Nikki Perez entered headquarters and took the elevator to her office on the second floor. The lieutenant was loitering in the corridor. Before she could turn around, he spotted her.
“Perez, come here,” he shouted, wagging a finger in her direction. “You finish taking statements from the drivers?”
“Three to go.”
The lieutenant was short and chunky and wore white short-sleeved dress shirts all year round. No one called him by his name. “Clock’s running. Get to it.”
“We’re thirteen for thirteen,” said Nikki. “No one’s offered anything useful. Twelve men with machine guns. All wearing black utilities. Combat boots. Faces covered. Plates off the cars. No one said a word except the leader and he spoke only to the prince.”
“And so?”
“It’s like listening to a broken record. I’d be better off spending my time working the streets, talking to my sources, the staff at the hotel. The bad guys had to have had a lookout there.”
“Since when do you dole out assignments?”
“Just an idea, sir.”
“Like the one that got you on administrative duty for ninety days?”
“Better than that.”
“So you say.” The lieutenant stepped close enough that his gut rubbed against her. “I want all the reports on my desk by noon. Including the last three.”
Nikki turned to leave. “Prick,” she said under her breath.
“What was that?” The lieutenant was in her face, eyes bulging.
“By noon. Yes, sir.”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
Nikki continued to her desk. Ten years on the job and still the same nonsense. She’d joined the police a month after passing the “bac”—or baccalaureate—the nationwide examination that determined eligibility for entry into France’s elite universities. With a score in the top two percent, she’d had her choice of the litter: the École Normale Supérieure, ParisTech, Sciences Po, or the Sorbonne. France was very much a hierarchical society. Graduation from any of these universities would have guaranteed her a place in the nation’s ruling classes. But Nikki had never had an interest in joining the technocrats who governed the country from their stately offices on the Boulevard Haussmann, or the corporate warriors with their perfect hair and perfect suits charging across the esplanade of La Défense.
For as long as Nikki could remember, she’d wanted to be a cop. Maybe it was all the Clint Eastwood movies her father used to watch. Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Gauntlet. Or maybe it was because she’d always loved guns. Or maybe it was because she enjoyed breaking rules and being naughty just a little too much, and she knew that being a cop was her best shot at keeping that part of her in check. She’d stopped explaining her career choices long ago. It came down to this: She liked carrying a gun and a badge. She liked the feeling she got when she solved a crime. And she liked thinking of herself as someone who gave back more than she took. At the end of the day, she wanted to make a difference.
She sat and perused the statements she’d taken the day before. A stack of pages as thick as a phone book and as much help. Thirty-six hours after the crime, the task force had yet to come up with a single clue. She dropped her head to the desk. So far she’d served ten out of her ninety days on desk duty. She wouldn’t make it through eighty more.
Her latest infraction took as its root an unwillingness to either “obey” or “respect” a statute in the police handbook regarding who was to receive official recognition for making an arrest. Or to put it in language anyone could understand: who got the collar for nabbing a perp.
The perp in question was Elias Zenstrom, an Estonian computer wiz who ran a phony credit card operation in the north of the city. Zenstrom and his gang would buy credit cards from Gypsy pickpockets, copy the data from the magnetic strips, and fabricate duplicates, which they would then sell or use themselves. Nikki had been assigned the case by her superior, a man whose name she refused to utter ever again.
For nine months she gathered evidence, interviewed dozens of victims, filed hundreds of requests for phone taps, spent countless nights in surveillance vans, and when the day came, she broke down the bad guy’s door and, at risk of grave bodily harm, entered into an exchange of gunfire. Zenstrom was captured, as was his superior, who’d been visiting at the time. The gang was disbanded. Case closed.
Except for one thing.
Nikki made an error in her final report. When prompted to fill in the name of the officer in charge of the case, she typed her own: Nicolette Perez. Despite all her dogged work, she had not been—according to the police handbook—the officer in charge. The credit for the arrest of Zenstrom and his gang went to her superior, who had done precisely nothing other than assign her the case. And it was her superior who received a promotion. Nikki received a bottle of cheap champagne and, from her superior, a pinch on the ass and a drunken invitation to spend the night.
She was not pleased.
So she’d done what she’d done to earn her third ninety-day suspension.
Next time she nailed a perp she was going to make damn well sure she got the credit.
The phone rang. It was the reception informing her that one of the chauffeurs had arrived. “Send him up.”
She leaned back in her chair, hands clasping her head. There was a disgruntled smile on her face. She was thinking about Simon Riske. She couldn’t keep from wondering how he’d managed to slip the cigarette back into the tin. She’d kept the box closed during their conversation and was certain she’d seen him put the cigarette into his jacket pocket.
Then there was the scar on his forehead. Car accident, she decided, though she was sure any trained surgeon would have done a neater job stitching it. She’d been mistaken in her assessment of the man. He was hardly as polished a customer as he wanted people to think.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”
Nikki looked up to find Commissaire Dumont standing before her. Immediately, she sat up straighter, placing her hands on her desk. “Planning my day,” she said.
“How did it go with Riske?” he asked.
“It went.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s an arrogant one. Coming into our office, asking of our time to help solve his client’s problem. An English client, I’m sure.”
“You might want to cut him some slack.”
“I already have enough on my desk as it is. You know what he’s looking for? A letter.”
“Must be important.”
“You’re joking?”
Dumont sat on the edge of her desk. “Something I didn’t tell you. The time we worked together tracking down that English girl…Riske had done his homework. He warned me that her boyfriend had connections to an Eastern European syndicate. He suggested that we go in heavy. Bring backup. I didn’t believe him. I was like you. I thought he was a lightweight. We didn’t have the kid anywhere on our radar. I thought he was just some punk. Simon didn’t argue. We went in just the two of us. I was armed. He wasn’t. We knock. The door opens and there’s this guy standing there with a gun pointed right at me. He fired before I could draw my weapon.”
“You took two bullets.”
“In the hip and thigh because Riske shoved me out of the way…which left him standing unprotected not two feet from this coked-up maniac waving his gun around.”
“You didn’t say anything about Riske being shot.”
“He wasn’t. The guy’s gun jammed. At least, I think it did. We never really talked about it afterward. All I can say is I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.” Dumont snapped his fingers. “Like that, it was over. The guy was down, his arm broken so badly the bone was sticking clean through his sweater, and screaming like a stuck pig. Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so sorry for myself and my two lousy bullet wounds.” Dumont leaned closer. “I guess I’m trying to say that Riske saved my life. So give him a hand. For me.”
“I’m nailed to my desk for another eighty days. Lieutenant’s orders.”
“I’ll talk to him. Get out of here.”
“Really?”
“Move it.”
Nikki grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair. “Oh,” she said, scooting out the door. “And, Commissaire, there’s a witness coming up. He’s all yours.”