”No, but he needs to give you his report. He doesn’t want to put it on tape.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I’m at Tiger Thai on 66 ^ th. When Cal calls back, tell him it can wait until morning, he’s been at it since dawn. I don’t want him walking around in his sleep.”
“Right.”
“You working anything?”
“I’m not sure yet. Tomorrow maybe. Trying to get a fix on Linda Stembler’s whereabouts so we can talk to her.”
Cody knew better than to push Larry Simon. He didn’t like to talk about his works in progress.
“Okay. If anything important comes up call me on the cell. It’s on the hummer so it won’t annoy everybody in the restaurant.”
“Gotcha.”
“Later.”
He rang off and entered the restaurant with Amelie which, while crowded, was less boisterous than La Venezia. They found a quiet table in the back.
“How about a drink?” he asked when the waiter arrived.
“I’ll have a Thai beer,” she said.
“Good. I’ll have Thai tea, iced.”
The waiter nodded and left.
“You don’t drink?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I don’t have to…”
“Hey,” he said with a smile, “I have absolutely nothing against it. I just never got around to it.”
She started to laugh and smothered it with two fingers pressed against her lips. “Never got around to it. That’s funny.”
“Funny stupid or funny-to-the-point?”
“Oh, succinct. I can’t imagine you saying anything stupid.”
“Oh. Well, I can be stupid, believe me.”
She thought a moment and said, “Dave says you’re a prophet. I always think of prophets as being profound. And you have visions. Are you psychic?”
“Well, not exactly. The visions are very brief and…uh
…metaphoric.”
She laughed and said, “So you’re, let’s see…” she thought a moment and said, “Profoundly psychimetaphoric.”
They both laughed.
He shook his head. “I’m only profound on Halxpaawit.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. I wouldn’t even try to pronounce that.” More laughter.
The waiter came with their drinks and Cody told him they weren’t ready to order yet. Then Micah stared at her and said, “ Halxpaawit is like Sunday, if you’re a Christian. Or Saturday, if you’re a Jew. It’s Nimi’uuputimptki, the language of the Nimiipu — the Nez Perce. So, on Halxpaawit, the Nimiipu m eet in a large communal house and practice walabsat, which is the Religion of the Seven Drums as told by the miyooxat, who are spiritual leaders, and interpreted by the weyekin, who are, as you put it, profoundly psychimetaphoric. Oh, and my mother was a Catholic. How about you?”
He started to laugh and she joined him and said, “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Very succinct,” he said and raised his glass of tea to her. “You’ve eaten here before, what’s your recommendation?”?
Jonee Ansa offered to drive Kate Winters over to the Hospital. He was running recon in South Manhattan and, as he said, “As long as you’re going south of 42 ^ nd Street anyplace is on my way.”
Munching from a bag of chips, he drove up to 14 ^ th Street and headed east.
“You picked quite a day to start,” Ansa said.
“And how,” Kate answered. “Is it always like this?”
“Nah. Sometimes we’ll go a couple weeks working with the precinct guys, then we’ll catch one. But it’s never dull. Think you’re gonna like it?”
“I do already,” she said, fingering the whistle under her blouse. “I couldn’t believe it when he gave me the whistle.”
“Yeah, he’s full of surprises. Let me tell you, they come in handy. Me and Rizzo caught a double homicide report one day monitoring 911. It was over on Avenue D. We get there, we can see a dead guy in the hallway. His brains are all over the place. The door’s locked so I go around to the side of the house, jump a little fence, and just before I get to the back door I am looking at the biggest fu…friggin
…Doberman I ever saw. Waist high and all teeth and just itchin’ to have me for lunch. So I grab my whistle and blow as hard as I can and that dog’s ears damn near fly off his head and he starts yipping like I kicked him in the nuts and he disappears. I think he went under the house or something. Anyway, it turned out to be a guy who popped his wife and then ate the gun. We had to call animal rescue to come find the dog.”
Kate laughed. “I’ll remember that.” She paused a moment then asked, “Does Cody ever lose his temper?”
”I heard him raise his voice once, coupla years ago. But you can tell when he’s angry. Those eyes of his’ll burn a hole right through the wall. But then it’s over, just like that. He smiles and gets on with business. Right now he’s getting edgy. I mean, so far we ain’t got a clue. That dame in the red dress is it. This one’s really clean. Not a print, no DNA. Nothin’. Just Handley-deader than Honest Abe.”
He turned left on First Avenue and headed north.
“Your companion’s a nurse, huh?”
“She’s a doctor. ER Chief of Staff. Right now she’s squiring a new group of interns through their first year.”
“That sounds like a pain. What’s her name?”
“Song.”
“What’s her first name?”
“That’s it. Dr. Song Wiley. Her parents were hippies back in the late sixties, hanging in Haight-Ashbury. She was born in a one room flat. Five people living together. Says she was ten before she realized that some people smoked real cigarettes.”
Ansa chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “Been there.”
They drove past Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village with the East River reflecting the full moon in the background.
“Where did you meet?” Ansa asked.
“It was really strange. We both answered an ad for an apartment at the same time. There we were, the two of us, seniors in college, and a real estate gal who didn’t know what to do. So Song looks at me and I look at her and then she says, ‘Why don’t we go to dinner and work it out.’ We ended up sharing the apartment. Been together ever since. Fourteen years.”
“Terrific. There’s Bellevue. Where to?”
“Emergency entrance will be fine.”
“Hell, that’s not much of a leap, is it?”
“Well, not really when you think about it.”
“At least she’ll understand the crazy hours.”
He pulled up at the ambulance entrance. “Gimme a call on the cell when you’re ready to leave, I’ll run you home.”
“That’s way off your beat, Jonee. I live up on 94 ^ th Street.”
“Ah, I’ll have Butch meet us at 42 ^ nd and take you from there. He’s running the north end. One of the perks, Kate. Makes up for the lousy hours. Welcome to the crew.”
Kate walked through the swinging emergency doors and down a hallway to the night desk. As she
