"So I guess my Fat Tommy thing paid off," Rook said.
"Neediness is so unflattering, Rook," she said. Behind him, he could hear Roach sniffing in laughter.
"But it is what got us here, right?" Rook was trying, without success, to make that sound not needy.
"Why did he give this up to you, Detective Heat?" asked Raley, all too happy to twist Rook's jock like this. Ochoa was enjoying it, too.
"I don't want to say it," answered Heat.
"Say it," from Ochoa in a low growl.
She paused. "Fat Tommy said it was because I had the balls to get up in his face yesterday morning. He also said not to make it a habit."
"Was that a threat?" asked Raley.
She smiled and shrugged. "More like the start of a relationship."
"On your side rear," came the walkie report from Hinesburg, who was in the vestibule of a coin-op laundry two doors down the block. As soon as she finished the call, a motorcycle thundered by.
"Check him out, Ochoa," said Nikki. She moved aside, and through the ob port he saw a big man in a leather vest hanging from the ape bars.
"Could be my AR-15. He was covered up, but that's definitely the build." He sat back on one of the canvas laundry bags to let Heat have a look as the biker parked on the sidewalk in front of the store and went in.
"All right," said Detective Heat into the mic. "Let's hit them before they decide to take a ride. We'll go on mine in sixty seconds." She looked at her watch and said, "Woof," to sync with the others. "Ochoa, you go last," she said. "I don't want them making you in the middle of the street."
"Got it," he said.
"And Rook?"
"I know, I know, please remain comfortably seated until the captain turns off the seat belt sign." He shifted to let them by and sat on Ochoa's canvas bag. "Ooh, still nice and warm."
"In three, two, go," said Nikki, who was first out the back door, followed by Raley. Ochoa hung in the open doorway, as directed. Rook could see Detective Hinesburg approaching the store on the opposite side of the street.
There was a brief lull, and Ochoa turned to Rook and said, "I wonder if I should-"
And then came the gunfire. First a heavy round, the AR-15, and then a volley of small arms. Rook moved to the observation port, and Ochoa pulled him back. "Stay down. You trying to get killed?" He shoved Rook down into the middle of the laundry sacks and then bailed out the back with his gun drawn, moving around the protected side of the truck.
There was another volley of fire, repeated rounds from the assault rifle, and Rook looked through the passenger-side window of the van in time to see Ochoa dive for cover in a discount smoke shop. More covering shots and next, the motorcycle fired up.
The biker revved and popped a wheelie off the curb and onto 19th. Heat and Hinesburg jammed it out of the store, bracing for shots, but were blocked by a passing taxi. The biker looked over his shoulder at them, and when he turned back, he was smirking. That was the expression Rook would always remember, right before he swung the laundry bag into the dude and knocked him clean off that hog and right onto the pavement. A half hour later, the biker was in the jail ward of Bellevue Hospital, nursing a concussion. He was a true badass, not just the AR man but probably the leader, and wouldn't break so easily. His two accomplices faced Nikki Heat in her Twentieth Precinct Interrogation Room. From the looks on them, she figured they were going to take some work. She sat across from both of them, taking her time looking over their arrest jackets. Both had done prison stretches for everything from petty theft to violent robberies and drug sales.
Detective Heat knew she would end up separating these two. But she'd first have to find a weakness in one of them; he'd be the one she cut from the herd. To do that, she had a strategy, and that required that they be together for now while she made her choice. She closed their rap sheets and began calmly. "OK, let's have it. Who hired you for that gig yesterday?"
Both men stared with dead eyes that saw nothing and betrayed nothing. Prison eyes.
"Boyd, let's start with you." The big one, the one with the salt-and-pepper beard, let his eyes fall on her, but said nothing. He acted bored and looked away. She addressed the other one, a ginger redhead with a spiderweb tat on his neck. "Shawn, what about you?"
"You got nothing," he said. "I don't even know why I'm here."
"Don't insult me, OK?" she said. "Less than twenty-four hours ago you and your biker friend jacked a city vehicle, stole a corpse, brandished firearms at a police officer and a medical examiner, put a city driver in the hospital, and yet here you sit, busted and destined for long stretches in Ossining. Is that because I don't know what I'm doing, or is it, maybe, because you don't?"
Inside the Observation Room, Rook turned to Ochoa. "Harsh."
"These guys need more than harsh, you ask me," said the cop.
Nikki folded her hands on the table and leaned forward toward the two men. She had made her choice, decided which of the two was the bitch. You can always break the bitch. She half turned to the glass behind her chair and nodded. The door opened and Ochoa came into the room. She studied their faces as the detective stood behind her. Boyd, the iron beard, acted like he didn't even see him, finding that no-place place to stare at again. Shawn flicked his eyes over and darted them away.
"You good, Detective?" she asked.
"Let me see the necks, left side of both."
Heat asked the pair to turn their heads to the right, and Ochoa leaned across the table, looking at one then the other. "Yeah," he said when he was done. "I'm good." And then he left the room.
"What was that?" said Shawn, who had the spiderweb.
All Nikki said was "Be right back," and she left. But she kept it short, returning in less than a minute with two uniforms. "That one there," she said, indicating Shawn. "Take him to Interrogation 2 and hold him until the DA guy gets here."
"Hey, what are you doing?" said Shawn as they led him out. "You don't have anything on me. Nothing."
The officers held him at the door and Nikki smiled. "Interrogation 2," she said, and they left. Nikki let the quiet do its talking. At last she said, "Your pal always this jumpy?"
He remained stoic, disconnected.
"It doesn't take much to see he's not as together as you, Boyd. But see, here's what you need to be thinking about. Your friend with the neck tat? He's boned. And he knows it. And know what's too bad for you? We want this. We want the name of whoever hired you. And we are in a dealing mood. And you know and I know that Shawn is going to take it. Because the deal will be sweet. And he's… well, he's Shawn, isn't he?"
Boyd sat there, a statue breathing.
"And where does that leave you, Boyd?" She flipped open his file. "Pedigree like yours, you're looking at some long time in Ossining. But you know that can be done. Time passes. And besides, your pal Shawn will be able to visit you. Because he'll be out."
Nikki waited. She had to be stoic herself because she was starting to think she'd cut the wrong one from the herd. She worried he was too smart to see Ochoa's tattoo ID as anything but what it was, a ruse. She worried that Boyd might just be a sociopath, and she was, therefore, the boned one in this transaction. Nikki thought about scrapping her strategy and offering him a deal. But it would mean she'd blinked. Her heart fluttered, feeling like a bird against her neck. She was so close, she hated to let it slip away. So she went the other way. Heat got tough and decided to push her game to the brink.
Without another word, she rose and closed the file. Then squared the pages by tapping it on the tabletop. She turned and took measured steps to the door, hoping to hear something on each footfall. She put her hand on the knob, paused as long as she could get away with, and pulled the door open.