Chapter 18

THE MAN WITH THE PLAN

Detective Mike Kovach entered the interrogation room wearing a flannel sport coat that had seen better days and a wan face that had seen it all. He sat down at the plain wood table, ran his hand over the back of his neck, and looked to where Patrick sat behind the now peeled-off beard and wig. Patrick answered the detective’s question before he had a chance to ask it.

“I did it to make enough money to pass a parental competency hearing. I did it so I wouldn’t lose my son, for even a day. So you can drop me in a cellar and turn the lights out when you leave. I don’t care.”

Kovach nodded as opened a file and looked it over. “They tell me he’s in St. Genevieve’s.”

“Until he has his heart procedure just before the holiday.”

“That’s what they also tell me,” Kovach said as he leaned back in his chair. “Which is why I’m not going to slam you with resisting two law officers, attempted flight, disturbing the peace, and just plain stupidity above and beyond the highest heights.”

Surprised, Patrick waited.

“I’ve got three daughters at home, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to see them every morn, noon, and night,” he said as he closed the file. “I’m also glad you didn’t take a header off my roof. That kind of New York Post front-page headline I don’t need.”

“So you’re going to let me go?”

“I’ve got my informants, and with what they tell me I can put together a pretty good picture of what happened. You crossed some Christmas creeps and got good and framed.”

“Is this going to go on my record?”

“You mean, will Family Court find out about this? No. You didn’t hurt anybody and from what I understand from my boys in blue, you put on a pretty good show.”

Patrick sat feeling relieved.

“But I’d stay off the street from now on. Next time something like this happens I’ll be bound to make an official note of it, and I don’t know a Family Court judge in the state who takes a shine to fathers who panhandle.”

“What do I do now?” Patrick asked.

“What does your lawyer say?”

“I can’t afford a lawyer.”

“If you’re fighting for custody of your kid, you’re entitled to a free one from the state.”

Patrick’s face rose with hope.

Patrick stepped out of the 7th Precinct into the bitter December wind and wrapped the green velvet robe close around him as he headed down the sidewalk in search of a subway.

He would most likely lose his son, according to what the public defender had told him only a half-hour earlier. Maybe it would be for only a month or so until Patrick could get established in his new job, if that even came through in the New Year. But considering his circumstances and Ted’s influence and wealth, any Family Court in the city would almost certainly rule that a child recovering from a heart operation would be better placed with the boy’s grandfather.

And Patrick knew in his heart that it would be better for Braden, better for his healing body. But what would it do to the little boy’s heart? Not the physical heart, which would certainly benefit from all that Ted could give him, but the emotional heart?

Ted hated Patrick. As he walked, he replayed the last memory he’d had of the old man throwing himself and Linda out into the cold that Christmas Eve two years before Braden was born. Patrick had agreed to go along with Linda and visit her father to explain in person that she was going to pursue a life in the theater. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, but she did it, hoping with every fiber of her heart that her father would understand, might even wish her well.

But the old man had told them to leave. No matter that Patrick had a broken ankle, and there were no cabs to be had, and they had to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at night just to get back to Manhattan. No matter that Linda was his only child.

It mattered like the devil to Linda, who saw all her overtures to her father ignored. And now it mattered like the devil to Patrick, who knew all Ted needed was a month with Braden to fill his mind with the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, his mother might not have died if she had had the regular physical checkups that an actor without health insurance could not afford.

It was this thought that Patrick could not brook. Once Ted was able to infiltrate the boy’s mind with that idea, there might be no recovery.

Patrick turned the corner of Pitt Street and headed up Ninth Avenue. At this hour it was dark and empty. The city that never sleeps was out cold.

And then there they were.

There were six of them, shadows at first that emerged from below-street building stairwells. They approached Patrick in a slow wave, coming from both sides of the street across the pavement in an uneven parade. “And where do you think you’re going?” one figure from the encroaching group asked.

Patrick said nothing.

“I’ll tell you where you’re going. The city morgue, that’s where you’re going,” a second figure called out as he stepped into the glow of the streetlight. “You’re gonna get yourself good and dead walking these bricks past beddie-bye.”

It was Red-Beard and the back-alley boys. Patrick exhaled a relieved breath. “You guys? What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you, making sure the cops know the score.”

“You’re the informants?”

“Undercover operatives,” said Red-Beard. “Please. We do have our dignity.”

“Of course. Well, in any case, thank you. You saved me.”

“Not quite. You’ve still got a heck of a problem on your hands. No dad should lose his kid because of money, and not just before Christmas.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?”

“We know this,” Red-Beard said as he held up a small white business card. “You should go pay a visit to a friend of ours.”

Patrick stepped back. “I don’t know.”

“Go see him.”

Red-Beard put the card into Patrick’s hand and closed his fingers over the paper. “He’s the man with the plan.”