Gone (Michael Bennett)

enterprises he could find. Two bloody decades later, he had risen to become the billionaire head of the largest and most violent cartel in Mexico.
    You would have thought that his career was over when I bagged him in New York about a year ago. It wasn’t. He’d had the judge at his own trial murdered and actually managed to escape from the fourteenth floor of the Foley Square Federal Courthouse via helicopter. I should know, because I was there at the time and actually emptied my Glock into the chopper to no avail as it whirlybirded elegant, intelligent Manuel Perrine away.
    So you can see why I was concerned as I sat there. Wanted international fugitives usually try to spend their time hiding, not expanding their criminal enterprises. Reports were saying that in the past few months, he had actually joined together his cartel with that of one of his rivals. Los Salvajes, they were calling this new supercartel. The Wild Ones.
    And Perrine, at its head, was fast becoming a popular folk hero. Which was a head-scratcher for me, since this Robin Hood, instead of robbing the rich and giving to the poor, smuggled drugs in metric-ton loads and decapitated people.
    I began to get extremely pissed off after a bit more reading. So much so that I turned off my phone and just sat there, fuming.
    It wasn’t the loss of five Mafia kingpins that I cared so much about. Despite the sweeping, romantic Francis Ford Coppola and HBO portrayals, real mobsters were truly evil, bullying individuals who, when they weren’t ripping everybody off, loved nothing more than to demean and destroy people at every opportunity.
    For example, I knew that one of the dearly departed godfathers, Michael Licata, had once pistol-whipped a Bronxville restaurant waiter into a coma for not bringing his mussels marinara fast enough. The fact that last night Licata had been blown up in his own house was something I could learn to live with.
    What was really driving me nuts was that Perrine had done it. It was completely unacceptable that Perrine was still free, let alone operational. American law enforcement had never looked so pathetic. I mean, who was on this case?
    Not me, that was for sure. After Perrine’s escape, I’d been blackballed. Then, to add insult to injury, after Perrine had left a truck bomb out in front of my West End Avenue building, the feds had put me into witness protection. I’d basically been mothballed.
    I love my family, but I can’t describe how upset I was as I sat there, taking in the helpless, hopeless situation.
    Perrine was the one who should have been hiding, I thought, wanting to punch something.

CHAPTER 3
     
    I QUICKLY TUCKED MY smartphone away as I heard the screen door creak open behind me.
    Mary Catherine, dressed in worn jeans, Columbia University hoodie, and her own pair of trusty wellies, came out with the coffeepot. Her blond hair was in a ponytail, and she looked great, which was pretty much par for the course for my kids’ nanny, even this early in the morning.
    I hated this farm about as much as Mary Catherine loved it. I’d thought she was going to be devastated when she was forced into hiding along with the rest of us. It turned out the opposite was true. Even a cartel contract couldn’t keep my young Irish nanny down.
    “Howdy, partner,” she said in her Irish accent as she gave me a refill.
    “Hey, cowgirl,” I said.
    “You’re up early,” she said.
    “I thought I saw some rustlers out yonder,” I said with a gravelly voice.
    I squinted to enhance my Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western impression.
    “Turned out it was a couple of outlaw chickens. They started making trouble, so I had to wing one of them. Which actually worked out. I put a little hot sauce on it, and it was delicious.”
    Mary Catherine laughed.
    “Well, just don’t tell Chrissy. You know how much she loves our fine feathered friends.”
    “How could I forget?” I said, laughing myself.
    Chrissy, the baby of our massive brood, had taken a liking to one of our landlord’s chickens, whom she immediately named Homer, for some inexplicable reason. She’d even sworn off chicken nuggets after one of her ever-helpful older brothers informed her she was probably dipping a member of Homer’s family into the sweet-and-sour sauce.
    “So, what’s on the agenda today?” she said.
    “Well,” I said, “I say we grab the paper and some bagels down at Murray’s, then hop a Two train down to MoMA for the latest installation.