NYPD Red (2 page)

GERRI’S DINER IS on Lexington Avenue just around the corner from the 19th Precinct and directly across the street from Hunter College. Breakfast was in full swing when I got there, but at 5:00 in the morning there’s zero risk of bumping into any college kids. It was mostly cabbies, construction workers, and cops, one of whom has a PhD instead of a gun.

Cheryl Robinson is a department shrink. In addition to her extensive understanding of human behavior and her finely tuned listening skills, Dr. Robinson has something that sets her apart from other psychologists I’ve met. She is drop-dead gorgeous. Despite the fact that she swears she’s ninety percent Irish, she has the dark brown eyes, jet-black hair, and the glorious caramel skin of her Latina grandmother.

I won’t lie. I’ve been attracted to Cheryl since the day we met at a hostage negotiations seminar. But she was married, and, for me, that meant off-limits. Recently her marital status had changed, but the ink was barely dry on her divorce papers. This morning she was sitting alone in a booth, and judging by her body language and the soulful look in her eyes, she was still wrestling with the ghost of her failed relationship.

For some guys that’s an open invitation. They see a woman in full-blown rebound mode as an easy target, ready to compensate for the emptiness in her life with a night of uncomplicated, no-strings-attached sex. But I’m not one of those guys. At this point, Cheryl and I had become good friends, and she looked like she needed a friend more than a fling.

I bought two large coffees to go, bagged one, and opened the other. “Do you mind if I join you?” I said, sliding into the booth across from her. “You have Damsel in Distress oozing out of every pore, and I have this hyperactive White Knight gene.”

“I thought all cops had that problem,” she said. “But you’re the first one to come over and try to cheer me up.”

“That’s because you also have Department Shrink oozing out of every pore,” I said. “They’re afraid if they sit down and talk, you’ll start analyzing them.”

“What’s to analyze?” she said. “They’re all crazy, so they became cops, and they’re all cops, so they stay crazy.”

There were a bunch of open sugar packets on the table in front of her. I picked one up. “Having read the entire Hardy Boys series as a kid,” I said, “I’m guessing that based on the amount of sugar you’ve gone through, you’ve been here about forty minutes.”

She looked at her watch. “An hour.”

“I guess even shrinks have problems that wake them up in the middle of the night,” I said.

“Same problem, different night,” she said. “Fred.”

“I thought your divorce came through a couple of weeks ago. Based on the laws of the state of New York, isn’t he officially no longer your problem?”

“He emailed me last night. He’s engaged.”

“Hmm,” I said, nodding my head thoughtfully and slowly, stroking the imaginary goatee on my chin. “Und how does zat make you feel?”

She laughed. “That’s the worst Dr. Freud impression I’ve ever heard.”

“Actually, it was Dr. Phil, but you’re deflecting the question.”

“Look, I don’t care if the bastard remarries, but I’d feel better if it took him more than fourteen days to get over me.”

“You’re right, Doc,” I said. “He could at least have held off till you got over him. Oh wait, you are.”

She laughed. “I hit the wall with Fred two years before the divorce.”

“So now some other woman gets to suffer. Win-win.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said. “Now I get to play doctor. What woke you up so early?”

“It’s going to be a crazy week. A bunch of free-spirited Hollywood types are about to descend on New York, and I wanted to gird myself for their arrival.”

“I see,” she said. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that today’s the first day you’re partnering up with your ex-girlfriend.”

Cheryl Robinson knew all about my history with Kylie. It happened one night at a retirement party. Cheryl was a good listener, and I was just drunk enough to open up. I had no regrets. In fact, it was kind of therapeutic to be able to talk to a professional and still keep it off the record.

“You know, I think you’re right. Kylie does start today,” I said. “And hey, I never thanked you for helping her get the job.”

If I had to zero in on the most beautiful part of Cheryl Robinson, it would have to be her smile. It’s like she has an on switch, and the second it’s flipped, the dark eyes, white teeth, and full lips all light up at once. My snide little remark, which might have backfired with someone else, tripped that switch, and I got a dazzling, thousand-megawatt smile.

“Nicely done, Detective,” she said. “Make me the heavy. But no, I didn’t help Kylie MacDonald get the job. She did it on her own. Captain Cates asked me to take a peek at her P-file off the record. It was stellar. Apparently, the fact that you two had a go at it didn’t hurt her career.”

I raised my coffee cup. “Here’s hoping it doesn’t hurt my career.”

She rested her hand gently on mine, and I swear I almost dropped my cup. “Zach,” she said softly. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Let the past be the past and start fresh.”

“That’s good advice, Doc,” I said, laying my hand on top of hers. “For both of us.”

THE DOWDY REDBRICK building with bluestone coping and terra-cotta trimming on East 67th Street between Third and Lexington has been home to the 19th Precinct since the 1880s. It’s a sprawling old beast, five stories high, with room inside for the more than two hundred uniforms and dozens of detectives who cover Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

It’s also the perfect location for NYPD Red, which has citywide jurisdiction. We’re tucked away along the north wall of the third floor, out of the mainstream, but with lights and sirens, not far from a big chunk of the city’s five boroughs—and an occasional glimpse of the Chrysler Building, to my eyes the most beautiful and grand of all New York’s landmarks.

I was at my desk when I heard it.

“Yo! Six.”

I’d know that voice in my sleep. I turned around and there she was—flowing blond hair, sparkling green eyes, and an infuriating gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand. Kylie MacDonald.

“K-Mac,” I said.

“What’s the matter, Six? Did you forget my number?” she said, wrapping both arms around me and giving me a hug.

“How long are we going to keep playing that stupid number game?” I said, inhaling the familiar scent of rosemary-mint shampoo.

“According to the terms of the bet, for as long as we both shall live. Or if we happen to meet in hell, longer than that. How you doing, Six?”

Kylie and I are both natural-born competitors, and a few days after we met and she beat me out of five bucks, we made the granddaddy of all bets. We were each so hell-bent on outperforming the other at the academy that we agreed that after graduation the winner could call the loser by his or her class ranking. Out of 275 recruits, I finished sixth.

“I’m fine,” I said. “How you doing, One?”

“Ah, so you do remember my number,” she said.

“I don’t think you’ll ever let me forget it.”

“And now that we’re partners, I get to remind you every day. I’m so psyched. I can’t believe I got tapped for NYPD Red.”

“I totally believe it,” I said. “You had a major page-one arrest.”

“That bust sold a lot of newspapers, but it pissed off the brass.” She smiled a killer smile. “And don’t tell me you don’t know the details, Zach.”

“I might have heard a few things, but if you promise to keep using my name instead of my number, I won’t ask you if they’re true.”

“Cough it up. What did you hear?”

“You went undercover and nailed a guy who had raped half a dozen nurses.”

“That was in the papers,” she said. “Quit dodging.”

“You weren’t assigned to the case. You did it on your own. Rogue cop. Maverick. Loose cannon.”

“The third woman he raped was my friend Judy. She’s a nurse at Coney Island Hospital. She finished her shift at two in the morning. She’s walking to the subway when this guy jumps her, punches her in the face, and rapes her. She doesn’t even call 911. She calls me, hysterical. I reported it, then spent the night with her in the hospital. Next day I asked to be assigned to the case.”

“And they said no, because you’ve got a personal bias,” I said.

“Show me a female cop who doesn’t have a personal bias against a serial rapist,” she said. “The guy in charge of the investigation was old, lazy, and stupid. He never would have nailed the perp.”

“So Number One decides to go after him on her own.”

“It wasn’t rocket science,” she said. “The guy’s MO never changed. He kept the attacks localized to Brooklyn, and even though he’d switch hospitals, he’d always pick one where there was a long dark walk to the subway.”

“So you dressed up as a nurse and started walking from the hospital to the subway station. How many nights did you go out there?”

“I had seventeen strikeouts. I got him on the eighteenth night.”

“Did you have backup?” I said.

“Zach, I didn’t have any authority, so no, I didn’t have any backup. All I had was my badge and my gun, and it worked.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Lucky for a lot of nurses. Loose cannon or not, I got the job done. If I bent a few rules, tough shit. I have no regrets.”

“Maybe that’s why they sent you here,” I said. “We bend rules all the time.”

“
We,
Detective Straight Arrow? I know you, Zach, and you are definitely not a rule breaker. You’re a Capricorn to the core. Organized, loves structure, not driven by impulse, a master of restraint.”

“Hey, we can’t all be cowboys.”

“Which is probably why they partnered us up,” she said. “Yin-yang, point-counterpoint—”

“Sane cop, crazy cop,” I said.

“Tell me about your partner, Detective Shanks,” she said.

“Omar? He’s not as pretty as you. Or as crazy.”

“You know what I’m getting at. How’s his leg, his knee, whatever? I’m only here on probation. When he comes back, they’re going to cut me loose. I want to know how much time I have to impress the hell out of Captain Cates so she keeps me on.”

“You have a few months,” I said. “But I have to warn you, Cates doesn’t impress easily.”

“On the other hand, if you piss her off you’ll be gone before lunch.”

We looked up. It was our boss, Captain Delia Cates.

Kylie stuck her hand out. “Detective Kylie MacDonald, Captain.”

Cates’s cell phone went off. She checked the caller ID. “It’s not even eight o’clock, and the Deputy Mayor in Charge of Annoying the Crap Out of Me has called four times.” She took the call. “Bill, give me five seconds. I’m just wrapping something up.”

She fist-bumped Kylie’s outstretched hand. “Welcome to Red, Detective MacDonald. Morning briefing is in ten. Jordan, I need you in my office before that.”

She pressed the phone to her ear and took off down the hall.

Kylie just stood there. I knew what was going through her head.

“Don’t try to analyze,” I said. “Cates is all business, no foreplay. If you expected a cup of tea and some girl talk, it’s never going to happen. You said ‘hello,’ she said ‘hello.’ Now get to work. And don’t think about trying to impress her. She vetted your file. You wouldn’t be here if she didn’t think you could do the job.”

“That helps,” Kylie said. “Thanks.”

“Hey, that’s what partners are for.”

HENRY MUHLENBERG CLAMPED his hand down hard over Edie Coburn’s mouth. She sank her teeth into the soft flesh of his palm and threw her head back, but he didn’t let go. The last thing he needed was for some idiot to walk past her trailer and hear her screaming.

Her body convulsed. Once. Twice. Again. Again. She shuddered and went limp in his arms.

He eased his hand off her mouth.

“Get me a cigarette,” she said. “They’re on the counter.”

Muhlenberg slid off the sofa and padded naked to the other side of the trailer. He was twenty-eight, a German wunderkind who made edgy films that critics loved and nobody went to see. Fed up with driving a ten-year-old Opel and living in a one-bedroom flat in Frankfurt, he sold his soul for a Porsche 911, a house in the Hills, and a three-picture film deal.

The first picture had tanked, the second made six mil—a home run for an indie, but in big-studio-speak a colossal failure. If this one didn’t blow the roof off the multiplexes, he’d be back in Deutschland shooting music videos for garage bands.

It was his final at bat, and now that bitch Edie Coburn was screwing it up. He had come to her trailer to negotiate a truce between her and her asshole husband, Ian Stewart, who unfortunately was also her costar. Negotiate? More like grovel.

“Edie, please,” he had said. “We’ve got a full crew and a hundred extras standing around with the meter running. It’s costing the studio a thousand dollars for every minute you refuse to come out and shoot this scene.”

“Ian should have thought of that before he started banging that brainless bundle of silicone and peroxide.”

“You don’t know that for a fact,” he said. “The rumor about Ian and Devon is just that—a rumor. Probably started by some flack at the studio to get advance buzz about the movie.”

“I don’t know about Germany, Herr Muhlenberg, but here in New York, all rumors are true.”

“Look, I’m not a marriage counselor,” he said. “I know you and Ian have problems, but I also know you’re a professional. What’ll it take to get you into wardrobe and onto the set?”

She was wearing a short royal blue kimono with a busy floral and peacock design. She tugged on the sash and the kimono fell to the floor.

Revenge fuck.
Muhlenberg complied.

At a thousand bucks a minute, the sex cost the studio fifty-four thousand dollars. Edie wasn’t nearly as good as the underage star of his last film, but if you had to bang a forty-six-year-old diva to save your career, you could do a lot worse than Edie Coburn.

He lit the cigarette for her. She sucked in hard and blew it in his face. “I hope you’re not waiting for a standing ovation,” she said. “This was strictly business.”

“Right,” he said. “Then I can tell Ian we can expect you on the stage in thirty minutes.”

“Yeah. You might want to put some pants on first.”