“You’re not staying for breakfast?” he asked.
“I have a breakfast meeting with a business leader from the precinct.” She slid on her blazer and gave him a kiss. “Guess I’ll see you when I see you.”
“I like it better when we do this together.”
“Me too,” she said. And meant it.
On her way out the door, her BlackBerry chimed with a text. She read it and popped her head back in. “If you’re interested, Lon King’s partner just came home from a run and found someone inside their apartment.”
“Interested,” he said, and pulled down another go cup.
The sidewalks were fresh smelling and still damp from the overnight rain as they walked from his building, both working their devices. He was moving his mystery meeting to later; she was calling off her breakfast and getting ready to text Randy Feller about the change of plans.
“Nothing like an April shower to wash that urine-y fragrance away, huh?” he said as he pocketed his cell. But then Rook stopped short. Nikki jerked to a halt beside him. Both stood astonished by what they saw.
Around the corner on Reade, where they had left it parked after dinner, someone had key-etched the paint on Heat’s new Malibu and flattened all four tires. She recovered quickly and checked the doors, which were still locked, and found that nothing inside had been disturbed. Heat turned around in a circle, first to see if any other cars had been vandalized (none had been) and second, to see if the perpetrator had hung around to enjoy the impact of his work (nobody took any notice except passers-by).
Heat was mainly interested in one person. And she would personally brace ex-Detective Timothy James Maloney about this later.
“Want me to hitch a Hitch!?” asked Rook.
“Yeah, maybe we should. Or just hail a cab.”
“Never mind. Look,” he said then whistled and waved both arms. “There’s Randall Feller. How fucking lucky is that?”
Heat tried to act surprised as Detective Feller—totally made—responded to the street hail and pulled up beside them in his undercover Taurus. Jameson Rook, the conspiracy theorist’s conspiracy theorist, said it must be Kismet—as he called shotgun.
The only one who seemed to be enjoying the ride was Rook. Nikki hid under the radar in the backseat, finding it easier there to mask her tells—to avoid inadvertently revealing by her expression that it was in fact no coincidence that, with 508 linear miles of road in Manhattan, one of her detectives had just happened to be happening by the spot where they had been standing. Feller worked his jaw muscles behind the wheel, no doubt calculating how long it would take to live down getting eyeballed on a stakeout by the journalist everyone knew he had written off as a dilettante showboater.
When Rook asked what had brought Randy to Tribeca, Nikki jumped in like a rodeo clown. “I’m going to have to call in the ten-thirty-nine on my vehicle.”
“Yeah, and who fucks with a cop’s ride?” asked Feller, continuing the redirect.
Rook, now on their track, speculated. “Maybe he or she didn’t know it was a police car.”
“First of all, bro,” said Feller, “let me explain something to you. They call these undercover? But get real. Every miscreant on the street knows what they are a block away.”
“Plus I had my courtesy plaque on the dash,” Heat said, adding, “I think I know who it was.” The two up front listened intently as Heat described her sighting from the window the night before.
“You should have called it in,” said Feller.
“I did. At least I know Roach did right after I texted them to see if Maloney was buttoned down or not. Before I went to bed I saw three cruisers from the First Precinct gridding the neighborhood.”