1.09
Denver and Coors Field—Tuesday, Sept. 14
NO ONE IN the Denver Police Department when Nick was there ever blurred female detective K. T. Lincoln’s initials to sound like the soft, feminine “Katie.” At least not to her face. When talking to Detective Lincoln on a first-name basis, it was always “K… T” with a certain pause of respect, if not outright fear, separating the hard-edged consonants. It was rumored that no one, not even the captain or commissioner or those in Human Resources who handled her paperwork, had a clue as to what the K or T stood for. Behind her back, of course, there were plenty of foul and sexist variations. She tended to scare men and—as Nick had quickly discovered when he was her partner—the more insecure the men, the more quickly they frightened.
Detective First Grade K. T. Lincoln had never scared Nick Bottom, but it was probably because the two had worked together so well.
But now, seeing the scowl on her face as she came striding toward the booth near the back of the Denver Diner where Nick sat waiting, he felt some of that insecurity and fear. The absolute certainty that this hard-featured, frizzy-haired, six-foot-two scowling woman of color was packing a 9mm Glock on her hip never helped ameliorate that particular stab of anxiety.
“I’ve got some coffee coming for you,” said Nick as she slid into the booth opposite him. They used to catch breakfast here often after a night shift at Denver Center. Dara had never minded, nor had K.T.’s partner.
It had been almost five and a half years since Nick had seen or talked to K.T. She’d been promoted to lieutenant and made squad commander since then… a position that Nick himself might be filling if it hadn’t been for his flashback addiction. And his total screwing of the proverbial pooch on every front.
“I don’t want any coffee,” K.T. said coldly. “And the answer to what you’re going to ask me is no. Now, is there anything else, Mr. Bottom? I have an early meeting with Delvecchio’s Emergency Service Unit guys. I need to shove off.”
That mutt Delvecchio is running ESU now? thought Nick. He said, “What are you saying no to, K.T.? I haven’t asked anything of you yet. What did you think I was going to ask?”
“I won’t be your sniper-second at Coors Field this afternoon,” the lieutenant said. Although Nick had never once come on to K. T. Lincoln, he’d always seen her as an attractive woman despite her size, rugged features, and short wild hair. Nick had once told Dara that he was able to imagine K.T. being descended from Abraham Lincoln—if the former president had mated with a beautiful black woman with K.T.’s café-au-lait complexion and chicory-bitter personality. Like President Lincoln (despite the inevitable rumors by second-rate history writers desperately seeking a new angle on the most-written-about president in U.S. history), K. T. Lincoln preferred women in matters of romance.
But it was her deeply recessed, dark, and strangely Lincolnesque—and only sometimes sympathetic—brown eyes that were the main similarity between the sainted president and the scowling and silent squad commander.
“How’d you know I was going into Coors?” asked Nick.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” said K.T. “Everybody in the department’s been watching you make an asshole of yourself working for Nakamura. You think you’re going to get special permission from the governor on down to see Oz, Dean, Delroy Nigger Brown, and the rest of these chumps—everything being greased from the Advisor’s office—and not have us know what you’re doing? Come back to Planet Earth, Bottom.”
“What happened to ‘Nick’?” asked Nick.
“He died at the bottom of a flashback addict’s sniffer vial,” snapped K.T.
Stung, Nick said, “I have a sniper-second for Coors.”
“One of Nakamura’s thugs,” she said. “Good. You don’t need me, then. If there won’t be anything else…” She started scooting out of the booth.
The waitress accidentally blocked K.T.’s exit for a moment, bringing both their coffees and Nick’s big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Nick said hurriedly, “It’s about Dara.”
The lieutenant paused. Then sat down.
“What’s about Dara?” asked K.T. sharply when the waitress had refilled their coffees and left.
“Danny Oz, the Israeli poet who was one of the last people interviewed by Keigo Nakamura…”
“I remember who Oz was,” said K.T.
“… told me yesterday that he met Dara and an unidentified fat, balding guy who must’ve been ADA Harvey Cohen on the day that Keigo interviewed him. I need to know why she was there, K.T.”
K.T. lifted her coffee cup with both hands and sipped slowly, obviously just as a way to find time to think. “Oz never mentioned your wife in any of the other five investigations into Keigo’s murder,” she said softly.
“Five?” said Nick. “Five? I just knew about our department’s joint investigation with the Feebies and then the Japs themselves, Nakamura Senior, doing it again a couple of years later.”
“There’ve been three more since,” said K.T. while she looked down at her coffee. “DHS three years ago, then our office again after the governor put a rocket up Peña Junior’s ass. Then, a year and a half ago, the Feebies again with the CIA or some damned spook group looking into the nasty corners where the feds usually can’t go.”
“So my investigation makes six in six years,” murmured Nick.
“Your investigation makes five and one one-hundredth,” snapped K.T. For a fleeting instant there was a rare expression on her face, as if she wished she hadn’t said what she’d said.
But Nick just nodded. “Why has Nakamura hired me after all that firepower has come up empty? But the truth is, I don’t care why… I just want to find out why Dara and Harvey Cohen were there in Six Flags that September day. There’s also a chance that she was at the party in LoDo the night Keigo was murdered there.”
K.T. looked up. “At Keigo’s digs? No chance, Nick. All the investigations have combed that party list and the video recordings a thousand times. Hell, Nakamura’s people even re-created the whole thing in a three-D simulation. No sign of Dara.”
“Simulations come out of a computer,” growled Nick. “Computers depend on what goes into them. And on one of the outside videos I caught a glimpse of… someone… who could’ve been Dara, across the street about half a block away. Right when everyone was hightailing it out of the building before the cops got there.”
K.T. shook her head. “The FBI and the other tech investigations enhanced all those outdoor night videos. No matches with anyone of interest.”
“Well,” said Nick, setting words in place like sliding bullets into a revolver, “maybe my dead wife wasn’t of interest to them. But she’s of interest to me. I need to find out why she was at Six Flags that day and maybe at the party that night and to do that, I need your help, K.T.”
The lieutenant leaned back and away from him. “Jesus, Nick. You’ve been watching or reading too many goddamned private-eye stories where the defrocked ex-cop still has a pal on the force that does all the heavy lifting for him, despite the fact that it’d cost a real cop in the real world her gold shield. Well, I’m not your pal anymore, Nick Bottom, and I wouldn’t do it if I were.”
“You were Dara’s pal,” Nick said flatly, his hands clasped together and his forefingers pointing at K.T.’s chest like a pistol. “Or you acted like you were back then.”
“Fuck you, Bottom.”
“And fuck you, Lincoln. You’re not worried about losing your gold shield. You’re worried about losing your next promotion. But what’s next to get promoted to, K.T.? Commissioner? Mayor? Queen of Colorado?”
Nick had chosen a booth near the back of the diner, near the restrooms and away from the windows and early-morning crowd, but people were still turning to stare over the backs of their booths.
Nick leaned closer and whispered, “I need your help, K.T.”
The lieutenant’s expression had not changed except perhaps for a slight narrowing of her eyes. “What you need, Ni
ck, is a shave, a haircut, to get your teeth cleaned, and to lose about twenty-five pounds. A new suit and a tie might help as well.”
Nick felt the wince inside but did not show it. “I need your help, K.T. I need to know why Dara was at Six Flags. And if she was near Keigo’s apartment that night.”
“She never said anything to you about Cohen or the district attorney looking into anything having to do with Keigo Nakamura?”
“Nothing that I remember. I’m going through those days one at a time with flashback and everything she says or doesn’t say seems suspicious to me now. I need to talk to the district attorney then, Ortega.”
“Mannie Ortega?” K.T. chuckled and took a piece of bacon from Nick’s plate. “Good luck in seeing the mayor to ask questions about something he probably didn’t even know about six years ago. The word downtown is that Ortega sees being mayor of Denver as a temporary stepping-stone. He has national aspirations.”
“Well, fuck him and his national aspirations,” hissed Nick. “I just need to know what Harvey Cohen was working on that might have put him and Dara in Six Flags Over the Jews that day.”
“Maybe you can get away with pulling your Advisor strings once to get in to see Ortega,” said K.T., “but your… investigation… doesn’t have a damned thing to do with who killed Keigo Nakamura anymore, does it?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said truthfully. “I just know that right now I don’t give a shit about who killed that kid unless it has something to do with Dara. And maybe even Dara’s… accident.”
K.T.’s strong eyebrows shot up. “Her accident? You’re not suggesting that the car crash that killed her and Harvey Cohen was more than an accident?”
Nick shrugged and looked down at his cooling and congealing breakfast.
“Nick, the state patrol, sheriff’s office, and DA’s office all shared their investigation notes with you five and a half years ago. I know they did. Traffic was moving fast when Cohen’s car started to exit I-Twenty-five to East Fifty-eighth Avenue—Harvey always drove too fast around the city. The old couple in the Buick gelding in front of them stopped suddenly. No reason… someone just slowed in front of them and they slammed on the brakes, the way old drivers do so often. Harvey couldn’t stop in time or get out of their way, neither could the driver of the eighteen-wheeler behind them, and all three vehicles went into the barrier. The old couple and the trucker also died in the fire. For God’s sake, where is there anything but an accident in that, Nick?”
He looked at her through bloodshot eyes. “Did you ever hear of a swoop-and-squat, K.T.?”
The lieutenant snorted. “Sure I have. One of the oldest auto insurance scams on record. But I’ve never heard of the braking car in front of the targeted auto being an old anglo couple with not a single moving violation to the driver’s name, nor the squat car being an eighteen-wheeler. Nor have I heard of swoop-and-squat scamsters volunteering to die in a fire. You have to do better than that, Nick.”
“Where the hell were they coming from, K.T.?”
“Who?”
“Harvey and Dara. Where were they coming from when this ‘accident’ happened?”
“Lunch, I think the report said.” K.T. suddenly sounded tired.
“They’d been out of the office for more than three hours by then,” snarled Nick. “Long goddamned lunch. And where the hell were they going? The DA’s office at the time just said they were going to take a deposition of someone in Globeville—no other details. Who the hell goes to Globeville to get a deposition?”
“I guess ADAs and their assistants do when the person being deposed lives in Globeville,” said K.T. “Why didn’t you bring these questions up at the time?”
“They didn’t seem important at the time,” said Nick. “Nothing seemed important at the time.”
K.T. looked down at her strong fingers where they were splayed on the tabletop. “You’ll have to see Ortega and the current district attorney for all that information,” she said very softly. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, get me everything that the state highway patrol, sheriff’s office, and DA’s office didn’t show me almost six years ago,” said Nick. “And everything from the coroner’s office that I didn’t see.”
She stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Nick, do you really want to see the accident-site photos of Dara’s crumpled and burned body?”
“Yes,” said Nick, returning her stare with some ferocity. “I do. Also Harvey’s body, the old couple’s, and the truck driver’s. And I need to see everything the department had on everyone involved in that crash. I want to know everything there is to know about that trucker and the old farts.”
“Is that all?”
“No,” said Nick. “I need you to poke around and see if any branch of the department or the FBI or anyone else was looking into anything about Keigo Nakamura before he was murdered… anything that might have brought the DA’s office in and sent Dara and Harvey Cohen to Six Flags that day in September.”
“That won’t be easy,” said K.T.
“You’re squad commander, Lieutenant Lincoln,” said Nick. “When you and I were detectives second grade, we considered that position second only to God’s.”
“Yeah?” said K.T., looking at him. “Well, it’s not.”
She started scooting out of the booth again. “You have the same phone number?”
“Yeah,” said Nick but hesitated. “But if you could report to me personally—in private like this—it might be a better idea. Hard copies of the info rather than digital.”
K.T. paused and cocked her head. “Getting a little paranoid, are we?”
“Even paranoids have enemies, K.T.,” said Nick. “If the FBI and CIA kept coming back to this investigation of Keigo’s murder, odds are strong that they suspect some sort of conspiracy against Nakamura and his holdings by those cabals of corporations they have there.”
K.T. was standing next to the booth now, but she leaned over and lowered her voice. “That would be a dangerous area to poke around in, Nick. For you or for me. Since the Day It All Hit The Fan, Japan’s gone almost feudal again. You know that. Those clusters of companies—keiretsu they call them—are like fiefdoms. You’ve heard of the resurgence of the keiretsu in Japan, haven’t you?”
“Sure,” said Nick.
“Then you need to remember that the prime minister and members of the National Diet are nobodies. Heads of these corporate-alliance keiretsu like Hiroshi Nakamura, who also head up their own family monopolies called zaibatsu that have made such a comeback, all want to be Shogun of the new Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that the Japs are carving out of China and the rest of Asia. Being an Advisor to America the way Nakamura is means that he’s one of the top players in that feudal nightmare that these Nipponese samurai-businessmen call a culture. Assassination has always been fair game between these keiretsu and zaibatsu. You really don’t want to get involved in their wars, Nick.”
He looked up at her. They were so close that he could smell the subtle fragrance that she’d worn when they were partners working out of the 16th Street house. “I have to get involved in it, K.T. If there’s the slightest chance that Dara was involved, I have to be, too.”
K. T. Lincoln straightened up and seemed to be looking at the blank wall behind the booth. But she didn’t leave. After a few seconds, she said, “Do you know why I’m part of the tiny five percent of Americans who’ve never once tried flashback, Nick?”
“You’re Amish?”
His former partner didn’t smile. “No, it’s because I already have too many important dead that I’d spend most of my time visiting in the haze of that motherfucking drug. I read in a report that you saw that Google punk Derek Dean yesterday. So you know how sick this habit of going to live that false life with the dead is, Nick. Every hour under the flash is an hour lost from your real life forever.”
Nick looked at her without blinking. When he did speak, his voice was firm, emotionless. “What
real life, K.T.?”
She closed her eyes for a second, then turned to leave but paused, speaking over her shoulder. “Be careful at Coors Field this afternoon. The department has info that this Hideki Sato you chose as your sniper-second is one of these zaibatsu assassins we were talking about.”
“Good,” said Nick. “Then he should be able to shoot straight. Call me as soon as you have something and we’ll meet again.”
Lieutenant Lincoln walked out of the diner with the same confident, aggressive strides she’d used to enter.
NO VISITOR WENT INTO Coors Field armed, so Nick spent more than a half hour donning the Kevlar-Plus armor that went under his street clothes and up and over his neck and head like an overlappingly scaled and lightweight metal-ballistic-cloth balaclava. Nick’s face was exposed, so an inmate could always shoot him there—and there were guns as well as shivs, cleavers, spears, spikes, saps, and full-scale combat knives in the prison called Coors Field—but the K-Plus would turn away most blades and other cutting edges and, with luck, allow his sniper-second to step in.
But a long blade in the eye socket, struck in with lightning speed and an inmate’s Body Nazi–exercised and honed muscle, would serve as well as any bullet. These hard cases in Coors Field were the fittest and strongest men in the state of Colorado.
“Only men here?” asked Sato. Warden Bill Polansky and head guard and chief of the sniper squad Paul Campos were there watching Nick armor up. Polansky was the kind of quiet but solid midlevel administrator who, if he were in public education, would either be superintendent by the time he was forty-five or ready to blow his brains out.
Campos—with his head of silver, short-cropped curls and deep-water tan—was a man who’d blow any other man’s brains out before his own. And he’d do the job not happily but with absolute efficiency.
“Only men,” said Warden Polansky. “We have no indoor cells here except the emergency isolation holding cells under the stands. Women are housed in the nearby ex–Pepsi Center.”