Rook said, “He must have done your car beforehand.”
“Or after,” countered Feller. “Maloney’s a sick fuck, but he’s got skills. I heard from the Spliff about how he outplayed you in the park uptown. A guy with a head like that probably saw the blue-and-whites and figured he’d leave his mark, and fuck you.”
“The Spliff?” asked Rook.
“Roach,” explained the detective with a sneer of condescension.
“Ah…a nickname for a nickname.” Rook nodded and smiled. But then he twisted around to one side of his headrest to address Nikki. “But why do this to you?”
“I think it’s kinda in the diagnosis,” she said. “Paranoid personality disorder?”
“But wait a minute. It was my loft he was outside of in the middle of the night. You don’t suppose he’s got some fixation on me because I took him down, do you?” When Feller cackled, Rook shot back, “That’s right, Randall, I took him down. And now, he’s put me on his crazy payback list.”
“But it was her car.”
“Let’s all be clear, I’m not sure it was Maloney I saw. And whether it’s me or Rook or both of us he wants to hassle, I say, bring it on.”
Roosevelt Island takes some work to get to, which is part of its appeal. The needle of land in the middle of the East River has one F train subway stop and an aerial tramway hoisting passengers across the river from 2nd Avenue. But if you want to arrive by car, the only option is to drive over the bridge from 36th Avenue out of Long Island City. Detective Feller’s Taurus came off that span and made the turn north on Main for the quarter-mile ride to Blackwell’s Landing, a luxury apartment tower on the island’s north end.
They found a spot beside the pair of patrol cars in the parking lot and walked a flagstone path lined by daffodils and tulips toward the lobby. “Definitely a two-income building,” said Feller, taking in the neatly groomed lawn, the blossoming trees, and the whisper-quiet grounds that surrounded the high-rise of tinted glass and modular concrete panels. Like most of the residential complexes on the island, this one felt like a suburban college campus or an Olympic Village.
The concierge regarded their badges gravely as they entered and escorted them across parchment-colored terrazzo tiles to the elevator, saying only “Tenth floor,” in a tone of profound sadness that could only have come from hospitality training.
When Heat and Rook stepped into the elevator, Feller palmed the door open from the outside. “Listen, you got it from here, right?” He punctuated the remark with a glance toward Heat and added, “I got a thing I gotta do.”
“Yes, the thing,” she said. “Go to. We’ll find our own way back to the precinct.”
“Oh, but I’m not going to the precinct after,” said Rook. “I, too, have a thing.” The buzzer started to protest their holding the door open. “Never mind, I’ll work it out. See you, Randy.”
As the elevator door closed, they heard Feller mutter, “Maybe. Maybe not.”