by J. D. Robb
‘Chemical formula,’ Roarke mused.
‘How do you know?’
‘I manufacture a few - legal ones. This is some sort of analgesic, but not entirely. Hallucinogenic properties . . .’ He clucked his tongue, shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Not a standard. Computer, analyze and identify.’
‘You say it’s a drug,’ Eve began and the computer went to work.
‘Most certainly.’
‘That fits with my theory. But what was Boomer doing with the formula, and why would someone kill him for it?’
‘That would depend on how marketable it is, I’d think. How profitable.’ He frowned up at the screen as the analysis began to form. The molecular reproduction circled on the screen in colorful dots and spirals. ‘Okay, you have an organic stimulant, a standard chemical hallucinogenic, both in fairly low and nearly legal amounts. Ah, there’s the properties for THR-50.’
‘Street name Zeus. Nasty stuff.’
‘Hmm. Still, it’s low wattage. But that’s an interesting mix. There’s mint, to make it more palatable. I’d say it could also be manufactured, with some alterations, in liquid form. Blend it with Brinock - that’s a sexual stimulant and enhancer. In the right measures, it can be used to cure impotency.’
‘I know what it is. We had a guy who OD’d on it. Killed himself after what appeared to be the world’s record in masturbation. Jumped out of a window in sexual frustration. His dick was swollen like a pork sausage, about the same color, and still hard as iron.’
‘Thank you for sharing that. What’s this?’ Puzzled, Roarke went back to the keyboard. The computer merely continued to flash the same message.
Substance unknown. Probable cell regenerator. Unable to identify.
‘How is that possible?’ he mused. ‘I have an automatic update on this. There’s nothing out there it can’t identify.’
‘An unknown substance. Well, well. That might be worth killing for. What will it give us without it?’
‘Identify with known data,’ Roarke ordered.
FORMULA EQUALS STIMULANT WITH HALLUCINOGENIC PROPERTIES. ORGANIC BASE. WILL ENTER BLOODSTREAM QUICKLY TO AFFECT NERVOUS SYSTEM.
‘Results?’
INCOMPLETE DATA.
‘Hell. Probable results with known data.’
WILL CAUSE FEELINGS OF EUPHORIA, PARANOIA, SEXUAL APPETITE, DELUSIONS OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL POWERS. DOSAGE OF 55 MG INTO AVERAGE HUMAN OF 130 POUNDS WILL LAST FOUR TO SIX HOURS. DOSAGE OF MORE THAN 100 MG WILL CAUSE DEATH IN 87.3 PERCENT OF USERS. SUBSTANCE SIMILAR TO THR-50, AKA ZEUS, WITH ADDITION OF STIMULANT TO ENHANCE SEXUAL ABILITY AND CELL REGENERATION.
‘It’s not that different,’ Eve murmured. ‘It’s not that important. We’ve already got chemi-heads mixing Zeus with Erotica. It’s a nasty combination, accounts for most of the rapes in the city, but it’s not secret or particularly profitable. Not when any average junkie can mix it up in a porta-lab.’
‘Except for the unknown. Cell regeneration.’ His brow quirked. ‘The fabled Fountain of Youth.’
‘Anybody with enough credits can get youth treatments.’
‘But they’re temporary,’ Roarke pointed out. ‘You have to go back at regular intervals. Bio peels and antiaging injections are expensive, time-consuming, and often uncomfortable. And standard treatments don’t have all the extra punches of this.’
‘Whatever the unknown is, it makes the whole works bigger, or deadlier. Or, as you said, more marketable.’
‘You’ve got the powder,’ Roarke pointed out.
‘Yeah, and this might get the lab to shag their butts a bit. It’s still going to take more time than I have.’
‘Can you get me a sample of it?’ He swiveled in his chair and smiled up at her. ‘Not to denigrate your police labs, Lieutenant, but mine might prove a shade more sophisticated.’
‘It’s evidence.’
His brow lifted.
‘Roarke, do you know how far I’ve already crossed the line getting you to do this?’ She blew out a breath, remembered Boomer’s face, his arm. ‘Hell with it. I’ll try.’
‘Good. Disengage.’ The computer shut down silently. ‘Now will you go to sleep?’
‘For a couple hours.’ She allowed the fatigue to seep back, linked her arms around his neck. ‘You going to tuck me in again?’
‘All right.’ He hitched up her hips so that her legs wrapped around him. ‘But this time you stay where I tuck you.’
‘You know, Roarke, my heart just flutters when you get masterful.’
‘Wait till I get you back in bed. It’s going to flutter plenty.’
She laughed, nuzzled her head on his shoulder, and was asleep before the elevator finished its descent.
Chapter Four
It was dead dark when the ’link beside Eve’s head beeped. The cop in her surfaced first, smacked the engage, and reared up.
‘Dallas.’
‘Dallas, oh God, Dallas. I need help.’
The woman in her caught up with the cop in a snap and stared at Mavis’s image on screen. ‘Lights,’ she ordered, and the room brightened so that she could see clearly. The white face, a blackening bruise just under the eye, raw, bleeding scrapes on the cheek, wild disheveled hair.
‘Mavis. What is it? Where are you?’
‘You’ve got to come.’ Her breath hitched and snarled. Her eyes were too glazed with shock to allow tears. ‘Hurry. Hurry, please. I think she’s dead and I don’t know what to do.’
Eve didn’t ask for location again, but punched in an order to trace transmission. Recognizing Leonardo’s address when it blipped on under Mavis’s face, she kept her voice calm and firm.
‘Stay where you are. Don’t touch anything. You understand me? Don’t touch anything, and don’t let anyone in but me. Mavis?’
‘Yes, yes. I will. I won’t. Hurry. It’s so awful.’
‘I’m on my way.’ When she turned, Roarke was already up and pulling on his trousers.
‘I’ll go with you.’
She didn’t argue. In five minutes flat they were on the road and speeding through the deepest slice of night. Empty streets gave way to the constant swarm of tourists in midtown, the flash of video billboards offering every pleasure and purchase known to man, then to the trendy insomniacs of the Village who loitered over minuscule cups of flavored coffee and lofty disc ussions in outdoor cafes, and finally, to the sleepy habitats of the artists.
Other than to find out their destination, Roarke didn’t ask questions, and she was grateful for it. She could see Mavis’s face in her mind, white and terrified. Worse, much worse, she saw Mavis’s hand, trembling. And the smear that had darkened it had been blood.
A high wind that hinted of a brewing storm whipped through the city canyons. It slapped at Eve as she leaped from Roarke’s car before he’d stopped completely at the curb. She took the thirty yards of sidewalk in a dead run, smacked the security camera.
‘Mavis. It’s Dallas. Mavis, damn it.’ Such was her state of mind that it took her ten frustrated seconds to realize the unit was smashed.
Roarke went through the unsecured door and into the elevator beside her.
When it opened, she knew it was as bad as she’d feared. On her earlier visit, Leonardo’s loft had been cheerfully cluttered, colorfully disorganized. Now it was viciously tumbled. Long trails of material shredded, tables overturned with their contents strewn and broken.
There was blood, a great deal of it, splattered on walls and silks like a bad-tempered child’s angry fingerpaints.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ she snapped at Roarke, out of reflex. ‘Mavis?’ She took two steps forward, then stopped as one of the billowing curtains of shimmery cloth rippled. Mavis moved passed it, stood swaying.
‘Dallas. Dallas. Thank God.’
‘Okay. It’s okay.’ The minute Eve caught her close, the relief poured. The blood wasn’t Mavis’s, though it was spotted on her clothes, on her hands. ‘You’re hurt. How bad?’
&nb
sp; ‘I’m dizzy, sick. My head.’
‘Let her sit down, Eve.’ Taking Mavis’s arm, Roarke led her to a chair. ‘Come on, darling, sit down. That’s the way. She’s in shock, Eve. Get her a blanket. Put your head back, Mavis. That’s a girl. Close your eyes and just breathe for a while.’
‘It’s cold.’
‘I know.’ He reached down, flipped up a ragged piece of glistening satin, and draped it over her. ‘Deep breaths, Mavis. Slow, deep breaths.’ He flicked a glance up at Eve. ‘She needs attention.’
‘I can’t call the MTs before I know what the situation is. Do what you can for her.’ All too aware of what she was likely to find, Eve moved past the curtain.
She’d died badly. It was the hair that confirmed to Eve who the woman had once been. The glorious curling flame of it. Her face, with its stunning, almost eerie perfection, was all but gone, mashed and mangled under cruel, repeated blows.
The weapon was still there, carelessly tossed aside. Eve supposed it was intended to be some sort of fancy cane or walking stick, a fashionable affectation. Under the blood and gore it was a glossy silver, perhaps an inch thick with an ornate handle in the shape of a grinning wolf.
She’d seen it, tipped into a corner of Leonardo’s work space, only two days before.
It was not necessary to check Pandora’s pulse, but Eve did so. Then she stepped back carefully so as not to contaminate the scene any further.
‘Christ,’ Roarke murmured from behind her, then laid both hands on her shoulders. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Whatever I have to. Mavis wouldn’t have done this.’ He turned her to face him. ‘You don’t have to tell me that. She needs you, Eve. She needs a friend, and she’s going to need a good cop.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not going to be easy on you being both.’
‘I’d better get started.’ She walked back to where Mavis sat. Her face was like softened wax, the bruise and the scratches livid against the bone-white skin. Eve crouched down and took Mavis’s icy hands in hers. ‘I need you to tell me everything. Take your time, but tell it all.’
‘She wasn’t moving. There was all the blood, and the way her face looked. And - and she wasn’t moving.’
‘Mavis.’ Eve gave the hands one quick, hard squeeze. ‘Look at me. Tell me exactly what happened from the time you got here.’
‘I came . . . I wanted . . . I thought I should talk to Leonardo.’ She shivered, plucked at the scrap of material covering her with hands still stained with blood. ‘He was upset when he went to the club the last time looking for me. He even threatened the bouncer, and that’s not like him. I didn’t want him to ruin his career, so I thought I could talk to him. I came, and someone had broken the security unit, so I just came on up. The door wasn’t locked. Sometimes he forgets,’ she murmured and trailed off.
‘Mavis, was Leonardo here?’
‘Leonardo?’ Dulled with shock, her eyes scanned the room. ‘No, I don’t think so. I called out, because I saw there was such a mess. Nobody answered. And there - there was blood. I saw blood. So much blood. I was afraid, Dallas, afraid that maybe he’d killed himself or something crazy, and so I ran back into . . . back. I saw her. I think . . . I went over. I think I did because I was kneeling beside her and I was trying to scream. I couldn’t scream. It was all in my head that I was screaming, and I couldn’t stop. And then I think something hit me. I think . . .’ Vaguely she touched her fingers to the back of her head. ‘It hurts. But everything was the same when I woke up. She was still there, and the blood was still there. And I called you.’
‘Okay. Did you touch her, Mavis? Did you touch anything?’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so.’
‘Who did that to your face?’
‘Pandora.’
A quick spurt of fear. ‘Honey, you told me she was dead when you got here.’
‘It was before. Earlier tonight. I went to her house.’
Eve took a careful breath to counteract the twisting in her stomach. ‘You went to her house tonight. When?’
‘I don’t know exactly. About eleven maybe. I wanted to tell her I’d stay away from Leonardo, to make her promise not to ruin everything for him.’
‘You fought with her?’
‘She was jazzed up on something. There were some people there, like a small party. She was nasty, said things. I said things back. We got into it a little. She smacked me, scratched me.’ Mavis tugged back her hair to reveal other wounds along her neck. ‘A couple of the people there broke it up, and I left.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘A couple of bars.’ She smiled weakly. ‘A lot of bars, I think. Feeling sorry for myself. Just hanging. Then I got the idea to talk to Leonardo.’
‘When did you get here? Do you know what time?’
‘No, late, real late. Three, four o’clock.’
‘Do you know where Leonardo is?’
‘No. He wasn’t here. I wanted him to be here, but she . . .
What’s going to happen?’
‘I’m going to take care of it. I have to call this in, Mavis. If I don’t do it soon, it’s going to look bad. I’m going to have to put all of this on record, and I’m going to have to take you into Interview.’
‘Into - into . . . You don’t think I—’
‘Of course I don’t.’ It was important to keep her voice brisk, to disguise her own fears. ‘But we’re going to clear it all up as quick as we can, as clean as we can. Let me do the worrying right now. Okay?’
‘I can’t feel much of anything.’
‘You just sit here while I start things rolling. I want you to try to remember details. Who you talked to tonight, where you were, what you saw. Everything you can remember. We’ll go over it all again in a little while.’
‘Dallas.’ With a little shudder, Mavis sat back. ‘Leonardo. He’d never do that to anyone.’
‘Let me do the worrying,’ Eve repeated. She glanced at Roarke, and understanding the signal, he moved over to sit with Mavis. Eve pulled out her communicator and turned away.
‘Dallas. I have a homicide.’
Eve’s life had never been easy. In her career as a cop she had seen and done too many nightmarish things to count them all. But nothing had ever been more difficult for her than taking Mavis into Interview.
‘Are you feeling okay? You don’t have to do this now.’
‘No, the MTs gave me a local.’ Mavis reached up, touched the lump on the back of her head. ‘Numbed it good. They fiddled around with some other stuff, kind of snapped me back into focus.’
Eve took a long study of Mavis’s eyes, her color. Everything looked normal, but it didn’t ease her dread. ‘Listen, it wouldn’t hurt for you to check in to health center for a day or two.’
‘You’re just putting it off. I’d rather get it over with. Leonardo.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Has anyone found Leonardo?’
‘Not yet. Mavis, you can have an attorney or representative here.’
‘I don’t have anything to hide. I didn’t kill her, Dallas.’
Eve flicked a glance at the recorder. It could wait just another minute. ‘Mavis, I have to do this by the ropes. Exactly. They can bump me off the case if I don’t. If I’m not primary, I can’t be as much help to you.’
Mavis licked her lips, her tongue quick and thirsty. ‘It’s going to be hard.’
‘It could be really, really hard. You’re going to have to handle it.’
Mavis tried for a smile, nearly managed it. ‘Hey, nothing can be worse than walking in and finding Pandora. Nothing.’
Oh, yes, it could, Eve thought, but she nodded. She engaged the recorder, recited her name, ID, and officially gave Mavis her rights. Carefully, she took Mavis over the same ground she had covered on the scene, pinning down times as much as possible.
‘When you went to the victim’s home to talk to her, other people were present.’
‘A few. It looked like a small party. Justin Young
was there. You know, the actor. Jerry Fitzgerald, the model. And another guy I didn’t recognize. Looked like a suit. You know, an exec.’
‘The victim attacked you?’
‘She popped me one,’ Mavis said ruefully, fingering the bruise on her cheek. ‘She started out just being bitchy. The way her eyes were wheeling around in her head, I figured she was pumped.’
‘You believe she was using illegals.’
‘Big time. I mean her eyes were like crystal wheels, and that punch. I tangled with her before, you saw it,’ Mavis went on while Eve winced. ‘She didn’t have that kind of power before.’
‘You hit her back?’
‘I think I got one in, at least one. She scratched me - those damn nails of hers. I went for her hair. I think it was Justin Young and the suit that pulled us apart.’
‘And then?’
‘I guess we spit at each other for a couple of minutes, then I left. Went bar crawling.’
‘Where did you go? How long did you stay?’
‘I went a couple of places. I think I hit the ZigZag first, the joint over on Sixty-first and Lex.’
‘Did you speak to anyone?’
‘I didn’t want to talk to anyone. My face hurt, and I was feeling lousy. I ordered a Triple Zombie and sulked.’
‘How’d you pay for it?’
‘I think . . . Yeah, I think I just entered my credit account on screen.’
Good. There’d be a record, time, place. ‘From there, where did you go?’
‘I walked around, bumped into another couple of dives. I was pretty blitzed.’
‘Were you still ordering drinks?’
‘I must have been. I was pretty drunk when I thought about going over to Leonardo’s.’
‘How’d you get downtown?’
‘I walked. I needed to sober up a little, so I walked. Took a glide a couple of times, but mostly hoofed.’
Hoping to spark some memory, Eve repeated all the information Mavis had just given. ‘When you left the ZigZag, which direction did you walk?’