The Steel Kiss

Ron nodded. Didn’t need to repeat what Tony already knew. That after the head injury Ron had suffered he would’ve left the force if Rhyme hadn’t gotten him to stay—by saying bluntly, Get off your ass and get back to work. Rhyme hadn’t played the look-at-me card: me, the gimp, still catching bad guys. He just said, “You’re a good cop, Rookie. And you can be one hell of a good crime scene investigator if you stick to it. You know that people depend on you.”

“Who?” the officer’d asked. “My family? I can get another job.”

Rhyme had twisted his face up, in that way only Lincoln Rhyme could do, when people didn’t get what he was saying. “Who do you think? I’m talking about the vics who’re going to die because you were doing public relations or some shit and not walking the grid at scenes in the field to nail the perp who’s going to kill them in six months. Do I have to spell it out? Get off your ass and get back to work. Last. Word. From. Me.”

So Ron Pulaski had gotten back to work.

“What’s your plan, you meet this Oden? Wait. Isn’t that a god or something? Like in Germany?”

“Norse, I think. Spelled different.”

“Does that mean he’s from Norway. Wouldn’t that be Norwegian?”

“I don’t know.

“Oh. What’s the plan?”

“I’ve got the name of somebody, some kid knows where he hangs.”

“Oden the Norse dealer.”

“Are you listening? I’m serious.”

“Go on,” Tony said and looked serious.

“I meet Oden. I’m going to say I knew Baxter. He was going to hook me up with him, Oden, but then he got busted.”

“Hooked up for what?”

“That’s just to get in the door. Then I’ll make a buy, this Catch stuff. The super drug. I bust him. You come in. Ta-da. We negotiate. He tells us what Baxter did and we let him go. I’m betting Baxter bankrolled him. I tell Lincoln and he realizes Baxter was really a dangerous shit. Not that he deserved to die. But he wasn’t a lamb.”

Tony scowled. “That isn’t much of a plan.”

Ron scowled back. “Any other thoughts? I’m happy to entertain them.”

“Just saying. It’s not much of a plan.”

“So?” Pulaski asked. “You up for it?”

“What the hell,” Tony muttered. “I haven’t risked my job, my pension, my reputation and—what else? — oh, yeah, my life in the last couple days. Why not?”

* * *

“What is this?”

Nick was speaking not to Sachs but to her backup, a uniform stepping out of the kitchen, a slim African American borrowed from the 84. The officer stepped forward and frisked Nick carefully. A grimace toward Sachs as he removed a Smittie hammerless.38 from the man’s jacket pocket.

“That. Wait. I can explain.”

Sachs grimaced. The gun alone was enough to put him away for five years. She’d have thought he was smarter than that.

“Cuffs?”

“Yes,” Sachs replied.

“Hey, you don’t need… ” Nick’s voice faded.

The patrolman handed the weapon to Sachs then cuffed Nick’s hands behind him and helped him up. She emptied the rounds from the weapon and slipped it into an evidence bag. The cartridges went into another. She set them on a table, well out of Nick’s reach.

“I was going to report it,” Nick blustered, his voice higher, in the register of guilt, as Sachs thought of it. “The piece. I was going to turn it in. I wasn’t carrying.”

Though, yeah, he pretty much was.

“You don’t understand,” he continued. The desperation was thick. “I’ve been on the street, trying to find that man I told you about, who could help me. Could prove I was innocent. I was in Red Hook and this guy comes out of nowhere, pulled that Smittie, going to mug me. I took the piece away from him. I couldn’t toss it away. Some kid might’ve found it.”

Sachs didn’t even bother to run down the lie. “Jon Perone,” she began. And let that sit.

Nick gave absolutely no reaction.

“When you met with Perone we had a team outside his office.”

The man tried to take this in. Then: “Well, yeah, Perone was the one had information about Donnie. He was going to do some digging, find what he needed to prove I wasn’t anywhere near the ’jacking—”

“We turned Ralph Seville, Nick. Perone’s muscle. The one you two sent to kill Freddy Caruthers.”

Mouth open slightly. Eyes zipping throughout his apartment. She thought of the tiny fish in Vernon Griffith’s aquarium.

She added, “Two of our people followed Seville to the mall where you had Freddy waiting. He moved on Freddy, in the garage, and they nailed him. He dimed you all out.”

“But—?”

“Seville told Perone he bodied Freddy. That was the script. Perone doesn’t know we’ve got Seville. Freddy’s in protective custody for the time being.”

Nick’s face remained adamant. “Lying. That son of a bitch is lying. Seville. He’s a prick.”

“Enough,” Sachs whispered. “Enough.”

With that, Nick changed. Instantly. He became a wolf. “How’d you get a team to Perone’s? Bullshit. You’re fucking bluffing.”