James Patterson - Run For Your Life

“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.

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.”

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.

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.