Run for Your Life (Michael Bennett 2)

“Tell me about Kyle,” I said. “Was he a friend?”

“Oh, yes,” Cardone said emphatically, dabbing at his eyes. “We used to ride in to work together on Saturday mornings, and when he picked me up at my place in Brooklyn Heights, he’d have a coffee for me. You know how many kind people like him there are in this city? I’ll tell you—exactly zero. And that . . . that bastard in the Mets jersey just shot him. Just came in and shot him and?—”

“Whoa, wait,” I said. “The man who shot him was wearing what?”

“An orange Mets jersey. ‘Wright,’ it said across the back, and these atrocious basketball shorts and a . . . a green Jets cap.”

“This is very important,” I said. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“One thing I know, it’s clothes,” Cardone said, with a trace of wounded dignity. “His were ridiculous. Like a comic advertisement for the Sports Authority.”

So we had men wearing completely different outfits. Well, the incident in the subway and the Polo shooting had taken place hours apart. It was conceivable that it was the same guy, and he’d changed clothes. Or were there two psychos? A tag team? Maybe there was a terrorist angle after all. As Mary Catherine liked to say, Shite.

“What else did you notice?” I said. “His hair color, all that?”

“He had big sunglasses, and the cap was pulled low. His hair was darkish, and he was white, fairly tall. Everything else about him was a haze. Except his clothes, of course. And the gun he put to my head. It was square and silver.”

White, darkish hair, fairly tall—that jibed with the subway suspect.

“Did he say anything?” I asked.

Patrick Cardone closed his eyes as he nodded.

“He said, ‘You are the witness to history, I envy you.’?”

That unsettling sensation came back again—that we were dealing with a maniac, and maybe a smart one.

I stood up to go, and patted Cardone’s back.

“You did great, Patrick. I’m not kidding—the best possible way to help your buddy Kyle. We’re going to catch this guy, okay? I’m going to leave my card right here next to you. If you think of anything else, you call me, I don’t care what time it is.”

I thanked him again and hopped down into the street, already opening my cell phone.

“Chief, I just got a description of the Polo shooter,” I said when McGinnis answered. “Same physical type as the subway guy, but he was wearing an orange Mets jersey.”

“An orange what?” McGinnis fumed. “I just heard from the Twenty-one Club scene, and they’re saying that the shooter was dressed like a bike messenger and actually left on a ten-speed. But otherwise, he looked like the subway guy, too.”

“It gets worse, Chief,” I said. “He spoke to one of the other clerks here, and told him that he was a quote ‘witness to history’ unquote.”

“Christ on a cross! Okay, I’ll put all that out over the wire. You triple-check the details there, then get down to the clambake at Twenty-one and see if you can make any sense of it.”

Now we were getting into the realm of nightmare, I thought.

Part Two

PUKE BY THE GALLON

Chapter 18

IN THE SMALL, blessedly quiet foyer outside the Bennett apartment, Mary Catherine picked up the day’s mail, and then paused for a moment. What a nice little space, she thought, lingering before the framed architectural drawings, the antique light fixture, the tarnished copper umbrella stand. the next-door neighbors, the Underhills, had arranged a cornucopia of golden leaves, baby pumpkins, and squash on the mail table.

But the pleasant tour ended all too soon as she came back to the Bennett apartment. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, and opened the door.

Sound slammed into her like a collapsed wall as she stepped inside. In the living room, Trent and Ricky were still loudly squabbling over PlayStation rights. Not to be outdone, Chrissy and Fiona had become locked in a DVD death match at their bedroom computer. The old, overworked washing machine accompanied the yells, thundering from the kitchen as if a full rehearsal of the musical Stomp was under way.

Mary Catherine jumped back as a small, yowling, vomit-colored object streaked between her feet. She stared at it, refusing to believe her eyes. But it was true.

Somebody had just thrown up on Socky, the cat.