“Enjoy yourselves. This is all talk.”
“No, I have the documents,” said Alicia. “I noticed some things had been moved in my garage and found a manila envelope hidden under my golf bag a few days after the shooting—after you told me you’d handle everything. I kept it, in case someday one of the things you decided to handle was me. Same reason I kept the gun instead of throwing it in the ocean like I told you I did.”
Gilbert scoffed. “You’re bullshitting. If you even do have any documents—”
“Oh, I do,” said Alicia to Heat. “In a friend’s safe-deposit in Sag Harbor.”
“Doesn’t matter. Doctored papers with no verification? Illegally obtained? By fucking lowlife, Third World scavengers? My lawyers would suppress without breaking a sweat. You’ve shown nothing here linking me to any of this.”
Nikki flopped back in her chair and searched the faces of her squad. “He’s right. I hate to say it, but he’s right.”
“About fucking time.” Gilbert rose to leave.
“So there’s only one thing left to do.” Heat nodded, and Detective Raley bent over the video controls.
“Can I say it?” asked Rook.
Raley said, “You got it.”
Rook stood up. “Cue the zombies.”
The harsh scraping of a creaking door filled the conference room, but it wasn’t from Keith Gilbert leaving. In fact, upon hearing it, he took his palm off the brushed aluminum handle and turned to gape at the flat screen with everyone else.
It was nighttime on the video, and the camera panned across dark forms lying on sand. This was amateur handheld stuff—uneven moves and a rocking horizon. But the audio sounded professional-grade, especially the wolf howl that had to have come from a sound effect recording. Then a familiar—even iconic—musical beat began, and the dark forms all stood up at once, revealing dozens of young people in tattered rags and hokey stage makeup.
Zombies.
When the colossal signature notes of Michael Jackson’s Thriller sounded, the splash of brass and organ raised gooseflesh on Heat. The song always had that impact, even as a little girl, but more so at that moment as she watched her prime suspect tugging at his goatee, watching the case against him become undead. “You recognize this, Keith?” she shouted over the din. On the giant LED behind her, college students threw their heads back, stomped, and rotated in choreographed unison, lit by moonlight and flaming tiki torches.
“Let me refresh your memory,” Nikki said. “That’s your backyard at Cosmo. And this is the Thriller flash mob one of my detectives found posted on YouTube.” Over at the video deck, Raley took a slight bow.
“So? It was annoying then, and it’s annoying now.”
She took a step nearer so she wouldn’t have to yell. “I know. So annoying that you called the police.”
Rook did a Vincent Price impression. “For terrorizing yawl’s neighborhood.”
The music on the video abruptly stopped and the dance lines sputtered to a halt as several Southampton cops arrived on the scene. One of the undead, through a blistered, ash-blue face with one side melting, said something like, “We’re just having a beach party” to a policeman.
“I don’t see why this is relevant,” boomed Gilbert, in a voice still pitched to be heard over the music. But just as he said it, there was a chorus of boos from the college kids. The camera operator panned to the edge of the mob and zoomed to Keith Gilbert who was in animated discussion with another cop, a uniformed sergeant.
He was far enough away that only pieces of his diatribe could be picked out. Snippets came though like “my fucking taxes,” and “private property” that were as embarrassing as they were trite. Nikki wondered how many times law enforcement in wealthy neighborhoods had to endure those words. Then Heat saw what she was waiting for and called to Raley, “OK, Sean, right there.”
The video froze on a still vignette of the patient Southampton Village police sergeant, the irate Cosmo resident, and several men who were standing behind him. They were in the dim shadows, but recognizable to those who knew Nicholas Bjorklund, Roderick Floyd, and Zarek Braun. The first two men, Heat had killed when they attacked her in Chelsea. The third man was quite alive. Nikki didn’t turn, but she heard him sniff back sharply at the other end of the table. Gilbert said nothing. His eyes pinballed in their sockets as he scrambled to access his next lie.
“And just in case you are you still going to contend you never met this gentleman.…” Heat signaled to Raley who resumed play of the YouTube show. The camera jounced as the operator drew closer to the complainant and the cop. Just as the lens arrived, Gilbert walked over, put his arm around Zarek Braun’s shoulder and whispered something. The mercenary, dressed for leisure in an untucked Nat Nast bowling shirt, nodded in agreement—or obedience. The property owner nosed up to the sergeant and said, “If you won’t take care of it, my security will.”
And the signature Thriller notes blasted, punctuating the threat as the video jumped to a disappointed flash mob dispersing. When the credit said THE END, Rook applauded.
Nobody else clapped, but Heat flashed a smile to Raley, who retained his title as her King of All Surveillance Media for catching the notation in his Murder Board quadrant about the otherwise minor flash mob complaint, and drilling down.
The commissioner palmed the table to steady himself and sat back down. Heat sauntered to the other end of the room and stood behind Zarek Braun. “Zarek, I am going to give you one final opportunity to talk.” At the opposite end of the mahogany, Gilbert lasered him with a ruthless stare.
“I have nothing to say.”
“You’re sure about that? Think. It may be the most important decision of your life.” The hired killer didn’t reply, except to twist to peer up at her and then turn away in disregard.
“Your choice.” Then Nikki said, “Miguel?”
Detective Ochoa went to the door and hand signaled to someone through the glass.
Keith Gilbert had no idea who the man was who entered the room, but he must have been alarmed by Zarek Braun’s reaction. Heat watched orange denim bunch at his shoulders at the sight of his former employer from Lancer Standard, Lawrence Hays. “Do you two know each other? It’s a small world, I guess.”
Heat made her way to the middle of the conference table for a view of Braun, and he of her. “Thank-you for coming on short notice, Mr. Hays.”
“Wouldn’t pass this up.”
“Zarek, I should probably fill you in,” said Nikki. “I have been in contact with federal officials about you. CIA, in particular. There seems to be a high degree of interest in you. So, in the spirit of interagency cooperation, I have received the go-ahead to employ this gentleman’s firm, a known special services contractor to the United States government, to provide you secure transport today.”
The prisoner spoke for the first time, and he did not sound like such a cool customer. “…Where?”
“Now, that wouldn’t be very secure, would it?” Heat slipped him a sympathetic grin. “But, since you have made it clear you have nothing to offer me, I see no reason to hold up whatever plans the feds have for you. Mr. Hays, are you set?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve got a Gulfstream 450 all fueled up in Westchester, set to roll. You ready to take a little trip, Z-Bra?”
Zarek Braun stared at the man he had failed to kill and knew all the consequences that would come under his supervision. Zarek could imagine the black hood. The rendition. The lengthy, unspeakable physical and psychological tortures that would leave him gasping, pleading to die. He knew these things because he had inflicted them himself routinely over the years. The whole history of their savage, warring ways played out in the milliseconds of their held stares. The hollow silence of that instant felt like the eternity after the metallic snap of a rifle bolt in the dark.
The mercenary disconnected from Lawrence Hays, passed his glance above
Gilbert so he would not see him, and came to rest on Heat. Nikki recognized the dispirited eyes of defeated soldiers from textbooks and war documentaries. But the detective held no sympathy for this one. Especially when she heard his statement.
“I first worked for him providing elite security on his cargo ships to keep the Somali pirates from hijacking them. Now and then I would do other odd jobs for him. For this assignment, he called me in after he fucked things up trying to handle the payoff himself.”
“Who called you in?” Heat pressed for detail so that he knew this was for the record. “I want you to say the name.”
As his last futile attempt at defiance, he flared. “Him, Keith Gilbert. Did you not understand who I am talking about?”
Nikki took a seat and angled it toward Braun. “What did Keith Gilbert ask you to do? Specifically.”
“What it is that I do. Take him out.”
“He told you to kill Fabian Beauvais?”
“Jesus, yes. Jasna cholera, he said to kill him. Kill him and to make the problem go away.”
“Including killing Jeanne Capois?”
“That was not specified. But I am not stupid. When a problem needs to go away, I know what that means, right?”
“So you also killed Jeanne Capois as part of your contract with Gilbert?”
“Yes.”
Heat suppressed a lilt of excitement. The Port Authority commissioner had bent over with his elbows on his thighs and practically had his chin on the table while his hit man sang. She tamped down the thrill because she wasn’t there yet; there were still details—vital stuff—that were necessary to get on record to lock the case down. If that worked, there’d be ample time to do a happy dance.
“How did you come to kill Fabian Beauvais.”
“Can I tell you a funny thing? That was an accident.” Zarek laughed alone. “OK, not so funny he died, but I was meant to kill him later.”
“Mr. Braun,” said Heat, “how did you come to kill Fabian Beauvais?”
“I had him at my hide.”
“Up in the Bronx?”
“That place, yes. I needed to find out who else knew about this blackmail, this, how you say…extortion information. I worked on him good. But he was stubborn. I thought fuck it. I knew Mr. Gilbert flew in from Southampton on his helicopter, so I had the pilot pick me up after it dropped him off for his speech. So the chopper picked us up in Crotona Park near my place, and I took the bastard for a little thrill ride to loosen his tongue.” He paused, sharing a brief, knowing look to Hays. “It is a legitimate technique of interrogation.”
Heat had an idea, but needed it said. “Describe it.”
“It is a terrifying thing to behold a potential fall from great heights. Men talk. They always do. Beauvais talked. He fought hard, very hard. But he gave up this fiancée. The maid on West End Avenue.” Nikki’s heart clinched at imagining Fabian’s anguish at giving up his lover in terror, and of the indelible picture of Jeanne Capois at her murder scene as a result.
“After the Haitian talked, I brought him in the hatch. The plan was to drop him over the ocean, past the Rockaways. But he still had fight. His hands were zip tied, but he tried to butt my head. I smacked him. A little too hard, huh? Out he went.”
And then came the shared thought of the detectives and Rook. Each one rerunning the tourist video taken outside the planetarium that had captured Beauvais’s plummet into the glass.
Rook said, “I thought there was no reported copter traffic that morning.”
“Only police and government,” said Ochoa, who directed himself to Gilbert. “Government chopper. Son of a bitch.…”
Nikki steered Zarek Braun back on track. “So Fabian Beauvais’s information led you to the home invasion? You and your guys did that, too?”
“Completing the assignment, lady.”
“Even if it meant killing an old man?”
“Shit happens.”
“And why did you torture Jeanne? Why not just kill her?”
“Because her boy gave up that she was talking to some filmmaker. The maid cashed out before we got a name or address.”
“So you followed me to Chelsea,” said Nikki.
“Where you killed my two best men.”
“Shit happens.”
Nikki took a moment to run everything in her head. She’d been through this once before with unhappy results. Satisfied, she stood and surveyed her people: Raley, Ochoa, Feller, Rhymer, and finally, Rook. She wordlessly checked them for assent. They all gave her good-to-go nods.
“Stand up, please,” she said when she reached the head of the table.
This time, as Detective Heat read off the charges for his arrest, Commissioner Keith Gilbert, billionaire, power broker, senatorial hopeful, and golf buddy with the mayor, did not bite back. Like Hurricane Sandy, his bluster, too, had become a spent force. This time he knew Heat had nailed him.
That night, with the blackout from the massive arc at the Con Ed plant still darkening the lower half of Manhattan, Rook said he couldn’t see the point of roughing it in their apartments and, after several calls, managed to score a junior suite at the Excelsior Hotel uptown, a lovely spot to camp out. He was in the shower when she came in, exhausted from the day, the week, the everything. Nikki announced herself from the bedroom then noticed he must have gone back down to Gramercy Park. A half dozen of her outfits hung tidily in the closet. He’d even brought shoes.
Over the stream of the shower, Rook put on a goofy show for her, singing “Reunited and it feels so good.”
“You know,” she called through the open bathroom door, “that would be fifty percent less creepy if you weren’t in there alone.” Which made him stop. But then he started again, only this time, belting out a Vegas lounge spoof of “After the Lovin’.” Nikki might have laughed if she didn’t feel the shadow of a pending, very big conversation looming over her.
Toweled and wearing one of the hotel’s plush terry robes, he joined her in the sitting area and poured them each a glass of Hautes-Côtes de Nuits from the bottle in the ice bucket. “Nice digs,” she said after they toasted.
“You kidding? It has everything. Electricity, electricity, and electricity. Plus, it’s an easy walk to the precinct. And check out the view.” He took her to the window and parted the drape, revealing the twinkling Upper West Side skyline, and more prominently, the Hayden Planetarium directly across the street. “Hm, makes it kind of a busman’s holiday, huh.”
“A little.” It had been just over a week since Fabian Beauvais crashed into that museum; now there was no trace of the event. The giant powder blue orb glowed as usual inside the glass cube that illuminated the neighborhood with its gentle glow. She found the couch and her glass of wine. “Thanks for picking out some clean clothes for me.”
“My pleasure. But just to be clear, this suite is clothing-optional. In fact, see this sash?” He waved the loose end of the robe’s belt and gave a licentious flick of his brow. “Guess what happens when you pull this.”
Heat smiled thinly. “Hey, now there’s a turn on.” She didn’t fault him for being playful. Nikki was busy feeling the weight of the confrontation on the horizon.
He joined her on the sofa and they talked, both deciding against any tube. Besides, Rook had watched the news all night and gave her the summary. Mostly it was about the devastation on Staten Island and along the Jersey shore. Little or no looting, in spite of the blackout. “Oh, and on News 3 @ 10, Opal Onishi was Greer Baxter’s guest on “Greer and Now,” showing clips from her Jeanne Capois interview.”
“That’s good.…I guess.” Nikki tried to balance mixed feelings about self-promotion versus getting the message out about human trafficking, and decided it wasn’t her call to make.
Of course the only other non-Sandy news was the rearrest of Keith Gilbert. “You know that cardboard crown I gave Raley fo
r being the media king? I should do better than that after he found that flash mob video.”
“See? Early on I knew zombies figured into this case somewhere. And you dismissed me.”
“Rook, you’re like that broken clock you hear about that’s right twice a day.”
He grinned. “I’m sorry, the only thing I heard was something about me being right.” She gave him a swat. “What’s happening at the Twentieth with the interim dude?”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been there yet. We processed Keith Gilbert at the nearest precinct, the One-three. When I was finishing, I got a call to drive to the OEM headquarters in Brooklyn.”
“Office of Emergency Management? Why there?”
“Because everyone from One PP is over there. Commissioners, Commander McMains, The Hammer.…” Heat looked down and used a finger to scoop a cork crumb out of her glass. “I guess I got back on their radar today. They wanted to meet with me about the job on the task force.”
“And they offered it to you?”
She wiped the cork on a napkin and brought her eyes up to meet his, knowing how emotionally loaded this subject was, but getting it on the table, at last. “Yes.”
“And what did you tell them?” He held up a hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me. I mean not yet. I just remembered. I want to show you something first. Don’t move.”
Rook dashed out of the room with his robe parting in a most undignified way. She heard the zip of his overnight bag and he came out, hiding something behind his back. Keeping his hand hidden he rejoined her on the couch. Nikki’s mouth felt dry. The wine wasn’t quenching it.
“OK,” he said, “where do I start? Recently, while I was in Paris, I made a quick side trip to one of my favorite jewelers in the Marais.”
“Oh, really?…” The college theater arts actress in Nikki hoped she sold ignorance to him.
“Why, you may ask? Because…last spring I had left him my mother’s antique engagement ring to put a bigger diamond in the setting, and I wanted to pick it up.” He brought his hand from behind his back and opened a bag—the one she had spotted in his kitchen trash can—and pulled out a small case that he opened and held out to her. “What do you think of the job he did on Mom’s ring?”