The Steel Kiss by Jeffery Deaver
What about dinner? I wonder. Two, no three sandwiches tonight. Then I'll work on my new miniature project, a boat. I don't usually make them. There's a whole world of seafaring model makers (like airplane and train people--this obsession with transportation has bloated the field). But Peter said he liked boats. So I'm making a Warren skiff for him. A classic rowboat with reciprocating oars.
Then maybe Alicia will come over. She's been upset lately, the past returning. The scars--the inside scars--aching. I'm doing what I can to make it better. But sometimes I just don't know.
Then I'm thinking again of the fun I've just had, recalling his face earlier in the day, all sneery and handsome, after we collided outside of Starbucks.
Walking Dead...
Well, Henry, that's a good line. Clever. But I'm thinking of a better one: It has to do with the last laugh.
"Hey."
Amelia Sachs walked inside Nick Carelli's apartment.
Sparse, but clean, ordered.
"You got a TV."
When they were together, Sachs recalled, they'd never owned one. Too much else to do.
"I've been watching some of the cop shows. You watch those?"
"No."
Too much to do now too.
"They ought to do a show about you and Lincoln."
"He's been approached. He's said no."
She handed him the big cardboard moving box she'd brought. It contained some of his personal effects from when they lived together: yearbooks, postcards, letters, hundreds of family photos. She'd called him to say she'd found these things in her basement, thought he'd want them.
"Thanks." He opened it up, rifled through the contents. "I thought this stuff was gone for good. Hey, look." Nick held up a photo. "Our first family vacation. Niagara Falls."
The family of four, the classic cascade behind them and a rainbow from the particles of water. Nick was about ten, Donnie seven.
"Who took it?"
"Some other tourists. Remember pictures back then? You had to have them developed."
"Always tense when you got them back from the drugstore. Were they in focus, the right exposure?"
He nodded. More foraging. "Oh, hey!" He picked up a program.
New York City
Police Academy
Graduation Ceremony
At the bottom was the date he'd graduated. The cover featured a seal: Training Bureau. Preparing the Finest.
His smile faded.
Sachs was recalling her own graduation ceremony. That had been one of the two times in her life when she'd worn white gloves. The other had been at the police department memorial honoring her father after his death.
Nick put the program back in the box, gazing at it fondly for a moment. He closed the carton up and asked, "Glass of wine?"
"Sure."
He stepped into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine and a beer. He poured her a glass of Chardonnay.
Another memory, of the two of them, triggered by the smell and the tap of metal on glass and his fingers brushing hers.
Boom...
She shot the recollection dead. She'd been doing a lot of sniping like this lately.
They sipped the oaky wine and the beer and he showed her around the place, though there wasn't much to see. He'd gotten some furniture out of storage. Picked up a few things, borrowed from cousins, bought on the cheap. Some books. Several boxes of documents. And then there were the case files of People of the State of New York v. Nicholas J. Carelli. The many documents were spread out on the kitchen table.
Sachs looked over the framed pictures of his family. She liked it that he had them on the mantelpiece for all to see. Sachs had spent a lot of time with his mother and father and had enjoyed their company. She thought too about Donnie. He'd lived in BK, not far from Nick. After he was arrested Sachs made an effort to keep up with the Carellis, Nick's mother in particular. Eventually, though, the contact grew wispier and finally ceased altogether. As often happens when the fulcrum of common connection between two people vanishes--or one of them goes to prison.
Nick poured more wine.
"Just a little. I'm driving."
"How do you like the Torino versus the Camaro?"
"Prefer the Chevy, but it got turned into a cube of metal."
"Hell, how'd that happen?"
Sachs explained about the perp who worked for a data mining company and had invaded every part of his victims' lives--including hers. Having the beautiful Camaro SS towed and pressed into scrap had been as simple for him as tying his shoes.
"You nailed him?"
"We did. Lincoln and I."
There was a pause. Then: "Can I say? I liked seeing Rose. I wasn't sure she believed me. About my brother. What really happened."
"No, we talked later. She believed you."
"From what you said before, I thought she'd look sicker. She was pretty good."
"There are women who won't go out of the house without quote putting their face on. That's her healthy complexion. Maybelline."
Nick sipped the beer. "You believe me, don't you?"
Sachs cocked her head.
"About Donnie and everything. You never said."
Sachs gave him a smile. "I wouldn't've given you the file if I didn't. I wouldn't be here now."
"Thank you." Nick looked down at the carpet, which was worn in a particular configuration that she attributed to heels of the shoes worn by a heavy person's outstretched legs. She remembered when they would sit on the couch--yes, this very couch--it had a slipcover on it back then, but she could tell from the shape that it was the same. He put the carton of artifacts away. "How's the case coming? The guy screwing around with the appliances? Which is pretty sick, by the way."
"The case? Slow. He's smart, this perp." She sighed. "These controllers--they're in everything now. Our Computer Crimes contact said there'll be twenty-five billion embedded products in a few years."
"Embedded?"
"Smart controllers. Stoves, refrigerators, boilers, alarm systems, home monitors, medical equipment. All of them, with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth computers in them. He can hack into a pacemaker and shut it off."
"Jesus."
"You saw what happened with the escalator."
"I'm taking stairs now." Nick wasn't making a joke, it seemed. He added, "I saw a thing in the paper about what he's doing. And how these companies should fix their servers or something. In the cloud. To keep him out. Not all of them're doing it. You see that?"
She laughed. "I'm responsible."
"What?"
"I tipped a reporter off. There's a security patch that'll make it impossible for the unsub to hack into the controllers. But not everybody's installing it, looks like."
"I didn't see a press conference from One PP."
"Well, I didn't exactly share I was doing it. Going through channels would've taken too long."
"Some things in policing never change."
She lifted her wineglass to that.
"Domestic terrorism? That's his agenda?"
"The way it's looking. Ted Kaczynski sort."
After a moment, Nick asked, "How is he doing?"
"Who?"
"Your friend. Lincoln Rhyme."
"Healthy as can be expected. There are always risks." She told him about some of them, including potentially fatal dysreflexia, the rapid spike in blood pressure that can lead to stroke, brain damage and death. "But he takes good care of himself. He exercises--"
"What? How can he do that?"
"It's called FES. Functional electrical stimulation. Electrodes in the muscles..."
"Fifty Shades of Grey... Oh, hell, sorry. That was way out of line." He seemed to be blushing, not a typical aspect of Nick Carelli.
Sachs smiled. "Lincoln doesn't have pop culture on his compass much but if he knew what the book is, or the movie, he'd laugh and say, Hell yes. He's got a sense of humor about his condition."
"Hard for you?"
"Me? Yep. I saw the movie with a
Nick laughed.
She chose not to speak any more about Rhyme and herself.
Sachs rose and poured more wine, sipped, feeling the warmth around her face. She looked at her mobile: 9 p.m. "What've you found?" Nodding at the case file.
"Some good leads. Solid. Still a lot of work to do. Funny, it's just as hard to prove you're innocent as it is to make a case against a perp. I thought it'd be easier."
"You're being careful?"
"Got my buddy, the one I told you about, to do most of the legwork. I'm bulletproof."
What was said about him when he'd been on the force. Bulletproof. Sachs remembered Nick being not only a good cop but a risk taker. Anything to save a victim.
They were a lot alike in that way.
"You want..." he began.
"What?"
"Some dinner? You eaten already?"
She shrugged. "I could use something."
"Only problem. I didn't get to Whole Foods."
"You ever shop at Whole Foods?"
"Once. I felt the need to spend eight dollars for a fruit salad."
She laughed.
He continued, "I've got frozen curry in the freezer. D'Agostino's. It's not bad."
"No, but I'll bet it'd be better if we heat it up." And she poured herself another glass of wine.
What is that noise?
The sixty-six-year-old soon-to-retire printing press operator was in the hallway of his apartment building, a decades-old, work-a-day dwelling typical of this unglamorous part of New York City. He was walking unsteadily after a drink or two at Sadie's. Nearly midnight. He'd been thinking that Joey, from the bar, was a dick, the politics and all, but at least he didn't insult you, you said I'm voting this way or that. It'd been fun to argue with him.
But his recollection of the evening, and its four drinks or five, faded as he slowed to a stop and listened to the sound coming from the apartment he was now walking past.
Edwin Boyle leaned closer to the door.
TV.
Had to be TV.
But, even with the new sets, the new sound systems, TV sounded different from this. It wasn't the same. Live was live. And this was live.
Besides, on TV and in movies, the sound of a couple making love was either short and sweet (and usually there was music), fading to black, or it went on and on and on, like in porn.
This was the real thing.
Boyle was grinning. Fun.
He didn't know the guy whose apartment this was, not very well. Seemed decent, if quiet. Wasn't the sort to hang out at Sadie's and get into talks about politics or anything else. Had that same kind of quiet you saw in private eyes. At least in the movies. The printer had never known a private eye.
Now the woman was whispering something. The rhythm was faster.
The man was saying something too.
And Boyle was wondering: If he made a recording who could he send it to?
Well, of course Dirty Old Tommy on the board cutter. Ginger in Accounting--she was always talking about sex, always flirting. Jose in Receivables.
Boyle pulled out his phone and edged close to his neighbor's door, then recorded the sound show. Smiling to himself.
Who else would appreciate it?
Well, he'd think about it. But he sure wouldn't send the recording to anyone tonight--not after a few hours at Sadie's. He might end up sending it to his ex or his son by mistake. Tomorrow, at work.
Finally his neighbor and whoever his squeeze was sped up and it was over with--a long sigh, which might've been him or might've been her or might've been his imagination.
Boyle shut the recorder of his iPhone off and slipped it away. Staggered up the hall to his apartment. He tried to remember the last time he'd been laid, and couldn't--that's what seven or eight drinks did to you--but he was sure it was sometime during the previous administration.
SATURDAY V
CHECK...
CHAPTER 39
Eight a.m.
Amelia Sachs yawned. She was tired, and her head was throbbing. She'd had, to put it mildly, a restless night. No. Turbulent.
She had left Nick's apartment an hour before and was now in the war room at One PP, where for the second time in a few days, she was reviewing the file of a case that was not on her docket.
First, it had been Nick's.
And now this, a much smaller file, unrelated to his situation.
The hour was early but she'd read it three times already since she'd downloaded it from the archives not long ago. Looking for some positive nuggets that might explain what she suspected. Finding none.
She looked out the window.
Back to the file, which wasn't cooperating in the least.
No gold nuggets. No salvation.
Goddamn it.
A figure appeared in the doorway.
"Got your message," Ron Pulaski said. "Got down here as soon as I could."
"Ron."
Pulaski walked inside. "Empty. Different." He was glancing around the war room. The evidence charts were in the corner but they were incomplete, now that the two cases--Sachs's and Rhyme's--were in fact just one and this facility was no longer part of the Unsub 40 operation. Sunlight poured in, harsh, at an acute angle.
Pulaski looked uneasy. Sometimes he was uncertain--mostly because of the head injury. It had robbed him of confidence and, yes, a little cognitive skill, which he more than made up for in persistence and street instinct. After all, the solutions to most crimes were pretty obvious; police work was built on sweat more than Holmesian deduction. But today? Sachs knew what the issue was.
"Sit down, Ron."
"Sure, Amelia." He noted the file open on the table in front of her. He sat.
She turned the folder around and pushed it forward.
"What's this?" the young blond officer asked.
"Read it. The last paragraph."
He scanned the words. "Oh."
She said, "The Gutierrez case was closed six months ago. Because Enrico Gutierrez died of a drug overdose. If you're going to lie, Ron, couldn't you at least have checked the facts?"
The phone woke him.
Humming, not ringing or trilling or playing music.
Just humming as it sat on his JCPenney bedside table. The dream helped, having kept him near waking; inside, he had dreams about being out; outside, he dreamed about his cell. So sleep was watchful, busy as water spiraling down a drain.
"Hello? Uhm, hello?"
"Yes, hi. Is this Nick?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"I didn't wake you, did I?"
"Who's this?"
"Vito. Vittorio Gera. The restaurant."
"Oh, sure."
Nick swung his feet around, sat up. Rubbed his eyes.
"I wake you?" Gera asked again.
"Yeah, you did. But that's okay. I've gotta get up anyway."
"Ha, honest. Most people woulda said no. But you can always tell, right? They sound groggy."
"Do I sound groggy?"
"Sort of. Listen, speaking of, you know, being honest. I'll get right to it, Nick. I'm not going to sell the restaurant to you."
"You had a better offer? I can work on that. What're we talking?"
"It's not the money, Nick. I just don't want to sell to you. I'm sorry."
"The record?"
"What?"
"Me being in jail."
Gera sighed. "Yeah, the record. I know you were saying you were innocent. And, you know, I believe that. You don't seem like a crook. But still word'll get out. You know how that works. Even rumors, even they're lies. You know."
"I do, Vito. Okay. If that's the way it is. Hey, you had the balls to call me yourself. It wasn't your lawyer calling my lawyer. A lotta people would've handled it that way. Appreciate it."
"You're an okay guy, Nick. I know things'll work out for you. I got a feeling."
"Sure. Hey, Vito?"
"Yeah?"
"Does this mean I can ask your daught
A pause.
Nick laughed. "I'm messing with you, Vito. Oh, and by the way, that take-out order the other day? My friends said it was the best lasagna they'd ever had."
A pause. A guilty pause, probably. "You're okay, Nick. You'll do all right. Take care."
They disconnected.
Hell.
Sighing, Nick rose and walked stiffly to his dresser, on which his pants lay in a pile. He tugged them on, swapped yesterday's T-shirt for a new one and brushed his hair. More or less.
Amelia Sachs had left the apartment an hour before, the footsteps and closing door waking him briefly.
He walked into the living room, thoughts of her prominent in his mind as he made a pot of coffee, poured a cup and sat at the kitchen table to wait for it to cool. But then, looking over the files she'd given him, images of Amelia, disappointment about the failed restaurant deal were replaced by memories of his days as a cop.
Now, like back then, something clicked in his mind when he was starting an investigation. Like turning on a switch, snap, he was in a different mode. Suspicious, for one thing. Sifting, picking out what could be believed and letting the rest sprinkle away. This wasn't hard for Nick Carelli.
And, more important, making leaps. His mind making those weird leaps. That's what nailed the perps.
"You told me you drove out to Suffolk."
"Right, Detective Carelli. That's where I was. Seeing my friend. He vouched for me. You talked to him."
"It's a hundred and ten miles round trip."
"So?"
"Your gauge when I stopped you? Showed nearly full."
"So again. Here's where I say, I refilled."
"You drive a turbo diesel. Here's where I say there's no diesel along the route you say you took."
"Oh. Ah. I wanna talk to my lawyer."
Making that leap--calling the stations and checking for diesel pumps--was just something that occurred to him naturally.
Detective then, detective now.
He pulled the list of J names toward him, the people from Flannigan's that Von had said were regulars--one of whom, Nick prayed, could help him turn his life around.
Jack Battaglia, Queens Boulevard Auto and Repair
Joe Kelly, Havasham General Contracting, Manhattan
JJ Steptoe
Jon Perone, J&K Financial, Queens
Elton Jenkins
Jackie Carter, You Stor It Self Storage, Queens
Mike Johnson, Emerson Consulting, Queens