“I can’t believe it’s you. I read this article twice last night… Holy
shit, would you sign my cup?” Inexperienced at this, she agreed, just to move it
along. He held out a ballpoint he probably got for his graduation, but before she
could take it, a wooden chair tipped over, followed by a chorus of gasps.
Across the room, near the drink pickup, a homeless man writhed and bucked on the
floor, his legs kicking wildly against the toppled chair. Stunned customers fled
their tables and backed away. “Call 911,” Heat said to the barista and raced to
the man’s side. Just as she knelt, he stopped convulsing and someone behind her
screamed. Blood had begun to flow from his mouth and nose. It mixed with the vomit
and spilled coffee pooling on the floor beside him. His eyes stilled in a death
stare, and a telltale stench arose as his bowels released. Heat pressed his neck and
got no pulse. When she withdrew her fingers, his head rolled to the side, and Nikki
saw something she had seen only once before in her life, the night Petar had been
poisoned in the holding cell.
The dead man’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, and it was black.
She looked at the spilled drink on the floor beside him. A grande cup with “Nikki”
grease-penciled on the side. She stood to study the crowd. That’s when she saw a
familiar face on the way out the door.
Salena Kaye made eye contact with Heat and bolted.
TWO
Nikki dashed to the exit, shouting, “Police officer, everyone outside.” Few
patrons seemed eager to get closer to the corpse, but Heat worried about the poison
and wanted to preserve the crime scene for clues. She yanked open the door and
called to the barista holding the phone, “Tell 911, officer in pursuit of homicide
suspect.”
Heat flattened against the wall of the vestibule then goosenecked a peek up the
sidewalk to make sure she didn’t hustle out into an ambush. There. A flash of
Salena Kaye, weaving away through pedestrians. She took off after her.
Kaye never looked back, just kept sprinting with purpose. And speed. Nikki made a
quick scope of 23rd, hoping for a blue-and-white. In that split second, she collided
with two teenagers backing out of a bodega, laughing at their Twizzler fangs. They
all kept their footing, but when Heat cleared the boys, she spotted Salena popping
the back door of a taxi.
The cab was too far away to read its plate or medallion number. Heat memorized its
missing-a-chunk bumper and the gentlemen’s club ad on the roof, hoping to find it
again in the sea of rush hour taxis about to swallow it.
She stepped out into the middle of the street, holding her shield out to drivers and
signaling them to stop. An off-duty cab blasted its horn and accelerated off. A
green Camry screeched to a stop just past her. Nikki rushed up and opened the driver
’s door. The startled old man looked at her from behind the thick glasses of
another decade. “Police emergency. I need your car. Now, please.”
Without a word, the slack-jawed senior climbed out. Heat thanked him, got in, saw
the tiny old woman looking at her from the passenger seat, and floored it.
“Hold on,” said Nikki, taking a sharp left onto First. She’d briefly spotted the
XXX from the strip club’s rooftop ad and scanned the avenue of cabs ahead of her to
find it again. Her passenger said nothing, just clawed the dash with arthritically
distorted hands while her seat belt clunked into lock mode. Up ahead, partially
blocked from view by an ambulette, Heat picked out the taxi’s scarred bumper and
then Salena Kaye’s face peering out the back window.
Nikki punched it through the red light at 24th, offering calm reassurance. “You don
’t have to worry, I’ve done this before.” The elderly woman just stared at her,
saucer-eyed. But she nodded. The old gal was game. “You have a cell phone?”