He actually offered to do that, even came around to the driver’s-side door and crouched for her to hop on. She gave his ass a swat and he gave up that notion. They slogged ankle-deep to the front of the apartment building, a prewar terra-cotta, twelve stories tall. Heat shielded her eyes from the whipping wind and rain and tilted her head back. The penthouse lights were lit.
“NYPD, open up.” Detective Heat banged once more and listened. She heard movement inside and stepped back, then launched herself forward to deliver a kick to the sweet spot of the door. In the blink before it landed, the dead bolt slid and it started to open. Her momentum carried her sole into the wood and the door flew about six inches before it slammed into someone behind it who cried out.
She came in with her gun drawn and took position over the man cringing on the floor. She handed Rook the Beretta from her ankle holster and told him to hold it on him while she checked the other rooms. “It’s wet,” he said.
“Don’t worry, it’ll still fire.” When she came back a moment later, she holstered and came around to cuff the attorney.
Reese Cristóbal wept. Sitting cross-legged in his foyer, blood streaming from his split lip onto his champagne carpet, the Gateway Lawyer blubbered like a toddler. Heat tried to raise her detectives, but cellular service had gone funky, either through excess call volume or equipment damage. Nikki decided to give them ten more minutes. She turned to her prisoner. “So how low are you? Putting yourself out there like some community asset, saying you’re placing immigrants in jobs and smoothing the transition for them, and all the time it’s a cover for your ID theft ring. No, forget that. It’s more than a cover; your position guaranteed you a ready supply of slave labor to pick through the trash and gather your stolen documents.” At first it looked like he was nodding agreement, but the man rocked back and forth, keening and moaning.
“Welcome to your reality, counselor. You are cooked; you know that, right? You are not only going down for human trafficking and every related civil rights and abuse charge we can throw at you, plus ID theft and bank fraud.…” His sobs grew louder so she spoke up to drown them. “…I am going to see you tried as an accessory in the attempted murder of Fabian Beauvais by one of your bulls. And who knows? Maybe you had something to do with his killing, too.”
“No!”
“And his fiancée, too. Wasn’t Jeanne Capois also enslaved in your shred operation? Maybe you’ll also go down for her.”
Cristóbal’s whining mixed in perfect pitch with the eighty-mile-per-hour winds roaring between the buildings in the Financial District. “No, no, I’ll cut a deal.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“I know things.” He finally brought his gaze to hers. “Things you want.”
Was he acting, or was this the break Nikki had hoped for — if not the smoking gun, at least the hot trail? She tested him. “Tell me about Beauvais.”
“I know all about Beauvais.”
“What did he steal from you that was so dangerous?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “What about Keith Gilbert? What’s his connection to all this?”
He licked his mouth and smiled broadly, and when he did, his lip parted again and blood dripped off his chin. With the wind and rain and flashes of lightning, he could have been Dracula. “Deal first,” he said.
Heat checked her watch. Nearly an hour had passed, and still no backup. She checked the window. Water had risen to the chassis of her undercover. Any higher, she might not be able to start the engine. Cristóbal was scum. Heat needed to get him to swear a statement before he lost his fear and did too much thinking.
She turned to Rook. “Let’s get him to the First Precinct.”
There were whitecaps on Beaver Street as they crossed to the car and got him into the backseat. Relieved when the ignition fired up, Nikki said to Rook, “Change of plan. It’s worse than I thought out here. In all this, Ericsson Place is too far to go. I’m thinking One PP is closer.”
“You’re the skipper. Want to cast off?”
The car filled with high beams from behind. She checked her mirror and made out the form of a black armored vehicle pulling up. “May be our lucky day. Looks like we’ve got backup, after all.”
But when Heat registered that the BearCat drawing alongside did not have NYPD or National Guard markings, instinct took over. She threw the transmission in low gear and floored it. Her tires spun until they made purchase, and the car slogged forward, churning water. “Down, down,” she yelled just as the rear windows shattered with automatic rifle fire.
eat jerked the wheel and made a sharp right up William Street. Too busy driving, Nikki couldn’t turn to see, but she knew Reese Cristóbal had to be dead. She reached for the two-way and keyed the mic, “One-Lincoln-Forty, ten-thirteen, officer needs help.” She released the button. After the squelch came a blizzard of radio calls stepping on each other. “You hit?” she asked Rook?