Patterson Array: NYPD Red

“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.”

“Heil Hitler,” Ian said, throwing his right arm in the air as Muhlenberg entered his trailer.

It wasn’t funny the first time. It wasn’t funny the hundredth. The director forced a smile.

Without makeup, Ian Stewart looked every day of his fifty-six years. He was a womanizing shit heel with a short fuse and a giant ego. “Russell Crowe Without the Charm,” one tabloid had called him. And Muhlenberg’s career was riding on him.

“I had a little talk with Edie,” Henry said.

“Little talk? You were in her trailer for nearly an hour. What’d you have to do?” he asked, rolling his tongue over his lips.

“Give me a break, Ian. This is your big scene. The one you insisted on. It added over three million dollars to the budget,” Henry said. “I did whatever it took. She’s ready to shoot. Now please, get into makeup before she changes her mind.”

Ian clicked his heels. “Ja, mein Direktor. Danke schon.”

As far as Muhlenberg was concerned, the scene he was about to shoot was a total piece of shit. A black-tie wedding reception. Ian was the groom. Devon Whitaker, the twenty-two-year-old blonde Ian was banging, was the bride. Edie was the ex-wife. She crashed the wedding, gun in hand, and shot the happy couple.

But wait-it was all a dream sequence, so the big ham got to die dramatically on camera and still come back for the rest of the film. All it did was muddy up a script that already had the life sucked out of it by four different writers. But Ian wouldn’t make the movie without it. Wanker.