Creation In Death

“Yeah, we’re going to fry his ass for that one.” Eve pulled out. “Watch for a tail. Activate, Dallas,” she said to test the recorder. “You copy?”

“Eyes and ears five-by-five,” Feeney responded. “Shadow will hang back, minimum of three blocks.”

“Copy that, remaining open while in the field.”

They took the former dead wagon rider first. He’d done well for himself, Eve mused. Had a dignified old brownstone all to himself in a quiet West Village neighborhood.

A droid answered the door-a stupendously designed female Eve would have gauged as more usual in the sexual gratification department than the domestic. Smoky eyes, smoky voice, smoky hair, all in a snug black skin-suit.

“If you’d like to wait in the foyer, I’ll tell Mr. Dobbins you’re here.” She walked off-more slinked off, Eve thought, like a lithe and predatory feline.

“If all she does is vacuum around here,” Peabody commented, “I’m a size two.”

“She may vacuum, after she polishes the old man’s brass.”

“Women are so crude,” Roarke said in her ear.

“Mute the chatter.” Eve studied the foyer.

More of a wide hallway, she noted, with the light coming in through the front door’s ornate glass panel. Doors on either side, kitchen area probably in the back. Bedrooms upstairs.

A lot of room for a man to shuffle around in.

He did just that, shuffled in on bunged-up slippers. He wore baggy sweats, and had his near-shoulder-length hair combed back and dyed a hard and improbable black.

His face was too thin, his mouth too full, his body too slight to be the man both Trina and Loni had spoken with.

“Mr. Dobbins.”

“That’s right. I want to see some identification, or you’re both turning right back around.”

He studied Eve’s badge, then Peabody’s, his mouth moving silently as he read. “All right then, what’s this about?”

“We’re investigating the murder of a woman in Chelsea,” Eve began.

“That Groom business.” Dobbins wagged a finger. “I read the papers, I watch the news, don’t I? If you people did your jobs and protected people you wouldn’t have to come around here asking me questions. Cops come around here years ago when that girl across the street was murdered.”

“Did you know her, Mr. Dobbins? The girl who was murdered nine years ago?”

“Saw her coming and going, didn’t I? Never spoke to her. Saw this new one’s picture on screen. Never spoke to her, either.”

“Did you ever see this new girl?” Eve asked.

“On the screen, didn’t I just say? Don’t get up to Chelsea. Got what I need right here, don’t I?”

“I’m sure you do. Mr. Dobbins, your father drove a morgue truck during the Urban Wars?”

“Dead wagon. I rode with him most days. Loaded up corpses right, left, and sideways. Got a live one now and again somebody took for dead. I want to sit down.”

He simply turned around and shuffled through the doorway to the right. After exchanging glances, Eve and Peabody followed.

The living area was stuffed with worn furniture. The walls might once have been some variation of white, but were now the dingy yellow of bad teeth.

Dobbins sat, took a cigarette from a tarnished silver tray, and lighted it. “A man can still smoke in his own damn house. You people haven’t taken that away. A man’s home is his damn castle.”

“You have a lovely home, Mr. Dobbins,” Peabody commented. “I love the brownstones in this area. We’re lucky so many of them survived the Urbans. That must’ve been a terrible time.”

“Not so bad. Got through it. Toughened me up, too.” He jabbed the air with the cigarette as if to prove it. “Seen more by the time I was twenty than most see in a hundred twenty.”

“I can’t even imagine. Is it true that there were so many dead in some areas, the only way to keep a record of them was to write an identification number right on the bodies?”

“That’s the way it was.” He blew out a stream of smoke, shook his finger. “Looters get to them first, they’d take everything, strip them right down. I’d write the sector we found them on the body so we could keep track. Haul them in, and the dead house doc would write the number after that, record it in a book. Waste of time mostly. Just meat by then anyway.”

“Do you keep in touch with anybody from back then? People who worked like you did, or the doctors, the medics?”

“What for? They find out you’ve got a little money, they just want a handout.” He shrugged it off. “Saw Earl Wallace a few years back. He’d ride shotgun on the wagon sometimes. Stirred myself to go to Doc Yumecki’s funeral, I guess five, six years back. Paid my respects. He was worth respecting, and there aren’t many. Gave him a nice send-off. Grandson did it. Waked him in the parlor instead of the main house, but it was a nice send-off all the same.”

“Would you know how to reach Mr. Wallace, or Dr. Yumecki’s grandson?”

“How the hell should I know? I check the obits. I see somebody I know who’s worth the time, I go to their send-off. Said we would back then, so I do.”

“What did you say back then?” Eve prompted.

“Dead everywhere.” His eyes blurred, and Eve imagined he could see it-still see it. “No send-off. Ya burned them up, or you buried them, and mostly with company, you could say. So, those of us that carted them in, ID’d and disposed, we said how when it was our time, we’d have a send-off, and those of us still living and able would come. So that’s what I do.”

“Who else does it? From the Urbans?”

Dobbins took one more drag. “Don’t remember names. See a few now and again.”

“How about this one?” Eve took out the sketch. “Have you seen this man?”

“No. Looks a little bit like Taker maybe. A little.”

“Taker?”

“We picked up the bodies, dropped them off. He took them, so he was Taker. Went to his send-off twenty years back, maybe more. Big one for Taker.” He sucked wetly on the cigarette. “Good food. Long time dead.”

Out in the car again, Eve sat a moment to think. “Could be an act-bitter, slightly tipped old man. But that’s reaching.”

“He could’ve worn a disguise when Trina saw him.”

“Could’ve,” Eve agreed, “but I’d say Trina would have spotted any major face work. It’s what she does. Let’s run down the two names he remembered.”

H er next stop was a Hugh Klok off Washington Square Park. The victim Dobbins had seen “coming and going” had been dumped there. Gil Newkirk’s notes stated that Klok had been questioned, as were the other neighbors. Klok was listed as an antiquities dealer who had purchased and renovated the property several years before the murders.

He was listed as cooperative and unilluminating.

Antiquities turned a good profit if you knew what you were doing. Eve assumed Klok did as the property was impressive. What had originally been a pair of town houses had been merged into one large home, set back from the street by a wide courtyard.

“Pretty spruce,” Peabody commented as they approached the courtyard’s ornamental iron gate.

Eve pressed the button on the gate and was momentarily ordered by a computerized voice to state her business.

“Police. We’d like to speak with Mr. Hugh Klok.” She held up her badge for sca

Mr. Klok is not in residence at this time. You may leave your message at this security point or-if you choose-pass through and leave same with a member of the household staff.

“Option two. Might as well get a closer look,” she said to Peabody.

The gate chinked open. They crossed the bricked courtyard, climbed a short flight of steps to the main level. The door opened immediately. This, too, was a droid, but fashioned to represent a dignified middle-aged man.

“I’m authorized to take your message for Mr. Klok.”

“Where’s Mr. Klok?”

“Mr. Klok is away on business.”

“Where?”

“I’m not authorized to relay that information. If this is an emergency or the business you have with him of great import, I will contact Mr. Klok immediately so that he can, in turn, contact you. He is, however, expected home within the next day or two.”