by J. D. Robb
She marched up the stairs to the street in her power suit, her expensive shoes. She—
Stopping, Eve narrowed her eyes. No umbrella? Where was her damn umbrella? A meticulous woman, a practical, organized woman didn’t go out in the rain without protection.Briskly, Eve pulled out her recorder and muttered a note to herself to check on it.
Was the killer waiting for her on the street? In a room? She studied the disintegrating brick of the unrehabbed buildings. A bar? One of the flesh clubs?
“Hey, white girl.”
Brows knit, Eve turned at the interruption. The man was tall as a house and from the deepness of his complexion, a full black. He sported, as many did in this part of town, feathers in his hair. His cheek tattoo was vivid green and in the shape of a grinning human skull. He wore an open red vest and matching pants snug enough to show the bulge of his cock.
“Hey, black boy,” she said in the same casually insulting tone.
He flashed a wide, dazzling grin at her from an unbelievably ugly face. “You looking for action?” He jerked his head toward the garish sign of the all-nude club across the street. “You a little skinny, but they be hiring. Don’t get many white as you. Mostly mixed.” He chucked her under the chin with fingers the width of soy wieners. “I be the bouncer, put in a word for you.”
“Now why would you do that?”
“Out of the goodness of my heart, and five percent of your tips, honeypot. A long white girl like you make plenty jiggling her stuff.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I’ve got a job.” Almost with regret, she pulled out her badge.
He whistled through his teeth. “Now how come I don’t be seeing that? White girl, you just don’t smell like cop.”
“Must be the new soap I’m using. Got a name?”
“They just call me Crack. That’s the sound it makes when I bust heads.” He grinned again, and illustrated by bringing his two huge hands together. “Crack! Get it?”
“I’m catching on. Were you on the door night before last, Crack?”
“Now, I’m sorry to say I was otherwise engaged, and missed all the excitement. That be my night off, and I spent it catching up on cultural events.”
“And those events were?”
“Vampire flick festival down to Grammercy, with my current young nibble. I sure do enjoy watching them bloodsuckers. But I hear we had ourselves a show right here. Got ourselves a dead lawyer. Big, important, fancy one, too. White girl, wasn’t she? Just like you, honeypot.”
“That’s right. What else do you hear?”
“Me?” He trailed a finger down the front of his vest. The nail on his index finger was sharpened to a lethal point and painted black. “I’m too dignified to listen to street talk.”
“I bet you are.” Understanding the rules, Eve slipped a hundred-credit token from her pocket. “How about I buy a little of that dignity?”
“Well, the price, she looks right.” His big hand enveloped the tokens and made them disappear. “I hear she was hanging around in the Five Moons ’long about midnight, give or take. Like she was hanging for somebody, somebody who don’t show. Then she ditched.”
He glanced down at the sidewalk. “Didn’t go far though, did she?”
“No, she didn’t. Did she ask for anyone?”
“Not so’s I heard.”
“Anyone see her with anyone?”
“Bad night. People stay off the street mostly. Some chemi-heads maybe wander, but business going to be slow.”
“You know anyone around here who likes to cut?”
“Plenty carry blades and stickers, white girl.” His eyes rolled in amusement. “Why you going to carry if you ain’t going to use?”
“Anybody just likes to cut,” she repeated. “Somebody who doesn’t care about making a score.”
His grin spread again. The skull on his cheek seemed to nod with the movement. “Everybody cares about making a score. Ain’t you trying to?”
She accepted that. “Who do you know around here who’s out of a cage recently?”
His laugh was like mortar fire. “Better if you ask don’t I know anybody who ain’t. And your money’s done.”
“All right.” To his disappointment, she took a card rather than more tokens out of her pocket. “There may be more if you hear anything I can use.”
“Keep it in mind. You decide you want to earn a little extra shaking those little white tits, you let Crack know.” With this, he loped across the street with the surprising grace of an enormous black gazelle.
Eve turned and went in to try her luck at the Five Moons.
The dive might have seen better days, but she doubted it. It was strictly a drinking establishment: no dancers, no screens, no videos booths. The clientele who patronized the Five Moons weren’t there to socialize. From the smell that slapped Eve the moment she stepped through the door, burning off stomach lining was the order of the day.
Even at this hour, the small, square room was well populated. Silent drinkers stood at stingy pedestals knocking back their poison of choice. Others huddled by the bar, closer to the bottles. Eve rated a few glances as she crossed the sticky floor, then people got back to the business of serious drinking.
The bartender was a droid, as most were, but she doubted this one had been programmed to listen cheerfully to the customers’ hard luck stories. More likely an arm breaker, she mused, sizing it up as she sidled up to the bar. The manufacturers had given him the tilted eye, golden-skinned appearance of a mixed race. Unlike most of the drinkers, the droid didn’t sport feathers or beads, but a plain white smock over a wrestler’s body.
Droids couldn’t be bribed, she thought with some regret. And threats had to be both clever and logical.
“Drink?” the droid demanded. His voice had a ping to it, a slight echo that indicated overdue maintenance problems.
“No.” Eve wanted to keep her health. She showed her badge and had several customers shifting toward corners. “There was a murder two nights ago.”
“Not in here.”
“But the victim was.”
“She was alive then.” At some signal Eve didn’t catch, the droid took a smudged glass from a drinker midbar, poured some noxious looking liquid into it, and slid it back.
“You were on duty.”
“I’m a twenty-four/seven,” he told her, indicating he was programmed for full operation without required rest or recharge periods.
“Did you ever see the victim before, in here, around the area?”
“No.”
“Who did she meet here?”
“No one.”
Eve drummed her fingers on the cloudy surface of the bar. “Okay, let’s just make this simple. You tell me what time she came in, what she did, when she left, and how she left.”
“I am not required to maintain surveillance on the customers.”
“Right.” Slowly, Eve rubbed a finger on the bar. When she lifted it, she pursed her lips at the smear of gunk staining the tip. “I’m Homicide, but I’m not required to overlook health violations. You know, I think if I called the Sensor Bugs in here, and they did a sweep, why they’d be shocked. So shocked they’d delete the liquor license.”
As threats went, she didn’t think it was particularly clever, but it was logical.
The droid took a moment to access the probabilities. “The woman came in at oh sixteen. She didn’t drink. She left at one twelve. Alone.”
“Did she speak to anyone?”
“She said nothing.”
“Was she looking for someone?”
“I didn’t ask.”
Eve lifted a brow. “You observed her. Did it appear she was looking for someone?”
“It appeared, but she found no one.”
“But she stayed nearly an hour. What did she do?”
“Stood, looked, frowned. Checked her watch often. Left.”
“Did anyone follow her outside?”
“No.”
Absently, Eve scrubbed her
soiled finger on her jeans. “Did she have an umbrella?”
The droid looked as surprised by the question as droids were capable of looking. “Yes, a purple one, the same color as her suit.”
“Did she leave with it?”
“Yes; it was raining.”
Eve nodded, then worked her way through the bar, questioning unhappy customers.
All she really wanted when she returned to Cop Central was a long shower. An hour in the Five Moons had left what felt like a thin layer of muck on her skin. Even her teeth, she thought, running her tongue over them.
But the report came first. She swung into her office, then stopped, studying the wiry-haired man sitting at her desk plucking candied almonds from a bag.
“Nice work if you can get it.”
Feeney crossed the feet he’d propped on the edge of her desk. “Good to see you, Dallas. You’re a busy lady.”
“Some of us cops actually work for a living. Others just play computer games all day.”
“You should’ve taken my advice and worked on your comp skills.”
With more affection than annoyance, she knocked his feet from the desk and plopped her butt down in the vacated space. “You just passing by?”
“I’ve come to offer my services, old pal.” Generously, he held out the bag of nuts.
She munched and watched him. He had a hangdog face, one he had never bothered to have enhanced. Baggy eyes, the beginning of jowls, ears that were slightly too big for his head. She liked it just the way it was.
“Why?”
“Well, I got three reasons. First, the commander made an unofficial request; second, I had a lot of admiration for the prosecutor.”
“Whitney called you?”
“Unofficially,” Feeney explained again. “He thought that if you had someone with my outstanding skills working the data route with you, we’d tie this thing up faster. Never hurts to have a direct line to the Electronic Detection Division.”
She considered it, and because she knew Feeney’s skills were indeed outstanding, she approved. “Are you going to sign on the case officially or unofficially?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Then let’s make it officially, Feeney.”
He grinned and winked. “I figured you’d say that.”
“The first thing I need you to do is run the victim’s ’link. There’s no record either on the log or on the security tapes that she had a visitor the night she was killed. So somebody called her, arranged a meet.”
“Good as done.”
“And I need a run on everybody she put away—”
“Everybody?” he interrupted, only slightly appalled.
“Everybody.” Her face broke into sunny smiles. “I figure you can do it in about half the time I could. I need relatives, loved ones, associates, too. Also cases in progress and pending.”
“Jesus, Dallas.” But he rolled his shoulders, flexed his fingers like a pianist about to play a concert. “My wife’s going to miss me.”
“Being married to a cop sucks,” she said, patting his shoulder.
“Is that what Roarke says?”
She dropped her hand. “We’re not married.”
Feeney merely hummed in his throat. He enjoyed seeing Eve’s quick frown, quick nerves. “So how’s he doing?”
“He’s fine. He’s in Australia.” Her hands found their way into her pockets. “He’s fine.”
“Uh-huh. Caught the two of you on the news a few weeks ago. At some fancy do at the Palace. You look real sharp in a dress, Dallas.”
She shifted uncomfortably, caught herself, and shrugged. “I didn’t know you took in the gossip channels.”
“Love them,” he said unrepentantly. “Must be interesting, leading that high life.”
“It has its moments,” she muttered. “Are we going to discuss my social life, Feeney, or investigate a murder?”
“We’ll have to make time to do both.” He rose and stretched. “I’ll go run the check on the victim’s ’link before I get started on the years of perps she put away. I’ll be in touch.”
“Feeney.” When he turned at her door, she cocked her head. “You said there were three reasons you wanted in. You only gave me two.”
“Number three, I missed you, Dallas.” He grinned. “Damn if I haven’t missed you.”
She was smiling when she sat down to work. Damn if she hadn’t missed him, too.
chapter four
The Blue Squirrel was one teetering step up from the Five Moons. Eve had a cautious affection for it. There were times she even enjoyed the noise, the press of bodies, and the ever-changing costumes of the clientele. Most of the time she enjoyed the stage show.
The featured singer was one of the rare people Eve considered a genuine friend. The friendship might have had its roots in Eve’s arrest of Mavis Freestone several years earlier, but it had flowered, nonetheless. Mavis might have gone straight, but she would never go ordinary.
Tonight, the slim, exuberant woman was screeching out her lyrics against the scream of trumpets, the brass waved by a three-piece female band on the holoscreen backdrop. That, and the quality of the single wine Eve had risked were enough to make her eyes water.
For tonight’s show, Mavis’s hair was a stunning emerald green. Eve knew Mavis preferred jewel colors. She continued the theme with the single swatch of glistening sapphire material she had somehow draped over herself to cover one generous breast and her crotch. Her other breast was decorated with shimmering stones, with a strategically placed silver star over the nipple.
One misplaced stud or swatch, and the Blue Squirrel could be fined for exceeding its license. The proprietors weren’t willing to pay the hefty fee for nude class.
When Mavis whirled, Eve saw that the singer’s heart-shaped butt was similarly decorated on each slim cheek. Just, she mused, within the limits of the law.
The crowd loved her. When she stepped from the stage after her set, it was to thunderous applause and drunken cheers. Patrons in the private smoking booths thumped fists enthusiastically on their tiny tables.
“How do you sit down in that?” Eve asked when Mavis arrived at her booth.
“Slowly, carefully, and with great discomfort.” Mavis demonstrated, then let out a sigh. “What’d you think of the last number?”
“A real crowd pleaser.”
“I wrote it.”
“No shit?” Eve hadn’t understood a single word, but pride swelled, nonetheless. “That’s great, Mavis. I’m awed.”
“I might have a shot at a recording contract.” Beneath the glitter on her face, Mavis’s cheeks flushed. “And I got a raise.”
“Well, here’s to it.” In toast, Eve lifted her glass.
“I didn’t know you were coming in tonight.” Mavis punched her code into the menu and ordered bubble water. She had to baby her throat for the next set.
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Roarke?” Mavis’s eyes, currently green, shone. “Is he coming? I’ll have to do that last number again.”
“He’s in Australia. I’m meeting Nadine Furst.”
Mavis’s disappointment at the opportunity to impress Roarke shifted quickly to surprise. “You’re meeting a reporter? On purpose?”
“I can trust her.” Eve lifted a shoulder. “I can use her.”
“If you say so. Hey, you think maybe she’d do a piece on me?”
Not for worlds would Eve have extinguished the light in Mavis’s eyes. “I’ll mention it.”
“Decent. Listen, tomorrow’s my night off. Want to catch some dinner or hang someplace?”
“If I can manage it. But I thought you were seeing that performance artist—the one with the pet monkey.”
“Flicked him off.” Mavis illustrated by brushing a finger over her bare shoulder. “He was just too static. Gotta go.” She slid out of the booth, her butt decor making little scraping sounds. Her emerald hair gleamed in the swirling lights as she edged through the crowd.
&
nbsp; Eve decided she didn’t want to know what Mavis considered too static.
When her communicator hummed, Eve pulled it out and punched in her code. Roarke’s face filled the miniscreen. Her first reaction, unbidden, was a huge, delighted smile.
“Lieutenant, I’ve tracked you down.”
“Apparently so.” She worked on dimming the smile. “This is an official channel, Roarke.”
“Is it?” His brow lifted. “It doesn’t sound like official surroundings. The Blue Squirrel.”
“I’m meeting someone. How’s Australia?”
“Crowded. With luck I’ll be back within thirty-six hours. I’ll find you.”
“I’m not hard to find.” She smiled again. “Obviously. Listen.” To amuse them both, she tilted the unit as Mavis roared into her next set.
“She’s unique,” Roarke managed after several bars. “Give her my best.”
“I will. I’ll—ah—see you when you get back.”
“Count on it. You’ll think of me.”
“Sure. Safe trip, Roarke.”
“Eve, I love you.”
She let out a baffled breath when his image dissolved.
“Well, well.” Nadine Furst moved from her position behind Eve’s shoulder and slid into the booth opposite. “Wasn’t that sweet?”
Torn between annoyance and embarrassment, Eve jammed her communicator back in her pocket. “I thought you had more class than to eavesdrop.”
“Any reporter worth her salary eavesdrops, Lieutenant. Just like a good cop.” Nadine stretched back in the booth. “So, what does it feel like to have a man like Roarke in love with you?”
Even if she could have explained it, Eve wouldn’t have. “Thinking of switching from hard news to the romance channel, Nadine?”
Nadine merely held up a hand, then let out a sigh when she scanned the club. “I can’t believe you wanted to meet here again. The food’s terrible.”
“But the atmosphere, Nadine, the atmosphere.”
Mavis hit a piercing note and Nadine shuddered. “Fine, it’s your deal.”
“You got back on planet quickly.”
“I managed to catch a flash transport. One of your boyfriend’s.”