727. Chapter 727

After That 70's Show

Episode 6.20

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Can you dig it? I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Most cops began the day with beer and a shot at McNasty's, but not Detective Nikki Heat. She walked into the Sundollar coffee shop. "The usual.' She said.

The man behind the counter stared at the deep cleavage between Nikki's 44DD boobs. He caught himself just in time not to get a few broken bones from Nikki for staring. "Grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla?" He asked, his forehead wrinkling from the concentration.

She nodded. "This is only the four hundred and twelfth time I've been in here, Davidson. You'd think you could remember."

He nodded. "I'm in school, you know. Studying medicine. I work hard."

Nikki rolled her eyes. "You're learning how to empty bedpans. And you've taken the course six times without passing."

Davidson went back to making her coffee. When he handed it to her, he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

"Did you want to ask me something?" If it's "Are they real?", I'll break his nose. She thought.

"Um, how did you get the nickname Dirty Nikki?"

There were two answers to that, one of which would be forever between Nikki and her lover, ruggedly handsome Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Jameson Rook. The other, she didn't mind sharing. "It's because I get all the dirty jobs."

"All right you motherstickers, this is a fuckup!" Screamed a voice behind her.

Nikki looked at the reflection in the mirror behind the counter. There were only four of them, all armed with submachine guns. One had made the mistake of kicking a little girl's cute little puppy. No one kicked a little girl's cute puppy when Nikki Heat was around and got away with it. "Go ahead. Make my day." Nikki said softly. Then quicker than the eye could follow, she turned, drew her Smith and Wesson model 29 pistols in .44 Magnum with the 8 ½ inch barrel and shot all four of the puppy kickers. "You did make my day." She said, calling the morgue's meat wagon and her friend, Lauren Parry.

Later, she showed up at the ME's office. Nikki was such a frequent visitor that she had her own assigned parking place right by the front door.

"What do you have for me, Lauren?"

"You might want to check the sights on your right hand .44. You were almost an inch off from dead center of mass when you shot these two. To the left." She gestured to the men on her table.

Nikki examined her sights at once. "Anything on who these guys are? Or were?"

"The big one is Colin "Smasher" Hunt, the head of the Sons of Amnesia Motorcycle Club: Rockaway Avengers Patrol."

"SAMCRAP?" Nikki asked.

Lauren nodded. "The other three are members of the club. But I found something important in Smasher's pocket." Lauren handed Nikki a piece of paper.

It was a list with five names on it. The name at the bottom was Hunt's. The second name from the top was Detective Nikki Heat. Nikki shrugged. "So what does it mean?"

"Look at the back."

Nikki turned the slip of paper over. "Dead pool? What's that?"

"It's like a sports pool. Five names are chosen from people who are either very old, very ill, or in dangerous professions. People bet on who'll be the last to die."

Nikki looked at the other three names. "Meredith Jacinda Gina Ellie Monroe. She used to be a porn star until she got too old. Reclusive billionaire Ulrich Vain. The man's a world class hypochondriac. Since real doctors keep telling him he's fine, he's treated by the biggest collection of quacks and scam artists in the world. Instead of making him better, they're killing him slowly with their fake treatments. Lastly is….Mayor Demming? He's not old, or sick or in a dangerous business. Why's his name on the list?"

"Haven't you heard? He made a bet with the mayor of Boston that the Yankees would finish ahead of the Red Sox in the American League East. Our mayor looked like he had it made until a sociopathic ex-FBI agent hijacked the team bus and demanded the driver fly them to Cuba. After they were driven into the Hudson River, the Yankees all survived, but what with all the pollutants in the river, they were all in the hospital for months. Obviously, the mayor lost the bet."

"So, what kind of a bet was it?"

"The mayor is going to have to BASE jump off the Empire State Building in a wing suit, land on the East Side Highway and run against traffic until he gets to the George Washington Bridge, then he has to jump into the Hudson using a parachute, swim to New Jersey and dig up the New Jersey wetlands until he finds Jimmy Hoffa. Then he has to do everything in reverse. Oh, and he has to climb back up the Empire State Building carrying an actress who's to be made up to look like Fay Wray."

Nikki nodded. "I'd better get going."

Her first stop was the lavish penthouse apartment of Ulrich Vain. Nikki had to take off all of her clothes in the presence of a nurse, be doused with antiseptics, then put on a hazmat suit. Finally, she was led into the presence of Vain.

She had seen photos of Vain in his younger days, when he was setting aircraft speed and altitude records, dating movie stars, and running his competitors into the ground with fantastic new inventions. Vain was no longer like that. His hair and beard were both long and scraggly, he hadn't bathed in months, Nikki guessed, and the only garment he wore was a diaper.

"You're not one of those crazy doctors come to tell me I'm fine, are you? Dr. Perlmutter will set you straight if that's the case." He gestured to a well dressed man sitting on the couch, eating caviar, drinking Chateau Lafitte-Rothschild wine and smoking a large Cuban cigar.

"It's only my strenuous efforts that have staved off death for Mr. Vain." The so-called doctor said self importantly. At that very instant, the man's cigar exploded, killing him and Vain, but leaving Nikki unscathed. "The fiend. Someone is trying to win the death pool by killing off everyone on the list. I'll have to hurry." Nikki said coldly.

After making a few phone calls, Nikki went to a run down building in Spanish Harlem. In the distance she could hear the Ben E. King song playing. She ran up fifteen flights of stairs until she came to Ms. Monroe's apartment. She had to play roshambo with three huge New York rats who wanted access to the apartment for their own nefarious purposes, but Nikki knew that New York rats were suckers for rock and defeated them easily.

Once inside she found she was too late. Ms. Monroe had been impaled on a huge, sharpened wooden stake, placed where one might expect a former porn star to have been impaled.

"Too late." Nikki said angrily.

Standing high above Manhattan in her wing suit with Mayor Demming beside her, Nikki grinned at the mayor with more confidence than she felt. "Don't worry your honor. I spent five minutes reading a manual on wingsuits on the way here."

The mayor looked down and turned white. "I think I'll forget about this. Let the damn Red Sox fans laugh at me. I never liked baseball anyway. Now, curling, that's a real sport."

Nikki, a diehard Yankees' fan, pushed the mayor off the building.

As they soared across Manhattan, Nikki tried to concentrate on her surroundings and not on the names the mayor was calling her. Seeing the telltale flash and plume of smoke from a man packed surface to air missile, Nikki ejected flares and chaff to spoof the missiles guidance system.

Landing on the highway, she got into a prepositioned M1 tank and drove ahead of the mayor pushing traffic out of the way until they got the GW Bridge. The Mayor had assumed the fetal position, which made it easier for Nikki to strap on his parachute. They jumped together and Nikki easily towed his honor across the river to New Jersey.

Then the hard part began, Nikki, who spoke fluent Sicilian, had talked with the members of the infamous Five Families. They were no match for Detective Nikki Heat and quickly gave up the location of Hoffa's remains. A few shovelfuls of dirt later and they were ready to go back to Manhattan.

Standing at the base of the Empire State Building, Nikki adjusted her blonde wig. "Ready, Mr. Mayor?"

"No!" He screamed. "I'll never go up that…."

Nikki grabbed him and began to scale the building with the mayor under one arm. Reaching the top, she put the mayor down. "We're safe now, sir."

"I think not." Said an oddly familiar voice.

She whirled to face a shotgun wielded by a familiar looking man. "You look a lot like…."

"Jameson Rook?" Said the love of her life, stepping up next to the stranger. "This is my brother Harlan Rook. I can't let you kill him, Nikki. He's family."

Harlan laughed maniacally right up to the second Jameson shot him in the head with one of Nikki's spare .44 Magnums.

"I never said I couldn't shoot him." Rook explained. "Harlan is a serial killer, but not a very bright one, I'm afraid."

"Rook, let's go get a drink."

'What about the mayor?"

Nikki saw that the mayor had passed out and that his wingsuit was turning brown.

"Let him find his own date."

Author's note: The Dead Pool was the final Dirty Harry movie made and the villain was named Harlan Rook.