Heat slapped the gumball on the roof and told Rook to buckle up and hang on.
He beamed and actually said, “Can I work the siren?”
Heat Wave
FIVE
There is very little chance of a high-?speed pursuit on any street in Midtown Manhattan. Detective Heat accelerated, then braked, eased forward, jerked the wheel hard right, and accelerated again, until she was forced to brake again in a matter of yards. As she continued like that, working the avenue uptown, her face was set in concentration, eyes darting to all mirrors, then to the sidewalk, then to the crosswalk, then to the double-?parked delivery guy who swung his van door open and almost became roadkill but for her experience and skill at the wheel. The siren and light meant nothing in this traffic. Maybe to the pedestrians, but the traffic lanes were so packed even the drivers who cared enough to pull aside and make a hole had scant room to maneuver.
“Jeez, c’mon, move it,” shouted Rook from the passenger seat, at another taxi trunk sitting there in front of their windshield. His voice was dry from adrenaline, his words punctuated by air squeezed out against his seat belt with each sudden braking, which broke his syllables in two.
Heat maintained her tense composure. This was the live-?action video game cops played every day in this borough, a race against the clock through an obstacle course of construction, stalls, jams, daredevils, idiots, sons-?of-?bitches, and the unaware. She knew Eighth would be all-?stop south of Columbus Circle. Then, for once, gridlock worked in her favor. A stretch Hummer, also heading uptown, was blocking the cross-?flow at 55th. Nikki gunned it through the sliver of daylight it created and pulled a sharp left. Taking advantage of the lighter traffic the Hummer block created, she sped crosstown to Tenth with Rook’s expletives and Ochoa’s radio chatter filling her ears.
Things improved, as she had projected, when she squealed around the corner at Tenth. After a game of dodge ’em through the two-?way intersection at West 57th, Tenth became Amsterdam Avenue and grew wider shoulders and a nice emergency lane up the middle that some drivers even respected. She was ripping it north with a little more speed, past the back of Lincoln Center, when the call came from Raley. He had custody of Miric. Ochoa was in pursuit of suspect two, on the run west on 72nd. “That would be Iron Man,” she said, her first words since her instructions to Rook back in Times Square, to buckle up and hang on.
Ochoa was gasping into his walkie when she shot through 70th where Amsterdam and Broadway crossed at an X. “Sus…pect…running…west…approa…Now at Broadway…”
“He’s heading for the subway station,” Heat said to Rook, but more talking out loud.
“Crossing…” A loud car horn, and then…“Suspect crossing Broadway…to subway…station.”
She keyed her radio. “Suspect description.”
“Copy…white, male, two-?twenty-?five…red shirt over cammy…pants…black shoes…”