Mortal Bonds by Michael Sears Read Free Book Online Page B

to the picture. “Jared.”
    And it hit me. He was right. Jared was the most timid, anxious child in the class. He was near the top of the class in communication and was obviously very bright, but he wore a constant mask of worry. The Kid saw what I had missed in the picture. He was doing better than I was. I saw a black kid first and a frowning one second. The Kid saw it as a frowning kid, no matter the skin color.
    “Kid, I’m sorry. I see what you’re saying, and you’re right. I’m stupid. You teach me something every day.”
    I put away the cards.
    “Let’s hit the road.” His look of confusion stopped me. “Sorry. Let’s get on our way to school. Shoes on.” I pulled on my running shoes and tied the laces. He worked his Velcro straps. I noticed that his feet were outgrowing his shoes. Again. One more thing for my to-do list. “I’ll give you today’s big news on the way.”
    He ran and stood by the door. If he’d had a tail, it would have wagged. While I locked up, he ran ahead and called for the elevator.
    I waited until he had pressed the button for the lobby and we were on our way down. “I spoke to your Mamma last night.”
    The Kid’s eyes stayed focused on the elevator doors.
    “She wants to come visit us. You. She’s coming to New York.”
    He may have grunted.
    “Mamma and Tino are coming, too.” Angie’s mother was also “Mamma.” The Kid refused to be called by his name, Jason, because, he insisted,
I
was Jason, so there couldn’t be two. On the other hand, he had no trouble keeping track of which Mamma was being referred to at any given time. Tino was Angie’s brother, Antoine. He ran Lafayette’s most upscale beauty salon, with his own line of products—L’Affaire pour Elle. Angie had stayed with him after her accident and all through her rehab. The guy topped my list for Most Deserving of Sainthood.
    The doors opened and the Kid jumped out onto a white tile. We walked on only the white tiles.
    “Help me out here, son. How do you feel about your Mamma coming to visit?”
    He made a face just like the angry girl in the cards.
    “Great,” I said. “That makes two of us.”
    •   •   •
    I TOOK the long way home after dropping the Kid at school, cutting over and running through Central Park, once around the reservoir, then down the drive past Belvedere Castle and out on Seventy-seventh Street. Pounding along at an even eight-minute mile allowed me to work up a sweat and still think about the Kid.
    The Kid hadn’t said another word to me the whole twenty blocks up to school. I hadn’t pressed the issue, even when he refused to sniff hands with me—the usual conclusion of our morning ritual when I dropped him off at school. I was a bit surprised that he was taking the news about his mother’s visit this way. He had not seen her since December, and before that, October—and things had certainly been bad at those times—but they spoke on the phone every Sunday morning. He answered her in monosyllables, but that was a big step up from the grunts or growls he used on most of the human race. Something would break. Patience was my gold standard. Eventually, he would talk to Heather or Skeli, or my Pop, when he was ready. Maybe he would even speak to me.
    “Package fuh you at the desk, Mr. Staffud.” Raoul, the day-shift doorman at the Ansonia, was never one to waste his breath on any unnecessary
r
’s.
    The information from Everett Payne. Time to put away my concerns for the Kid and my fears about his mother coming to visit. Time to solve the puzzle that had confounded hundreds of trained financial forensic investigators over the past ten months. Then I’d think about getting lunch.
    The plain cardboard box held various loose papers, and a six-inch-thick manuscript, bound in plastic, with a nondescript gray cover. Emblazoned on the front in bold font were the words REPORT OF THE JOINT TASK FORCE FBI/SEC TO SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, U.S. ATTORNEY