by J. D. Robb
“Prove it—he’ll meet you. Name the spot.”
There was silence for a long moment. “You think you can draw me out that way? Another Eve offering forbidden fruit? I’m not the sheep but the shepherd. I have accepted the task, I hold the staff.”
The voice wasn’t quite controlled. No, Eve thought, it was fighting for control. Temper and ego. Those were her keys inside him.
“I think you’re too much of a coward to risk it. You’re a sick, pathetic coward who probably can’t get it up unless he uses both hands.”
“Bitch, cop whore. I know what women of your kind do to a man. ‘For a harlot may be hired for a loaf of bread, but an adulteress stalks a man’s very life.” ’
“I’m getting something,” McNab whispered. “I’m getting it. Keep him talking.”
“I wasn’t offering you sex. I don’t think you’d be very good at it.”
“The harlot did. She offered her honor for her life. But God ordered her execution. His will be done.”
He has another one was all Eve could think. She may already be too late. “You’re boring me, pal. Your riddles are boring me. Why don’t we just go to the main match, you and me, and see what shakes down?”
“There will be nine before it is accomplished.” His voice grew stronger, like an evangelist’s saving souls. “A novena of vengeance. It’s not your time, but hers. Another riddle, Lieutenant, for your petty and secular mind: Pretty girls grow into pretty women, but once a whore, always a whore. They come running when the price is right. You’ll find this one in the west, in the year of her crime. How long she breathes depends on her—and you, Lieutenant. But do you really want to save a whore who once spread her legs for the man you spread them for? Your move,” he said and ended transmission.
“He’s bouncing the transmission all over hell and back. Goddamn it.” McNab shoved at his hair and flexed his fingers. “Got him on Orion, into Stockholm, up into Vegas Two, and through Sydney for Christ’s sake. I can’t pin him. He’s got me outequipped.”
“He’s in New York,” Roarke said. “The rest is smoke.”
“Yeah, well, it’s damn good smoke.”
Eve ignored McNab and concentrated on Roarke. His face was pale and set, his eyes icily blue. “You know who he has.”
“Yes. Jennie. Jennie O’Leary. I just spoke with her two days ago. She was once a barmaid in Dublin and now runs a B and B in Wexford.”
“Is that in the west of Ireland?” Even as Roarke shook his head, she was rising, skimming her fingers through her hair. “He can’t want us to go to Ireland. That can’t be right. He’s got her here, he wants us here. I don’t have any authority in Ireland, and he wants me in charge.”
“The West Side,” Peabody suggested.
“Yeah, that would fit. The West Side—in the year of her crime,” she added, looking at Roarke.
“Forty-three. Twenty forty-three.”
“West Forty-third then. That’s where we start. Let’s move, Peabody.”
“I’m going with you.” Roarke laid a hand on Eve’s arm before she could protest. “I have to. McNab, call this number.” He turned long enough to scrawl a ’link series onto a card. “Ask for Nibb. Tell him to have a 60K Track and Monitor unit and a 7500MTS sent over, along with his best tech to install it here in my wife’s office.”
“There’s no 60K T and M,” McNab objected.
“There will be in about six months. We have some test units.”
“Holy shit, 60K.” McNab nearly shuddered with delight. “I don’t need a tech. I can handle it.”
“Have him send one anyway. Tell him I want it up and running by noon.”
When he was alone, McNab looked at the card and sighed. “Money doesn’t just talk. It sings.”
Eve got behind the wheel and took off down the drive the minute the doors were shut. “Peabody, run all the flops and lc nests on West Forty-third.”
“Licensed companions? Oh, I get it.” She pulled out her personal palm computer and got to work.
“He wants her to die in a whore’s surroundings—my guess is the sleazier the better. Roarke, what do you own on West Forty-third that fits the bill?”
Another time he would have made a joke of that. He took out his own ppc and requested the data. “I own two buildings on West Forty-three. One is a restaurant with apartments above—single-family units, a hundred percent occupancy. The other is a small hotel with a public bar, projected to be refurbished.”
“Name?”
“The West Side.”
“Peabody?” Eve cut over to Seventh and headed downtown. She nipped through a red light and ignored the blast of horns and pedestrian curses. “Peabody?” she repeated.
“Working on it. Here. The West Side—that’s 522 West Forty-third. Approved for on-site alcohol consumption, private smoking booths. Attached hotel licensed companion approved. Former owner, J. P. Felix, arrested January 2058. Violation of Codes 752, 821. Operating live sex acts without a license. Operating gambling establishment without a license. Property confiscated by City of New York and auctioned September 2058. Purchased by Roarke Industries, and currently up to code.”
“Five twenty-two,” Eve muttered as she winged onto Forty-third. “Do you know the setup here, Roarke?”
“No.” In his mind he could see Jennie as he’d once known her. Pretty and bright and laughing. “One of my acquisitions staff viewed and bid on the property. I’ve only seen the paperwork.”
He looked out the window as a young boy set up a three-card monte game while his adolescent partner scanned for cops and nuisance droids. He hoped they made a killing.
“I have one of my architects working up a plan for remodeling,” he continued. “I haven’t seen them either.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Eve jerked the car to a stop, double parking in front of 522. She flipped on the NYPSD blinker, which helped her chances of finding her vehicle in one piece when she came back. “We’ll check at the front desk, see what the clerk can tell us.”
She bypassed the bar, noted grimly that the security plate on the hotel door was broken. The lobby was dim, with a single pathetic plant going from green to sickly yellow in the corner. The thick safety glass that caged in the desk was scratched and pitted. The access door was wide open. The droid on duty was out of operation.
It was easy to see why, as its body was slumped in a chair and its head sat on the counter.
“Goddamn it. He’s been here. Maybe he’s still here.” She pulled out her weapon. “We take a floor at a time, knock on doors. Anybody doesn’t answer, we go in.”
Roarke opened a drawer under the droid’s head. “Master code.” He held up the thin card. “It’ll make it easier.”
“Good. Use the stairs.”
Nearly every room on the first floor was empty. They found one groggy-eyed lc sleeping off a long night. She’d heard and seen nothing, and made her displeasure at being roused by cops obvious. On the second floor they found the remnants of a wild party, including a fistful of illegals scattered over the floor like abandoned toys.
On the graffiti-strewn stairway heading toward three, they found the child.
He was perhaps eight, thin and pale, with his toes poking out of his ragged sneakers. There was a fresh bruise under his right eye, and a scruffy gray kitten in his lap.
“Are you Dallas?” he wanted to know.
“Yeah. Why?”
“The man said I should wait for you. He gave me a two-dollar credit to wait.”
Her heart picked up rhythm as she crouched down. The aroma there told her the kid hadn’t seen bathwater in a number of days. “What man?”
“The guy who told me to wait. He said how you’d give me another two if I did, and I told you the thing.”
“What thing?”
His eyes scanned her face slyly. “He said how you’d give me another two.”
“Sure, okay.” Eve dug in her pocket, made certain to keep her tone light, her smile easy. “So, what’s the thing?�
� she asked as the boy took the credit and fisted it in his grubby hand.
“He said . . .” the boy closed his eyes and recited, “ ‘It’s the third but not the last. You’re quick but not too fast. No matter how much flash, no matter how much cash, no bastard son of Eire can ever escape his past. Amen.” ’ He opened his eyes and grinned. “I got it right, told him I would.”
“Good for you. You stay right here and I’ll give you another two. Peabody.” She waited until they’d reached the landing. “Take care of the kid. Call Child Protection Services, then see if you can get any kind of description out of him. Roarke, you’re with me. Third victim, third floor,” she said to herself. “Third door.”
She turned to the left, weapon raised, and knocked hard. “There’s music.” She cocked her head to try to catch the tune.
“It’s a jig. A dance tune. Jennie liked to dance. She’s in there.”
Before he could move forward, Eve threw up an arm to block him. “Stand clear. Do it.” She opened the locks and went in low.
The barmaid who had liked to dance was hanging from a cord from the stained ceiling. Her toes just brushed the surface of a wobbling stool. The cord had cut deep into her throat so that blood trickled down her breasts. It was still fresh enough to carry that copper penny smell, still fresh enough to gleam wet against white skin.
Her right eye was gone, and her fingers, bruised and bloodied from dragging at the cord, hung limp at her sides.
The music played, bright and cheerful, from a small recorder disc under the stool. The statue of the Virgin stood on the floor, her marble face turned toward violent death.
“Fucking, filthy bastard. Bloody motherfucking son of a whore.” Roarke’s vision went black with rage. He bulled forward, shoving Eve aside, nearly knocking her to her knees when she fought to muscle him back. “Get out of my way.” His eyes were sharp and cold as a drawn sword. “Get the hell out of my way.”
“No.” She did the only thing she could think of, and, countering his weight, knocked him back against the wall and rammed his elbow to his throat. “You can’t touch her. Do you understand me? You can’t touch her. She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do. This is for me. Look at me, Roarke. Look at me.”
Her voice barely punched through the thick buzzing in his head, but he dragged his eyes away from the woman hanging in the center of the room and stared into the eyes of his wife.
“You have to let me try to help her now.” She gentled her tone but kept it firm, as she would with any victim. She wanted to hold him, to lay her cheek against his, and instead kept her elbow pressed lightly to his windpipe. “I can’t let you contaminate the scene. I want you to go outside now.”
He got his breath back, though it burned his lungs. Cleared his vision, though the edges of it remained dark and dull. “He left the stool there. He stood her on the stool so that she could strain just enough to reach it with her toes. She could stay alive as long as she had the strength to reach the stool. She’d have been choking, her heart overworked, the pain burning, but she could stay alive as long as she fought for balance. She’d have fought hard.”
Eve lowered her elbow, laid her hands on his shoulders. “This isn’t your fault. This isn’t your doing.”
He looked away from her, forced himself to look at an old friend. “We loved each other once,” he said quietly. “In our way. We had a careless way, but one gave the other what was needed, for a time. I won’t touch her. I’ll stay out of your way.”
When Eve stepped back, he moved to the door. He spoke now without looking at her. “I won’t let him live. Whether you find him or I do, I won’t let him live.”
“Roarke.”
He only shook his head. His eyes met hers, once, and what she read in them chilled her blood. “He’s already dead.”
She let him go, promising herself she would talk him down as soon as she could. With her eyes tightly shut, she trembled once, hard. Then she pulled out her communicator, called it in, and signaled for Peabody to bring up her field kit.
chapter nine
When Roarke stepped outside the building, he saw Peabody had the field kit gripped in one hand and the kid’s arm gripped in the other. Roarke thought she was wise to keep him in tow. From the look on his face he’d be unlikely to hang around now that he had four in credits in his pocket. At least he’d be unlikely to hang with a uniformed cop.
He forced himself to block the scene he’d just left from his mind and concentrate on this one. “Got your hands full there, Peabody.”
“Yeah.” She blew out a harassed breath that fluttered her razor-straight bangs. “The CPS isn’t known for being quick on its feet.” She glanced up at the building, longingly. If Eve had called for the field kit, that meant there was a scene to preserve and investigate. And she was stuck baby-sitting. “I assume it’s inadvisable to take the minor back in, so if you wouldn’t mind taking the lieutenant her kit . . .”
“I’ll mind the boy, Peabody.”
Her eyes simply lit with gratitude. “That works for me.” With more haste than tact, she handed him over. “Don’t lose him,” she warned and hustled inside.
Roarke and the boy eyed each other with cool calculation. “I’m faster,” Roarke said, easily reading the intent. “And I’ve got more experience.” Crouching, Roarke gave the kitten a scratch behind the ears. “What’s his name?”
“Dopey.”
Roarke felt a smile tug at his lips. “Not the brightest of the Seven Dwarfs, but the most pure of heart. And what’s yours?”
The boy studied Roarke cautiously. Most of the adults in his life only knew Snow White as an illegal happy powder. “Kevin,” he said and relaxed a little as Dopey was purring hard and loud under the man’s long scratching fingers.
“Nice to meet you, Kevin. I’m Roarke.”
The offer of the man’s hand to shake had Kevin giggling at once. “Meetcha.”
The foolish and lovely sound of a child’s quick giggle lightened his heart. “Think Dopey’s hungry?”
“Maybe.”
“There’s a cart down the block. Let’s check it out.”
“He likes soy dogs.” Kevin began to skip along beside Roarke, thrilled beyond belief with his new good fortune. The new bruise was a dark and ugly contrast under the pale gray eyes.
“The only sensible choice for the discriminating palate.”
“You talk fancy.”
“It’s a fine way to make people believe you’re saying something much more important than you are.”
He held the boy’s hand lightly, then let it go when the smoke from the glide-cart puffed into the air. Kevin raced happily ahead, bouncing on his toes when he reached the cart where soy dogs and turkey hash rolls were popping with heat.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come around here?” The operator started to shove Kevin aside, snarling when the boy danced expertly out of reach. “I ain’t got no freebies for dirty little boys.” She grabbed up a long-handled, dual-pronged fork, jabbing with it. “Keep pestering me and I’ll chop up that ugly cat and fry its liver.”
“I got money.” Kevin clutched his kitten tighter, but stood his ground. His stomach was rolling with distress and hunger.
“Yeah, yeah, and I shit gold turds. Go beg somewhere else, or I’ll blacken your other eye.”
Roarke stepped up, laid a hand on Kevin’s shoulder and had the operator shrinking back with one stony stare. “Can’t you decide what you’d like, Kevin?”
“She said she’s going to fry Dopey’s liver.”
“Just joking with the boy.” The operator grinned hugely, showing off teeth that screamed an abhorrence for basic dental hygiene. “I’ve always got a joke and a few tater snacks for the neighborhood kids.”
“You’re a regular fairy godmother, I imagine. Box up a half dozen soy dogs, three scoops of fries, a couple of fruit kabobs, a bag of pretzel twists, two jumbo tubes of—What’s your drink, Kevin?”
“Orange Fizzy Supreme,” Kevin managed, dumbf
ounded by the upcoming feast.
“Two, then, and a handful of the chocolate sticks.”
“Yes, sir, right away.” The operator went to work with a vengeance as Kevin stared up at Roarke, eyes wide, mouth agape.
“Want anything else?” Roarke asked as he reached in his pocket for loose credits.
Kevin only shook his head. He’d never seen that much food in one box before. Dopey, inspired by the scents, let out a wild meow.
“Here.” Roarke pulled one of the soy dogs out, handed it to Kevin. “Why don’t you take this. Go back to the lieutenant’s car—and wait for me.”
“Okay.”
Kevin turned, took three steps, then, turning back, did something just childish enough to warm Roarke’s heart. He stuck out his tongue at the vendor then dashed off.
Roarke hefted the box of food, ignoring the operator’s oily chatter. He tossed credits onto the pay board, then stared through the smoke. “I’m in the mood to hurt someone—too much in the mood, which is why you’re still standing. But if you ever lay hands on that boy, I’ll hear about it. And it won’t be a cat’s liver that ends up on the grill. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely. Yes.” Her fingers were already snagging up credits, but her eyes stayed warily on Roarke’s. “Didn’t know the kid had a dad. Thought he was just another street brat. They’re worse than rats around here. Scavenging, making life messy for decent folk.”
“Let’s put it this way.” Roarke clamped a hand over the woman’s wrist. It took all his control not to give in to the urge to snap it like a dry twig. “It should take me about thirty seconds to walk back to where the boy’s waiting. When I get there, I’m going to turn around. I don’t want to see you here.”
“This is my corner.”
“I’d advise you to find another.” Roarke released her and hefted the box. He’d taken no more than two strides when he heard the metallic clang of the cart being moved. It was a small satisfaction. A bigger one was seeing Kevin sitting on the hood of Eve’s unit, the cat beside him, and each of them devouring half a soy dog.