Nikki recalled her visits there prior to Hurricane Sandy. To this day, she wondered who had the money to afford those American versions of Downton Abbey.
“Well, a gal friend of mine’s a real estate broker out there and, last year, she managed the sale of Tangier Swift’s property. In the process, they sort of had a little thing—it happens—never to me, but it does. One of those romances that’s over, then it’s not over—you get the idea. Anyway, they still keep in touch, and so I phoned her just now.”
“Tell me. You got a line on Tangier Swift?”
Inez Aguinaldo simply smiled.
Thirty minutes later, standing in the shadow of Gracie Mansion on an eight-by-twenty-foot slab of concrete sticking out into the East River at Ninetieth Street, Nikki gazed anxiously upstream. Rook leaned in, blocking her field of view, and asked, “One more time before it’s too late. Are you sure it’s smart to skip your CompStat?”
“Of course it’s not smart. But I am. It’s called following the hot lead.”
“But couldn’t you send Roach?”
“Rook, will you stop?”
“It’s divide and conquer. You perform your sworn duty as precinct commander; they get a field trip to rebond and work out the kinks in their relationship. If you ask me, those two lugs need some us-time.”
“You do know that if I sent Raley and Ochoa to do this, you couldn’t ride along.”
That stopped him. He turned and craned around to look upriver, too. “Command decision. I fully support you.” But then he seemed to have second thoughts. “Is your plan even going to work? It could be a lot of One PP risk for zero NH reward.”
“Says the man who waved the white flag about meeting Tangier Swift.”
“I did not surrender. I merely pointed out that our elusive billionaire CEO was heavily insulated. I had not given up.”
“I won’t, either. And since Mr. Swift’s corporate handlers blocked all my straightforward approaches, it’s time to innovate.” She tipped her forehead northward; Rook turned again. This time he saw the NYPD patrol/rescue vessel passing under the Wards Island Bridge and heading toward them.
The boat throttled down to a stop, sat down in the water, then drifted neatly to the edge of their small dock, where two Harbor Unit officers helped first Heat, then Rook aboard before the captain engaged the twin ten-cylinder diesels again and the craft continued downriver.
Heat and Rook donned their life vests and stepped to the rail, admiring the sixty-one-foot Gladding-Hearn craft, one of the biggest in the Harbor Unit’s fleet. “Didn’t they have anything smaller?” Rook asked. “This is one big boat.”
“It’s a ship,” corrected Heat. “A boat can fit on a ship. A ship can launch a boat.”
“You’re making my point. If we show up on something this size, won’t it be overkill?”
She didn’t answer, just smiled at something private and watched the FDR go by. A lone runner pounding out his miles on the East Side recreational path held a hand waist high in a too-cool-for-school wave, which Nikki returned. Then she grew somber as she reflected on Sampson Stallings making that very circuit sorrowfully past his murdered partner’s medical building.
“You know how you pissed me off by holding back?” she asked as they passed the UN, where protesters, probably the same ones from Washington Square, were shouting and waving Syrian flags, red-white-and-black-striped with two green stars.
He stroked his chin. “I seem to have a vague recollection.”
“Good. You can make it up to me by briefing me on Tangier Swift.”
“And that’ll make it up to you?” he said with a smirk.
“Call it a start. If I know you, writer boy, you’ve obviously done some research on him.”