Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

The photographers stopped shooting their pictures. They stared at me. So did Sampson. And Jimmy Moore. And most everybody on the soup line. The press didn’t leave, but they backed away. Most of them crossed 12th Street, and I knew they would wait for me to come out.

We were serving people their lunch, I thought to myself as I watched the reporters and photographers waiting for me in a park across the street. Who the hell did the press serve these days other than the wealthy business conglomerates and families they all worked for?

Angry rumblings were starting up around us. “People are hungry and cold. Let’s eat. People got a right to eat,” someone yelled from the line.

I went back inside to my post. We started to serve lunch. I was the Peanut Butter Man.

CHAPTER 29

IN THE CITY OF WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, Gary Murphy was shoveling away four inches of snow. It was Wednesday afternoon, the sixth of January. He was thinking about the kidnapping. He was trying to keep under control. He was thinking about the little rich bitch Maggie Rose Dunne, when a shiny blue Cadillac pulled up alongside his small Colonial-style house on Central Avenue. Gary cursed under the breath streaming from his mouth.

Six-year-old Roni, Gary’s daughter, was making snowballs, setting them out on the icy crust that topped the snow. She squealed when she saw her uncle Marty climbing out of his car.

“Who’s that boot-i-ful little girl?” Uncle Marty called across the yard to Roni. “Is that a movie star? It is! I think so. Is that Ron-eee? I think it is!”

“Uncle Marty! Uncle Marty!” Roni screamed as she ran toward the car.

Every time Gary saw Marty Kasajian, he thought of the really putrid movie Uncle Buck. In Uncle Buck, John Candy was an unlikable, unwelcome, unlikely relative who kept showing up to torture a whitebread midwestern family. It was an obnoxious flick. Uncle Marty Kasajian was rich and successful; and louder than John Candy; and he was here. Gary despised Missy’s big brother for all of those reasons, but most of all because Marty was his boss.

Missy must have heard Marty’s commotion. How could anyone on Central Avenue or nearby North Street miss it? She came out of the back door with a dish towel still wrapped around one hand.

“Look who’s here!” Missy squealed. She and Roni sounded like identical piglets to Gary.

Quel fucking surprise, Gary felt like yelling. He held it all in—the way he held in all of his true feelings at home. He imagined beating Marty to death with his snow shovel, actually murdering Kasajian in front of Missy and Roni. Show them who the man of the house really was.

“The Divine Miss M!” Marty Kasajian continued to motormouth a mile a minute. He finally acknowledged Gary. “Hiya doin’, Gar, old buddy. How ’bout those Eagles? Randall the C’s on fire. Got your Super Bowl tickets lined up?”

“Sure thing, Marty. Two tickets on the fifty-yard line.”

Gary Murphy tossed his aluminum shovel into a low bank of snow. He trudged over to where Missy and Roni were standing with Uncle Marty.

Then they all went inside the house together. Missy brought out expensive eggnog, and pieces of fresh apple-raisin pie with hunks of cheddar on the side. Marty’s piece was bigger than all the others. He was The Man, right?

Marty handed an envelope to Missy. It was Missy’s “allowance” from her big brother, which he wanted Gary to see. Really rub salt in the wounds that way.

“Mommy, Uncle Marty, and Daddy have to talk for a coupla minutes, sweetheart,” Marty Kasajian said to Roni as soon as he finished his piece of pie. “I think I forgot something for you out in my car. I dunno. Could be on the backseat. You better go look.”

“Put your coat on first, honey,” Missy said to her daughter. “Don’t catch cold.”

Roni laughed-squeaked as she hugged her uncle. Then she hurried away.

“Now what did you get her?” Missy whispered conspiratorially to her brother. “You’re too much.”

Marty shrugged as if he couldn’t remember. With everybody else, Missy was okay. She reminded Gary of his real mom. She even looked like his real mom. It was only with her brother, Gary had noticed, that she changed for the worse. She even started picking up Marty’s obnoxious habits and speech cadences.

“Listen, kids.” Marty hunched in closer to the two of them. “We have a little problema. Treatable, because we’re catching it early, but something we have to deal with. Pretend like we’re all adults, y’know.”

Missy was instantly on guard. “What is it, Marty? What’s the problem?”

Marty Kasajian looked genuinely concerned and uncomfortable now. Gary had seen him use this hangdog look a thousand times with his customers. Especially when he had to confront somebody on an overdue bill, or fire somebody in the office.

“Gar?” He looked at Gary for help with this. “You want to say something here?”

Gary shrugged. As if he didn’t have clue one, right. Fuck you, asshole, he was thinking to himself. You’re on your own this time.

Gary could feel a smile spreading, coming all the way up from his stomach. He didn’t want it to show, but it finally broke across his lips. This was kind of a delectable moment. Getting caught had its own subtle rewards. Might be a lesson here; something to go to school on.

“Sorry. I don’t think this is funny.” Marty Kasajian shook his head and said, “I really don’t, Gary.”