Raging Heat (31 page)

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.

T
hat 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 for 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?”

Nikki didn’t need to act at that point. “Rook…I’m, I’m speechless.”

“Édouard—he’s the master jeweler there. Been there forever. Probably designed those candlesticks Jean Valjean stole. Didn’t he do a great job?”

“Oh. Very, um, quite.” She was struggling to hold her composure, feeling foolish and, yes, crestfallen. “Very, very nice craftsmanship.”

“
C’est très bon, n’est ce pas
?”

“Ah.” Then she heard a wooden semblance of her own voice say, “…
Oui
.”

“Good, because otherwise you might not want to wear it.”

At first Nikki thought she’d misheard. She was so blitzed from the week’s ordeal, and so caught up in the shock of learning that receipt had been for his mother’s ring, that it seemed as if Rook was trying to indicate this engagement ring was actually for her. But that must have been what Rook meant, because he was taking it out of the case and holding the big diamond up to her. She stared at it, flabbergasted, as all the facets sparkled in an infinitely stunning display of pure light. “Rook. Are you saying…”

“I am saying this is for you.”

“Your mother’s engagement ring?”

“Don’t worry, Mom’s got a whole box of them. I dropped a quarter in the slot and worked the claw to pick out this one.”

They both laughed. “Romantic,” she said.

“Just because I ghostwrite romance novels doesn’t mean I have to be romantic.”

“No, this is plenty romantic. In a twisted, Rook kind of way.” Her face grew serious and she said, “I think before we go further we need to clear some air first.”

“…All right. Is this going to be about the task force?”

“In essence, yes.” She held a shielding hand up to the ring and chuckled. “Can you put that aside for a second? It’s very hard to concentrate.”

“That’s the whole idea.” He flashed it in her face again to tease, then slipped it back in the velvet and closed the lid.

“I haven’t figured out how to put this,” she said at last, “so can I just spew?” After his affirming nod she embarked. “I’ve wondered why this task force job was such a flash point. It really got us both at each other.”

She paused there to allow him a space to speak, but he just showed agreement, so she proceeded. “I asked myself why. When I heard about it, I knew it was an exciting job and a big promotion. But what did I do? I hid it from you. By reflex. Why? Because I knew it created major challenges for us. Logistically, in our lifestyle, and—here comes: as a couple. There’s a concept, right? A couple. Talk about an exciting job and a big promotion.”

He held his silence, letting her roll. “That job offer pushed me to define things. Define us.” Nikki shrugged a tiny shrug. “And to define me. I don’t mean me without you. I just mean, as a test of whether I am still young enough and independent enough to make choices in my life.”

“On your own.”

She borrowed a phrase from her shrink session with Lon King. “I can’t solve my life in ten minutes in a hotel room. But, even though I don’t have all the answers, I do know a few things after this week. Like, I know we are good together. You make me laugh. You shake me out of my earnestness and task-orientation. You’re the only one I ever met who also gets bugged by missing commas.” She laughed.

“I’m your comma cop.”

“My punctuation police.”

“Did I hear good in bed?”

“Awesome in bed; are you serious?…But, as much as I feel that we belong together, the idea of taking it to the next level scared the hell out of me.”

“Wait.” He held up the jewelry case. “Are you saying you knew about this?”

“A woman knows.” Not prepared yet to bust herself for her trash can revelation, she let it go at that, which he seemed to buy. “So what did I do? I fought with you. I accused you of things.”

“You baptized me with top-shelf tequila.”

“I didn’t know what the upset was.” She churned her hands in front of her chest. “It was all this stuff kicking inside me. All the quaint little idiotic theories you always come up with started feeling like attacks, so I hit back.” She rested a hand on his knee. “When I almost lost you in the car last night, I freaked. I thought I saw you take your last breath before you went underwater. And you used it to tell me you loved me.”

A choking sob escaped, and Nikki fought to hold it together. “Rook, I couldn’t picture myself without you. And reflecting on it now, I’m seeing what I was fighting with all week wasn’t you. It was the fear of losing my independence. I know it may sound selfish and indulgent—even a bit Self-Help section—but I need to be true to myself. You know, even in a relationship—no,
especially
in a relationship—I need to have that independence for it to be healthy. Does that make sense to you?”

He swayed a few inches side to side, a writer choosing his words. “Well, Nikki, may I make it short and sweet?” After she wiped a tear, he continued, “It so happens that this independent woman you are describing is the one I love.”

In the last hour of the day, at the end of a dark week, Nikki could swear she saw a rainbow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s see if you feel that way when you hear about my new job.”

Points for Rook—he didn’t blink, didn’t falter. “Please,” he said, and took a long pull on his white burgundy, waiting.

“It’s going to mean a lot of long hours, extra responsibility, days and nights apart, broken plans more common than not. It’s going to be a ballbuster.”

“So you you’re on the task force. Congratulations.”

“No, I turned it down.”

“OK, now you’re just fucking with me.”

She laughed. “And you just didn’t, with the ring?”

He lifted his glass to her. “Touché.”

“They offered it to me, that’s why they called me there. I said thank-you, but no, thank-you.”

“But I told you we could weather this, Nikki. I meant what I said about your independence.”

“I didn’t do it for you. How indie is that? I did it because there’s a job that interests me more. A job where I know I am needed. I turned it down once before, but now I am ready.”

“You’re taking over the Twentieth Precinct.”

“Damn it, Rook, do you ever let anyone deliver their own punch line?”

“Apparently not. Continue.”

“They weren’t delighted, that’s safe to say. But they got it. I saw what happened last time when I passed, and they brought in Wally Irons. Then I got a look at that doofus today, and I could see it happening all over again. To my squad.”

“I am with you a hundred percent.”

“Tell me that when we have our fifth canceled dinner in a row.”

“And this would be new?” He thought a moment and said, “Don’t you have to be a captain to command a precinct?”

“I already passed my boards, remember? The Hammer still has my gold bars in his desk drawer from three years ago when I told him to shove them where the sun don’t shine.”

Rook hefted the jewelry case in his palm. “Is that what you’re going to tell me?”

Heat finished her wine, set her glass on the coffee table, then bounced on the couch cushion to face him. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

He slid off the sofa, lowering himself on one knee before her. In that instant all the light in the firmament, the sum total of the heavenly glow of the sun, the moon, the stars, the comets, and the planets conspired to fall on the beaming face of Jameson Rook. Nikki’s skin chilled with excitement and irrepressible glee and she swallowed hard. Keeping his eyes true, caressing hers while she cradled his, he reached out a hand and she took it, thinking, thank God his fingers were trembling, too. His smile filled her heart, and somehow it grew bigger as he finally spoke.

“Well, Captain Heat…”

A sound came out of her, whether a laugh or a cry, it was born of joy, and that’s all that mattered. “…Yes, Mr. Rook?”

“I have loved you from the first day we met. And, as unbelievable as it would have seemed to me then, I love you more now—this day, at this moment—than I ever have.”

Nikki wanted to say I love you to him, and almost did, but didn’t dare interrupt. So she told him with her face.