Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

“No, no. They’re fine, Mike. Everyone’s just fine. It’s just…It’s too complicated to explain over the phone. Any chance you could swing by the apartment?”

Come home? I thought, squinting. She sounded overly polite, like there was someone there with her. We had a visitor or something? I couldn’t for the life of me think who it could be. And why the mystery?

“Actually, I’m kind of in the middle of something, Mary Catherine. Can it wait?” I said.

“No. You need to come home now.”

“Why?” I said.

“You’ll understand when you get here, Mike. Thanks. Bye now,” Mary Catherine said, and hung up.

Five minutes later, I weaved through the crosstown traffic on 145th, racking my brain as to what Mary Catherine’s call could possibly be about. Was it one of the kids? They were in trouble? Had Sister Sheilah, the principal of Holy Name, finally decided to make a house call? I couldn’t figure it out, and not knowing was really driving me crazy.

Speaking of crazy, I was at 123rd and Amsterdam when I caught a nasty snarl of traffic caused by an almost-jackknifed eighteen-wheeler trying to back up in the middle of the avenue.

I drummed my fingers on the wheel, waiting patiently for an authority figure to arrive and resolve the bizarre traffic situation.

For about one point three seconds.

I threw the cruiser into park and got out and threaded my way forward through the maze of honking taxis and work vans. I really, really needed to get home to see what was going on.

“Sir!” I yelled as I got to the rumbling semi’s driver-side door. “What are you doing?”

“This move is called backin’ up to make a furniture delivery,” the young, thin, bearded trucker said with a southern accent.

“See, there’s your problem right there,” I said. “This is New York City, sir. Backing up eighteen-wheelers is strictly forbidden. You need to go around the block and try it again.”

“On one of these narrow side streets?” he said in dismay. “Hell, I ain’t got a shoehorn for this rig. Thanks for the advice, but you need to get out of my way and let me work, friend.”

“It’s not advice, friend,” I said, showing him my shield.

There was a cacophony of happy horn honks and applause from the backed-up traffic as the rumbling truck finally pulled away. A big Sikh taxi driver with a handlebar mustache and an orange turban leaned out of his yellow Honda Odyssey and gave me a fist bump as I walked back to my cop car.

I shook my head in wonder as I got rolling again.

I put a cartel head out of business, I get demoted. But I get a truck to move and suddenly I’m Derek Jeter?

Only in New York, I thought.

CHAPTER 35

ALL THE KIDS WERE in the living room when I finally burst through the apartment door. Besides Chrissy and Shawna down on their bellies by the coffee table playing Sorry!, everyone was looking shocked and subdued. Which didn’t make sense, especially the subdued part.

“Guys, what is it? What’s wrong?” I said.

“Mary Catherine won’t tell us,” Eddie said somberly.

Juliana took a break from nervously biting a thumbnail to point at the kitchen.

“They’re waiting in there, Dad,” she said.

They? I thought, rushing down the hall toward the kitchen.

Inside, I found two men sitting at the island as Mary Catherine poured them coffee. One was a handsome blond, blue-eyed guy in his late twenties who kind of looked like a taller, thinner version of the actor Ryan Gosling. The other one, older, balding,

middle-aged, and round, wearing silver-framed eyeglasses, reminded me of Karl Rove or maybe Benjamin Franklin.

At first when I saw their dark business suits, I pegged them as cops, feds maybe, and almost passed out because what were the feds doing in my kitchen? But then I noticed how incredibly well tailored their suits were and I freaked out even more because I couldn’t think who the hell they were.