Witness in Death

  It took some time, brought on more sweat, but they managed to secure her wrists behind her back. Eve straightened, studied the console.

  “She’s got something going on here. Thought we were a bust. Let’s see what I remember about Vice and Bunko.”

  “Do you want me to call for a warrant?”

  “Here’s my warrant.” Eve rubbed her fingers over her throbbing neck as she sat at the console. “Lots of numbers, lots of games. So what? Names, accounts, bets wagered, money owed. Looks clean enough on the surface.” She glanced back. “Is she coming around yet?”

  “Dead out, sir. You knocked her cold.”

  “Go find something to stuff in that dog’s mouth before I use my foot.”

  “He’s just a little dog,” Peabody murmured and went to search out the kitchen.

  “Too many numbers,” Eve said to herself. “The pool’s too damn deep for a nice little betting parlor. Loan-sharking. Yeah, I bet we got some loan-sharking here, and where you got sharks, you’ve got spine crackers. What else, what else?”

  She turned, saw Peabody cooing to the dog and holding out a biscuit of some kind. Eve slipped out her pocket-link and called the one person she knew who could cut through the ocean of numbers and ride the right wave.

  “I need Roarke a minute.” She hissed it to his assistant when she came on-screen. “Just one quick minute.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Hold please.”

  “There’s a sweet little dog, there’s a nice little doggie. Aren’t you pretty?”

  Instead of razzing Peabody over the baby talk, Eve left her at it.

  “Lieutenant.” Roarke’s face filled the screen. “What can I—” Instantly his easy smile vanished, and his eyes were bright and hard. “What happened, how badly are you hurt?”

  “Not much. Mostly it’s somebody else’s blood. Look, I’m in a private betting parlor, and something’s off. I’ve got some ideas, but take a quick look, give me your take.”

  “All right, if your next stop is a health center.”

  “I haven’t got time for a health center.”

  “Then I haven’t time for a consult.”

  “Goddamn it.” She was tempted just to cut transmission, but took a steadying breath instead. “Peabody’s going to get the first aid kit. I got a couple of scratches, that’s all. I swear.”

  “Turn your head to the left.”

  She rolled her eyes but complied.

  “Get them seen to.” He snapped it out, then shrugged as if in acceptance. “Let me see what you’re looking at.”

  “Lots of numbers. Different games,” she began as she turned her unit so that he’d have her view. “Arena ball, baseball, the horses, the droid rats. I think the third screen from the right is—”

  “Overdue loans on bets. Interest compounded well above legal limits. The screen directly below is outlay, for loan collection. On the screen beside that, you have what looks like private games—casino style. Look on your console, see if you find a control that’s linked to that screen. If it’s simple, it’ll be something like 3-C, for the placement of the screen in the grid.”

  “Yeah, here.”

  “Give it a flip. Ah,” he said as the screen switched to monitor and played a busy casino, full of smoke and tables and glassy-eyed patrons. “What kind of building are you in?”

  “Loft, West Village, two levels, four units.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if the other level isn’t very busy at this moment.”

  “This area isn’t zoned for gambling.”

  “Well then.” He grinned at her. “Shame on them.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “My pleasure, Lieutenant. See to that injury, Darling Eve, or I’ll be seeing to it myself first chance. I won’t be happy with you.”

  He cut her off before she could make some snippy remark, which she figured was just as well. She turned and caught Peabody, the little white dog nestled in her arms, watching her with speculation.

  “He knows a lot about illegal gambling runs.”

  “He knows a lot about legal ones, too. He gave us a lever with Maylou here. Do you care how or why?”

  “No.” Peabody rubbed her cheek on the dog’s fur, smiled. “It’s just interesting. You going to bust the operation?”

  “That’s going to depend on Maylou here.” Eve rose as the woman began to moan and stir. She made bubbling sounds, coughed, then began to buck, her enormous butt humping up, her surprisingly small feet kicking.

  Eve simply crouched down. “Assaulting an officer,” she began in an easy voice. “Resisting arrest, loan-sharking, spine cracking, running an illegal gambling facility. How’s that for starters, Maylou?”

  “You broke my nose.”

  At least that’s what Eve assumed she said as the words were muffled and slurred. “Yep, looks like.”

  “You have to call the MTs. It’s the law.”

  “Interesting, you refreshing me on the law. I think we can hold off on the broken nose a little while. Of course, the broken arm’s going to need attention.”

  “I don’t have a broken arm.”

  “Yet.” Eve bared her teeth. “Now, Maylou, if you want medical attention and want me to consider looking the other way as regards your enterprise downstairs, tell me all there is to tell about Linus Quim.”

  “You’re not here to bust me?”

  “That’s up to you. Quim.”

  “Penny-ante. Not a gambler, he just plays at it. Like a hobby. He’s lousy at it. Costs him an average of a hundred K a year. Never bets more than a hundred bills straight, and usually half that, but he’s regular. Jesus, my face is killing me. Can’t I have some Go-Numb?”

  “When did you talk to him last?”

  “Last night. He likes to do the e-betting deal rather than over the ‘link. Transmits twice a week, minimum. Last night, he laid a hundred on the Brawlers on tonight’s arena ball—and that’s rich, for him. Said he was feeling lucky.”

  “Did he?” Eve leaned closer. “Did he say that, exactly?”

  “Yeah. He says, put me down a hundred on the Brawlers for tomorrow night. I’m feeling lucky. He even smiled, sort of. Said he was going to double it and let it ride on the next night once he won.”

  “In a good mood, was he?”

  “For Quim, he was doing a happy dance. Guy’s mostly a pain in the ass, a whiner. But he pays up, and he’s regular, so I got no beef with him.”

  “Good thing. Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Maylou?”

  “You’re not going to bust me?”

  “I don’t work Vice or Bunko. You’re not my problem.” She released the restraints, hooked them in her back pocket. “If I were you, I’d call the MTs and tell them I walked into a wall—tripped over your little dog.”

  “Squeakie!” Maylou rolled over to her ample butt, threw open her arms. The dog leaped out of Peabody’s hold and into Maylou’s lap. “Did the nasty cop hurt Mama’s baby girl?”

  With a shake of her head, Eve headed out. “Give it two weeks,” she told Peabody, “then call Hanson in Vice and give him this address.”

  “You said you weren’t going to bust her.”

  “No, I said she wasn’t my problem. She’s going to be Hanson’s.”

  Peabody glanced back. “What’s going to happen to the dog? Hey, and the apartment. Maybe the bust will drive down the rent. You should see the kitchen, Dallas. It’s mag.”

  “Keep dreaming.” She got in the car, then scowled when Peabody popped the dash compartment. “What are you doing?”

  “First aid kit.”

  “Stay away from me.”

  “It’s either me or the health center.”

  “I don’t need a health center. Don’t touch me.”

  “Stop being a baby.” Enjoying the role of nurse, Peabody chose her tools. “Ass-kickers aren’t afraid of a little first aid kit. Close your eyes if you don’t want to see.”

  Trapped, Eve gripped the wheel, closed her eyes. She felt the qu
ick, biting sting of the antiseptic before the numbing properties took hold. The smell of it spun in her head, rolled into her belly.

  She heard the low hum of the suture wand.

  She started to make some sarcastic comment to take her mind off the annoyance of the procedure. Then suddenly, she was sucked back.

  The dim and dingy health center ward. The hundreds of stings as hundreds of cuts were treated. The vile buzz of the machines as her broken arm was examined.

  “What’s your name? You have to give us your name. Tell us who hurt you? What’s your name? What happened to you?”

  I don’t know. In her mind she screamed it, again and again. But she lay still, she lay silent, trapped in terror as strangers poked and prodded, as they stared and they questioned.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Sir. Dallas. Hey.”

  Eve opened her eyes, stared into Peabody’s wide ones. “What? What is it?”

  “You’re really pale. Dallas, you look a little sick. Maybe we should swing by a health center after all.”

  “I’m all right.” Her hands fisted hard until she felt herself steady again. “I’m okay. Just need some air.” She ordered the window down, started the car.

  And pushed the helpless young girl back into the darkest corner of her mind.

  *** CHAPTER TEN ***

  Needs must when the devil drives. I can’t remember who said that, but I don’t suppose it’s important. Whoever it was is long dead now. As Linus Quim is dead now.

  Needs must. My needs must. But who was the devil in this coupling? Foolish, greedy Quim or myself?

  Perhaps that’s not important either, for it’s done. There can be no going back, no staging events to another outcome. I can only hope events were staged convincingly enough to satisfy those sharp eyes of Lieutenant Dallas.

  She is an exacting audience and, I fear, the most severe of critics.

  Yes, with her in the house, I fear. My performance must be perfection in every way. Every line, every gesture, every nuance. Or her view will no doubt ruin me.

  • • •

  Motive and opportunity, Eve thought as she walked to her own front door. Too many people had both. Richard Draco would be memorialized the next day, and she had no doubt there would be a lavish display of grief, passionate and emotional eulogies, copious tears.

  And it would all be just another show.

  He’d helped seduce Areena Mansfield into drugs and put a smear on her rise to stardom.

  He’d stood in the spotlight Michael Proctor desperately wanted for his own.

  He’d humiliated and used Carly Landsdowne in a very public fashion.

  He’d been a splinter under the well-manicured fingernail of Kenneth Stiles.

  He’d considered Eliza Rothchild too old and unattractive to bother with.

  There had been others, so many others it was impossible to count, who had reason to wish Richard Draco ill.

  But whoever had acted on it, planned and executed the murder, had enough cool, enough will to have lured a greedy theater tech into a hangman’s noose.

  She wasn’t looking for brutality or rage but for cold blood and a clear mind. Those qualities in a killer were much more difficult to root out.

  She wasn’t moving forward, she thought with frustration. Every step she took simply pushed her further into the artifice of a world she found mildly annoying.

  What kind of people spent their lives dressing up and playing make-believe?

  Children. It struck her as she closed her hand around the doorknob. On some level, wasn’t she looking for a very clever, very angry child?

  She gave a half laugh. Great. What she knew about children wouldn’t fill the pinhole made by a laser drill.

  She flung open the front door, intending to throw herself into a blisteringly hot shower, then back into work.

  The music pierced her ears, rattled her teeth. She all but felt her eyes jiggle in her head. It was a screech of sound, punctuated by a blast of noise, layered with braying waves of chaos.

  It was Mavis.

  The irritable mood that had come through the door with Eve didn’t have a chance. It exploded in the sheer volume and exuberance of Mavis Freestone’s unique musical style. Eve found herself grinning as she stepped up to the doorway of what Roarke referred to as the parlor.

  There in all the splendor, the elegance, the antiquity, Mavis danced—Eve supposed that was the closest word for it—bouncing and jiggling atop graduated stacked heels that lifted her tiny frame a full six inches from the floor. Their swirling pink and green pattern matched the hair that flew in yard-long braids around her flushed, delighted face and fairy body.

  Her slim legs were green, with little pink butterflies fluttering up in a spiral pattern, then disappearing under the tiny, flippy skirt of fuschia that barely covered her crotch. Her torso was decorated in a crisscross of the two colors with one pretty breast in pink, another in green.

  Eve could only be relieved that Mavis had chosen to go with the green for both eyes. You just never knew.

  Roarke sat in one of his lovely antique chairs, a glass of straw-colored wine in one hand. He was either relaxing into the show, Eve thought, or he’d lapsed into a protective coma.

  The music, such as it was, crescendoed, led by a long, plaintive wail from the singer. Blessed silence fell like a cargo ship of bricks.

  “What do you think?” Mavis tossed back the mop of bicolored braids. “It’s a good follow-up number for the new video. Not too tame, is it?”

  “Ah.” Roarke took a moment to sip his wine. There’d been a moment when he’d been mildly concerned that the decibel level would shatter the crystal. “No. No indeed. Tame isn’t the word that comes to mind.”

  “Mag!” She bounced over, and her little butt wriggled with energy as she bent down to kiss him. “I wanted you to see it first since you’re, like, the money man.”

  “Money always bows to talent.”

  If Eve hadn’t already loved him, she’d have fallen face first then and there, seeing the absolute joy his words put in Mavis’s eyes.

  “It’s so much fun! The recordings, the concerts, the way iced costumes Leonardo gets to design for me. It’s hardly even like work. If it weren’t for you and Dallas, I’d still be scraping gigs at joints like the Blue Squirrel.”

  She did a quick spin as she spoke, spotted Eve, and beamed like sunshine. “Hey! I’ve got a new number.”

  “I heard. Totally mag.”

  “Roarke said you’d be late, and you—Oh wow, is that blood?”

  “What? Where?” Because her mind had switched channels, Eve whipped her gaze around the room before Mavis leaped toward her.

  “It’s all over you.” Mavis’s panicked hands patted Eve’s breasts, shoulders. “We should call a doctor, a medi-unit. Roarke, make her lie down.”

  “And there is my constant goal in life.”

  “Har har. It’s not my blood, Mavis.”

  “Oh.” Instantly, Mavis’s hands jumped back. “Ick.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s dry. I was going to shower and change at Central, but I weighed the potential of a piss stream of chilly water against a flood of hot and came home instead. Got another of those around?” she asked Roarke with a nod toward his wine.

  “Absolutely. Turn your head.”

  She made a sound of annoyance, but tilted her head to show the treated scratches already healing.

  “Man-o,” Mavis said with admiration in her voice. “Somebody swiped you good. Musta had mag nails.”

  “But bad aim. She missed the eyes.” She took the wine Roarke brought her. “Thanks for the tip before,” she told him. “It panned out.”

  “Happy to oblige. Tilt your head up.”

  “Why? I showed you the nail rakes.”

  “Up,” he repeated, nudging it back himself with the tip of his finger, then closing his mouth warm and firmly over hers. “As you can see, I have excellent aim.”
br />   “Awwww. You guys are so cute.” With her hands folded at breast level, Mavis beamed at them.

  “Yeah, we’re just like a couple of puppies.” Amused, Eve sat on the arm of a sofa, sipped at her wine. “It’s a great new number, Mavis. All you.”

  “You think? I ran it for Leonardo, and now you two, but nobody else’s seen it.”

  “It’s…” Eve remembered Whitney’s comment. “Got juice.”

  “That’s what I thought. Roarke, can I tell her?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Mavis bit her lip, looked to Roarke for agreement, then, at his nod, drew two deep breaths. “Okay. My last disc cut, Curl Your Hair, Roarke got early word that it’s hitting in the top five of next week’s Vid-Tracks. Dallas, I’m fucking number three, right behind the Butt-Busters and Indigo.”

  She might not have had a clue who Butt-Busters or Indigo might be, but Eve knew Vid-Tracks was Mavis’s bible. “That’s fabulous.” Eve rose quickly, gave Mavis a hard hug. “You kick ass.”

  “Thanks.” Mavis sniffed, wiped a tear off silver-tipped lashes. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I started to call Leonardo, but I want to tell him up-face, you know. And I’m glad I got to tell you first, anyhow. He’ll understand.”

  “He’ll go nuts.”

  “Yeah. We’ve got some serious celebrating to do. I’m really glad you weren’t late after all, so I could tell you and so you didn’t miss the girl deal.”

  Instantly, warning flags sprang up in Eve’s gut, fluttered nervously. “Girl deal?”

  “Yeah, you know. Trina’s already down in the pool house setting up. Figured we could use a swim and a spin in the relaxation tank. We’re up for the full treatment.”

  “Full treatment?” No, was all Eve could think. Not the full treatment. Anything but that. “Look, Mavis, I just came home to work. I’ve got this case—”

  “You’ve always got a case.” Undeterred, Mavis poured herself a glass of wine, then brought the bottle to top Eve’s off as Roarke lazily lighted a cigarette and smiled. “You’ve got to take time for you, or your internal organs get all shriveled and your skin goes saggy. I read all about it. Anyway, Trina’s got some outrageous new body paint.”

  “No. Absolutely. I don’t do body paint.”