Driving Heat (35 page)

Wordlessly, Heat and Rook drew themselves into each other’s arms in his foyer as soon as he had latched the door behind them—a spontaneous magnetic event fueled by their aching need
to affirm something as basic and celebrated as their togetherness. They stood there a long time in the dark, silent, clinging, adhering. Chests rising and falling against each other, bodies feeling
warmth and pressing closer to get more. It felt like there would never be enough, not after the past two days.

It took the delivery man’s ringing the buzzer to break them apart, which they only did because they liked ordering from that restaurant and didn’t want to get on its flake list by
ignoring the poor guy. “What did you get me?” Rook asked as Nikki unpacked the bag and he uncorked the wine.

“I got you all eel and various roe.”

“I hate eel and roe, you know that.”

“Next time stay awake.” The small things, laughter in the kitchen, takeout sushi, a kiss after the clink of glasses—they both knew how un-small they really were.

While they sat at the counter and he spread wasabi with his chopsticks on his favorite—
o-toro
—Heat told him the details of her search. And how frantic she had got. And how
low. And she confessed about the night before last, when she had got herself drunk and nearly given up hope. He didn’t answer, but got up from his barstool and enveloped her from behind. The
hug was more profound than anything he could have said.

When he sat back down, Nikki said, “Is it an understatement to call this heaven?”

“Let’s compare. I woke up sixteen hours ago with my hands cuffed behind me on the wet floor in the smelly hold of a scow. By the way, I’m making a unilateral decision: no
cruise for our honeymoon.”

She set down her glass and took his hand. He turned to her and felt her eyes painting him. “What?” he said, toying with her.

“You know what.”

“I do know.” He swiveled to face her. “And it goes for me, too. Absence makes the loins grow hotter.”

She put down her napkin and stood, still gripping his hand. “Prove it,” she said.

Rook’s kiss took her by surprise because he met Nikki’s mouth with tenderness instead of the abandon she expected. His adolescent swagger had stripped away and exposed the unguarded
man who kissed her softly as if he needed to revisit the hushed magic of their interrupted moment in the foyer—an urgent attempt to finish some profoundly inexpressible thought. The words
that would not find his writer’s tongue found another way to reach her. Tasting him again, feeling his warmth and strength and vulnerability, sensing how he knew to slow the moment and create
their own unique time and place, tapped a well of warmth inside Nikki that made her pulse race and urged her to want all of him, all at once. As if energized by her will, and helpless before it at
the same time, she rose on her feet and pressed her body to his, backing him against the counter. His breath caught. He let out a faint moan and thrust himself closer. Then closer still. Nikki
pulled her mouth from his, gulping for air. He whispered her name against her ear once, then twice, and she found his mouth again, kissing him hungrily.

They didn’t walk to the bedroom, they were transported as if airborne through the fluid darkness, and fell onto the comforter to kiss again and then pause, breathing, wondering at the
hoarse cadence their excitement had created and staring at each other, absorbing the power of the moment and what they knew was to follow.

Still locked in her eyes, Rook let his hand drift, exploring, finding her just as Nikki’s hand found him. The lust they had been taunting, that deep mortal hunger pulling against its
restraints, came to life.

After that, any sense of their being apart was vanquished.

In the murky span of the hammock hours between too late and too early,
Heat and Rook stayed awake and talked. Exhausted, spent, it
didn’t matter. They craved this as much as the lovemaking they had just shared. Nose to nose on a single pillow, he told Nikki how picturing her face kept him going when he had had no idea
what fate would befall him as a captive—where, and at whose hands, he didn’t know. Over his storied journalistic career Rook had been abducted and imprisoned before. Once in Chechnya.
Twice in Africa. In Paris, it had happened to both of them one night when they got snatched from the Place des Vosges for a ride in the trunk of a car courtesy of a paranoid Russian spy who wanted
a secret meeting in the woods outside the city.
“Bon temps,”
she said with a chuckle.

“I’m sorry for the mill I put you through,” he said.

“We both had our ordeals. Not the first. I have a feeling it won’t be the last.” She shrugged and stroked the hair off his forehead with her fingertips.

“That’s my tousled look you’re messing with,” he said. “Part of the ruggedly handsome persona I work so effortlessly to maintain.”

Nikki laughed at that, then he nestled his cheek into her and spoke into the soft space where her neck met her collarbone. “It’s good to hear you laugh.”

“You always get me out of my serious self. That’s why I keep you around, if you didn’t know.”

“Not the sex?”

“Part of the package.”

“Pardon your pun.”

“Writer boy. Always on the clock.” After a minute or so of silence, feeling his chest rise and fall against her breast, she said. “I really did panic that I had lost you. I
thought, what if we’d seen our last snowfall together? Or would I ever again watch you do your butt dance Saturday mornings to the WBGO
Rhythm Revue
?”

“That sweet soul music puts a shake in this moneymaker, for sure.”

“Or would we ever make it to Nice on a vacation?”

“Hold on,” he said. “I thought you said I’d permanently tainted Nice by having a rendezvous there with Yardley Bell.”

“And you think I want Yardley Bell dominating my life like that? Removing geographic leisure options?”

“Hey, here’s an idea. What about Nice for our honeymoon!” Then he read her. “Right, that would just be creepy.”

Scooting up on one elbow, Nikki looked down at him in the duskiness of the bedroom. “Anyway, all this is what put me in such a tailspin the other night. I don’t need Joni Mitchell to
tell me to appreciate what I’ve got before it’s gone.”

Rook frowned. “Canadians. Always so earnest and introspective. I think it’s the long winters up there. I prefer to be less about the talk, and more about the action.”

“I noticed,” said Nikki. “My turn.” She rolled him onto his back and got on top.

After her morning shower, Heat dressed to
Eyewitness News
, the local
ramp to
GMA
, and the lead was the same as it
had been for most of the week: the cyber attack that had left municipal services in chaos. The new wrinkle was the leak from an insider in the city’s Management Information Systems Division
who said the feds, admitting complete frustration, had brought in black hatters—unreformed hackers—in a desperate attempt to find the elusive solution to the crisis. Echoing what the
FBI had told Nikki days before, the unnamed source said that every time they thought they had a fix, the attack would shift, putting them back at square one. “Sounds like Whack-A-Mole to
me,” said one coanchor to the other.

Meanwhile, even though Damascus continued to disavow any responsibility, the secretary of state was seen arriving in Paris, purportedly for off-the-record talks with the Syrians. “A long
way to fly for the reiteration of a denial,” said Rook when Heat recapped the story for him. “They should just tell everyone, whatever they need, just go to the local branch of their
public library.”

She poured herself a cup from what was left of the pot he’d made an hour before, and asked, “What the hell are you doing there—working out a system for Powerball?” Before
him on the dining table in the great room Rook had spread sheets of paper upon which he had been scrawling numbers before crossing them out and starting a new page.

“If you must know, I’m trying to remember the phone number I saw that mouth breather from the barge use to call Black Knight.” He slapped his pencil down in irritation and drew
a deep sigh. “It’s driving me batshit.” He brandished some of the pages, which replicated digits from the phone keypad of a cell phone—some of the digits. Each page had gaps
and sloppy cross-outs. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing. It just looks a little—”

“Mad?” he said with wild eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was goofing or not. She knew that obsessed look from the times when he couldn’t get the modem to reset or locate a
phantom high-pitched mechanical whine in the alley below his office window.

“Maybe if you let it go—”

“I can’t!…Let it go.” He smiled. “OK, that was a little crazy, wasn’t it?” She rocked her head side to side. “Yuh, thought so.” He sipped some
cold coffee and leaned back, willing calm upon himself. “I just feel like I should have this nailed.”

“You’re proud of your phone surfing, I know.”

“It’s not pride. Well, a little. But, what it really is, is wanting to get some damned traction on this story.” He corrected himself. “
Case
, I mean
case.”

Nikki sat with him. “It’s all right. It can be both. I know it’s a story, too. And I know there might be another Pulitzer Prize for you, that would be nice. You could embroider
another gold coin on your flak vest.”

He got a chuckle out of that. He wouldn’t be Rook if he couldn’t see his own folly. Then he said, “Yeah, yeah, we joke about the Pulitzers. The Pulitzers are fine, I suppose.
Not that I don’t love them. I have two, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“But the awards aren’t the goal. They just follow. You know I do this because it makes a difference, don’t you? I’ve exposed arms dealers supplying terrorists, diamond
smugglers, human traffickers…And now I can help blow the whistle on Tangier effing Swift and his safety cover-up. That means I have a chance to save lives. Who can say that about what they
do?”

“Doctors, nurses, first responders, suicide hotline counselors…”

“OK, yes, this is how we joke about my Pulitzers. Ha-ha, L-O-L, winking emoji, hashtag–you made your point.”

“No, I hear you,” said Heat. “And love you for that fire you have.”

“You have it, too, Nik. It’s what we share. And I want to see this through. I may not be able to get justice for those crash victims—or, now, the murder victims—but when
my article comes out, there won’t be any more lives wasted.”

“So go to it. And leave the justice part to me. And if you’re going to insist on jotting down your numbers, why don’t you do it with something worthy of your quest?”

She went to her coat draped on the barstool and came back with the box from the Fountain Pen Hospital. He took it, removed the lid, and found his Hemingway Montblanc nestled in a felt liner. He
carefully unscrewed the cap to examine the new nib, then looked up at her with tender eyes. “I’m speechless…I can’t believe you touched my good pen.”

Heat and Rook had a surprise waiting when they arrived at the precinct
that morning. Nikki spotted the red satin track suit through
the glass doors while she was still on the sidewalk and gave Rook a muttered “What is this?” to go with an elbow jab. Her curiosity only grew when she passed the Wall of Heroes, got a
full view of the lobby, and saw that not only was Fat Tommy there but beside him in the visitors’ chairs sat none other than Joseph Barsotti. In that tableau, instead of a journeyman mobster
and his muscle, the pair resembled an irascible senior and the dutiful grandson who insisted on waiting with Pop-Pop to make sure he got on the right bus.

But prudent caution made Heat eye-sweep them for signs of weapons and ascertain that they were the only ones there, except for the desk sergeant behind the ballistic glass. From police stations
to shopping malls, no place was truly benign to Heat anymore, nor was anyone, hospice-bound or otherwise.

“Thank God you guys start early,” said Fat Tommy. “Been a long night at the Wheel, and I’m ready for bed.”

“Mr. Nicolosi.” Heat calculated her greeting to keep it cool. Chillier yet for Barsotti, whom she didn’t acknowledge. He was on her shit list for refusing to cooperate after
being such a pain to apprehend.

“Come on, doll, everybody calls me Fat Tommy.” He tugged at the loose fabric of his jumpsuit. “For now.” He hauled himself to his feet with some effort and spread his
arms for Rook. “Come on, big fella, bring it in.” After a careful hug of the frail old man, Rook took a step back, and Tommy cupped a hand on his jaw. “You had me worried, you
know that? When that detective came to check me out, see if I kidnapped you, I shit myself. Not literally, but that’s coming next, I’m waiting. Mind if I…?” He indicated the
gaudy plastic chair and Rook and Barsotti eased him back down into the form-fitting ass mold.

Heat made a clock check. “Is there something we can help you with? Otherwise, if you came to see how Rook was doing—”

“Can you help me? You’ve got that backwards, Nikki Heat. I’m here to help you.”

“I’m listening.”

Fat Tommy adjusted the angle of his big sunglasses. That seemed to alter his demeanor at the same time. The
Goodfellas
act went out the window, and the mobster grew steely and severe in
a way that gave Nikki a minor chill. “I wasn’t kidding about getting pissed when I heard somebody fucked with your boyfriend. Rook’s always been stand-up with me. We don’t
need to get into details, but I respect this man. Time for me to show it. Now, I don’t know if what you wanted out of my associate has anything to do with whoever kidnapped him. But in case
it does, I am here to give you Joseph Barsotti with my blessing for him to cooperate.”

Nikki regarded Barsotti, who gave her a shrug of assent. “Well,” she said. “That is most appreciated, Fat Tommy.”

“Hear that?” said Rook. “She called you Fat Tommy.”

“About fucking time.” Then, as Barsotti went through the metal detector and into the precinct with Heat and Rook, Tommy called after to her. “And smart move ditching that
uniform. You’ve got too much going on to hide it.”