James Patterson - Black Market

Carroll had held on to their old rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive. Sometimes he even stayed there when he had to work weekends in New York. It wasn't ideal, but it could have been a lot worse. Especially without Mary K.

“I have several important messages for you,” Mary Katherine announced brightly.

“Mickey says, if I might paraphrase, that you work too hard and don't make enough skoots. Clancy says if you don't play catch with him this weekend-and not video game baseball-you're a dead man. That's a direct quote. Let's see… oh, yes, I almost forgot. Lizzie has decided to become a prima ballerina. Lessons for the spring semester at the Joliere School start at three hundred per, Dad.”

“That's all?”

“Mairzy Doats left you a humongous kiss, and a hug of equal magnitude and intensity.”

“Uncomplicated young woman. Shame she can't stay six years old forever.”

“Arch? What about this Wall Street thing? The bombing? I was worried.”

“I don't know. Too late to talk.”

Carroll wanted to box off Wall Street in a dark, private corner until he was ready to deal with it. It would still be there in the morning, you could bet on that. He massaged his eyelids, which were heavy with fatigue. His mind was crowded with unwelcome pictures-the Lebanese Butcher, the face of the Atlantic Avenue restaurant owner, fire trucks and EMS ambulances flashing all over Wall Street…

Carroll bent and loosened his flopping high-topped sneaks. He peeled off a discolored satin Tollentine High School jacket. His fatigue now yielded to a kind of peaceful, ethereal, waking slumber.

In the large bathroom on the second floor, he turned on the water full blast. Curling hot steam rose toward the ceiling from the chipped and scratched white porcelain tub. He took off the rest of his squalid street-bum ensemble and rolled a fluffy bath towel around his waist.

Quick mirror check. Okay. He was still around six two, solid, durable, and sturdy. Pleasant face, even if it was a little pug ordinary, like some friendly mutt people generally took in out of the rain. Generally.

While the hot water was running, Carroll stiffly padded back downstairs to the kitchen and popped the top of a cold Schlitz. Mary Katherine had bought the Schlitz beer as a “change of pace.” Actually, she was trying to stop him from drinking so much.

Carroll took three chilled cans and headed back to the bathroom. Stripping off the soft bath towel, he slowly, luxuriously, entered the hot, sweet-smelling tub.

As he sipped the cold beer, he began to relax. Carroll used a bath the way some people used psychiatry-to get back in touch, to sort it all out. Hot water and soap, the only therapy he could afford.

Carroll began to think about Nora. Damn . Always at night when he got home from work… their time. The emptiness he felt then was unbearable. It pulsed against him and filled him with a terrible, hollow longing.

He closed his eyes, and he could see her face. Oh, Nora, sweet Nora. How could you leave me like this? How could you leave me alone, with the kids, fighting against this crazy, crazy world?

She had been the best person Carroll had ever met. It was simple, no more profound than that. The two of them had made a perfect fit. Nora had been warm, and thoughtful, and funny. That they had found each other convinced Carroll such a thing as fate might indeed exist. It wasn't all randomness and whim and unseeing chance.

Strange, the ways of life and death.

Growing up, all through high school in New York, at college (South Bend, Notre Dame), Carroll had been secretly afraid he'd never find anybody to love him. It was a curious fear, and sometimes he'd imagine that just as some people were born with a talent for art or music, he'd been given the gift of solitude.

Then Nora had found him, and that was absolute magic. She'd discovered Carroll the second day of law school at Michigan State. Right away, from their very first date, Carroll simply knew he could never love anybody else, that he would never need to. He'd never been more comfortable around another person in his whole life. Nothing even close to the feeling he had for Nora had ever existed before.

Only now Nora was gone. Nearly three years back, in the cancer ward of New York Hospital. Merry Christmas, Carroll family. Your friend, God …

“I'm just a kid, Arch,” Nora had whispered to him once, after she'd found out she was dying. She'd been thirty-one then, a year younger than he.

Carroll slowly sipped his can of watery beer. A song played through his head: “… The beer that made Milwaukee famous, made a loser out of me.” Ever since she'd died, he understood he'd been trying to commit slow, sure suicide. He'd been drinking too much; eating most of the wrong things; taking stupid chances on the job…

It wasn't as if he didn't understand the problem, because he did. He just couldn't seem to do a damn thing to stop his steep downhill slide. He was like some daredevil skier determined to destroy himself on the most treacherous slopes. He didn't seem to care enough anymore…

Arch Carroll, supposed tough-guy cop, well-quoted cynic around town-sitting in the tub with one of his kid's rubber toys floating next to him. The kids delighted and astonished Carroll. So why was he screwing up so badly lately?

He was tempted to wake them up now. Maybe go sleigh riding at midnight on the back lawn. Play catch with Mickey Kevin. Teach Lizzie how to do a plie and become a hot-shit little ballerina.

Arch Carroll's ears suddenly tuned in sharply. He thought he heard voices. A door slammed. There were loud steps in the hallway and the familiar creak of the floor-boards.

The kids were up! Exactly what he needed, Carroll thought, and he began to smile broadly.

There was a light tap on the bathroom door. That had to be Lizzie or Mickey trying to be cute. Soon to be followed by Dolby Stereo kid screams and uncontrollable belly laughs.

“ Entrez . Come right in, you little assholes,” he called.

The bathroom door opened slowly, and Carroll cupped his hands, ready to splash them with water.

He managed to control his impulse just in time.

The man framed in the doorway was wearing a black London Fog raincoat, wire-rimmed eyeglasses, a white button-down shirt, and a striped rep tie. Carroll had never seen him before.

“Excuse me, sir,” the man said.

“How did you get up here? Who the hell are you?” Carroll asked.

The stranger looked like a banker, maybe an account executive at a brokerage firm.

The man spoke with Ivy League formality, pretending not to notice the little yellow duck. Nothing even close to a smile crossed his pale, thin lips. “Your sister let me come up. Sorry to barge in on you, to trouble you like this at home. I need you to get dressed and come with me, Mr. Carroll. The president wants to see you tonight.”

Washington, D.C.

As early as the hot and steamy summer of 1961, John Kennedy had confided to close advisers that the stressful work of the presidency had already aged him ten years. He said it would do the same to anyone who wanted, or needed, the job of chief executive in the most powerful free country in the world.

As he hurried down the plush, half-darkened corridors on the second floor of the White House, Justin Kearney, the forty-first president of the United States, was realizing the same inescapable truth that Kennedy had put into words. He had recently begun to question the motives that had driven him to his present residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Indeed, he had begun to question the intrinsic value of the office itself-he had become acutely aware of the limitations of his power, and this greatly disillusioned him.