Blossom Read Free Page B

me.
    They thought.
    If Mama said the man was twisted, he'd bounce every needle on a psychiatrist's scale.
    One night, I'd been there when he called. In the basement with Max. Mama called me to the phone. I picked it up.
    "Okay. Talk to me."
    "This is Burke?"
    "Yeah."
    "I got something." A young man's voice. "Something I want to sell."
    I let him feel the silence. Feel what was in it. Waited.
    "A missing kid. I know where he is. What's it worth?"
    "To who?"
    "That's not my problem. That's yours. You make the connection, get the cash. And we'll trade."
    "Trade for what, pal? Is there some kind of reward out for this kid?"
    "No. He's been gone a long time."
    "So?"
    "So I figure…you talk to his people …see if they're willing to pay. I don't…I can't call them myself. I don't even know where they are."
    "Give me a name."
    "Not a chance."
    "The
kid's
name, pal."
    "Oh."
    The line went quiet again. I cleared my mind, listened: the freak's bad breathing, wires humming. No background noise. A pay phone, somewhere quiet.
    "Jeremiah Brownwell."
    "Never heard of him."
    "Just check it out. I'll call you back."

8
    T HERE'S ALL KINDS of registries for missing kids, from federal to local. None of them would tell me what I needed to know to put this together. I called the cops.
    The postcards show the Brooklyn Bridge from the top. From the bottom, it wouldn't attract any tourists. There's an opening at ground level along Frankfort Street just past Archway Seven. Big enough for a football game. A long time ago, they rented out the space. You can still see what's left of the faded signs: Leather Hides, Newsprint, Packing and Crating. One Police Plaza to the north, high–rise co–ops to the south.
    Four in the afternoon, the moist heat working overtime. The streets would overflow with yuppie traffic in a short while, heading for South Street Seaport bistros to unwind, cool down after a hard day worshiping the greed–god. When it got dark, the urban–punk killing machines would become sociopathic clots in the city's bloodstream, preparing themselves to defend their graffiti–marked territory. Merciless and coarse, their only contribution to society would be as organ–donors.
    In this city, race–hatred so thick you could cut it with a knife. Some tried.
    I waited on the abandoned loading dock, playing the tapes again in my head. There's supposed to be a kid inside every adult. When women talk about men being little boys inside, they say it with a loving, indulgent chuckle. Or they sneer. I knew the little boy I'd been—I didn't ever want to see him again.
    The car was the color of city dust. It bumped its way onto the concrete apron. The front doors opened and the cops rolled out. McGowan and Morales. NYPD Runaway Squad. They strolled over to where I was waiting, McGowan tall and thick, hat pushed back on his head, cigar in one hand, Irish smile on his mobile face. Morales was a flat–faced thuggish pit bull—more testosterone than brains. If he was a shark, he'd be a hammerhead.
    I dropped to the ground, leaned against the loading dock as they approached.
    "You okay?" McGowan asked in that honey–laced voice that had charmed little street girls and terrorized pimps for twenty years.
    I nodded, watching Morales. We'd gone a few rounds a while back, then touched gloves when it was over. He wouldn't turn on me for no reason, but he'd never need a very good one.
    "Is it for real?" I asked.
    McGowan puffed on his cigar. "Jeremiah Brownwell was reported missing almost five years ago. He was seven then. With his mother at a shopping mall in Westchester. Just vanished. No ransom demand. Not a trace."
    "So it was in the papers?"
    "Yeah." Reading my thoughts. "Anyone could've picked it up."
    "Was there ever a reward posted?"
    "Not that I know of. It was before all this missing children stuff in the media. The kid's parents hired a PI and he put the word around. That's all. The kid's picture was in the paper."
    "He won't look like that now.