James Patterson: Step On A Crack

Shawna nodded solemnly. At four, she was the quietest and most obedient and easygoing of all my kids. Maeve and I used to laugh at the nature-versus-nurture debate. All ten of our kids came from the womb prepackaged with his or her own personality. A parent could enhance and certainly damage, but change? Make a quiet kid gabby or a social butterfly more cerebral? Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

“Well, it’s your job to make sure Socky always has water to drink in her dish. Oh, and listen up, gang,” Maeve said, sliding down a little on the bed. At that point, just sitting too long in one spot hurt her.

“I want to go over a couple of other things before I forget. In this family, we always celebrate each other’s birthdays. I don’t care if you’re four or fourteen, or forty and scattered around the world. We gotta stick by each other, okay? And meals-as long as you live under the same roof, you have at least one meal a day together. I don’t care if it’s a dreaded hot dog in front of the dastardly TV as long as you’re all there. I’m always there for you, right? Well, you have to be like me even if I’m not there. You got me? Trent , are you listening?”

“Hot dogs in front of the TV,” Trent said, grinning. “I love hot dogs and TV.”

We all laughed.

“And I love you,” Maeve said. I could see her eyelids beginning to droop. “You’ve made me so proud. You too, Michael, my brave detective.”

Maeve was facing the grave with a dignity I was unaware human beings were capable of, and she was proud of us ? Of me? What felt like an entire main of frigid water suddenly burst down the length of my spine. I wanted to start wailing, to put my fist through something-the window, the TV, the dirty lead skylight out in the lounge. Instead, I stepped forward through the crowd of my children, took off my wife’s cap, and kissed her gently on the forehead.

“Okay, guys. Mom needs her rest,” I said, fiercely struggling to keep the crack that was in my heart out of my voice. “Time to go. Let’s move it, troop.”

IT WAS THREE FORTY-FIVE when the Neat Man stepped off Fifth Avenue, climbed stone stairs, and walked into St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

He snorted at the good folk kneeling in heavy silence and prayer. Sure, he thought, the Big Guy upstairs had to be real impressed with all this piety coming from the nerve center of the modern world’s Gomorrah.

A prim, dough-faced old gal had beaten him to the first seat in the pew beside the nearest confessional along the cathedral’s south wall. What the hell kind of sins did she have to admit? he wondered, sitting down beside her. Forgive me, Father, I bought the cheap chocolate chips for the grandkids’ cookies .

A fortyish priest with salon-trimmed hair showed up a minute later. Father Patrick Mackey did a poor job of hiding his double take when he spotted the Neat Man’s icy smile.

It took a little longer for the baggy-necked old lady to get out of the pew than to make her confession. Then the Neat Man almost knocked her down as he slid in after her through the confessional door.

“Yes, my son,” said the priest behind the screen.

“Northeast corner of Fifty-first and Madison,” the Neat Man said. “Twenty minutes, Fodder. Be there, or else there will be consequences.”

It was more like thirty minutes later when Father Mackey opened the passenger door of the Neat Man’s idling van. He had exchanged his priest duds for a bright blue ski jacket and jeans. He pulled a cardboard tube from beneath the jacket’s puffy folds.

“You got it!” the Neat Man said. “Well done, Fodder. You’re a good assistant.”

The priest nodded as he craned his neck back toward the church. “We should drive,” he said.

Ten minutes later, they parked in an empty lot beside an abandoned heliport. Out through the windshield, the East River looked like a field of trampled mud stretching before them. The Neat Man stifled a joke as he popped the lid off the cylinder the priest had brought. You could practically taste the PCBs in the air, he thought.

The prints inside were old and cracked, yellowed at the edges like parchment. The Neat Man stopped his tracing finger at the center of the second print.

There it was! It wasn’t just a rumor. It was real.

And he had it.

The final detail for his masterpiece.

“And no one knows you have these?” the Neat Man said.

“No one,” the priest said, and chuckled. “Doesn’t the paranoia of the Church boggle the mind? The institution I work for is a puzzle palace.”

The Neat Man clucked his tongue, unable to take his eyes off the architectural drawing. But finally, he lifted a silenced Colt Woodsman out from underneath the seat of the van. The double tap of the.22 was subtle to the ear, but it was as if a grenade had gone off inside Father Mackey’s head. “Go straight to hell,” the Neat Man said.

Then he did a frantic scan of his face in the rearview and threw his head back in horror. Specks of blood freckled his forehead above his right eye. It was only after he’d scoured the hateful spots with Wet-Naps and upended a bottle of rubbing alcohol onto his face that his breathing returned to normal.

Then the Neat Man whistled tunelessly as he rolled up the prints and put them back into their cylinder.

A masterpiece , he thought once again, in the making .

THE KIDS WERE a blur of activity once we got back home that evening. From every room of our apartment, instead of television and electronic gunfire, came the satisfying sound of busy Bennetts.

Water splashed as Julia prepped Shawna and Chrissy’s bath. Brian sat at the dining room table with a deck of cards, patiently teaching Trent and Eddie how to play twenty-one.

“ Bam ,” I could hear Ricky, like an Emeril Mini-Me, say from the kitchen as he squeezed jelly onto each slice of Wonder bread. “ Bam … bam .”

Jane had the flash cards out on the floor of her room and was preparing Fiona and Bridget for the 2014 SAT.

I didn’t hear a complaint, a whine, or even a silly question out of anyone.

Add brilliant to the list of my wife’s attributes. She must have known how much the kids were hurting, how disoriented and useless they felt, so she had given them something to do to fill that void, to feel useful.

I only wished I could come up with something to make myself feel the same way.

As most parents will tell you, bedtime is the roughest time of day. Everyone, not excluding parents, is tired and cranky, and restlessness can degrade quickly to frustration, yelling, threats, and punishments. I didn’t know how Maeve did it every night-some magical, innate sense of measure and calm, I had assumed. It was one of the things that I was most worried about having to take on.

But by eight o’clock that night, from the sound coming out of the apartment, you would have thought we had all left on a Christmas vacation.

I almost expected to see the window open and bedsheets tied together when I went into the little girls’ room-but all I saw were Chrissy, Shawna, Fiona, and Bridget with their sheets tucked to their chins, and Julia closing an Olivia book.

“Good night, Chrissy,” I said, kissing her on her forehead. “Much love from your dad.”

I was heartened by my clutch Dad performance as I went on my rounds.

The boys were all in bed as well. “Good night, Trent,” I said, giving him a kiss on his brow. “You did one great job today. How about coming to work with me tomorrow?”

Trent ’s tiny forehead crinkled as he thought about it.

“Is it anybody’s birthday at work?” he said after a little while. “Any of the other detectives?”