There were a bunch of open sugar packets on the table in front of her. I picked one up. “Having read the entire Hardy Boys series as a kid,” I said, “I’m guessing that based on the amount of sugar you’ve gone through, you’ve been here about forty minutes.”
She looked at her watch. “An hour.”
“I guess even shrinks have problems that wake them up in the middle of the night,” I said.
“Same problem, different night,” she said. “Fred.”
“I thought your divorce came through a couple of weeks ago. Based on the laws of the state of New York, isn’t he officially no longer your problem?”
“He emailed me last night. He’s engaged.”
“Hmm,” I said, nodding my head thoughtfully and slowly, stroking the imaginary goatee on my chin. “Und how does zat make you feel?”
She laughed. “That’s the worst Dr. Freud impression I’ve ever heard.”
“Actually, it was Dr. Phil, but you’re deflecting the question.”
“Look, I don’t care if the bastard remarries, but I’d feel better if it took him more than fourteen days to get over me.”
“You’re right, Doc,” I said. “He could at least have held off till you got over him. Oh wait, you are.”
She laughed. “I hit the wall with Fred two years before the divorce.”
“So now some other woman gets to suffer. Win-win.”
“Thanks a lot,” she said. “Now I get to play doctor. What woke you up so early?”
“It’s going to be a crazy week. A bunch of free-spirited Hollywood types are about to descend on New York, and I wanted to gird myself for their arrival.”
“I see,” she said. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that today’s the first day you’re partnering up with your ex-girlfriend.”
Cheryl Robinson knew all about my history with Kylie. It happened one night at a retirement party. Cheryl was a good listener, and I was just drunk enough to open up. I had no regrets. In fact, it was kind of therapeutic to be able to talk to a professional and still keep it off the record.
“You know, I think you’re right. Kylie does start today,” I said. “And hey, I never thanked you for helping her get the job.”
If I had to zero in on the most beautiful part of Cheryl Robinson, it would have to be her smile. It’s like she has an on switch, and the second it’s flipped, the dark eyes, white teeth, and full lips all light up at once. My snide little remark, which might have backfired with someone else, tripped that switch, and I got a dazzling, thousand-megawatt smile.
“Nicely done, Detective,” she said. “Make me the heavy. But no, I didn’t help Kylie MacDonald get the job. She did it on her own. Captain Cates asked me to take a peek at her P-file off the record. It was stellar. Apparently, the fact that you two had a go at it didn’t hurt her career.”
I raised my coffee cup. “Here’s hoping it doesn’t hurt my career.”
She rested her hand gently on mine, and I swear I almost dropped my cup. “Zach,” she said softly. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Let the past be the past and start fresh.”
“That’s good advice, Doc,” I said, laying my hand on top of hers. “For both of us.”
Chapter 3
THE DOWDY REDBRICK building with bluestone coping and terra-cotta trimming on East 67th Street between Third and Lexington has been home to the 19th Precinct since the 1880s. It’s a sprawling old beast, five stories high, with room inside for the more than two hundred uniforms and dozens of detectives who cover Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
It’s also the perfect location for NYPD Red, which has citywide jurisdiction. We’re tucked away along the north wall of the third floor, out of the mainstream, but with lights and sirens, not far from a big chunk of the city’s five boroughs—and an occasional glimpse of the Chrysler Building, to my eyes the most beautiful and grand of all New York’s landmarks.
I was at my desk when I heard it.
“Yo! Six.”
I’d know that voice in my sleep. I turned around and there she was—flowing blond hair, sparkling green eyes, and an infuriating gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand. Kylie MacDonald.
“K-Mac,” I said.
“What’s the matter, Six? Did you forget my number?” she said, wrapping both arms around me and giving me a hug.
“How long are we going to keep playing that stupid number game?” I said, inhaling the familiar scent of rosemary-mint shampoo.
“According to the terms of the bet, for as long as we both shall live. Or if we happen to meet in hell, longer than that. How you doing, Six?”
Kylie and I are both natural-born competitors, and a few days after we met and she beat me out of five bucks, we made the granddaddy of all bets. We were each so hell-bent on outperforming the other at the academy that we agreed that after graduation the winner could call the loser by his or her class ranking. Out of 275 recruits, I finished sixth.
“I’m fine,” I said. “How you doing, One?”
“Ah, so you do remember my number,” she said.
“I don’t think you’ll ever let me forget it.”
“And now that we’re partners, I get to remind you every day. I’m so psyched. I can’t believe I got tapped for NYPD Red.”
“I totally believe it,” I said. “You had a major page-one arrest.”
“That bust sold a lot of newspapers, but it pissed off the brass.” She smiled a killer smile. “And don’t tell me you don’t know the details, Zach.”
“I might have heard a few things, but if you promise to keep using my name instead of my number, I won’t ask you if they’re true.”
“Cough it up. What did you hear?”
“You went undercover and nailed a guy who had raped half a dozen nurses.”
“That was in the papers,” she said. “Quit dodging.”
“You weren’t assigned to the case. You did it on your own. Rogue cop. Maverick. Loose cannon.”
“The third woman he raped was my friend Judy. She’s a nurse at Coney Island Hospital. She finished her shift at two in the morning. She’s walking to the subway when this guy jumps her, punches her in the face, and rapes her. She doesn’t even call 911. She calls me, hysterical. I reported it, then spent the night with her in the hospital. Next day I asked to be assigned to the case.”
“And they said no, because you’ve got a personal bias,” I said.
“Show me a female cop who doesn’t have a personal bias against a serial rapist,” she said. “The guy in charge of the investigation was old, lazy, and stupid. He never would have nailed the perp.”
“So Number One decides to go after him on her own.”
“It wasn’t rocket science,” she said. “The guy’s MO never changed. He kept the attacks localized to Brooklyn, and even though he’d switch hospitals, he’d always pick one where there was a long dark walk to the subway.”
“So you dressed up as a nurse and started walking from the hospital to the subway station. How many nights did you go out there?”
“I had seventeen strikeouts. I got him on the eighteenth night.”
“Did you have backup?” I said.
“Zach, I didn’t have any authority, so no, I didn’t have any backup. All I had was my badge and my gun, and it worked.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Lucky for a lot of nurses. Loose cannon or not, I got the job done. If I bent a few rules, tough shit. I have no regrets.”
“Maybe that’s why they sent you here,” I said. “We bend rules all the time.”
“We, Detective Straight Arrow? I know you, Zach, and you are definitely not a rule breaker. You’re a Capricorn to the core. Organized, loves structure, not driven by impulse, a master of restraint.”
“Hey, we can’t all be cowboys.”
“Which is probably why they partnered us up,” she said. “Yin-yang, point-counterpoint—”
“Sane cop, crazy cop,” I said.
“Tell me about your partner
, Detective Shanks,” she said.
“Omar? He’s not as pretty as you. Or as crazy.”
“You know what I’m getting at. How’s his leg, his knee, whatever? I’m only here on probation. When he comes back, they’re going to cut me loose. I want to know how much time I have to impress the hell out of Captain Cates so she keeps me on.”
“You have a few months,” I said. “But I have to warn you, Cates doesn’t impress easily.”
“On the other hand, if you piss her off you’ll be gone before lunch.”
We looked up. It was our boss, Captain Delia Cates.
Kylie stuck her hand out. “Detective Kylie MacDonald, Captain.”
Cates’s cell phone went off. She checked the caller ID. “It’s not even eight o’clock, and the Deputy Mayor in Charge of Annoying the Crap Out of Me has called four times.” She took the call. “Bill, give me five seconds. I’m just wrapping something up.”
She fist-bumped Kylie’s outstretched hand. “Welcome to Red, Detective MacDonald. Morning briefing is in ten. Jordan, I need you in my office before that.”
She pressed the phone to her ear and took off down the hall.
Kylie just stood there. I knew what was going through her head.
“Don’t try to analyze,” I said. “Cates is all business, no foreplay. If you expected a cup of tea and some girl talk, it’s never going to happen. You said ‘hello,’ she said ‘hello.’ Now get to work. And don’t think about trying to impress her. She vetted your file. You wouldn’t be here if she didn’t think you could do the job.”
“That helps,” Kylie said. “Thanks.”
“Hey, that’s what partners are for.”
Chapter 4
HENRY MUHLENBERG CLAMPED his hand down hard over Edie Coburn’s mouth. She sank her teeth into the soft flesh of his palm and threw her head back, but he didn’t let go. The last thing he needed was for some idiot to walk past her trailer and hear her screaming.
Her body convulsed. Once. Twice. Again. Again. She shuddered and went limp in his arms.
He eased his hand off her mouth.
“Get me a cigarette,” she said. “They’re on the counter.”
Muhlenberg slid off the sofa and padded naked to the other side of the trailer. He was twenty-eight, a German wunderkind who made edgy films that critics loved and nobody went to see. Fed up with driving a ten-year-old Opel and living in a one-bedroom flat in Frankfurt, he sold his soul for a Porsche 911, a house in the Hills, and a three-picture film deal.
The first picture had tanked, the second made six mil—a home run for an indie, but in big-studio-speak a colossal failure. If this one didn’t blow the roof off the multiplexes, he’d be back in Deutschland shooting music videos for garage bands.
It was his final at bat, and now that bitch Edie Coburn was screwing it up. He had come to her trailer to negotiate a truce between her and her asshole husband, Ian Stewart, who unfortunately was also her costar. Negotiate? More like grovel.
“Edie, please,” he had said. “We’ve got a full crew and a hundred extras standing around with the meter running. It’s costing the studio a thousand dollars for every minute you refuse to come out and shoot this scene.”
“Ian should have thought of that before he started banging that brainless bundle of silicone and peroxide.”
“You don’t know that for a fact,” he said. “The rumor about Ian and Devon is just that—a rumor. Probably started by some flack at the studio to get advance buzz about the movie.”
“I don’t know about Germany, Herr Muhlenberg, but here in New York, all rumors are true.”
“Look, I’m not a marriage counselor,” he said. “I know you and Ian have problems, but I also know you’re a professional. What’ll it take to get you into wardrobe and onto the set?”
She was wearing a short royal blue kimono with a busy floral and peacock design. She tugged on the sash and the kimono fell to the floor.
Revenge fuck. Muhlenberg complied.
At a thousand bucks a minute, the sex cost the studio fifty-four thousand dollars. Edie wasn’t nearly as good as the underage star of his last film, but if you had to bang a forty-six-year-old diva to save your career, you could do a lot worse than Edie Coburn.
He lit the cigarette for her. She sucked in hard and blew it in his face. “I hope you’re not waiting for a standing ovation,” she said. “This was strictly business.”
“Right,” he said. “Then I can tell Ian we can expect you on the stage in thirty minutes.”
“Yeah. You might want to put some pants on first.”
Chapter 5
“HEIL HITLER,” Ian said, throwing his right arm in the air as Muhlenberg entered his trailer.
It wasn’t funny the first time. It wasn’t funny the hundredth. The director forced a smile.
Without makeup, Ian Stewart looked every day of his fifty-six years. He was a womanizing shit heel with a short fuse and a giant ego. “Russell Crowe Without the Charm,” one tabloid had called him. And Muhlenberg’s career was riding on him.
“I had a little talk with Edie,” Henry said.
“Little talk? You were in her trailer for nearly an hour. What’d you have to do?” he asked, rolling his tongue over his lips.
“Give me a break, Ian. This is your big scene. The one you insisted on. It added over three million dollars to the budget,” Henry said. “I did whatever it took. She’s ready to shoot. Now please, get into makeup before she changes her mind.”
Ian clicked his heels. “Ja, mein Direktor. Danke schön.”
As far as Muhlenberg was concerned, the scene he was about to shoot was a total piece of shit. A black-tie wedding reception. Ian was the groom. Devon Whitaker, the twenty-two-year-old blonde Ian was banging, was the bride. Edie was the ex-wife. She crashed the wedding, gun in hand, and shot the happy couple.
But wait—it was all a dream sequence, so the big ham got to die dramatically on camera and still come back for the rest of the film. All it did was muddy up a script that already had the life sucked out of it by four different writers. But Ian wouldn’t make the movie without it. Wanker.
“Hey, did you hear about Sid Roth?” Ian asked.
“Yeah, I heard he dropped dead over breakfast at the Regency. Heart attack.”
“More like poison if you believe the rumor mill.” Ian laughed. “Doesn’t surprise me. That bastard had so many enemies, it’s a wonder nobody killed him sooner.”
“I can see you’re all broken up about it,” Henry said.
“I’m thrilled,” Ian said. “With Roth dead, I move up another notch on the list of most hated people in show business. Three more and I’ll be in the top ten.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re number one around here,” Henry said. “Heil Hitler.”
Chapter 6
CAPTAIN DELIA CATES is NYPD to the core. Born and raised in Harlem, she’s a third-generation cop with a career path that puts her on the fast track to becoming the city’s first female police commissioner—Columbia University, four years in the Marine Corps, and a master’s in criminal justice from John Jay College.
She’s somewhere north of forty, quite attractive, with dark brown eyes, flawless cocoa skin, and a warm, easy smile. Inside, she’s tougher than a three-dollar steak. She’s also a born leader and the best boss I’ve ever had.
It’s not every day she summons me for a one-on-one, and this morning’s invitation caught me off guard. I walked into her office at 7:55.
It was a typical no-nonsense Cates meeting. She spelled out what she wanted, I responded with a few well-placed “yeses” and “Captains,” and I walked out at 7:56 only slightly more conflicted than when I went in.
I headed for the briefing room and took a seat with Kylie and eleven other detectives. Cates walked in at 8:00 on the nose.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “As you all know, the mayor has rolled out a red carpet three thousand miles long in the hopes of winning the hearts and wa
llets of Hollywood’s movie moguls. Our job is to make them feel welcome and safe. Basically, it’s the same drill we go through every day, but this week we have five times as many people to serve and protect. A lot of the goings-on will be behind closed doors. Meetings, lunches, tours of production facilities—all in controlled environments, a lot of them with their own rent-a-cops.
“But there’s also going to be a number of high-visibility public events, and that brings out the stalkers, the fans, the paparazzi, and a shitload of other crazies. The biggest one is a red carpet shindig tonight at Radio City. I just spoke to the DI at Midtown North, and people are already starting to camp out. We’ll have at least a hundred uniforms working the crowd, plus another thirty in plainclothes, including all of you. The bad news is that this is going to be one damn long day. The good news is that the mayor loosened the purse strings, and there’s plenty of overtime money in the budget.
“Tuesday and Wednesday, there’ll be fewer public events, but you know these folks like to party after a hard day, so take your cell phones to the bathroom with you. Then on Thursday—”
Her cell went off. “See what I mean?”
We all recognized the ring tone. Cates called it her “bat phone.” Anyone who had that number took priority over whatever she was doing at the moment.
She answered. “Captain Cates.” She listened stone-faced for fifteen seconds, then said “We’re on it,” and hung up.
“We’re off to a bad start,” she said. “We have a dead Hollywood producer on the floor of the dining room of the Regency—Sixty-first and Park. Possible homicide. Jordan and MacDonald—get on it.”
I can’t quite explain what happened next. Kylie was up and heading for the door. But I just sat there processing the reality of what had woken me up in the middle of the night. Kylie and I were a team, and we were going out on our first case together. It was quite a rush. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds, but it was three seconds too long for Cates.
“Jordan,” she barked. “Go.”