The arms dealer raised both fists in the air and war whooped to the Liberian sky. He polished off his drink and said in a hoarse voice, “Know what I love? Rockin’ my own life. Did you know I have enough bloody cash to buy my own country?” Then he laughed. “Oh, wait, I already did! Are you aware, Rook, I have been given — are you ready for this? — diplomatic immunity? They made me minister of some shite or other here. Truly. I do what I want and nobody can touch me.”
He brought up the Desert Eagle and stepped closer, training it on Rook again. “This is what happens when you poke it where it doesn’t belong.”
Rook stared into the gaping muzzle and said, “What was it that I rode up here in, a Range Rover? Have your valet pull it back up. Think I’m ready to go.” McKinnon jerked his hand to menace him with the gun. “Put that damn thing away, you’re not going to shoot me.”
“No? What makes you think so?”
“Because you would have done it back in port and left me floating out to the Canary Islands. Because you put on this whole... show for me. Because if you kill me, who will write your story, Gordon? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Of course it is. And you gave me some great quotes. ‘Rocking your life’? ‘Minister of some shite’? Brilliant. It’s tough to be a bad boy and have no fan club, isn’t it? You didn’t bring me here to kill me, you brought me here to make you a legend.”
McKinnon rushed up to Rook, locking his elbow around his neck. “What’s with you? Do you have some fascination with death that makes you think you can tease me? Huh? Huh?” He pressed the muzzle against his temple and stared at Rook with wild eyes dancing with the mad light of devil fire from the flares.
Rook sighed and said, “Still waiting for that Range Rover.”
McKinnon set the gun on the table then pushed Rook backward off his stool onto the stone patio, where he landed hard on his handcuffs.
In the time it took Detective Heat to walk from EJ’s on Amsterdam to the sidewalk in front of the precinct, Lauren Parry had called her back. “I just checked the photo of the bruise. It definitely could be from handcuffs. I’ll do a test but hinged cuffs would definitely account for the ladder-shaped bruise at the small of his back.” Then she asked, “What do you suppose it means?”
Heat said, “It means we hope it means something.”
Captain Montrose told her he was busy when she knocked on the door frame and said she needed to talk with him. Heat came in anyway and pulled the knob behind her until it clicked. He looked up at her from some printouts. “I said I was busy.”
“I said I needed to talk.” Detective Heat, the immovable object.
Montrose stared at her from under a thick hedge of furrowed brow. “This is what my life’s come to. Numbers. First they criticize my stats, telling me to step it up, pay my rent. Now they’re sending me these.” The captain lifted the thick spreadsheet off his blotter and let it drop with unmasked contempt. “Target numbers. Micromanaging me. Telling me how many Class C violations to write up this week for blocking sidewalks and littering. Class B summonses, too. Let’s see...” He ran his finger along a row. “They want eight seat belt violations and six cell phone tickets. Not five, not seven. Six.
“I don’t make my numbers, they do a number on me. So what’s my choice, fluff my books? Do I tell the uniforms not to take certain robbery or assault reports so the stats don’t work against me? If it doesn’t get written down, it never happened. What do you know, a crime drop in the Twentieth!” He capped his highlighter and tossed it on the desk. It rolled onto the floor, but he made no attempt to stop it. “If you’re determined to interrupt me, sit down.” She took one of the guest chairs and he said, “So how are you going to brighten my already perfect day?”
Nikki knew where to begin. With her goal, simply stated so it wouldn’t get lost. She said, “I want to open the Graf case wider.”
“Did you complete the BDSM checks like I told you?”
“Not yet, but — ”
He cut her off. “Then this meeting is over.”
“Captain, with due respect, we’re chasing a foul ball. Promising leads are surfacing and I feel hamstrung not being able to follow them.”
“Such as?”
“OK,” she said, “the money stashed in those cookie tins. Why would you tell me not to reach out to the archdiocese right away?”
“Because it’s not relevant.”
Nikki was struck by his sense of certainty. “How can you know that?”
“Are you questioning the judgment of your commander?”
“It’s a legitimate question, sir.” She made the “sir” carry respect. Nikki wanted her case back, not for him to dig in his heels to prove his rank.
“Your vic was killed in a bondage dungeon — work it.”
“This feels like a roadblock.”
“I said work it.”
She decided to move along, hoping to find an open flank. “I also have a shooting victim with a connection to the priest.”
“And to your negligence for not reporting the tail.”
To Nikki this began feeling like her jujitsu sparring matches with Don. She raised a fact, the captain threw a feint. Heat didn’t take his bait. “We can discuss that later, but let’s not get sidetracked. Father Graf had the phone number of that strip club hidden in his room. Eyewitnesses saw him fighting with the dancer. I want to work that angle, but you have my investigation corralled.”
“You’ll make a fine lieutenant in this department,” he said. “You’re already learning how to shift blame.”
“Excuse me, but I am doing exactly the opposite. I’m taking responsibility. I want you to let me run my case my way.” Since Nikki had made up her mind the night before to reclaim her sense of mission, she pressed onward, making her scariest leap.... She addressed the elephant. “What is going on with you, Captain?”
He poked his finger hard enough on the spreadsheet to dimple it. “You know damn well what’s going on with me.”
“I wish I did. I get the pressure,” she said, “I do. But there’s a lot of other stuff I don’t get. Things I’ve observed. Things I’ve learned. And, frankly, it worries me.”
There was a sea change in that room. Her skipper’s anger and irritation gave way to a steely wariness. He studied her with an intense concentration that made Nikki uncomfortable. His head was glistening, and behind him on the window that gave onto the street she noticed an aura of condensation forming on the glass, probably from his elevated body heat. It outlined Montrose like his own ghost. “Learned, like what?” he said.
Her tongue felt like it had a sock on it. “Your search of the rectory the night of Graf’s killing, for instance.”
“Asked and answered already.” His voice was chillingly calm and his face had taken on a flat affect. “If you have more, let’s hear it. Is there more?”
“Captain, let’s not go down this road right now.”
“What road? The one that leads to you implying I had something to do with his death?” Under his measured tone Nikki could sense the next wave of anger building pressure. “Is that what you think?”
When she hesitated, the interrogator in him kicked in. Nikki had always been impressed by how intimidating her mentor could be working a suspect against the ropes. Except now it was all on her. “You’re already knee-deep, Detective, so you’d better bring it — unless you want to go on the record in a formal conduct review.”
Heat ran down the short list in her mind. She looked at the fresh Band-Aid on his finger and pictured the blood on the priest’s collar. Then she thought of the TENS scars on Graf and how similar electrical burns had also appeared in the 2004 case Montrose had investigated. And now the latest revelation, that the bruise on the small of the priest’s back came from handcuffs... Yes, these raised lots of questions, and Nikki didn’t like the way the scale was tipping as she weighed them. However, none of these proved anything. And she certainly couldn’t voice them. Not without mortally wounding an already frail relationship. So she said, “Nothing worth discussing.”