Raging Heat

THIRTEEN

Rook was waiting for her just where he said he’d be, in the playground by the swing set. But not so much by the swing set as on it, and when Heat spotted him after her short walk down Amsterdam from the precinct he looked all of eleven years old with one heel planted on the ground, leg extended, pivoting from the chains. All he needed to complete the effect would be to play bombardier with his spit over an ant.

A troupe of marathoners left the running store across the avenue on a training run, and the slapping of their waffled soles on pavement drew his attention Nikki’s way as she approached. The late October sun had already set, kids were home having supper, and Tecumseh Playground was all theirs. The awkwardness of the prior night muted the greetings. He kept seated in his swing; she took the empty one beside him, leaving them to sway shoulder-to-shoulder but facing opposite directions.

“Hope you don’t feel too exposed here, but I wanted some neutral ground away from work, or your turf or mine.” Then he added, “And away from liquids. If you plan on dousing me, you’re going to have to push my face into that drinking fountain.”

Nikki wished she could laugh, but her soul felt encased in shame. “Not one of my proudest moments.” She offered that olive branch and studied him, trying to get a fix on his state of mind. She got it. His brow was set low and he wasn’t smiling.

“You know, you hit me where I live when you accused me of being out to undermine you.”

Nikki started to speak, desperate to get out ahead of this; to let Rook hear all she had been mulling about her behavior, not just the previous night, but everything leading up to it. If she could just come up with the words to make this right, maybe she could reset them to where they were before. But this was his meeting, and he had something to get off his chest, too. “It’s not easy pulling off the balancing act we do,” he said, echoing Lon King’s observation from that morning’s emergency counseling. “The job stress, the hours, the travel, the disagreements.…”

He paused and watched another wave of after-work marathon trainers set a course for Central Park. Heat didn’t speak, just yielded the moment, even though this conversation was feeling like the prelude to an ending — like the watershed after three years, with each making civilized promises to stay friends on Facebook. It didn’t make her feel any better when he finally continued. “But what I always counted on as our glue was the value we shared. And that’s trust. When you called my actions and motives into question on this case, you weren’t just going after my journalistic integrity, Nikki. You made a laser strike at who we are.” Salt stung her eyes and she wondered if she’d feel this same drill boring into her heart every time she passed this playground. But then he took an unexpected turn.

“Which is why I wanted to give you something that would symbolize our trust and cement it for the future.” Her chest fluttered as he reached into his side-coat pocket.

“Rook. What are you doing?”

“Something that can’t wait another minute. It’s why I called and said I needed to see you right away.” His hand came out of his pocket, but he wasn’t holding a jewelry box. It was a small Ziploc bag. “Ta-da.” He beamed triumphantly and held it before her. She looked through the cellophane and found no engagement ring in there. “You can’t see what this is? Here, I’ll hold it up to the light.” He dangled the bag so that it was backlit by the Chirping Chicken fast food sign, which had just come on.

She examined it, dumbfounded. “Is that…?”

He bobbed his chin. “That’s right. A bullet. But not just any bullet. A .38 caliber bullet.”

Thoughts of both a breakup and a marriage proposal sufficiently elbowed aside, Heat snatched the bag from him and pored over the mangled slug inside it. “Where did you get this?”

“After our little — shall we call it, dustup on the rooftop — I couldn’t sleep when I got home.”

“Me, neither, I was thinking all about you.”

“Yes. Ahem, I also was thinking about the case. Especially your theory about some kind of payoff happening at Conscience Point. So I thought, screw it. I got up and drove out there. Arrived about four A.M. Sat in that parking lot with my flashlight and thought to myself, if Fabian Beauvais’s gunshot was indeed a slicer, maybe, just maybe, the slug got lodged somewhere.”

“So you found a bullet? How long did it take you?”

“About nine hours. Dug this one out of the banister on the steps to the deck of the rec center. Detective Aguinaldo found a second one about an hour after she showed up.”

“What? Rook, I talked to her, she never mentioned any of this.”

“Because I made her promise to let me tell you. The one she found got nested in one of the shingles on the side of the building. Very soft wood, so that slug is pristine. She kept that one and sent it to the NYPD ballistics lab to run for you.”

“Any sign of the gun?”

“Boy, you want everything, don’t you?”

“No, I’m good. In fact, this is one of the nicest gifts you could have given me.” ‘One of,’ she thought.

“Comes at a price, though.”

“Yeah?”

“I want your trust. That’s what got me out of bed and driving a hundred miles to Conscience Point. To do what you would do. Follow the leads where they go, and let the truth be told.” He jiggled the bullet in the bag. “And even if I hadn’t found this, don’t you know you can always trust me?”

“Yes, of course.” Nikki drew what felt like her first full breath of the day. “I am so glad this is behind us.” She rested a hand on his thigh and noticed he didn’t respond. “…It is behind us, isn’t it?”

“I want back in the precinct. Divide and conquer’s one thing. But getting banished is how this weirdness got started.”

Nikki threw “Boy, you want everything, don’t you?” back in his face. She chuckled alone. He still hadn’t taken her hand. “I’ll talk to Captain Irons about letting you back in.”

“Good.” And Rook stood. “Let me know when, and I’ll see you there.”

“Seriously? Don’t you even want to get some dinner tonight?” He sucked in his lips, hesitating. “Rook, I thought we were moving forward from this.”

“We are. I’m just not in the let’s-get-together-tonight place yet. Just being honest.” Much as that stung, she understood. To think otherwise was to minimize the impact of what she’d done. Heat thanked him for the bullet and walked back to the precinct with it.

On her way up Amsterdam she turned and stopped, watching him walk the opposite way. How weary was Nikki of seeing his back?

Heat woke up the next morning alone, and feeling every bit of it. Her alarm was still ten minutes from ringing, so she opened the app to kill it with extreme prejudice, and while she did, her phone rang in her hand, startling her. The caller ID said it was Detective Raley.

“So. You do wake-up calls now, too?”

“This will help you rise and shine. We found Opal Onishi.”

The woman facing Nikki on the couch in Greenwich Village still had pillow marks on one side of her face. Opal Onishi balanced them out with the perplexed frown she gave Heat’s badge. “You said Homicide, right?”

“That’s my division, yes.” Nikki didn’t want to tip her yet that she’d found her former address in the purse of a murder victim. She’d hold it back until she got answers to a few preliminaries without that grim spoiler coloring things. So Heat redirected the subject. “I just have a few questions to ask and I’ll be on my way. Sorry to wake you up on a Saturday morning.”

“No problem. My roommate crashed with her boyfriend, so I was up anyway to feed her cat.”

“Your roommate, Erika?” Nikki always did her homework.

“Yeah, Erika. Is she in some kind of trouble? She’s not like a crazed killer like in Single White Female, is she?”

Heat said, “No, actually we only know of Erika because she works with you at Location Location. That’s how we found you here at her place.”

Opal, who was still in her mismatched Gap flannels from bed, cleared her throat and folded her legs, pulling her knees toward her chest. “You were looking for me?”

“We tried you at your old apartment.”

“Yeah, I moved out of there.”

“Quite suddenly.”

“Uh, right.” She lit a cigarette and waited for Nikki to say something, and when she didn’t, Opal filled the void. “Yeah, well, I had a bad breakup with my girlfriend. She was coming around all hours, you know, just being a bitch, so I…” Opal finished the thought by sliding one palm off another like a jet taking off from an aircraft carrier.

“I know how that goes.” Heat poised her pen over her notebook. “May I ask your girlfriend’s name?”

“Ex. Do you have to involve her? She’s an actress on a movie that’s filming in town.” Again, Heat left a space. Opal Onishi filled it with a woman’s name that Heat probably didn’t need but wrote down anyway. What she really wanted to know was why Jeanne Capois had her address and if it was relevant to the murders. And why the sudden move? Nikki didn’t buy the harassing-lover story at all, and picked at that.

She appraised the living room of the East Village one bedroom, which was over-filled with cardboard cartons and stacked furniture. “Did you file any complaints against your girlfriend?”

“With the police? Nah. I just moved.”

“At midnight.”

Opal seemed smart and came up with quick answers. Some might even be true. “It’s easier to double-park a cargo van then. No traffic.”

Nikki decided to follow another course. “I’d like to show you a picture and ask if you can identify the person.” She placed an enlargement of the photo of Jeanne Capois on the coffee table. Opal stubbed out her cigarette and picked up the picture. Nikki couldn’t be sure if it was hesitation or simply an attempt at recollection, but she felt like it took a few seconds too long to answer.

“…Jeanne.” She offered the picture back. “Jeanne.” Heat let her keep it.

“Do you know her last name?”

She pursed her lips and shrugged. “Sorry, but I only know her as Jeanne.”

“And how do you know her?”

Again, that fraction of waffling gained the detective’s notice. Opal said, “I hired her to clean. She’s a maid.”

Heat noted her use of the present tense. But still, why all the mulling for simple answers? “May I ask when she did housekeeping for you?”

“Gee, I’d have to think. I dunno, three weeks ago, last time?”

“How did you hear about her?”

A pause, then, “Through a service or something, yeah. I don’t remember the name.”

Nikki offered, “Happy Hazels?”

Quickly, this time, jumping at it, Opal said, “Yeah, that’s it. Happy Hazels.”

This was all feeling improvised so Heat kept at it. “Did you pay her cash or check?” A long shot, but a paper trail from a check register might be useful.

“Cash.”

“How much?”

“Wow, you bear down.” Then she searched the ceiling. “I guess, what, fifty bucks?”

“You tell me.”

“Fifty. Why are you asking about Jeanne?”

“She’s a victim in a homicide investigation.” Heat watched her reaction, always crucial, but especially when there’s a sense of something being off. Opal Onishi’s face grew slack and she sat, staring into the middle distance. To Heat’s mind, a strong response, considering the hesitation at recalling her name.

“Fuck…What happened to her?” Unguarded at last.

Nikki kept it in simplest terms, for now. “Jeanne Capois was found beaten and strangled on the street uptown.” She turned to a blank page, wanting to take advantage of the openness shock always brought. “When Jeanne came to your place, did she mention any threats against her?”

“No,” she said, low and dazed. She gave the same reply when she quizzed her about whether Capois seemed agitated, worried, or talked about being followed. Then Nikki brought out the photographs and sketches, She presented them, one at a time, to Opal, who had slid to a spot on the couch beside her. The young woman shook her head to each one: Fabian Beauvais — no; the four mercs who had attacked Heat a block from Opal’s old apartment in Chelsea — no; the gangstas in the ATM shot — no; Keith Gilbert…Hesitation.

“Opal, do you recognize him?”

“Of course, he’s that politician. Kind of a dickwad, if you ask me.”

“You have no other reason to know of him?”

“No, why should I?”

Heat smelled something here. Rather than jam her, she offered an escape hatch. “Opal, I talk to a lot of people in my job. And I sort of get a sense when someone is not being open with me.”

“Are you accusing me of lying?”

“I’m saying if there is anything you aren’t sharing, for any reason, this is the time to tell me.” She read her interviewee, sitting again with her back against the armrest of the couch with her knees pulled into an upright fetal position. “If you are afraid of someone, I can give you protection.”

Opal Onishi digested that but said, “I answered all your questions, right?”

At the door Heat gave her a business card. “In case you remember anything.” Or, she thought, watching her take it, if you decide to tell me why your hand is shaking.

Rook met Heat on the sidewalk outside the precinct at nine that morning. “What did Wally say?”

“Don’t worry about Wally, just come in.”

“You threaten him? Maybe say I’ll do him dirty in the press?”

“If you must know, I haven’t spoken to him. He’s not in yet. Look, don’t give me that face, this won’t be a problem. Trust me, I know how to handle Wally Irons.”

Good enough for Rook. He held the door for her. But she didn’t budge so he closed it again. “What?”

“Irons isn’t the only one who needs to be dealt with. I have a condition, too.”

“Go on.…”

“You have an article to write, and I will honor my commitment so you can keep riding along. But — I have enough stress without adding to it if you’re going to go around bruised or harboring an attitude.”

“I hear you. And just you watch. I can be a team player. I can even still be your court jester.”

“Good.” she said. “Now, we can hash our personal stuff out when all this gets settled. But, until then, Rook, I need to know we can move forward without any more drama.”

“Are you telling me to behave myself?”

She smiled. “See? We’re back to normal already.” Heat pulled the door open and went in. He shrugged then followed.

It sure didn’t feel like a Saturday when they entered the Twentieth. Although Nikki and her homicide detectives worked plenty of weekends when the casework called for it, today the entire station house was in force, not just her section. In the Homicide Squad Room, the big TV on the wall was on, but muted. Raley, Ochoa, and Rhymer were on phones or working their computers. Occasionally one of them would glance up at the storm-track animations or to shake his head at the obligatory live shots of some poor correspondent getting pelted by sand and wind, or dodging palm fronds.

While Heat updated the Murder Board, Rook stared at the crawl on the bottom of the screen beneath the silent video of the Office of Emergency Management team answering press questions from its Brooklyn HQ. The ribbon of text said Connecticut’s and New Jersey’s governors had joined the rest of the region in declaring states of emergency. The Jersey governor had gone so far as to order evacuations of the barrier islands from Cape May up to Sandy Hook, and to tell Atlantic City casinos to close by four Sunday afternoon. Amtrak canceled service on many of its East Coast routes. It was too soon to tell where the hurricane would make landfall, but Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey seemed likeliest targets. New York’s mayor was holding off on evacuations pending more data, but expected Lower Manhattan to be most vulnerable to storm surge, especially Battery Park.

“Not going to stop for a formal meeting,” said Heat to the group. “You guys are busy, and I don’t want to slow you down. Just a few quickies.” She summarized her meeting with Opal Onishi that morning. The feeling she left with was that she was hiding something and Nikki wanted to look deeper into her. When she told them about Rook and Detective Aguinaldo of Southampton Village PD recovering two slugs from a building at the Conscience Point Marina, Nikki got a big reaction, especially from Raley and Ochoa.

“Could make me think twice now about Earl Sliney as the Beauvais shooter,” said Raley.

“Me, too,” added his partner. “Not ready to give it up, but sounds like it could be righteous. Maybe.”

Heat and Roach triangulated a moment of speechless reaffirmation, and all three appeared relieved to have tensions ease. Then she asked them to call the ballistics lab to set up a meeting for her later. “I want to be the squeaky wheel on the slug Inez Aguinaldo delivered there and to drop off the one recovered by Rook.”

“Jameson Rook is…” boomed Ochoa in a hoarse TV promo voice, “The Bullet Whisperer.”

Rook picked right up on it. “I see lead people.…”

Their hissing and belittling of Rook — and his enjoyment of the crap they were giving him — made Heat happy that he could live up to his pledge not to harbor resentment. She brought things back to business, asking Opie about his attempt to lure Alicia Delamater out of hiding. Rhymer said he’d left The Surf Lodge party message as bait the afternoon before. Still no Alicia callback.

Feller slid into the room. “Got something you might be interested in. Remember how Records came up with a prior on Fabian Beauvais?”

“Yes,” said Heat. “It was from a while back. A misdemeanor trespassing bust for Dumpster diving. It’s top of mind because I’ve been trying in vain to connect with Beauvais’s so-called Gateway Lawyer, Reese Cristóbal, so he can put me in touch with the accomplices.”

“Well, your favorite detective went all old school on ya. Real Time Crime Center came up with the last-known addresses you requested, so I went knocking on some pretty seedy doors.” He referred to notes. “OK, one miscreant…moved back to Jamaica ten days ago.”

“Oh, ouch,” said Rook. “Just in time for the hurricane.”

Feller tapped his notepad. “However, his other accomplice, Fidel “FiFi” Figueroa, is also going to get a taste of Sandy, because FiFi is here.”

“Can we go see him?” asked Heat.

“Be stupid not to.” Detective Feller gestured to the hall. “When I said here, I meant right here. He’s in Interrogation-Two.”

“I was told there would be a reward of a monetary nature” were the first words of Fidel Figueroa when Heat and Rook entered the interrogation room. Feller, who was already in there leaning one shoulder against the wall behind the wiry man, simply shook no to Nikki.

“Actually, although we value your cooperation, there is no reward, Mr. Figueroa.”

“FiFi. Everybody calls me that.” He hooked two thumbs to indicate himself. “Fidel Figueroa. FiFi.”

Rook said, “Wouldn’t that be Fih Fih?” The silent reproach of the entire room fell on him and he held up a surrendering palm. “But who am I to edit another man’s gangsta handle?”

FiFi kept to his talking point. “So, no money?”

Back when she was a uniform, Heat had arrested scores of guys like Figueroa, usually working street corners on Eighth Avenue off Times Square. If it wasn’t selling counterfeit sunglasses and handbags, it was running short cons like Find the Pea to fleece unwitting Nebraskans in a rigged game. They came in all sizes, shapes, ages, genders, and colors, but all shared the dodgy moves, quick eyes, and body ticks of the career hustler. And they were always seeking the elusive one-up. Even in a police department interrogation room. “Let’s call it banking one for good citizenship,” she said.

The guest brushed his knuckles across the graying line of his chin strap beard then said, “Hey, worth a shot, huh?”

“Why don’t you just tell her what you know about Fabian Beauvais?” said Feller, pushing himself off the wall and looming over the grifter. Heat got a strong manifestation of Randall’s history as a street detective, knowing how to take physical intimidation right up to the line — and effectively.

Fidel scooted his chair an inch away and cowered. “Sure thing, the Haitian. Smart dude, that guy. Rough life, but had the touch, you know?”

“I don’t know,” came back Feller. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Nikki hoped the hustler wasn’t playing them because this was her first real opportunity to get a sense of her victim’s activities. Maybe FiFi would also give her some red meat, too. What that constituted, she would only know through careful listening. This bullshit artist gave her a lot to wade through.

“He had astucia. Cleverness. Some guys grow up getting shit on, and all they get is mean.” He brought his forefinger just close enough to his thumb to make a crack to peek through. “These many, just this much, get clever instead. Fabby was new — maybe off the boat just a coupla months after the big quake. That’s when he joined our, um, enterprise.”

“Picking through trash?” said Feller with a sniff. He took a seat on Figueroa’s side of the table and rested a boot on the man’s chair. This time FiFi didn’t shrink. On the contrary, he gave him a derisive side-glance.

“You don’t know, man, you have no clue. You think we were like these hoboes or some shit? Fuck that, man. We were pickers. But not for cans and bottles.”

This felt like it was heading somewhere. Nikki took the contradictory route, seeing now how conflict opened him up. “Well, what else do you call it, climbing into trash bins? I sure as hell wouldn’t call it an enterprise.”

Rook fell in step. “No shit. An enterprise? That’s usually a business undertaking that calls for slightly more resourcefulness than fishing for empties to recycle.”

“What about scoring hundreds of thousands? Millions. Would you call that an enterprise?”

“I would,” said Heat. There were numerous ways to get a witness to talk. Intimidating, cajoling, inducing, begging. She read FiFi as a man who needed to boast. So she fed the hungry egotist. “And you personally know of such a thing?”

“Know it? Hell, I worked it.” He checked himself in the observation mirror and said, “This may get me busted, but what I’ve seen? Whoo. Mind-boggling.”

“I can be boggled,” said Rook. He asked the others, “Anybody else?”

“I worked on a team for an organization that sent hundreds of us out in the field, day and night, to harvest the good stuff out of the trash.”

Nikki shrugged. “Help me here. The good stuff?”

“ID stuff. Bank stuff. Credit card stuff. God, are you people dense?” Of course not, but playing it sure kept him rolling. “Any piece of paper that goes out in the trash with a name, an address, a birth date, a social, a club or union membership, Christmas card with momma’s maiden on it, preapproved credit lines, computer passwords — I shit you not, people throw away papers with their fucking passwords on it.” He laughed to himself. “We’d go out in the city like a little army every night and find all kinds of stuff.”

Feller asked, “And do what with it?”

“Turn it in, of course. For money.”

“Where?” Heat hoped for an address.

“Different places every time. A box truck would come. We’d trade, they paid.” He laughed again, so smart about life, this one. “They hauled it off to some place to process it, don’t know where.” He read her skepticism. “Honest, I don’t. All I know is it got sorted and used for, you know, fake IDs, credit card fraud, the whole buffet. They bought everything off us. Even shreds.”

Rook asked, “What good are shredded documents?”

“You’re kidding, right? Idiots think they’re safe just ’cause they shred. Guess what? Most machines people use are strip cutters. And then what do they do? Put the neatly cut strips in a handy plastic bag for us to pick up and deliver.”

“But they’re shredded,” he persisted.

“In strips. Clean slices — no security. They’ve got tons of people, you know, illegals and such? Sit in a big room and put that stuff together like jigsaw puzzles for pennies an hour. Worth it, too, because why shred it in the first place if it’s not valuable?” He gave a knowing nod and rocked back in his chair with his arms folded.

Nikki now had a direction forming and followed the path to it. “And that’s where you met Fabian Beauvais?” FiFi gave her a you-bet grin. “And what about him was special, this, this…?”

“…Astucia? The man was a genius. Example. One day he shows up with a cooler on wheels. I say what are you doing, you bring some Bud Lights for the crew? No. It’s empty. He goes into an office building pretending he’s doing sandwich delivery. Every fucking office building in Manhattan has these guys walking the halls, so who notices another immigrant hawking turkey wraps? Nobody. He’d go in with the empty cooler in broad daylight, bust the padlock on the blue recycling bins in the copy room, or wherever, put the papers into his cooler, roll it out the front door, thank you very much, and sort it all out later.”

“That’s bold,” said Feller.

“Worked great, too. Until the bulls caught him boosting some of the docs, you know, keeping a stash for himself. They were ripshit, man. After they moved him up the chain, let him work ATM skims with them, and all.”

After she and Rook and Feller mind-melded over this bit of news, Heat said. “What do you mean, bulls?”

“You know, the ballbusters. The enforcers for the enterprise that kept us pissing our pants if we got greedy. Or talky.”

The door from the observation room opened quietly over Heat’s shoulder and Raley stepped in, handed her some head shots, and left. “FiFi, I am very impressed with how much you know. Really blown away.” She slid the two pictures of Beauvais’s ATM street playahs across the table toward him. He started working his head up and down before they reached him.

“That’s them.”

“The bulls?”

“Yeah. This one’s Mayshon something. And that bad boy’s Earl. Earl Sliney. That dude’s a freak. Laughing one second, and bam, turns on a dime…Scary shit.” He pushed Sliney’s picture away like it carried a curse. “When it went bad with him and Fabby, it got ugly. Said he was going to kill him. Meant it, too.”

“Do you know what documents Fabby — Fabian Beauvais stole?” Nikki held her breath after she asked. So much rode on this.

“No idea.” She tried again, had to. But he still said no.

One more thing and we’re done. “Do you know if Earl Sliney killed Beauvais?”

“Don’t know who killed him. Only what.” He arched a brow. “Astucia.”

Something about Keith Gilbert loved a front page. Heat found his smiling picture filling the bulldog edition of the Ledger on the rack at Andy’s when she waited for her turkey sandwich and bought a copy of the rag to read on her walk back to the precinct. The headline read: KING ME, and the Ledger exclusive announced that the powerful New York ex-governor and former UN ambassador known as “The Kingmaker” was giving his endorsement to Gilbert’s senatorial bid.

Even though the nod virtually ensured him a party nomination and a fat war chest of election funds, the candidate-to-be took the PR high road. “‘This approval means more than anyone can know’ commented Commissioner Gilbert in a written statement. ‘But the time for politics will have to come some other time. Right now I have a job to do keeping the citizens of this region safe from a storm of historic proportions, and that shall be my sole focus.’”

Passing through the precinct lobby Heat tossed the tabloid on the visitor chair beside the hooker waiting for her pimp to be released. Maybe she’d swallow that.

Lunch talk in the bull pen centered on guessing what documents Beauvais took that cost him his life. “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” said Rhymer. “Maybe just the fact that he ripped off the ID theft network was enough. I mean, come on, we’ve all seen how heads of crime families mete out punishment to keep the soldiers in line.”

“Did you just say ‘mete’?” asked Ochoa.

“It’s a legitimate word. Ask our writer.”

Rook hung up the phone at his desk and kick-rolled his chair over to the group, spinning a circle on his trip. “Mete, as taken from the Latin meta, meaning boundary or goal. Plus-ten for Opie.” He scooted over beside Heat. “This just in. Remember Hattie? My new bestest friend from the poultry slaughterhouse?”

“So much for my turkey sandwich.” Nikki wrapped the remainder and set it on her desk.

“I just talked to her.”

“How’d you manage that?” asked Raley. “We’ve been calling and calling, and dropping by her apartment and work, and she’s been MIA.”

“Count the Pulitzers. I’m just sayin’.” Raley gave him two middle fingers to count. Rook continued. “Since they were friends, I wanted to find out from Hattie if Fabian Beauvais ever mentioned any documents. Guess what? He did ask if she could hide something for him. Hattie said yes, but Beauvais never said what it was or gave anything to her. And right after that, he got shot at in Queensboro Plaza. End of conversation.”

“Hang on, though,” said Nikki. “The slaughterhouse manager told us Beauvais showed up at work, injured. Meaning after he’d been shot. Where was Hattie?”

“Away helping her niece through a home detox. She never saw him.”

“So we still don’t know what he was holding, or where it is now,” said Ochoa.

“Without rekindling a squad conflict here,” said Heat, “can I at least throw out the most no-brainer of possibilities? That Beauvais got some goods on Keith Gilbert?”

To her surprise, it was Rook who first jumped in. “Just to keep that ball in the air, it sure gives a reason for some sort of payoff scenario at Conscience Point.”

“But what about Sliney then?” Ochoa’s question had an air of protest.

His partner said, “Could be parallel tracks, Miguel.” Raley held his arms out like train rails. “Beauvais rips off Sliney’s people, Sliney goes after him, track one. Beauvais shakes down Gilbert, Gilbert goes after him, track two.”

“If that’s true,” said Detective Feller, what do you suppose the Haitian had on him? A love letter from a mistress? Evidence of a love child? Some medical secret that would harm his candidacy?”

“Kenyan birth certificate.” said Rook. “Aw, come on, don’t say you weren’t thinking it, too.”

On the walk to her car to drive to the ballistics lab, Heat did what most New Yorkers were doing that day. She made a sky check and found it difficult to believe that in twenty-four hours those hazy, mundane skies would darken with the leading edge of a hurricane. Even with her attention drawn upward, she heard the crunch of sidewalk grit under a shoe, a little too close. She palmed the butt of her weapon and spun.

Heat found her own image reflecting back in Lawrence Hays’s aviators as he stood before her, grinning. “You know, even with your hand on that Sig I could still draw and shoot you before you cleared leather. If I wanted to.”

“I might surprise you.”

“You’d have to.”

She assessed him and felt no threat. He even took a step back and kept his hands visible. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The CEO of Lancer Standard seemed to be enjoying himself. He held up the first two fingers of his right hand, a plain-view sign of nonlethal intent, and dipped them into his front-jacket pocket. He came out with a slip of paper and offered it. When she opened it, she saw a Bronx address written there. “How recent?” Nikki asked.

“You’re welcome” was all he said. Then Hays strode off toward Amsterdam Avenue. She noticed the slight limp, verification that this was personal.

Heat put the assault plan together quickly, first dispatching Roach, Feller, and Rhymer up to the Bronx neighborhood to stake out the address in case Zarek Braun left. While they positioned themselves to observe, Nikki coordinated with the Emergency Services Unit to rustle up a SWAT team, then contacted the Forty-eighth Precinct about setting up traffic control. The idea was to keep people out and create choke points to keep her suspect in. None of this was new; Nikki had organized these raids more times than she could count.

But this one carried an extra crackle. “No room for mistakes,” she told the incursion team — and herself — as they armored-up in the staging area around the corner from the house. She envisioned Braun’s calm expression emptying the HK at her. Played back the mental picture of the scars and burns on the torso of Lawrence Hays. “Always think cover. Always just think.”

ESU had already taken survey photos of the building before she got up there, and she spread them on the hood of her Interceptor to familiarize herself with the ways in and of the exposure hazards. Next Heat knelt behind a junker refrigerator on a corner patch of lawn to scan the block with binoculars. This was an economically depressed area with a mix of abandoned duplexes and run-down saltbox cottages. In the growing dark she could make out Halloween decorations on some of the graffiti-tagged neighborhood doors. “You’ve cleared the surrounding houses?” she confirmed with the ESU commander.

“Affirm.”

“Don’t want any kids walking into this.” Satisfied all was ready, she said, “We’ll go in five.” Heat rose up from her hide and saw the worst possible thing she could see at that moment. Captain Wallace Irons, who must have bought his body armor at a big and tall came waddling up the street tugging Velcro and checking his sidearm.

When he reached her, Wally said, “What the hell is he doing here?” Rook finger waved from where he was standing off to the side in his personal bulletproof vest that read JOURNALIST instead of NYPD.

“Observing.”

“This is a police-only, restricted area.”

“Yes, sir, I know, but I have everything in hand. Rook is going to lag back with you while I go in.”

“Change of plan,” said Wally. “I am leading this incursion.”

“Sir, with all due respect—”

“Then you will respect a direct order from your commander, Detective.” He took in the staging area looking to Heat more like a cloddy equipment manager hanging with the jocks. “Don’t you think I hear all the talk? How I’m an armchair cop? Well, that gets put to rest here and now.” He swiveled his head. Protruding from his flak vest he could have been a turtle poking out of his shell. “Where’s my ESU CO?”

“Here, sir.” The commander of ESS-3 stepped forward.

“You boys in position?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That the house?”

“It is.”

“Show me your position map.” Wally bodychecked Heat aside and the ESU leader performed his show-and-tell using the chart Heat had marked up. Irons asked no questions. After the briefing he turned to Heat. “You’re backup.”

“Sir, may I ask you to reconsider?”

The captain persisted, talking right over her. “Stay here. Make your move when I go in.” He turned back to the ESU commander. “Follow me.” And just that rapidly, just that recklessly, just that narcissistically, the Iron Man hustled across the street where he crouched behind a parked car, paused, and led the Go Team to the front door of the cottage.

“What the hell is he doing?” asked Feller.

“Wally being Wally,” said Rook. “I wonder if he’ll wear the body armor to his press conference.”

“Get ready to move,” said Heat into her walkie. “He’s at the door.”

Captain Irons’s voice echoed across the empty street. “NYPD, open up!” An instant later, the ESU battering ram popped the door and Wally led the charge inside. Heat and her detectives trotted to cover and made the parked car. That’s as far as they got.

A bright flash filled all the windows of the house and was instantly followed by a deafening boom.