French Kiss Read Free Page B

who are assholes.
    “Good advice number two. If you’ve got smart instincts, follow them . You know what? Forget good advice. You’ve got a feeling? Go with it.”
    He sort of nods in agreement. So I keep talking.
    “Look, asshole. This advice is life advice. I’m not trying to teach you how to be a better thief. I’m just trying to…oh, shit…I don’t know what I’m trying to teach you.”
    A pause. The kid looks down at the floor so intensely that I have to look down there myself. Nothing’s there but gray carpet squares.
    Then the kid looks at me. He speaks.
    “I get you, man,” he says.
    “Good.” A pause. “Now go home. You’ve got a home?”
    “I got a home. I got a grandma.”
    “Then go.”
    “What the fu—?”
    “Just go.”
    He runs to the door.
    The young officer looks at me. Then he says, “That’s just great. They send a detective to the scene. And he lets the suspect go.”
    I don’t smile. I don’t answer. I walk to a nearby table where beautiful silk ties and pocket squares are laid out in groups according to color. I focus on the yellow section—yellow with blue stripes, yellow with tiny red dots, yellow paisley, yellow…
    My cell phone pings. The message on the screen is big and bold and simple. CD. Cop Down.
    No details. Just an address: 655 Park Avenue. Right now.

Chapter 7
    Cops and lights and miles of yellow tape: POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS .
    Sirens and detectives crowd the blocks between 65th and 67th Streets. Even the mayor’s car (license NYC 1 ) is here.
    People from the neighborhood, doormen on break, and students from Hunter College try to catch a glimpse of the scene. Hundreds of people stand on the blocked-off avenue. It’s a tragedy and a block party at the same time.
    Detective Gabriel Ruggie approaches me. There will be no French-guy jokes, no late-guy jokes, no Pretty Boy jokes. This is serious shit. Ruggie talks.
    “Elliott is up there now. The scene is at the seventh floor front. He said to send you up right away.”
    I walk through the fancy lobby. It’s loaded with cops and reporters and detectives. I hear a brief litany of somber “hellos” and “hiyas,” most of them followed by various mispronunciations of my name.
    Luke. Look. Luck.
    Who the hell cares now? This is Cop Down.
    Detective Christine Liang is running the elevator along with a plainclothes officer.
    “Hey, Moncrief. Let me take you up,” Liang says. “The inspector’s been asking where you are.”
    What the hell is the deal? Ten minutes ago I’m supervising New York’s dumbest little crime of the day. Now, all of a sudden, the most serious type of crime—officer homicide—requires my attention.
    “Good—you’re here,” Elliott says as I step from the elevator. I feel as if he’s been waiting for me. It’s the typical chaos of a homicide, with fingerprinting people, computer people, the coroner’s people—all the people who are really smart, really thorough; but honestly, none of them ever seem to come up with information that helps solve the case.
    I’m scared. I don’t mind saying it. Elliott hits his phone and says, “Moncrief is here now.”
    “Who’s that?” I ask.
    “Just headquarters. I let them know you were here. They were trying to track you down.”
    “But you knew where I was. You sent me there,” I say, confused.
    “Yeah, I know. I know.” Elliott seems confused, too.
    “What’s the deal?” I ask.
    “Come with me,” Elliott says. The crowd of NYPD people parts for us as if we’re celebrities. We walk down a wide hall with black and white marble squares on the floor, two real Warhols on the walls. Suddenly I have a flash of an apartment in Paris—the high ceilings, the carved cornices. But in a moment I’ve traveled back from boulevard Haussmann to Park Avenue.
    At the end of the hallway, an officer stands in front of an open door. Bright lights—floodlights, examination lights—pour from the room into the hallway. The officer moves aside