The Hotshot

“They also save marine iguanas,” reminded Rex.

“And don’t forget the flightless cormorants,” added Sullivan dryly.

“Oh, right,” whispered Truman. “Flightless cormorants.”

At that, the three brothers simply stared at each other in shock. Rex’s shoulders started shaking with suppressed laughter, then Sullivan gave in, cracking a grin, and then Truman said, “What the hell is a flightless cormorant, anyway?”

“A bird, I think,” said Sully.

But that wasn’t confirmed, since suddenly, none of the men had the breath to talk. Sully gasped, clapping Rex’s shoulder affectionately, and Truman doubled, slapping his knee and laughing until he was wiping tears from his eyes. Each was contemplating the life-altering, past half hour of their lives.

When their mother invited them home for lunch, they’d thought nothing of it, of course. Sullivan and Truman rented apartments nearby and ate here regularly, and although Rex lived in Brooklyn, he often dropped by. No, the invitation was nothing special, but after lunch, Sheila had shown them a receipt from the lottery board whom, she said, would be contacting them. She’d put the money she’d won into a special account already, but since Sullivan, Rex and Truman would be the probable beneficiaries, the board needed them to sign some papers. “The money’s yours, boys,” Sheila had finished brightly.

Truman was still watching her in stunned silence, when she’d added, “But only if you marry within the next three months.”

She’d kept flashing that brilliant smile as if she’d said the most reasonable thing in the world, and Truman had shaken his head. He loved his mother, they all did, but she was the world’s most unlikely woman to birth three cops, or to have married one. Every inch the Earth Mother, she stayed too busy to do more than twist her long gray hair into a haphazard bun, and she favored ankle-length skirts, vests and sandals that she wore with socks. Unconventional to say the least, she had a ready smile and heart of gold that allowed her to not only mother her own sons, but often the men in the precincts for which they worked. Her special home-made doughnuts, complete with blue-and-gold icing, were legendary.

“Ma can be a little nuts sometimes,” admitted Rex when his chuckles subsided. “But it’s a good kind of nuts.”

Truman had his doubts. During lunch, the first thing he’d said was, “Where did you get an idea like this, Ma?”

“Oh, I read about such things all the time,” she’d assured, nodding toward a novel she’d left open on a chaise longue.

“In books,” Truman had stressed. “Novels.” Half-afraid his mother hadn’t understood, he’d added, “Books are make-believe.”

“Not anymore, son.” Laughing, Sheila had wagged a finger in warning. “No fake marriages, either, boys. And you have to be in love. You can’t cheat and get married, planning to divorce later. Nor can you tell your prospective brides that marrying them will make you rich.”

“That takes away a bargaining chip,” muttered Truman, who had absolutely no intention of getting married. At least not for love. For money, sure. But he’d nearly married for love once—and never again.

Frowning, Sheila had added, “And unless all three of you find brides and marry within the three months, nobody gets any money at all.”

“We all three have to get married,” clarified Truman.

She’d nodded. “Yes. And in order to make sure your future wives don’t know about the money, we’ll have to keep this hush-hush. If anyone, including the newspapers, finds out I won, I’m going to donate the money to the Research Foundation of the Galapagos Islands.”

“The Galapagos Islands?” Sully had repeated in disbelief.

Their father, like Sully, was rational to a fault. He’d put an end to the ridiculous plan. “Where’s Dad?” Truman had demanded.

For a moment, their mother had looked distant. “Work,” she’d murmured. “He’s been putting in a lot of overtime. I think a big case is breaking, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you three about it. I’m not sure, but I think your father might be in some sort of trouble—”

“Have you talked to him about this?” Rex had interrupted, since this was hardly the first time Augustus Steele had been in trouble or working too hard. The man was always putting out fires downtown in the commissioner’s office at Police Plaza.

“No,” Sheila had returned. “I haven’t talked to him, and now that you mention it, I’d better make another stipulation. If you tell your father about this, the deal’s off, and every dime goes to the Galapagos Islands.”

Sully’s expression was usually unreadable, but his lips had parted in frank astonishment. “You’re not telling Pop you won the lottery?”

“Nope,” Sheila had returned, twisting a leather wristband to get a better look at a watch that had more gadgets on it than the dashboard of a Ferrari. “And neither are you. Now, boys, I’ve got a few more minutes before my meeting with C.L.A.S.P.”

Truman had gaped at her. How could she run off at a time such as this? “C.L.A.S.P.?”

“City and Local Activists for Street People,” she’d clarified, her lips pursing in displeasure. “The mayor cut funding again. Three more mental health facilities closed this morning, and hundreds of people have been released with nowhere to go. We’re opening a new women’s shelter in the meat-packing district. This week, I’ll post flyers in your precincts, asking for clothing donations. I’ve been putting them all over town for months. Everybody needs to contribute.”

She’d paused, shaking her head in disgust. “Even Ed Koch and David Dinkins were better than this,” she’d said, her tone maligning the previous New York mayors. “Anyway, before I leave, why don’t you go to Sullivan’s room and think over my proposition? Let me know if you want to—” Pushing aside her pique over New York City politics, she’d grinned, enjoying the catbird seat. “Accept my challenge.”

She hadn’t looked the least bit fazed by her remarkable win, and Truman guessed it was largely because she was the mother of three cops. Nothing ruffled her. “I’ll be anxious to see who makes it to the finish line first. You boys with your brides, or my poor tortoises in the Galapagos.”

“Tortoises,” Truman whispered now.

“What else?” murmured Sullivan.

Preserving natural animal habitats in the Galapagos Islands had long been their mother’s obsession, so the brothers had been weaned on stories about the mysterious volcanic islands in the Pacific. Just off the coast of Ecuador, the islands were close to a mainland that was magical in its own right, with a history of Inca warriors, Amazon explorers and Spanish conquistadors. Nature had been left to thrive on its own in that lost part of the world, and the islands that had inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in the 1830s were now home to wildlife that existed nowhere else on earth.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Truman said to his brothers now, feeling a twinge of guilt. “I’ve got nothing against sea turtles.”

Sully chuckled. “Me, neither.” He let a beat pass, then added with irony, “It’s the marine iguanas that get on my nerves.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” joked Rex. “Penguins can be such a pain.” He sighed, adding, “What’s happening in the islands is pretty nasty. Ma’s right. They’re still trying to clean up the last oil spill. A couple days ago, some ship, I think it was called the—”

“Eliza,” supplied Sullivan.

“The Eliza,” repeated Rex. “Right. It ran aground near a nesting area for sea lion pups.”

“Ma’s serious,” Truman reminded. “Are we doing this or not?”

Rex stared. “We can’t find soul mates in three months.”

“She said wives, not soul mates,” argued Truman.

“To me, a wife would be a soul mate,” returned Rex.

“Oh, please,” muttered Truman. As the only Steele who’d ever given true love a whirl, he knew better.

“Ma said we have to be in love,” Sully put in.

“For five million dollars,” Truman said, calculating a third of the pie, “I think I could lie.”

Sully tried to look shocked. “To your own mother?”

“As if I don’t have enough on my plate…” Truman raked a hand through light brown hair, the longest strands of which traced a strong jaw.

Rex raised an eyebrow. “Why? What happened?”

“Coombs is trying to put me on a two-week drive-along with a reporter from the New York News.” Coombs was Truman’s boss at Manhattan South precinct.

“Smart move. You’re the best-looking cop in the NYPD,” said Sully without rancor. “You’ve got a strong arrest record, and you’re chasing the limelight, little brother.”

Truman tamped down his anger. It was tourist season, which meant the mayor, the News, and the NYPD were seeking ways to curb the mob hysteria that inevitably came with summer heat waves, and to assure people that New York City was the perfect place to bring kids on vacation.