The Steel Kiss

Gera sighed. “Yeah, the record. I know you were saying you were innocent. And, you know, I believe that. You don’t seem like a crook. But still word’ll get out. You know how that works. Even rumors, even they’re lies. You know.”

“I do, Vito. Okay. If that’s the way it is. Hey, you had the balls to call me yourself. It wasn’t your lawyer calling my lawyer. A lotta people would’ve handled it that way. Appreciate it.”

“You’re an okay guy, Nick. I know things’ll work out for you. I got a feeling.”

“Sure. Hey, Vito?”

“Yeah?”

“Does this mean I can ask your daughter out?”

A pause.

Nick laughed. “I’m messing with you, Vito. Oh, and by the way, that take-out order the other day? My friends said it was the best lasagna they’d ever had.”

A pause. A guilty pause, probably. “You’re okay, Nick. You’ll do all right. Take care.”

They disconnected.

Hell.

Sighing, Nick rose and walked stiffly to his dresser, on which his pants lay in a pile. He tugged them on, swapped yesterday’s T-shirt for a new one and brushed his hair. More or less.

Amelia Sachs had left the apartment an hour before, the footsteps and closing door waking him briefly.

He walked into the living room, thoughts of her prominent in his mind as he made a pot of coffee, poured a cup and sat at the kitchen table to wait for it to cool. But then, looking over the files she’d given him, images of Amelia, disappointment about the failed restaurant deal were replaced by memories of his days as a cop.

Now, like back then, something clicked in his mind when he was starting an investigation. Like turning on a switch, snap, he was in a different mode. Suspicious, for one thing. Sifting, picking out what could be believed and letting the rest sprinkle away. This wasn’t hard for Nick Carelli.

And, more important, making leaps. His mind making those weird leaps. That’s what nailed the perps.

“You told me you drove out to Suffolk.”

“Right, Detective Carelli. That’s where I was. Seeing my friend. He vouched for me. You talked to him.”

“It’s a hundred and ten miles round trip.”

“So?”

“Your gauge when I stopped you? Showed nearly full.”

“So again. Here’s where I say, I refilled.”

“You drive a turbo diesel. Here’s where I say there’s no diesel along the route you say you took.”

“Oh. Ah. I wanna talk to my lawyer.”

Making that leap—calling the stations and checking for diesel pumps—was just something that occurred to him naturally.

Detective then, detective now.

He pulled the list of J names toward him, the people from Flannigan’s that Von had said were regulars—one of whom, Nick prayed, could help him turn his life around.

Jack Battaglia, Queens Boulevard Auto and Repair

Joe Kelly, Havasham General Contracting, Manhattan

JJ Steptoe

Jon Perone, J&K Financial, Queens

Elton Jenkins

Jackie Carter, You Stor It Self Storage, Queens

Mike Johnson, Emerson Consulting, Queens

Jeffrey Dommer

Gianni “Jonny” Manetto, Old Country Restaurant Supply, Long Island City

Carter Jepson Jr., Coca-Cola distribution

He’d never heard of any of them. Though he was amused to speculate that one in particular surely had had a tough time growing up, with a name close enough to a serial killer’s for the kids to torment him mercilessly.

The cop mind was firing on all cylinders but that wasn’t enough. He needed input, research. So get to work. Nick went online and began to check out the names. Google and Facebook and LinkedIn. He also logged onto the People Finder site Freddy had told him about. Jesus, there was a lot of information. When he was on the force, it would’ve taken him weeks, not hours, to get all this stuff. And he was astonished too at how much people posted about themselves. One guy, JJ Steptoe, was shown proudly smoking pot in a Facebook picture. A link led to a YouTube video that showed Jepson in the Caribbean, staggering around drunk and falling into a pool. Then climbing out and puking.

As for the wife of “J,” Nanci, no luck there, for any of them.

But maybe Mr. “J” was divorced from Nanci. Or Nanci was a girlfriend. There were probably ways to find out, maybe programs at the NYPD that linked people even if not married or related. If “J” had done time, there might be a record of a Nanci coming to visit him in prison.