“How long will she be?”
“If I had a nickel... But good news, she told me to personally escort you to Mr. Meuller’s room.” He flashed his teeth again. “My lucky day.”
The uniform outside the door rose from his metal folding chair when Heat approached. She gestured for him to sit and he did. The detective turned to her guide and said, “I can take it from here.”
“Craig,” he answered.
Nikki said, “Yeah, I got that,” and that seemed to please him no end. He walked on but not without a turn back to wave before he rounded the corner.
The dancer had his eyes locked on her the moment she entered the room. Because of his wound he couldn’t turn his head, so Heat stopped at the foot of his bed to help him out. “How are you feeling?” He croaked out something she couldn’t make out. Either it was in German, or the thick bandages framing his jaw made it hard for him to talk. “You got lucky, Horst. An inch or two lower, you wouldn’t be here.”
Heat had been briefed on the phone by his surgeon. The bullet had completely blown out his trapezius muscle but missed the carotid artery. If the shot had come from above, say from a rooftop or balcony, instead of from a car window, the trajectory would have been downward with fatal consequences.
“Lucky?” he said. “You break my collarbone and now this.” Meuller paused and pushed the morphine button connected to his drip. “My dancing career is over. What do I do now?”
“You talk,” she said. “Why did you run from us?”
“Who says I was?”
“Horst, you rappelled three stories down a scaffolding to get away. Why?” He couldn’t turn away so he looked up at the ceiling. “Any idea who would want to shoot you?” He kept his gaze fixed above her. “Tell me about Father Graf.”
“Who?”
“This man.” She held the picture above him so he had to see it. “Father Gerald Graf.” He pursed his lips and did a mild head shake, which obviously pained him. “Eyewitnesses saw you fighting with the priest at One Hot Mess. The bouncer intervened when you tried to choke him. You also threatened to kill him.”
“I don’t recall.” With the accent, it came off sounding like Sergeant Schultz’s “I know nuh-think” from Hogan’s Heroes. And about as credible.
“I’m asking because he is dead now. Choked.” She omitted the other details, holding them for corroboration, in case he decided to confess. “Is that why you ran, because you killed him?” He pressed his morphine button repeatedly and turned his eyes upward again. “Let’s walk it back. What was your relationship with Father Graf?”
This time he closed his eyes. And kept them closed, the corners of his lids twitching from the effort to shut her out. “You rest up, Mr. Meuller. You’ll need it. I’ll be back to talk later.”
Nurse Craig was fussing with meds on a cart outside the door, pretending he wasn’t waiting for Nikki. “I’ll be seeing you again, I hope,” he said.
“Never know, Craig, it’s a small hospital.”
He looked around, flunking the irony test. Then he gestured toward the elevators and walked with her. “Sometimes I think maybe I should do some professional dancing.” Nikki gave him a side glance and, even in the scrubs, figured he could.
“I hear there’s big money for male nurses at bachelorette parties,” she said and pushed the down button, hoping the car would arrive soon.
“Maybe. Wouldn’t want to do the clubs, though. After seeing that guy, the stripper pole is bad for you.”
“How?”
“I had to sponge bathe him this morning. You wouldn’t believe all the scars. Looks like rope burns all over his legs and chest.”
The elevator doors opened, but Heat didn’t get on. “Show me.”
Detective Heat didn’t wait to get back to the Two-oh to deal with the discovery of TENS burns on the dancer. She got off the FDR at the 61st Street exit and took First Avenue uptown. At the first stoplight, she speed-dialed Captain Montrose’s direct line. Four rings in, she could picture the lonely light blinking in the dark office, and sure enough, it dumped to voice mail. Nikki left her name and the time only, trying to keep the tightness out of her voice. She knew she would have to address his numbers on the priest’s phone records, but she had planned that for the end of shift, when the office had cleared. But finding those marks from electrical burns on Meuller forced her hand. It was time to ask him about the Huddleston murder he had handled back in 2004. Heat didn’t know its relevance, but experience had made her wary of coincidences.
Lost in thought, turning left onto 79th, she ran the tail end of the yellow and immediately saw police lights in her rearview mirror. For a split second her heart jumped — even cops get a klong if they think they’re going to get ticketed — but it was The Discourager alerting traffic that he was shaving the light with her. He pulled his cruiser beside her at the next stop and she powered her window down. A mix of sleet and snow hit her sleeve. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, “I’ve got life insurance.”
“Just keeping you on your toes, Harvey,” she said with a laugh and pulled away. One more Montrose attempt. Nikki tried his cell. It didn’t even ring, but went straight to voice mail. Heat left another brief message and tossed her phone on the passenger seat. She’d try again in five minutes, back at her desk.
She crossed Fifth Avenue for her cut across Central Park, taking the Transverse. As always, Nikki’s gaze drifted to the right for an appreciative glimpse of one of her favorite buildings in the city, the Metropolitan. On that raw winter’s day it looked to her like a brooding hulk, damp and icebound, hibernating among bare trees of a mean winter. The blare of car horns brought her to the rearview, where she saw a white step van, tagged with graffiti, lurch to a stop across the road behind her, blocking it. More horns. Then she could hear the double chirp of a siren and The Discourager’s command voice on his PA. “Move the vehicle... now.”
The 79th Street Transverse is a two-lane road cut like a narrow canyon ten feet below ground level across Central Park. An urban compromise, its submersion allows traffic to flow without spoiling the view. As the street lost elevation descending beneath the park’s East Drive, Heat entered the shelter of the underpass and the Crown Victoria’s wiper blades chattered across the dry windshield. As she emerged, a loud pop echoed in the tunnel and her steering wheel lurched in her hands. Not a flat tire, she thought. But instantly came another series of pops, and the rear of the car fishtailed in the slush. She took her foot off the gas and corrected as best she could on the icy road, but without air in any of her tires, it was more like skating than driving. Her car slid sideways until the front end smacked hard into the wall of rocks lining the road. At impact, Nikki lurched against her seat belt, and papers, pens, her cell phone — everything loose in the car — flew. Shook up but unhurt, Heat couldn’t figure how she got four flat tires. She craned to look behind her. Since her car was diagonally across the road, she had to look through the rear side passenger window. Just as she made out the traffic spike strip lying across the underpass, the back window exploded. A bullet struck the side of her headrest, ripping it off the seat and shattering the driver’s window beside her.
Nikki dove, flattening herself as far down as she could, clawing the two-way out of its bracket. “One-Lincoln-Forty, ten-thirteen, officer needs help, Seventy-ninth Transverse at East Drive, shots fired.” She unkeyed the mic and listened. Nothing. She tried again. “One-Lincoln-Forty, ten-thirteen, Seventy-ninth Transverse at East Drive, shots fired, do you copy?” Silence. She was groping on the floor trying to find her cell phone when another bullet tore through the seat back and into the dashboard just above her head. If the shooter was a professional, the next one would be lower. She had to get out of that car, fast.