Born In Death

“Tell me about Randall Sloan’s lifestyle.”

“Please don’t ask me to speak behind the back of an associate. A friend. The son of my partner.”

Eve said nothing, just waited.

Kraus drank the rest of his scotch, signaled for another. “He gambles. Or he did. And poorly. There were rumors that some time ago – before I came to the firm – he skimmed a bit from one or two clients, and his father had to replace the funds. But he went into a program, for the gambling. There’s been no hint of anything improper for years. His father… Jacob’s a hard man, integrity is a god. His son smeared that. Randall will never be a partner. He accepts it. He prefers the work he does, in any case, to the administration, the accounting.”

“Yet he pressured you into giving him, under the table, we’ll say, a major account.”

“He brought them in,” Kraus repeated, and Eve nodded.

“Yeah, that’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“You believe him,” Roarke said when they left Kraus sitting under the umbrella in the pseudosunlight with his head in his hands.

“Yeah. You?”

“I do, yes. The outsider, the last man in, so to speak, doing a favor for the big man’s son. It’s reasonable. And clever of Sloan and the Bullock people not to use each other for alibis.”

“You got a dupe, you use the dupe. You drive,” she told him, and gave him Randall Sloan’s address. “Looks like I’m tagging London again.”

She put in a transmission to Madeline Bullock’s home in London and got what she thought of as a Summerset clone. Not quite as bony in the face, she decided, but just as dour.

“Ms. Bullock is traveling.”

“Where?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“If Scotland Yard knocked on your door in the next thirty minutes, could you say then?”

He actually sniffed. “I could not.”

“Okay. Say the house burns down. How would you reach Ms. Bullock to tell her the bad news?”

“On her private number, on her pocket ’link.”

“Why don’t you give me that?”

“Lieutenant, I am under no obligation to provide foreign authorities with Ms. Bullock’s private business.”

“Got me there. But even in the colonies we have our ways of getting information.” She clicked off. “Do they go to school for that?” she demanded of Roarke. “Is there a Tight-Ass University? Did Summerset graduate cum laude?”

“First in his class. Do you want to drive while I find the number you need?”

“I somehow managed to fumble my way through such pesky chores before I met you.” She started the search, then stopped. Sat back. “You know what? I’ve got a better.” She got Feeney at home.

He was wearing a baggy and faded New York Liberties Arena Ball jersey with a ball cap pulled over his explosion of ginger hair. “There’s a costume party at your house and I didn’t get invited?”

“Game, two o’clock.”

“You look ridiculous.”

He pokered up. “My grandson gave me this jersey. You tag me on a Sunday to critique my wardrobe?”

“Need a quick one. I’m looking for a pocket ’link number, private, and its current location.”

“Game,” he repeated, “two o’clock.”

“Murder. Twenty-four/seven. It’ll be quick. I just need the number and the area. The fricking country. Madeline Bullock. It may be registered to her, or to the Bullock Foundation. Probably her as it’s a personal ’link. London home base.”

“Right, right, right,” he said. And hung up on her.

“I could have done that for you,” Roarke pointed out.

“You’re driving.” And she contacted Peabody. “Take another look at Randall Sloan. Finances, travel, property, real estate. He’s a gambler, so look at it with an eye to that.”

“You got a scent?”

“Yeah, I’m following it now. Mavis?”

“She conked. Been out about a half-hour.”

“Good. If I can track down Randall Sloan, I’m bringing him in for questioning. I’ll let you know.”

“Dallas, I’ve got that list of agencies and counselors from England. All European-based.”

She shifted gears, focused on Tandy. “Give them to the investigating officers, Rome and Middlesex. Meanwhile, run them yourself, zero in on any that have offices in both countries. Especially those that have multiple locations in Europe. And shoot them to my PPC while you’re at it.”

“Got that. Good luck.”

Eve rubbed her eyes, blinked them open.

“Why don’t you get a little sleep before we get to Sloan’s?”

She shook her head, wished she’d thought to bring a vat of coffee with her. “No way of knowing if she’s still alive. If it’s the baby they want, if they just went in there and took it out. She’d be, what, like a vessel.” Eve turned to Roarke. “When she gives up what she’s holding, she’s expendable.”

“You can’t do any more than you’re doing, Eve.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be enough. If she’s alive, she has to be out of her mind with fear. Not just for herself, but the baby. You’re carrying that… potential inside you, it’s the whole focus of your world, I guess. You’re creating it, protecting it, bringing it – you know – forth. Through all the discomfort, inconvenience, pain, and blood and fear, it’s vital. Its health, its safety, that’s paramount. I see that in Mavis, the way she looks, holds herself, holds it.

“I don’t know if I’ve got that in me to give.”

“You have to be joking. Darling Eve, you give all that, and more, to complete strangers.”

“It’s the job.”

“It’s you.”

“You know how fucked up I am about kids, parents, the whole ball of it.”

He took her hand as he drove, brought it to his lips. “I know the two of us have strange, dark places inside us, and we might need some time for a little more light to seep in before we’re ready to add to the family we’ve already made.”

“Okay, good. More light. I’m for it.”

“Then I think we should have five or six.”

“Five or six what? What?” She thought… for a moment she thought her heart actually stopped. The buzz in her ears was so thick she barely heard his laugh. “That’s not fu

“It certainly was, especially from my point of view. You couldn’t see your face.”

“You know, one day, perhaps in our lifetime, medical science will find a way to implant an embryo into a man, incubating it there while said man waddles around looking like he swallowed and is unable to digest a pot-bellied pig. Then we’ll see what’s fu

“One of the many things I love you for is your delightful imagination.”

“Remember that when I put your name on the implant list. Why don’t people stay home on Sunday?” she wondered, bitterly, as she cued into the traffic. “What’s wrong with home? What kind of transpo did Bullock and her son take out of New York?”

“Another thing I love you for is the many and varied cha

“Foundation shuttle. They came, ostensibly anyway, on foundation business. If they’re still traveling, they’ve probably made use of the same shuttle.”

“Where were they when you originally verified Kraus’s alibi?”

“I don’t know. Peabody did the verify, and she had to contact a foundation number and get a callback. It wasn’t pertinent at the time. But I can track that shuttle if I have to. Have to hack my way through international law and relations, and I hate that, but I’ve got enough to hold them for questioning. And I think the British government’s going to be very interested in their accounts.”

“They may take a hit there,” Roarke agreed. “But if they’re smart, and their legal representatives will be, they can dump that on Randall Sloan personally, and the firm.”

“I can tangle that, seeing as their legal reps fall under the same shadow. I’m going to have to turn this over to Global. After I talk to Randall Sloan.”

Randall Sloan lived in a trim and elegant old brownstone on the edge of Tribeca. From the sidewalk, Eve could see that the third floor had been converted into a solarium so that it was topped with curved, pale blue glass.