Read Frozen Heat (2012) for Free Online Page B

today Carter Damon, NYPD, retired, will be at P.J. Clarke’s on West Sixty-third having lunch with us.”
    “Rook, you are incorrigible.”
    “I know. I tried being corrigible once. Lasted a summer right before puberty. Corrigible was kinda dull. Incorrigible was not only more fun, it got me laid a lot. Which is also fun.” He checked his watch. “Ooh, quarter to twelve. Subway, or are you driving us to our appointment?”
    Rook didn’t say much on the short walk to the 79th Street station. He kept the walk brisk to thwart Nikki from changing her mind and staying at the precinct to probe the new lead rather than traveling back in time with him. Standing in the aisle of the subway car for the two-stop ride south, she did say, “You actually knew the name of the lead investigator and where to find him?”
    “Let’s just say I needed a hobby during my recuperation. A guy can only watch so many telenovelas .” The doors parted and she followed him out onto the platform.
    The subway station at West 66th Street was always busy around lunchtime; however, damage from the earthquake made the pack of humanity extra dense that day. The rails and underground structure had been OK’d by MTA engineers, but superficial damage still needed a cleanup and the platforms there were halved by caution tape to keep riders away from all the tile that had broken off the walls. Many subway stops in the city had public art installations themed for their neighborhood, and their stop; the one for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts had an impressive wall mosaic stretching the length of the station. Whole chunks of the masterpiece had fractured in the morning shake, sending glass bits of costumed warriors, opera singers, and back-flipping gymnasts to the floor. The elevator up to the sidewalk had also been tagged out of service, and Heat and Rook found themselves blockaded by an elderly woman struggling her walker up the steps. They introduced themselves to her by first names and each offered Sylvia an arm to grip for the remaining five steps. A stranger behind them, a hard-looking gangsta from Uptown with a neck and arms full of scary ink poked Heat’s shoulder. Then he volunteered to carry the old woman’s walker. Welcome to New York City in an emergency.
    Up top, Sylvia left them for the Barnes & Noble, singsonging her thank-yous to Heat, Rook, and the gangsta, who had quietly gone his way in the opposite direction, toward Juilliard. Nikki noticed he had a clarinet case over his shoulder.
    Walking through Dante Park where Broadway crosses Columbus, they saw a small band of demonstrators rallying under the Philip Johnson Timesculpture shouting warnings of doom to them about the omen of the quake. One shook a homemade sign at Nikki as she passed. It read, “The End Is Near!” Crossing the street to the restaurant, she paused to look back at the words on the sign and hoped so. Then Jameson Rook took her elbow and escorted her back to the beginning.
    The P.J. Clarke’s at Lincoln Square had only opened for business two years before but already vibed old New York saloon, the sort of joint where you could get a great burger and a brew or order something icy fresh from the raw bar without a health care card. The original P.J.’s, which opened on the East Side more than a century before, was where Don Draper and his fellow mad men hung out, as did real-life throwbacks like Sinatra, Jackie-O, and Buddy Holly, who proposed to his wife there on their first date. When Nikki Heat followed Rook across the distressed wood plank floor to their table, she only spotted one familiar face. He wasn’t a celebrity but he made her knees go weak.
    Carter Damon might have retired from the NYPD, but a cop’s habits run deep, and he sat with his back to the wall so he could monitor the room over his Bloody Mary. He stood to shake both their hands but kept his gaze on Nikki, even as he gripped Rook’s. Something broken lurked in that look; something that,