Patterson Array - NYPD Red

“A few hours after Roth was murdered, Ian Stewart was shot dead at Silvercup Studios with a gun that was supposed to have been loaded with blanks. There were approximately a hundred and fifty people working on that soundstage, any one of whom could have switched the blanks for bullets. For the record, sixty-three of them are women, but I’m not ready to eliminate anyone because of age, race, or gender. Also, there’s no guarantee that someone didn’t walk in from another part of the lot. So far, statements from the cast and crew taken at Silvercup have added up to one big fat zero. And if you’re thinking of how many of those people have restaurant experience, the answer is a hundred of them are film extras-so, all of them.

“Based on what we can pull up so far, there’s no obvious connection between Roth and Stewart. They never worked together, but operating on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon theory, it’s not hard to imagine that somebody worked with each of them and hated them enough to kill them both on the same day.

“There were no signatures linking the two killings, but with two dead bodies on Day One of Hollywood week, I don’t care if there’s a connection or not. We’re acting as if somebody out there is going after these high-profile targets and is not planning on stopping.

“As I said to the mayor just a few minutes ago, there’s no way that this unit could have prevented a bogus busboy from slipping poison into someone’s juice, or someone on a crowded soundstage from putting real bullets in a prop gun,” Cates said. “He didn’t like hearing that, but he accepts that it’s true. However, we are now on high alert, and we can-we must-prevent any more attacks. There’s a major red carpet event at Radio City Music Hall tonight. It’s the big celebrity-packed kickoff to Hollywood on the Hudson week. The mayor will be there, the governor will be there, the paparazzi will be there, the fans will be there, and we will be there.

“We were already scheduled to work the event, but now we’ve been beefed up with reinforcements. We’ve got metal detectors and screeners at every door, K-9 will be out there with bomb sniffers, we’ll have air coverage, and we’ll have another three hundred uniforms on the streets. Detective Jordan will be in charge of the Command Center on Sixth Avenue. The rest of you will be in plainclothes working the crowd. Except you, Detective MacDonald. I want you in not-so-plainclothes working the theater from the inside,” Cates said. “I assume you were going to be there anyway.”

“Yes, Captain,” Kylie said. “My husband and I are invited.”

“Good,” Cates said. “Then the department doesn’t have to spring for a dress. All right, people. There’s a madman loose out there. Go find him. Dismissed.”

The Chameleon lay spread-eagle on top of the crumpled sheet. He had positioned the floor fan at the perfect angle and the perfect speed for a gentle breeze to softly caress his naked body.

He stared up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, trying to get his brain to stop ruminating about his upcoming scene. Meditation was not his strong suit.

He was almost there when his cell rattled against the birch veneer of the Ikea nightstand.

He propped himself up on one elbow and reached for the phone. It was a text: 6 wuz gr8. Luv Lexi.

The sex had been great. And when he rolled over exhausted, she hopped out of bed, and padded naked to the kitchen. Leave it to Lexi to take her cell phone so she could text him from twenty feet away.

This is why he adored her. She was smarter than any girl he’d ever known, but she still did wonderfully stupid things like text him from the kitchen to tell him the 6 wuz gr8. He texted her back: 4 me 2. Wherz my ice cream?

A few seconds later the answer came back: Scoopin fast as I can.

He sat all the way up in bed so he could watch her scooping.

Scooping is what she was doing the first day he met her-only it wasn’t ice cream. She was selling popcorn at the Paris Theatre, one of the last single-screen movie houses in New York.

“You must be a big Hilary Swank fan,” she said, ignoring the prefilled bags and digging deep into a batch of hot, fresh-popped corn.

“Not really,” he said.

“This is the third time you’ve come to see the movie this week,” Lexi said. “It can’t be the popcorn.”

He laughed. “You know the scene in the beginning where the guy at the bar tries to hit on her, and she blows him off? That’s me.”

“Get out of here,” Lexi said. “You’re acting in the movie that’s playing right here at the Paris? Just for that I’m giving you a medium popcorn and you only have to pay for the small.”

“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t even want the small one. The popcorn sucked, but he kept buying it so he could talk to the popcorn girl.

“One question,” she said. “Why do you stay for the whole movie if you’re only on in the beginning?”

“My name is in the end credits. ‘Jerk at the Bar-Gabe Benoit.’ That’s me.”

“Hey, Gabe, nice to meet you. I’m Lexi Carter-Jerk at the Popcorn Stand.”

He stayed and watched the movie two more times until Lexi got off work. Then they walked over to the Carnegie Deli on Seventh Avenue and split one of their foot-high celebrity sandwiches-an artery-clogging, towering pile of corned beef and pastrami called the Woody Allen.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if one day you got so famous that they named a sandwich after you?” Lexi said.

“I have a better idea,” he said. “They can name half a sandwich after me and the other half after you.”

They took the subway downtown to her apartment for coffee.

“I lied,” she said as soon as she locked the door. “I don’t have any coffee.”

“What’ve you got?” he said.

She peeled off her T-shirt, stepped out of her jeans, and stood there naked.

God, she was gorgeous. Lexi was one of those women who actually looked better naked than she did with clothes on. Thick auburn hair, bottomless blue eyes, and creamy white skin all the way down to her frosted pink toenails.

“You have the most incredible body I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, really. I mean it.”

“Thanks. Most guys prefer tits the size of volleyballs. Mine work better if you like tennis.”

“They’re perfect,” he said.

“You know what my mom always said-the perfect breast is just big enough to fill a champagne glass.”

The next night he bought her a gift. Two Baccarat champagne glasses. Since then, she used them for everything. Diet Coke, M amp;M’s, sunflower seeds-it didn’t matter. It was, she told him, the best present she ever got.

Right now the champagne glasses were filled with ice cream. She twirled out of the kitchen, a glass filled with Rocky Road in each hand. She gave him one and plopped down on the bed next to him.

“Go ahead,” she said, digging into the ice cream. “Vent.”

That was part of their deal. When he got home, the first thing he had to do was share all the best parts of his day with her. She gobbled up all the gloriously horrid details. Then she bubbled over with questions. What was Roth wearing? Blazer, yellow shirt, no tie. What did he finally end up ordering for breakfast? Smoked salmon platter, toasted bagel. Were there any movie stars at the Regency? Just me.

When she finally ran out of questions, they made love. After that Lexi was happy to listen to him bitch and moan about whatever went wrong during the day.

“There were two detectives from NYPD Red,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious that whoever switched the magazines could still have been right there in the studio. So you’d think they would question me. But no. They just walked off, and I got interviewed by some young Chinese-Japanese-Korean cop.”