James Patterson: Step On A Crack

“Ten?” Mary Catherine said again.

“A one and a zero,” I said with a smile. “Oh, and if you’re going to work for us, you have to call me Mike. Or idiot, if you want. But please don’t call me Mr. Bennett.”

“Okay, Mike,” Mary Catherine said.

As I left, I noticed that the panic seemed to have stuck in her face.

“Ten,” I repeated under my breath.

The perfect ten.

DOWNSTAIRS, I couldn’t sleep a wink after I slid in between the cold sheets of my bed. I remembered that tomorrow was Caroline Hopkins’s funeral, and that was yet another sad fact to consider tonight.

I lay in the dark, listening to the winter wind howl around the corner of my building. Somewhere, on Broadway probably, a distant car alarm started up, went all the way through its excruciating phases of electronic agony only to start up again.

For about an hour, I steadfastly refused to feel sorry for myself. I wasn’t the one whose body had mutinied. I wasn’t the one who had devoted my life to helping others for thirty-eight years-and for that trouble wouldn’t be seeing thirty-nine.

Then I started to cry. It came on slowly, achingly, like the first cracks of ice on a pond you’ve wandered too far onto. After a minute, my steely composure was shattered into a thousand pieces, and I was lost.

Originally, I had just gone along with my wife’s idea to adopt. After we found out we couldn’t have kids, I would have done whatever Maeve wanted. I loved her so much and just wanted to make her happy in any way I could.

But after we got Jane, I was a little reluctant to go on. Three kids in New York? Even owning an apartment was expensive, and it wasn’t like I was Mr. Moneybags.

Maeve showed me that we had room in our home, and in our hearts, for one more. After Fiona and Bridget, I’d roll my eyes whenever Maeve would mention another foster case or needy child she’d heard about and say, “What’s another pound on an elephant?”

But how can an elephant live without a heart? I thought as I lay there with tears streaming down my cheeks.

There was no way I was going to be able to do this. The older kids were becoming teenagers, and the younger ones… Jesus Christ, how could I be in charge of their lives and their happiness and their future all by myself?

Then I heard my door crack open.

“Peep-peep,” someone small said.

It was Chrissy. Every morning, she’d come into our room with her empty cereal bowl pretending to be a different baby animal in need of feeding. A kitten, a puppy, a baby penguin, a baby armadillo one time.

She padded up to the edge of the bed.

“Peep-peep can’t sleep,” she said.

I wiped my tears on the pillow.

“Big Peep can’t either,” I said.

She hadn’t slept in our bed since she was two, and I was about to get up to tuck her back in her own bed, but then I pulled open the covers.

“Get in the nest, Peep, quick!”

As Chrissy dove in beside me, I realized how I’d gotten it dead wrong as usual. My kids weren’t a burden. They were the only thing holding me together.

Chrissy was asleep in about two minutes. After she dug the tiny icicles of her feet snugly into my kidneys, I realized sleepily that maybe you couldn’t call this happy. But it was the first time in weeks I’d seen the ballpark.

WHAT AN INTERESTING DAY this was going to be. Eventful, historic as a son of a bitch.

The silver chimes of St. Patrick’s morning bells were still hanging in the chilled air over Fifth Avenue when the Neat Man arrived outside the cathedral’s massive entrance doors. He sipped his venti drip and shook his head at the crowd of loonies who already lined the sidewalk four-deep behind the police barricades.

Caroline Hopkins’s funeral wouldn’t start for another forty minutes, and already the turnout was as thick as the mounds of donated flowers that buried the base of the block-long church. She’d be getting a bigger holiday crowd than the Rock Center tree and Radio City Music Hall ’s Christmas Spectacular combined if this morning’s 1010 WINS report was right. Caroline had been a popular First Lady to be sure, but more important to many of these imbeciles, she’d been born and raised in New York City. She was one of their own. Yeah, right. Like the mayor of New York was one of the people.

The Neat Man took another shot of caffeine and continued to check out the scene. Up on the front steps of St. Paddy’s, he watched a red-faced FDNY bagpiper struggling to hold down a plaid skirt over his tighty whities in the frigid wind.

In the vestibule, just inside the open three-story bronze doors, a marine drill sergeant inspected the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine honor guard. He snapped the bottom of the marine’s dress-blue jacket and slapped the blade of his hand across the sailor’s immaculate shoulder, knocking away an imaginary speck of dirt.

Then the limousines started arriving.

Mayor Andrew Thurman got there first, which made sense, the Neat Man thought. The mayor claimed to be a close friend of the Hopkinses.

Politically active movie-star couple Marilyn and Kenneth Rubenstein arrived next. The proenvironmentalist actors had done touchy-feely commercials with Caroline to put a stop to Alaskan wilderness oil drilling, or some such horseshit. In the meantime, both of their teenage kids were having major trouble with drugs and alcohol up in Westchester.

When someone in the crowd across Fifth whistled, two-time Oscar winner Kenneth Rubenstein turned with his million-dollar smile and waved with both hands as if he were about to receive a third award. The Neat Man grinned as he watched Rubenstein’s raven-haired wife, Marilyn, elbow him hard in the ribs. Cinema verité , he thought.

On the movie stars’ heels came real estate mogul Xavier Brown and his wife, a Chanel-clad fashion diva named Celeste. The power couple was also close friends of the First Lady. Hell, who wasn’t?

The next to de-limo was New York Giants quarterback Todd Snow. His Super Bowl ring glittered as he put his arm around his attractive model wife. The athlete had done charity work with Caroline Hopkins as well.

The Neat Man gazed with satisfaction at the tinted-window freight train of limousines forming to the north up Fifth Avenue. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. Well, almost .

Finally, he looked up at the gigantic rose window and majestic three-hundred-foot stone towers at the front of the cathedral. With the ego-per-square-inch ratio this thing was developing, he thought, stamping his shoes onto the flagstone to warm his feet, it would be surprising if there’d still be room for the casket.

JOHN ROONEY MADE a face like the Grinch as his limousine finally stopped in front of the churning crowds at St. Patrick’s. As Hollywood ’s current lead box-office-grossing actor, he’d come to appreciate the loyal fans who turned out for events of any kind. Most of them were just regular folks who wanted to show their support and appreciation. And he’d certainly take them over the paparazzi leeches. Any day, anywhere.

But now as he looked out at the rapacious faces and the raised picture phones, he was a little wary. Standing room only at a funeral, even at a high-profile ceremony, was a little too close to creepy.

Fortunately for him, the church side of Fifth Avenue was VIP only. Rooney exited onto the street behind Big Dan, his security guy. There was already a line of press-legitimate newspeople for the most part-stacked along both sides of the stairs and entrance.

With effort, he managed not to turn when someone from the crowd across Fifth yelled, “WUZ UP, DORK?” the catchphrase from his latest comedy hit.