They didn’t walk to the bedroom, they were transported as if airborne through the fluid darkness, and fell onto the comforter to kiss again and then pause, breathing, wondering at the hoarse cadence their excitement had created and staring at each other, absorbing the power of the moment and what they knew was to follow.
Still locked in her eyes, Rook let his hand drift, exploring, finding her just as Nikki’s hand found him. The lust they had been taunting, that deep mortal hunger pulling against its restraints, came to life.
After that, any sense of their being apart was vanquished.
In the murky span of the hammock hours between too late and too early, Heat and Rook stayed awake and talked. Exhausted, spent, it didn’t matter. They craved this as much as the lovemaking they had just shared. Nose to nose on a single pillow, he told Nikki how picturing her face kept him going when he had had no idea what fate would befall him as a captive—where, and at whose hands, he didn’t know. Over his storied journalistic career Rook had been abducted and imprisoned before. Once in Chechnya. Twice in Africa. In Paris, it had happened to both of them one night when they got snatched from the Place des Vosges for a ride in the trunk of a car courtesy of a paranoid Russian spy who wanted a secret meeting in the woods outside the city. “Bon temps,” she said with a chuckle.
“I’m sorry for the mill I put you through,” he said.
“We both had our ordeals. Not the first. I have a feeling it won’t be the last.” She shrugged and stroked the hair off his forehead with her fingertips.
“That’s my tousled look you’re messing with,” he said. “Part of the ruggedly handsome persona I work so effortlessly to maintain.”
Nikki laughed at that, then he nestled his cheek into her and spoke into the soft space where her neck met her collarbone. “It’s good to hear you laugh.”
“You always get me out of my serious self. That’s why I keep you around, if you didn’t know.”
“Not the sex?”
“Part of the package.”
“Pardon your pun.”
“Writer boy. Always on the clock.” After a minute or so of silence, feeling his chest rise and fall against her breast, she said. “I really did panic that I had lost you. I thought, what if we’d seen our last snowfall together? Or would I ever again watch you do your butt dance Saturday mornings to the WBGO Rhythm Revue?”
“That sweet soul music puts a shake in this moneymaker, for sure.”
“Or would we ever make it to Nice on a vacation?”
“Hold on,” he said. “I thought you said I’d permanently tainted Nice by having a rendezvous there with Yardley Bell.”
“And you think I want Yardley Bell dominating my life like that? Removing geographic leisure options?”
“Hey, here’s an idea. What about Nice for our honeymoon!” Then he read her. “Right, that would just be creepy.”
Scooting up on one elbow, Nikki looked down at him in the duskiness of the bedroom. “Anyway, all this is what put me in such a tailspin the other night. I don’t need Joni Mitchell to tell me to appreciate what I’ve got before it’s gone.”
Rook frowned. “Canadians. Always so earnest and introspective. I think it’s the long winters up there. I prefer to be less about the talk, and more about the action.”
“I noticed,” said Nikki. “My turn.” She rolled him onto his back and got on top.
After her morning shower, Heat dressed to Eyewitness News, the local ramp to GMA, and the lead was the same as it had been for most of the week: the cyber attack that had left municipal services in chaos. The new wrinkle was the leak from an insider in the city’s Management Information Systems Division who said the feds, admitting complete frustration, had brought in black hatters—unreformed hackers—in a desperate attempt to find the elusive solution to the crisis. Echoing what the FBI had told Nikki days before, the unnamed source said that every time they thought they had a fix, the attack would shift, putting them back at square one. “Sounds like Whack-A-Mole to me,” said one coanchor to the other.
Meanwhile, even though Damascus continued to disavow any responsibility, the secretary of state was seen arriving in Paris, purportedly for off-the-record talks with the Syrians. “A long way to fly for the reiteration of a denial,” said Rook when Heat recapped the story for him. “They should just tell everyone, whatever they need, just go to the local branch of their public library.”
She poured herself a cup from what was left of the pot he’d made an hour before, and asked, “What the hell are you doing there—working out a system for Powerball?” Before him on the dining table in the great room Rook had spread sheets of paper upon which he had been scrawling numbers before crossing them out and starting a new page.
“If you must know, I’m trying to remember the phone number I saw that mouth breather from the barge use to call Black Knight.” He slapped his pencil down in irritation and drew a deep sigh. “It’s driving me batshit.” He brandished some of the pages, which replicated digits from the phone keypad of a cell phone—some of the digits. Each page had gaps and sloppy cross-outs. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing. It just looks a little—”
“Mad?” he said with wild eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was goofing or not. She knew that obsessed look from the times when he couldn’t get the modem to reset or locate a phantom high-pitched mechanical whine in the alley below his office window.
“Maybe if you let it go—”
“I can’t!…Let it go.” He smiled. “OK, that was a little crazy, wasn’t it?” She rocked her head side to side. “Yuh, thought so.” He sipped some cold coffee and leaned back, willing calm upon himself. “I just feel like I should have this nailed.”
“You’re proud of your phone surfing, I know.”
“It’s not pride. Well, a little. But, what it really is, is wanting to get some damned traction on this story.” He corrected himself. “Case, I mean case.”
Nikki sat with him. “It’s all right. It can be both. I know it’s a story, too. And I know there might be another Pulitzer Prize for you, that would be nice. You could embroider another gold coin on your flak vest.”
He got a chuckle out of that. He wouldn’t be Rook if he couldn’t see his own folly. Then he said, “Yeah, yeah, we joke about the Pulitzers. The Pulitzers are fine, I suppose. Not that I don’t love them. I have two, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“But the awards aren’t the goal. They just follow. You know I do this because it makes a difference, don’t you? I’ve exposed arms dealers supplying terrorists, diamond smugglers, human traffickers…And now I can help blow the whistle on Tangier effing Swift and his safety cover-up. That means I have a chance to save lives. Who can say that about what they do?”
“Doctors, nurses, first responders, suicide hotline counselors…”
“OK, yes, this is how we joke about my Pulitzers. Ha-ha, L-O-L, winking emoji, hashtag–you made your point.”
“No, I hear you,” said Heat. “And love you for that fire you have.”
“You have it, too, Nik. It’s what we share. And I want to see this through. I may not be able to get justice for those crash victims—or, now, the murder victims—but when my article comes out, there won’t be any more lives wasted.”
“So go to it. And leave the justice part to me. And if you’re going to insist on jotting down your numbers, why don’t you do it with something worthy of your quest?”
She went to her coat draped on the barstool and came back with the box from the Fountain Pen Hospital. He took it, removed the lid, and found his Hemingway Montblanc nestled in a felt liner. He carefully unscrewed the cap to examine the new nib, then looked up at her with tender eyes. “I’m speechless…I can’t believe you touched my good pen.”
Heat and Rook had a surprise waiting when they arrived at the precinct that morning. Nikki spotted the red satin track suit through the glass doors while she was still on the sidewalk and gave Rook a muttered “What is t
his?” to go with an elbow jab. Her curiosity only grew when she passed the Wall of Heroes, got a full view of the lobby, and saw that not only was Fat Tommy there but beside him in the visitors’ chairs sat none other than Joseph Barsotti. In that tableau, instead of a journeyman mobster and his muscle, the pair resembled an irascible senior and the dutiful grandson who insisted on waiting with Pop-Pop to make sure he got on the right bus.
But prudent caution made Heat eye-sweep them for signs of weapons and ascertain that they were the only ones there, except for the desk sergeant behind the ballistic glass. From police stations to shopping malls, no place was truly benign to Heat anymore, nor was anyone, hospice-bound or otherwise.
“Thank God you guys start early,” said Fat Tommy. “Been a long night at the Wheel, and I’m ready for bed.”
“Mr. Nicolosi.” Heat calculated her greeting to keep it cool. Chillier yet for Barsotti, whom she didn’t acknowledge. He was on her shit list for refusing to cooperate after being such a pain to apprehend.
“Come on, doll, everybody calls me Fat Tommy.” He tugged at the loose fabric of his jumpsuit. “For now.” He hauled himself to his feet with some effort and spread his arms for Rook. “Come on, big fella, bring it in.” After a careful hug of the frail old man, Rook took a step back, and Tommy cupped a hand on his jaw. “You had me worried, you know that? When that detective came to check me out, see if I kidnapped you, I shit myself. Not literally, but that’s coming next, I’m waiting. Mind if I…?” He indicated the gaudy plastic chair and Rook and Barsotti eased him back down into the form-fitting ass mold.
Heat made a clock check. “Is there something we can help you with? Otherwise, if you came to see how Rook was doing—”
“Can you help me? You’ve got that backwards, Nikki Heat. I’m here to help you.”
“I’m listening.”
Fat Tommy adjusted the angle of his big sunglasses. That seemed to alter his demeanor at the same time. The Goodfellas act went out the window, and the mobster grew steely and severe in a way that gave Nikki a minor chill. “I wasn’t kidding about getting pissed when I heard somebody fucked with your boyfriend. Rook’s always been stand-up with me. We don’t need to get into details, but I respect this man. Time for me to show it. Now, I don’t know if what you wanted out of my associate has anything to do with whoever kidnapped him. But in case it does, I am here to give you Joseph Barsotti with my blessing for him to cooperate.”
Nikki regarded Barsotti, who gave her a shrug of assent. “Well,” she said. “That is most appreciated, Fat Tommy.”
“Hear that?” said Rook. “She called you Fat Tommy.”
“About fucking time.” Then, as Barsotti went through the metal detector and into the precinct with Heat and Rook, Tommy called after to her. “And smart move ditching that uniform. You’ve got too much going on to hide it.”
Rook turned to her as the door closed. “Wouldn’t it be funny if that’s the real reason he came? To mentally undress you?” Nikki gave him a stony look. “Perhaps more ironic than funny,” he said. “Let’s go with that.”
Heat made a quick stop in her office to take a moment to formulate a strategy. Over the years she had learned that the most powerful tool an interrogator has is an objective to work toward. With this opportunity sprung on her unexpectedly, she didn’t want to blow it, and so a pause to reflect would be time well spent. Once she had an idea, she gathered the materials she would need into her file, then made a few quick status checks.
Detective Aguinaldo had managed to track down some of her former Military Police colleagues from Creech AFB. “One of my MP buds remembered an incident with one Airman Timothy Maloney. He had been called in to investigate a sexual harassment claim and discovered that the enlisted man had been spying on a female officer—wait for it—with a hobby-grade drone. No charges were filed, because Maloney claimed he’d lost control of it. Nonetheless, they kicked him out of the base’s amateur drone club.”
So Yardley Bell’s information was confirmed, that Maloney had not been a USAF drone op, but he had gotten bitten by the UAV bug at Creech. The question for Heat was whether he had left his toys in Nevada, or brought the hobby to New York—with lethal consequences?
Raley gave her the report that there had been a sighting overnight of a pickup truck matching the description of Nathan Levy’s 450 in the parking lot of the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia. Port Authority PD had run a check, and it came up registered to a caterer from Edison, New Jersey. Both George Gallatin and her stolen car were still unaccounted for, with the APB still being repeated on her scanners.
Detective Rhymer confirmed Wilton Backhouse’s whereabouts the previous day, which didn’t surprise her. “The professor indeed was scheduled for, and personally conducted, a lab at Hudson University at the time he said on the subject—get this: ‘Velocity, Spin, Frictional Coefficient, and Impact Angle.’” He looked up from his notes. “Sounds like a porn title.”
“Maybe in Virginia,” Heat said with a grin.
If it had been anyone other than Joseph Barsotti, a career scumbag, Heat would have set up a more informal interview in the relatively relaxed setting of the conference room. But once on the shit list, it’s a complicated process getting off of it. So, after a pat-down to make sure he knew this wasn’t a social visit, she and Rook sat across from him in one of the interrogation rooms.
Her plan was to press Barsotti as the prime suspect in the killing of Lon King. Although that didn’t seem likely to Heat, given the investment Fat Tommy had in keeping his debtor alive, the enforcer didn’t know that, and would be more pliable if he was trying to beat a homicide rap. So that is how Nikki cut the ribbon on the interrogation, coming at him hard with questions about his firearms and permits, his arrest jacket for violent offenses, and repeatedly using phrases like, “the last time you saw Lon King alive…” Without the protection of his mob code of silence, Barsotti grew fidgety and his eyes darted around. Heat liked that. And once she had him in a more vulnerable place, she zeroed in on what she really wanted to know.
“If you expect me to believe you didn’t kill Lon King, you’d better give me something I can get my teeth into. Something real. Otherwise, it’s you, Joe.” Heat knew Barsotti wasn’t the killer, but making him worry that he might take the fall for a murder was great leverage to get him to talk about things she needed out of him—and she was going to use it.
“What can I tell you other than I didn’t do the guy?” he whined. Nikki always paid attention to hands. Barsotti’s were large, be-ringed, and had empurpled knuckles. She pictured him giving the beat-down to that exotic dancer and was glad she’d held a hard line with him.
“You’ve got to give me everything you saw. How long were you dogging King?”
“I dunno, a few days?”
Heat slapped a hand down, making him jump. “You dunno?”
Rook tilted his head toward the man and gave him a sympathetic face. “Trust me, pal. If I were you, I’d start knowing.”
“A week. Not every single day. Six. Six days.” He looked at Rook and got a reassuring wink in return.
Nikki slid a blank yellow pad and a ballpoint to him. “Write ’em down. Dates, times, places. Soon as we’re done.” Barsotti nodded. “I also want to know about any unusual activity around King.”
“He was a shrink. Everything was unusual.”
She heard a soft “Ahem” for her benefit from Rook, but kept her gaze on Barsotti. “You’re not helping me, which means you are definitely not helping yourself. Give me specifics. You were pretty much stalking him, right?”
“I wouldn’t use that word…” He caught Rook’s cautioning head wag. “Yes. I watched him. But only so I could pick my spot to persuade him to repay his debt.”
“Did you notice anyone else watching him?”
He paused. “Yeah.”
“You’d better not be saying this to please me, because if you’re lying, I’ll know. It won’t be good.” Heat had him emotionally where she
needed him and slid a photo from under the cover of her file. “Ever see this man?”
“Oh him, fuck yeah. He’s off the chain.” He handed the picture of Timothy Maloney back across the table like he might catch something from it.
“Tell me.”
“I made—let’s call it an office visit—to provide incentive to Lon King about his gambling debt. When I got there, a big argument was going on in the waiting room. That guy was reaming out King while everyone else freaked.
“Everyone like who?”
“Patients, I guess. I took a hike. But I did hear the fucker say he was going to kill King.” He waited and continued. “He said he was going to kill him. You didn’t write that down.”
Heat flicked a forefinger at the yellow pad in front of Barsotti. “You write it down.” Then she took out another photo from her file and dealt it to him across the table. “What about this guy? Ever see him?” He studied it a moment and nodded. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. A couple of times. Basically just hanging out at the medical building. I thought he was a doctor or something. But I remember seeing him.”
“I’m going to ask you to think. Get a calendar if you need one, and give me the dates and times.” Heat suppressed the exhilaration she felt, and she could tell from her connection to the man beside her that Rook was right there with her. She took the photo back and left.
Heat and Rook speed-strode the hall and into the bull pen. “We may have just gotten some traction,” she announced. The homicide squad gathered around. “Look who Joseph Barsotti just ID’d as someone he saw hanging around Lon King’s office multiple times.” Nikki posted the photo from her file on the Murder Board. “Eric Vreeland.”