Patterson Array: NYPD Red

“My partner should be in the lobby of the Music Hall,” I said. “Can I get a picture?”

Brainard cued up the corresponding camera and zoomed in on Kylie. She was wearing a silky, cream-colored, jaw-dropping gown that hugged her waist, then flared out to the floor-an absolute fashion must for anyone wearing an ankle holster. I had no idea who the designer was, but the handsome guy at her side was definitely Spence Harrington.

I keyed the mic. “Command to Yankee One,” I said.

A big smile spread across her face and she shook her head in obvious protest to the code name I’d assigned her. “This is Yankee One.”

“What are you looking at so far?” I said.

“It’s like DEFCON One in here,” she said. “There are more cops than Rockettes. So far there have been metal detectors, radiation detectors, and four-legged bomb detectors. If the mayor is looking for security, he’s got it.”

“And if they gave out awards for best undercover wardrobe, you guys would win. You both look terrific,” I said. “How’s Spence doing? Is he okay with this?”

“Are you kidding? He does cop shows for a living. Now he feels like he’s in one.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t try to do any of his own stunts,” I said. “Command out.”

I turned to Brainard. “Pan the crowd,” I said.

Our truck is thirteen feet high. There’s a camera on the roof that’s mounted on a telescoping mast that extends another twenty-seven feet into the air. Brainard did a slow three-sixty of the people below. It was more than just a cursory sweep. The lens on the camera was powerful enough to zoom in on a license plate a city block away.

I studied the faces. Fans hoping to reach out and touch their favorite movie star, paparazzi hoping to get the one picture that the media would pay through the nose for, and cops, in uniform and plainclothes-nearly a hundred strong, working the crowd-New York’s Finest doing what they do best.

I had no idea where or how or even if the killer would strike, but sitting behind that console, looking up that wall of monitors, I knew one thing for sure. We were damn ready for him.

EXT. RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL-NIGHT

The Chameleon understands the power of a uniform. Dressed in blue, badge pinned to his shirt, he walks past the food carts doing a brisk business on 51st Street and works his way to the front of the crowd on the west side of Sixth Avenue.

He’s twenty years older now, with a fringe of gray hair sticking out from under his cap and a neatly trimmed gray goatee. Thick horn-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses, with the lenses tinted amber, and a bulbous prosthetic nose are all he needs to make sure anyone who sees him on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper won’t recognize him.

A bored cop, standing in front of the police barrier and wishing he could be home sucking down a beer, sees him. The Chameleon flashes his photo ID. The cop lifts the barrier and waves him through.

The Chameleon gives him a nod and heads for the thirty-foot-high TV camera tower across the avenue from the red carpet.

Let the fun begin.

The scene didn’t go exactly as writ. It went better. There were two cops at the barricade, an older white guy and a young Latina woman.

“What’s that mean on your ID,” she said. “‘Best Boy’? You don’t look like no boy.”

“It’s a film term,” The Chameleon said. “It means I’m the main assistant to the gaffer-you know, the head electrician.”

“Funny,” the second cop said. “I always see ‘Best Boy’ in the credits at the end of a movie. Never knew what it meant.”

“Well, next time you see it, you can think of me,” The Chameleon said.

“What happens if the main assistant is a woman,” the female cop said.

The Chameleon gave her his most charming grin. “Then the head electrician does whatever she tells him.”

Big laugh, and the two cops ushered him through the barrier.

The E! channel had set up three TV camera scaffolds-one on 50th Street, one on 51st, and this one on Sixth Avenue, directly across from the theater.

It was dark under the scaffold, and he turned on his flashlight. The ground was a hodgepodge of feeder cables snaking off in different directions, but the transformer where they all met was clearly labeled.

He found the two cables he was looking for and yanked them both.

He couldn’t hear over the crowd, but he’d bet that thirty feet above him the TV cameraman was cursing up a storm.

The Chameleon climbed three quarters of the way up the scaffold.

“You having power problems?” he yelled up to the cameraman.

“Yeah. I got no picture. No audio to the booth. No nothing.”

“Tranny problem,” The Chameleon said. “I can fix it. But I need a third hand. Can I borrow one of yours?”

“Not my union, bucko.”

“I just need you to hold the flashlight. I promise I won’t report you to the gaffers’ union.”

“All right, all right,” the cameraman said.

He followed The Chameleon down to the bottom of the scaffold.

“Can you get down there and shine the light directly at the fun box,” The Chameleon said, pointing at the unit that picked up the power from the generator truck.

The cameraman grunted as he squatted. “Hurry up, I don’t have the knees for this kind of sh-”

The blow to the temple was swift and accurate. The cameraman collapsed in a heap. He was out cold, but that wouldn’t last long.

“What you need now is a little vitamin K,” The Chameleon said, sticking a syringe into the man’s right deltoid and injecting him with ketamine. “You have a nice nap. I’ll go upstairs and operate the camera,” he said, plugging the two cables back into the box and rebooting the audio and video feeds.

He climbed to the top of the scaffold and put on the headset that was dangling from the camera.

“Camera Three,” the voice came from the production truck a block away. “Brian, you there?”

“I’m here,” The Chameleon said.

“We lost you for a minute there. Everything okay?”

The Chameleon adjusted his E! channel cap and got comfortable behind the camera. “Everything’s perfect,” he said.

As writ.

Lexi sat cross-legged on the sofa, elbows on knees, chin resting on her open palms, eyes riveted to the TV screen, not wanting to miss a single tidbit Ryan Seacrest might unearth.

She was a full-fledged, card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool Celebrity Junkie, and she didn’t care who knew it. They were glamorous, they were hideous, they were superstars, they were flaming assholes-it didn’t matter, she couldn’t get enough of them. Even the ones she hated. Even the ones she wanted to kill.

The cheese platter was sitting on the coffee table, the Saran Wrap still on. She had brought out the two champagne glasses and filled hers with Bud Light. The bubbly was definitely staying on ice till Gabe got home.

The cell phone between her legs vibrated, and she grabbed it.

The text made her giddy: Greetings from Camera 3. DTB. Luv, G

DTB. Don’t text back. God knows she wanted to, but this was Gabe’s biggest scene yet. Not fair to distract him.

She sipped her beer and watched Ryan joke around with all the celebs as their limos pulled up to the red carpet. It had to be the most awesome job in the world. Plus he got paid zillions.

“I’d do it for free, Ryan,” she said to the screen. “Hell, I’d even pay you to let me do it.”

She was born and raised in Indiana. Her family was still there. But she was a New Yorker now, so she really loved it when all the big stars said how fantastic it was to shoot movies and TV shows in New York City. That’s what this whole Hollywood on the Hudson thing was about. So, yeah, maybe they got paid to say stuff like that, but as far as she was concerned, it wasn’t hype. New York was the best.