“All right,” Alik said. “Let’s take a step back here. They won’t have come in through the nearest hub. That would give any investigation too much data. But…they weren’t expecting this to be a major homicide investigation, either. So, have your Turing work all the surveillance around the apartment, see if you can backtrack the Javid-Lee crew through their edits. Find out where they came from. Somewhere along the line they’ll leave their image on a log.”
Bietzk gave the agent a quick nod and started instructing his altme.
“Connexion hasn’t logged the Lorenzos in any hub since they exited Central Park West,” Salovitz said. “So where the fuck are they?”
Alik stared at the holographic display on the stage, mentally reviewing the number of ways out of that portalhome. “We’re overthinking this,” he decided. “Let’s stop relying on Turings and forensics, and go back to basics.”
“Like what?” Salovitz asked skeptically.
“We’ve been looking for a technical solution, and I’m not sure it’s applicable. Think about this: Half a dozen fuckheads break into your apartment armed with some heavy-duty shit. You don’t have time to get smart. You have to get yourself and your kids
“Not yet,” Salovitz admitted. “Just the seventeenth floor.”
“You need to get it done.”
“I’ll call in some more people,” he said reluctantly.
Alik claimed a desk and sat down. Coffee was brought in. Out of a vending machine, but he didn’t complain out loud; he needed the cops on his side. Shango splashed a whole load of data on his lenses. He was examining family and known associates for each of the corpses.
And he was pretty certain he wouldn’t be the only one looking at those lists. Word of the police arriving at the apartment would be spreading. The survivor who took the Antarctic plunge would have spoken to Rayner. Javid-Lee would be wanting to know why his people hadn’t come back; probably sending someone to take a look along Central Park West, who would have seen the cops establishing a crime scene perimeter. He knew he didn’t have much time. It wasn’t as if the gangs still practiced
But Alik was a firm believer in the truism that every chain was only as strong as its weakest link. He just had to make the right choice of link.
Twenty minutes later two agents from the FBI Miami office escorted Ali Renzi into the twentieth precinct. To keep the Deacon sweet, Alik suggested that Salovitz should lead the interview, leaving him and Bietzk to watch it on the stage, with a link open to the detective in case they wanted to put any extra questions to him.
The stage hologram was detailed, showing Renzi as a chill guy, an attitude fine-tuned to show everyone what an innocent he was, how this must be some big mistake. It was a dick move, Alik thought; the genuinely innocent get very nervous being waltzed into a precinct house at two o’clock in the morning.
Ali Renzi was still in his Miami clubbing clothes: a short-sleeved shirt with a weird fantasy alien lion embroidered on and tight black pants. A quick march through a New York January night had left him shivering as he stood under the interview room’s air-con vent, trying to get warm.
Bietzk gave Shango access to the body scan. Renzi’s heart rate was high, as was his blood toxicology. Neural activity showed his brain was cranked up. Alik suppressed a smile at the tell of nervous energy.
Salovitz walked in. “Sit, please.”
Renzi gave the air-con grille a last look and reluctantly sat at the table opposite Salovitz.
“Would you like a lawyer present?” Salovitz asked. “If you don’t have one, a public defender will be appointed. If you do not have insurance coverage, you will be liable for their costs.”
“Am I under arrest? I didn’t get read no rights.”
“No, this isn’t an arrest; for now you are a material witness.”
“For what?”
“Tell me about the
“That’s a sweet yacht. I run service on it sometimes.” He smiled broadly, putting on the Latino strut.
“Ali,” Salovitz said the name like he was calling out a fifth grader.
“What?”
“Let me give you some free advice here. You don’t have a criminal record, and I can see you’re basically a decent guy, so don’t get me pissed. Understand?”
“What’s up, man? I service it. I told you.”
“We track you down at two in the morning and bring you all the way up here, where I ask you about a yacht you serviced yesterday morning, and you tell me: sometimes? You need to start pumping up your IQ. Because serious doesn’t even begin to cover this.”
“Pump my what?”
“Get smart, Ali. What happened to the
“The gearing, man. The diagnostics redlined. It was towed to dry dock. The company’s working on it.”