Tick Tock

Chapter 71

AN EMT GUY WITH LONG black headbanger hair stood beside a stretcher in the hallway outside Berger's bedroom when we hurried back downstairs.

"What do you mean ASAP?" he was saying to a cop as he pointed down at Berger with an incredulous expression. "You don't need me, you need to call a piano mover with a boom crane."

Due to the evacuation condition, everyone pitched in. Everyone except Emily, who I noticed was suddenly conveniently absent. Very much like a beached whale, Berger was rolled onto a comforter and on the count of three was hoisted by ten groaning first responders out of the room and the apartment into the freight elevator.

Downstairs, I hustled the doorman, whose name was Alex Rissell, into the coatroom off the lobby. We needed info-and quickly. For all we knew, Berger could have been totally bullshitting us about Carl.

Alex seemed to have calmed down from our initial storming of the building. I walked over to Emily as she unfolded the surveillance photo of Carl Apt and showed it to him.

"Does this man live in Mr. Berger's apartment, Alex? It's really important," she said.

"Holy crap! I saw that picture in the Post," the doorman said, scratching at a zit on his pasty double chin. "I didn't think anything of it, but you're right. It's him. It's Carl Berger."

"You mean Carl Apt," Emily said.

Alex gaped at us.

"His name is Apt? I thought he was Mr. Berger's brother Carl. That's what we were told. We all called him Mr. Berger."

"Whatever," I said. "Was this Carl guy upstairs when we came in?"

The doorman nodded rapidly. "The board says he's been in since last night."

"How long have Berger and Carl been living here?" Emily said.

"Berger grew up here. Carl came much more recently. I'd say about five years ago," the doorman said, nervously flicking at his zit again.

"Where did Carl come from?" Emily said.

"I don't know," the doorman said with a shrug. "But I do know that when he moved in, Mr. Berger stopped going outside. Mr. B was always an odd duck, but after Carl came, he went full-tilt cuckoo. Started having all his meals catered. Mr. B was always rotund, but holy crap! I hear he's a real whale now, am I right? I mean, break-the-boxspring, TLC-show fat. Imagine what a scandal this is going to be for his family, especially his famous brother."

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"You don't know?" the doorman said, surprised. "Lawrence Berger's brother is David Berger, the Oscar-winning Hollywood composer. The whole Berger family are, like, rich and famous geniuses from way back.

"Lawrence's grandfather was Robert Moses's right-hand engineer or something, and his father was some kind of A-list computer-whiz business guy. The old super told us that, before the older Berger died, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs showed up here one night for a birthday dinner."

I blinked at Emily. Bill Gates? Could this case get any weirder?

"Does Berger have any vehicles, other residences?" Emily said.

"Let's see. They have an estate in Connecticut. The address is around here somewhere. Mr. B never went, but Carl went every other weekend in that slick Merc convertible of his. He keeps it at the garage around the corner on Seventy-seventh. Mr. Carl is the cold, silent type, but I'll tell you one thing, he always slips me a crisp, warm twenty just for packing the trunk. He really kill all those people? Planted bombs?"

"Who knows? Thanks, Alex," I said, going back to the lobby.

Outside I spotted Hobart.

"EMT says fatty-fatty-two-by-four is healthy enough for questioning," he told me. "They're taking him over to the One-Nine Precinct."

"Good," I said. "Any sign of Carl?"

"We're doing apartments and the house-by-house on the building side of the block, but so far not a whisper," Hobart said with a shrug. "Ain't that the way? Fat fell down and broke his crown, but so far, Skinny is still winning the race."