The old doorman stood with Nikki, Rook, and Roach in the observation booth, looking through the glass at the men in the lineup. “Take your time, Henry,” said Nikki.
He walked a step closer to the window and took off his glasses to clean them. “It’s hard. Like I said, it was dark and they wore hats.” In the next room, six men stood facing a mirror. Among them, Brian “Doc” Daniels, plus the two other men from that morning’s body shop raid.
“No hurry. Just let us know if anyone clicks for you. Or doesn’t.”
Henry slid his glasses back on. Moments passed. “I think I recognize one of them.”
“You think, or you know for sure?” Nikki had seen it many times where the urge to help or to take revenge forced good people to make bad choices. She cautioned Henry again. “Be certain.”
“Uh-?huh, yes.”
“Which one?”
“You see the scruffy guy with the arm bandage and the long gray hair?”
“Yes?”
“It’s the one to the right of him.”
Behind him, the detectives shook their heads. He had identified one of the three cops who were shills in the lineup.
“Thank you, Henry,” said Heat. “Appreciate you coming down.”
Back in the bull pen, the detectives and Rook sat with their backs to their desks, tossing a Koosh Ball around the horn at a lazy pace. This is what they did when they were stuck.
“It’s not as if this biker is going to go anywhere,” said Rook. “Can’t you hold him for assault on Detective Heat alone?”
Raley put his hand up and Ochoa lobbed the Koosh into his palm. “It’s not about holding the biker.”
“It’s getting him to give up the paintings.” Ochoa held up his hand and Raley returned the Koosh to it. They had this down so well, Ochoa didn’t have to move.
“And who hired him,” added Heat.
Rook held his hand up and Ochoa tossed it to him. “So how do you get a guy like that to talk when he doesn’t want to?”
Heat held up her hand and Rook lobbed it over for an easy catch. “That’s always the question. It’s finding the spot where can you apply pressure.” She jostled the Koosh in her palm. “I may have an idea.”
“Never fails. It’s the power of Koosh,” said Raley.
Ochoa echoed that, “Power of Koosh,” and held up his hand. Nikki threw the ball and it smacked Rook in the face.
“Huh,” she said. “Never did that before.”
Nikki Heat had a new customer in the interrogation room, Gerald Buckley. “Mr. Buckley, do you know why we asked you to come in to talk with us?”
Buckley’s hands were folded together in a tight lace on the table in front of him. “No idea at all,” he said with a look of hard study. Heat noticed he dyed his eyebrows black.
“Did you know there was a burglary at the Guilford last night?”
“No shit.” He licked his lips and ran a knuckle backhand across his drinker’s nose. “Probably the blackout, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I dunno. You know. Not politically correct to say it, so I’ll just say ‘certain types’ like to run wild the minute the fences come down.” He felt her eyes on him and couldn’t come up with a safe place to look, so he concentrated on picking at an old scab in the back of his hand.
“How come you called in off your shift at the Guilford last night?”
His eyes rose slowly and met hers. “I don’t understand the question.”
“It’s a simple question. You’re a doorman at the Guilford, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Last night you called in to the doorman on duty, Henry, and said you wouldn’t be in for your overnight shift. Why did you do that?”
“What do you mean why?”
“I mean just that. Why?”