“Even better. Bust these fucking assholes.” She gestured with her cigarette to the slaughterhouse behind them, an orange, one-story, boxy industrial that was probably an auto body shop at one time. It had no windows, and its rolling metal garage door, prolifically tagged, was closed. “I put together three-fifty for a nice condo, and I gotta listen to the fucking squawking all day and night. And the fucking stink. I want them out of here.”
Nikki assessed the moment and said, “I’ll see what I can do,” sympathetic to the woman’s gripe but not disposed to deal with it, either.
They were let in an aluminum door cut into the metal roller, and when Heat showed her badge, about a half dozen of the workers, observing warily through the hazy glass partition, shrunk back in the warehouse and, most likely, exited out the rear. While they waited for the general manager, she gave Rook the same advice Lauren Parry had shared on her first visit to the basement autopsy room. “Breathe through your mouth, it’ll trick your brain.” It worked, sort of.
Standing at the glass, Rook surveyed a line of chickens hung on hooks by their feet, headless and bleeding out, waiting to be plucked. “So much for Emily Dickinson. She called hope…”
“…the thing with feathers,” said Heat. “Yes, I know.”
“I can’t let you go out onto the floor,” said the GM, a doughy guy in whites with JERRY stitched on the left breast above a pocketful of pens and a quick-read thermometer. “I’ve got sani-caps for you both, but he’d need a beard net.” Which got Nikki to tilt her head and regard Rook with a pleased grin.
“Fetching,” she said.
“We’re good out here,” said the Jameson Rook action figure.
Heat showed the Beauvais mug shot. “We won’t take much of your time. I was wondering if you could tell us if you recognize this man.”
“Sure, that’s Fabian.” He pronounced it like the fifties rock-and-roll star instead of the Island French, but the ID hit was all Nikki cared about. In her excitement, she drew a nasal inhale and tasted death.
According to Jerry the GM, Fabian Beauvais was a dayworker like most of his crew. The immigrant community liked the job because he paid fair and didn’t ask a lot of questions. Beauvais had come there nine months ago, referred by some of his Haitian buddies, and was one of his best workers. “He pulled a no-show, Jesus, must have been end of August. Then came back, I dunno, about five days ago, all nervous and stooping like he was really hurt.”
“Did he say what happened?”
“Like I said, you don’t ask a lot of questions here. But he was hurting, for sure. And jumpy. Fabian was always kind a cool and easy-peasy, but this guy came back totally paranoid. Is he in some kind of trouble? Is that why he disappeared on me again?”
“When did he disappear?”
“Yesterday he pulled another no-show.”
Rook asked, “Did he ever say where he was or what he was doing during those two months he was gone?”
“That much I know. Said he scored a steady job doing manual labor. Construction helper, I’m thinking. I just figured he fell off a ladder, or something.”
Nikki poised her ballpoint over her notebook. “Where was that job?”
“Not sure where exactly. All he said was the Hamptons.”
“Hi, Bouley? Jameson Rook. I need to cancel my dinner reservation, party of two, for this evening?” He nodded as he listened to the reservation agent. “Thank you. Yes, I’m sorry, too. My lady decided her career is more important than Us Time.”
“Rook.”