Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

“Au revoir, mon ami,” Berger said, waving the asshole away.

He waited until he heard the front door open and close before he cracked open another shell.

Chapter 62

“HEY, DID A TOY COME with this Happy Meal?” I asked as I stole a French fry from the Mickey Dee’s bag on the dash of Emily’s Fed car.

“I wouldn’t know. That bag was there when I signed the car out,” Emily teased as she flipped through my notes.

We were now parked down at the West 79th Street Boat Basin. On the dark mirror of the water we could see bobbing sailboats, the black mass of an anchored tanker, and the romantic chandelier-like lights of the George Washington Bridge off to the right. It was a nice secluded parking lot right smack on the Hudson. A notorious lovers’ lane, and I knew we’d have it all to ourselves, since we had yet to catch the still-on-the-loose Son of Sam copycat.

As usual, Emily looked amazing, buttoned up in her business-hottie-with-a-nine-millimeter style. She looked fresh as a daisy, even though she’d been busting her tail all day. I could think of worse people to hang out with in a prime make-out spot.

I spat the cold fry into a napkin and looked over at my attractive FBI colleague with feigned hurt.

“Back to business now. Question one: You spoke to the Bronx stabbing victim, right?” Emily said.

“If I don’t answer, will you waterboard me?” I said.

“I’d watch my step if I were you.”

“Fine, Aida Morales. Yep, spoke to her. She had a complication with one of her stabbing wounds, so she was actually still at Jacobi Hospital.”

“Did you show her the sketch and Photo Pak of the suspect?”

I nodded.

“She actually spent a lot of time with him, so even though he was wearing a curly Son of Sam wig when he attacked her, she was pretty sure it was the same guy.”

Emily wrinkled her brow at the pages.

“What, if anything, about the victims’ families jumps out at you as a possible link?”

“Not much,” I said, looking out at the water. “Especially on the surface. I mean, we have eight victims, ri

ght? Aida Morales, the four people killed in the Grand Central bombing, the double murder of the professor and his lover in Queens, and poor little Angela Cavuto. Four females, four men, five of them blue-collar types, three a little more upscale. You couldn’t get a more disparate bunch.”

“But like we agreed,” Emily said, “only two of the people who died at the newsstand—the owner and the girl who worked there—can be considered targets. The officer who was killed wasn’t on his regular post, and the homeless man wasn’t known to frequent the area.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “Six victims, then, but there’s still no obvious connection. Maybe we’re digging a dry hole.”

“Family dynamics are one thing we haven’t fully looked into, Mike. We have to keep looking.”

Emily stared at me and then started flipping through my notes again. To make myself useful, I started looking through hers. The interview parameters were extensive: socioeconomic status, brothers, sisters, parents, birth order, status of parents, employment history, education.

When the words started to blur, I slapped the folder closed.

“I’m not feeling it. I can’t think here. Start the car. I know just the place.”

Chapter 63

I DIRECTED EMILY and told her to stop under the beacon of a green neon harp. It was the Dublin House bar on 79th Street, where I’d celebrated my twenty-first birthday.

“You can think better here?” she said.

“What do you mean?” I said, leading her inside. “The library’s closed. Besides, haven’t you heard? People leave bombs there.”

The no-frills Irish pub hadn’t changed a bit. I went to the jukebox and put on “The Black Velvet Band,” which was the theme song of my childhood.