Passing through the precinct lobby Heat tossed the tabloid on the visitor chair beside the hooker waiting for her pimp to be released. Maybe she’d swallow that.
Lunch talk in the bull pen centered on guessing what documents Beauvais took that cost him his life. “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” said Rhymer. “Maybe just the fact that he ripped off the ID theft network was enough. I mean, come on, we’ve all seen how heads of crime families mete out punishment to keep the soldiers in line.”
“Did you just say ‘mete’?” asked Ochoa.
“It’s a legitimate word. Ask our writer.”
Rook hung up the phone at his desk and kick-rolled his chair over to the group, spinning a circle on his trip. “Mete, as taken from the Latin meta, meaning boundary or goal. Plus-ten for Opie.” He scooted over beside Heat. “This just in. Remember Hattie? My new bestest friend from the poultry slaughterhouse?”
“So much for my turkey sandwich.” Nikki wrapped the remainder and set it on her desk.
“I just talked to her.”
“How’d you manage that?” asked Raley. “We’ve been calling and calling, and dropping by her apartment and work, and she’s been MIA.”
“Count the Pulitzers. I’m just sayin’.” Raley gave him two middle fingers to count. Rook continued. “Since they were friends, I wanted to find out from Hattie if Fabian Beauvais ever mentioned any documents. Guess what? He did ask if she could hide something for him. Hattie said yes, but Beauvais never said what it was or gave anything to her. And right after that, he got shot at in Queensboro Plaza. End of conversation.”
“Hang on, though,” said Nikki. “The slaughterhouse manager told us Beauvais showed up at work, injured. Meaning after he’d been shot. Where was Hattie?”
“Away helping her niece through a home detox. She never saw him.”
“So we still don’t know what he was holding, or where it is now,” said Ochoa.
“Without rekindling a squad conflict here,” said Heat, “can I at least throw out the most no-brainer of possibilities? That Beauvais got some goods on Keith Gilbert?”
To her surprise, it was Rook who first jumped in. “Just to keep that ball in the air, it sure gives a reason for some sort of payoff scenario at Conscience Point.”
“But what about Sliney then?” Ochoa’s question had an air of protest.
His partner said, “Could be parallel tracks, Miguel.” Raley held his arms out like train rails. “Beauvais rips off Sliney’s people, Sliney goes after him, track one. Beauvais shakes down Gilbert, Gilbert goes after him, track two.”
“If that’s true,” said Detective Feller, what do you suppose the Haitian had on him? A love letter from a mistress? Evidence of a love child? Some medical secret that would harm his candidacy?”
“Kenyan birth certificate.” said Rook. “Aw, come on, don’t say you weren’t thinking it, too.”
On the walk to her car to drive to the ballistics lab, Heat did what most New Yorkers were doing that day. She made a sky check and found it difficult to believe that in twenty-four hours those hazy, mundane skies would darken with the leading edge of a hurricane. Even with her attention drawn upward, she heard the crunch of sidewalk grit under a shoe, a little too close. She palmed the butt of her weapon and spun.
Heat found her own image reflecting back in Lawrence Hays’s aviators as he stood before her, grinning. “You know, even with your hand on that Sig I could still draw and shoot you before you cleared leather. If I wanted to.”
“I might surprise you.”
“You’d have to.”
She assessed him and felt no threat. He even took a step back and kept his hands visible. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The CEO of Lancer Standard seemed to be enjoying himself. He held up the first two fingers of his right hand, a plain-view sign of nonlethal intent, and dipped them into his front-jacket pocket. He came out with a slip of paper and offered it. When she opened it, she saw a Bronx address written there. “How recent?” Nikki asked.
“You’re welcome” was all he said. Then Hays strode off toward Amsterdam Avenue. She noticed the slight limp, verification that this was personal.
Heat put the assault plan together quickly, first dispatching Roach, Feller, and Rhymer up to the Bronx neighborhood to stake out the address in case Zarek Braun left. While they positioned themselves to observe, Nikki coordinated with the Emergency Services Unit to rustle up a SWAT team, then contacted the Forty-eighth Precinct about setting up traffic control. The idea was to keep people out and create choke points to keep her suspect in. None of this was new; Nikki had organized these raids more times than she could count.
But this one carried an extra crackle. “No room for mistakes,” she told the incursion team — and herself — as they armored-up in the staging area around the corner from the house. She envisioned Braun’s calm expression emptying the HK at her. Played back the mental picture of the scars and burns on the torso of Lawrence Hays. “Always think cover. Always just think.”
ESU had already taken survey photos of the building before she got up there, and she spread them on the hood of her Interceptor to familiarize herself with the ways in and of the exposure hazards. Next Heat knelt behind a junker refrigerator on a corner patch of lawn to scan the block with binoculars. This was an economically depressed area with a mix of abandoned duplexes and run-down saltbox cottages. In the growing dark she could make out Halloween decorations on some of the graffiti-tagged neighborhood doors. “You’ve cleared the surrounding houses?” she confirmed with the ESU commander.
“Affirm.”
“Don’t want any kids walking into this.” Satisfied all was ready, she said, “We’ll go in five.” Heat rose up from her hide and saw the worst possible thing she could see at that moment. Captain Wallace Irons, who must have bought his body armor at a big and tall came waddling up the street tugging Velcro and checking his sidearm.
When he reached her, Wally said, “What the hell is he doing here?” Rook finger waved from where he was standing off to the side in his personal bulletproof vest that read JOURNALIST instead of NYPD.
“Observing.”
“This is a police-only, restricted area.”
“Yes, sir, I know, but I have everything in hand. Rook is going to lag back with you while I go in.”
“Change of plan,” said Wally. “I am leading this incursion.”
“Sir, with all due respect—”
“Then you will respect a direct order from your commander, Detective.” He took in the staging area looking to Heat more like a cloddy equipment manager hanging with the jocks. “Don’t you think I hear all the talk? How I’m an armchair cop? Well, that gets put to rest here and now.” He swiveled his head. Protruding from his flak vest he could have been a turtle poking out of his shell. “Where’s my ESU CO?”
“Here, sir.” The commander of ESS-3 stepped forward.
“You boys in position?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That the house?”
“It is.”
“Show me your position map.” Wally bodychecked Heat aside and the ESU leader performed his show-and-tell using the chart Heat had marked up. Irons asked no questions. After the briefing he turned to Heat. “You’re backup.”
“Sir, may I ask you to reconsider?”
The captain persisted, talking right over her. “Stay here. Make your move when I go in.” He turned back to the ESU commander. “Follow me.” And just that rapidly, just that recklessly, just that narcissistically, the Iron Man hustled across the street where he crouched behind a parked car, paused, and led the Go Team to the front door of the cottage.