I turned back to Kerry. The medics were helping her to her feet, telling Mercer that it didn't appear anything was broken.
"We're going to take you over to the hospital, okay?" one of them asked her. "Let the docs clean you up, maybe give you a tetanus shot in case any of these scrapes came from the metal on the cab."
"I'll come for the ride," I said. "I'd like to keep her company."
Mercer took Kerry's hand. "I've got her. You get to work."
"What's everyone shouting about?" Kerry asked. "Haven't they ever seen an accident before?"
"The driver fled the scene," Mercer said. "It's not only stupid, it's against the law."
"Please don't make me testify at another trial," Kerry said, looking at me as she started to limp toward the ambulance. "And don't start that sentencing till we get back here. I want the judge to listen to me."
Justin Feldman steered my elbow toward the entrance as Kerry and Mercer walked away. "Why don't you get out of this crush? Go on up to your office," he said, his quiet elegance a sharp contrast to the rowdiness of the spectators lingering on Hogan Place.
I climbed the three steps and stopped to look back.
A heavyset black teenager wrapped in a layered chain collar of bling with matching gold caps on his front teeth called out to the young woman who was being marched to the building between two cops. "Hey, shortie! I'll see your ass after court. I'll teach you how to run, mama! I'll teach you good."
Half of the onlookers cheered again, while the girl shouted a stream of obscenities at him in Spanish.
Her cohort was a few paces behind her, being pulled along by two other plainclothes officers. I was about to push the revolving door to go inside, when he picked up his head-clearly angered by the situation and the fact that she was rising to the bait-to tell her to keep her mouth shut.
"Callate la boca, puta!"
We locked eyes and a wave of nausea bubbled in my stomach. The young man threw his head back and laughed, exposing the tattoo on his neck.
He was a Latin Prince, one of the leaders who had disrupted the courtroom during Kerry Hastings's trial.
THIRTY-FIVE
Iwas sitting at my desk at one o'clock that afternoon when Mercer came back from the hospital. Laura had instructions not to let anyone else in to see me after I returned from Judge Lamont's chambers, having adjourned Floyd Warren's sentencing till the next day
What's the matter, Alex? Does your head hurt?" Mercer closed the door behind him and walked to my desk, opening a bag with sandwiches and coffee for each of us.
I wasn't even aware that I was rubbing a small knot on my temple, where it had smacked against the cab's partition. "I can't remember whether there was a time before last week when my head didn't ache. How's Kerry?"
"She's going to give new meaning to the colors black and blue by the time her bruises are in full bloom tonight. Everything checked out fine, but she's hurting. I took her back to the hotel. I assume you postponed the case?"
"Yes. No problem, of course."
"Well, Kerry just wants to get on a plane and go back home."
"I don't blame her. Did you bring up the subject of talking to Warren?"
"I did. She's okay with it, Alex. Anything that might prevent some one else from becoming a victim. He's sixty-one years old, and Lamont is threatening to hit him with the full fifty. Half of that will be fine, if he gives us anything."
"It's not the time behind bars. It's the symbolism. It's a statement on behalf of what he took from Kerry's life and all the other women who were attacked."
"Call Gene Grassley now," Mercer said. "Let's give this a go." He was unwrapping the foil on our sandwiches when Laura buzzed me on the intercom.
"Ryan Blackmer's here, Alex. It's about this morning's accident. The Latin Prince from court last week who crashed into your cab."
"Let him in."
Ryan was one of my favorite colleagues, smart and creative and always willing to go the full nine yards with any cop who brought him an interesting case.
"Hey, Mercer. Alex. I didn't know you were at the vortex of a Dominican jihad. I always figured you for getting trampled to death at a sample sale of designer dresses. This rocks."
"And what's 'this'?"
"Tu amigo Antonio Lucido, carida. I'm supervising in ECAB today,"
Ryan said, referring to the intake section through which every arrest passed for processing-the early case assessment bureau. "Laura told me this guy and his buddies were stalking you in court last week. I went up to Lamont to get a statement from him before coming here."
"He was in the car, this Lucido kid?" Mercer asked. I had left a message on his cell shortly after I came upstairs, telling him about the involvement of the Latin Princes in the crash.
"Yeah. The guys brought him in for leaving the scene. He was in the passenger seat, according to one of the cops who made the grab."
"Is he talking?"
"You know Alex likes the strong, silent type. Not a word. Turns out the car is stolen, too. Taken out of long-term parking at Newark Airport just after midnight, so that adds a little heat to the charges."
"Will you keep this yourself?" I asked.
"Absolutely. And then there's the matter of the gun under the front seat. Fully loaded semiautomatic."
"Damn," Mercer said. "You got raps back on him yet?"
"Waiting on that now. You want to tell me what happened?"
"I didn't see anything. I really didn't," I said. "If that street was a bit wider so the Plymouth could have gotten around us, I would have thought we'd been rear-ended accidentally and they just ran off scared."
But I knew it was no coincidence that Posano's posse had been waiting for me outside my office with a loaded gun.
"We've got a lot of witnesses, Alex."
"Add Justin Feldman to the list. He thinks maybe they could have seen me inside the cab, through the open window."
There was a sharp rap on the door and before I could ask who was there, Mike opened it and came in. "You're like a frigging heat-seeking missile, Blondie. What is it with you?"
I frowned as I glanced at Mercer.
"I had to call him, Alex."
"You didn't take me away from anything important. Yes, the troopers found human hair in the back of Dylan's van. Yes, they found his fingerprints-as well as prints that don't match his. Yes, they've swabbed it for DNA. Be patient and we'll have comparisons in the next fortyeight. And-oh, yeah, you'll like this one 'cause it was your idea. They got results back from the swabs of the inside of the handcuffs they found on Saturday. Turns out they were used on both Amber Bristol and Elise Huff. Like you said, link the cases by the vics if you can't do it by the perp. Otherwise, I had nothing to do today but worry about you."
"I thought you were going with Dickie Draper, out to see what the story is on Ruffle Bar. The real one."
"Turns out Special Ops uses that place once a month for drills. Peterson asked their CO to send men to look it over. They keep a chopper on standby."
"What do they use the island for?" I asked. I knew that Special Ops was a high-powered training division of the NYPD, made up of members of the Harbor, Aviation, and Emergency Services units. "They stage disasters, Coop, so they can prepare for the response.
Terrorist attacks, plane crashes, boat accidents. The bodies-well, the mannequins-wind up on Ruffle Bar, and Special Ops has to swim in or fly in to triage the victims. If there's anything of interest on that sandbar-including a sample of the sand-they'll get it for us. What's new, Ryan?"
Ryan and Mike shook hands, and Mike listened to details of the morning's arrest.
"You really don't need to be here," I said. "Who's tailing Kiernan Dylan?"
"It's tough to tail a guy when you don't know where he is."
"Didn't he go home after he got out of court last night?" Mike put both hands in his pants pockets and looked down at the floor.