Killer Heat (12 page)

Mike moved into place behind one of the barrels. He didn't need
instructions from Pete. I watched as the driver of the truck
stepped out of its cab. A passenger in the Honda got out and opened
the rear door, coming up with a tire iron.

“Stop right there! Put it down,” Mike said.

Instead of obeying Mike's command, the passenger continued
walking toward the Toyota, cursing at the other driver, who was
reaching into his rear pocket to remove his wallet. The second man
returned the expletives with some ethnic slurs, as Mike yelled at
them both to back off.

The Honda's passenger began to charge the truck, banging on the
hood with the tire iron. As the camera sped in-representing Mike's
dash toward the Toyota-the driver turned around and pulled a gun
from his waistband, shooting at Mike before pivoting to kill the
civilian.

Mike had been quick enough to duck behind the barrel but the
shot he fired off was neither timely nor accurate.

“That's why you need a partner you can trust, Coop. There's
barely time to think when things heat up on the street. It's like a
combat zone.”

“I guess what you need, Alex, is the old-fashioned, basic indoor
range. It's much calmer, and you'll be able to concentrate,” Pete
said. “Want to give that a try?”

“One more chance. Then it's back to the law library for me.”

Pete shut off the equipment and we walked out of the building,
down the steps, in the direction of the huge visitors' parking lot.
“We've got to go past the gatehouse,” he said, “beyond all the
shooting ranges and bomb squad.”

The heat was escalating as the late-morning sun climbed higher.
The three of us were sweating as we crossed behind the equipment
trailers on the edge of the property to get to the new indoor
range. There was no shade on the path, just ten feet from the
border of scrubby brush that separated the facility from its
nearest neighbors. And ever present was the sound of dozens of
automatic weapons being fired by cop after cop, eager to plug the
thug on the target.

Pete squared the corner at the entry checkpoint, just past the
last RESTRICTED sign. Mike stopped short behind him and leaned over
to massage a kink in the calf of his left leg. He was still
recovering from a stress fracture he had suffered earlier in the
year.

I kneeled to retie the laces on my sneakers. Just as I did, I
heard the sharp repeat of a semiautomatic weapon fired from within
the stand of trees closest to the entrance where dozens of police
officers had parked their cars.

I fell to the ground as bullets dimpled the side of the gray
shingled gatehouse. Mike thrust himself onto the dirt and crawled
over to me, shielding my body with his own, screaming at me to stay
down. I could barely breathe, between the fright of the close call
and the pressure of his body on my chest.

Pete Acosta called for backup and ran off in the direction of
the shooter. The uniformed cops at the checkpoint-at least four of
them-took up chase with him. I lost sight of them in the dense
shrubbery that edged the roadway near the entrance.

Four others answered Mike's call and formed a circle around us.
Mike helped me to my feet and we brushed ourselves off, reassuring
the men that we had not been hit

Take her into the gatehouse,“ he said. ”I'll catch up with
Pete."

“Could you just stay here with me a minute?” I didn't want to
be left with strangers while Mike exposed himself to whoever had
been shooting at us.

Mike wasn't going to indulge my nerves. He walked away and
inspected the holes in the side of the building. “Might as well get
Crime Scene out here. Let them dig these bullets out. See what they
are,” he said to one of the guys trailing behind him.

“You don't even know where Pete is,” I said. “You don't know
who's out there.”

“Inside for you, Blondie,” he said, grinning at me to try to
ease my anxiety. “Some nut's running around with worse aim than you
have. Should make you feel better already.”

The fifteen-minute wait for Mike and Pete to return seemed like
hours. All the windows in the little shack were open for
ventilation, and I could hear the endless volleys of gunshots.

“What'd you get?” I asked, standing at the door as I saw the men
coming back.

Their arms were covered in scratches, and Mike had a long, thin
trail of blood down one cheek. The thick foliage had been hard for
them to penetrate.

“What did we get ? STDs, in all likelihood.”

“What?”

“This may be the first case where the Center for Disease Control
can count poison ivy as a sexually transmitted disease,” Mike said,
dabbing at his face with his handkerchief.

The other officers looked at me and Pete Acosta said,
“What?”

I could feel myself reddening.

“Only for the love of Coop would I take off into a briar patch.
The rest of you must be dumber than I am. It's itchy already,” he
said, rubbing the back of his neck, “and you don't even know the
broad. You got a hard line in there?”

“Yeah,” one of the cops said. “There's no cell reception.”

“I noticed,” Mike said. He walked past me, patting me on the
shoulder, and dialed his office. “It's Chapman. Give me Lieutenant
Peterson.”

“Will you tell-?”

He put his fingers to his lips. “Ssssssssh. Anybody know you
were coming here today?”

“No.”

“It wasn't in the gossip columns, was it? You didn't give it out
to Liz Smith? Or the Social Diary?” he said, trying to defuse the
tension in the group by poking fun at me. “What blond prosecutor
had a midmorning tryst with a thug on the old Pell's Point estate,
once the private reserve of Samuel Rodman?”

“Somebody was shooting at us, Mike. Why is everything a joke to
you?”

The cops were laughing.

“Hey, Loo. I'm up at the range. Just had an incident. I think
you'd better call headquarters and let them know.”

Mike was going up the proper chain of command. He explained to
his boss what had happened as we walked near the perimeter of the
restricted area.

“No reason to take it personally,” Mike said. “Coop? Other than
eating a mouthful of Bronx dirt, she's fine. She's having an
outer-boroughs experience this week.”

Peterson was asking all the questions.

“Pete Acosta-he's one of the instructors-he'll sit down when the
CO comes on for a four to twelve. Pete's guess is that it's
somebody on the job, a member of the department with a major
problem. Better let the commissioner's office know. Check who's
been put on the rubber gun squad lately,” Mike said, referring to
cops ruled psycho who've had to surrender their service
weapons.

“The shooter was aiming at us,” I said.

Mike held his finger to his lips again as he listened to
Peterson.

“Hard to tell,” Mike said. “You know how the range is set off
from everything around it. If someone was hunkered down in a
clearing, he'd have been completely hidden by the undergrowth. We
trampled it pretty well when we went after him-or them-whoever it
was. Crime scene'll have to go back into the area and look for
spent shells. Of course, the whole damn place here is covered with
cartridges, Loo.”

He ended the conversation.

“Maybe one of you wants to explain why you're ignoring me,” I
said to Mike and Pete.

“I asked you if anyone knew you'd be here.”

“Just Mercer and Laura.”

“You see what I mean? Your pals, that's all. And by the way, did
you get hit?”

“No. But the shooter didn't miss any of us by much.”

“I got more enemies just on the force than you'll ever have to
worry about. Yours are all nicely tucked away in the Cooper wing up
at Attica,” Mike said. “Most of mine are out and about, and they
all have toasters.”

That was the latest street name for handguns.

“Alex, we've got hundreds of cops coming here five days of the
week-Sundays just for sport,” Pete said, “and every one of them is
armed. A service weapon, an off-duty gun or two. Thirty-seven
thousand cops in the NYPD? C'mon, we've got some loose cannons.
Here I am feeling guilty, thinking someone is taking a potshot at
me, and you just happen to be along for the ride. What are you
worried about?”

“Let's let these guys get back to work,” Mike said, still
scratching his neck.

I didn't move from my seat. I wanted to reargue my case to
Pete.

Mike pointed to the door and I hesitated. He was the only one
who caught it. “What is it with you? You need a bulletproof vest to
get to the car?”

I wrote down my name and number on a slip of paper I ripped off
the phone pad and gave it to Pete. “I'd like to talk to your CO
later, too.”

“Sure.”

Mike went out of the gatehouse first. I looked around as I stood
on the top step, sweeping the trees and bushes on the far side of
the paved parking lot, but saw no movement. Then I walked beside
him to his car.

We drove out the road that led back to the small traffic circle
that would take us to I-95.

“Hard to believe this is the Bronx,” I said.

Mike was driving slowly for a reason. Like me, he was scouring
the trees for signs of intruders, although all of this forested
land leading up to Rodman's Neck was public.

Within ten minutes, we were back on the highway, deep in weekend
traffic headed to Manhattan and New Jersey. Housing projects and
tenements stood cheek by jowl along the six-lane asphalt
interstate.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“After I drop you off, I'll go up to the office to make some
calls. Check in with Dickie Draper. Pull up the old records on
Amber Bristol's superintendent.”

“Who? The guy who let us into the apartment the other night? The
one who said she was always attracting trouble?” I thought of his
smile as he talked to us earlier in the week, cracking his thick
knuckles as he commented on Amber's lifestyle. “I knew you were
going to run him, but you didn't tell me he had a sheet.”

“Came up blank the next day. Vargas Candera. The lieutenant had
the brains to run it in reverse. Candera Vargas. Bingo! Two collars
for using his girlfriend like a punching bag. Bronx County. He
deserves another knock on the door.”

“Can't I-?”

“Peterson's on it. I'll let you know when you can be useful.
I'll probably swing by the hospital and have a chat with Herb
Ackerman.”

“Don't you want me to be there?”

“You've earned a pass.”

“Not with my shooting skills.”

“Your agility under fire. I'd hate to think you might have
gotten shot on my watch. I'd never get another cigar from
Battaglia,” Mike said. “Ride out your conviction from yesterday.
Enjoy the weekend. Let's see how I do with Herb. Maybe I can fill
in some of the blanks.”

“Like what?”

“I think you were distracted when you spoke to him because you
had to go to court.” I had told Mike about the conversation. “You
left out a few things, that's all I'm saying.”

“You think he's going to open up to you?”

“It would help to know whether Amber Bristol was a free agent or
worked for an escort service, wouldn't it?”

“I forgot to ask. I guess I did feel rushed.”

“Did he pay her with cash, or by check, or with a credit
card?”

“Don't know.”

“She couldn't have been the first woman he'd hired, you think? I
doubt you grilled him about any of the others. Might be good to
talk to them.”

Mike was right. I should have pressed Ackerman harder. If he'd
actually succeeded in killing himself, Mike wouldn't have had this
second chance.

“Then there's the big question.”

“What's that?”

“Cloth or paper or plastic.”

I smiled and leaned my head against the car window.

“Really, Coop. Imagine if Amber had been Pampered to death with
plastic diapers. Open-and-shut case against Herb Ackerman. All the
news that's fit to print,” Mike said. “You'll be fine, kid. I'll
get you home. You ought to take a nap.”

“I guess I need it.”

“Grab one of the girls and go to a movie tonight. Get your mind
off this.”

“I've got a friend in from out of town. We're having dinner
together.”

“You're not holding out on me, are you? It isn't Nina or
Joan?”

My closest friends adored Mike. They liked his intelligence and
his humor, his intolerance for bullshit and bureaucracy, the
tenacity and spirit with which he kept at one of the most difficult
jobs imaginable.

“Keep them away from you if they were in town? Not a prayer,” I
said. I hadn't told Mercer or Mike about Luc. “And you, are you
covering for anyone tonight?”

“You know me, I'm always looking for OT.” The overtime money was
good, and Mike was usually happy to double up on his shifts.

Half an hour later, at two in the afternoon, Mike pulled in
front of my building and I thanked him again for getting me out of
harm's way.

“Will you call me if anything interesting turns up over the
weekend?”

“We don't want 'interesting,' Coop. No bones, no blowflies, no
bullets, no bodies.”

He pulled out of the driveway and the doorman handed me an
envelope. "The messenger who delivered this asked me to tell you it
was urgent.

The note inside the padded envelope was written in bold
calligraphy that I had come to recognize these past two months

Confirm package ordered to arrive Plaza Athénée, at
the Bar Seine, at seven-thirty tonight. Needs food, wine
immediately ...and occasional affection. Driver will be downstairs
to make pickup. Pack contents carefully to avoid melting in
transit.

The card was attached to a large brass key with a red ribbon. I
fanned myself with Luc Rouget's missive as I rode up in the
elevator. We had met in June at the Martha's Vineyard wedding of
one of my best friends, Joan Stanton. She had despaired of a string
of broken relationships following the death of my fiancé, Adam
Nyman, shortly after my graduation from law school. Luc and Joan's
husband had known each other for years, and her plan to surprise me
with an introduction made a romantic weekend even more emotionally
charged.

Since the night we met, I had seen Luc three other times in New
York. He was the son of a renowned French restaurateur, and
although he lived in Mougins, a tiny village perched high in the
Alps, he was making frequent trips to the city with the prospect of
reestablishing his father's classic dining spot.

Inside my apartment, I turned up the air-conditioning and
immediately began to fill the bathtub with warm water, adding
scented potions to make loads of bubbles. I needed to create an
artificial wall to distance both the horrors of the last week and
this morning's scare from a personal life that too often took a
backseat to my work.

There were three messages on the answering machine-all from
Luc-and I played them as I undressed.

The first one was a fuzzy cell call from the international
arrivals terminal at JFK, shortly before noon. The second, during
his cab ride into the city, expressed his concern that he had
spoken to Laura, who told him I wouldn't be in the office at all
that day.

“Luc here, Alexandra. I'm beginning to worry now that one of
your cases might change our plans,” he said on his third try. “It's
Friday afternoon, and I have to leave for DC in the morning. I'm in
meetings all afternoon. Please call. I'm hoping I've found a way to
unlock some of your secrets, ma chère.”

His French accent was always a turn-on.

On Martha's Vineyard I kept a collection of old keys on my desk-
from flea markets and antique shops-to use as paperweights. Luc
must have seen them after Joan and Jim's wedding.

I left a voice mail for him at the hotel before I slipped into
the tub.

I felt better after a long, soothing bath and an attempt at a
nap. But I was too wired to sleep, excited by my feelings for
Luc-feelings I hadn't experienced in more than a year.

Joan and my friend Nina were determined to help me find a
balance between my private life and the intensity of the
prosecutorial job. I liked the emotional involvement of my work,
but it was difficult to translate how richly rewarding it could be
to someone who'd had no experience with the dark world of sex
crimes and homicides.

It was an admittedly odd juxtaposition. When I closed my eyes to
think about kissing Luc, I had to force out thoughts of the two
dead women whose killers we were trying to find. I could remember
every word Luc had whispered to me that first night on the
Vineyard, but the staccato sound of gunshots still reverberated in
my ears, even in the quiet space of my home.

There was something so easy, so comfortable about spending time
with friends who were prosecutors and detectives. There was no need
to explain how we coped with the trauma that we witnessed almost
every day, or to applaud our efforts to help put people's lives
back together, or to question our often Sisyphean interest in
bringing the guilty to justice.

I needed to leave some of that baggage at home when I walked out
the door to meet Luc.

I wore a strapless sundress that always lightened my mood when I
put it on. It was aqua silk, with a swing skirt that just touched
the top of my knees. My legs were tanned and it was too hot for
pantyhose, so I chose a pair of black patent sandals with thin
straps and high heels. I carried a sequined throw over my
shoulders, in the unlikely event it cooled down during the
evening.

I took a last look at myself in the mirror, then pulled back my
hair, sweeping it off my neck into a knot and clipping it in place
with a beaded barrette.

“There's a car service waiting for you, Ms. Cooper,” the doorman
said when I came downstairs.

“Thanks, Vinny.”

He held the door open and whistled for the driver to pull up.
“Glad you're taking the night off. That's a tough schedule you've
been keeping.”

Even the doormen knew I needed to get a life.

It was a fast ride to the elegant hotel on Sixty-fourth Street
and Madison Avenue. Bright red awnings and neatly trimmed topiary
marked the entrance, and I stopped to reapply my lipstick before I
went into the lobby.

Bar Seine was one of the most attractive rooms in the city. Dark
wood paneling gave it a rich, warm look, and the low lighting and
soft music added to its appeal. As soon as I stood in the doorway,
Luc came forward to greet me.

“Bon soir, Alexandra,” he said, taking me in his arms
and kissing both my cheeks several times. “I've been looking
forward to this for weeks. I'd have been-how do you say? Désolé-there's nothing in English that quite
captures that expression. I don't know what I would have done if
you'd thrown me over for another case.”

Luc guided me to a banquette in a corner of the room. Before we
sat, he lifted my fingers in the air and twirled me once around.
“You look ravishing. I've kept the driver, so perhaps we'll go
dancing after supper.”

“Lovely idea.”

“Une coupe?”

“Oui, monsieur.”

There was a bottle of champagne chilling in a cooler. The waiter
saw us sit down and came over to pop the cork.

“That's the last thing I'm going to say in French.” Luc had made
fun of my accent on our second date, despite years I spent studying
the language in high school and college.

He raised his flute and tapped it against mine. “Well, if you
just say 'oui' to everything I ask from this point on,
we'll do fine. Here's to a splendid evening.”

There was something wonderfully seductive about Luc's manner.
Although Nina had declared him GU-geographically undesirable- when
she learned he was just visiting from France, she, too, had been
taken by his charm and charisma.

“Are you hungry? Did you have any lunch?” he asked before the
waiter left.

I had been too upset to eat anything after the episode at the
range. “Something light would be good.”

“Huitres?”

“Perfect.”

“Perhaps not as fresh as the oysters you get in Chilmark from
Larsen's Fish Market or those fried clams at The Bite, but they
should do,” Luc said, ordering two dozen for us. “Now tell me about
your day. What kept you out of the office?”

“Tell me about yours. You probably have more exciting news.”

Luc was forty-eight years old, divorced with two children who
lived nearby in his hometown. He wasn't classically handsome, but
he had strong features-blue gray eyes that reflected his
enthusiasm, even behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a long, thin Roman
nose. He was tall and lean, with hair just a few shades darker than
my own, and his great style was evident in the way he dressed and
carried himself.

“I think things are beginning to shape up well,” he said. “This
is the height of our season in Mougins. It's hard for me to get
away in August, but the opportunity to duplicate my father's
creation is quite thrilling for me.”

Luc smiled easily. He delighted in the pleasures of the culinary
arts, and his energy was infectious. I couldn't imagine a
professional world- certainly neither law nor medicine, with which
I'd been surrounded since childhood-that didn't involve
life-and-death decisions but simply enjoyment.

André Rouget had moved to New York from France in the 1960s
and had built a remarkable career in a notoriously fickle business.
One of the first celebrity chefs, he had opened a landmark
restaurant in a town house on East Fiftieth Street. Lutèce
became known for the finest French cuisine in America, maintaining
its excellence as it passed from Rouget's leadership to that of the
great André Soltner, until it closed its doors almost forty
years later.

“Have you found a location?” I asked.

“I'm hoping to do this exactly in the manner of my father,” Luc
said, explaining that his partner in the venture was scouting for a
building very much like the original.

“And you'll call it Lutèce?”

“Bien sûr. There's a great history in that name.
You know what it means?”

“Wasn't Lutetia the original name of Paris? Isn't that the Latin
word, from the time of the Roman conquest?”

“Even more complicated, Alex. The Parisii were a Celtic tribe,
living on the Ile de la Cité. The derivation of the word is
Celtic-louk-teih, the place of the marshes.”

I didn't want to be thinking of Mike Chapman now, but the
mention of a useful piece of trivia brought him to mind at once.
The information would serve me well betting against him on Jeopardy! some night.

“But let's talk about you. Tell me why you aren't on the
Vineyard this weekend.”

The oysters arrived on a bed of ice chips. They were cold and
delicious, with a slightly briny taste that I especially liked.

“I couldn't plan anything because of the trial. I should be able
to get up there for the long Labor Day weekend.”

“Such a beautiful island, especially where you are, in Chilmark.
It must restore your spirit, when everything else about your work
seems so harsh.”

“My own little piece of paradise, Luc. I love it there. What
happens in Washington tomorrow?”

“My partner wants me to meet a guy who lives on the Eastern
Shore-a potential backer for the restaurant. Then I fly directly
home. Back to work. We have to feed all those American tourists,
you know,” Luc said, refilling our glasses and touching the rim of
his against mine again. “Laura told me you had a big victory
yesterday. Can you explain the case to me?”

I didn't want to bring Kerry Hastings's story into our
rendezvous. It was too somber to mix with champagne and
Malpeques.

“It's a very long story. I'd so much rather talk about your
summer and anything that has to do with getting you to New York
more often.”

“I sent you that key for a reason, Alexandra. You know the
Marches aux Puces in Paris? Clignancourt?”

“Of course. It's my favorite place for antiquing.”

“Then I shall add that to our list of things to do together when
you come to France. That brass key is from the wine cellar of an
old chateau in Bordeaux. You can add it to your collection, but you
know I bargained hard for it. I'm trying to find a way to get into
your heart. Open you up a bit. Perhaps one of those keys will be
useful.”

Luc reached across the table for my hand.

“I don't think you need any help with that.”

“But I realize that I learned more about you from my
conversation with Nina than I know from talking to you.”

The afternoon after Joan's wedding, I had been called back to
the city for a break in a case I was working on. Luc had been
fogged in on the island, and my college roommate had told him more
of my personal history during that long evening than I probably
would have revealed in the most intense cross-examination.

We finished the oysters and opened a second bottle of Cristal by
ten o'clock. I didn't want any more to drink. My hair was coming
loose from the barrette, wisps of blond ringlets curling around my
brow and neck. By this time there seemed to be very little we
didn't know about each other.

“You know, I had a reservation in the dining room for nine
o'clock,” he said, laughing as he looked at his watch.

“I'm not the least bit hungry now.”

“Not for anything at all?”

“I didn't say that.”

Luc reached into his pocket and put the small gold room key on
the table. I picked it up and closed my hand around it.

He stood up beside me. “Dancing?”

“I think it's a waste of a lot of euros to keep that driver
waiting.”

“But that dress looks so lovely when you move.”

“Then I'll move,” I said, slipping out of the banquette and
leading Luc across the room. I looked at the number engraved into
the key. Four seventeen.

I crossed through the lobby to the far side of the reception
desk and called for the elevator while Luc went outside to dismiss
the driver for the night. We got on and the doors closed.

Luc took my head between his hands, putting his lips to mine. I
opened my mouth and we exchanged kisses, deep and long. He pressed
my back against the gilded elevator wall. I started to laugh.

He lifted my chin and kissed my nose. “Am I that funny?”

I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the camera lens in the corner
of the ceiling. I kept telling myself to stop being a prosecutor
and pay no notice to the surveillance equipment that this hotel,
like every other, had installed in public areas as a security
measure.

“Somebody's watching us,” I said, pointing at the miniature
device.

He held up one of his long arms as though to block the lens.
“Then let me take you to a more private place.”

Luc led me down the hallway to his suite. He stepped aside for
me to unlock the door, and then I followed him in.

The first time we made love was slow and playful. I was
comfortable with Luc, trusting him, giving myself to him with an
excitement I hadn't thought possible.

We rested, talked, and made love again. Finally, at two o'clock,
Luc said, “We still haven't eaten any supper yet.” He nibbled at my
stomach. “Not enough there to feed me.”