Worst Case

Chapter 3

IT WAS THE Catholic grammar school version of March Madness in Holy Name’s gym that Sunday around noon. A deafening chaos of ringing basketballs, screaming cheerleaders, and howling sugar-crazed kids rolling over the laminated hardwood on Heelys rose to the angel-carved rafters.

In addition to the noise, it was overly hot, dusty, and crowded, and I couldn’t have been happier.

I found myself where I always do when chaos is present, smack-dab in the middle of it. With a whistle around my neck, I was standing at center court, overseeing layup and passing drills as our JV squad, the Holy Name Bulldogs, warmed up. St. A

Having one son, Ricky, on the varsity squad and another, Eddie, on the JV, I’d somehow found myself nodding in the affirmative when I was asked by the principal, Sister Sheilah, to replace the JV’s coach. At first I’d been reluctant. Hello? Single dad, ten kids? Like I didn’t have enough to do? But Sister Sheilah can smell a sucker like me from two miles away.

From ball-handling drills to doing the Xs and Os on the chalkboard to even putting away the folding chairs after the game, I’d actually come to get a kick out of coaching. I don’t know if any of my 0-and-6 Bulldogs were NBA-bound, but witnessing them gain confidence in themselves and watching the magic that came from going from a bunch of individuals to a somewhat cohesive team, I guess you could do worse things with a Sunday.

The crowd had become so loud at the tip-off that I almost didn’t hear the phone going off at my hip. I didn’t recognize the number as work, but that didn’t mean much. We rotated weekends on my new squad. Guess whose weekend this was?

“Be

“Mike, it’s Carol. Carol Fleming.”

Damn, I thought, closing my eyes. I knew it. Carol was my new boss. Well, my new boss’s boss actually. Her name was Chief Carol Fleming. She was the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Special Investigative Division, which would have been a big deal even if she weren’t the first woman ever to hold the job.

In January, I’d been rotated out of Manhattan North Homicide to the Major Case Squad under her command. Although I preferred Homicide, I had to admit that Major Case, which investigated high-profile bank robberies, art thefts, and kidnappings, wasn’t exactly putting me to sleep.

“What’s up, boss?” I said.

“We have a possible kidnapping uptown. You need to see April Du

“Latvium and Company, the multinational pharmaceutical company,” I finished for her. “I’ve heard of him.”

I’d actually read about him in a Forbes magazine at my kids’ dentist’s office. Du

“How old is his kid, Jacob?”

“Eighteen,” the chief said.

“Eighteen!?” I said. “Jacob’s not missing. He’s eighteen.”

“I know what it sounds like, Mike. Somebody with City Hall juice looking for their probably party-hearty kid. Be that as it may, I still need you to check it out. Get back to me as soon as you can.”

I wrote down the time and address on the back of my player list after I hung up. Find somebody else’s kid? I thought. I had trouble enough keeping track of my own. I waved over Seamus, who was booing furiously as one of the St. A

“Putting me in, Coach, are ya?” my wiseass grandfather priest said in his Gui

I shook my head.

“Listen, Monsignor. I need to check on something, hopefully very quickly. Fill in for me until I get back. On second thought, just stand here and don’t say or do anything. Please.”

“Finally,” Seamus said, gleefully snatching the clipboard from me and rolling up the sleeves of his black shirt. “Maybe we’ll win one this time.”

Chapter 4

ONE WEST 72nd Street turned out to be the Dakota, the famous Gothic castle-like building where John Len-non had lived before he was shot in front of it. It was also the place where the lady who gives birth to the devil in Rosemary’s Baby lived, I remembered cheerfully. The good omens just kept on coming this afternoon.

I passed the building and left my van up around the next corner on Columbus and walked back along 72nd. If in the unlikely case this was a kidnapping, it already could be under surveillance. I definitely did not want to advertise that the family had contacted the police.

I passed through a wrought-iron gate at the Dakota’s entrance. Its double-wide arched entryway was the very spot where Chapman had killed the ex-Beatle, shooting him in the back before he could get into the lobby entrance up a short set of stairs to the right. The building was a popular sightseeing tour stop. Yoko, who still lived here, had to be overjoyed when she saw people looking around for bullet holes.

The heavy brass barred door opened as I reached the top. A portly Asian doorman in a hunter green suit coat and hat stood beside an ALL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED sign.

“I’m here to see the Du

After I was a

The hall man, in turn, passed me off to an elevator man. Upstairs, a diminutive butler waved me in through the open door of 10 B.

Through the nearly double-height French doors, I could see the whole way through the Du

A striking black-haired woman came quickly down the long corridor of the apartment. She was wearing a rumpled blue evening dress, and even from a distance, the agony in her fine-boned face was unmistakable. My a

“Thank God you’ve come. Detective Be

“I’m here to help you find him, ma’am,” I said as reassuringly as I could while I took out my notebook. “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Jacob?”

“I spoke to him three days ago. Jacob lives at school. At NYU. Hayden Hall, right alongside Washington Square Park. My husband is still down there with my father. They’ve spoken to his friends, and no one has seen him since Friday. Not his roommate. No one.”

Maybe he met a cute girl, I felt like saying to her.

“Not seeing someone for a few days might not necessarily mean something’s wrong, Mrs. Du

“My husband and I had our twenty-fifth wedding a

I was starting to understand her concern. What she was telling me did seem strange.