by J. D. Robb
“Jesus,” McNab said softly, prayerlike.
“He doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t care.” Eve’s face was stone-cold as she stared at the screen. “She’s stopped screaming, but his head won’t. He throws the goodie bowl, smashes the screen, shoves at tables, stabs the sofa a few times. He has to stop the pain. He goes back in the bedroom, but he can’t stand it. He shoves open the terrace doors. He’s still got the knife, and he looks like he’s been painted red. He screams, and screams. At the air traffic, at the street below, at his neighbor who comes out on her terrace two apartments down. She runs back in, locks herself in, and calls the cops. By then it’s all over. Bedroom terrace view,” she ordered.
He was lying on his back, and looked like a man who’d been swimming in a river of blood.
He’d plunged the knife into his own heart.
“Got your timing.”
Wanting to stay with the action in the lab, McNab set up in a corner. He liked listening to the familiar language of compu-jocks as Feeney and Jamie debated the next level, or when Roarke weighed in with an opinion.
They were close, he knew they were right on the verge of duplicating the virus. Once they had it, they could fight it.
Eve walked over to him. She wasn’t sure why she’d come into the lab—the last place she was needed. Unless it was to get away from her own thoughts.
“Here’s our girl,” he continued, taping the image on-screen. “Coming in with Greene. Doorman had it. She doesn’t show before this time and date. Perv rubs her ass as they walk in. He’s old enough to be her father.”
“She walked in of her own free will.” Eve studied the girl’s face. The suggestive smirk, the glittering eyes. Oh yeah, she thought. Figured you knew the score. You didn’t know a damn thing.
“Yeah, well, doesn’t make him less a perv. She pops in and out. Never see her before noon. When she makes the daylight appearances, she’s back before nightfall. Usually has a couple bags with her. High-end stores. He must foot the bill for the shopping. She’s thinking she’s got a good thing going.”
“Hmm. They go out together.”
“Yeah.” He zipped through the disc. “Jumped up for a night out. Look half-buzzed already, all duded out. Up till the six days prior to implosion, they went out every night. We got three visitors during the time frame, all male.”
He keyed in to the view outside Greene’s condo. “This first one goes in, stays sixteen minutes. Bet the contents of his briefcase switched during that little social call.”
“Time to test the merchandise and count the money,” Eve agreed. “Do we know if Illegals was tracking this guy?”
“Don’t. Can.” Unconsciously, McNab flexed his fingers, working on the tingle that hadn’t quite faded. “I got some contacts there. Far as I can tell, the perv skimmed the line, kept legitimate business avenues open, didn’t deal too heavy.”
“Second visitor?”
“Different deal. Stayed ninety-eight minutes. No bag.”
Eve studied the second man entering, exiting. “Sex,” she said flatly. “What about the third?”
“Forty-minute stay, carried a disc bag in and out. Likes his sex on vids, I guess.”
“I know this guy. I know him. Tripps. Deals bootlegged vids. Has a few runners on the street. Yeah, I know him. I’ll tap him if I need to, see if he can draw me a picture. Run the other faces for ID in case we need them.”
Eve saw him massaging his right thigh as he set up for the search. “No, not now. Morning’s soon enough. Pack it in for the night. Why don’t you and Peabody go use the pool or something? Or just get out for a while.”
“Yeah? Taking pity on the recovering crip?”
“Grab it while you can, pal. It won’t last.”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t mind a little club action. Some music. Not up to dancing yet. You know what would really do it? Virtual club scene. If we could use the holoroom.”
“If you’re going to program in some perverted sexual fantasy, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Mum’s the word.”
She went back to her own office and spent the next hour dissecting Nick Greene’s life.
College man, a business major who’d started picking up trouble in his teens. Minor possession fines, criminal trespass, bootlegging vids. Always the entrepreneur, she thought.
It had paid off for a while. Classy Park Avenue digs, closet full of snazzy designer duds.
She frowned as she continued through his financials. He’d garaged two high-end vehicles, and had kept a third, and a watercraft, stored at his weekend place in the Hamptons. He had art and jewelry insured in excess of three million.
“Doesn’t add up.”
She went to the ’link and beeped Roarke. “I need you to look at something in my office.”
He came in, looking mildly irritated. “If you want the job done, Lieutenant, you have to let me do it.”
“I need your expert opinion on something else. Look at these assets, reported income, debits. Give me your take.”
She had the numbers on-screen, and paced the office while Roarke studied them.
“Obviously someone didn’t report all their income. That’s shocking.”
“Ditch the sarcasm. How much in excess of this could you make from a mid-level illegals business, running a few unlicensed whores, dealing some porn vids, a little sex brokering?”
“I’ve decided to be flattered rather than insulted that you assumed I’d know of such matters. Depends, of course, on the overhead. You’d have to buy or cook the illegals before you could sell them, outfit and maintain the prostitutes, generate the vids. Then there’s the outlay for bribes, security, employees. If you were good at it, had a steady clientele, you’d pull in two or three million in profit.”
“Still doesn’t add up. He kept it small, exclusive. You don’t get busted as hard or as often if you keep it low profile. So say you add the three million to what he reported last year. That keeps him under five million. You could live real comfortable on that.”
“Some could. Are we done now?”
“No. You’ve got five million to play with. Look at his clothing expenditures last year.”
Stifling impatience, Roarke scanned the data she shot on-screen. “So he wasn’t a snappy dresser.”
“But he was. Closet full of designer labels. Had to have a hundred pairs of shoes. Since I live with someone with the same baffling addiction, I can recognize the pricey stuff. There was an easy million in the closet. Probably more.”
“He prefers paying cash then,” Roarke said, but he was becoming interested despite himself.
“Okay, subtract a million from the five. He has art and baubles insured for over three.”
“One rarely buys all their baubles in a single year.”
“Yeah, but there’re appraisals for over three-quarters of a million last year. No debit entries. Cash again. Subtract another seventy-five. Vid equipment, insured for one point five mil. Two new cams on the list last year to the tune of half a mil. Two garaged vehicles in the city. Annual for that’s what, two, three thousand a month, each. One’s a XR-7000Z, new last September. What do they run?”
“Ah . . . two hundred K, if he got it loaded.”
“Three-bedroom condo on Park. Annual’s about the same as the car, right?”
He was doing the math in his head. “Close enough.”
“Then you add a five-bedroom beach house in the Hamptons, the slip fee for his watercraft. What’s that?”
“Run him near a million.”
“Okay. You add in he goes out dining and debauchering almost nightly. Basic living expenses over that. What do you get?”
“Either I’m well off on the estimate of his business profit, or he had another source of income.”
“Another source.” She hitched a hip onto her desk. “Follow me here. You got an underground business that caters to fairly exclusive clientele. Some of whom might blush if their little hobby came out in the light
. You’ve got expensive taste, and your business does pretty good, but hell, you want better. What do you do?”
“Blackmail.”
“And we have a winner.”
“All right, so he ran a shakedown on the side. A profitable one by all accounts. What does that have to do with the matter at hand?”
“The matter at hand is homicide. It’s a Purity hit, and it’s connected, but you still run it by the numbers. He might have kept his blackmail data in a safebox. If he did, he’d keep it close to home. Easy access. We can check the banks and depositories. But, maybe he kept them even closer to home. I’m going to go check out his place again.”
“Want company?”
“Two could toss it faster than one.”
He thought she was wasting her time and his. But he supposed the cop in her needed to snip off any loose ends.
And he’d had no intention of letting her go back alone to a place that had taunted her nightmares.
He waited until she bypassed the police seal, uncoded the locks.
The air still carried death. It was the first thing that struck him when he stepped in beside her. The raw, pitiably human stench of it lingered under the odor of chemicals used by the crime scene team and sweepers.
Red stains, splatters, streams were a virulent horror over the white. Walls, carpet, furniture. He could see where the girl had fallen. Could see where she had crawled. Where she had died.
“Christ, how do you face it? How do you look at this and not break?”
“Because it’s there whether you look or not. And if you break, you’re done.”
He touched her arm. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “Did you need to see this again? To face this again to prove you could?”
“Maybe. But if that was all, I’d’ve come on my own. Second bedroom and the office are over there. We went through the place thoroughly on the first sweep. But we weren’t looking for a hidey-hole. Now we do.”
She put Roarke in the second bedroom and started on the office herself. They’d taken the data and communication center away, had gone over the work area, through the closet where Greene had kept his extra supplies.
She did it all again, point by point. There was a safe. One of the crime scene techs had run his scanner over it, tagged the combination. She’d found nothing unexpected in it. Some cash, disc documents, a little paperwork.
Not enough cash, she thought now. Not nearly enough. If three clients had come by in the last few days—at least two of them when Greene’s symptoms would have been increasing—where was the payoff?
Would he have sent Wade out with cash to tuck it into a safebox? She didn’t think so. You might bang a teenager, sell her off to clients, but you didn’t put cash in her hand and wave bye-bye.
She took two paintings and a sculpture off the wall, searched behind them for panels.
“Bedroom’s clean,” Roarke told her.
“He’s got another safe. He’s got a hole. This is the logical place. The office is the logical place.”
“Maybe it’s too logical. First place you looked, isn’t it?”
She stopped scooting along the baseboard and sat back on her heels. “Okay, if this was your place, where’s your stash?”
“If I liked combining business and pleasure, as it appeared he did, the master bedroom.”
“Okay, let’s try it.”
She led the way, then stood in the doorway with him, scanning the room.
“Money doesn’t always buy taste, does it, darling?” He shook his head at the black and red decor. “A bit obvious for a passion den.”
He wandered to the closet, opened it. “Well, here at least he showed some level of class. Very nice fabrics.”
“Yeah, and he died in his underwear. Just goes to show.”
“Just what does the city do with this sort of thing?”
“The clothes? If he doesn’t have family, heirs, that kind of thing, they’re donated to shelters.”
He pressed the button that had the first tier of suits revolving to reveal the second. “The sidewalk sleepers are going to be better dressed this year.”
He moved the second tier aside, studied the wall of shoes to his right. Smiled. “Here you have it.”
“Have what?”
“Give us a minute,” he said, running his fingertips along shelves, under them. “Ah, here we are. Let’s see.”
He depressed a small lever. The lower third of the shelves swung slowly open. He crouched. “Here’s your hidey-hole, Lieutenant. And your second safe.”
She was already breathing down his neck. “Can you open it?”
“Would that be a rhetorical question?” he chuckled.
“Just open the damn thing.”
He drew the jammer he’d taken from Jamie out of his pocket. “Well, this is why you’re the cop and I’m not.”
“Because you can pop a safe?”
“No. I could teach you to do it quick enough, even without this handy little toy. Because I thought you were wasting time coming back here tonight.”
“You still think I’m wasting time.”
“I suppose I do, but you’ve found your safe.” The display on the jammer began to flash, numbers zipping by in a blur. Then a series of them locked on. The safe hummed once, then clicked.
“Abracadabra,” Roarke stated, and opened it.
“Now that’s more like it.” Hunkered down beside him, Eve studied the neat stacks of cash. “This is how he stayed out of a cage so long. No credit, no e-transfers. Cash on the line. And a file box, loaded with discs and vids.”
“Best of all.” Roarke reached in, took out a PPC. “His personal palm, very likely uninfected and chock-full of interesting data.”
“Let’s load it up, get it in.” She pulled out her memo book.
“What’re you doing?”
“Logging the entry. I better not see any of that green stuff or those baubles go into your pockets, Ace.”
“Now I’m offended.” He straightened, brushed at his shirt. “If I nipped anything, you can bet your ass you wouldn’t see me do it.”
Chapter 18
Eve started running the discs as soon as she got back into her office. She set the ones labeled FINANCIALS and BOOKKEEPING aside. They could wait.
She passed the PPC onto Roarke to take to the lab for testing. In short order she found herself listening to what had been Greene’s daily journal.
He mentioned clients, but always by initials or an obvious nickname. Lardbutt had made his monthly payment. G.G. had begged for another extension. He made entries on shopping, on the club scene, on sexual exploits. They were all recorded in a tone of disdainful humor and derision.
Greene had despised the people he’d served.
So he’d blackmailed them, Eve mused. Squeezing them until he’d eventually become them. Wealthy, bored, and perverted.
Brought home a nice piece of ass today, he noted on the day he’d hooked up with Hannah Wade. I’ve been watching her for a few days. She hangs around the clubs, targets her mark, and talks him into getting her in. Straight up to a privacy room most times. When she’s done, she cruises the club looking for action. I decided to give her some. I’ve got clients who’ll pay top for a session with this little number. She knows the score. Figure I’ll keep her up here a couple weeks, enjoy the fringe benefits, class her up some. Outfit her right, she could pass for about fourteen. H.C.’s been asking for some new young meat. I just brought home the cow.
“Creep,” Eve said aloud, and ran through the week’s journal. She hit the next level two days after he’d brought Wade home.
Fucking headache. Fucking headache all day. Zoner barely touches it. Got meetings today. Can’t miss. Told G.G. to come up with payment plus penalty by tomorrow or her loving husband’s going to get a delivery. Wonder how he’ll feel about seeing his wife do the nasty with a St. Bernard?
Assholes. She tries to screw me over, she’ll be sorry.
There was more of the same ove
r the next three days. Increasingly angry entries, full of vague threats, complaints, frustration. He talked about the headaches, and for the first time mentioned a nosebleed.
On the day before his death, the disc was full of weeping, of pounding as if he were beating a fist against the wall.
Trying to screw me over. Everybody’s trying to screw me over. I’ll kill them first. Kill them. Locked her out, locked the little bitch out. She thinks I don’t know. Oh God, oh God, oh God, my head. She put something in my head! Can’t let her see. Can’t let anybody see. Stay inside. Safe inside. I gotta sleep. I gotta sleep. Make it go away! Lock it up. I have to lock everything up tight. She won’t get what’s mine. Little whore-bitch.
Eve filed the disc, walked into the kitchen for coffee. Then she just pulled open the terrace doors and breathed.
It was easy to see how Greene’s infection had progressed. Paranoia, anger, fear. The symptoms had started shortly after he’d installed Wade in the condo, so he’d believed she was responsible for them.
In his sick way, he’d killed her in self-defense.
She got her coffee, went back to her desk to make notes. Then, though her head was buzzing with a combination of caffeine, fatigue, and stress, she started on the videos.
It was clear how Greene bumped his income up several brackets. The videos were not only technically well-done, but showed a strangely creative sense of theater.
If you liked your entertainment raw and perverse.
“Still at it?” Roarke walked in, headed straight into the kitchen without glancing at the screen. “Will you have some wine now?”
“Oh yeah. I could use a drink.”
“I’ve sent the others on their way. You’ll have your little nightcap here, Lieutenant, then I’m going to . . .”
He trailed off as he came back with two glasses of wine. What was playing on-screen had even his jaded eyes widening. “What is that? A small bear?”