The elevator showed five floors in the town house, and they got off at the third. They were greeted with a new-carpet smell as they stepped into a circular room with halls branching off in three directions. From what Heat could tell, two of them led to what were most likely bedrooms, toward the rear of the rectangular property. Mills hooked his multimillion-dollar arm to indicate they should follow him to the near doorway, which put them in a sunny room giving out onto the street below. “Guess you could call this my man cave.”
The den was a sports trophy room, done with taste. Mounted baseball bats shared wall space with classic sports photos: Ted Williams watching one fly out of Fenway, Koufax in the 1963 Series, Lou Gehrig enjoying a Babe Ruth headlock. Atypically, it wasn’t a shrine to Toby. The only pictures of him were with other players, and none of the trophies were his, although he could have easily filled the room. Heat read this as where he came to escape the hype, not to bask in it.
Toby stepped behind a wet bar of blond wood with turf green inlay and asked if he could fix them something. “Now, all I’ve got is Colonel Fizz, but, truthfully, it’s not just because they sponsor, I like the stuff.” Heat could hear the Oklahoma in his voice and wondered what it was like to graduate high school in Broken Arrow and come to all this in fewer than ten years. “I assume you’re working; otherwise, I’d offer something more of a bump up.”
“Like what? Is there a General Fizz?” said Rook.
“See? There it is. Writer.” Toby snapped open some cans and poured drinks over ice. “I’ll start you off with the cola. It hasn’t killed anyone, not yet, anyway.”
“I’m surprised you knew me,” said Rook. “Do you read that much of my stuff?”
“To be honest, I read your Africa trip with Bono and the Portofino article about Mick Jagger on his boat. Man, I have to get myself one of them. But the political stuff, you know, Chechnya, Darfur, I can do without, no offense. But I know you mainly because we have a lot of friends in common.”
She wasn’t sure whether Toby Mills was a natural host or was stalling them, but while they talked she took in the view from the window. A few streets over, she picked out the Guggenheim. Even cropped by the rows of town houses, the distinct shape of the roof gave it away. Up the street, the treetops of Central Park were just beginning to show a hint of autumn. In two weeks, the color would bring out every amateur photographer on the eastern seaboard.
Nikki heard a man talking to Toby, but when she turned he wasn’t in the room yet. “Hey, Tobe, I got here fast as I could, buddy.” Then he stepped in, a fit-looking guy in a power suit with no tie, moving quickly to Rook. “Hi, Jess Ripton.”
“Jameson Rook.”
“I know. You guys should clear these with me first. We don’t do press without advance clearance.”
“This isn’t a press interview,” said Nikki Heat.
Ripton turned, seeing her for the first time. “You the cop?”
“Detective.” She gave him her card. “You the agent?”
Behind the counter, Toby Mills just laughed. An actual “Whoa, ho, ho.”
“I’m not an agent. I’m a strategic manager.” He smiled, but it did little to soften him or take the clang off his brass balls. “The agent works for me. The agent stays out of the way and collects the checks and we’re all happy. I handle public relations, bookings, media, endorsements, every point along the value chain.”
“Must be tough to fit all that on a card,” said Rook, earning another laugh from Toby.
Ripton sat in the corner easy chair. “So tell me what this is about.”
Nikki didn’t sit. Same as she didn’t take dictation from Chester Ludlow, she wasn’t going to honor Jess Ripton’s type-A stampede. She wanted to keep this her meeting. But now, at least, she understood the stall. Daddy’s here.
“Are you Toby’s attorney?”
“I have a degree but no. I’ll call the attorney if I think we need one. Do we need one?”
“Not my call to make,” she said with a bit of push-back in her tone. Then she thought, what the hell, and left Ripton in his chair to take a bar stool facing Mills. “Toby, I want to ask you about an incident last week at the residence of Cassidy Towne.”