“From you?” she scoffed. “Wouldn’t do to reinjure those tender ribs.”
“You do need help. Writer help. You take down a character like that, and the best you can you do is ‘Go ahead’?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Sorry, Detective, but I’m left sort of hanging. Like ‘shave and a haircut’ minus the all-important ‘two bits.’ ” He glanced over his shoulder into the backseat, at the manacled Iron Man staring out the side window at a Flash Dancers ad on a cab top. “Although, plus ten for not saying, ‘Make my day.’ ”
“As long as you’re happy, Rook, I’ve done my job.”
A column of fluorescent light cut into the dimness of the precinct observation booth as Jameson Rook stepped in to join Heat and her two detectives. “Got one for who wrote ‘It’s Raining Men.’ Ready?” said Ochoa. Spirits were palpably lighter after the afternoon’s arrests. One part come-down from the adrenaline, one part feeling this case would clear if their two prisoners did Matthew Starr.
Rook crossed his arms and smirked. “Let me hear it.”
“Dolly Parton.”
“Oh,” moaned Rook, “I knew I should have put money on this.”
“Hint,” said Raley.
“Living.”
“Bigger hint,” from Ochoa.
Rook was loving this and announced like a game show host, “This famous cowriter is a he and is on network television every day.”
“Al Roker,” shouted Raley.
“Excellent guess. No.”
“Paul Shaffer,” said Heat.
Rook couldn’t hide his astonishment. “That’s right. Was that a lucky guess, or did you know?”
“Your turn to guess.” She flashed a smile that dropped as fast as it appeared. “Oh, and my prize for winning? You wait here in the Ob Room while I do my work.”
Detective Heat kept the two suspects separated for their interrogations as a matter of practice. The two had been apart since their arrests, to prevent them from co-formulating stories and alibis. Her first session was with Miric, the bookie, who indeed had ferretlike qualities. He was a small man, five-four, with thin pasty arms that could have gone missing from a Mr. Potato Head. She selected him because he was the known person and, if there were such a thing, the brains of the two.
“Miric,” she said, “that’s Polish, right?”
“Polish-American,” he said with the lightest trace of accent. “I came to this country in 1980 after this thing we called the Gdansk Shipyard strike.”
“We, as in you and Lech Walesa?”
“That is right.
“Miric, you were nine.”
“No matter, is in the blood, yes?”
Less than a minute and Nikki had this guy down. A time-filler. An amiable who talks and talks but says nothing. If she kept up the ballet, she’d be there hours and come out with a headache and no information. So corral him as best she could, she decided.
“Do you know why we picked you up?”
“Is this like speeding ticket and officer asks you to tell him how fast you are going? I don’t think so.”
“You’ve been arrested before.”
“Yes, number of times. I think you have a list in there, right?” He nodded his long nose to the file on the metal tabletop in front of her and then looked at her. His eyes were set deep and so close together they almost crossed. Calling him a ferret might be complimentary.
“Why did you go to the Guilford day before yesterday?”
“The Guilford, on West 77th? Very nice building, that. A palace, yes?”
“Why were you there?”
“Was I?”
She slapped the flat of her hand down on the table and he jumped. Good, she thought, let’s change the tempo. “Let’s cut the bull, Miric. I have eyewitnesses and photographs. You and your goon went to see Matthew Starr and now he’s dead.”
“And you think I had something to do with this tragedy?”
Miric was a slippery one, a true slimebag, and, from her experience, the ripest type for divide-and-conquer. “I think you can be helpful here, Miric. Maybe whatever happened to Mr. Starr wasn’t your doing. Maybe your pal… Pochenko…got a little more excited than he was supposed to when you went to collect your debt. It happens. Did he get too excited?”
“Whatever you are talking about, I don’t know. I had an appointment to see Mr. Matthew Starr, of course. Why else would they allow me in such a wonderful building? But I went to his door and he did not answer.”
“So your statement is that you did not see Matthew Starr that day.”
“I don’t feel I need to repeat when I say so clearly.”
This guy had been through the mill too often, she thought. He knew all the moves. And none of his priors, though numerous, involved violence. Scams, cons, and bookmaking only. She shifted back to Iron Man. “This other man, Pochenko, he came with you?”
“The day I did not see Matthew Starr? He did come. You know that already, I bet, so there you go. You have good answer from me.”
“Why did you bring Pochenko to meet with Matthew Starr? To show him the wonderful building?”
Miric laughed, showing a tiny row of ocher teeth. “That’s a good one, I’ll remember that.”
“Then why? Why take such a big guy like that?”
“Oh, you know in this economy many people want to rob you on the streets. I sometimes carry sums of money and one can’t be too safe, yes?”
“You aren’t convincing me. I think you’re lying.”
Miric shrugged. “Think what you like, is free country. But I say this. You wonder if I killed Matthew Starr and I say, Why would I? Bad for business. Want to know my pet name for Matthew Starr? The ATM. Why would I pull plug on ATM?”
He gave her something to think about. Nonetheless, when she rose, she said, “One more thing. Hold out your hands.” He did. They were clean and pale, as if he had spent his days peeling potatoes in a washtub.
Nikki Heat compared notes with her crew while they moved Pochenko from his holding cell to Interrogation. “That Miric’s a piece of work,” said Ochoa. “You see critters like that covered in sawdust in bitty cages when you raid meth dealers.”
“OK, we agree on the ferret profile,” said Heat. “What do we come away with that’s useful?”
“I think he did it.”
“Rook, you say that about everyone we meet on this case. May I remind you of Kimberly Starr?”
“But I hadn’t seen this guy before. Or maybe it’s his muscle. That is what you guys call them, muscle?”
“Sometimes,” said Raley. “There’s also goon.”
“Or thug,” said Ochoa.
“Thug’s good,” continued Raley. “So’s badass.”
“Meat,” from Ochoa, and the two detectives alternated euphemisms in rapid-fire succession.
“Gangsta.”
“G.”
“Punk.”
“Bitch.”
“Gristle.”
“Knucks.”
“Ballbuster.”
“Bang-ah.”
