Run for Your Life (Michael Bennett 2)

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the Teacher emerged from Central Park on the Upper East Side. Though he’d run more than thirty blocks, he hardly noticed it. He wasn’t even winded. He raced out across tony Fifth Avenue and kept going east down 72nd.

Then he finally slowed to a halt, in front of a fabulously ornate four-story French château–-style building on the southeast corner of 72nd and Madison—the flagship Ralph Lauren store.

The first target that really counted.

The Teacher glanced at his watch to make sure he was still on schedule, then took a long look up and down both the side street and the avenue. There were no cops in sight, which wasn’t surprising. This store sat smack-dab in the middle of the city’s most populated precinct. Roughly fifty officers, probably fewer counting sick days and vacation, were supposed to protect more than two hundred thousand people. Good luck, the Teacher thought. He pulled open the store’s shining brass door and stepped inside.

He gazed around, taking in the Persian rugs, chandeliers, and oil paintings on the fifteen-foot mahogany-paneled walls. Not exactly your local Kmart. Among the antiques and flower arrangements, piles of cashmere cable knits and oxford-cloth button-downs were distributed with artful casualness. The overall impression was that you’d walked in and caught the Vanderbilts unpacking from a summer in Europe.

In other words, it was disgusting. He jogged up the wide mahogany stairs to the men’s shop.

A slick-haired man in an impeccably tailored three-piece suit stood behind an antique glass display case filled with neckties. One of his eyebrows rose just enough to signify his contempt for the slovenly buffoon he saw approaching.

“May I help you?” he said with a condescension that bordered on vicious. The Teacher knew that if he answered “yes,” the salesman would laugh out loud.

So he just smiled.

“Are we a trifle language-challenged, sir?” the malicious bastard crooned. Then he dropped the polished pretense and spoke in much coarser, and much more natural-sounding, Brooklynese. “We’re all outta fanny packs today. Maybe you better go to Mo’s instead.”

The Teacher still didn’t speak. Instead, he unzipped the little pack and took out a pair of objects that looked like Cheez Doodles. They were actually firing-range earplugs. Without hurrying, he pressed one of them into his left ear.

The haberdasher started to look flustered, and took on his piss-elegant tone again.

“I beg your pardon, sir, I didn’t realize you needed hearing aids. Still, if you’re not here to purchase something, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

The Teacher paused, with the second earplug still between his fingers, and finally spoke.

“I’m really here to give you a lesson,” he said.

“Give me a lesson?”

“In salesmanship,” the Teacher said, mimicking the prick’s supercilious tone. “You’ll be sew much more successful if you learn to treat all your customers with respect. Watch how it should be done.”

He pushed in the second earplug, then reached into the fanny pack again and drew out an oiled pistol.

“And here,” he said, with his words muffled in his own ears, “we have the Colt M1911 semiautomatic in .45 caliber. Would you care to try it, sir? I dew believe you’ll be impressed by its performance.” He flicked off the safety and put the hammer on full cock.

The clerk’s mouth opened in an O. His lips moved as he stammered words that the Teacher could barely hear. “Oh, my God . . . terribly s-sorry . . .” One soft, manicured hand flew to the cash register and punched open the drawer. “Please, take everything . . .”

But his other hand moved, too, dropping under the counter, no doubt to reach for a hidden alarm button.

The Teacher was expecting that. His finger twitched, and the first big .45-caliber round boomed like a stick of dynamite, blowing the display case into a cymbal crash of shattering glass. The clerk screamed, staggering backward, clutching at his mangled, bloody hand.

“I’m not here to take,” the Teacher said quietly. “I’m here to give you something you’ve wanted your whole life, but were afraid to ask for.

“Redemption.” He emptied the rest of the clip point-blank into the salesman’s chest.

Watching him careen backward, limbs flopping spastically like he’d been hit by a giant sledgehammer, was the most electrically satisfying moment of the Teacher’s life.

There were going to be more of those soon.

He reloaded the Colt with smooth, practiced motions as he hurried back down the steps. As he got to the door, he noticed another suave clerk, crouched beside a cashmere upholstered club chair. This man was shivering in shock, too terrified even to scream for help.

The Teacher paused long enough to press the Colt’s barrel against his cheek. Then he spun the big gun off his finger, caught it in the air, and stuffed it back into his fanny pack.

“You are the witness to history,” the Teacher said, patting the sniveling fop on the head. “I envy you.”

He opened the door enough to scan the streets again, then stepped out of the store and blended in with the passersby on 72nd—once again, just another anonymous guy in the crowd. But he headed straight for the westbound side of the street and hailed the first cab he saw. He instructed the turbaned driver to take him to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, then settled back in the seat and took out the Treo.