God Told Me To Read Free Page A

climbed back onto the roof of the tower. But exactly where he was crouched Nicholas could only guess. He waited for a telltale sound. Then he heard, very clearly despite the noise of the wind and the helicopter, a tiny pathetic sniffle.
    “I haven’t come up to arrest you. I want to find out who you are and why you’ve done this. We have plenty of time. Neither of us can go anywhere.”
    Nicholas crawled the narrow lip of the tower roof. He unsnapped his holster so that he could reach his weapon.
    “My name is Peter Nicholas. Is there anybody you’d like us to call, notify them you’re up here?”
    He reached the far side of the tower. A slip here would send him falling to the street. He knew that the moment he looked over the tower’s edge the sniper could easily blast him. He listened some seconds to the sad sobbing noises the sniper made and felt confident there would be no more shooting.
    “Won’t you talk to me?”
    The voice of a boy said, “My name is Harold Gorman.”
    “Where do you live, Harold.”
    Nicholas took a radio from his belt and repeated the address the boy told him. He assumed Jordan would relay the message on and that within an hour some member of the family should be here. By then Nicholas hoped to know the boy well enough to judge whether to have the family speak to the boy through a bullhorn. In some of these situations, a relative’s presence was enough to cause panic.
    Nicholas casually asked, “Want us to notify your parents, Harold?”
    “I don’t care.”
    “They’re probably worried, Harold. Families usually worry about their kids.”
    He heard the boy blow his nose.
    “What do you say, Harold?”
    “I wouldn’t mind seeing my mother again.”
    “You’ll see her.”
    “No.”
    “Is it just you and your mother?”
    “I’ve got a sister. Father.”
    “You’re lucky to have a family. My people adopted me. They were nice people but not really parents. My first five years were spent at the Catholic Boy’s Home in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. I graduated DeWitt Clinton High School, and then had a year at Fordham before I joined the force.”
    “Why tell me all this stuff?”
    Nicholas was simply searching for a contact point, a common interest between himself and Harold.
    “I want you to know me. I’m in my mid-thirties. Separated from my wife. I’ve got a great girlfriend. You’d like her. How about yourself? Any girlfriends?”
    “I’ll be nineteen the seventh of July. I’ve never—you don’t have any kids, do you?”
    “Interesting you should know that. No, I don’t. Always kind of wanted a boy to take to the ball games. You a sports fan?”
    “Not really. I read a lot.”
    The sobbing had ended. Nicholas sensed the time was nearing when he could safely show himself to Harold.
    “I read a little of everything. Lately I’ve been getting into that guy Lukas, you know, the science columnist.”
    “Emile Lukas. I read him myself. Don’t always agree with him.”
    “Hey, I’m never going to make nineteen, am I?”
    Nicholas edged to the rim of the tower.
    “Come on, Harold. This isn’t L.A. This is New York. We don’t shoot people here.”
    “I’ll never make it.”
    He leaned over the edge of the tower. He was staring directly into the telescopic sight of the rifle. The boy’s face was hidden by the rifle.
    “Harold, listen to me. We don’t kill people we know. We only kill strangers. People whose faces we can’t see from far away. You can see my face. Put your rifle down so I can see yours. And neither one of us will hurt the other.”
    “You know, don’t you?”
    “I know everything’s going to be just fine. You can’t bring anybody back to life, but how about telling the reason you did it. Put the rifle down and tell me.”
    Harold dropped the rifle. Nicholas was shocked to see how young the boy appeared. Nearer sixteen than nineteen. He smiled shyly and his eyes seemed to shine with a wet glow. At first Nicholas thought the glow