Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

Welcome to New York, Berger thought with a grin, where Albanians want to be Italians, Jews want to be WASPs, and the mayor wants to be emperor for life.

“Mr. Berger, yes, please,” Tony said. “If you give me a moment, I’ll press the elevator door button for you.”

He was actually serious. Literally lifting a finger was considered quite gauche by some of the building’s more obnoxious residents.

“I got this one, Tony,” Berger said, actually pressing the button himself to open it. “Call it an early Christmas tip.”

On the top floor, the mahogany-paneled elevator opened onto a high coffered-ceiling hallway. The single door at the end of it led to Berger’s penthouse.

Brickman had actually made a discreet and quite handsome offer for it several years before. But some things, like seven thousand multilevel square feet overlooking Central Park, even a billionaire’s money couldn’t buy.

As he always did once inside the front door, Berger paused with reverence before the two items in the foyer. To the left on a built-in marble shelf sat a dark-lacquer jug of Vienna porcelain, a near flawless example of Loius XV–style chinoiserie. On the right was Salvador Dali’s devastating Basket of Bread, the masterpiece that he painted just before being expelled from Madrid’s Academia de San Fer

nando for truthfully telling the faculty that they lacked the authority to judge him.

Standing before them, Berger felt the beauty and sanctuary of his home descend upon him like a balm. Some would say the old, dark apartment could probably use a remod, but he wouldn’t touch a thing. The veneer of the paneled dusty hallways made him feel like he was living inside an Old Master’s painting.

This place had been built at a time when there was still a natural aristocracy, respect for rank and privilege and passion and talent. An urge to ascend. There were ghosts here. Ghosts of great men and women. Great ambitions. He felt them welcome him home.

He decided to draw himself a bath. And what a bath it was, he thought, entering his favorite room. Inside the four-hundred-square-foot vault of Tyrolean marble sat a small swimming pool of a sunken tub. On its right stood a baronial fireplace big enough to roast an ox on a spit. On its left, a wall of French doors opened onto the highest of the sprawling apartment’s many balconies.

Berger particularly loved being in here in the wintertime. When there was snow on the balcony, he’d open the doors and have the fire roaring as he lay covered in bubbles, looking out at the lights.

He opened the doors before he disrobed and lowered himself slowly into the hot bath.

He floated on his back, resting while staring out at the city lights, yellow and white, across the dark sea of trees.

Tomorrow he would be “kickin’ it up to levels unknown,” to borrow the words of some obnoxious Food Network chef. This weekend was nothing compared with what people would wake up to tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a day.

Chapter 17

WAY PAST ALL OUR BEDTIMES and loving it, the kids and I were soaked to the skin and shivering around the bonfire. I heard Seamus clear his throat to tell one of his famous ghost stories.

I remembered them from when I was a kid. Run-of-the-mill ghost stories were for pansies. Seamus’s tales were H. P. Lovecraft–inspired yarns about fish creatures so horrifying, just the sight of them made people go insane. I mean, anyone can scare a little child. Few can introduce them to cosmic horror.

“Make it a PG tale, huh, Padre?” I said, taking him aside. “I don’t want the kids to have nightmares. Or me, either.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll water it down, ya party pooper,” Seamus grumbled.

“Mike?” Mary Catherine whispered to me. “Would you help me get some more soda?”

She didn’t even make a pretense of heading toward the house. We walked north along the dark beach parallel to the waterline. Mary Catherine was wearing a new white-cotton sheer summer dress I’d never seen before. Over the past two weeks, she’d become quite brown, which made her blue eyes pop even paler and prettier than usual. She turned those eyes on me and held them there as we walked, an adorably nervous look on her fine-boned face.

“Mike,” she said as I followed her on our mystical soda quest.

“Yes, Mary?”

“I have a confession to make,” she said, stopping by an empty lifeguard chair. “This party wasn’t the kids’ idea. It was mine.”

“I’ll forgive you on one condition,” I said, suddenly holding her shoulders.

There were no head butts this time or hesitating. We kissed.

“This is crazy. What the hell are we doing?” Mary Catherine said when we came up for air.

“Looking for soda?” I said.