Tick Tock

Chapter 54

AFTER FIRING OUR LATEST FINDING to the AV guys on the third floor, they blew up the image and did a terrific side-by-side with the sketch. Even better, the Public Info Office said they'd hustle and get it into today's evening news cycle.

We left headquarters around six, and I took Emily over to her hotel to check in. It turned out there was a rooftop bar and lounge at the Empire Hotel on West 63rd, where she was staying, so we decided on an early supper. While she freshened up, I went and had a drink at the spectacular outdoor bar.

As I waited, I leaned against the roof railing and texted the latest happenings and progress to my boss, Miriam. I was even feeling enough compassion to let Cathy Calvin in on the latest development, along with explicit instructions that she didn't hear it from me, of course.

I put away my phone and from twelve stories up watched the lights of Lincoln Center and upper Broadway come on as the paling sky went dark. I stared down on the corner, where a couple of hard hats were feeding fiber-optic cable into a manhole. I envied how perfectly content and oblivious of the world's problems they seemed. No psychos to worry about, no dead kids, no bosses or papers or mayor asking for their heads on a plate. Probably making time and a half, too, I'd bet. Was the phone company hiring? I wondered.

I spotted Emily as she came out onto the patio. She'd taken off her jacket and let her hair down.

We grabbed a table in a quiet corner and ordered off the bar menu.

Over some Kobe Sliders and ice-cold Brooklyn Lagers, we caught up with each other. Emily told me about her daughter's trials and tribulations over learning how to swim at her town pool. I was going to tell her about the ancestral Irish feud my family was engaged in out in Breezy Point this summer, but I decided it was better if she thought I was at least a little bit sane.

I pulled my chair over to Emily's side of the table as we showed each other cell-phone pictures of our kids.

After another round of Brooklyns, I told her about my meeting with the Son of Sam.

"Do you really believe he doesn't know what's going on?" Emily asked.

"If he's a bullshit artist, he's a good one."

"Better than you," Emily said, smiling over the rim of her beer bottle.

"Heck, probably even better than you," I said, smiling back.

Our conversation went back and forth smoothly, almost too easily. Were there some sparks between us? I'd say so, considering I felt like I could have sat on that patio drinking beer and staring out at the bright city lights with Emily for about the rest of my life. I wanted to arrest the waiter when he came over with the check.

Reluctantly back in the elevator, we stopped at the seventh floor for her room.

"See you tomorrow, Mike," she said after an awkward moment in which I probably should have said something like, "Hey, how about a nightcap in your room?"

"Tomorrow it is," I said.

She tugged my tie before bailing out into the corridor.

Idiot, I screamed at myself in my mind.

"Em," I said, painfully stopping the sliding elevator door with the back of my head.

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

"I haven't done anything."

"Oh, believe me," I said. "You have."