'Hey, I know you, you're like my wife.'
'You mean 'cause I'm not sleeping with you, either?'
'Funny. I mean I know you. What is it?'
Raley said, 'OK, about Soleil Gray… If Jess Ripton was running all this-I mean the killings-whether it's on Toby's behalf or his own, then how did she figure in? I mean besides being paranoid and guilty about the night of the OD.'
Heat said, 'Knowing what we know now, I don't think she was involved at all with Ripton or Wolf or Toby. At least not as part of any of the killings.'
'And yet she did mug Perkins to get that manuscript,' said Raley. 'Are you saying she did that coincidentally?'
'No, not coincidentally, simultaneously. There's a difference.'
Rook took another pull of his beer. 'Well, then what made her suddenly decide to do that?'
'I have an idea,' said Nikki. She got off the bar stool and stretched. 'I'll let you know if I'm right tomorrow. After I have a talk with somebody in the morning.' Something was different when Nikki Heat walked along West 82nd from the precinct the next morning. In the distance she detected a low droning sound she hadn't heard in over a week. As she got nearer to Amsterdam, a modest cough of diesel smoke rose and the droning became a brief roar that stopped with the hiss and squeal of air brakes as a city garbage truck came to a halt. Two sanitation workers hopped off and attacked the hill of refuse accumulated there from the strike. First one car and then another pulled up behind the trash truck as it idled, temporarily blocking the street while the men tossed black and green plastic bags into the rear loader. As she walked past, Heat could hear a driver curse through the rolled-up window of his blocked car and shout, 'Come on!' Nikki smiled. The garbage strike was over, and now New Yorkers could be frustrated by something else.
It was five after eight. Cafe Lalo had just opened and Petar had been the first one there, waiting for her under one of the large European art posters in the back corner against the brick wall. He gave her a hug. 'I'm glad we could do this,' he said.
'Yeah, me too.' She sat across from him at the white marble table.
'This spot OK?' he asked. 'They gave me my choice, but I didn't want to be near the windows. Garbage strike is over and the diesel fumes are back. Man.'
'Yes, the trash fumes were so much better.'
'Touche, Nikki. I keep forgetting it's always half-full for you.'
'Well, at least half the time, it is.'
When the waitress came, Nikki said she only wanted a latte, nothing to eat. Petar closed his menu and said to make it two. 'You're not hungry?'
'I have to be back at work soon.'
A knot of disappointment formed between his brows, but he didn't express it. Instead he soldiered on with his agenda. 'You know this is the place they filmed You've Got Mail?' Out of nowhere, You've Got Penis popped into Nikki's head, and an unbidden smile opened up her face.
'What?' said Petar.
'Nothing. I think I'm still a bit on the fried side from yesterday is all.'
'Where's my head?' he said. 'I didn't ask how that's all going.'
'It's not so easy, to be honest, but fine.' She didn't tell him about her evening ordeal at Rook's loft, but he went right to it.
'It's all over this morning about Toby Mills and Jess Ripton and that other guy. Were you part of any of that?'
Their lattes came, and Nikki waited for the waitress to go before she answered. 'Petar, I don't think this is going to be happening for us.'
He put down his spoon and gave her a puzzled look. 'It's because I'm pressing you, I'm pushing too hard again?'
She had made up her mind to have this conversation, however difficult, and ignored her coffee. 'It's not about that. Yes, you are… unwavering in your interest.'
'Is it because of the writer? You are an item with Jameson Rook?'
He gave her an opening and she seized it. 'No, this won't work because I'm not sure I can trust you.'
'What? Nikki…'
'Let me help you. I've been trying to figure out how Soleil Gray got it in her head to go after Cassidy Towne's book editor.' Petar immediately shifted. She could hear a small crack from the stress he put on his bistro chair. When he settled himself, she continued. 'That all came on the heels of Soleil's visit to your show. The same night you told me about Cassidy's book.'
'You're a friend, of course I told you.'
'But you didn't tell me all of it. You didn't tell me who Cassidy was going to expose. But you knew, didn't you? You knew because it wasn't the publisher who told you, it was your mentor. Cassidy Towne told you, didn't she? Maybe not all of it but parts, am I right?' He looked away. 'And you told Soleil Gray about it. That's what made her go after the editor to get the manuscript. How else would she know? Tell me it isn't so.'
Other customers were coming in, so he leaned forward over the table to lower his voice, which was shaky and hoarse. 'After what happened to Cassidy, I thought I should tell Soleil. To warn her.'
'Maybe. But you were also star kissing. I'm sure you didn't know what she was going to do, but you couldn't resist working the favor bank. That's how it goes, isn't it? And then you pump me a little, and then details about me showing Soleil autopsy photos at Later On end up in print.' She paused. 'Please tell me you aren't The Stinger.'
'Me? No.'
'But you know her.'
'Him. Yeah.'
Heat made sure she had his full attention before she said, 'Petar, I don't know what happened to you, maybe it was there in you all along and that's why we split.'
'I'm just trying to do the job, Nikki, I'm not a bad person.'
Nikki studied him and said, 'No, I don't believe you are. I just find you to be a bit morally vague.'
Heat put money on the table for her drink and left.
As she crossed to the door, she flashed back to almost ten years ago, the last time she'd walked out on Petar. That time it was on a winter night in a coffeehouse in the West Village and a Bob Dylan song was playing on some rafter speakers. The song came back to her now, echoing her sentiments just as it did then. 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.'
Still steeped in Dylan's blameless melancholy about relationships, Nikki paused on the top step outside Lalo to button her brown leather jacket for the short walk to work. In front of a diner up the street, she saw her friend Lauren Parry getting out of a taxi. Heat was about to call out to her but stopped when she spotted Detective Ochoa getting out of the cab behind her and rushing ahead to get the front door for her. With an exaggerated flourish, he swept his arm, gesturing Lauren inside, and the couple entered laughing for their breakfast date. Or perhaps, thought Nikki, their morning-after brunch. The sight of the two made her forget Dylan for the moment. She breathed in the crisp autumn air and thought-or at least hoped-that maybe once in a while it was better than just all right. When she stepped down to the sidewalk, Heat paused again, recalling how this was the exact spot where she had encountered the coyote days before. Nikki let her eyes roam the street, running that slide show in her mind.
Then she saw it.
The coyote wasn't where it had been before. This time it was at a distance, sniffing the sidewalk up at the corner of Broadway where the trash had just been collected. She watched it lower its head to the concrete and lick a patch. She continued to watch it silently, and yet part of her wanted to call out a 'Hey' or perhaps whistle just to get a reaction. Or to make the connection.
As she was having these thoughts, the animal raised its head. And looked right at her.
The two of them stood there watching each other from a block away. Its narrow face was too far off to make out detail, but in its matted coat and chunky fur Heat could read the story of the week it had had, pursued by copters and cameras. Its head rose a little higher to stare at her, and in that moment she stood naked to its eyes. Then it folded its ears back, and from that gesture Heat felt a sense of what she could only describe as the kinship between two beings that had endured a week out of their element.
