Heat Rises

Thirteen

Heat and Rook reached the landing at her floor and stopped to scope out the hallway, which was quiet. Rook whispered, “Shouldn’t we call the police?” Nikki thought it over and knew deep down she should. But there was also a pride thing that kept her, an experienced cop, from pulling resources from actual crime responses in the middle of a city emergency for a suspicion that could be nothing.

“I am the police,” she whispered back. “Kind of.” Sorting through her door keys, she slipped the one for her deadbolt off the split ring. That way, she could both avoid jangle at the door and be able to insert a key simultaneously in each of her locks to make her entry quick and surprising.

Treading lightly up the hallway, staying close to the wall the whole way, they reached her door and stopped. Nikki hand signaled for Rook to stay where he was, then made a fluid dancer’s move, crouching low under the surveillance hole, to the opposite side of the door and landed without a sound. She stayed low and listened at the jamb, then gave him a head shake. Rising up slightly and balancing on the balls of her feet so her leg muscles were coiled, Heat readied each key at the opening of its lock. She mouthed a silent three count, nodding her head to mark cadence for him, then ran the keys home, twisted the locks open, and threw herself low into her apartment calling out, “NYPD, don’t move!”

Rook flew in right behind her, following the procedures he had observed back on his ride-along — keeping close but not in a line that made for an easy target, then fanning himself to the side so he could be her eyes there and protect her flank from a surprise.

There was no one in the foyer, the dining room, or the living room. As Rook followed her past the kitchen and down the hall to clear the two bedrooms, baths, and closets, he noticed that somewhere along the way she had grabbed her backup Sig Sauer. After they cleared the apartment, she returned the Sig to its hiding place in the cubby on the living room desk and said, “Hey, nice entry.”

“Thanks.” And then he gave her an impish grin. “If you like, I can demonstrate a few variations.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, teach me, Rook. Teach me all the ways.”

Jameson Rook was mighty pleased with himself about his trip to the spy store when the wireless monitor came out of the pantry and he played back the video from his NannyCam. He scrolled backward through the ghosty images, not having to go far, just about an hour, until he came to movement. A man in a cable company logo cap entered with a large toolbox, then left the frame as he roamed off into the hallway. “Great coverage,” said Nikki. “You could work for C-SPAN.”

But a moment later the man returned and moved to the living room, where he knelt and opened his toolbox in front of the TV. “Look at that,” said Rook. “Dead center in the frame. I’m better than C-SPAN. I could work for C-SPAN2.”

They zapped through the next fifteen minutes as the visitor worked at the cable box. When he was done, he fastened the snaps on his toolbox and left the apartment in the quadruple speed of video time-lapse. Rook hit stop and wandered from the counter over to the living room. “What do you know. It’s like Freud said. Sometimes a cable guy is just a cable guy.” He picked up the remote and said, “Unless it’s Jim Carrey, and then — ”

Nikki threw a tackle on Rook, on the way down running her hand up his arm and stripping the remote from his grasp. When they both hit the floor, he said, “What the hell was that for?”

Nikki walked back to the counter, cradling the remote, and said, “This.”

Rook picked himself up and joined her as she rolled back the NannyCam video and froze it on the face of the cable guy as he passed under the camera on his exit. The freeze was of the man Heat and her squad had been trying to ID and locate from the Pleasure Bound security video.

The man with the coiled snake tattoo.

An hour later, after the bomb squad had cleared her building and those in the surrounding area, a hero in an eighty-pound blast suit emerged with the cable box and placed it in the Mobile Containment Unit on the trailer in the center of the street. When he was clear of the opening, his sergeant pressed a remote control button and the hydraulic actuator whirred, gently closing the armor-plated hatch and sealing the cable box inside.

Heat made her way to the cop who was being helped out of his protective suit by a detail from Emergency Services. As soon as he had his right hand free of his heavy glove, she shook it and thanked him. In spite of his nonchalant “Hey, you’re welcome,” his hair was sweat-matted to his forehead. The look in his eyes was enough to tell her that handling the real deal was never taken casually by those guys, no matter how much they brushed it off. As he described the bomb to her, Rook joined the circle, as did Raley and Ochoa, who had heard the call go out and dropped everything to get down there.

After his K-9 had sniffed the apartment and confirmed the cable box as a hit, he did his X-ray. The trigger device was a simple mercury switch poised to be detonated by battery when someone pressed the power button of the TV remote control. “What kind of explosive?” asked Nikki.

“Evaporation sample of the taggant was positive for C4.”

Ochoa whistled. “Plastic explosive.”

“Yeah, it most definitely would have spoiled somebody’s night,” said the man from the bomb squad as he took a long drink of water from a bottle. “They’ll lab it, but, by my calc, it’s going to test out as military grade. Not so easy to come by.”

Rook turned to Heat. “Not from what I’ve learned over the last month. Especially if you have connections to the military — however unofficial.”

Cementing his status as King of All Surveillance Media, Detective Raley took the NannyCam drive so he could pull the still frame of the cable guy and circulate it. Before they left, Heat cautioned him and Ochoa not to get themselves in trouble with Captain Irons. The two partners shared a look and scoffed. Rales said, “Hm, let’s see... Iron Man or Detective Heat... Iron Man or Detective Heat...”

“Just be careful,” she said.

“You, too,” said Ochoa. “You’re the one working with Rook.”

It was after hours, and Heat figured Lancer Standard would be closed for the night, so she looked up Lawrence Hays’s home address from the information Mrs. Borelli had given her out of the parish roster. “You really think you’re going to get anything out of him?” said Rook after she gave their taxi driver the street number on West End Avenue.

“If you mean a straight answer to any of my questions, no. But I want to jam this guy. Keep the pressure on him. An over-the-top ego like his, you never know what’ll shake out.”

Heat had just finished pressing the intercom at the top of the stone steps of the town house near 78th when the voice behind them said, “Help you?” It was Lawrence Hays. He wasn’t wearing a coat, so she figured he must have seen them approach on his security cams and come out a side door to surprise them. “I have an office, you know, you don’t need to harass me at my home.”

“Good evening to you, too, Mr. Hays. This is Jameson Rook.”

“Yeah, I know, the writer. Doctor says I have an allergy to the press, so you’ll pardon me if I don’t shake hands.”

“And I have one to blood, so it all works out,” said Rook.

Before the macho sideshow escalated, Nikki thrust out the surveillance still she had of the cable guy from Pleasure Bound. “Have you ever seen this man?”

“This again?” said Hays. He angled the photo to the light, gave it a quick eyeball, and handed it back. “Nope. What’s he? Some Craigslist stud who stuck you with the motel bill, Miss Heat?”

She ignored the distraction. “He tried to blow up my apartment.”

“And a new HD flat screen,” added Rook. “Using military grade C4. Mean anything to you?”

Hays smiled mirthlessly at Nikki. “Tell you something you don’t seem to get. If I wanted to blow you up, you wouldn’t be standing here. Right now there’d be pieces of you coming back down on Gramercy Park like confetti.”

Heat said, “So you’re saying you do know where I live, that’s interesting.”

“Tell you what I don’t know. Is why you’re on a holy crusade for some priest who not only protected that scumbag who messed with my kid — my kid! — but who was also aiding and abetting homegrown terrorists.”

“Why,” said Rook, “just because he was a social activist?”

“Wake up. Graf was neck-deep with those Colombian revolutionarios.”

Nikki kept him going so he wouldn’t lose his steam. “Justicia a Garda? Gimme a break, they’re no terrorists.”

“No? Have you seen them in action? How many of your men have these cowards killed and blown up? Use your head. If they’ll attack their own government prisons just to break out their brainwashing socialist writers, how long do you think it is before that gig gets imported here?”

“Mr. Hays,” said Heat, “are you saying some of your contractors were killed in Colombia by members of the organization Father Graf supported?”

“I’m not saying anything.” Too late. He realized he had slipped and voiced an additional motive for Graf’s murder and started walking it back. “For reasons of national security, I cannot confirm or deny the actions of my government consulting firm.”

“I think you just did,” said Nikki.

“Know what I think? I think you’d better get lost. Because something else I know about you, Nikki Heat, besides your address. You’re not even a cop anymore. That’s right.” He started to chuckle, and said, “So get off my property. Before I call the police — the real police!”

They could still hear him laughing when he turned and slipped off into the night.

Heat woke up the next morning with Rook’s face in hers. Kneeling be side the bed in his T-shirt and boxer briefs, all he needed was a leash in his teeth to look like a retriever waiting for his trip to the park. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven.”

She sat up. “I slept that late?”

“I’ve been up for two hours,” he said. “Phoning some of the noble characters I consorted with on my journey through the shadowy world of arms trafficking.”

“Why?”

“It struck me in our afterglow last night. Oh, yes, it was an afterglow.... I got thinking about military grade C4. And then I started thinking, I bet I already know people — outside the military, I mean — who might supply it.”

The sleep was slowly lifting from her. “You mean to Lancer Standard?”

“No, Hays would have his own source and wouldn’t need to go black market. I inquired about another organization we posted on Murder Board South.”

“Justicia a Garda.”

“Correct. And what I just learned from a guy we shall call only T-Rex — hailing from the smuggler’s port of choice, Buenaventura — is that a shipment of an unspecified nature left Colombia and was delivered three weeks ago, off the books, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to one Pascual Guzman.” He held up his hand. “Come on, up top for the Rookster.”

Instead of fiving him, Nikki sat cross-legged and frisked the fingers of both hands through her hair to wake up. “Did this T-Rex say it was C4?”

“Mm, no. T’s exact words were, some kind of shipment, he didn’t know what.”

“Then we don’t know squat. Unless we confirm it was C4.”

“Shouldn’t we at least talk to Guzman?”

Heat shook no. “First rule I learned from Captain Montrose about interrogations was, don’t initiate a meeting blindly. Know what you want or are likely to get. What I know about Pascual Guzman is that he’s a circumspect stone wall who will answer nothing at best, and at worst, light me up on the radar to Zach Hamner when he files another harassment complaint. We’ll have to go at him another way.”

Rook was unfazed. “I think this guy hacked my computer. Plus he admitted he had a smack-down with Graf the day he died. I think we should shake down Pascual Guzman and ask him about the secret shipment. He’s smelling to me like our killer.”

“Last night you were sure it was Lawrence Hays.”

“I know. I get excited. Hays was the bright, shiny object of the moment.”

Nikki said, “And what is Guzman?”

He hung his head. “Again, you chasten me with your need for reason.”

Two hours later, Nikki had a cab drop them between Tenth Avenue and 41st, just blocks off Times Square. The forecast promised it would be slightly warmer that day, but at 9 A.M. it was still under five degrees and the shadows of the low sun ran long and chilly on the West Side of Manhattan. While Roach worked the photo of the cable guy, Heat’s plan was to try to find him by locating the woman who appeared in the Pleasure Bound surveillance photo with him. According to the missing woman’s landlord, Shayne Watson worked as a prostitute in Hell’s Kitchen. The former roommate of the dominatrix was still off the radar, and Heat’s agenda for the day was to hit the streets and show her photo to other prostitutes, hoping to get a line on her.

“I’ve got this one,” said Rook. He took a photocopy of the surveillance shot and stepped up to a woman leaning against the wall and smoking outside a diner. “Morning, miss.” She looked him up and down and began to step away. “Please, this will just take a second. I’m trying to find one of your colleagues, a fellow prostitute and — ”

The woman flicked her cigarette at him and it bounced off his forehead. “Asshole. Calling me a hooker...” She hurried away, shouting something about calling the cops mixed in with more curses until she rounded the corner.

As amused as Heat was by Rook’s gaffe, she didn’t have much better luck. Sure, Nikki was better at spotting the working girls, having worked vice herself, but they smelled cop on her and either closed up or just ran as soon as she approached. “This could take forever,” said Rook.

“It’s too early in the day for most of them to be out; we’ll do better as we get more to talk to.” That was fine to say, but Nikki was still striking out at noon when the sidewalks started filling in front of the hot sheet motels.

They ducked into a coffee shop to warm up and Rook continued his skepticism about the plan. “All they do is run. And you don’t have any authority to stop them.”

“Thank you for defining my newly impotent status,” she said.

“I’ve got the solution,” said Rook. “It’s ingenious.”

“This worries me.”

“One word: Fishnets.” As she began to wag no, he lowered his voice and pressed on. “You always talk about how you worked undercover in vice, right? Walk the walk. Put your stuff on the street.... Unless you have a better plan.”

Nikki considered it awhile and said, “I suppose there’s a cheesy clothing store around here somewhere.”

“There ya go,” he said way too loudly. “You’ll make a great hooker.” Nikki didn’t have to turn to know the whole coffee shop was staring at her.

Rook rented a room for the afternoon at the Four Diamonds, which he observed was the only way that number of diamonds would ever be attributed to that establishment. It smelled of strong disinfectant and boasted unlimited ice, no doubt to go along with the unlimited nicotine burns dappling the bathroom counter and the nightstand. Nikki changed into her new clothes, and while she slathered on the makeup she had chosen, Rook called from the bedroom, “I feel like we’re in Pretty Woman. I’d take you right now in the bubble bath except the cockroaches are still using it.”

“What do you think?” asked Heat. She stepped out of the bathroom and posed, showing off her heavy makeup, hoop earrings, leopard-print Uggs knockoffs, ripped tights, and a lime green plastic raincoat.

Rook appraised her from his seat on the corner of the bed and said, “So, this is what your life has come to?”

Out on the sidewalk Nikki kept her distance from the other working girls up the block, giving them time to get used to her. Some of the women were territorial, seeing Nikki as an income threat, and gave her a hard time or moved along, wary of the undercover cop vibe that still came through the mascara and false lashes. Most were cordial, though. Introducing themselves, asking how she was getting by. Then, when she had their confidence, Nikki said she was looking for a lost BFF she was worried sick about. Out came the picture, which was studied and passed around, but got no response.

The hardest part was fending off the johns. Just telling them as they drove by — some whistling or patting the roof of their cars with open palms — that she wasn’t interested didn’t suffice. A few times she had to duck into the lobby of the Four Diamonds, and that took care of it. Once, though, a persistent guy, an intense construction worker who said he was off shift and had a big drive to Long Island, double-parked his pickup and followed her into the lobby. There, Rook appeared, announcing congratulations, that he was on the pilot of a new reality show, To Catch a John. Problem solved.

Nikki was standing on a corner with a few of the girls when her phone buzzed. It was Deputy Commissioner Yarborough. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, Phyllis, never a bad time for you.” Nikki was glad this wasn’t Skype.

“Just wanted to let you know I had them run Sergio Torres through the database. Sorry, but no hits beyond what appears on his rap sheet.”

“Oh. Well, thanks for trying.” It was hard to mask her disappointment.

Yarborough said, “Doesn’t seem like Torres is your problem, anyway. Saw on the morning report you had a visit from the bomb squad.” After Heat filled her in briefly on those events, the deputy commissioner asked, “Any idea who your perp is?”

“Not by name,” said Heat. “He’s a John Doe I’ve had my eye on in the Graf case. In fact, he’s got a distinctive tattoo we ran through your RTCC but came up empty.”

“I’ll find the request and have them put it through again. And to make sure we turn over all the stones, I’ll supervise the run myself.”

Nikki was just thanking her when a horn blared and a carload of drunk frat boys shouted, “Aw-woo! Hey baby! Yo, skank!”

“Where the hell are you, Nikki?”

“Oh, just hanging with some friends. We’re watching Jerry Springer.”

About four o’clock, when Nikki was discouraged, cold, and ready to pack it in, a young woman with a kind face and a greening bruise below one eye looked at the picture and said, “That’s Shayna. Doesn’t do her justice, but that’s Shayn, for sure.” Nikki turned the folded page over and asked if she recognized the man with her, the one with the coiled snake tattoo on his bicep. She didn’t. But she had seen her friend recently. Shayna Watson was rooming at the Rounders Motel in Chelsea.

Sometimes they run, sometimes they hide, sometimes they just don’t answer the door, hoping you’ll go away. Shayna Watson slid the chain, opened up, and invited them in. She seemed drained of emotion — or self-medicated, Nikki couldn’t determine which. But when the hollow-eyed woman moved some laundry off the bed so they could sit, Heat was relieved that this didn’t look like it would be a fight.

Rook let himself fade into the background, leaving it to Nikki to connect. Mindful of her fragility, Heat spoke gently and steered away from any information that might spook her. For instance, omitting that this was part of a murder investigation entirely. Shayna Watson didn’t need those particulars to tell Nikki two simple things. “You are in no trouble of any kind, Shayna, OK? I’m just looking for this man,” she said, holding out the picture. “I’d like to know his name and where I can find him, then we’ll be on our way.”

“He’s a bad dude,” she said in a distant voice. “When Andrea... she’s my roommate... left for Amsterdam, he made me steal her keys to the bondage place she works at. That’s why I ditched my apartment. And I liked that place. I had to hide from him. Oh, God...” Her face paled and her brow knotted with worry as she surveyed the door, like she was playing out a private nightmare. “You found me. Do you think he will now?”

Nikki gave her a reassuring look. “Not if you help me find him first.”

On their cab ride to Hunts Point, Heat decided this was not a mission to bluff through with mascara and spunk. She called the police. Protocol would have been to phone the Forty-first Precinct, since that’s whose turf they were heading to. But that would require some awkward explanation of her departmental status unless she wanted to lie and pretend she was still officially on the job. So the police she called was Roach.

“The guy in the photo with the snake tattoo is named Tucker Steljess, no middle name yet,” said Heat. She spelled the last name so they could run it and see if any priors or last known addresses spit out. “Rook and I are getting off the Bruckner now on our way to the address we got for him. It’s a motorcycle repair shop on Hunts Point Avenue where it crosses Spofford. Don’t have the street number, but you can dig it out.”

“Will do,” said Ochoa. “And you’re quite the good citizen to phone in this tip.”

“Hey, I support our local police,” Nikki said. “Speaking of which, might do a courtesy heads-up to the Four-one.”

“Raley’s on it now. What’s your plan?”

“I’m two minutes from the location. Good citizen that I am, Rook and I are going to observe until you arrive. Don’t want this SOB slipping away.”

Ochoa said, “Just watch your back, citizen. Let the pros handle this.”

The winter darkness fell early, and from their window seats at Golden Dip’d Donuts, Heat and Rook watched lights shutting off across the street, in the back of the repair shop’s garage. Then they saw movement. Wife beaters were out of season, so they couldn’t get a positive ID of the snake tatt under the long-sleeved waffle tee, but Nikki’s heart double pinged when the big man pulled down the corrugated rolling door and she eyeballed Tucker Steljess.

“He’s going to leave,” said Rook.

Heat speed-dialed Ochoa. “What’s your ETA?”

“We’re just clearing the RFK toll plaza.”

“Subject’s getting ready to go on the move,” she said.

“We’ve already put it out on the air,” replied Ochoa. “You should see units any minute.”

When she hung up, Rook was already out the door, crossing the street. She cursed to herself and caught up with him outside the rolling door. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Slowing him down. You can’t, he knows you. I can go in and play lost driver looking for directions. Or better yet, mid-life orthodontist seeking advice about Harleys versus BMWs.”

Behind Rook, keys jangled. Steljess stepped out the office. And made Nikki.

He pushed Rook into her and they both staggered into the metal rolling door, which thundered and shook as they crashed into it. Steljess was rounding the corner when they recovered. Heat slipped Rook her cell phone and, as she ran, called out, “Hit redial. Tell Ochoa I’m pursuing eastbound on Spofford.”

He had a block on her by the time she turned the corner. For a big man he was fast, but Nikki was faster. She poured it on and was soon gaining. Since she was unarmed, her strategy was to stay only close enough to keep him in sight until backup arrived, so she gave it enough tempo to tighten the distance yet lag far enough back to evade if he was carrying.

Steljess did what most fleeing suspects do, lost speed by looking back to see how he was doing, and soon Heat had a sweet twenty-five-yard pace to maintain. He didn’t like the company and tried to slip the invisible leash. At Drake he made a sudden left, threading himself across the street through rush hour traffic. Nikki lost a few yards on him dodging cars but picked him up again as he ducked into the driveway of an auto salvage yard.

She stopped outside the gate and listened. This would be a good place to lose her, especially if he knew the layout and could use a back exit. It would also be a good place to make herself vulnerable if she blundered in unarmed. So she eased closer to the side of the open gate to hear if she could pick up any footfalls.

Heat caught the flash of motion in the convex mirror overhead, but it was too late. Tucker Steljess pivoted around the edge of the fence she was hiding behind, clutched the front of her coat with both hands, and swung his weight, lifting Nikki up off her feet and tossing her across the yard.

She landed back-first against a detached car door that was leaning against a metal paint locker. He threw her with such force that the steel locker tipped forward, landsliding small cans of paint and supplies down on top of her.

Nikki grabbed a paint can and threw it at him, missing, but his flinch gave her a precious second to clear the other cans off her so she could get up before he came at her. But he didn’t come. Instead, Steljess was starting to crouch in what she recognized as a shooting position as he reached inside his down vest. She threw another can that hit him in the shoulder, but didn’t deter him.

In fact, he smiled.

Heat saw the Glock clear his vest and felt stupid and helpless. In a futile move she clawed for the car door, hoping as a shield it would at least slow the bullet. As soon as Nikki pulled it over herself, she heard the crack of the gunshot.