Jimmy rose from beside me, coughing. I just lay there for a minute, trying to reorient myself. The house was roofless, the second floor completely open to the sky.
I smelled fire and grabbed Jimmy, and we ran out into the backyard.
It had been a bomb, of course. Not a large enough one to kill me, but almost. After the FDNY put out the fire, we found two bodies in the charred debris. Another Hispanic man with an AK-47 and a middle-aged white guy with an enormous sniper rifle in his lap.
There was no sign of Marietta. We found the cellar door open right next to where we breached, so she must have escaped during the confusion. The speculation was that there had been bomb-making materials upstairs, and one of our guys must have hit it during the firefight. My pet theory was that Marietta detonated it remotely as a distraction in order to escape.
I certainly wouldn’t put it past her to kill some underlings or anyone else in order to get away.
CHAPTER 75
I’D TAKEN A licking, but I kept right on ticking. Well, at least for the moment.
Actually, I thought I’d feel more screwed up, having so narrowly missed buying the farm, but after the explosion I felt strangely exhilarated and energized. In fact, for a few buzzing hours, I felt about as invincible as a sixteen-year-old motocross champ, and that’s truly saying something.
And why not be joyful? There weren’t too many people walking around who had the “experience a truly massive explosion” box checked off their bucket list. The luck o’the Irish indeed!
After the EMTs cleaned me up and the Staten Island crime scene was secured, I went back to my Manhattan apartment for a shower and a change of clothes. I couldn’t believe it was only eleven o’clock when I plopped down on my couch. Talk about a full morning.
I checked in with Seamus to let him know I was okay. I was about to tell him that I was planning on crashing in the city tonight until he told me that there was another late-evening Newburgh town meeting being called.
I immediately changed my plans. I had to be there. Because in spite of all their frustration, it was obvious that there was an incredible thing going on with the folks of Newburgh. It might not have been exactly the moral crusade Seamus had been talking about, but it was powerful nonetheless. These good people had had it. They weren’t going to stop coming together until their bad situation was changed.
Not only that, but I’d thought of something that might help.
I grabbed a cab downtown and had a long lunch with my assistant U.S. attorney friend, Tara McLellan. I remembered that Tara had been on a violence task force in Boston, where the feds and local authorities had come together and helped several of the violent, gang-ridden communities come back from the brink. I was eager to get her feedback.
“What do you think, Tara?” I said over the remains of the massive, greasy, life-affirming pub-style bacon cheeseburger I’d just devoured. “I know you work in the city, but these people in Newburgh are so desperate. Do you think we could get the federal ball rolling for them?”
Tara lifted her light beer.
“Actually, I work for the Southern District, Mike, which includes Newburgh. I also know full well what gangs do to a community—the insidious fear, the old ladies who can’t go outside. I’ll do everything I can.”
She wasn’t kidding. I went back to her office with her, and for the rest of the afternoon, she did nothing except phone old colleagues and call in favors. She even insisted on coming back with me to the meeting and giving me a lift up the Thruway in her battered Jeep.
She looked surprised when I told her to pull over for some Starbucks near Yonkers around six.
“Coffee?” she said. “With the day you’ve had, I thought you might want to nap a little on the way.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Never better. Just getting my second wind.”
“No rest for the weary, huh?” she said, smiling, as she hit her turn signal.
“Not even weary, almost-blown-to-smithereens, workaholic cops,” I said.
CHAPTER 76
IT WAS SEVEN thirty when we came through Saint Pat’s battered doors and back down into the meeting hall. Several of the people whom Tara had called were already there, including Ann Macaulay, the liaison from the local ATF office, and Larry Brown of the New York field office of the FBI.
We gathered all the feds together with the Newburgh detectives at the back of the meeting hall. After I made all the introductions, Tara gave a brief explanation of how the gang violence reduction initiative in Boston had worked.
“First, we got all the various local agencies together in a room—the prosecutors and cops, the state probation office, the school safety cops. Then we put our heads together to identify all the gang players. On a huge map, we ID’d the gangs and their turf boundaries. We put together the various beefs they had with one another, which ones in the gangs were the wannabes, which ones were the worst offenders. That was the hardest part.”
“Not here in Newburgh, ma’am,” Groover said. “We know who the players are all too well. This is a target-rich environment, believe me.”
“That’s good. Step two is the casework, which in this scenario would be undercover buys.”
“Buy-and-busts, yeah, we do that all the time,” Walrond said skeptically. “Then they’re out in six months with new friends they met in jail.”
“Actually, in this plan, all we do is buys with no busts. At least not yet,” Tara explained. “We gather ammo on the organizations slowly and surely, until we can prove that what we’ve identified is, in fact, a criminal organization. That way, under federal law, we can use the RICO statute and prosecute everyone at once to the fullest extent of the law. Clear out all the bad apples in one harvest, so to speak.”
“You don’t know how good that sounds. Music to my ears,” Groover said.
“We also give everyone involved maximum sentences of at least five years, which in federal prison means at least four years before probation,” Tara said.
“As an added benefit, in federal lockdown, they’re away from their homies, so they can’t coordinate anything from behind bars,” said Agent Brown. “We break the camel’s back with one snap.”
“You do know the Newburgh PD has only ninety cops, right?” Bill Moss said. “What you’re talking about requires massive manpower.”
“That’s where we step in,” said Brown. “We’ll get you man-power, overtime, money, vehicles, and equipment. The whole shebang.”
“Federal disaster relief. Finally,” Groover said.
“But there are roughly two hundred gang members here,” Ed Boyanoski said.
“Not a problem,” Agent Macaulay said. “We’ll get you all the guys you need.”
“This all sounds great, but won’t all the wannabes just step in? The second-tier people?” Detective Walrond said. “Newburgh is the most thriving drug market in Orange County. Won’t the demand still be there?”
“That’s when we go to phase three,” Tara said. “After we clear out the worst offenders, we get social workers, gang members, and community members—along with all the cops—and we do a sit-down. One group at a time, we give the gangbangers a presentation, a little class on what they’re looking at if the violence starts back up.
“We educate them fully on the law, the sentencing guidelines, what that’s going to do to their lives. We tell them straight up that if someone gets shot, we are coming down with the full weight of the federal government. That’s usually enough.”
“That’s it?” Bill Moss said. “That actually works?”
“Not perfectly, but yes,” Tara said. “Violent homicides go down, way down, in every place it’s tried. You have to do it one gang at a time and concentrate on one aspect of what they do—in this case, shootings. And you have to back it up. Someone gets shot, you drop the hammer. The gangs aren’t stupid. They’ll know the jig is up, especially since they know what just happened to the previous leadership. They might not stop dealing, but it’ll go further underground.
What’s most important is that they’ll put their guns down and dial it back.”
Ed Boyanoski slapped me on the shoulder painfully hard as the townspeople began filling up the hall. He didn’t look so depressed anymore. In fact, he looked ecstatic. Finally, you could see it in his eyes and in the eyes of the other Newburgh detectives.
It was hope. Just a glimmer, but undoubtedly there.
“Gee, Mike. Why didn’t you just tell us that you had friends in such high places?” Ed said, smiling.
“I’m a humble man, Ed,” I said, smiling back. “Unlike you hicks up here, we NYPD detectives don’t like to brag.”
CHAPTER 77
SPIRITS WERE STILL high as we headed out of Saint Pat’s to the parking lot just before ten.
The attendance at the meeting had been even larger than the night before. Even though the FBI and ATF agents had only spoken briefly and vaguely about their plans to tackle the gang problem, just the sight of federal officials was enough to ease the minds of the people in the seats. Even the most skeptical in the crowd seemed glad that the grave nature of the problem was finally being given some serious due.
Saying my good-byes to my colleagues, I spotted Tara by her Jeep, talking on her cell phone. As I approached, she turned it off, grinning from ear to ear.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Reservations,” she said. “I just scored us one.”
“Reservations? To where? What do you know about this neck of the woods?”
“That’s my little secret,” she said. “Just tell me you’re hungry, Mike.”
“Okay. I’m Hungry Mike,” I said, smiling back.
“Yay,” she said, grabbing my hand and opening the door of her Jeep. “I think you’re in for a happy surprise.”
She wasn’t kidding. She took me fifteen minutes west on I-84 to a place called the Back Yard Bistro, in the town of Montgomery.
But as it turned out, I had a surprise for her.
Before we got out of her Jeep, I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Tara said.
“I cannot tell a lie, Tara. I’ve been here before. And you do have excellent taste. I should know. My cousin owns the place.”
“So much for my surprise,” Tara said, deflated.
“Not to worry,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll be disappointed.”
The Back Yard Bistro was a tiny, intimate restaurant. So cozy that Tara and I were almost touching knees under the small table. The waitress couldn’t have been more pleasant, and the food was mind-blowing.
The kitchen kept sending out course after course. Tidbits of tuna tartare, foie gras, some rye-crusted pork loin, a truly amazing duck breast. All of it matched with wines. My head and taste buds were spinning.
As we ate, Tara regaled me with family stories of her cousin and my dearly departed pal, Hughie. My favorite was when Hughie and the rest of his ADD-afflicted Irish clan visited a cousin’s farm in Ireland. Finding a tiny, deserted-looking house back in the woods, the Yank punks commenced firing rocks through the windows until the tam-o’-shanter-wearing pensioner living there came out with a double-barreled shotgun.
“Wow,” I said after our waitress, Marlena, dropped a humongous slice of maple mascarpone cheesecake in front of me and a crème brûlée in front of Tara. “This was fantastic, Tara. I hope you forgive me for ruining your surprise,” I said.
“If anyone needs to be forgiven, it’s me,” Tara said. “After all, I made such an ass out of myself at the St. Regis. Pretty much bare-assed, too, if memory serves me right.”
“Were you?” I said. “When was this?”
“Very funny, Mike. I haven’t forgotten that night. I probably never will. At least the parts I can remember. You tucked me in. That was so sweet, so genteel. Cary Grant couldn’t have been more … Cary Grant. But even now, part of me wishes that you hadn’t, Mike. Is that wrong to say? Part of me wishes that you had stayed.”
I took a sip of the Champagne at my elbow. Low on the speakers, an opera diva was singing a beautiful aria.
The woman in front of me was pretty much flawless. Dark and voluptuous, smart as a whip, tough, and yet caring and kind. There are women you meet in life that you know you could—and probably should—fall deeply in love with. Tara was exactly that. She was a keeper. One ripe for the keeping. All it would take would be for me to reach across the table through the candlelight and take her graceful hand.
And yet, I didn’t do it. In the end, I couldn’t. My hand stayed on my glass, the aria ended.
“Ah, Mike. Whoever she is, she’s lucky,” Tara said, putting her head down and digging into her dessert hard enough to make the plate clink. “Luckier than she’ll ever know.”
CHAPTER 78
TARA DROPPED ME off in front of the lake house half an hour later. It was pin-drop quiet on the way back. I wanted to explain that it wasn’t her. That it wasn’t about attraction. But even I knew how lame that would sound. I wisely kept it zipped, for once.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said as we stopped in the gravel driveway.
Somewhere between rage and tears, Tara sat motionless behind the wheel, staring dead ahead as her motor ticked. I took the half minute of her complete silence as my cue to get out. Gravel flew as she peeled back out onto the country road. A tiny piece of it nailed me in the corner of my right eye and became pretty much embedded. Then there was just me and all my friendly chittering cricket friends as I stood there in the dark.
“Way to go, Mike,” I mumbled to myself as I climbed, half blind, up the creaky wooden steps to the front door. “Way to win friends and really influence people.”
As I reached for the front door, something funny happened. It opened by itself as the porch light came on. I blinked in the light with my left eye as I rubbed furiously at the right one. My crazy day wasn’t over, apparently. Not even close.
My kids’ loving nanny, Mary Catherine, appeared in the miraculously open doorway with arms crossed over her chest. Even with only one peeper working, I could see that the expression on her face was more than vaguely familiar. It was the same one I’d just seen on Tara’s face before she gave me a face full of gravel.
Will Shakespeare was wrong, I thought, rubbing at my eye as moths whacked into each other over my head.
Hell hath no fury like two women scorned.
Standing there, I suddenly thought of a dumb expression from my childhood. It arrived instantly, like a mental text message from Mike Bennett, circa 1978.
Your ass is grass, it said.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Michael Bennett, finally home, drunk, after his many adventures abroad,” Mary Catherine said, clapping her hands together sarcastically.
“That is who just dropped you off, correct?” she said, cocking her head. “A broad?”
She had me dead to rights. Even under the direst of circumstances, I always made every effort to contact her about my status and inquire about what was going on at the house, about the kids. And I hadn’t. I’d gone off to work pretty much yesterday, and I hadn’t lifted the phone once. Not only that, but I knew full well what Mary Catherine thought of my new friend and colleague, Tara McLellan.
With nothing in the holster, I tried drunken charm.
“Mary Catherine, hello,” I said with a courtly bow. “Long time no see. How is everything?”
“Bad, Mr. Bennett,” she said, tears welling in her blue eyes. “Bad and about to get worse.”
“Mary Catherine, come on. I can explain,” I said.
She stood there, glaring furiously at me through her soft, wet eyes.
“Actually, I can’t,” I said after a moment. “Only that I screwed up. I should have called you.”
“And told me what? That you were going to be late tonight because you were out on a date?”
I stood there, wincing, as I remembered what Mary Catherine had said on our walk. The date I was supposed to plan but never did.
“It’s not what you think. That was Tara McLellan, the p
rosecutor on the Perrine case,” I said. “It was work, Mary Catherine. She came up to the Newburgh meeting to discuss the feds helping out with the gang problem.”
Mary just stood and stared at me, the sadness in her blue eyes really killing me inside.
“You mean the Newburgh town meeting that ended at ten?” she finally said.
CHAPTER 79
“YES,” I SAID. “We had dinner after.”
“Dinner,” Mary nodded. “How special. Three hours of it, too. I guess I can toss the plate of ziti the kids and I saved for you. And the slice of cake from Jane’s birthday.”
“Shit,” I said, closing my good eye. “Mary Catherine, I completely forgot. I’m sorry. Let me come in and we’ll talk about it.”
“Oh, by all means come in,” Mary Catherine said, opening the screen door, which gave out a deafening squeak.
I saw then that she was dressed—jeans, a T-shirt, and a backpack on her back. No! Wait. What?
“The house is all yours, because I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m leaving, Michael Bennett. And I’m not coming back.”
“Mary Catherine, come on. I know you’re angry, but that’s crazy. It’s … it’s one in the morning.”
“No,” Mary Catherine said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s actually two in the morning, and I won’t come on. Not anymore.”
She stepped forward suddenly. For a second, I thought she was going to belt me one. It was almost worse when she stopped herself and didn’t.
She brushed past me and hit the stairs.
I tried to say something, tried to come up with words that would make her stop in her tracks, but there was nothing to say. She walked past me where I stood rooted to the porch and right out into the summer night.
I would have gone after her immediately, but my eye was on fire, so I ran inside to splash water on my stinging face. After I finally worked loose the gravel grit from my burning eye, I rushed back to the front door.
I, Michael Bennett mb-5 Page 18