by J. D. Robb
“Why don’t you let me look at the records, with the eye of a veteran cop-spotter?”
“It couldn’t hurt.” She turned to her computer, ordered dupes of all operational files. “We should have plenty of full views of him on the lobby file. There’s not much of his face, but maybe you’ll spot something that clicks. You’ve got to know him, Roarke.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“I don’t know when I’ll be home.” She handed him the copies. “But don’t wait up.”
She grabbed a cheese phyllo and an energy bar at a QuickMart and settled for a tube of Pepsi rather than their notoriously poisonous coffee. She carried the miserable meal with her into the second-floor conference room where McNab was heading the electronic sweep.
“Anything?”
“Plenty of hits on mega-links, laser faxes. The building’s lousy with high-end electronics. We’re checking floor to floor, but there’s nothing on the scale of what our guy plays with.”
Eve set the bag down, then reached out and turned McNab’s face toward her with a firm thumb to his chin. There was a bruising knot on his forehead and a long thin scrap just above his right eye. “Get the MTs to look at that ugly face of yours?”
“Just a bump. Damn dog came at me like an Arena Ball tackle.” He shifted in his chair so that the gold rings in his ears jangled. “I’d like to apologize for my insubordination during the operation, Lieutenant.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You were pissed and you still are.” She pulled out her tube of Pepsi, broke the safety seal. “You were wrong, and you still are. So stuff the apology. Don’t ever question an order from a superior officer during an operation, McNab, or you’ll end up skulking in some little dark room listening to sex noises for a private security hack instead of rising through the ranks of the illustrious EDD.”
While his temper bobbed up and down, he meticulously manipulated his scanner, noting the location of a dual communication unit on floor eighteen.
“Okay, maybe I’m still a little steamed, and maybe I know I was over the line. I’m lucky if I get out of my cube at Central once a month. This was the closest I’ve come to action, then you yanked me.”
Looking at him, at that young, smooth, eager face, she felt incredibly old and jaded. “McNab, have you ever participated in hand-to-hand other than in training?”
“No, but—”
“Have you ever discharged your weapon at anything other than a heat target?”
His mouth went sulky. “No. So I’m not a warrior.”
“Your strengths are right here.” She tapped a finger on his scanner, then pulled out her energy bar. “You know as well as I do how many applicants wash out of the EDD program every year. They only take the top. And you’re good. I’ve worked with the best,” she said, thinking of Feeney, “so I know. This is where I need you to take this fucker down.”
Then none too gently, she tapped her finger on the swollen bruise on his forehead. “And action mostly just hurts like a bitch.”
“Guys are going to rag me for weeks. Getting taken down by a dog.”
“It was a pretty big dog.” Sympathetic now, Eve took out the phyllo and gave it to him. “Really big teeth. Lorimar took a bite in the ankle.”
“Yeah?” Somewhat cheered, McNab bit into the bread and cheese. “I hadn’t heard.” A series of beeps had him frowning at the scanner. “Lots of goodies on nineteen, east wing apartment.” He shifted to his communicator. “Blue team, check on nineteen twenty-three. It looks like some rich kid’s entertainment center, but it’s loaded.”
“I’ll go check on the door-to-doors,” Eve said. “You get any interesting hits, pass them on to me.”
“You first, Dallas. Thanks for the food. Say, ah, where’s Peabody?”
Eve lifted a brow as she glanced back over her shoulder. “Overseeing the breakdown of equipment in the penthouse at the Arms. She doesn’t like you, McNab.”
“I know.” He flashed a grin. “I find that really attractive in a woman.” He turned back to his scanner, humming as he went through the complicated task of separating the beeps into known components.
At midnight, she ordered in a new crew, sent McNab home for eight hours off, and packed it in. It didn’t surprise her to find Roarke up, in his office, enjoying a glass of wine while he studied the recordings.
“I had the first team wrap for the night. They were getting punchy.”
“You look a bit punchy yourself, Lieutenant. Shall I pour you a glass of wine?”
“No, I don’t want anything.” She walked over, noted that he paused the recording at the point where McNab made abrupt contact with the stationary panel of the main doors. “I don’t think he’d consider that suitable for framing.”
“No luck locking in on his communication center?”
“McNab’s worried he’s shut it down.” She rubbed at the stiffness at the base of her neck. “So am I. He could have done it by remote while he was on the run, or contacted someone he’s working with. Mira’s profile indicates he’d want constant praise and attention during the game, so it’s possible he’s got a partner—likely a female, strong personality. Authority figure.”
“Mother?”
“That would be my first guess. But a remote’s just as likely as him having Mommy by his side. He wants to believe he’s running the show, so he probably has his own place.”
She stepped forward, closer to the screen, staring hard at the image of the man in the long coat and chauffeur’s cap. “It’s like a costume,” she murmured. “Another part of the game. He’s dressing up. It’s concealing, but it’s also, I don’t know, dramatic. Like in a play, and he’s the star. But right here, you can see that we’ve thrown him a cue he wasn’t expecting. See the shock, the panic in the body language. His weight’s off balance because he took a step back. Instinctive retreat. His free hand’s coming up, a defensive gesture. I bet his eyes are moon wide with shock behind the sunshades.”
Something caught her, made her frown and step even closer. “Can’t see what the hell he’s looking at. You can’t see where his eyes are focused. Just the angle of his head. Is he looking at Baxter going for his weapon on the other side of the glass? Or is he looking at McNab crash headfirst into the panel?”
“From his angle, you’d see both.”
“Yeah. Baxter look like a cop going for his stunner to you? Couldn’t he be a doorman, alerted by the commotion, reaching for his security beeper?”
“I’d go for cop,” Roarke told her. “Look at the way he moves.” He ordered the recorder to rewind thirty seconds, then play. The room erupted with noise so he muted audio. “Watch—it’s a textbook cop move. The spin, knees bent, body braced, the right hand sweeping inside the coat at the armpit. Doormen wear beepers on their belts, so his grab’s too high for that.”
“But it happened fast, look how fast.”
“If he knows cops, has had many dealings with them, it could have been enough. McNab doesn’t look anything like a cop, doesn’t move like one. The only way that would have tipped him is if he recognized Ian, knew him to be a cop.”
“McNab doesn’t do much field work, as he complained to me tonight. But they’re both electronics jocks, so it’s not impossible they’ve brushed up against each other. Damn it, I should have thought of that before I sent him out.”
“You’re Monday morning quarterbacking, darling Eve.”
“What?”
“We really have to do something about your lack of interest in sports other than baseball. It’s useless to second-guess yourself here. I watched you run that operation, and you did it with a cool and steady hand.”
“I still fumbled.” She smiled thinly. “How’s that for sports?”
“The fat lady has yet to sing,” he said and laughed at her confused stare. “Meaning the game isn’t over. But tonight is. You’re going to bed.”
She’d been about to say the same, but it was always hard to resist arguing. “Says who?”
“The
man you married for sex.”
She ran her tongue around her teeth, hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “I just said that to needle a sexually repressed, homicidal maniac.”
“I see. So you didn’t marry me for sex.”
“The sex is an entertaining element.”
“An element you’re too tired to explore tonight.”
Because her eyes were drooping, she narrowed them. “Says who?”
He had to laugh, slipping an arm around her waist to walk with her to the elevator so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs. “Darling Eve, you would argue with the devil himself.”
“I thought I was.” She yawned, let herself lean on him a little. In the bedroom, she stripped, let her clothes lay where they fell. “They’re doing a full scan on the car he left in front of the hotel,” she murmured as she crawled into bed. “It’s a rental—charged to Summerset’s secondary credit account.”
“I’ve shifted all my accounts and numbers.” He lay beside her. “I’ll see that the same is done with Summerset’s in the morning. He won’t find it as easy to access now.”
“No latents on the scan so far. Gloves. Swept some strands of hair. Might be his. Couple foreign carpet fibers. Coulda come off his shoes. Running them.”
“That’s fine.” He stroked her hair. “Turn it off now.”
“He’ll shift targets. Didn’t get his points today.” When her voice thickened, he turned so she could curl against him. “It’s gonna be soon.”
Roarke thought she was right. But the target wouldn’t be her, not for now. For now she was curled up warm against him, and asleep.
Patrick Murray was drunker than usual. In the normal scheme of things, he avoided sobriety but didn’t care to stumble or piss on his hands. But tonight, when the Mermaid Club closed its doors at three in the morning, he had done both, more than once.
His wife had left him. Again.
He loved his Loretta with a rare passion, but could admit he too often loved a cozy bottle of Jamison’s more. He’d met his darling at that very club five years before. She’d been naked as the wind and swimming like a fish in the aquatic floor show the club was renowned for, but it had been—for Pat—love at first sight.
He thought of it now as he tripped over the chair he’d been about to upend on the table directly in front of him. Too many pulls of whiskey blurred his vision and hampered him in his maintenance duties. It was his lot in life to mop up the spilled liquor and bodily fluids, to scour the toilets and sinks, to be sure the privacy rooms were aired so they didn’t smell like someone else’s come the following day.
He’d hired on at the club to do just that five years and two months before, and had been struck by Cupid’s arrow when he’d seen Loretta execute a watery pirouette in the show tank.
Her skin, the color of barrel-aged scotch, had gleamed so wet. Her twisty curls of ebony hair had flowed through the virulently dyed blue water. Her eyes behind their protective lenses had gleamed a brilliant lavender.
Pat righted himself, and the chair, before reaching in his pocket for the mini bottle of whiskey. He drained it in a swallow, and though he wobbled, he tucked it neatly in the nearest recycle slot.
He’d been twenty-seven when he’d first set eyes on the magnificent Loretta, and it had been only his second day in America. He’d been forced to leave Ireland in a hurry, due to a bit of a brushup with the law and a certain disagreement over some gambling debts. But he’d found his destiny in the city of New York.
Five years later, he was scraping the same floor clean of unmentionable substances, pocketing the loose credits dropped by patrons who were often more drunk than Pat himself, and mourning, once again, the loss of his Loretta.
He had to admit she didn’t have much tolerance for a man who liked his liquor by the quart.
She was what some would call the giant economy size. At five-ten and two hundred fiery pounds, she made nearly two of Patrick Murray. He was a compact man who’d once had dreams of jockeying thoroughbreds on the flat, but he’d tended to miss too many morning exercise rounds due to the inconvenience of a splitting head. He was barely five-five, no more than a hundred and twenty pounds even after a dip in the aquatic show floor tank.
His hair was orange as a fresh carrot, his face splattered with a sandblast of freckles of the same hue. And Loretta had often told him it was his sad and boyish blue eyes that had won over her heart.
He’d paid her for sex the first time, naturally. After all, it was her living. The second time he’d paid her fee he’d asked if perhaps she might enjoy a piece of pie and a bit of conversation.
She’d charged him for that as well, for the two hours spent, but he hadn’t minded. And the third time he’d brought her a two-pound box of near-chocolates and she’d given him the sex for nothing.
A few weeks later they’d been married. He’d stayed almost sober for three months. Then the wagon had tipped, he’d fallen off, and Loretta had lowered the boom.
So it had been, on and off that wagon, for five years. He’d promised her he’d take the cure—the sweat box and shots down at the East Side Substance Abuse Clinic. And he’d meant to. But he’d gotten a little drunk and gone off to the track instead.
He still loved the horses.
Now she was talking divorce, and his heart was broken. Pat leaned on his string mop and sighed at the glinting waters of the empty tank.
Loretta had done two shows tonight. She was a career woman, and he respected that. He’d gotten over his initial discomfort when she’d insisted on keeping her sex license up to date. Sex paid better than sweeping, even better than entertainment, and they sometimes talked of buying a place in the suburbs.
She hadn’t spoken to him that evening, no matter how he’d tried to draw her out. When the show ended, she’d climbed down the ladder, wrapped herself in the striped robe he’d given her for her last birthday, and swished off with the other water beauties.
She’d locked him out of their apartment, out of her life, and, he was afraid, out of her heart.
When the buzzer sounded from the delivery entrance, he shook his head sadly. “Where’d the time go?” he wondered. “Morning already.”
He made his bleary way into the back, fumbled twice with the code before getting it right, and hauled open the steel-enforced door. He puzzled a moment, standing framed there, with the security light beeping and the black-coated figure smiling in at him.
“It’s still dark, isn’t it?” Pat said.
“It’s always darkest before the dawn, so they say.” He stepped forward, offering a gloved hand. “Do you remember me, Paddy?”
“Do I know you? Are you from home?” Pat took the offered hand and never even felt the slight pinch as he pitched forward.
“Oh, I’m from home, Paddy, and I’ll be sending you there.” He let the unconscious man slide to the floor before turning and carefully recoding the locks.
It was easy enough to drag a man of Pat’s size from the back room into the main lounge. Once there, he set his valise on a table, carefully unpacked what he would need.
He tested the laser—one quick shot to the ceiling—and smiled in approval. The shackles were lightweight and fashioned from a material approved by NASA II. The ’link was heavier, loaded as it was with its maxi-battery and interfaced jammer. He found a handy outlet behind the bar and quickly set up his communications.
Humming a little, he turned the tank system to drain. It sounded like one huge and slightly clogged toilet flushing, he thought, amused, then walked back to kick Pat sharply in the ribs.
Not a stir, not a whimper.
With a sigh he bent down, efficiently checking vital signs. The man was stinking drunk, he realized. And he’d used too much of the tranq. Vaguely irritated by the miscalculation, he took a pressure syringe filled with amphetamine and jabbed it against Pat’s limp arm.
There was barely a stir, hardly a whimper.
The anger built quickly, until he shook with it. “Wake up, you bas
tard.” Rearing back, he slapped Pat’s face, front handed, then back, over and over. He wanted him awake and aware for all of it. When the slaps didn’t work, he used his fists, pummeling until blood spurted and soaked his gloves.
Pat only moaned.
His breathing was ragged now, his eyes beginning to sting with tears. He only had two hours, for God’s sake. Was he supposed to work miracles? Was he supposed to think of everything?
Had God abandoned him after all, for his failures?
If it hadn’t been for Dallas, he’d have finished with the pig Brian by now, and Pat would have waited another day or two. Another day or two to observe more closely his habits and patterns and he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to put him under.
He heard a crash, blinked dully. He realized he’d thrown a chair and broken the mirror behind the bar.
Well, so what? It was just a filthy sex club in a filthy city. He’d like to destroy it, to smash every glass, set fire to it, watch it burn.
Christ Himself had destroyed the marketplace, hadn’t he? In righteous anger at the moneylenders, the harlots and sinners.
But there wasn’t time. That wasn’t his mission.
Pat Murray was his mission tonight.
Resigned, he picked up the laser. He’d just have to remove the eye while Pat was unconscious. It didn’t matter, he decided, and bent to his work. There would be plenty of fun after that. More than enough entertainment.
It pleased him that he removed the eye so neatly, so efficiently. Like a surgeon. The first time he’d been sloppy. He could admit that now. His hand had shaken, and nerves had screamed. Still he’d done it, hadn’t he, as he’d been bidden. He’d finished what he started. And he would finish it all. Finish them all.
He took a moment to slip the organ into a small bottle of clear fluid. He would have to leave this one behind, of course. He’d accepted that too. If the plan was to move forward, he wouldn’t be able to add Pat Murray’s eye to his collection.
It was enough to have taken it. An eye for an eye.