Run For Your Life

Chapter 18

In the small, blessedly quiet foyer outside the Bennett apartment, Mary Catherine picked up the day’s mail, and then paused for a moment. What a nice little space, she thought, lingering before the framed architectural drawings, the antique light fixture, the tarnished copper umbrella stand, the next-door neighbors, the Underhills, had arranged a cornucopia of golden leaves, baby pumpkins, and squash on the mail table.

But the pleasant tour ended all too soon as she came back to the Bennett apartment. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, and opened the door.

Sound slammed into her like a collapsed wall as she stepped inside. In the living room, Trent and Ricky were still loudly squabbling over PlayStation rights. Not to be outdone, Chrissy and Fiona had become locked in a DVD death match at their bedroom computer. The old, overworked washing machine accompanied the yells, thundering from the kitchen as if a full rehearsal of the musical Stomp was under way.

Mary Catherine jumped back as a small, yowling, vomit-colored object streaked between her feet. She stared at it, refusing to believe her eyes. But it was true.

Somebody had just thrown up on Socky, the cat.

Amid all the clamor, she could hardly hear the phone ringing. Her first thought was to let the machine pick it up. The last thing she needed was another hassle. But then she decided, The heck with it. Things couldn’t get worse. She stepped over to the wall phone and lifted it off the hook.

“Bennett residence,” she half screamed.

The caller was a woman who spoke in a clipped, no-nonsense tone. “This is Sister Sheilah from Holy Name.”

Oh, Lord, Mary Catherine thought – the kids’ principal. This was not going to be good news. Well, it served her right for taunting fate.

The din seemed, if anything, to be getting even louder. She glanced around, trying to think of a quick way to quiet it. Then inspiration hit.

“Yes, Sister. This is Mary Catherine, the children’s au pair. Could you hold on one second?”

She calmly set down the phone, got the stepladder out of the pantry, and climbed up to the electrical box on the wall beside the door. As she unscrewed each of the four fuses, the noise abruptly stopped – the TV, the computer game, the washing machine, and finally, the voices.

Mary Catherine picked up the phone again and said, “Sorry, Sister. I’ve a bit of a mutiny on my hands here. What can I do for you?”

She closed her eyes as the principal curtly informed her that Shawna and Brian, half of the Bennett faction that Mary Catherine had managed to get out the door this morning, had “become ill.” They were in the school nurse’s office and had to be picked up immediately.

Perfect, she thought. Mike was involved in something too serious to break away from, and she couldn’t leave the little ones here alone.

She assured Sister Sheilah that she’d have someone pick up the latest casualties as soon as humanly possible, and she called Mike’s grandfather, Seamus. This time, fate relented. He was available to go get them right away.

Mary Catherine had just finished talking to him when Ricky, Trent, Fiona, and Chrissy wandered into the kitchen with a chorus of complaints.

“The TV stopped!”

“So’d my computer!”

“Yeah, like – everything.”

“Must be a power blackout,” Mary Catherine said, shrugging. “Nothing to be done about it.” She rummaged in the utility drawer and took out a deck of cards. “Have you guys ever played blackjack?”

Ten minutes later, the kitchen island had become a card table with Trent as the dealer and the others squinting at their hands. The noise level was reduced to the little guys counting out loud and grappling with the rules. Mary Catherine smiled. She wasn’t one to encourage gambling, but she was pleased to see them having fun without batteries. She decided to make sure the entertainment devices were turned off, then screw the fuses back in so she could finish the laundry and make soup. They’d be too absorbed to notice.

But first, there was an important matter to take care of. Socky was still complaining piteously and trying to rub its vomit-stained coat against her ankles. She gingerly lifted the cat by the back of the neck.

“You’ll thank me in the long run,” she said, and carried it, clawing the air in furious protest, to the kitchen sink.

Chapter 19

“You must be a cop, because you certainly don’t look like a customer,” a young woman called to me as I was exiting the Polo store.

Well, if it isn’t Cathy Calvin, intrepid Times police reporter and all-around pain in the ass, I thought.

She wasn’t somebody I wanted to talk to right now. On top of all the problems I was facing, I was still very annoyed at how distinctly unhelpful she’d been at the St. Pat’s Cathedral siege.

But I put a smile on my face and walked over to the barricade where she was standing. The enemies we cannot kill, we must caress, and deception is the art of war, I remembered. Thank God for the classical education I’d received from the Jesuits at Regis High. You needed to brush up on your Machiavelli and Sun Tzu to survive an encounter with this lady.

“Why is it every time we meet, it’s over police sawhorses and crime scene tape?” she said with a big bright grin of her own.

“Good fences make good neighbors, I guess, Cathy,” I said. “I’d love to chat, but I’m really busy.”

“Aw, come on, Mike. How about a quick statement, at least?” she said as she turned on her digital recorder. She was giving me some pretty intense eye contact. For the first time, I noticed that hers were green – striking, and actually kind of playful. She smelled good, too. What was it she’d just said? Oh yeah, she wanted a statement.

I kept it as by-the-book vague and as short as possible. A store clerk had been shot, I told her, and we were withholding his name pending notification of his family.

“Wow, you’re a font of information just like always, Detective Bennett. What about the shooting at Twenty-one? Is it related?”

“We can’t speculate at this time.”

“What’s that mean, really? Chief McGinnis isn’t letting you in on that one?”

“Off the record?” I asked.

“Of course,” Cathy said, clicking off her recorder as I leaned in.

“No comment,” I whispered.

Her emerald eyes didn’t look so frolicsome anymore as she clicked the recorder back on.

“Let’s talk about last night, up in Harlem,” she said, totally switching tracks. “Witnesses say police snipers shot an unarmed man. You were right next to the victim. What did you see?”

I was used to aggressive reporting, but I was starting to wonder where I’d left my pepper spray.

“Cathy, I’d just love to relive that experience, especially with you,” I said. “But as you can see, I’m in the middle of an investigation, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it over lunch? You have to eat, right? My treat. And no tape recorder.”

I snapped my fingers in fake disappointment. “Wouldn’t you know it? I already have a reservation at Twenty-one.”

“Very funny,” she said with a wry look. Then she shrugged. “Oh, well. A girl has to try. I probably shouldn’t tell you this – it’ll go to your head – but I could think of worse lunch dates. If you ever put an ad in the personals, I’ll give you a couple of tips on what to say. Tall, nice build, thick brown hair, definitely cute.”

I was startled that she thought that about me. Maybe she was just flattering me to get more information, but she seemed like she meant it.

“I don’t have any plans to,” I said. “But thanks.”

“And that crack I made about you not looking like a Polo customer was below the belt. You’re actually a very sharp dresser.”

My hand rose automatically to smooth my tie. Christ, was she really hitting on me? Or was I a total fool to even imagine it? Cathy was damned nice-looking herself, and in the kind of outfit she was wearing right now – short, tight black skirt, tighter blouse, and patent leather pumps – she was flat-out hot. As long as you could ignore her being a bitch on Rollerblades.

But was she even such a bitch? I started wondering. Or just a hard-driving professional trying to do her job, with a brassy style of flirting, and I was a hopelessly grumpy old bastard who’d been taking it all wrong?

I backed away, as confused as a schoolboy. She was watching me with her hands on her hips and her head cocked a little to one side, like she’d challenged me to a duel and was waiting for my response.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Cathy,” I said, “but I could think of worse lunch dates, too.”

Chapter 20

I spent the rest of that afternoon at the 21 Club, mostly interviewing witnesses who had been there when the maître d’, Joe Miller, was shot. When I finished, I sank into a red leather banquette in the back bar and yawned. There’d been a lot of them.

No one here had seen the actual killing, but there didn’t seem to be any doubt that the shooter was a bike messenger, who had come in and left again quickly at just that time. Miller had been found with the bloody message tucked between his shoes. There was also a general consensus that the messenger was a fairly tall, white male, probably around thirty years old.

From there, it was a good news/bad news scenario. Every single person I’d talked to, from the high-powered executive customers to the busboys, confirmed that he’d been wearing a light, uniform-style shirt – not an orange Mets jersey. But he’d also had on a helmet and sunglasses. Like at the Polo store, nobody had gotten a clear look at his face, or even his hair color. Which left us still without any details for matching the suspects in the various assaults.

Along with that little problem, there was another troubling mystery. The bullets that had killed the maître d’ were.22 caliber, very different from the.45s that were used on Kyle Devens. Then again, shell casings were also clean of fingerprints.

There were still a ton of possibilities. But in spite of the contradictions, my increasingly queasy gut pushed me more and more toward thinking that the two shootings, at least, were related. The suspects’ ages and general physical descriptions were similar. Both crimes had occurred at high-end establishments.

But most important was the text of the typed message found with the maître d’s body. I lifted up the evidence bag and read it again.

Your blood is my paint. Your flesh is my clay.

It had a creepy similarity to what the Polo clerk shooter had said to Patrick Cardone.

You are the witness to history. I envy you.

My hunch was that we were talking about a guy who’d gotten an A in Crackpot Composition 101, and wanted people to know it – wanted them to buy into his delusions of grandeur. But the only way he could get that kind of attention was through vicious, cold-blooded murder.

Unfortunately, if I was right, he was smart, and also careful. Different outfits, different guns, face hard to see, no fingerprints.

Then there was the question of whether he was the same wacko who’d pushed the girl in front of the 3 train, down at Penn Station. No weapon, no coy message, and he’d let himself be seen. But again, the overall physical description fit.

Well, at least there hadn’t been any more Manhattan killings in the last few hours. Maybe we’d get lucky and find out that our nutburger shot himself. But probably not. This guy seemed too organized to be a suicide. And besides, my birthday wasn’t until next month.

I closed my notebook and scanned the football helmets, musical instruments, and kitschy knickknacks hanging from 21’s famous bar ceiling. The bartender had told me that the toys, as they called them, had been donated over the last hundred years by movie stars and gangsters and presidents.

The thought that Bogie might have tied one on with Hemingway at the very table where I was sitting made me consider having a quick burger before I left. I lifted the menu. I had to read the prices twice before realizing I wasn’t hallucinating.

Thirty bucks?

“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” I mumbled as I stood.

On my way out, I studied the wall of photographs behind the reservation book. In each one, the deceased maître d’, “Nice Guy” Joe Miller, was smiling with an A-list celebrity. Ronald Reagan, Johnny Carson, Tom Cruise, Shaq, Derek Jeter. “Any good maître d’ can get you to sit where he wants you to sit,” the manager had told me. “Joe had that rare ability to actually convince you that his choice was better than yours.”

Miller hadn’t missed a day’s work since he’d started as a busboy thirty-three years ago. Thirty-three years, and tonight, his two girls at Columbia and his widow got to ask themselves, What the hell do we do now?

Outside, 52nd Street had become dark. Worn out though I was, I couldn’t believe the miserable day had flown by so fast. Time can also fly when you’re not having fun, apparently.

I couldn’t believe, either, that the 21 Club intended to stay open for business tonight. A line of well-heeled, beautiful people filled the sidewalk, impatiently waiting to get in. Maybe the murder was an extra attraction.

The manager waved at me anxiously from the doorway, awaiting my signal that he could remove the crime scene tape. His slain employee’s moment of silence had lasted a New York minute. So much for any dignity about being dead, I thought. A fat cop in a Tyvek suit hauled your carcass out of the way, and, with depressingly little trouble, the world moved on.

I watched the manager balling the yellow tape in his hands as he hurried back under the awning. Maybe they’d string it up above the bar with the other toys, was my merry parting thought – the NYPD’s contribution to lifestyles of the rich and famous.

I started walking, trying to remember where I’d parked my van.

Chapter 21

Ever since Commissioner Daly’s phone call earlier today, the fact that he’d handpicked me for this assignment had been in the back of my mind. As I drove home, it surfaced for the thousandth time. I was as nervous as hell about this case – I admitted it. In all likelihood, we would catch this guy, especially if he kept on going.

But that was precisely the problem. How many more people might he kill before we did catch him?

It was a tough spot for me to be in. So far, I had very little to work with. But I couldn’t let the commissioner, or the city, down.

When I opened my apartment door, I was greeted by the strong waft of Lysol. With it came the memory of all the problems that awaited me in this world, too.

“Daddy, Daddy, look!” Fiona cried out. Her pigtails whipped around as she ran toward me, waving the dollar bill I’d left under her pillow. Her hug-tackle almost knocked me down. “The Tooth Fairy didn’t forget! She came after all!”

I’d read somewhere that eight-year-old girls couldn’t care less about toys or other childish things anymore – just makeup, clothes, and electronics. But I was blessed with one who still believed in magic. I returned her hug, with all my anxiousness shedding off me like old skin. At least I was doing something right.

As Fiona tugged me into the living room, I spotted a mop and plastic pail, and I started thinking about how Mary Catherine must have spent her day. Who was I to complain? As bad as mine had been, hers had to have been worse.

A moment later, she came hurrying in for the mop. I grabbed it at the same instant she did, and with my other hand I pointed to the stairs to the third floor, Mary Cather-ine’s apartment.

“Out you go, Mary,” I said. “Whatever needs doing here, I’m all over it. You go have fun with somebody who’s old enough to vote. That’s an order.”

“Mike, you just got in, you need to relax a bit,” she said. “I can stay for a few more minutes.”

She pulled at the mop, but I held on to it. In the tug of war that followed, the water-filled pail went over with a splash, flooding across the hardwood.

I don’t know which of us started giggling first, but after a second, we were both full-out belly laughing.

“The floor needed a mop anyway,” I finally said. “Now for the last time, I’m giving you a police order to remove yourself from these premises. I have handcuffs, and I’ll use them on you.”

Mary Catherine stopped laughing abruptly. She let go of the mop and turned away hastily, like she’d done when we’d brushed against each other in the kitchen. This time, there was no doubt that she was blushing.

“I didn’t mean… that,” I said warily. “I…”

“It’s been a long day, Mike. There’ll be another tomorrow, so let’s both get some rest.” With her face still averted, she started to leave, pausing to tap a sheaf of paper on the coffee table. “This’ll be useful to you. Good night.”

I was setting a personal-best record for the number of times I’d put my foot in my mouth with women in one day, I thought. I decided to blame it on exhaustion. Or maybe I was coming down with the flu, too.

I looked at the papers she’d left me – a detailed computer printout, a medical chart of my quarantined family. Who needed which medicine, how much of it, and when. I shook my head in disbelief. This woman could do the impossible.

I should have asked her where the psycho killer was.

Chapter 22

The Teacher scrubbed his wet hair with a towel as he came out of the bathroom in his apartment. He stopped when he heard a strange sound outside the bedroom window. He hooked a finger to the drawn shade and peeked out.

Down on West 38th, a buggy driver was walking a beaten-down-looking gray horse into the tenement-turned-stable next door. His other neighbors included a greasy taxi garage and a check-cashing place with a steel grille over the windows and a perpetual litter of broken glass on the sidewalk out front.

He chuckled to himself. The corner of 38th and Eleventh Avenue was exceedingly crappy and run-down, even for Hell’s Kitchen. Maybe he was crazy, but he loved it anyway. At least it was authentic.

Still amped to the gills from the day’s adrenaline rush, he lay down on the weight bench beside his bed. The bar held two hundred-and-eighty pounders. He lifted it easily off its brackets, lowered it to touch his chest, and raised it back up until his elbows locked at full extension. He did this ten times with an exquisite slowness that burned through his throbbing muscles and brought tears to his eyes.

Much better, he thought, sitting up. What a day. What a freaking day.

He wetted a rag, put it on his forehead, and lay back on the bench. He had downtime now – time for everybody to catch up, like putting on the ol’ boob tube while waiting for mom and pop to get home from work.

The workout had helped to burn off some of his wired energy, and the cool damp cloth was soothing. He let his eyes shut. A little nap before dinner would be sweet. He’d wake up fresh and ready for the next phase.

But just as he was drifting off, a burst of loud laughter and the heavy, thumping bass of rap music made him sit up again. Angrily, he strode across the room and twitched the window shade aside. In the brightly lit, curtainless window of a loft across the street, a little Asian guy was taking pictures of two tall, anorexic white girls in long gowns. The girls started dancing like jackasses to the brainless noise of 50 Cent, bragging that he was a P-I-M-P.

What the hell? Last time he’d noticed, that building was a warehouse where some legless fat guy named Manny stored hot dog carts. Now it was some kind of fashion studio bullshit? There went the goddamn neighborhood.

In Iraq One, he’d been in a marine recon unit that had been given an experimental bazooka-like weapon called a SMAW. The SMAW had been outfitted with a new explosive thermobaric round. Leaking a fine mist of gas in the air microseconds before ignition, a thermobaric was capable not only of vaporizing masonry structures, but of actually igniting the oxygen within its blast zone.

He’d have given anything he had for one of those right now. His trigger finger actually tingled as he remembered the feeling of touching off one of those megarounds. His imagination kicked in, substituting the building across the street for the ones he’d destroyed back then, throwing a fireball and shock wave that would have torn off the top several floors.

He had plenty of other weapons on hand, though – half a dozen pistols, a Mac-9, a sawed-off tactical shotgun, a Colt AR-15 with an M203 grenade launcher, a selection of silencers. Behind them, appropriate cardboard ammunition boxes were stacked and arrayed in orderly little rows. A half-dozen each of fragmentation, smoke, and flashbang grenades sat in a Crate and Barrel carton beneath his worktable like an oversized container of lethal eggs.

But no. Trying to kill every annoying fool would be like pissing into a live volcano. He had to stick to the Plan and kill the ones who counted.

He stalked into the room he’d outfitted as an office, sat in a Pottery Barn retro office chair, and clicked on a green-shaded banker’s desk lamp. Every inch of the wall above the desk was covered. There were subway and street maps, photos of building lobbies and subway stations, and a framed poster of Tom Cruise from Top Gun in the center. More portraits of Marcus Aurelius, Henry David Thoreau, and Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver were taped over the credits. The desk itself was covered with worn marble notebooks, a laptop, and a police scanner connected to a tape recorder. Alongside it was a heavy worktable that looked like one of those bust pictures cops took after a raid.

His telephone and answering machine sat on top of it. Lately, he’d hardly been bothering to check his messages. But when he glanced at the machine, he blinked in astonishment. Thirty-six messages? That couldn’t be right.

Then he remembered where he was supposed to have been earlier that morning. Ah, yes, it made sense now. That appointment had seemed so infinitely important when he’d first made it. But since he’d had his Epiphany, he couldn’t have cared less about it.

That thought improved his mood. Smiling, he deleted the messages without listening to them and stepped back into his bedroom. He popped a relaxation CD into the player beside the weight bench and hit Play.

The sound of waves washing gently against the shore and the soft caw of seagulls drowned out the rap from across the street. He stretched out on the bench again, jerked up the crushing weight, and lowered it toward his chest.

Chapter 23

The Teacher awoke, completely starved, a little after ten P.M. He went into the kitchen, turned on the oven, and took a brown paper-wrapped package out of the fridge.

Twenty minutes later, baby lamb chops were sizzling in a port-rosemary demi-glace. He touched the hot meat with a fingertip to test it and smiled at the just-so give. Almost there, he thought. He drained the pommes frites and drizzled them with truffle oil.

After plating, he brought the steaming dish to the linen-covered table in the apartment’s small dining room. He opened the $450 bottle of ‘95 Château Mouton-Rothschild with a pop, chucked the cork over his shoulder, and poured himself a healthy glass.

The lamb practically melted in his mouth as he slowly chewed the first bite, then chased it with a sip of the exquisite Cabernet. Tight tannins, floral nose, tastes of cassis and licorice in the finish. It probably could have used another six months to mellow to absolute perfection, but he couldn’t wait another six months.

He closed his eyes as he ate, savoring the truffle oil and Parmesan fries, the succulent meat, the kick-ass Cab. He’d eaten at pretty much every fine restaurant in New York and Paris, and this was as good a meal as he’d ever had. Or was it because of all the work he’d accomplished today? Did it matter? This was gastronomic nirvana. He’d truly nailed it.

He stretched the meal out as long as he could, but at last, regrettably, it was done. He drained the wine bottle into his balloon glass and took that into the darkened living room. There, he dropped onto the couch, found the remote, and flipped on the sixty-inch Sony plasma on the wall.

The crystal-clear image of a CNN anchor, Roz Abrams, appeared with her mouth going at full speed. There was a flu going around the city, she informed her audience. No shit. As if he cared.

He put up with a couple more minutes of inanities and commercials before she came back to the day’s main story.

There was also a killer on the loose.

Really, Rozzy baby? You don’t fucking say. How’s that for some real news?

He leaned forward as she spoke and listened intently to the coverage. There was still confusion about the two shootings. The police weren’t sure if they were related, either to each other or to a bizarre incident where a young woman had been pushed in front of a subway. They didn’t know if they were looking for a single suspect or more than one. They were fearful that terrorists might be to blame.

The Teacher sat back and relaxed, smiling. The police and the media were still scratching their heads – exactly how he wanted it.

There was no mention of the mission statement that he’d sent to the Times. He wondered if that was a cop trick – withholding information from the public for some reason – or if there was some other explanation. Maybe the newspapers simply hadn’t made the connection yet. No matter. They would, soon enough.

When the report about the killings was over, and Roz Abrams went back to more banal bullshit that would interest only the herds of human cattle out on the streets, the Teacher turned off the TV set and stood. Carrying the glass with the last of the Cabernet, he stepped into the apartment’s spare room and clicked on the wall switch, bathing the room in bright incandescent light.

There was a human shape on the guest bed, like someone sleeping. Except it was entirely covered by a sheet.

The Teacher gently lifted the sheet off the shape’s face.

“It’s starting, buddy,” he said.

A dead man stared back, his features masked by caked blood. A small bullet hole was visible in his right temple, and a much larger exit wound in his left.

“To getting their attention,” the Teacher said, winking and raising the glass of ruby wine over the body. “And to tomorrow, when we turn it up to eleven.”

Chapter 24

At six thirty in the morning, the pews of Holy Name Church on the Upper West Side were silent and empty. With its still-dark stained-glass windows, it might have been the most solemn spot in all of Manhattan.

Which was precisely the problem, Father Seamus Bennett thought as he sat hidden underneath the altar.

This was not some new form of devotional activity. Far from it – he was on a stakeout. For the past two weeks, a thief had been stealing from the poor boxes at the front of the church, and Seamus was determined to catch the culprit red-handed.

He parted the altar cloth and peered out, frowning, through his binoculars. In another couple of hours, the church would be filled with glorious light, pouring through the multicolored windows. But right now, it was so dim he could barely see the front doors. He’d been watching for almost an hour, with no sign of activity.

But this individual was clever. He, or she, always left some money in the boxes, probably thinking that the pilferage wouldn’t be noticed. Seamus knew damned well that it was going on – the usual daily take had dropped by more than half. Still, that suggested that the thief was also stealthy, and probably could sneak in and out of the dim building without Seamus even knowing it. He didn’t want to turn on the church’s electric lights, which ordinarily weren’t used in the mornings. Any change in routine like that might red-flag the stakeout.

He lowered his – what was the cop lingo for binoculars again? oh, yeah – “-eyes” and poured himself some coffee from the thermos he’d brought. There had to be a better way to handle this. He was going to bring a fan next time. It was stifling inside the tiny, covered space. And a cushion, maybe even a beach chair. His legs and butt were past numb from sitting cross-legged on the cold marble floor. A partner would help, too – someone to take turns with him. Maybe one of the deacons.

This was all the fault of his uncooperative grandson, Seamus thought grumpily. Mike had refused to arrange for an NYPD crime scene analysis, and an FBI profile. In fact, he’d seemed quite amused at the thought, adding insult to injury. Was that so much to ask for the glory of God?

“You’d think having a cop in the family might come in handy,” Seamus mumbled through a sip of the steaming coffee.

The ring of his cell phone startled him, and he banged his head on the underside of the altar as he groped for it in his pocket.

The caller was none other than Mike. How do you like that? Seamus thought. Speak of the…

“I need you, Monsignor,” Mike said. “Here. Now. Please and thank you.”

“Oh, I see,” Seamus began. “When I needed a bit of help from you, it was ‘Sorry, Father.’ But now that you need me? -”

But Mike had already hung up.

Seamus closed his phone with a sharp snap. “You think you can get away with it by being polite,” he griped. “But the old priest sees through to your insidious heart.” He crawled out from underneath the altar, rubbing his aching lower back.

Then a voice said, “Monsignor, is that you?”

Seamus swiveled toward the figure, standing by the votives in front of the sacristy. It was Burt, the church’s caretaker, staring at him in wonder.

“Don’t be silly, Burt,” Seamus growled. “Isn’t it obvious that I’m Father Bennett’s evil twin?”

Chapter 25

You know you’re in for a rough day when, the instant you wake up, you’re already overwhelmed. I stumbled out of bed and rushed deliriously through my apartment to take the body count. Moans and groans came from every corner. No doubt about it – my family had gone from bad to worse. Thinking of the place as a hospital ward no longer applied. Now it was a MASH unit under mortar fire.

Pretty soon, I had some chicken soup on the stove and a Jell-O chilling in the fridge. Meantime, I ran from child to child with cold cloths in one hand, a digital ear thermometer in the other, and a five-year-old on my back – taking temperatures, hydrating the hot and sweaty victims, and trying to warm those with the shivers. Somewhere in the bunch, there might have been one or two of them who were well enough to go to school, but I was too busy to care. The healthy were on their own this morning.

Especially after only a few hours of restless half sleep, I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. So, reluctantly, I’d called Seamus. I hated to bother him so early, but twenty minutes of dealing with my family’s epidemic had stripped me of all my manners. Besides, didn’t every battlefield need a priest?

“Dad?” Jane said, lifting a notebook from her night table as I came into her room. “Let me bounce this off you. ‘The plague continued. It was looking hopeless. What had Michael, the head of the Bennett family, done to bring such misfortune upon his innocent children?’?”

I shook my aching head. At eleven, Jane was the budding writer in the family, and she’d decided to use her downtime to do an in-depth biography of the Bennetts. It sounded like her style was influenced equally by gothic romances and precocious guilt-tripping.

“That’s lovely, Jane,” I said, closing my eyes as Trent, across the hall, sneezed and then wiped his hands on poor Socky. “But why don’t you add something like, ‘Then their father had an inspired idea for a last-ditch radical cure – blistering spankings for one and all!’?”

Jane frowned. “Sorry, Dad, nobody’d believe it.” She wetted her forefinger and flicked through pages. “I still have some background stuff I’ve been meaning to ask you. First off, about Grandpa Seamus. I thought priests couldn’t get married. Was there some sort of juicy scandal?”

“No!” I half yelled. “There were no juicy scandals. Grandpa Seamus just came to the priesthood later in life, after he lost Grandma Eileen. After he had his family. Get it?”

“Are you sure that’s allowed?” she said suspiciously.

“I’m sure,” I said, and retreated before she could think up something else. Jaysus, as the old micks would say. Just what I needed – another female reporter trying to nail me.

Chapter 26

I found Mary Catherine in the kitchen, turning off the soup just as it started to boil over. I froze as I noticed something on the island behind her.

People wonder why New Yorkers stay put, with the outrageous crime and tax rates. Well, one of the most compelling reasons was sitting on my kitchen island. Real bagels. Mary Catherine had gone out and picked up a dozen of them, the steam on the inside of the plastic bag the telltale sign that they were still warm. Beside them was a cardboard tray with two large coffees.

I squinted warily. I’d given up on the idea of breakfast five minutes after waking up. Desperate as I’d become, this all very well could have been a mirage.

“Reinforcements?” I said.

“And supplies.” She handed me a coffee and gave me a brave smile. But as I bit into a butter-drenched poppy seed, I noticed the bags under Mary’s eyes. She was looking as peaked as I felt.

Why was she still here? I thought for the thousandth time since she’d arrived. I knew that several of my much wealthier neighbors, seeing the impossibly professional job she did with my mob of kids, had offered her almost blank checks to steal her away. Nannies were big business in Manhattan. Perks like expense accounts, cars, and summers in Europe weren’t unheard of. And most of those millionaire children were onlies. I wouldn’t have blamed Mary one bit for taking the money and running. Considering the pittance I was paying her, she’d certainly put in her charity time with our eleven sorry butts.

Did she feel some sort of obligation? I knew she’d come here at the behest of Maeve’s family to help out while she was dying. But Maeve was gone now. Mary Catherine was what? Twenty-six, twenty-seven? She had the rest of her life to pick up crushing responsibilities all her own.

I was trying to phrase my concern to her when the walking wounded flooded into the kitchen, and surrounded her with a big cheer of affection. As sick as my kids were, they weren’t stupid – they appreciated somebody who actually knew what she was doing. When Shawna climbed down off my back and attached herself to Mary’s leg like a tick, I wasn’t offended in the slightest.

Then, as she laughed and joked with them, I noticed something perplexing. Weary though Mary Catherine looked, there was new color in her cheeks and a new determination in her blue eyes. I stood there speechless, a little stunned. She actually seemed to be right where she wanted to be.

I felt overwhelmed all over again, but suddenly in a good way. How could anybody be so wonderful? I thought.

My brief moment of elation ended when my grandfather, Seamus, burst in through the front door.

“I just heard from the church caretaker,” he cried into the crowded kitchen. “The thief hit the poor box again! Is nothing sacred?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I told him with a mock frown. “Now hurry up and snarf a bagel, then grab a mop and swab the deck in the kids’ bathroom, Monsignor.”

Chapter 27

With the arrival of the cavalry, I was actually able to shower and shave. I grabbed another bagel on my way out, egg this time, and almost knocked down my neighbor, Camille Underhill, who was waiting for the elevator in the foyer we shared.

Our large, actually quite luxurious apartment had been a bequest to my deceased wife, Maeve, who had been the nurse of the previous millionaire owner. Ms. Underhill, a senior editor for W magazine, had tried hard to block our occupancy. So I guess it wasn’t that surprising that I’d yet to be invited to one of her “Page Six” cocktail parties.

Although her snobbery hadn’t stopped her from knocking on my door at three in the morning a couple of years ago because she thought she saw a prowler on her fire escape. Go figure.

“Morning, Camille,” I grunted around my breakfast. The elegant lady ignored me as if she hadn’t heard me, and just hit the elevator call button again.

I almost said, No prowlers lately, huh? But I had enough troubles without starting an in-house skirmish.

I picked up the Times from my doormat, a ploy to avoid sharing a ride down with her. It worked beautifully. When the elevator arrived, she was gone like a shot.

The front page of the Metro section was wrinkled, and someone had circled the lead article, entitled “Manhattan Spree Killing.” Scrawled in the margin with a black pen was a note from my ever-helpful grandfather, Seamus: -FYI – I’d be concerned about this if I were you.

Thanks, Monsignor, I thought, and scanned the article while I waited for the elevator to return.

When I was about halfway down the page, my bagel dropped from my open mouth. The reporter stated that “a source close to the case” had confirmed that the push attempt and two shootings were directly related, and that the killer was using more than one gun and disguises to “elude capture.”

I didn’t even have to look at the byline to know that my favorite journalist, Cathy Calvin, had struck again with her poison pen.

Christ! Bad enough she wanted to incite panic, but why did she have to keep dragging me in? “A source close to the case” – she might as well have printed my name in giant red letters. Besides, while it was true that I’d been thinking along those lines, I hadn’t told her anything of the kind.

So who had told her that? Did we have a leak in the department? Was there somebody out there who could read minds?

The elevator arrived and I stepped in, waving the newspaper to waft away the lingering cloud of my neighbor’s Chanel No. 5. How do you like that? I thought. Completely hamstrung before I was even out the door.

Wednesday was looking like a real winner, too.

Chapter 28

The rattling elevated number 1 train woke me up more than my second cup of coffee did as I retrieved my Chevy out in front of the Manhattan North Homicide office at 133rd and Broadway. The department mechanics had managed to get it running okay, but inexplicably had left the passenger headrest still torn up from a shotgun assault several months ago.

I decided to appreciate the fact that it started.

As I was pulling out, my cell phone went off. My mood lightened slightly when I saw that it was the commis-sioner’s office. They had already e-mailed a request for my presence at a nine thirty A.M. meeting at headquarters. It looked like he wanted a personal briefing on the spree killer beforehand. I started to feel useful again.

I expected a secretary asking me to hold, but it was the commissioner himself. Nice.

“Bennett, is that you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Do for me?” he yelled. “For starters, how about you close your big mouth and keep it shut – especially around the Times. I don’t even talk to the press without permission from the mayor’s office. One more move like that and you’ll find yourself on foot patrol in the ass end of Staten Island. Do you understand me?”

Gee, Commish, don’t sugarcoat it, I thought bitterly. Tell me how you really feel.

I wanted to defend myself, but as fired up as Daly sounded, it probably just would have made things worse.

“Won’t happen again, sir,” I muttered.

I maneuvered the Chevy down to the street and started crawling through the morning traffic toward downtown.

Ten minutes later, as I was passing 82nd and Fifth, the phone rang again.

“Mr. Bennett?” This time it was a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. Probably more press trying to get the latest on the case. Well, who could blame them? With the way Cathy Calvin had portrayed me on this morning’s front page, I looked like the media’s new best friend and law enforcement consultant.

“What do you want?” I barked.

There was a brief, icy silence before she said, “This is Sister Sheilah, the principal of Holy Name School.”

Oh, boy.

“Sister, I’m really sorry about that,” I said. “I thought you were? -”

“Never mind, Mr. Bennett.” Her quiet voice somehow conveyed even more distaste for me than the commissioner had.

“Yesterday, you sent in two children who turned out to be ill,” she went on. “Might I refresh your memory that on page eleven of the ‘Parent/Student Handbook,’ it states, and I quote, ‘Children who are ill should be kept home,’ unquote. We here at Holy Name are doing our best to stem the effects of the citywide flu epidemic, and the flouting of our preventative measures cannot and will not be tolerated.”

Again, I reached for my excuse bag. I had a good one. My kids had looked fine when we sent them in. But the negative mojo coming from the Mother Superior stopped my words like a cinder-block wall. I felt like I was back in fifth grade myself.

“Yes, Sister. It won’t happen again,” I mumbled.

I hadn’t made it three blocks farther south in the gridlock when my cell phone rang yet again. This time, it was Chief of Detectives McGinnis.

Why do I even have one of these things? I thought, putting the phone to my ear and bracing myself for a tirade. I wasn’t disappointed.

“Listen, Bennett. I just heard from Daly,” McGinnis roared. “Are you trying to get me fired? How about instead of canoodling with Times reporters, you do us both a favor and do what you’re getting paid for? Namely, figuring out where this serial shooter is! Your la-di-da attitude toward this case is pissing me off big-time. As is the way you’re handling this catastrophe, Mr. Expert. Now I’m starting to understand why people got so upset about Hurricane Katrina.”

That was it – I’d had enough. Two capitulations was my morning’s limit. I was also fed up with having the truly self-sacrificing professionals I used to work with at the CRU be insulted. Had McGinnis ever been a first responder at a plane crash? Had he ever had to work in a portable morgue and deal with human misery on a mass scale day in and day out? I cut sharply in front of a Liberty Lines bus and shrieked to a stop in the middle of Fifth Avenue. The rush-hour traffic behind me must have snarled clear back into Harlem, but I didn’t care.

“Hey, that gives me an idea, boss,” I yelled. “From here on out, I’m legally changing my name to Mike ‘-La-di-da’ Bennett. If you don’t like that and you want my resignation, you’re welcome to it. Or maybe you should just go ahead and bring me up on departmental charges. Canoodling in the first degree.”

I endured another icy pause before McGinnis said, “Don’t tempt me, Bennett,” and hung up.

I sat there for a second, my face red, my head pounding. His giving me an earful was one thing, but to imply that I’d jeopardize a case over a reporter was a really low blow. They asked me to come in on this, right? What an idiot I’d been – so proud to be handpicked, and worried sick about letting down the team. Now my team was kicking me in the teeth.

I guess William Tell’s son had been handpicked, too. Right before they’d put an apple on his head.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I yelled to the wailing horns all around me. No wonder people in this town went nuts. I added my own horn to the chorus as I peeled out.

Chapter 29

In a conference room on the twelfth floor of One Police Plaza, I met Detective Beth Peters face-to-face for the first time, by the coffee cups. Fortyish, petite, and fine-boned, she looked more like a news anchor than a cop. She was pleasant but sharp, with a quick smile. Again, I got the sense that we were going to get along.

But there was no time for small talk. This was an emergency task force on the shootings, put together by Chief of Detectives McGinnis. After my morning’s conversation with him, I was almost surprised that I was actually allowed to take part.

There were about twenty of us crammed into the room, mostly NYPD, but I spotted a few FBI agents and civilians. Beth and I found seats at the back end of the conference table as Paul Hanbury, a young black forensic psychologist and Columbia professor, spoke first.

“I think from this person’s attention to detail, we can rule out the possibility that he’s a paranoid schizophrenic. If he were hearing voices, he probably would have been caught by now. However, he does seem to be somewhat delusional. And with his changing clothes and using two different weapons, I don’t think I’d completely rule out that a multiple personality is involved. At this point, I can only guess at a motive, but he fits the model of a reclusive type who doesn’t get along with others – maybe someone who suffered an early childhood trauma and is seeking revenge through a homicidal fantasy.”

Next to give us his take was Tom Lamb, a thin, harried-looking FBI profiler from 26 Federal Plaza.

“Our shooter is almost definitely a male, probably in his thirties. I don’t know if I go along with the fact that he’s reclusive. He certainly has no qualms about getting up close and personal with his victims. The fact that he’s using two different caliber weapons leads me to believe he’s either ex-military or a gun nut. I’d lean toward the latter, so maybe we should take a look at the usual Guns and Ammo suspects.”

“Do you think there could be more than one killer?” Beth Peters asked him. “Maybe a team of shooters, like the Malvo thing down in DC?”

The federal agent gripped his sharp chin in concentration. “That’s an interesting idea. Let’s face it. This guy isn’t exactly acting in a way that fits previous homicide models. But like Paul said, all we can do so far is guess.”

Then I stood up. Heads turned toward me.

“In that case, why don’t we slow down a little and consider the possibility that the shooter has a personal connection to the victims?” I said. “This guy is a cool customer. Not just angry, emotionally disturbed, out of control, like a lot of them.”

Paul Hanbury spoke up again. “Mass murderers often plan their crimes for years, Detective,” he said. “It’s what comforts them when they’re stonewalled or hurt. The old ‘Some day I’ll come back and then I’ll get the respect I deserve.’ That buildup of frustration can have surprising results.”

“Point taken,” I said, looking straight at Chief McGinnis. “Still, I’m not completely convinced yet that he’s a garden-variety serial. Shouldn’t he have contacted the press by now?”

“So you’re saying maybe he’s just acting like he’s nuts?” Beth said to me.

“If he’s just acting,” Detective Lavery joined in from across the table, “I’d like to be the first to nominate him for an Academy Award.”

“What I’m saying is, if this guy’s got a program, maybe that gives us something to go on,” I said. “Otherwise, what’s our alternative? Just blanket Manhattan with cops, and cross our fingers that one’s around when he goes off again?”

Then McGinnis himself stood up, glaring back at me.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Bennett. It’s called being proactive. Please explain your plan, Agent Lamb.”

I sat back down as the FBI agent recommended that beefed-up patrols, and especially the Counter-Terror Unit, should be stationed at certain affluent areas – Rockefeller Center, the Harvard Club, the New York Athletic Club, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Tiffany’s.

Tiffany’s, I thought. Like they needed more security! And what about MoMA and half the restaurants in the Zagat guide? This was New York. There weren’t enough cops on the force to play goalie at every high-end institution.

“And let me remind everyone that this is confidential information,” McGinnis finished. His hard stare returned to my face and stayed there.

I rolled my eyes, thinking again about defending myself, but decided the hell with it. Instead, I got another cup of coffee, took a hot, sour sip, and stared out the conference room window at headquarters’ breathtaking view of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Maybe the killer would do me a personal favor and go terrorize one of the other boroughs today.

Chapter 30

Behind his Diesel sunglasses, the Teacher squinted into the bright sunlight that hit him as he cornered the sidewalk off Eighth Avenue and onto 42nd Street.

He was into his next chameleon act, now wearing a Piero Tucci lambskin jacket over a distressed graffiti T, Morphine jeans, and Lucchese stingray-skin boots – an outfit that looked casual, but people with eyes for that sort of thing would know it cost more than a lot of monthly paychecks. He hadn’t shaved, and his fashionable stubble gave him the look of a rock or film star.

He felt like bursting into laughter as he marched toward Times Square with the mass of clueless rat-racers. The fact that he was doing all this in broad daylight was so crazy, so bold. It was like being high on the greatest drug he could possibly imagine.

Finally – being able to unload a lifetime of pent-up venom! Ever since he was little, people had tried to sell him the big lie. How great everything was, the holy privilege of being alive. Worst of all was his god-awful, annoying mother. The world is a gift from God, life is precious, count your blessings, she’d always say. He’d loved her, of course, but Christ, sometimes he’d thought her gums would never stop flapping.

She’d been gone three years now, along with her witless philosophy degree from the University of Hallmark. Near the end, at her deathbed, he’d had to restrain himself from pushing aside the IV cords that entangled her like vines in a plastic rain forest, and asking her, If life was such a precious gift, then why the hell was He such a frigging Indian giver?

He hadn’t, of course. Despite her faults, she was his mother. She’d sacrificed for him. The least he could do was to let her die as deluded as she’d lived.

But now he no longer had to play charades. Let’s face it, he thought – in this insanely decadent modern mess called society, being negative and antisocial was downright proper. He wanted no part of the pointless mistake that humanity had become.

Take today, for example. Wednesday – matinee day for the Broadway musicals. All around him, idiots by the busload were milling mindlessly. In from their flyspeck towns and suburbs, clamoring to pay a hundred bucks a pop to watch even bigger idiots in Halloween costumes sing trite, sappy love songs. This was art? The best that life had to offer?

And it wasn’t just the hicks and suburbi-schmucks, by any stretch. Right around the corner on 40th, he’d passed the supposedly très hip, in-the-know New York Times reporters and photographers flocking into the paper’s new office building for another slave shift at the Ministry of Truth. Toe that Democratic party line, comrades, he felt like yelling at them. All hail, Big Brother, and even bigger liberal government.

He slowed his pace as he came to Madame Tussauds wax museum. Crowds of tourists were swarming around a life-sized Spider-Man doll in front of the building. He shook his head in disgust. He was passing through the land of the dead.

“Fifty bucks? For a Rolex?” he heard a southern voice cry out in the crowd. “Goddamn right you got yourself a deal!”

Ten feet ahead, a skinny young man with a shaved head was about to hand over his money to the West African sitting behind a folding table of fake watches.

The Teacher smiled. So many in his old unit had been from the South – good men from small towns who still believed in simple things like patriotism and manners and doing what a man had to do.

The Teacher didn’t intend to stop, but when he spotted the USMC bulldog tat on the kid’s forearm, he couldn’t help himself.

“Whoa there, buddy,” he said to the kid. “You really think you’re going to get a Rolex for fifty bucks?”

The young Marine gawked at him, half-suspicious and half-glad to be getting advice from someone who obviously knew this turf.

The Teacher slipped off his own Rolex Explorer and handed it to the kid, exchanging it for the bogus imitation.

“Feel how heavy that is?” he said. “That’s real. This one” – he flicked the fake into the con man’s chest – “is bullshit.” The heavyset African guy started to rise up angrily, but the Teacher stared him back down into his seat.

A sheepish grin split the young southerner’s face. “Lord, what an idiot I am,” he said. “Just two weeks back from a year in Iraq, you’d think I’d have learned something there.”

He handed back the Teacher’s Rolex. But instead of taking it, the Teacher just stared at it. He remembered buying it for himself when he was twenty-eight.

Screw it, he finally thought. You can’t take it with you.

“It’s yours,” the Teacher said. “Don’t worry, no strings attached.”

“Hu-uh?” the young man stammered. “Well, thanks, mister, but I couldn’t? -”

“Listen, jarhead, I was here when they knocked down the Towers. If everyone in this city wasn’t such a piece of crap, they’d celebrate you and every other soldier who lays his ass on the line in the Middle East, like the American heroes you are. Giving this dirty old town some payback is the least I can do for you.”

Look at him, he thought. Mr. Generous all of a sudden, acting like a Boy Scout.

He was tempted to upend the table of watches into the glowering con man’s lap, but now was the wrong time. Maybe he’d come back this way again, he thought as he strode on.

Chapter 31

Twenty minutes later, holding a freshly bought, hundred-seventy-five-dollar bouquet of pink and yellow roses, the Teacher entered the vast lobby of the Platinum Star Hotel on Sixth Avenue.

He almost stopped to genuflect toward the quarry loads of glowing white marble that covered the floors and the thirty-foot walls. The ceiling was graced by a Renaissance-inspired painted canvas, along with sparkling crystal chandeliers the size of tugboats. He shook his head in awe at the crown moldings that looked like they were made of gold.

Once in a while, the assholes got things right.

He hurried to the check-in desk, looking flustered, and placed the flower arrangement on the marble counter right in front of the cute brunette clerk. He could see that she was impressed.

“Please tell me I’m not too late,” he begged her with clasped hands. “They’re for Martine Broussard. She hasn’t checked out yet, has she?”

The young woman smiled at his nervous suitor act, and tapped at the keyboard in front of her.

“You’re in luck,” she said. “Ms. Broussard is still here.”

The Teacher put on a look of ecstatic relief. “Thank God.” Then he asked her earnestly, “Do you think she’ll like them? Too over the top? I don’t want to come off as desperate.”

“She’ll like them, believe me,” the clerk said. “They’re gorgeous.”

The Teacher bit at his thumbnail anxiously.

“We only met two days ago, and I know it’s crazy, but this morning I woke up certain that if I let her leave without telling her how I truly feel, I’d never forgive myself. But I want to surprise her. Where would be the best place to wait so I don’t miss her?”

The clerk’s smile widened. She was in on this with him now, happy to be part of true love in the making.

“The couches over by the elevator,” she said, pointing at them. “Good luck.”

The Teacher took a seat, with the bouquet in his lap. His hand edged inside his jacket to the small of his back, where both of his pistols were holstered inside his belt. He chose the.22 Colt and eased it around to his front.

Less than five minutes later, a musical ding signaled an arriving elevator, and one of the gleaming brass doors opened. The Teacher stood as five stewardesses stepped out, all with Air France logos on their knotted blue silk scarves. They could have been models. Or maybe actresses from the kind of movies the hotel made you pay extra for.

The sight of them made him feel like his stomach was filled with helium. He was dizzy at the thought of what he was about to pull.

Martine Broussard was in the lead. Six feet tall, aggressively beautiful, with long hair trailing behind her like blond satin as she strode, preening, out onto the marble as if it were a Victoria’s Secret runway.

The Teacher stood and rushed to meet her, thrusting the flowers forward.

“Martine! Here, I got these for your birthday!”

The statuesque blonde stopped, eyeing the bouquet in confusion.

“My birthday?” she said, pronouncing it ‘birzday.’ “What are you talking about? That is not for three months more.” Her gaze shifted to the Teacher’s face. “Do I know you, monsieur?” But a flirtatious look came into her eyes. Same as the desk clerk, she liked what she saw.

The Teacher held his breath while his hand snaked the.22, barrel-first, into the bouquet. Everything was suddenly quieter, slower, incredibly peaceful. Had he ever felt this untroubled? This free? He felt like a fetus floating weightlessly in its mother’s womb.

Flower petals exploded into the air as he squeezed the pistol’s trigger. The bullet hit her just below her left eye. She dropped to the marble floor without even a twitch, blood pouring down her face.

“Did I just say your birthday?” the Teacher growled. “I’m sorry. I meant your funeral.” He fired twice more into her exquisite bosom.

The other flight attendants stampeded away, screaming. He tossed the flowers onto Martine’s corpse, reholstered the.22, and backed toward the lobby door.

Chapter 32

The hotel doorman, at his post outside, actually held the door open as the Teacher strode through it. Obviously, he hadn’t heard the muffled shots, but now he paused and stared in at the panicked, screaming Frenchwomen.

“Call the cops quick!” the Teacher yelled at him. “Some nutcase in there has a gun.”

The doorman took off running into the building. The Teacher walked fast but smoothly, covering ground but not attracting attention. As he passed the fountain outside the hotel, he took the Treo from the pocket of his jeans and brought up his list.

“Air France Stewardess” disappeared with a peppy little press of his thumb.

Then, out of nowhere, he heard the shriek of brakes behind him. Car doors thunked open, along with the unmistakable static burst of police radio chatter.

Don’t even turn around, he told himself. Keep moving. Blend with the crowd. No way could the cops have a description of him yet.

“That’s him!” somebody screamed.

The Teacher tossed a quick glance over his shoulder. Across the plaza, the hotel doorman was pointing directly at him. The two uniformed NYPD cops climbing out of their radio car drew their guns.

Damn! He’d figured the doorman, like all the others, would be too stunned to move that fast. Okay, no biggie. Escape Plan Two coming right up – the Rockefeller Center subway entrance at the southern end of the block. He broke into a sprint.

Suddenly, from everywhere at once, dozens of police vehicles were converging, cutting off both ends of the street. Off to his right, a heavy Emergency Service Unit truck slammed, fishtailing, up onto the sidewalk. A SWAT cop jumped out and dropped to one knee, throwing his M16 to his shoulder.

Son of a bitch! It was like they were appearing out of thin air. Then he suddenly realized it was because of 9/11. He’d never thought about how much that had changed cop response.

He forced his pumping legs to their maximum speed and did the only thing he could – dove headfirst right into the pit of the subway stairs.

Luck was with him. Instead of landing on the concrete stairs, he collided with an elderly couple who were coming up. His momentum flattened them to a backward sprawl, and he used them like a human toboggan to ride to the bottom. He got up running, grinding his boots into their wailing, pathetically thrashing bodies as he took off. He rounded a corner, hopped a turnstile, and sprinted across a platform.

The Rockefeller Center station, one of the largest in the entire subway system, was a virtual catacomb of passageways and exits. It had four tracks, two island platforms, and more than fourteen exits to the street. As a special bonus, there were also entryways into the Rockefeller Center concourse, an underground maze lined with shops that stretched for blocks in every direction.

As he ran, the Teacher yanked his T-shirt out of his jeans to cover his pistols, then ripped off his Tucci jacket and tossed it by one of the exits. There was no worry about leaving a trail – someone would grab it and be gone within seconds. He hit another flight of stairs and lunged down them four at a time, racing toward the metallic screech of an approaching V train.

He got to the second car just as the doors bonged open. Yes! he thought, jumping on.

But a sudden thunder of footfalls down the stairwell he’d just exited made his head swivel.

“Stop that train!” he heard a cop yelling. More voices joined in. “Yo! Yo! Driver, stop! Stop!”

Bing bong. The subway’s driver, sitting in his compartment at the front of the train, closed the doors as if absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. You had to love this goddam city. Everybody was insane. The train pulled forward, humming.

The Teacher wiped sweat from his eyes and looked at the passengers in the half-full car. They all had their heads buried in a newspaper or a paperback. Never get involved. Damn right. He turned to stare at the tunnel lights that flashed outside the windows as the subway whizzed past, constellations of blue shooting stars.

Unbelievable – he was free again. Unstoppable! The hand of Destiny itself really was guiding him. There was simply no other explanation.

Just as he’d decided that, the door at the rear end of the car rattled opened. Two transit cops stood there, breathing heavily. One was a heavyset, older white man, the other a black female so young she had to be a rookie. Both had their hands on the butts of their Glocks, but the weapons were still undrawn.

“Freeze!” the old flatfoot yelled, but he still didn’t draw. What the hell was he waiting for? An engraved invite?

It took the Teacher less than a second to draw both of his own guns simultaneously from the small of his back, the.22 in his right hand and the.45 in his left.

Now the passengers paid attention to him. Wide-eyed, some shrieking, they flattened themselves down onto the seats or dove to the floor.

“Listen to me,” the Teacher yelled across the car. “I like cops, I swear. I’ve got no beef with you, and I don’t want to hurt you. Let me go. That’s all I want.”

The train was coming into the 51st and Lex station. Maybe the driver finally realized that something was up, because it made a sudden lurch. Thrown off balance, the two uniforms reacted by finally going for their Glocks.

“I said no, damn it!” the Teacher roared. Left-handed, with the.45, he shot the male officer in the knee, then the groin, and then the head. At the same time, with his right hand, he emptied the last four rounds of the.22 into the space just above the female cop’s Sam Browne belt. Had to get around those pesky Kevlar vests.

His eardrums felt like they were bleeding from the thunder of the unsilenced.45, like a pack of cherry bombs had gone off inside his head. But a blizzard of endorphins whirled through his skull as well. What a rush! Like nothing in the world.

The train came to a shuddering halt, its doors opening automatically. A businessman waiting on the platform started to step into the car, but stopped dead at what he saw, then scurried away.

The Teacher was about to do the same, when a gunshot exploded behind him, and a stinging sound whipped past his left ear. He spun back around and stared in disbelief.

It was the lady cop. She was down on the floor of the train with Swiss cheese for a tummy, yet still trying to line him up in her shaking gun sights. What courage under fire!

“That’s magnificent,” he said to her sincerely. “You should get a medal. I’m really sorry I have to do this.”

He raised the.45 and aimed it at her terrified face.

“I really am,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 33

I couldn’t believe it! What the hell was going on in this world? As we were wrapping up the task force meeting, we got word that there’d been not one, but two more shootings in midtown. Preliminary reports said that a civilian and two transit cops had been shot, around Rockefeller Center, by the same assailant.

Our assailant. There wasn’t much doubt about it by now.

Even with my siren cranked, it took me most of forty minutes to get through the gridlock from headquarters to the frantic crime scene at 51st and Lexington.

Right off the top, it was impossible not to notice the NYPD chopper hovering above the Citicorp building. The throb of its rotors seemed to keep time with my heart as I waded through the crowd that was seething around a completely blocked-off 51st Street.

A sergeant let me under the yellow tape beside the 51st Street subway stairs. His serious-as-cancer face told me something I didn’t want to know. The echoing metallic squawk of police radios and sirens seemed to be coming from everywhere at once as I descended into the hot, narrow stairwell.

A train was stopped in the tunnel. There were maybe two dozen cops standing on the platform alongside one of the front cars. Inside it, I saw spent shell casings on the bloodstained floor. I could tell at a glance that several rounds had been fired.

The crowd of cops parted as a team of paramedics wheeled a stretcher out of the train car. Hats were quickly taken off. A hulking Emergency Service cop next to me blessed himself. When the stretcher neared, I followed his example, shaking my head hard to fight the sudden numbness in my chest.

The victim was the female rookie transit cop. All I knew about her was that her name was Tonya Griffith, and that she was dead. I couldn’t even see her face because of all the blood.

I asked another transit cop about Tonya’s partner, and found out that he was en route to Bellevue.

“Likely?” the big ESU guy inquired. As in, likely to die?

The transit cop didn’t answer. That meant, affirmative.

“Son of a bitch,” the ESU cop said, clenching his fists violently. “Son of a fucking bitch.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Everything had changed from an hour ago. The shooter had killed one, probably two, of our own. The stakes had skyrocketed.

Now it was personal.

Chapter 34

I followed the stretcher up to the street as the EMTs carried Tonya Griffith to an ambulance and put her inside. The driver slammed the rear metal doors, climbed in, and hit the roof lights. Then he seemed to think better of it, and turned them off before slowly pulling out into traffic. There was no rush on the way to the morgue.

As I watched the ambulance roll toward the Chrysler Building, I found myself thinking about taking that job at ABC. I’d had enough of shootings and death. At least, that was sure how I felt at that moment.

Detective Terry Lavery came stomping up the stairs behind me.

“Just spoke to the precinct captain, Mike,” he said. “The shooter disappeared. They scoured the area under- and aboveground, stopped buses and taxis on Lex and Fifty-first, but not a trace.”

The ESU cop had said it all. Son of a bitch.

“Witnesses?” I said.

“About a dozen. Mostly they glued themselves to the car walls when the shooting started, but their descriptions match closely. Tall Caucasian male with black hair and dark sunglasses, wearing jeans and a graffiti T. He actually used two guns, a.45 and a.22. One in each hand like Jesse James.”

I shook my head in amazement. One man takes down two trained, armed officers at the same time, with two different guns? Outside of a spaghetti western or a John Woo movie, that didn’t happen. Drawing, aiming, and shooting with just a single weapon while under fire took an incredible level of skill and training.

“This guy’s either got some kind of special ops military background, or he’s the luckiest idiot in the world,” I said. “Let’s pray it’s the latter.”

“Oh, and get this,” Lavery said. “He yelled out that he liked cops, right before he opened up on them. Tried to warn them off, even apologized to Tonya Griffith.”

Christ, on top of everything else, he was a cop lover?

“With friends like that, who needs enemies,” I muttered. “Okay, round up any video you can get from the transit booth or the street. I’ll head over to the other crime scene.”

As I walked to the corner, I saw an old Jamaican hot dog guy behind the tape waving at me. I changed direction and went to him, thinking he might have some information, but it turned out he was just handing out free water and sodas to all the responding emergency personnel.

“My daughter’s an EMT in the Bronx, mon,” he said with a contagious grin. “Least I could do for all you good folks.”

He refused to take my money, but finally accepted the PBA card I gave him. Maybe it would get him out of a ticket.

As I went through the familiar ritual of looking for my car, it struck me that every time I was ready to throw in the towel as a cop, I bumped face-first into the reason why I did what I did.

Chapter 35

The Platinum Star Hotel was just five blocks west on Sixth. Rolling over there, I constructed a mental outline of my impressions so far.

The most obvious pattern emerging was that after each murder, the killer hid out, then popped up again – wearing different clothes – and committed another murder. He must have a hiding place somewhere in the area. An apartment? A hotel room?

Then there were the words he’d yelled, according to witnesses, about liking cops. Maybe that was just raving. But as cool and organized as this guy was, I had the feeling he knew what he was saying. He’d shot them only because he felt he had to, in order to escape.

That meant he wasn’t just out killing randomly – he was choosing his targets. Further, the Platinum Star Hotel was the third high-end establishment out of three.

My early guess was looking strong. He had an agenda, and it had something to do with wealth.

And unlike typical serial killers, this shooter didn’t operate in secret. He worked in broad daylight, and let himself be seen. Was he trying to send a message? Those kinds of guys were usually out to prove that they were smarter than the police. They wanted to taunt us, let us know that they could kill with impunity and never be caught. So why hadn’t he contacted us or the press?

That was as far as I’d taken those thoughts when I pulled up in front of the hotel.

At least a hundred cops were milling inside a crooked yellow line of crime scene tape that threaded two full city blocks around the hotel. Office workers on the other side of it just stood there, silent and gaping, shell-shocked, braced for whatever was going to happen next. I found myself actually preferring the manic looky-loo curiosity that was the usual at crime scenes.

People were definitely starting to get freaked. And why shouldn’t they? Even by New York standards, the body count was alarming.

I found Detective Beth Peters inside by the check-in desk. She was still cool and crisp, but subdued.

She led me across the white marble lobby to the elevators. The body was covered with a sheet. I crouched down and lifted it away.

The woman lying there was still beautiful, with a mane of blond hair spread out around her head – except for the small black entry wounds in her face and chest, and the sticky pool of blood that had seeped out onto the floor around her.

I stared at the bouquet of flowers on her chest. The fallen petals on the marble around her seemed like offerings in a human sacrifice.

The typed message from the 21 Club crime scene appeared in my mind like a computer pop-up.

Your blood is my paint.

Your flesh is my clay.

“Are you getting anything from this, Mike, about what he’s trying to say?” Beth asked. “Because I’m not.”

I replaced the sheet.

“I’m pretty sure he’s saying, ‘Catch me,’?” I said.

Chapter 36

“Her name was Martine Broussard,” Beth Peters said as we huddled together by the check-in desk. “She was an Air France flight attendant, due out on today’s two P.M. to Paris. Around eleven this morning, a tall guy with black hair comes into the hotel with a bouquet of flowers. The desk clerk tells him he can wait on the couch by the elevator. When Martine comes out, he shoots her point-blank with a gun that was hidden in the roses. Once in the head, twice in the chest. Real charmer.”

I let out a long, tired breath.

“But there’s some good news,” Beth said. “Come on.”

She led me into the large back office behind the check-in desk and introduced me to the hotel security chief, a white-haired ex-FBI agent named Brian Navril. He looked pretty nervous as he shook my hand. After what had just happened, I guess he was worried that he was about to become an ex-hotel security head, too.

“I think I found something that might be useful to you,” he said, motioning us over to his desk. “At least I hope so.”

He brought up the video feed of the hotel’s various surveillance cameras on his laptop and quickly clicked on the square that showed the registration desk. When the screen popped up, he hit Zoom and then Pause.

A relatively clear image appeared of a man in sunglasses and an expensive leather jacket. He was holding a bouquet of roses and grinning, apparently chatting with the check-in clerk.

Beth and I exchanged satisfied looks. Bingo! Finally, a solid lead! With the sunglasses it wasn’t the best of pictures, but not the worst either by any stretch. He had a stack of the already printed photos on the desk, ready for distribution.

“Where’s the clerk?” I said. “I need to talk with her.”

Her name was Angie Hamilton. She was a petite, attractive brunette in her midtwenties, who still looked shaken up as Beth brought her into the office.

“Hi, Angie,” I said. “I’m Detective Bennett. I know this is tough for you right now, but we need to know everything you can tell us about the man who shot Ms. Broussard. You talked to him, right?”

“He asked if Martine Broussard had left yet,” Angie Hamilton said. “He told me they’d just met, and he was bringing her flowers because… because…” She was starting to cry. Beth put an arm around her, murmured sympathetically, and fished a tissue out of her pocket. Angie dried her tears and continued stammering.

“H-he said he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t let her know how he felt. I thought it was so romantic.”

Double score, I thought, catching Beth’s eye. She nodded back. The shooter had asked specifically for Martine Broussard. He had known the victim. Now, for the first time, it was certain that we were looking at a nonrandom shooting. And the odds were greatly increased that this was connected to the other incidents.

We’d caught another break, and it gave us another avenue to run down.

“How did he act, Angie? Did he seem nervous? Cocky?”

“Not cocky,” the desk clerk said. “A little nervous, but sweet… kind of charming, really. That’s what made it even more awful. I told him to go wait on the couch so he wouldn’t miss her when she came out of the elevator. But – but I killed her.” Angie broke into tears again, bending forward with deep wracking sobs.

This time I joined with Beth in putting an arm around her.

“You didn’t do anything wrong at all, Angie,” I said. “You were just trying to be decent. The only one who did wrong is this madman who’s going around shooting innocent people.”

Run For Your Life

Chapter 37

The first cops on the scene had transported the victim’s fellow flight attendants to Midtown North. The Air France women were hysterical – so freaked out, in fact, that the first responding detectives couldn’t get anything but French from them. Being typical cops, their mastery of French began and ended with -Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir. They’d sent for a translator, but nobody had shown up yet.

Fortunately, I wasn’t a completely typical cop.

“Je suis vraiment désolé pour votre amie,” I said to the ladies as I entered the upstairs interview room. “Je suis ici pour trouver le responsible, mais je vais avoir besoin de votre aide.”

Basically, that told them that I needed their help in finding the killer. At least, I thought that’s what I was saying. Years ago, my French had been pretty fair, but I was rusty. Maybe my words had really come out more like “Have you seen my sister’s wolverine?”

Whatever I had said, the gorgeous women jumped up excitedly and converged on me. I’d never engaged in a group hug with five blond French supermodel look-alikes before. Somehow I managed to endure it, thinking about the dean of students at Regis, who’d urged me to take Spanish because it was more practical.

I showed them the photo of the shooter from the surveillance video. One of them, Gabrielle Monchecourt, stared at it with widening eyes, then started jabbering a mile a minute. After getting her to slow way down, I managed to piece together what she was saying.

She thought she’d seen the shooter before! She wasn’t a hundred percent positive, but maybe at a British Airways party in Amsterdam a year ago – where there’d been a lot of pilots from a dozen different airlines.

Another big break! A pilot! And another connection to what I’d been guessing from the first – had never really doubted. Well, maybe for just a second. How about that? My diplomacy and ham-handed attempt at French had actually paid off. Go Regis!

We finally had a lead solid enough to pursue.

I took my cell phone out into the hall and communicated the breaks in the case to Chief McGinnis.

“Nice work, Mike” was the first thing he said, stunning me. The second was almost as surprising – that he was giving me office space at the Police Academy on 20th Street, along with ten detectives to work my leads.

I did some head scratching at the chief’s change of attitude as I drove to my new digs.

Chapter 38

With his arms full of grocery bags, the Teacher had to use his foot to shut the battered door of the Hell’s Kitchen apartment behind him. He placed the bags on the kitchen counter, tossed his guns on top of the fridge, and, without pausing, tied on his apron with a snug bow. He was starving, same as he’d been after yesterday’s work.

Past noon, the pickings were pretty slim at the farmers’ market in the north end of Union Square Park, but he’d managed to find some fresh Belgian endive and porcini mushrooms. He was going to use the porcini as a crust for the finely marbled Kobe fillet he’d scored at Balducci’s on Eighth Avenue.

For a foodie like him, seeing what looked fresh at the market was the only way to decide what to make for dinner.

After crusting the steak, he couldn’t resist a quick peek at the news. He washed his hands, went into the living room, and turned on the television. The first image that appeared showed a hovering helicopter and a million cops. Reporters were running around, interviewing scared-looking people on the street.

He shook his head, inhaling deeply, as he relived the shoot-out with the cops. Even with his training and unerring instincts, he so easily could have died right there and then. It was another sign that what he was doing was the right thing, the only thing. His baptism by fire had actually made him feel even more committed and passionate.

Back in the kitchen, he banged a cast-iron pan onto the Viking range and set the power burner on high. When the pan began to smoke slightly, he added a swirl of olive oil and carefully laid down the crusted Kobe, which gave a loud, satisfying sizzle.

The smoky scent reminded him of the first time he’d met his stepfather, at Peter Luger Steak House out in Brooklyn. It was after his mom and dad had split up, when he was ten years old. He’d gone to live with his mom, and now she’d wanted him to meet her new boyfriend.

His beautiful mother had been a secretary at the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs, and her boyfriend turned out to be her boss, Ronald Meyer, a ridiculously wealthy and ridiculously old LBO specialist. The short, frog-faced geriatric had tried very stiffly to be buddy-buddy with him. The Teacher remembered sitting there in Peter Luger’s, staring at the doddering financier who had caused his family to be ripped apart, and being stricken with the almost irresistible impulse to ram his steak knife into the man’s hairy right nostril.

Not long after that, his mother had become Ronald Meyer’s trophy wife, and the Teacher had moved with her into Meyer’s Fifth Avenue apartment. Overnight, like a kid in a fairy tale, he was suddenly setting foot in the strange new worlds of art and opera, country clubs, servants, Europe.

How quickly his initial anger had faded. With what disgusting ease and completeness he’d been lulled into a sheeplike stupor by the luxury of his newly upgraded lifestyle.

But now he realized that the anger had never gone anywhere. It had only grown, festering day after day through all the years since then, waiting to be unleashed.

He flipped the Kobe in the pan and opened a bottle of ‘78 Daumas Gassac that he’d been saving for a special occasion. He poured himself a tall glass and swirled it toward the good light coming in through the west-facing window.

Thinking about his crotchety stepfather, Ronny, made him smile and cringe, both. There were all the things Meyer had bought for him – the clothes and cars, the vacations, the Ivy League education.

But then, the graduation at Princeton. The awkward embrace he’d had to endure. The wretched “I’m so proud of you, son” that had emanated from the ninety-year-old’s liver-colored lips. To this day, his skin crawled at the mere thought of being related to the horrifying, ginger-haired skeleton his mother had used for a meal ticket.

“Should have killed you when I had the chance, you old shit,” he said with a sigh. “I should have killed you at hello.”

Chapter 39

I decided to make my way over to Bellevue to see if there was any chance of talking to the wounded transit cop.

As I drove there, I was struck by something I’d never realized before. After 9/11, apparently it didn’t take too much to make Gotham residents jumpy about their personal safety. Talk about once bitten, twice shy, I thought.

Tourists were grouped beneath the awnings of the Central Park South hotels, looking warily up and down the street. A near-frenzied mob was trying to get the latest news feed from the giant TV at the CBS studios across from the Plaza. The sidewalks along Lex were clustered with office workers standing out in front of the modern glass towers. Urgently jabbering into cell phones and thumbing BlackBerrys, they seemed to be waiting for evacuation instructions. There even seemed to be an early-rush-hour exodus of people pouring into Grand Central Station.

Maybe that had something to do with this, I suddenly thought. Maybe the killer wanted to create as much fear as possible.

If so, he had to be pretty pleased right now, because his plan was coming along just fine.

I didn’t want to add my department Chevy to the clot of police vehicles already blocking Bellevue ’s ER entrance, so I parked near a rear loading dock and went in through the back.

Ed Korzenik, the veteran cop who’d been shot, was still in surgery. Miraculously, the bullet to his head had just grazed his skull. It was the.45 hollow point in his bladder that they were trying to deal with.

Ed had a large family, and many of them were there in the waiting room – wife, mother, brothers, and sisters. Seeing them, with their grief and devastation, gave me a sudden urgent need to call home.

My eldest son, Brian, answered. Of course he didn’t have a clue about what I was doing, or even what was happening on the streets, and I was glad of it. We talked sports, the Yankees, what was going on at Jets camp. He’d be turning thirteen soon, I realized with near disbelief. My God, I’d have a house full of teenagers soon, wouldn’t I?

I hung up with a smile on my face. That conversation was by far the best twenty minutes of my day.

Chapter 40

Next, I decided to do something I’d been planning on since this morning – take a spin by the New York Times to talk with Cathy Calvin. It was time for us to have a little sit-down. Or, I guess, smack-down would be more precise. I wanted to know a couple of things. Mainly, where the hell did she get off making up theories and implying that I was her source?

After fighting my way through the crosstown traffic to 42nd Street, I remembered that the Times wasn’t there anymore. I had to think about it before I could place them in their brand-new corporate headquarters on 40th.

I informed the security guy in the shiny new lobby that I was there to see Calvin. He looked up her name and told me she was on the twenty-first floor.

“Wait a second,” he said, as I headed for the elevators. “I need to give you your pass.”

I flashed him my gold shield, clipped to my tie.

“Brought my own,” I said.

The twenty-first floor was deeper than I’d ever been in enemy territory. Along its halls, my shield earned me looks that were divided among shocked, nervous, and dirty. I found Calvin at a cubicle, typing furiously on a keyboard.

“More lies for the late city final?” I said.

She swiveled around toward me, flustered. “-Mike – hey, great to see you.” She put on a friendly smile, but I shut her down cold.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t even start about how GQ I look. Just tell me why you’re trying to get me fired. Mad because I wouldn’t spill my guts?”

Her smile disappeared. “I’m not trying… to get you fired,” she stammered.

“I don’t care if you want to make up an unrevealed source. That’s a personal decision. But when you imply that the source is me, it becomes my business.”

“How dare you accuse me of making up something!”

I had to hand it to Calvin on one count – she knew that the best defense was a good offense.

“So you’re saying I did tell you about the killer?” I said. “When was that, exactly? Maybe you have a tape recording or notes to refresh my memory?”

“God, how conceited you are,” she said witheringly. “Did you ever consider just once that maybe there were other sources in the world besides you?”

“So who? Who else could have given you all that ‘it’s just one killer’ and ‘changing outfits to avoid capture’ crap?”

Her face suddenly took on an uncertain expression. “Look, I don’t know if I can talk about this,” she said, standing. “I need to clear it with my? -”

I put a hand on her shoulder and sat her back down again, not roughly but not too gently either. “I’m trying to catch a killer here,” I said. “You better tell me what you know. Everything. Right now.”

Calvin bit her lip, then closed her eyes. “It was him.”

“Him? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I gripped the arms of her chair and leaned my face close to hers. “Open up, Cathy. My patience has worn real thin these last couple of days.”

She was shaken now, I saw with grim satisfaction.

“The killer,” she whispered.

I stared at her in disbelief, feeling like I’d been punched in the face.

“He e-mailed me yesterday afternoon,” Calvin said. “Said he wanted to set the record straight, so there wouldn’t be any confusion. I thought he was just a kook, but then he started describing everything. The what, when, where, and even why.”

I stifled my outrage long enough to get some information. “Tell me the why,” I said. I already knew the what, when, and where.

“He pushed the girl under the train and killed the Polo clerk and the Twenty-one maître d’ because, quote, ‘He’s out to teach this goddamn hole some manners,’ unquote. He also said that regular, decent people didn’t have to worry, but if you were an asshole, your days were numbered.”

“Who the hell do you people think you are, withholding this from the NYPD?” I said. “You can’t possibly be this stupid.”

“Calm down, Mike. My editors have been meeting all day to decide whether we should bring it to you guys. Last I heard, they were leaning toward full disclosure. And here. This will sweeten the deal.” She took a printed sheet of paper off her desk and held it out to me. “It’s his ‘mission statement,’ as he called it. He wants us to publish it.”

I ripped the paper out of her hand.

Chapter 41

THE PROBLEM

Some people say the problem today is materialism. I disagree. There is nothing inherently wrong with things, nothing wrong with having money, or with being beautiful or appreciating beauty.

What is wrong is flaunting your things, your wealth, your beauty.

That is the disease.

I love our society, our country. Never before in the history of man has a nation been dedicated to human freedom. But human freedom requires dignity: respect for oneself and for those around them.

In that sense, we have grossly veered off course. Most of us know deep down that the way we behave is wrong. Yet because there are rarely any consequences, we go through with committing our daily acts of disgrace and disrespect.

That’s why I’ve decided to start providing the proper motivation.

The penalty for obnoxiousness is now death.

I can be anyone. That person next to you on the train as you turn up your iPod, the person behind you in the restaurant as you take out your cell phone.

Think twice before you try to pull something you know for a fact you shouldn’t be doing.

I am watching.

Best wishes,

The Teacher

I reread it three times before I put it back down.

It took me only another second to decide my next course of action – to give Cathy Calvin a shake-up that she’d remember for the rest of her life. I unhooked my handcuffs from my belt and chicken-winged her arm behind her back.

“What are you doing?” she cried, now in panic mode.

“Just what you think,” I said. “They’ll read you your rights at the station.”

Her squeals of protest continued, and as I pinched down the second cuff on her slender wrist, a bunch of middle-aged white guys in rolled-up shirt sleeves and bow ties came tromping down the hall.

“I’m the city desk editor,” one of them said. “What in the name of hell is going on here?”

“I’m the city cop,” I said, “and I’m arresting this person for obstruction of justice.”

“You can’t do that,” one of the younger Ivy Leaguers said, stepping in front of me. “Ever hear of something called the First Amendment?”

“Unfortunately, I have,” I said. “I hate that one. You ever hear of something called a paddy wagon? Because that’s where you’re going to be sitting if you don’t get out of my way. Hey, why don’t you all come and finish your editorial meeting at Central Booking?”

Shocked and angered though they were, the reality of the situation prevailed. They backed off, and I perp-walked Calvin past them.

“Shut up and don’t struggle, or I’ll add a resisting charge,” I told her. At least she was smart enough to know she’d better not push me any further. She sniffled and watched me with big tearful eyes, but she didn’t argue anymore.

When the security guy in the lobby saw us, he jumped to his feet, looking astounded.

“Found her. Thanks,” I said.

Outside, I bent Calvin over the hood of my Chevy and left her there while I stepped out of earshot and made a couple of phone calls. They were just to check up on the status of the case, but I wanted her to think that I was arranging her booking.

Only after that, very reluctantly, did I unlock the cuffs.

“You think this is all some kind of game, but it’s not,” I told her. “Your career decision probably cost some people their lives. Hope you get a promotion. Oh, yeah – and that you can live with yourself.”

As I drove away, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her still standing there on the curb, with her face in her hands.

Chapter 42

My new office at the Police Academy turned out to be a barely converted old locker room on the third floor, but who was complaining? Right off the top, I spotted two essential pieces of equipment, a folding table and a phone jack. There was even a touch of décor on the bulletin board – a hotel surveillance photo of the Teacher with sniper crosshairs drawn on his face.

We were in business.

After I called up McGinnis and apprised him of the latest developments, I rounded up my crew of detectives. I was pleased that Beth Peters was in the group. I asked her to make copies of the Teacher’s mission statement and pass them around.

“We need to get the airlines involved, Beth,” I told her. “Send them the surveillance photo and have them send us ID photos of their pilots for Mademoiselle Monchecourt to look through. Concentrate on the international carriers. British Airways in particular. Call up Tom Lamb at 26 Fed if you think you need some federal juice. And let’s try to track down the florist who sold that bouquet to our killer.”

“Oui, oui, boss man,” Beth said, batting her eyelashes teasingly.

I turned back to my group. “Now that it’s just cops here, maybe we can actually get something done,” I said, and started handing out specific tasks. I wasn’t used to being in charge and it felt weird, but they all hopped to it and seemed eager to do so. What a concept – people were actually doing what I asked. I decided I should try it at home.

I sent Nineteenth Precinct detectives back up to the Polo store and the 21 Club, to recanvass the areas with the photo and to interview all the employees they could find, including those that hadn’t been working on the day of the murder. Maybe the Teacher had been to those places before, and someone could match a name to his face.

But they called back in to say they’d come up empty at both places. Both institutions had plenty of disgruntled employees and nasty customers. Just none that fit the shooter’s description.

In the meantime, I checked downtown with Ballistics to see if the medical examiner had sent them the rounds that killed Officer Tonya Griffith.

“We got them, all right,” the senior tech, Terry Miller, said. “The twenty-two-caliber was mushroomed, but I could still make out the five lands, five grooves, and the left-hand twist to the barrel. It has the same markings as the bullet that killed the Twenty-one maître d’. I can pretty much ID it in my sleep by now.”

That was a strong point in our favor. The second we nailed this guy, we’d have evidence lined up and ready to go.

During the lulls when I didn’t have anything pressing to do, I sat and reread the manifesto that Cathy Calvin had given me. The penalty for obnoxiousness was now death? And I’d thought the nuns in grammar school were harsh. This guy might think of himself as the Teacher, but in truth, he was more like a vigilante.

What was it exactly that had set him off? The fact that some people had more money than he did? No, I realized. He hadn’t just picked his victims out of a hat. He must have had some previous contact with them in order to be offended to such an enraged degree. He had to have money himself.

I spent a lot of time looking at his picture, too. He definitely didn’t look like a mentally unbalanced, reclusive, on-the-fringe type like Berkowitz or the shooters at Columbine and Virginia Tech. He was smiling and seemed confident – was actually a strapping, handsome man.

I scratched at my developing five o’clock shadow.

What the hell was up with this guy?

Chapter 43

Around six P.M. I was alone in the office, with a newly installed computer. All the detectives were out on the bricks. I heard a tap at the door.

Damned if it wasn’t Cathy Calvin standing there, practically wringing her hands with nervousness.

“Must have taken a lot of investigative skill to find me here,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

“Quit it, Mike. Please? I came to – I won’t even say apologize, I know that’s no good.”

She was right, and I started to tell her so. But she actually seemed sincere. I noticed, too, that she’d changed out of her usual businesswoman combat uniform into a light, summery dress. It made her look softer, more feminine – really quite pretty.

“Just because I didn’t run you in doesn’t mean it’s finished,” I said. “The department’s going to be all over your editors.”

“They deserve it. I mean, I’m not just blaming them. I knew how wrong I was. It’s just? -” She stepped into the room, closing the door most of the way behind her. I could smell her perfume in the warm, still air. “This job makes you crazy,” she said. “The competition’s unbelievable. It’s turned me into a monster. When I started thinking about what I’d done, I just came apart.”

She drifted closer. It was clear that she wanted comforting, and I admit I was tempted to let her slip inside my arms and nestle her face against my chest.

But that temptation was easy to brush aside.

“My job hasn’t made me a nicer guy, either, Cathy,” I said. “But you’ve got to know where to draw the line – it goes with the turf. I figure when the day comes that I can’t find that line anymore, that’s the day I hand in my badge.”

My tone was no more inviting than my words. She stopped her approach.

“I’m leaving you a peace offering,” she said. She took an envelope out of her purse and dropped it on the table, then retreated to the door.

“Go ahead and hate me, Mike,” she said. “I just want you to know I’m really not like that. I’m not.”

Then she was gone.

Of course she wasn’t really like that, I thought. Not until the next time she stood to gain by it.

Inside the envelope was a copy of the Teacher’s original e-mail to her.

And on the bottom, he’d left her a Yahoo Instant Messaging ID where he could be contacted: TEECH1.

Through my clenched teeth, I called Calvin a bitch for not giving me this right away. Peace offering, my ass. Then I sat at my desk and tried to decide what to do with it.

Setting up a trace was difficult and complicated. In order to get the Internet company to assist, court orders would first have to be procured, and even then it could turn out that the message could have come from a public library or a college.

I made up my mind that we didn’t have time for that, and took a stab in the dark. Quickly, I created a Yahoo Instant Messaging ID for myself.

Then I sent a message to the Teacher.

MIKE10: Got your mission statement.

What happened next blew me away. After only a brief pause, an answer came back.

TEECH1: What did U think?

It was him!

MIKE10: Very interesting. Could we meet?

TEECH1: U R a cop aren’t U?

I debated lying, then decided against it. Treating the guy like he was stupid wouldn’t get us anywhere.

MIKE10: Yes. I’m a detective with the NYPD.

TEECH1: I didn’t mean to kill those cops, Mike. I like cops. They R among the few left in this world who actually believe in good and evil. But I needed to escape. What I’m doing is bigger even than the lives of 2 good people.

MIKE10: Maybe I could help U get your message across.

TEECH1: I’m doing just fine, Mike. Death and murder get people’s rapt attention. Their ears R perking up BIGTIME.

Chapter 44

Hovering tensely over my keyboard, I tried a different tack.

MIKE10: Maybe if U talked to someone U could work out your problem in a different way.

TEECH1: Don’t even go there. I don’t have problems. I solve them. People think they can keep on screwing others with impunity. Why? Because they have money. Money is scrap paper with a number written on it. It doesn’t make U immune to your human responsibilities.

MIKE10: The clerk and the maitre d and the stewardess didn’t have money. Something else about them must have bothered U. I really do want to understand U, so please tell me. Why did U murder them?

TEECH1: Murder?

MIKE10: U R the same person who shot those people?

TEECH1: Of course. I only object to the word. Murder implies that those animals I wiped out were human beings. Their families should say a prayer and thank me for emancipating those pathetic slugs from the ignoble slavery that was their existence.

Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought.

MIKE10: R U doing God’s work?

TEECH1: Sometimes I think so. I can’t claim to know how God intercedes in the world. But it could be through me. Why not?

Teacher? The only class this guy could teach was how to be nuts.

MIKE10: I can’t believe that God would want U to kill people.

TEECH1: He works in mysterious ways.

MIKE10: What R U going to do next?

TEECH1: YR. IDTS. Wouldn’t U like to know. Now I said it to those cops, and I’ll say it to U. Stay out of my way. I know U think U need to catch me, but I’d take a real serious re-eval on that if I were U, Bennett. Because if U or NE1 else gets between me and what needs 2B done, I swear to Almighty God I’ll kill U B4 U get a chance to blink.

Christ on a bike, he knew who I was! He must have figured it out from the Times article. Why hadn’t Calvin just printed my home address while she was at it?

MIKE10: Guess I’ll have to take my chances.

TEECH1: That’s a dangerous way to think, Bennett. That’s what those two in the train car thought. Right before I erased them from existence. When is my mission statement going out?

I passed my hands through my hair, forcing my distraught brain to think fast. Getting his message to the world was obviously very important to him. Maybe we could use that to gain some leverage or draw him out.

MIKE10: We can’t let that happen. Not until we get something in return.

TEECH1: How about I’ll let U live. That’s my final offer.

I’d been holding back my anger pretty well, but at last it jumped ahead of me. I was sick of this smug, cop-killing piece of crap. Before I could stop myself, I engaged in a slight episode of IM rage.

MIKE10: In that case instead of going on the front page, your manifesto of nonsense is going in my circular file. U catching my drift, U deluded freak?

TEECH1: U just cost another citizen his life, cop. I’ll kill two people a day if that message doesn’t go out. U don’t have the slightest conception of who U R messing with. My message will reach the world if it has to be written in your blood. TTYL. YFA!

I sat there staring at the screen. TTYL stood for “talk to you later,” I knew. I did have four preteens. But what was YFA? You something something.

Then I got it.

I turned and stared at the crosshairs over the Teacher’s face up on the wall, imagining my finger squeezing the trigger.

Yeah. Right back at you, Teech.