sex. He’d only barely remembered the conversation.
It’s Dara’s turn to shake her head. She’s not amused and not distracted. “They’re not going to send you back to Santa Fe, are they?”
The torn abdominal muscles of six-years-ago Nick Bottom flinch and tighten at that question even as the gut of the now-Nick also tightens in fear.
“No,” he says seriously, looking into her eyes again. “There’s no chance of that, Dara.”
“You said there was a suspect or potential witness or something down there…”
“Not so important that Captain Sheers or the department’s going to risk one or both of their chief investigating detectives,” interrupts Nick. “New Mexico’s more hostile territory than three years ago when… than three years ago. We’ll phone the Santa Fe sheriff’s office and have him or her get what we need.”
Dara is looking dubious. She’s set Thomas Hardy on the bedside table.
“I swear, kiddo,” says Nick. “I’m not going back to Santa Fe. I’d resign first.”
“Good,” says Dara, smiling for the first time. “Because I think I’d shoot you first.”
He tosses his car magazine aside and puts his arm around her.
Fifteen minutes later, coming up and out of the flash, Nick wonders how he ever could have forgotten the lovemaking of that evening.
It wasn’t quite 10 p.m. when Nick came up out of that flash. He had no intention of using the vials he’d received from Sato to flash on Delroy Brown or any other suspect’s interview. He was planning the next six or eight hours in terms of finding every conversation he could with Dara on what she was doing for ADA Harvey Cohen, hunting for any clue as to why they might have been at Six Flags Over the Jews the day of Keigo’s interview with Danny Oz.
Nick knew that he couldn’t restrict this investigation—his
The thought of seeing K.T. again—of having to ask her for help—made Nick’s insides hurt.
And, he realized, he’d have to get rid of Sato so that he could interview DA Ortega, K.T., and others. He had to know more about the auto accident that had killed his wife. He had to know more about what she and fat, balding Harvey Cohen were doing
The phone chirped.
Without identifying himself, Hideki Sato asked, “What do you think about the Santa Fe trip, Bottom-san? Tomorrow after Coors Field or later in the week?”
Nick waited until his insides unclenched a bit before answering. “Whenever Mr. Nakamura’s plane or helicopter is ready.”
“Plane?” said Sato. “Helicopter? There is no plane or helicopter.”
“Bullshit,” said Nick. The fear was rising in him like a terrible tide, making his arms and legs feel weak. “I saw you fly away from the roof of my building here in one, remember? That silent, stealthy
“The skies between here and Santa Fe were not so dangerous six years ago,” said Sato. “Mr. Nakamura has no aircraft tasked for this trip. The company’s insurance carriers would not allow it.”
“Then how the hell are we supposed to get there?” shouted Nick. He hadn’t meant to shout.
“Two vehicles. Armored and weaponized. Four extra security people.”
“Blow me,” said Nick.
“I shall set the trip for Wednesday,” said Sato.
Not trusting his voice, Nick broke the connection. His hands were trembling too much to prepare the flashback vial or to concentrate on the entry point.
Padding over to his dresser, Nick poured three fingers of cheap Scotch and drank it down in two gulps.
When the trembling in his fingers abated some, Nick prepared a half-hour vial. He’d go back to a favorite time with Dara to clear his mind before doing more searching through the time after Keigo’s death and before hers.
2.02
Disney Concert Hall at Performing Arts Center—Friday, Sept. 17
They were all scared shitless. Everyone except Billy Coyne, that is. And Val had long since decided that Billy the C was as crazy as a shithouse rat.
Val had gotten that old-timer’s phrase—crazy as a shithouse rat”—from the Old Man, who, he’d once told Val, had got it from
And Billy Coyne was as crazy as a shithouse rat.
Coyne continued to give orders all that last week, but he reserved most of his real conversation for the Vladimir Putin AI in his T-shirt. And
The seven boys had spent the week following Coyne’s orders and preparing everything in the sewer. They’d spent a day and a half in the darkness cutting through the rusted old rebar of the steel grate on the inside, but just in a few places to allow them to get at the steel panels covering the storm sewer opening. They left the majority of the inner grate intact to keep their pursuers from sliding in and following them. Then they’d spent another day filing through the soldered welding joining the two steel panels that covered the opening to the storm sewer.
Everything depended upon Billy Coyne’s information—supposedly from his mother—being correct about exactly where the Advisor’s limo would be dropping him off. The storm sewer opening was on the north side of 2nd Street on the south side of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. When they dared to peek out on Thursday night after their many hours of soft sawing and filing and more sawing, they were looking away from the weird Disney Concert Hall building itself. Coyne insisted that the streets would be shut off except for official traffic and that Advisor Omura’s armored limo would come south down Grand Avenue, turn right onto the short block of 2nd Street, and stop just beyond the corner. The photographers, TV guys, and press were supposed to be cordoned off in the median between 2nd Street and an equally narrow lane called General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way so all their lenses would be aiming north toward the concert hall and the steps that Omura, the mayor, and their security people and entourages would be climbing to enter the hall.
The eight members of the flashgang would have only two or three seconds to fling open the storm sewer doors and to open fire.
But they would be able to see out the closed steel panels. When the city workers welded the doors shut years ago, they’d left narrow horizontal slits near the bottom to handle the usual amount of runoff from heavy rains that built up there on 2nd Street. The gaps were too small to use as gunslits, but the boys could peer out of them until they saw Omura step out of his limo.
In the wee hours of the morning, with Sully standing guard on 2nd Street to let them know when it was clear of security guards, they’d rehearsed throwing the metal drain-cover doors open wide and crowding into the six feet or so of space to fire their weapons. The limo letting Advisor Omura out on this north side would be stopped less than twelve feet away. All the boys would be wearing ski masks, just like real terrorists. Coyne had bought Palestinian keffiyeh scarves for everybody, but Val definitely thought that this was a bridge too far. Too cute.
After they all blazed away, semiautos and flechette guns, the plan then was to run like hell. A curve in the sewer path just twenty feet from the opening would give them cover, although Coyne warned them to stay away from the walls. Ricochets would travel far down there. The inner grate would keep the cops or security people from sliding in to chase them and all the nearby manhole covers and storm sewer entrances were firmly welded shut. The cops wouldn’t know which direction to hunt for them. The first exit from the sewers was more than a mile east of where they planned to do the shooting, but Coyne’s plan was for them to run almost half a mile north and then west through the ever-twisting maze before coming up and out near Cigna Hospital. They’d hacksawed and cut that storm sewer door open as well. There was a Dumpster for biohazard materials next to the storm sewer behind that
