I, Michael Bennett

“I never get to have any fun at all,” he whined as he left.

CHAPTER 63

A BRIEF HORN honk came from outside a moment later.

“And where are you headed this early?” Mary Catherine said as I clipped my holster to my belt by the front door.

I debated whether to tell her. I decided I didn’t want to say anything about bagging the son of a bitch who’d hurt Eddie and Brian until we had him.

“Ah, nowhere, really,” I said as I pulled down my shirt over my gun. “Just going to see a man about a dog.”

“Well, please don’t get bit, Michael,” Mary Catherine said. “We have all the Be

“Don’t worry, lass,” I said, showing her the handcuffs I had in the pocket of my Windbreaker. “I brought a strong leash.”

There were two patrol cars in the arrest team besides the unmarked one I rode in with Detectives Ed and Bill, who had brought me a coffee and had laid a Kevlar vest out for me in the backseat.

“Just my size, too,” I said, slipping it on. “You guys are the best.”

It took about twenty more minutes to roll up to the address in Newburgh. It was actually on a block of pretty well-kept houses on Bay View Terrace. Behind them, there was a pure, stu

“This is where his aunt lives,” Bill said. “He’s been hiding out with her ever since he got word we were looking for him.”

A dog started barking nearby as we waited for one of the cruisers to get into position on the next block, in case Jay D went out the back. The Motorola in Ed’s hand suddenly crackled.

“Heads up,” said someone in the cruiser parked behind us. “We have a figure in the alleyway across the street with a long object in their hand.”

That tensed things up. There was word that the Bloods had automatic weapons, including AK-47s.

A moment later, an old thin black woman in a tracksuit appeared, mumbling to herself as she began haphazardly sweeping her porch with a broom.

“Stand down. It’s just Grandma doing her six a.m. tidy-up,” the radio said.

“Or the Wicked Witch of West Newburgh,” Detective Moss mumbled after a loud exhale.

CHAPTER 64

“OKAY. WE’RE SET. We’re in position at the back,” came word from the other cruiser.

“Roger Dodger,” Ed Boyanoski said as he grabbed the battering ram. “We’re going in.”

It turned out that we didn’t need the battering ram. As we came up the stairs, the door opened and a tall middle-aged black man wearing blue Dickies work clothes walked out. He waved his arms over his head.

“Now, now. Calm down. Calm down. You don’t need to be bustin’ my brand-new door down,” he said, eyeing us. “You here for James, I take it?”

“You take it right, sir,” Detective Moss said.

“Thank God,” the man said, turning and holding the door open for us. “Hallelujah.”

“Woman!” the man called back into the house. “Get that child out here now!”

A moment later, a petite black woman appeared with her arms around a hard-looking, stocky teenager. He was in flip-flops and wore white shorts, a white beater, and a blood-red Yankees cap.

“This is all wrong. All wrong,” said the aunt as Ed and Bill frisked and cuffed Jay D on the porch. “James is a good boy.”

“I’m sure he is, ma’am,” Detective Moss said. “We’d like to go and search his room now if that’s okay.”

“By all means,” Jay D’s uncle said. “This good boy’s room is just to the right at the top of the stairs. Try not to trip over all the Bibles and choir robes, now.”

“I didn’t do nothin’,” Jay D said after Bill read him his rights and got him into the back of the cruiser. Ed sat in the back with him, wisely leaving me in the front passenger seat, where I couldn’t get my hands around his neck.

“This is total bullshit, man,” the punk cried as he rocked back and forth violently against the seat. “You only doin’ this because those kids shot over on Lander were white kids.”

“Now, James, we’re not out of the driveway yet, and already you’re dropping the race card,” Ed Boyanoski said with a tsk. “Didn’t we investigate your shooting last year, James? I’m sorry, I mean shootings?”

“Bullshit, man,” Jay D repeated. He stomped on the floor of the cruiser. “You don’t think I know that the only reason you bugging everybody like this is because those white boys were the kids of a cop?”

Bill Moss and I exchanged a surprised glance before I turned around and stared the punk in his eye.

“You’re actually right about that,” I said, showing him my shield. “We cops do tend to get a little upset when you shoot up our children. See, I’m in a gang, too. It’s called the NYPD. They don’t issue us those ratty dishrags you guys like to sport, but we do have some pretty cool hats.”

The kid smirked and looked at me sideways. “You him, ain’t you?” he said.

He nodded with a sudden smile.

“Be

“Quick question, James,” Ed said. “How do you know who the kids were? I mean that stuff about them being the kids of a cop was deliberately left out of the paper.”

“How much did the Latin Kings pay you?” I yelled. “I hope it was worth it, punk, because if you think I’m pulling strings now, this is nothing compared to the favors I’m going to call in to make sure you earn every single goddamn pe

Jay D looked at us one by one. He started biting his lower lip like it was a chew toy. The punk suddenly squeezed himself into the rear seat’s corner as if it contained an escape hatch.

“That’s it. I want my lawyer,” he mumbled. “I ain’t talkin’ no more.”

“You’re shutting up?” Detective Bill Moss said as he finally put the unmarked into drive. “Is that a promise, James? Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”

CHAPTER 65

WE HAD A cookout to end all cookouts that night. The three-burner grill out on the dock was completely covered with burgers, dogs, corn on the cob, peppers, lamb shish kebabs. I even had an Italian sausage wheel that I’d found in a terrific deli not too far from the lake house, where I also scored some real New York–style Italian bread to wrap around the sausage and peppers. Tony Soprano would have been impressed.

“Hey, Father. How do you say ‘fuhgeddaboudit’ in Gaelic?” I asked Seamus over the smoke.

Of course we were having a feast. That’s what your friendly neighborhood heroes did when they bagged the beast: got the grill going and broke out the mead, like Beowulf and his men after offing Grendel.

But Beowulf actually had to go and fight Grendel’s mother next, didn’t he? I thought, remembering how Perrine still needed to be deep-sixed. He certainly was a mother, wasn’t he?

Whatever, I thought, pulling on the frosty beer at my elbow and wiping sweat off my brow with my grill mitt. Line ’em up, and I’ll put ’em down one at a time. No, wait. That was Hughie’s policy on shots. Poor Hughie. Man, I missed him.