Levy said nothing, only watched a dot over the water that turned out to be a seagull, not a drone. Heat wasn’t sure if this evasiveness was the man’s panic response to getting shot at—completely understandable—or if there was something he was trying to keep hidden, something bigger that might have taken on a life of its own. For now, all she could do was wonder, and keep pushing to get her own answers. Nikki handed Levy her card and said, “Whenever you’re ready to talk, here’s how to reach me.”
As they started to go, they caught a flash of white as Levy tossed her card on the ground. “Nice fella,” said Rook, which actually made Heat laugh.
The blue-and-whites had departed, the neighbors had gone back to call each other to gossip, and Heat pulled away, leaving the dour victim of a near miss watching her go from his driveway. “I’m surprised you two aren’t tighter. Aren’t you a beer-for-breakfast dude?”
“Sure, if I wake up at five P.M. in the tropics. But in the tropics I’d have fresh oranges to squeeze, so I think the whole Jameson Rook–Nathan Levy buddy film will never get ma—Turn around!”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“Not you,” he said. “The car. Stop the car. Turn it around, hurry.” Heat braked and, as she paused, waiting to make a U-turn in the middle of Tremont Avenue, Rook added, “That car that passed us going the other way, toward Levy’s…The guy in the sketch was at the wheel.”
At that, Nikki made the U-ey, running one front tire over the curb before she sped off in pursuit.
East Tremont is a nice, fat, wide, old-fashioned four-lane, which made quick work of putting pavement behind Heat. She wove at a decent clip around a slowpoke who was texting and a plumber’s box truck, coming up in no time to Nathan Levy’s street at the T intersection. Unfortunately, a food service van idled at the stop sign.
“What the hell’s he doing?” said Rook.
Nikki spotted the rolling gate begin to open at the catering business across the intersection. “He’s blocking the lane waiting here to get in that driveway there. Simpleton.”
“You do realize we are one Muppet Show opera box from becoming Statler and Waldorf,” he said.
Heat lit up her LEDs and gave her siren a short, guttural burst. The driver’s arm emerged from the van’s front window and windmilled to tell her to go around him. She pulled up to a fast stop beside him and made her turn toward Levy’s house.
Rook pointed to the Impala two blocks ahead. “Dark-blue Chevy.”
“Got him.” Heat keyed her microphone. “One Lincoln Forty, in pursuit of blue late-model Chevrolet sedan, southbound on Schurz Avenue, cross street, East Tremont.” Dispatch came back and asked for the plate. She was close enough now see it and read it off. “Driver is wanted for possible ten-thirty-one, request backup.”
“Ten-four, One Lincoln Forty.”
She dropped the mic in her lap and said, “Watch for peeps. Don’t want to be on the Eyewitness News tonight for mowing down any citizens.” Then, something unusual ahead. The Impala showed brake lights. It was Nikki’s turn to ask, “What the hell’s he doing?”
The car slowed, its right blinker came on, and their prey pulled over to the curb, parked, and shut off the engine.
Rook turned to her. “To state the obvious? Worst car chase ever.”
Heat’s attention was too focused on the job at hand to even hear what Rook had said. She called in her location and popped her door, approaching the vehicle from the driver’s blind spot with her hand on her holster and alert for sudden moves. But the first thing she saw was both of his hands gripping the steering wheel at the classic ten and two o’clock positions—keeping them right where she could see them. Nikki surveyed the backseat to make sure he was alone, also saw that there were no weapons around him. She didn’t notice any drones, either. When Heat looked at his face, he was smiling. She was struck by how much he looked just like his sketch.