On her drive to midtown, Heat calmed herself to the rhythm of her wiper blades in the rain. Rook had hit a hot button but apologized, saying he was freaked about that orange string ending on her picture. Nikki cut him slack for that. In fact, she found herself extra vigilant, scanning windows and rooftops outside the precinct on the walk to her car. Even the thunder cracks made her jumpy. By the time she ascended the elevator to Quantum Recovery’s floor, she decided snapping at Rook called for some smoothing over later.
Joe Flynn’s assistant sat with the lights off in her dead boss’s office. Grim midday sun, filtered through rain clouds, erased the colors from the large-format paintings on his walls. The young woman’s eyes were puffy and cried-out. Nikki approached the interview gently, empathically. But her questions about the private investigator’s recent activities, behavior, new clients, etc., brought no more light into that room. The PI’s schedule had been to-pattern; his attitude remained good-humored; he had no conflicts, disputes, or threats in his life. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Flynn had misplaced his iPad, prized because it was a beta version, a gift from Apple after he recovered a lost prototype. It still hadn’t turned up. The assistant said her last communication with Joe Flynn had been when he left the office a few days before. She didn’t find it odd that he didn’t check in, because he did that sometimes when he was on a case. He called it the romance of chasing international art thieves, and had always surfaced, eventually, with jet lag and cool stories. “Did he say where he was going?”
“Not specifically,” said the assistant. “Just to meet someone with information about a stolen painting Joe wanted to recover.”
“The Cézanne?” asked Heat. The assistant raised her head up in surprise. Nikki took out her photocopy of Boy in a Red Waistcoat.
“How’d you know?”
Randall Feller arrived, and Nikki put him on checking phone logs, e-mail, Internet history, and bank records. He suggested his routine checks could wait, and that he should ride shotgun with Heat to her meeting in the Bronx. The detective didn’t take his no easily.
Heat did a little bit of self-talk crossing the Harlem River. Her encounter with Algernon Barrett about a month ago had been contentious and, essentially, nonproductive. Back then, Barrett was a person of interest in her mother’s murder hiding behind his lawyer’s pantsuit, so Nikki bad-copped him into losing his temper to see what shook loose. Nothing did, so this time-especially since she didn’t regard him as a potential murder suspect-she decided to play nice, to be the kinder, gentler cop, and see if that got any more out of him.
The Jamaican had risen from poverty, coming to New York in the early 1990s as an immigrant running illegal horse bets from his sidewalk food cart. His live-in girlfriend, a business major at Fordham, drew up a marketing plan for a company to sell Algernon’s Caribbean spice rub recipes, and within two years, Do the Jerk broke the million-dollar profit ceiling and kept climbing. When Heat pressed the button to announce herself at the driveway on an industrial block of 132nd Street, the iron gates that rolled aside led to the headquarters of a food empire built on the lore of a New American’s success story.
She found the pair as she had left them a month ago. Except for the clothing, Algernon Barrett and his lawyer might have never departed his office. The jerk spice magnate in the track suit sat behind his desk with a turquoise Yankees cap floating atop his shoulder-length dreadlocks. At a side chair, Helen Miksit acknowledged Heat without standing. Nikki began her charm offensive by leading with a smile and energetic handshakes for both.
“Thank you for making the time. You must be busy. I noticed a lot of people lined up in your parking lot. Are you holding a job fair?”
“You don’t have to answer any of that,” said the Bulldog. “Detective Heat, you said you had a few questions about helping you ID suspects. Let’s stick to the agenda.”
Algernon slid off his Kate Spade Vita sunglasses. “I don’t mind. Lets her know I’m not some punk to fuck with, right?” He turned to Nikki. “I’m expanding. The food truck thing is so yesterday, mon. Pop-up stores, that’s the thing. I just secured permits to set up surprise locations at all the prime New York spots. No more playing Where’s the Jerk? on social media. This week people are going to be seeing my Do the Jerk stores springing up at Grand Central, Empire State Building, Columbus Circle, Union Square, outside all the stadiums.” He slipped the Vitas back on. “You want a job?”
“You never know. But congratulations, Mr. Barrett. I’ll have to come by.”
He stood and opened the desk drawer. “I’ll get you a free coupon.” He found one and handed it to her, an oversized fake dollar with his picture in the statesman spot. Helen Miksit then suggested the detective move along to business.
“First of all, Mr. Barrett, you are not under any suspicion. I am merely seeking your help because my mother tutored your daughter in piano…”
“Ah, sweet lady, that Cynthia.”
“… Thank you. Anyway, I wanted you to think back to that time. May I ask if you ever saw any of these people?” She came to the side of the desk and set out twin head shots of Tyler Wynn, one circa 1999, the other present-day. He studied them at length then shook no. When she placed the photo of Salena Kaye on his blotter, Nikki caught a reaction. “What, Mr. Barrett? You recognize her?”
“No, but I’d sure like to. I’d have a fine time with that.” He chuckled salaciously.
“Trust me, you wouldn’t.” She moved on to her last picture: the surveillance shot of Dr. Ari Weiss and François Sisson, Wynn’s Paris doctor, taken as both men talked in the front seat of a parked car.
“I’m sorry,” said the Jamaican. “Don’t know them, either.”
“So we’re done,” said Miksit, getting to her feet. “And by done, we’re done-done, right? My client will be left in peace?”
“Absolutely. But just one more question.” Nikki sat. The lawyer sat, too, but not without checking her watch. “Mr. Barrett, would you try to think back? Do you ever recall seeing my mother with anyone, even if it was before or after those piano lessons?”
He tilted his head toward the acoustical tile to ponder, twirling the end of a dread. He began to shake his head but then said, “You know, one time I remember. I remember because, hoo, I got pissed off.” Heat gently opened her spiral pad. “I got pissed off because my little Aiesha’s lesson got interrupted. See, that day we had our tutoring session in Cynthia’s place in Gramercy Park because I had business in Manhattan. Right in the middle of the lesson, buzz-buzz, someone’s at her door, and Teacher Heat says, ‘pardon me,’ and goes into the hallway, leaving my girl to sit there while she argues with someone.”
“Did you hear what they were arguing about?” Nikki leaned forward in her chair, full of new anticipation.
Miksit stuck her nose in. “Detective, it was over ten years ago, how would he remember what they were arguing about?”
“Money,” said Algernon Barrett. “When somebody talks big money, it’s not something you forget.”
“What money? How big?” asked Heat. “Can you remember?”
“Not only can I remember how much, I remember what your mom said.” Nikki paused her note taking and glued her eyes to him. “Teacher Heat, she say, ‘Two hundred thousand dollars is nothing to you people, so get off my back.’ ”
Barrett had just named the exact amount of FBI seed money Agent Callan gave her mother to bribe her informant. “Did you hear any more of the argument?”