Instead of running a zigzag, Nikki took a bold gamble and ran in a straight line, letting Van Meter gain speed, letting him forget the steering conditions. She sprinted, her lungs searing, toward the convoy of garbage trucks parked in a row outside the off-loading hangar. She held her course, waiting, waiting, as the high beams drew closer, bathing her back in hot light. When she could see her own shadow cast on the side of the first sanitation truck, Heat dove hard right, her body skimming prone across the water and ice accumulated on the concrete like it was a Slip ’n Slide.
Behind her, Dutch Van Meter, who had taken her bait, mashed his brake pedal and jerked his wheel, but the mix of precip that was icing that pier sent him hydroplaning. Traction gone, his cab floated into a sideways skid, slamming him broadside at top speed against the garbage truck. Nikki got up off the deck and saw him slumped motionless over the airbag on his steering wheel.
A gunshot cracked and hit the fender of the taxi beside her. Heat wanted Dutch’s Smith & Wesson, but The Discourager was bearing down and his next shot might not miss. Nikki hurried into the open hangar door of the garbage receiving station and took cover behind the six-foot-tall bales stacked there for barging.
When she heard Harvey’s feet slapping to a stop at the door, she crouched down and peered out between rows of compacted trash. He had turned off his six-cell so he wouldn’t give himself away, but there was enough ambient light from the West Side that she could see him wince as he rubbed a tender spot on his chest. When he took his hand away, Nikki made out the puncture in his jacket just below his shield, where his Kevlar had stopped Feller’s bullet.
Just as Heat renewed her plan to escape with a dive into the river, The Discourager worked his way around to her left flank, wittingly or unwittingly blocking her route to the open side of the hangar where they loaded bales onto barges bound for landfills. So Nikki crept to her right in the crevice between the stacks and made her way to the end of the row, where there was a small workbench.
Tools, she thought.
She studied the open distance to the workbench. It was risky exposure but better than waiting to become target practice. Heat was about to take a tentative step out of her hiding place when she heard his breathing. Immediately, she crouched low in the opening between the bales and made herself still.
Harvey was being quiet, too. Where the hell was he?
On a shelf above the workbench, among the girlie calendars and chipped coffee mugs, there sat some kind of trophy cup from the city or maybe the union. Nikki fixed her gaze on it and waited. Sure enough, after a few seconds, in the brass-plated reflection, she saw slow movement. The dark blue uniform was approaching the gap in which she was hunkered.
Detective Feller’s car keys were still in her hand. Being careful not to jangle, Heat made a fist around them so that the two keys protruded from her knuckles. Not exactly Wolverine, but it would have to do.
Patience again, always patience. The cop tiptoed sideways to the opening, searching for her in the gap. But his mistake was to look eye-level. Heat was crouched low, and when he was centered in front of her she sprang up at him, driving the keys into his left cheek while she grabbed for his gun with her right hand. He cried out in shock and pain. She jerked his wrist upward and the gun fired. The bullet hit harmlessly, eaten by the garbage bale behind her.
Heat thrashed his face again with the keys and tried to wrest the weapon away. His grip was strong, and when, on her third try, she did manage to wrest the gun free, it flew and clattered on the floor.
Nikki bent to grab it, but he tackled her from behind. She twisted and used his momentum against him, ramming him back-first into the workbench. She elbowed him three times at the sore spot under his badge. He wailed with each blow, until he palmed the side of her head and shoved her into the wall, where her shoulder crashed, breaking glass. Heat looked up inside the shattered case and hauled out the fire ax.
Harvey was coming up from his stoop, the gun back in his hand. Heat quickly reared to swing. Mindful that he was wearing body armor, she went for his gun arm. And severed it at the elbow.