“Here’s how it’s going to go, Mitch,” said Heat as she pulled up a chair to put herself knee-to-knee with the bull in charge. “I’m going to give you a chance to tell me now who runs this little…enterprise.” She gave Rook a glance and saw that he caught the FiFi reference. Her casual air was a total mask. Nikki knew it was just a matter of time before word got to the leader of this sweatshop, and she wanted that name immediately before he could flee. But she couldn’t show her neediness, so she toyed, holding her notebook like a secretary from the
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“Damn straight I won’t. Know what they’ll do to me if I talk?”
“What did Fabian Beauvais take from you guys.”
“I said I’m not talking.”
“That’s too bad. Because I was going to offer you a plea deal. Hurricane special. Because, you see, Mitch, we are really good at finding things out. What do you think we’ll learn when we check your cell phone for calls?”
He looked up at Rook, who said, “Oh, yes. Any call to you, or from you.”
“Mitch, don’t you think we’ll figure out who you work for?” Heat let him stew on that for a while and snapped her fingers. “Wait, I have a terrific idea. Do you shred your papers, Mitch? Because I am going to have our Crime Scene Unit go through your trash. Here at your little office and at your home. What will we find, Mitch? Check stub? An e-mail you printed carelessly?”
Rook tagged in. “Lucky you like to work out, Mitch. New York prisons have the best weight facilities. A piece of advice? I’d be careful who spots you. Some of those lifers act clumsy, but I think they just like to see what happens when heavy iron lands on a throat.”
Mitch started to squirm. He gave Heat a nervous look, and she said, “Don’t listen to him. Nobody’s going to bother you in the exercise room. A build like yours, someone will most likely test you out in the recreation yard or in the chow line. Put a shiv in a big fella like you, that’s going to buy some gangster a lot of cred.” She patted his knee. “Too bad. You had a chance to take the deal.”
As soon as she stood, Mitch said, “OK.”
On their rush to the car Rook called to Heat in the lobby near the display cases. “Wait.” She stopped and turned.
“Wait? Really?”
“Gotta do one thing. I’ll hate myself if I don’t.” He held up a pause finger and ran back into the warehouse. Nikki stepped in the doorway and watched him jog past Mitch and the officers who were about to lead him off. He arced around a mound of old PCs and stopped at the confetti pile. He paused over it a beat, then turned and opened the back door. The howling winds moaned and lifted the piles into the air, grabbing at them with greedy force and sucked the shreds out of the warehouse, scattering them into the maelstrom.
When they were gone, now just ticker tape in the storm, Rook pulled the door closed. He passed Heat on his way out again and said, “Whoopsie.”
The high tide wasn’t supposed to crest for almost two hours, but when they passed Wall Street just past 7 P.M., the wheels of Heat’s car were rim-deep in East River overflow. The TAC frequencies were lively, to say the least. They heard reports that the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel had begun to take on seawater, that numerous residents were stranded in elevators in the downtown-most high-rises because Con Ed had cut power as a precaution, and that the entire façade had shorn off an apartment building in Chelsea, exposing all four stories of front rooms to the street. “Would not want to be the guy sitting on the can with the
Heat appraised him and said, “How old are you?”
“Go ahead, hate me for my highly visual imagination.”
On Beaver Street the power was still on when Nikki parked, but the streetlights didn’t keep her from bumping the curb with her front tire because it was submerged. She checked her mirrors and gave the block a full rotation. All the retail shops were closed, as was the Delmonico’s restaurant on the corner. Nobody was out driving, and the only vehicles on the street were parked cars and a UPS truck, all of which were empty. “I’m not seeing our boys.”
“Bet they got slowed by the storm.”
Detective Ochoa confirmed over his cell that the Roach Coach had indeed fallen victim to a road closure. “The FDR and Henry Hudson are both NG,” he said. “High water was supposed to be ten-to-twelve, but now they say it’s rising over a foot above that. Rhymer and Feller are tailing us, but, with the streets like they are, I can’t see us there for maybe an hour.” All Heat could imagine was her suspect up there in his apartment making his escape out some back way.
“You up for this?” she asked Rook.
“What? You’re not ordering me to stay behind in the car for once?”
“No,” she said with a sly grin. “You’re going to give me a pony ride to the door so I don’t wreck my shoes.”