The Cold Spot

acted as if they deserved to throw off attitude because they were the good guys. As if cops feel pain deeper than the rest of the world. They kept calling him Mister and making it sound like Fuck off, twinky. Chase wondered what it would do to other men who’d recently lost their wives, being forced to deal with these two heartless pricks.

He smiled pleasantly and thanked them for their time.

For two hours he parked out front waiting until Murray and Morgan took off for lunch. Chase walked back inside the squad room, acted like he had a right to be there, and squirreled around Morgan’s and Murray’s desk drawers until he found the right files and a copy of the security tape.

Police precincts have the worst security in the world. It was no surprise their evidence rooms were always being ripped off from either the inside or the outside.

As he was walking away, a cop coming from the other direction gave him the stink-eye and said, “Can I help you with something?”

Chase said, “Nope,” trying hard to make it sound like Fuck off, twinky, and walked out.

A pro job all the way. Four-man string. A diamond wholesaler in Hauppauge. Three inside and the driver not far from the Court building. Chase could imagine the crew having a nice chuckle over that.

He watched the clock in the corner of the tape. In and out in exactly three minutes. One guy watching the employees, another going after the cases in front, a third in the back room clearing out uncut stones. They wore ski masks and black clothing to eliminate any descriptive details. They carried heavy artillery, looked like Colt Pythons. Serious hardware.

He watched the tape again. One of the female employees mouthed off and a gunman shoved her hard against a wall, threatening her with the four-inch barrel in her face. A male employee jumped up and said something and got smashed across the nose for it. Blood spurted and he dropped to the floor, holding his face and rocking.

Only a couple of witnesses had seen the getaway car. They all agreed it was bone white-flashy for a wheelman-but nobody could name the model. Just that it had muscle to it and a loud engine when it tore out onto Vets Highway, squealing in the rain.

Across from the diamond merchant’s was a stationery store. Typical Long Island strip mall, a couple of major businesses on opposite corners tacking down the whole line of shops. At one end, farthest from the entrance to the parking lot, was the diamond merchant, at the other a pizza parlor. Chase remembered Lila talking about it. Fratelli’s, where they called everybody paisano and had wallpaper showing the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower, and gondoliers on the Venice canals.

Flipping through pages in the file, he came to Hopkins’s report, written in a quivering hand, relating how he and Lila had just finished taking an afternoon’s worth of depositions at the court and were driving past the shopping center when they decided to grab a late lunch.

The report was light on human details and heavy on that clear-cut but remote style relating fact after fact.

Chase ran it through his head, heard Lila saying, Son, I need me two slices with extra cheese and if you don’t wanna see the unfortunate sight of me growing light-headed and weak in the knees, you won’t hog the grating cheese.

Hopkins telling her, Christ, you sure do like pizza. Don’t you miss, like, grits?

So they drive in, and Lila spots the bone-white muscle car parked at the curb with its lights on and wipers going. She’s instantly aware, maybe even taken back to the night she met Chase. She decides to check it out, drives through the lot, Hopkins going, Hey, I thought you were ready to pass out from hunger?

Chase flipping pages, putting the pieces together.

The three inside men coming out together, still cool, following the plan. Only two o’clock in the afternoon, but it was dark as hell because of the heavy rain. Lots of water glare, cars coming and going with their lights on. It would’ve been tough to differentiate the police cruiser from the strip mall shoppers. Folks parking to shop at the bakery, single mothers washing clothes at the Laundromat next to the pizza parlor.

Lila pulling up, finally close enough to see the bagmen rushing to the car, knowing now exactly what was happening. Probably even grinning, thinking, Well it ain’t no Bookatee’s Antiques & Rustic Curio Emporium heist this time, that’s for goddamn certain.

Teeth clenched, eyes snapped shut, Chase going for the cold spot, letting it do its job. The ice running through his brain.

His eyes flashing open.

Hopkins catching on and reaching for the radio. Lila trying to park diagonally across the other car’s path, but they were too damn close now. The bagmen piling into their car, both engines shrieking. The rain a brilliant haze in front of the headlights, hard to see anything but halo effect and shadow.

Chase wanting to scream, Don’t do it, baby.

Lila throwing it into park, thrusting open the door, and crouching there, getting into position to fire. Hopkins bending low while he shouted into the radio.

The pages tight with tiny scrawls stating what the witnesses saw next. Hopkins unable to confirm because he was ducked down behind the dashboard.

The pro behind the wheel hanging his left arm out the window and firing three times through the driver’s door of the cruiser.

Well, look at that.

The driver had killed her.

2

N ot much time left, he knew. The crew would have a fence on hand, but they wouldn’t get any cash back from the score for at least a couple of weeks. They’d stick around and hole up somewhere nearby. The fence would probably be one of the mob-run outfits in the diamond district of Manhattan. It was a good guess anyway, something to think about.

Chase played the tape a dozen more times, slowing it down, studying every move, trying to see the things he wasn’t supposed to see. Watching the crew move so capably about the place, with no wasted effort, knowing every angle.

So why didn’t they take out the camera? Three minutes was tight but they could’ve spray-painted the lens in five seconds flat. It was pretty much standard operating procedure.

So what was he seeing that he was supposed to see? That they wanted everyone to see?

Chase went with his gut.

There was an inside person you were supposed to see acting like anything but an inside person.

That made it either the woman who’d gotten pushed around or the guy who’d gotten slugged in the mouth.

The file had their names and addresses. James Lefferts and Marisa Iverson.

He needed wheels.

Street racing had come back into style, especially in Queens and Brooklyn, and the law was starting to tighten up. Word was that the drivers were now moving out to Jersey to do their dragging, keeping their merchandise in Manhattan and staying clear of the cops who patrolled Ocean Parkway, Grand Central, Kings Highway, the Palisades, and out around LaGuardia. Jersey cops would catch on soon, and then the kids would probably head out to Long Island and haul ass down Route 25a, the Meadowbrook, or the Wantagh.

Chase knew at least a couple of his kids were tooling around the city picking up extra cash doing some