They had been introduced at a Y-League basketball game, and afterward had gone to dinner with a whole crew of friends-some his, some hers-at a Mexican cantina uptown. All of them had sidled up to the bar and ordered margaritas-except for Thomas, who ordered a shot of tequila and a Budweiser. Half the group were attorneys. Fearing a barrage of lawyer talk, Jenny changed her order to the same and grabbed a stool next to him.
She would never forget their first conversation. She wasn’t sure how they got on the subject of nature versus nurture, but Thomas began preaching about how everything in life is hereditary. Nature over nurture. You were either born with it or not. All the practice in the world couldn’t make him a pro ballplayer, he said. And it wasn’t just limited to sports. People, he argued, are born who they are. It didn’t matter a lick where you were brought up, in the city or the country, rich or poor, you couldn’t escape who you were at birth. You were branded.
Jenny was horrified by his words. As a teacher, she witnessed on a daily basis how environment shaped character. It was her job to help kids overcome the obstacles of their birth. Thomas said she was wasting her time. What she did was no different from painting a car. Only by looking under the hood could you see what someone was really made of. Sure, she might help the kids in the short run-spiff ’em up, polish ’em a little-but in the long run, they would revert to their true selves. You couldn’t upgrade from four cylinders to eight.
“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” he’d responded, full of himself. “How many kids have you saved? How many have you gotten back into a regular school?”
“Well… none, but that’s beside the point,” Jenny answered. The kids had already been adversely affected by their home lives, their families, the whole oppressive blight that came with growing up poor in New York City. You couldn’t just give up on them!
His answer was a sigh and a shrug.
Incensed, but willing to let the topic slide, Jenny had bought them a second round and moved on to a more pleasant topic. Basketball. She said she played a little, too. He asked if she played, or if she played. To this day, she was proud of herself for not slapping that smug look off his face. Instead, she answered that a hundred bucks was his if he could beat her in a three-point shoot-out. He accepted, if he could set the rules. Each would take ten consecutive shots from anywhere behind the line. He’d spot her a three-basket advantage. Hating him more by the minute, Jenny declined.
The group moved to the table. Happily, Jenny found herself seated at the end opposite Thomas. But try as she might, she couldn’t keep from looking at him. He was handsome in his way, hardly her version of Mr. Right, yet there was something undeniably compelling about him. When she caught his gaze, his wine black eyes seemed to lock onto her. For lack of a better word, he was magnetic. A raging, sexist egomaniac. But magnetic.
And when he insisted that the lawyer seated next to her change places with him-he’d practically picked him up out of his chair and deposited him on his feet-she was flattered and decided to give him a second chance. Mesmer had nothing on those eyes.
But the evening didn’t really fall apart until she informed him that the ’84 Lakers were the best team in NBA history. Magic. Kareem. The Coop-a-Loop thunderdunk. And don’t forget James Worthy! The ’84 Lakers ruled.
His look could have turned her to stone.
“Ninety-five Chicago Bulls,” he said, offering no further explanation.
When she tried to get into it with him, he held up a hand and looked away. Case closed.
That was when the fireworks started. No one… absolutely no one… held up his hand in Jennifer Dance’s face. She called him every four-letter word in the book, then told him he could go to hell in a four-horse carriage, for all she cared. As for his three-point contest, he could take it and…
It was then that Peter, Thomas’s friend, interceded and asked Jenny if Bolden had told her about his work at the Boys Club. He explained that Thomas was setting up a gang-intervention unit in coordination with the NYPD to offer the kids something else to do other than hang out on street corners and get into trouble. He was up there three nights a week, and on weekends. Maybe Jenny could tell him some stories about her kids. Give him a few pointers.
Peter left, and an awkward silence filled the air between them.
“Why do you do it, if you’re so sure they haven’t got a chance?” Jenny asked finally, leaning closer to see if it was all bullshit, or if there was something there.
“I’m an idealist. Screwed up, I know, but it’s the way I was born.”
She was more confused than ever.
That Saturday they met at the Y for the first of many three-point shooting contests. She kicked his butt, winning 10-4. In the three years since, he had never beaten her. He could, however, dunk with two hands.
The elevator door opened and Jenny stepped into the corridor. In the time it took to descend three stories, she had gotten herself sick with worry. Her born survivor should have checked in by now. She knew she’d be able to track him down at work, but she couldn’t wait that long. It was time to start checking hospitals.
8
Thomas Bolden sat studying the dregs of his coffee when the door to the interrogation room opened and a tall, bleary-eyed man walked in. “I’m Detective John Franciscus,” he said, a mug in one hand and a sheaf of files under his arm. “How ya doin’? Need some more coffee? Or is it tea?”
Bolden looked up. “What happened to Detective McDonough?”
“Little out of his league.” Franciscus pointed to the Styrofoam cup in front of Bolden. “You okay?”
Bolden crumpled the cup and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Out of his league. How do you mean?”
“Quite a tale you spun. Robbery. Abduction at gunpoint. Assault. We’re talking three felonies right there. You’ve got a lot of us interested.” Franciscus pulled out his chair and froze halfway between standing and sitting. He was lean and rickety and on the wrong side of sixty, with lank gray hair that hung across his forehead and an alert, angular face. He wore a.38 snub nose strapped to his waist and a badge pinned to his belt to show that he knew how to use it. “Sure you don’t like the brew? I can run downstairs, get you a Coke, iced tea, whatever.”
Bolden shook his head. “What about the guy I brought in?” he asked. “Detective McDonough said you were running his prints. Any idea who he is? You check out the construction site yet?”
“Slow down a second,” said Franciscus, dropping into his chair. “I need a little time to get things all set up.” He arranged the folders on the desk. He unclipped his cell phone from his belt, checked that it was on, then set it down within arm’s reach. He dug into his breast pocket and fished out a pair of bifocals and set them down next to the phone.
“Construction site was a goose egg. Nobody there. Gates were locked.”
“Locked? No way! I drove a car through them two hours ago. Did you send someone up to look?”
“Like I said, the gates were locked. We saw no sign of intrusion. Tell you what, I’ll go by there in the morning… have a look around. That all right?”
“That’s fine.” Bolden eyed the clock and yawned. Four-thirty. Since arriving at the precinct house, he’d been fingerprinted, photographed, questioned, and kept isolated in an interrogation room. He’d given his name, social security number, address, home phone number, his work, cell, and BlackBerry numbers, too. He’d shown them the bruises on his back and sides. An officer had taken a look at his cheek and informed him that the grains of gunpowder had been blown so deep into the flesh that they would take months to work themselves clear. They wanted cooperation. He gave it to them in spades. Now he wanted a little cooperation himself. “Mind if I use your phone?”