NYPD Red (6 page)

THE CHAMELEON WANTED to scream. It had all been going so well, and suddenly the two detectives had pulled the rug out from under him.

His cell phone vibrated. Another text from Lexi:
Ian is a trending topic on Twitter. Congrats. UR242.

He hated all that childish text lingo. He’d mastered ROTFLMAO and a few others, but this was a new one. It took him a while to parse this one out: you are two for two.

He was, but he wasn’t happy. He had switched magazines on the SIG Pro—as writ. The armorer gave the loaded gun to Edie Coburn—as writ. Ian Stewart was lying in a pool of blood—as writ.

But the next scene was the one he’d been waiting for all day. It was a turning point in his script.

When he wrote the script, The Chameleon had no idea who the lead detectives would be. All he knew was that there would be a dead man on the floor, he was the killer, and he would be standing face-to-face with two of NYPD’s smartest cops. Staring them down. Dodging their obvious trick questions. It was great theater.

But it wasn’t happening.

The two detectives talked to the whacked-out director, then they walked off with Shelley Trager.
Walked off.
He wanted to scream out at them,
I’m the killer! Grill me. Suspect me. The audience will love it. It’s fucking drama, you assholes.

But no, they simply left the studio—disappeared—leaving him to answer dumb questions from a bunch of unsophisticated, low-level bozos in blue uniforms. They would lump him in with ninety-nine other extras, none of whom were worth two seconds of screen time.

His cell vibrated again. He read the text:
Jonesing 4 ice cream. Bring home sum Rocky Road. Luv u. CU46.

He smiled. CU46. His favorite text of them all: See you for sex. It would have to be fast. He was only 242. If Lexi paid a little more attention to the script, she’d know that by the end of the day he was planning on being 343.

“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, AND until further notice, the entire unit is operating RTC,” Captain Cates said. “Repeat—all of NYPD Red is on duty round the clock. You can shower in the gym, and if you insist on getting any sleep, we’re setting up cots on the fourth floor.”

It was 5:00 p.m., and we were all back in the briefing room. The mood was a lot more somber than it had been nine hours ago.

“Since this morning we’ve had two high-profile homicides,” she said. “Sid Roth, an LA producer in town for Hollywood week, collapsed and died at breakfast at the Regency Hotel. The lab found traces of sodium fluoroacetate in Roth’s juice glass, and the ME just confirmed that the same poison was found in much greater quantities in Mr. Roth. We have a primary person of interest—a male, Latino, about thirty, who was dressed as a busboy. That’s a vague enough description to start, and because the suspect was in disguise, it’s also possible he was using theatrical makeup to cover up the fact that he’s white. There were no prints on the carafes that were handled by the suspect, and the only prints on the glass belonged to the victim.

“A few hours after Roth was murdered, Ian Stewart was shot dead at Silvercup Studios with a gun that was supposed to have been loaded with blanks. There were approximately a hundred and fifty people working on that soundstage, any one of whom could have switched the blanks for bullets. For the record, sixty-three of them are women, but I’m not ready to eliminate anyone because of age, race, or gender. Also, there’s no guarantee that someone didn’t walk in from another part of the lot. So far, statements from the cast and crew taken at Silvercup have added up to one big fat zero. And if you’re thinking of how many of those people have restaurant experience, the answer is a hundred of them are film extras—so, all of them.

“Based on what we can pull up so far, there’s no obvious connection between Roth and Stewart. They never worked together, but operating on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon theory, it’s not hard to imagine that somebody worked with each of them and hated them enough to kill them both on the same day.

“There were no signatures linking the two killings, but with two dead bodies on Day One of Hollywood week, I don’t care if there’s a connection or not. We’re acting as if somebody out there is going after these high-profile targets and is not planning on stopping.

“As I said to the mayor just a few minutes ago, there’s no way that this unit could have prevented a bogus busboy from slipping poison into someone’s juice, or someone on a crowded soundstage from putting real bullets in a prop gun,” Cates said. “He didn’t like hearing that, but he accepts that it’s true. However, we are now on high alert, and we can—we must—prevent any more attacks. There’s a major red carpet event at Radio City Music Hall tonight. It’s the big celebrity-packed kickoff to Hollywood on the Hudson week. The mayor will be there, the governor will be there, the paparazzi will be there, the fans will be there, and we will be there.

“We were already scheduled to work the event, but now we’ve been beefed up with reinforcements. We’ve got metal detectors and screeners at every door, K-9 will be out there with bomb sniffers, we’ll have air coverage, and we’ll have another three hundred uniforms on the streets. Detective Jordan will be in charge of the Command Center on Sixth Avenue. The rest of you will be in plainclothes working the crowd. Except you, Detective MacDonald. I want you in not-so-plainclothes working the theater from the inside,” Cates said. “I assume you were going to be there anyway.”

“Yes, Captain,” Kylie said. “My husband and I are invited.”

“Good,” Cates said. “Then the department doesn’t have to spring for a dress. All right, people. There’s a madman loose out there. Go find him. Dismissed.”

THE CHAMELEON LAY spread-eagle on top of the crumpled sheet. He had positioned the floor fan at the perfect angle and the perfect speed for a gentle breeze to softly caress his naked body.

He stared up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, trying to get his brain to stop ruminating about his upcoming scene. Meditation was not his strong suit.

He was almost there when his cell rattled against the birch veneer of the Ikea nightstand.

He propped himself up on one elbow and reached for the phone. It was a text:
6 wuz gr8. Luv Lexi.

The sex
had
been great. And when he rolled over exhausted, she hopped out of bed, and padded naked to the kitchen. Leave it to Lexi to take her cell phone so she could text him from twenty feet away.

This is why he adored her. She was smarter than any girl he’d ever known, but she still did wonderfully stupid things like text him from the kitchen to tell him the 6 wuz gr8. He texted her back:
4 me 2. Wherz my ice cream?

A few seconds later the answer came back:
Scoopin fast as I can.

He sat all the way up in bed so he could watch her scooping.

Scooping is what she was doing the first day he met her—only it wasn’t ice cream. She was selling popcorn at the Paris Theatre, one of the last single-screen movie houses in New York.

“You must be a big Hilary Swank fan,” she said, ignoring the prefilled bags and digging deep into a batch of hot, fresh-popped corn.

“Not really,” he said.

“This is the third time you’ve come to see the movie this week,” Lexi said. “It can’t be the popcorn.”

He laughed. “You know the scene in the beginning where the guy at the bar tries to hit on her, and she blows him off? That’s me.”

“Get out of here,” Lexi said. “You’re acting in the movie that’s playing right here at the Paris? Just for that I’m giving you a medium popcorn and you only have to pay for the small.”

“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t even want the small one. The popcorn sucked, but he kept buying it so he could talk to the popcorn girl.

“One question,” she said. “Why do you stay for the whole movie if you’re only on in the beginning?”

“My name is in the end credits. ‘Jerk at the Bar—Gabe Benoit.’ That’s me.”

“Hey, Gabe, nice to meet you. I’m Lexi Carter—Jerk at the Popcorn Stand.”

He stayed and watched the movie two more times until Lexi got off work. Then they walked over to the Carnegie Deli on Seventh Avenue and split one of their foot-high celebrity sandwiches—an artery-clogging, towering pile of corned beef and pastrami called the Woody Allen.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if one day you got so famous that they named a sandwich after you?” Lexi said.

“I have a better idea,” he said. “They can name half a sandwich after me and the other half after you.”

They took the subway downtown to her apartment for coffee.

“I lied,” she said as soon as she locked the door. “I don’t have any coffee.”

“What’ve you got?” he said.

She peeled off her T-shirt, stepped out of her jeans, and stood there naked.

God, she was gorgeous. Lexi was one of those women who actually looked better naked than she did with clothes on. Thick auburn hair, bottomless blue eyes, and creamy white skin all the way down to her frosted pink toenails.

“You have the most incredible body I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, really. I mean it.”

“Thanks. Most guys prefer tits the size of volleyballs. Mine work better if you like tennis.”

“They’re perfect,” he said.

“You know what my mom always said—the perfect breast is just big enough to fill a champagne glass.”

The next night he bought her a gift. Two Baccarat champagne glasses. Since then, she used them for everything. Diet Coke, M&M’s, sunflower seeds—it didn’t matter. It was, she told him, the best present she ever got.

Right now the champagne glasses were filled with ice cream. She twirled out of the kitchen, a glass filled with Rocky Road in each hand. She gave him one and plopped down on the bed next to him.

“Go ahead,” she said, digging into the ice cream. “Vent.”

That was part of their deal. When he got home, the first thing he had to do was share all the best parts of his day with her. She gobbled up all the gloriously horrid details. Then she bubbled over with questions. What was Roth wearing?
Blazer, yellow shirt, no tie.
What did he finally end up ordering for breakfast?
Smoked salmon platter, toasted bagel.
Were there any movie stars at the Regency?
Just me.

When she finally ran out of questions, they made love. After that Lexi was happy to listen to him bitch and moan about whatever went wrong during the day.

“There were two detectives from NYPD Red,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious that whoever switched the magazines could still have been right there in the studio. So you’d think they would question me. But no. They just walked off, and I got interviewed by some young Chinese-Japanese-Korean cop.”

“Don’t be a racist,” Lexi said. “It’s not nice. They’re called Asian.”

“I thought Asians were supposed to be smart. This guy was an idiot. He asked me questions like ‘Did you go anywhere near the prop table?’ It’s the same as saying ‘Did you put real bullets in the gun so it would kill Ian Stewart?’ Of course I’m going to say no. I think he took one look at me and decided I wasn’t even worth the trouble. Like, you’re not good enough to be the killer. You’re just some extra who sits in the background and mumbles walla-walla-walla all day long for two hundred and twenty-five bucks. You know what, Lex, he’s the goddamn racist.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Tonight you’ll show them who the real star is. You’re gonna rock. I got your wardrobe and your makeup all ready.”

“Thanks.”

“Gabe…”

He knew by the way she said his name what was coming next.

“No,” he said. “Out of the question. Not this scene. It’s too dangerous. You can’t come with me.”

“Please,” she said. “It’s no fun sitting around wondering what’s going to happen.”

“You can watch it on TV,” he said. “Just turn on the E! channel and you’ll see it all.”

“But I want to see it with you.”

“Put the DVR on and record it,” he said. “When I get home, we can watch it together.”

She lowered her head and sulked. “Not as much fun.”

He dipped his finger into her champagne glass, scooped out a small dollop of cold creamy chocolate, and rubbed it gently against her left nipple. He leaned into her and slowly, tantalizingly, ran his tongue around her breast until he finally arrived at the sweet chocolate center. He sucked it off and she squirmed.

“I promise you’ll get to do a scene, but this one is too chancy,” he said.

“You promise I’ll get one?”

“I swear.”

She kissed him. “You want dinner when you come home?”

“I’ll bring back pizza,” he said. “All you have to do is wash out those champagne glasses.”

“For what?”

“Champagne,” he said, kissing her other breast. “Tonight, we’ll be drinking champagne.”

KYLIE AND I were in our office on the third floor. And when I say “our office,” I mean the flat gray, high-ceilinged half a football field, filled with two long rows of institutional desks, very few partitions, and even less privacy.

Being a cop has its perks, but luxurious accommodations have never been one of them.

“The captain has me on the inside, you on the outside,” Kylie said. “Are you okay about splitting up?”

For a second I thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t. We were partners, and for Kylie that meant working as close to each other as possible.

“It makes sense,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”

“I can’t believe this is my first day at NYPD Red, and I’m going to work in an evening gown,” she said.

“Let’s not tell Omar,” I said. “I wouldn’t want him to get jealous.”

“You realize I’m going to have to explain to Spence that I’m wearing a wire,” she said. “I can’t just talk into thin air.”

“Actually, he’ll be good cover for you,” I said. “You can talk to the Command Center, but it’ll look like the two of you are just having a normal conv—”

I heard her heels click-clacking on the tile floor, and then I saw her walking toward my desk. Cheryl Robinson. She saw me see her, and she smiled—second time today, that killer smile that lights up a room, even one as drab as this.

“Hi, Zach,” Cheryl said. “This must be your new partner, Detective MacDonald.”

She reached out, and the two women shook hands. I don’t know why I felt uncomfortable, but I tried not to let it show.

“Cheryl Robinson, department psychologist.”

“Kylie MacDonald, NYPD Red probie. I hope you’re not here to pick my brain, because it’s on serious overload, plus I have to get home and make sure the gown I’m wearing tonight covers my ankle holster.”

“I’m guessing you’re working the crowd at Radio City,” Cheryl said.

“The in crowd,” Kylie said. “It was part of my plan for the evening anyway—one of the joys of being the wife of a TV producer. Now I’m getting paid to do it, and if we’re lucky, Zach and I will catch our first madman together. Win-win. It’s nice to meet you, Cheryl, but I’ve got to run home and suit up.”

“Break a leg,” Cheryl said.

We watched Kylie leave. “In case you hadn’t noticed,” I said, “she loves being a cop.”

Cheryl just nodded.

“Come on, Doc, if you’re going to make a house call, give me a little more than a head nod.”

“I’m off duty,” she said. “I just stopped by to see you personally.”

“Oh…well, here I am.”
Still uncomfortable. Still not sure why.

“When we had coffee this morning, we were both looking at a tough day. I did pretty well with mine. And you helped. I just wanted to say thanks for the advice.”

“It was good advice. I wish I’d thought of it myself.”

“I know I’m the one who said it, but you’re the one who helped me hear it. So thanks.”

“Any time.”

“I really did stop by just to say thank you,” Cheryl said, “but as long as I’m here, how’s the new-partner dynamic going?”

“We had two homicides in less than eight hours, so even if I wanted to dwell on the past, I don’t have the time.”

“I guess there’s an upside to everything,” Cheryl said. “Maybe that means you’ll get a good night’s sleep.”

“We’re on high alert tonight,” I said. “The way things are shaping up, I’m not sure if I’ll get any sleep.”

“In that case,” she said, turning on the million-dollar smile, “I’ll see you at the diner in the morning.”