Nikki didn’t reply because she was too transfixed by what she happened to see on Rook’s MacBook. It was a security camera still photo. Two men — both dangerous-looking, with prison time written on their faces — were leaning into the foreground of the shot, which had the slightly fish-eye effect you got from a wide-angle lens. Heat had seen many pictures like this before. This pair was caught in the act of installing a dummy keypad and card skimmer to steal PINs and account codes from ATMs. But that’s not what gave her pause. What made Heat momentarily speechless was who she saw standing lookout in the background: Fabian Beauvais.
“Hello? Did I lose you?”
“No, I’m here.” And then, trying to sound like she still believed it, Nikki said, “…Airtight.”
ikki set her phone on the counter and quietly examined the image on the computer screen of Fabian Beauvais with the two thugs monkeying with the ATM. She paid special attention to the pair to see if she knew either of them as her ambushers from Chelsea. Not only did she not recognize them, they were totally different breeds. The Chelsea gang, including the SRO duo, had a paramilitary flavor, clean-cut, disciplined, even dressed in uniforms of a sort. The two in this picture with Beauvais were street players. Urban gangstas, wild-ass freaks born to raise hell. “When did you get this?”
“Now. Came as e-mail overnight. Looks like I got two files. The other one’s a video. Want to see what it’s about?” He didn’t need an answer. Rook had already executed his trackpad clicks.
Street surveillance video came up, shot from an elevated cam, probably bracketed to a lamppost. It had no audio, but the texture, although grainy, was sharp enough to make out Fabian Beauvais running up an urban sidewalk toward the camera, throwing panicked glances over his shoulder at the two men chasing him. Seconds after he ran out of the frame, his pursuers stopped right under the camera. One of them raised a pistol and fired. Heat counted three muzzle flashes. After the shooting, the two thugs — the same gangstas from the ATM still photo — cocked their heads to look off-camera in Beauvais’s direction and then backed away, jogging out of the shot the same way they’d come into it.
“Whoa,” said Rook. “Was that Dodge City or Queensboro Plaza?”
“Again,” was all Nikki could muster. She’d been too unsettled by the first play to study it and wanted a more clinical look. In the second screening she focused on detail. Beauvais carried something under an arm; a light-colored bag or, perhaps, a manila envelope. She’d missed that before. He had on a different shirt than the still photo from the ATM, suggesting it was a different day. The two running him down were also dressed differently. The way the shooter drew and fired: pulling the piece from his waistband; holding the pistol flat, like a John Woo gangster; and hurrying his rounds, told her he wasn’t police or service trained. Sideways shots look sexy and work for speed in close quarters, but, especially for a moving target gaining distance, department trainers drilled Heat’s cadet class to take the time to cup and brace: stabilize, sight, squeeze. This wasn’t an idle observation. It told her these guys were not part of the professional group that went after her the night before.
She didn’t need to ask for a replay. Rook said, “One more,” and rolled it again. The impression Nikki got on this viewing was that Beauvais clutched the bag or envelope under his arm like it mattered. You want to lose time in a footrace? Carry something. He was running for his life but wouldn’t give up his package for speed.
After it timed out, Rook sat back on his barstool and folded his arms, watching her. He didn’t say anything, but his manner felt the same as outside the loading dock the night before when Irons asked her if she thought her attack was related to Gilbert. Then, as now, he remained silent but acted like a horse pawing the stable floor when it smelled smoke. Nikki picked up her coffee mug. It felt cold in her palm so she replaced it beside her phone. “It’s inconclusive, you know that,” she said at last.
“In what way? It kinda looks to me like our guy getting chased and shot at.”
“Oh, are we being smart-asses? Not now, OK? Of course I know what it looks like. But did he get hit? Beauvais was out of frame.”
“Three shots, Nikki.”
“And he was hauling it. And the shooter was showboating his weapon. I’ve seen veteran cops miss when a perp is on the run.”
“But not you,” he said, attaching an impish grin to it.
“Don’t try to make up to me with flattery.” Then she caved a little under that smile of his. But just a little. “Hey, I never looked at the time stamp. When was this?”
Rook brought it up and read the embedded digital code. Then he did some silent math, moving his lips. “The morning before Beauvais went to Dr. Ivan to get his bullet wound fixed.”