Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

His family. His granddad and dad and brother. His beloved flesh and blood.

His grandfather, Jason Berger, had been a great man. World War I hero, brilliant civil engineer, businessman, and politician, he’d been essential not only in the development of the United States interstate highway system but also in the designing of many of New York City’s bridges and parkways.

His father, Samuel J. Berger, had continued the familial tradition of greatness by being

one of the first visionary businessmen of the computer age. The company he started, Berger Applications, had been one of the first venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and had, as billionaires so modestly put it, “done quite well.”

Then came David. David was Berger’s older brother, and if anything, he was the most talented Berger of them all. By the age of nine, his talent for musical composition had gained him an unheard-of admission to Julliard. By the time he was forty-five, his legendary career as a Hollywood composer paled perhaps only to the iconic John Williams’s.

David easily would have earned more than the one Oscar he had but for his vocal disdain for the movie industry. All he wanted to do, and all he did, was make beautiful music. Sometimes in his La Jolla mountainside home. Sometimes in his villa in Burgundy. Lawrence had never been invited to either one, but he had seen pictures in an Architectural Digest article, and they were very nice.

David truly was a simple and gracious man. As simple and gracious as their father and his father before him. They were all examples of human potential fulfilled. They were Bergers, after all. All except for him, of course. Lawrence. Poor, sad, slow, embarrassing Lawrence.

Berger smiled up at the ceiling of his jail cell.

It had taken a century for all of the Berger family’s amazing societal and global accomplishments.

If all went as planned, and it seemed like it would, he would successfully undo every last Berger triumph in a week.

Sorry, Grandpap. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Bro, Berger thought with a shrug of his shoulders. Look on the bright side. The Berger name will be remembered. Just not the way you wanted.

Lawrence’s last gift would eventually be delivered to his saintly, talented brother. It was the film footage of all of Lawrence’s meticulously plotted crimes. It wasn’t complete yet; there were a few choice scenes that needed to be added, but he was confident in its success. He couldn’t have left his final wishes in more competent hands.

The film was for David to ponder over, to wonder about, and, hopefully, to eventually score.

Lawrence knew he was no Spielberg, no Scorsese or Coppola, but perhaps when all was said and done, his brother might one day come to understand that he, Lawrence, had a little talent, too.

Was that too much to ask?

Chapter 76

BERGER SNAPPED OUT of his reverie when his longtime lawyer, Allen Duques, opened the door to the holding cage.

Duques, a partner in a global 100 Lexington Avenue corporate firm, handled all of his dealings. The stocky, aristocratic-looking, middle-aged lawyer looked positively lost when he spotted Berger behind the mesh. The attorney screeched a folding chair over in front of the cage’s wire and hesitated before sitting, as if reluctant to muss his immaculate blue serge suit.

“Tell me it isn’t true what the authorities are saying, Lawrence,” the preppy gray-haired attorney said, thumbing off his BlackBerry. “These killings and the Grand Central bombing—you’ve admitted your involvement? I don’t understand.”

Berger’s basset-hound jowls jiggled as he shook his head.

“I’ll try to explain in a moment, Allen, but first, did you bring it? The caviar?” Berger asked hopefully.

He’d been devouring tin after tin of Iranian Special Reserve in bed right before he’d been arrested. The thought of lighting into one last can of black gold had been girding his spirits.

“Of course, Lawrence, but unfortunately they searched my attaché when I came in. It was confiscated, I’m sorry to say. I’d say it had to do with that policeman who lost his life in the Grand Central bombing. You’ll find no friends here, I’m afraid.”

Berger immediately began to cry. In his mind, he pictured Dali’s Christ of St. John of the Cross, Jesus on the cross as seen from above in a darkened sky, hovering over a body of water.

“Lawrence, are you okay?” Duques said. “I think we should seriously consider an insanity defense. I’m quite… worried about you.”

“Can we talk about it tomorrow at the arraignment, Allen?” Berger said when he finally managed to pull himself together. “I’d really like to be alone now, please.”

Berger rolled back toward the wall after his lawyer promptly left. As he grimly perused the primitively sketched genitalia and plethora of four-letter words scratched into the plaster, he heard a sudden clapping. From somewhere beyond the closed metal door, a television was playing a sporting event. He could hear a crowd cheering, an announcer’s excited voice, more clapping and euphoria.

A sudden cold pierced the center of his chest like a bayonet. He thought about his life. What he had done to himself. What he had done to others.

He put his right thumb and index finger into his mouth like he was going to whistle. Instead, he thumbed off the cap of one of his molars, the third in on the top left, and carefully slipped out something from the hollow of it.

Up to the light, he held what looked like a small red jelly bean. It was a special gel sac with liquid inside it. It was actually a poison pill, an extremely lethal cocktail of cyanide and codeine.