“Carbon meters, my ass,” Julio said. “Whoever heard of a freaking carbon meter?”
“Do I know?” said Gregg. “You can call it a fairy-dust-reading meter if you give me five grand cash to sneak it onto some dump’s roof.”
“Probably some sketchy guerrilla data-collection thing hoovering up the whole block’s passwords and data or monitoring people’s online porn habits,” Julio said.
“I peg this guy for a hot Asian nurses fan,” Gregg said as the stupid parking attendant gave them a friendly wave and they began to back out onto the street.
“Who knows?” Julio said after they were rolling. “Maybe our clients are NSA.”
“I doubt those two bastards were NSA,” said Gregg.
“They were definitely bastards, but smart ones,” Julio reminded him. “Don’t forget, nerdy NSA types are computer geniuses and shit.”
“Right,” Gregg said skeptically. “You play too many video games.”
“True,” Julio said. “Anyway, it’s done. What do you want to do now? Hit the gym?” asked Julio.
“Too early,” Gregg said. “Pizza?”
“Okay, but then we need to get this truck back or we have to pay for eight more hours.”
Part Two
The City Sleeps
Chapter 23
Home finally, and still damp from a glorious hot shower, I plopped my tired carcass down at the head of the dining room table at around 7:30 p.m.
I was clad in a pair of orange swim trunks and a Yankees number 42 Mariano Rivera jersey, which worked better than you might think as a pajamas ensemble. Actually, my atrocious getup was the only thing I could find now that the laundry was piling up at an alarming rate. I was down to the bottom of the drawer and would be staying there, no doubt, for the time being.
My hastily put-together late dinner for la familia Bennett was French toast, one of my go-to dishes. I’d offered to get pizza again, but the kids were pizzaed out and demanded a home-cooked meal. They had probably meant a home-cooked dinner, but too bad for them—they hadn’t specified. They seemed to enjoy it well enough, or at least they enjoyed my wise heavy-handedness with the confectioners’ sugar.
I was relishing my French cuisine with a bottle of Guinness, the only adult beverage left in the house. Like the laundry, the whole grocery thing was something I had to work out, since Mary Catherine was still away.
Speaking of Mary Catherine, I’d been jazzed to find a letter—an actual paper snail-mail letter—from her on the hall table when I’d come in. The good news was that there was a new lead on a buyer for the hotel. No definite offer as of yet, but things were looking good.
The bad news was that though she had asked about the kids, there was really nothing about us or our fabulous romantic week together on the windswept Cliffs of Moher. Or about her heart-wrenching note, which I had read on the plane.
What could that mean? I wondered. Cold feet? Buyer’s remorse? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I wanted her back here with me so hard it was starting to hurt.
But like I said, at least I was home. Finally clean and warm and home, though I wasn’t in a real talkative mood after my truly insane day. I was more than cont
ent to just listen to the dull roar of the kids all around the table, talking and giggling. Even their teasing was comforting. Their normalcy, their obliviousness to the horror of today’s events, was just what the doctor ordered.
I was still sitting in my family’s warm chaos, mopping up the stout and syrup, when Seamus came in at speed through the apartment’s front door.
“Long day, eh, Mick?” said Seamus, looking a little flustered when he spotted me.
“About a week long, Father,” I said. “Make that a month, but I can’t talk about it. I refuse to, in fact. Pull up a chair and a plate. How’s the nanny hunt going?”
After Seamus’s health scare, and down one Mary Catherine, I thought it best to look for some temporary help.
“Been on it since this morning,” Seamus said. “That’s why I’m here. I think I might have found someone. He was recommended quite highly by a friend down at the archdiocese office.”
“He?” I said.
“Yeah. He’s a bit…well, unconventional, you might say.”