Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

As the tattooed brother took a step toward us, I decided it was time to take the lead. My first move was to gently push Seamus to the side. My next and last move was to much less gently kick the seated Flaherty in the side of the head as hard as I could as I drew my Glock.

I helped him up by his long, greasy hair, the barrel of my gun wedged into his ear hole like a pencil into a sharpener.

“Bennett! Whoa, whoa, hold up,” the cop brother said, slowly showing me his hands. “We don’t need this kind of stuff. We’re all friends here. You actually worked with my old partner, Joe Kelly, when you were in Manhattan North homicide.”

“That’s right, I worked homicide,” I said. “And I’m not above committing one right about now. Three of them, in fact. How’s this for a joke, Flaherty? Three dumb-ass brothers are found floating facedown dead in their own pool.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re actually willing to shoot me over this stupid kiddie crap?” Tommy Boy asked from the other side of my Glock.

I nodded enthusiastically.

“Your kid almost killed my seven-year-old tonight at the carnival. To protect my kids, you better believe I’ll end your worthless ass.”

“I see,” Tommy Boy said, looking at me sideways across the gun I was scratching against his eardrum. “I hadn’t heard about that. I think I’m starting to understand your position now. I even know what to do. Here, watch. Seany!”

The screen door opened a few moments later, and the fat kid who’d been terrorizing my family stepped out onto the deck. His pudgy jaw dropped in a cartoonish gape when he saw me and his dad down on the deck conversing over the barrel of my Austrian semiauto.

“Uh… yes, Dad?” he said, fear in his voice.

“Come here,” Flaherty senior said.

Quick as a snake, Tommy Boy moved out of my grasp before the kid had made two steps. Before I could tell what was going on, he lifted his portly son up and threw him off the deck. Instead of landing in the pool, like I was expecting, the heavy teen slammed into the side of it with a cracking sound before he fell face-first onto the backyard concrete. Right away he started bawling.

Christ, I thought, standing there shocked, with the gun still in my hand. Now, that’s what you call tough love.

“Dad!” young Sean cried from his knees as blood poured out of his nose. Behind him, water began to trickle out of the crack he’d made in the plastic pool.

“Don’t you ‘Dad’ me, you little punk. Stay the hell away from this man’s kids, you hear me?”

“But, Dad,” Sean wheezed. “You told me to teach them a lesson.”

“Yeah, well,” Tommy Boy said, giving me a sheepish look. “Lesson learned. You don’t hurt little kids, shithead. I have to actually explain that to you? Here’s the new orders. If one of Mr. Bennett’s kids skins his knee, you better have a Band-Aid handy. Any of them gets hurt again, you’re going to spend the rest of your vacation in the hospital.”

“Yes, Dad,” Seany moaned as he ran up the deck stairs and back inside.

“Honestly, Bennett,” Flaherty said with his palms up. “I’m sorry about the whole thing. It really is my fault. My wife went to Ireland for a week to bury her mother. Guess I’m not so great at this dad thing. Everything’s just gone to Hell without her here.”

“There’s a definite learning curve,” I said reholstering my weapon. “I’m just glad we could finally work things out.”

“Man to man,” Seamus added behind me.

“Hey, it took a lot of guts to come over here. I respect that,” Tommy Boy Flaherty said as we were leaving. “You ever need anything—anything—you let me know. That goes for you, too, Father.”

“Back, Satan,” Seamus mumbled as we took our leave.

I let out the breath of all breaths as I got the car started. Pulling my gun had been beyond reckless. What the hell had gotten into me? As we drove away, I suddenly got a proud pat on the cheek from Seamus.

“We’ll make a man out of you yet, Mike, me boy,” he said with a blue-eyed wink. “That’s how you do things West Side–style.”

Chapter 48

NAKED IN THE DARK, Berger kicked back on the leather recliner in his massive, magnificent library and hit the play button on his remote control.

There was a chirp and hum from the Blu-ray player and then the 103-inch Plasma blazed with a midday shot of the New York Public Library.

The camera shook a little from the first-person shot, but the picture and colors and sounds of the street were amazingly vivid. You could almost smell the hot pretzels and summer sweat.

It was the film of the first crime, the library decoy bombing that had been shot with a hidden fiber-optic camera. All of his work, of course, had been filmed.