Step on a Crack (Michael Bennett 1)

I stopped dead still and almost went for my Glock again when the bells started sounding. I thought it was another move by the hijackers—until I glanced at my watch and saw that it was twelve.

The bells, set on some timer no doubt, were sounding out the Angelus, reminding the bustling heathens of Midtown to pray for some specific devotion I couldn’t remember. If failing to induce a communal saying of the Rosary, the tolling of the bells at least silenced the crowd of cops and press and onlookers.

Each long peal rang out loudly and forebodingly off the surrounding skyscrapers’ stone and aluminum and glass.

I scanned the crowd as an idea occurred to me.

I spotted the caretaker, Nardy, talking to a young woman across the 50th Street barricade.

“Mr. Nardy, where are the bells located?” I said as I jogged up to him, interrupting his conversation with the woman.

He stared at me before answering. “In the north spire,” he said with a grimace.

I looked at the ornate thirty-story cone of stone. About a hundred feet up, I noticed green slats that seemed like faded copper shutters.

“Is there access to the bells from inside?” I asked Nardy.

The caretaker nodded. “There’s an old winding set of wooden maintenance stairs from a time when the bells were rung by hand.”

It seemed risky, but if we could get up there somehow—maybe we could quietly pry loose some of the copper slats and get in.

“Can the inside of the north spire be seen from down in the church?” I asked.

“Why?” asked the woman Nardy had been talking to. “Do you plan to blow it up, too? Detective … ?”

Chapter 36

I NOTICED the New York Times press pass on the lapel of her cloth coat for the first time. So much for my keen detectively powers of observation.

“Bennett,” I said.

“Bennett, yes. You’re Manhattan North, right? I’ve heard of you. How’s Will Matthews doing?”

Like most cops, I couldn’t quite buy the whole “the people have a right to know” argument the press likes to toss around. I might, if all that journalistic nobility didn’t have a price tag attached to it. They sold newspapers last time I checked.

I gave the young newsie my best pissed-off cop face. Though it was easily as fierce as Commander Will Matthews’s, she didn’t seem fazed by it in the least, the little snot.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” I finally said.

“I would. But he has caller ID. So, what’s the story, Detective? Does nobody know nuttin’?” she said, her cultured voice dropping into passable New Yorkese. “Or is nobody tawkin’?”

“Why don’t you choose the answer you like the most,” I advised, turning away.

“Hmmm. Speaking of choices, I wonder if my editor will like biggest security blunder in world history for the headline? Or maybe nypd drops ball then stonewalls?” the Times reporter said. “That’s kinda catchy. What do you think, Detective Bennett? Too New York Post?”

I winced, remembering what Will Matthews had said. He wouldn’t like it if I were the one to single-handedly bring more bad press for the NYPD.

“Listen, Ms. Calvin,” I said, turning. “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here. I’ll talk to you, of course, but strictly off the record. Agreed?”

The reporter nodded quickly.

“You basically know as much as we do at this point. We’re in contact with the kidnappers, but they have yet to give us their demands. As soon as we know, and I get permission, I’ll give you all the information I can, all right? But we are in crisis mode right now. If the psychos inside have a radio or a TV and get tipped off about what we’re going to do, then people will die. Very important people.”

When I turned, I saw Ned Mason waving frantically at me from the door of the trailer.

“We all have to come together on this,” I yelled over my shoulder as I began to run.

Chapter 37