Bullseye (Michael Bennett 9)

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t do it, so I am. That’s what friends are for, right? I’ll call you back.”

Brian dropped his cell into his pocket as he arrived at the battered pay phone. He lifted the receiver and heard a dial tone. It had to be one of the last working pay phones in all of Manhattan. Maybe the world.

He quickly dialed.

“Nine one one. What’s your emergency?” asked a female operator.

“I just saw a guy with a gun in his hand in Riverside Park. A tall black guy in a black goose down jacket. He’s getting into a Mercedes on Riverside Drive. Plate number 347-WRT. He’s near the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Hurry.”

“Do you want to leave your name?” the operator wanted to know.

Brian thought about the dealer again, the sheer horrendous size of him.

“Not in any way, shape, or frickin’ form, ma’am,” Brian Bennett said before he hung up the phone with a sharp clang and continued running.

Chapter 64

At seven that night, I was in the company Impala with Seamus, scanning the empty, dark streets around my building, looking for Brian.

I was starting to get nervous. Actually, if you wanted to get truly technical, I was on the brink of a massive panic attack.

The tires squealed as we came off 89th onto Amsterdam Avenue with some speed. We zipped past a Thai restaurant, a pizza parlor, a dive bar.

“Wait—maybe he went into that bar back there, Seamus,” I said. “Do you think we should stop?”

“No, I don’t,” Seamus said calmly. “He’s sixteen. He’s just walking around. It’s going to be fine. We’ll find him, Michael. Soon.”

“Why do kids do this, Father?” I said. “Drive their parents so sick with worry?”

“I remember when you were young,” Seamus said. “Your parents beamed as you shined your shoes and whistled as you made your way back and forth from choir to altar boy practice. You never worried anyone to death with all your wild hooligan carryings-on.”

“It was a different time back then,” I said in my defense. “Everything wasn’t so nuts.”

“Right you are,” Seamus said. “In the seventies and eighties, this city was a moral paradise. If you recall, Michael, it’s only natural for a boy to gravitate toward shenanigans. Why, it was only yesterday your father and I were out looking for you! When ya went to—what was it called?—Laser something in Central Park, and blind my eyes if we weren’t in his squad car then as well!”

“Laser Zeppelin,” I said, laughing. “At the Hayden Planetarium. Give me a break, Seamus. That was…educational!”

I remembered it vaguely. It was a laser light show across the dome of a huge dark room where the immortal Zep was blasted at an unbelievable volume. Teens would tailgate, sipping tequila and beer in the park outside every Friday night, and my friends and I would go join the festivities, trying to get girls’ phone numbers. As I strolled down memory lane, I suddenly remembered my own father, murder in his eyes, by a park bench when I came back from upchucking in the bushes.

“Not fair, Seamus,” I said as I continued cruising down Amsterdam, my head on a swivel. “How dare you bring up, at a time like this, the fact that I, too, was sixteen once.”

We did another circuit around the apartment and onto Riverside Drive, and I spotted blue and red spinning lights somewhere in the high eighties. As I zoomed up, I could see that cops had cuffed a big figure in a goose down jacket and were putting him up over the hood of a Mercedes. Thank God it wasn’t Brian, I thought, driving past.

Then, a minute later, there he was. On the corner of 96th, waiting to cross at the light.

“Hey, Dad. Hey, Seamus,” he said casually as I screeched up in front of him.

“Get your butt in this car now!”

I twisted around toward the back as he sat, and I looked deep into his eyes.

“One chance. What are you on?” I said.

He gaped at me.

“Nothing, Dad, I swear. I went out for a walk. My phone died. I must have lost track of time. Jeez.”