If he was fazed by the ten sets of wide eyes on him, he hid it well. He actually stopped and craned his neck to look in the doorway.
“Hey, what are ya having in there? French toast, is it? Breakfast for dinner?”
He crouched down next to Shawna and made a funny face. “Then what’s for breakfast, I wonder? Let me guess. Steak and green beans and mashed potatoes?”
I smiled along with the kids. This guy was pretty good. I was starting to like him already.
“So tell us a little something about yourself, Martin,” I said as we sat on the couch.
“Not much to tell, really,” he said, crossing a big neon-green Nike on his thigh. “Me home is a little town in County Cavan, Ireland, called Kilnaleck. Eight of us in the family, not including Mom and Da. Got out of farm chores by playing football, or soccer, as you lot call it, for what reason I’ll never know.
“Anyway, I got good enough at it to get a scholarship to Manhattan College. I’m also on the track team. Trying to get a mechanical engineering degree on the side, as I thought it might be good to have a backup plan if my dreams of becoming Beckham don’t turn out. I don’t drink, so that hampers the ol’ social life a bit at school. I like kids and staying busy, and, um, I could use the money.”
“Any experience?” I said.
“Plenty, since I was one of the oldest in my family. No one died on me. I also worked at the town camp since I was sixteen, so I got all my first aid stuff and all that.”
“Do you cook?” Seamus asked.
“Oh, sure. Breakfast, lunch, dinner,” he smiled. “All at the right times, too, if you want. Only kidding. Nothing fancy, but I can keep kids fed.”
“You know how to do laundry?” I said.
He took off his glasses and polished them on the edge of his track jacket.
“I can iron a crease in a pair of trousers you could shave with,” he said as he slipped the glasses back on. “Actually, that’s not true. I read that somewhere. But I’ve done laundry before. Separate the whites and the colors or something, right? Hell, I’ll do the windows, if ya want. Improvise and overcome, that’s me motto. Bring it on.”
“Martin, there’s ten kids out there. Ten,” I said. “What would you do with them? What would be your strategy?”
“There’s a park around here, right? Riverside, is it? Well, weather permitting, after their homework and whatnot, I’d keep ’em out there, run ’em around, like we do at camp. Get ’em tired, wear ’em down, and then dinner and off to bed while I hit the chores.”
I smiled. I didn’t like this kid. I loved him.
“When can you start?”
Martin shrugged and smiled again.
“I don’t know. When can I start?”
“Tomorrow? Say, six a.m.?” I said.
“See ya then,” he said as he stood up.
“Just a second,” I said as I saw him off at the door. “The trains are out. How’d you get here from the Bronx?”
He zipped up his track jacket.
“I ran,” he said.
“You ran here from the Bronx?”
He nodded.
“And now I’m going to run back. Got to keep in tip-top for track. Why?”
It was my turn to smile.
“No reason, Martin,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
Chapter 25
It was dark and nasty and raining cats and dogs the next morning. The dim, dreary, churning East River beneath the Brooklyn Bridge looked about as scenic and lovely as a field of freshly poured cement as I crossed over it in my department Impala, heading to work.
Even so, my day had started at top speed. Martin Gilroy hadn’t been on time. He’d been early. All the kids seemed excited to see him, especially the older girls, who seemed particularly ready and mysteriously dolled up to go to school.
Seamus had stayed over and was on hand as well to show Martin the ropes. The lovely old codger was looking pretty good, too, I thought, after all he’d been through. Pink and healthy and cheerful. Back in form.
I was pleased. All men are mortal, and Seamus, at eighty-plus, was more mortal than most, I knew, but I doggedly refused to think he was ever going anywhere except to say Mass.
On the other side of the bridge, I found the first exit for DUMBO and took it. My trip to the hipster-paradise neighborhood of Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass wasn’t because of a burning desire for an ironic beer T-shirt but a work location shift. With all the media hoopla over the mayor’s assassination, case headquarters had been changed from the Thirty-Third Precinct to the NYPD’s discreet new Intelligence Division building in Brooklyn.
On a dark, narrow cobblestoned street just off the river, I parked in front of the large nondescript old brick building that I’d been to only twice before. I shielded my way past three armed-to-the-teeth SWAT cops manning the plain, dingy lobby and then two more stationed at a stainless steel console in the hall on the second floor.
On the other side of the security checkpoint, through a metal door, the transformation from the nineteenth-century brickwork outside to the twenty-first-century high-tech office inside became complete. There were sleek glass fishbowl offices and flat screens everywhere. Clocks on the wall gave the times of cities around the world. A lot of federal Homeland Security money was on full display.
The office was also packed with cops — dozens of detectives in polo shirts and suits. The way everyone was running around with serious expressions on their faces reminded me of an army on the muster. A tired one that just got its ass handed to it and was trying to figure out what to do next.
“Hey,” I said to Doyle as he came out of the men’s room.
“Mike, hey,” he said, leading me toward a crowded conference room at the end of the hall. “C’mon, we’re all down here about to have a briefing.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“No one told you?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Brooklyn and Robertson scored some footage of what looks like the bombers from both of the bombing locations. They’re about to show it right now.”
Chapter 26
A tired-looking Arturo put a coffee in my hand as they dimmed the lights and put the first video up on the smart-board.
On the screen appeared a large industrial-style truck — almost like a garbage truck — with Con Edison markings on the cab door. It stopped in the middle of Saint Nicholas Avenue near 181st, and two men got out of it and popped the manhole cover.
It was hard to see them, unfortunately. It was dark, and they wore dark coveralls and Con Ed hard hats with the peaks pulled down low over their eyes, which were covered with sunglasses. Both were medium to tall in height, five ten to six feet; both were pale Caucasians. One had a dark goatee; the other a white one. The guy with the dark goatee was running the show. He had a clipboard and seemed to be barking orders as the other guy drew a huge air hose — like thing from the back of the truck and climbed down into the manhole with it.
“The truck is a vacuum truck,” said Brooklyn, who was running the smartboard for the stunned-silent room of cops. “It’s used for cleaning manholes and sewers. Engineers at Con Ed say it can easily be modified to become a large pump.”
Brooklyn showed the next video, which was of a much better, less grainy quality. Another pump truck with Con Edison markings was visible out in the street by the 168th Street subway entrance with two men behind it. The same white-goateed guy was there, but the other guy was different; on the short side, tan, no facial hair, a little pudgy. The pudgy guy got into the hole with the pump this time while the older man waited by the manhole up top.
None of the guys had any distinguishing marks that we could really see. No tattoos or birthmarks or buck teeth. Was that on purpose? I wondered. It seemed like it. It seemed like these guys were going out of their way to be nondescript.