock mass. Vacation was no excuse for missing mass, especially for us, since my grandfather Seamus, in addition to being a comedian, was a late-to-the-cloth priest.
What else? Did I mention all my kids were adopted? Two of them are black, two Hispanic, one Asian, and the rest Caucasian. Typical our family is not.
'Would ya look at that,' Seamus said, standing on the sandy steps of St. Edmund's and tapping his watch when we finally arrived. 'It must be the twelve apostles. Of course not. They'd be on time for mass. Get in here, heathens, before I forget that I'm not a man of violence.'
'Sorry, Father,' Chrissy said, a sentiment that was repeated eleven more times in rough ascending order by Shawna, Trent, Fiona, Bridget, Eddie, Ricky, Jane, Brian, Juliana, my eldest, Mary Catherine, and last, but not least, yours truly.
Seamus put a hand on my elbow as I was fruitlessly searching for a pew that would seat a family of twelve.
'Just to let you know, I'm offering mass for Maeve today,' he said.
Maeve was my late wife, the woman who put together my ragtag wonderful family before falling to ovarian cancer a few years later. I still woke up some mornings, reaching out for a moment before my brutal shitty aha moment that I was alone.
I smiled and nodded as I patted Seamus's wrinkled cheek.
'I wouldn't have it any other way, Monsignor,' I said as the organ started.
Chapter 2
The service was quick but quite nice. Especially the part where we prayed for Maeve. I'm not in line to become pope anytime soon, but I like mass. It's calming, restorative. A moment to review where you've gone wrong over the past week and maybe think about getting things back on track.
Call it Irish psychotherapy.
Therapy for this Irish psycho, anyway.
All in all, I came back out into the sun feeling pretty calm and upbeat. Which lasted about as long as it took the holy water I blessed myself with to dry.
'Get him! Hit him harder! Yeah, boyyyyzzz!' some kid was yelling.
There was some commotion alongside the church. Through the departing crowd and cars, I saw about half a dozen kids squaring off in the parking lot.
'Look out, Eddie!' someone yelled.
Eddie? I thought. Wait a second.
That was one of my kids!
I rushed into the brawl, with my oldest son, Brian, at my heels. There was a pile of kids swinging and kicking on the sun-bleached asphalt. I started grabbing shirt collars, yanking kids away, putting my NYPD riot police training to good use.
I found my son Eddie at the bottom of the scrum, red-faced and near tears.
'You want some more, bitch? Come and get it!' one of the kids who'd been kicking my son yelled as he lurched forward. Eddie, our resident bookworm, was ten. The tall, pudgy kid with the Mets cap askew looked at least fourteen.
'Back it up!' I yelled at the earringed punk with a lot of cop in my voice. More in my eyes.
Eddie, tears gone, just angry now, thumbed some blood from a nostril.
'What happened?' I said.
