“Just sayin’, Mike’s finding it all a bit intimidating.”
“It’s not like he doesn’t know me better than I know myself.”
“Hey, girl. Vickee and I assumed you’d road tested and rejected all the warm and fuzzy types, the Latin lovers like Luc who darling’ed you to death. You have deliberately chosen new territory. Going Wolverine on us. Brooding, moody, and pound for pound the toughest creature out in the wild. You ought to realize you’ve settled on the most solitary animal I know. Anybody else in your world live in a black box?”
Mike’s studio apartment, not very far from the high-rise co-op in which I lived, was such a tiny walk-up-dark and short on décor-that he had long ago dubbed it “the coffin.”
We were approaching the front of Patroon. The owners, Ken and Di Aretsky, were dear friends of mine who made us comfortable whenever we arrived, and I had a mad crush on Stephane, the maître d’ who saw to it that my glass was never empty.
“Why is it we women always think we can change guys?”
Mercer pulled open the heavy red door. “I know you like a challenge, Alex, but there’ll be no turning this dude into something he isn’t.”
The super-efficient hostess, Annie, kissed me on both cheeks before turning me over to Stephane, whose French accent charmed all comers. “Very late for you two, no?” he asked. “Monsieur Chapman is waiting for you on the roof. Ça va?”
“Très bien, Stephane,” I said, as he led us to the small elevator.
On the fourth-floor rooftop, a smartly designed space featuring an enormous wraparound bar cooled by a canopy holding large overhead fans, Mike was in an animated conversation with Ken Aretsky. The gaggle of thirtysomethings that made this site such a popular attraction was still three deep, many of them sipping pastel-colored confections while hatching hookup plans.
“This looks too serious for me,” Ken said, holding up both hands and yielding his stool to me as Mercer and I approached. “Mike was just telling me about the murder. You three have your work cut out for you.”
Ken caught the bartender’s attention and circled his finger in our direction before tapping his chest. The first round was his treat. He moved on to greet other customers as we started to talk.
“Dewar’s on the rocks for me,” I said.
“Double down on Blondie’s drink, will you?” Mike said, ordering another Ketel One martini for himself and one for Mercer.
I had an elbow on the tall mahogany bar, and Mike stood a foot away, his back against the brick wall of the building.
“I want to explain-”
“Not necessary,” I said to him, watching the bartender pour.
“Peace between you two before I get back from the men’s room, okay?” Mercer said, walking away.
Mike reached for my hand and turned me toward him. He crooked his forefinger and wiggled it, summoning me to come closer to him.
I laughed. “You actually think I’ll respond to your silent commands?”
“It used to work for me. Have I lost my touch?” Mike put his hands on my arms and drew me toward him, picking my head up to kiss me on the mouth.
I broke away and smiled, licking my lips. “They make a good martini here. Do I only get that little taste?”
He pulled me close again and we kissed. Then I rested my head against his chest.
“I’ve missed you, Mike. Seven weeks is a long time.”
“For me, too. I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of things tonight. In the hotel suite with Rocco and the guys, to just show up like that. Scully sniffed me out, heard I’d come back to town and-”
“I get it. I didn’t think you were flying in until Friday, so I was just totally off guard. We still on for Saturday?” As much as I didn’t want to be the one asking that question about our long-awaited romantic dinner, I was too anxious about the time gone by not to know.
“Sure we are. Sure,” he said, stroking my hair, which had curled into ringlets around my neck. “It may be sandwiches in the squad room till Pug collars the bastard who did this, but-”
“Your mother,” I said, pushing back. “Tell me about your mother. That’s the most important thing.”
“She’s going to be okay. Bad scare, and my sisters called me to come home.”
“What is it? Her heart again?”
“Yeah, it’s the ticker. Aortic fibrillation.”
“You should have let me know. I would have been happy to take a shift by her bedside.” Growing up as a cardiac surgeon’s daughter, I probably knew as much about A-fib as any amateur. And I adored Mike’s mother, to whom he was devoted.
Mike smiled his best grin at me. “She’d have liked that, Coop. I just didn’t think to do it. No surgery, though. They just changed her meds. Another forty-eight hours in ICU to monitor her and she goes home. You can call her next week.”
Mercer was making his way back to our side of the bar. We picked up our glasses to clink against his.
“That’s a happier sight,” Mercer said as I stepped out of Mike’s embrace. “I almost hate to break it up.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, savoring the cold shot of Scotch and thinking of a warm night on top of the Arsenal in the park. “I just needed a little TLC from Detective Chapman. Rooftops are a good place for us, don’t you think?”
“I wasn’t afraid of intruding on your intimacy, Alex. I just had a call from Pug. A couple of transit cops found some derelicts hauling around a beat-up piece of luggage, a couple of blocks from the hotel, on Madison Avenue. It’s big and it’s empty-”
“Anything inside? Any potential evidence?” Mike asked.
“Seems to have been doused with Clorox or some kind of bleach, the kind of thing that would destroy any residue of DNA or prints.”
Mike swallowed more vodka. “I’m traveling with you, Mercer. Where’d they find it?”
“The Northwest Passage.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about the open sea route through the Arctic from the Atlantic to the Pacific. “Where’s that?”
“You spend entirely too much time in turban town,” Mike said, referring in his politically incorrect way to the headdress of many of the city’s yellow cab drivers. “Public transportation wouldn’t kill you, you know.”
“It’s the northeast corner of 47th and Madison,” Mercer said. “A thousand-foot-long corridor that leads to Grand Central.”
“And to the subways going in every direction out of this hood,” Mike said. “However the killer got this broad into the Waldorf, I’d say he’s comfortably on his way back home.”
“But it sounds like he left us a trophy,” I said, referring to the trunk.
“What are the odds it’s of no forensic value?” Mike asked. “Saddle up, Mercer, and let’s check it out. Northwest Passage to nowhere.”
SIX
Mike and Mercer walked me to my SUV, which I’d parked between Patroon and the Waldorf. The drive home took only six minutes. I used the interior staircase to get into the lobby from the garage, picked up my mail, and said good night to the two doormen on duty.
It was late enough, almost midnight, to forget topping off the night with a cocktail, since I’d left most of mine behind on the bar. But my empty stomach was growling and the liquor was likely to knock me out and prevent nightmarish flashbacks to the image of the young woman in the hotel suite.
A hot shower, no matter the weather, always helped to wash away the detritus of the day. I scrubbed myself, then toweled off and carried my drink into the bedroom.