“Any idea how you did on your exam for lieutenant?” he asked. Not the question she expected. Nikki turned to look at him. “Green,” he said and she drove on.
“I don’t know, seemed like I did all right. Hard to know for sure,” she said. “Still waiting for the results to be posted.” When the department’s civil service test was offered recently, Heat had taken it, not so much out of a burning desire for the promotion, but because she wasn’t sure when it would be given again. Budget cuts from the economic crisis had hit New York as much as any other municipality, and one response the year before had been to cut back on raises by postponing the scheduled rank advancement tests.
Detective Feller cleared his throat. “What if I told you I hear you aced it?” She gave him a side glance and then concentrated on the driver of the bread delivery truck who had stopped to double-park in her lane without flashers. While she hit her blinker and waited for the passing lane to clear, he went on. “I know this to be a fact.”
“How?”
“From some inside sources. Downtown.” He reached for the dashboard. “Mind if I back off the temp? Starting to bake in here.”
“Help yourself.”
“I try to keep myself connected.” He turned down the knob one click, then decided on one more before he settled back in his seat again. “Not planning on riding in back of that cab forever, ya hear what I’m saying?”
“Sure, sure.” Nikki made her swing around the bread truck. “I, um, appreciate the info.”
“So when you get by your orals and all the other hoops they make you jump through—like teach you the secret handshake, or whatever—do me a fave? Don’t forget your friends on your way up.”
Whoomph, there it is, thought Nikki. She felt a little embarrassed. All this time thinking Feller wanted to date her when maybe what he really wanted was to network her. She replayed her mental picture of him at the cop bar clowning in his ass gasket lobster bib and wondered if the jester in him was all in fun, or if he was really just a skilled glad-hander. The more he talked, the more that picture emerged.
“When you get your gold bar, it’s going to be a piece of good news in your precinct for a change. And you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” she said. They hit another red at 79th, and unfortunately this was a long one.
“Not sure, that’s a laugh,” he said. “I mean Captain Montrose.”
Nikki knew full well what he meant. Her skipper, her mentor, Captain Montrose, was under increasing pressure from One Police Plaza over his performance as commander of the Twentieth Precinct. Whether it was the bad economy, increased unemployment, or a reset to the dark days of the pre-Giuliani disorder, crime statistics were edging up throughout all five boroughs. And worse, they were spiking in election season. Gravity rules, so in response, the shit roll was all downhill to the precinct commanders. But Heat could see her captain was taking an extra pounding. Montrose had been singled out, called down separately for extra meetings and ass chewings, spending as much time at HQ as he did in his office. His personality darkened under the pressure, and he had grown atypically remote—no, more than remote, secretive. It made Nikki wonder whether something else was going on with him beyond precinct perf stats. Now what bothered Heat was that her boss’s private humiliation was Out There as department gossip. If Feller knew about it, others did, too. Loyalty made her deflect it, back up her boss.
“Listen, Randy, who isn’t getting squeezed these days? I hear those weekly CompStat meetings at 1PP are brutal for all the skips, not just mine.”
“Seriously,” he said with a nod. “They should put a drain in the floor to let the blood run out. Green.”
“Jeez, it just turned.” Nikki pressed the accelerator.
“Sorry. Drives Dutch crazy, too. I tell ya, I’ve got to get my ass out of that cab.” He powered down his window and spat. When he closed it again, he said, “This isn’t just about the performance figs. I have a bud in Internal Affairs. Your man is on their radar.”
“Bull.”