Tick Tock (12 page)

More
, Berger thought, filling his mouth until his cheeks bulged. My favorite word.

IT WAS TWO IN THE AFTERNOON when Berger got out of a taxi in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza. Dapper as can be in a chalk-pinstripe Alexander McQueen power suit, he carried a brown paper bag in his right hand, and in his left his lucky cane. The razor-sharp saber inside it had a grinning pewter skull for a handle that he kept hidden under his palm as he strolled.

He arrived at Sixth Avenue and made a right. A block up the leafy, brownstone-lined street, he paused by the steps of a church. He made the sign of the cross as he glanced at himself in the window of a parked Prius. He unbuttoned his jacket to show off his Hermès tie and handmade single-stitched Turnbull & Asser shirt. Now was not the time for Christian modesty.

He counted the addresses until he came to 485. He stepped up the stoop and rang the doorbell with the cane.

The forty-something redheaded man who opened the
door was wearing a Fordham T-shirt and shiny black basketball shorts, both speckled with primer.

“Mr. Howard?” the man said, patting at his carrot-colored hair as he opened the door. “What brings you here?”

“I was in the neighborhood, Kenneth,” Berger said, smiling. “I remembered you lived around here and thought I’d give you a buzz.”

The man’s name was Kenneth Cavuto. He’d been a real-estate financial analyst working for Lehman Brothers until the investment bank went belly-up in the financial meltdown. Berger had interviewed the man two weeks ago after contacting him from the Classifieds section of Craigs-list. On the Monday following, at $200,000 to start plus bonuses, Kenneth was supposed to begin running the capital market team of Berger’s fictitious new investment start-up, Red Lion Investments.

“Here, I brought you a gift,” Berger said, handing him the paper sack. “My mother always said when you go for a visit, ring the bell with your elbow.”

“Hey, wow, thanks. You didn’t have to do that,” Cavuto said as he accepted the bag. “What is it?”

“Fresh strawberries and pot cheese,” Berger said.

“What kind of cheese?” Cavuto said, looking into the bag.

“Pot. Though it’s not the kind you’re thinking of, you rascal. It’s the latest thing at Whole Foods.”

“Is that right?” Cavuto said with a shrug. “Please come in. Let me wash up, and I’ll put on some coffee.”

“Don’t bother yourself,” Berger said with a wave. “I just
wanted to make sure we were buttoned down on your position. No one else has come in with a higher bid, I hope. You’ll be there on Monday?”

“Of course, Mr. Howard. Nine a.m. sharp,” the redhead assured him with a pathetic earnestness.

Berger smiled immediately as a three-or four-year-old blond girl appeared in the hall behind Cavuto.

“Hey, who’s that?” Berger called to her. “Angela? Am I right?”

“That’s right. You remembered,” Cavuto said with happy surprise. “Angela, come here, baby.”

Berger got down on one knee as she arrived next to her father. He looked at the funny-looking doll she was holding. It was Boots the Monkey from
Dora the Explorer
.

“Knock, knock,” Berger said to her.

“Who’s there?” Angela said, peering suspiciously at him.

“Nunya.”

“Nunya who?” Angela said, smiling a little.

“Nunya business,” Berger said, standing.

The little girl laughed. He always had a way with kids.

“Won’t you come in?” Kenneth offered again.

“No, no. I’m off,” Berger said. “I have to head over to the zoo in the park now, where my ex is waiting to get my little angel Bethany’s fourth-birthday party started and—”

Berger snapped his finger.

“Where are my manners? Why don’t you come? A couple of vice presidents from the firm will be there as well. It’ll give you a chance to get acquainted before Monday.”

“Really?” Cavuto said. “Sounds great. Give me five minutes to get ready.”

Berger checked his flashy white-gold Rolex and made a face.

“Ah, but I’m already late, and it starts off with a guided tour for the kids. The ex-wife will lay into me if I’m not right there video-recording every millisecond of it.”

Berger fished into his pocket and handed Cavuto his Red Lion Investments business card.

“How’s this?” Berger said. “You and Angela can skip the animals and meet us for cake.”

“But, Daddy! Animals! The monkeys! I want to see the monkeys,” Angela said, tugging at her father’s shirt and on the verge of tears.

“There I go again. Me and my big mouth,” Berger said sheepishly as the girl actually started crying.

Berger snapped his fingers.

“I feel terrible, Ken. If you want, Angela and I can start ahead so she doesn’t miss the tour. Then when you’re ready, call us and we’ll tell you what animal we’re up to.”

This was the do-or-die moment, Berger knew. Hang with the boss versus parental paranoia. Berger was banking on the fact that the unemployed analyst wasn’t that used to being a stay-at-home dad, was still unsure of himself, still unsure of his instincts. And of course, if he said no, Berger would quickly switch to Plan B. Stun-gun the father, chloroform the girl, and get out of there.

“Yeah?” Cavuto finally said.

Berger held his breath. The fish was on the hook. Time to reel it in slowly.

“You know, on second thought,” Berger said, checking his watch as he retreated a step down the stairs. The girl, sensing his departure, broke into full-fledged sobs.

“It’s not too much of a pain?” Cavuto said.

“Of course not,” Berger said, reaching out for the little girl’s hand with a smile. “Bethany will be so happy to make yet another brand-new best friend.”

“I won’t be long,” Cavuto called, fingering the fake business card as they started down the sidewalk.

Oh, yes, you will, Daddy, Berger thought as he waved good-bye. Longer than you’ll ever know.

He turned around when they got to the corner. Cavuto had already gone inside. Instead of heading straight for the park and the zoo, he made a left, searching for a taxi.

“Hey, Angela. You thirsty? Want a juice box?” Berger said, taking out the Elmo apple juice that he’d laced with liquid Valium.

“Is it ’ganic?” the white-blond-haired tot wanted to know. “Mom only likes when I drink ’ganic.”

“Oh, it’s ’ganic, all right, Angela,” Berger said as a taxi pulled to the curb. “It’s as ’ganic as ’ganic can be.”

THAT AFTERNOON BACK IN THE CITY, I glued my butt to my squad room office chair and did nothing but go through Berkowitz’s fan mail.

It was unbelievable. There were curiosity seekers, people who wanted autographs, softhearted and softheaded religious people wanting to save the serial killer’s soul. Some old cat lady from England had sent him a feline family picture along with a check for $300 to buy himself “some gaspers,” whatever they were. I’d have to run it by the Geico lizard next chance I got.

I had just gotten through all the stuff from the 2000s and was tossing my desk for some aspirin when my boss called from a Bomb Squad meeting in the Bronx.

“Something nuts just came out of Brooklyn,” Miriam said. “A little girl was abducted from her dad in broad daylight. We got Brooklyn Major Case running over, but I need you to see what in the hell is going on. From the little
I’ve heard, it’s completely bizarre, which makes it par for the course for our guy. But I mean, it can’t be our bastard, right? How could a child abduction have something to do with the Mad Bomber or the Son of Sam?”

The address was in a pricey part of Brooklyn not too far from the art museum and Prospect Park. Blue-and-whites blocked both sides of the brownstone-lined street as I double-parked and headed toward an elaborately refurbished town house. A funereal-faced female lieutenant from the Seventy-eighth Precinct met me in the bright front hallway.

“How we doing here, boss?” I said.

“We’ve activated an AMBER Alert and sent Angela’s picture to all the media outlets, but so far nothing,” she said, lowering the static on her radio. “The missing girl is four.
Four.
The father was totally out of it when the first unit showed, just glassy-eyed. They’ve got him in the back bedroom now with the mother and a doctor and a priest. A Brooklyn DT went in about five minutes ago.”

Another ten long minutes passed before Hank Schaller, a veteran Brooklyn North detective who sometimes taught at the Academy, came out from the back of the house.

“Hank, what’s up?” I said. The neat middle-aged man’s gray eyes looked wrong as he shouldered past me like I wasn’t even there. That wasn’t good.

I followed him out of the town house and down the steps. He started speed-walking down Sixth so fast I had to jog to catch up with him. He seemed in a place beyond hurt, beyond angry.

Around the corner, he headed into the first place he came to, a swanky-looking restaurant. He walked around the stick-thin blond receptionist straight to the empty bar. He was loudly knocking an empty beer bottle on the black-quartz bar top when I finally arrived behind him.

“I want a vodka! Yo, a fucking vodka here! Now!” he yelled.

“You some kind of asshole?” said a burly bearded guy who came in from the kitchen.

Hank was trying to launch himself over the bar at the guy when I got in front of him. I flashed my badge and dropped a twenty.

“Just get him a drink, huh?”

“This animal,” Schaller whispered, crumpling onto a bar stool. He stared at the empty bottle in his hand as if wondering how it got there. “We need to catch this animal.”

“What happened, Hank?”

“I can hardly even say it,” he said, biting his lip. “This poor son of a bitch, the father, has been out of work for the past year, right? This guy preyed on him, said he was going to hire him. Then he shows up today out of the blue and invites both him and his daughter to his own daughter’s birthday party. Cavuto’s thinking, new job, new boss, definitely gotta go, right?”

The lead-assed cook finally poured three fingers of Grey Goose, which Schaller immediately knocked back.

“The dad needs a few minutes to get ready,” Schaller said, raising a finger, “so the guy says he’ll take the girl
ahead because he’s running late. Cavuto can catch up with them in ten, call to see where they are. He let her go, Mike. He gave him his kid. They walked away hand in hand. Except, when he gets out of his shower and calls the number, nothing happens. He runs to the zoo, there’s no party.” A tear ran down the bridge of the veteran detective’s nose. “Imagine, Mike. No one’s there!”

“Take it easy, brother,” I said.

“Four years old, Mike. This girl was a butterfly. How is this guy going to live with himself, Mike? Fucking how?”

“You need to calm down, Hank,” I tried.

“Calm down?” the cop said, flicking his tear off his cheek with his middle finger. “I know how this story ends, and so do you. I calm down when this monster is worm food. I catch up with him, this guy isn’t going to see the inside of a police car, let alone a courthouse.”

I watched Hank storm out of the restaurant.

I stayed back in the empty bar for a second, absorbing all I’d just heard. Hank was right. Our culprit really did seem like a monster out of some primordial ooze, the personification of antihuman evil. Hank’s knee-jerk reaction about it was spot-on as well. What do you do when you find a nasty bug crawling up your arm? You slap it off and crush it under your foot and keep squashing it until it isn’t there anymore. You do your darnedest to erase it out of existence.

“That all, Officer?” the cook said sarcastically.

“No,” I said, pulling up a stool and dialing my phone for my boss. “I need a fucking vodka now, too.”

I FINISHED MY DRINK and made some more calls before I returned to the house. Since I knew that poor Angela had been walked away, I put people on to contact the major taxi companies and the buses and subways in case anyone had seen anything.

When I arrived back to the town house, I spotted the CSU team and stayed out on the stoop coordinating with them. For some reason, the kidnapper had dropped off a bag with the father that contained strawberries and some kind of weird-looking cream cheese. I was hoping the bizarre package might get us a print. If this creep was bold enough to let the father get a good look at him, I was thinking, he might be getting sloppy and prone to making a mistake.

I’d just sent the department sketch artist in to Detective Schaller when Emily Parker called me.

“Hey, Mike. I got the green light. Just got the word from my boss I’m on the task force.”

“That couldn’t be better news, Emily,” I said. “Because this case has just taken another left turn.”

“What now?” she said.

“A four-year-old child from Brooklyn has just been abducted. I’m not sure yet how an abduction fits in with the other two sets of copycat crimes, but my gut says it’s the same flavor of weird that our perp likes.”

“Maybe it’s another crime of the century. The Lindbergh kidnapping, maybe?” Emily said. “I’ll research it and bring anything I find with me tomorrow on the train. Can you pick me up from Penn Station in the morning?”

I thought about Mary Catherine then and how I was going to manage things. It was like a fifth-grade word problem. One love interest is waiting for you out at the beach as another one gets on a train from Washington traveling at a hundred miles an hour. How long will it take before you find yourself in the doghouse? I wasn’t sure. I knew I definitely wasn’t smarter than a fifth-grader.

“Mike, you still there?” Emily said.

“Right here, Emily,” I said. “Of course, I’ll come get you. What time does your train get in?”

NYC’S EVENING RUSH HOUR was just getting started by the time I bumper-to-bumpered it back under the arches of the Brooklyn Bridge toward my squad room.

I evil-eyed my vacation-robbing workplace, One Police Plaza, as I crawled across the span. The slab concrete cube of a building had been butt-ugly even before it was surrounded with guard booths and bomb-barrier planters post 9/11. Because traffic from the financial district had been rerouted due to all the security measures, some Chinatown businesspeople had raised a fuss and suggested that headquarters be moved to another area. I had my fingers crossed for Hawaii, but so far I hadn’t heard anything.