The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [89]
Sam took Sarah’s hand as they walked.
“What about Stef? Will he come with us to the beach?”
Sarah hadn’t expected the question, though she wasn’t completely surprised. “Do you want Stef to come?” she asked.
“Yeah, he’s funny. We’re friends.”
“Well, that’s good. I’d like him to come, too.”
Still holding hands, Sarah and Sam turned the corner onto Park Avenue. Traffic on Park was the usual bumper-to-bumper variety, for the morning rush to glory.
The sidewalk was hopelessly crowded and seemed almost frantic. Men in light-color summer suits; determined-looking women in expensive business suits and dresses, half of them wearing running shoes.
One man in a lightweight tan suit looked particularly lost and perplexed at the corner of Sixty-sixth. New York could be a Twilight Zone horror story for its visitors. He turned to Sarah as she and Sam passed.
“Third Avenue?… Excuse me, do you know which way that is? I got turned around, I guess.”
Sarah began to point east across Park Avenue when she was struck by the flat of the man’s hand.
The unexpected blow against her chest was paralyzing. She was knocked to the ground, flat on her back.
Sarah suddenly had no air in her lungs. She couldn’t get her breath, couldn’t call out for help. A terrible pain shot up her spine.
The man in the tan suit lifted Sam off the sidewalk… It was as if he were hugging Sam.
The boy didn’t know what to do to get away from the stranger. He tried to fight, but he didn’t have the strength to break the man’s grip.
“Upsy-daisy now.”
The man said it loudly enough to be heard by the other pedestrians.
“Here we go, big fella, in the car with your dad. Off we go. We’re off to the races.”
The man was laughing. He was playfully tickling Sam… so that Sam couldn’t cry out. The man had a German accent. Who was he? What was happening?
Sarah still couldn’t get her breath. She couldn’t scream for help. Oh God, no more…
It looked as if Sam were squirming because he was being tickled by the man… the man who was playing at being his father.
Sarah gasped out loud. She still couldn’t scream, couldn’t get her voice back.
She had never felt so powerless, except in dreams, terrifying nightmares about losing Sam.
Sam was being lifted into a waiting black sedan. That was all she could distinguish from her view on the ground. Maybe it was a BMW? An Audi? She couldn’t tell… The German voice? The accent?
The car slowly pulled away, disappearing into a cortege of heavy eastbound traffic.
Still terribly dazed, Sarah tried to push herself up from the sidewalk.
People gathered around her, trying to help, not understanding what had just happened.
Her vision was badly blurred. The close-up faces all merged into one.
Finally, Sarah screamed out loud on Park Avenue. Unbelievable words came from her mouth in the middle of all the people heading for work.
“Please help me! Somebody please help! They took my little boy!”
86
John Stefanovitch; East Sixty-sixth Street
SARAH WAITED IN her apartment for the police, but she was waiting mostly for Stefanovitch. She couldn’t stop herself from sobbing.
For the hundredth time, she went to the picture windows in the living room and gazed in futility onto Sixty-sixth Street. She was numb, and numbness was the only thing that saved her.
She was trying to imagine that there had been some terrible mistake with Sam and the man on Park Avenue, but she knew better.
The doorbell rang. The police had arrived.
There was still no patrol car out on Sixty-sixth Street. The detective and patrolman had walked over from the local precinct house. The detective held a black leather pad and a pen in hand. He looked as if he were ready to give out a traffic ticket. It wasn’t the most compassionate way to greet someone after a kidnapping.
“Your little boy is missing from school?” asked the detective. “I’m Detective Cirelli,” he added.
“He isn’t missing from