Worst Case (Michael Bennett 3)

He kept coming. The sight of him, silently running at me for no conceivable reason, was beyond surreal. I was about to squeeze off a shot, when he did it. The craziest thing of all.

Without pausing, he veered to my left, bounded up onto the low iron railing, and dove without a sound off the bridge.

I think my heart actually stopped. I ran to my left and looked down. The guy was plummeting toward the water when there was a strange bloom of color that at first I thought was an explosion. I thought he’d blown himself up, but then I saw the orange canopy of a parachute.

Son of a bitch! I thought. He hadn’t committed suicide. He’d base-jumped off the bridge. I knew I should have shot him! I debated whether I still should as he sailed up the river.

“Get Harbor and Aviation up!” I screamed. “The son of a bitch just did a James Bond off the bridge. He parachuted off. I repeat. He just parachuted off the bridge!”

Chapter 51

I THOUGHT WE were going to flip ten minutes later as Parker whipped us off the Bronx-side highway onto a Metro North utility road. We were still skidding to a stop when I hopped out of the car and over the third rail to the weeds where I thought the bag had landed.

I searched through the weeds like a man possessed. I kicked past a Prestone can, a Happy Meal box, several tires. Where the hell was it! That’s when I saw the black strap. I rushed over and pulled. Shit! It was weightless. The bag was empty.

I decided to take a seat in the dead grass beside it. There was a path behind me that led less than a hundred feet up to the highway. The kidnappers must have been waiting. They were long gone.

We’d blown it. We’d lost the money.

“Shit and double shit,” Emily said, when I showed her the empty bag. She offered her hand and pulled me up. “Harbor got the jumper at least. Let’s go.”

I was still firing full bore on adrenaline when I hopped out of the Fed car and crashed down a bank

of the Harlem River to the north. Harbor had pulled the base jumper out of the drink and was holding him near the southbound entrance for the Cross Bronx Expressway.

With the help of one of the Harbor guys, I sat the parachutist up from where he was lying wet and handcuffed on his belly. He was a young, pimple-faced white kid with a frosted faux-hawk haircut.

“This is over. Where is Dan Hastings? Where is he?” I yelled.

“What? Danny who?” the kid said, his face scrunched in surprise. “Is he a new guy on the team? The Birdhouse Team?”

I squinted my eyes into slits.

“You have two seconds to tell me what you’re talking about before you go swimming in handcuffs.”

“Hey, man. I didn’t do anything. I was paid to jump the bridge by this guy Mark. He said he was from Birdhouse—you know, the Tony Hawk skateboard company? He said they needed some crazy-ass footage for one of their new movies. I know it wasn’t exactly legal, but he gave me ten grand cash. He said some black guy would drop a bag on the corner of Amsterdam, and I would bike it to the bridge and do my thing. He gave me half up front. I swear to God that’s the truth.”

I stared at the dopey kid, furious.

“What did you think when I was pointing my gun at you? I was method acting?”

“Yes,” the kid said emphatically. “I thought it was all part of the movie, man. So, you’re basically telling me the cameras weren’t rolling?”

Could anyone be this stupid? I decided this guy could.

“They still are,” I said as a couple of Bronx uniforms arrived. “This next scene is where you get thrown in prison.”

Back at the car, I said to Emily, “The idiot says he was hired to jump the bridge, and I actually believe him.”

That was a definite low point in the investigation. We’d lost the money and the trail back to Hastings’s son. We got taken to the cleaners. We’d blown everything.

We were comparing notes with the rest of the shell-shocked surveillance guys when the victim’s father, Gordon Hastings, showed up in his town car.

“You cocked it up! You lost my money! You killed my son!” the red-faced Scot screamed as he came for me across the shoulder of the highway.

He’s lucky he didn’t make it through the half dozen cops and agents between us. At that point I was so frustrated, I would gladly have knocked his millionaire teeth out, father or no father.

Chapter 52