Strangers In Death

“You.” Eve jabbed a finger at one of the grunts loitering in a doorway.

“Fuck you,” he called back, and added his middle finger in case English wasn’t her first language.

Eve flipped out her badge as she crossed the sidewalk. The badge itself didn’t mean much here. It was all about what she put behind it. “That’s Lieutenant, as in: Fuck you, Lieutenant.”

Beside the grunt, his gap-toothed companion sniggered.

“Here’s what I could do,” Eve supposed. “I could slap your head against that wall, while I’m kicking your balls into your belly,” she added to the companion. “And after that, I can have you in restraints while I turn out your pockets. You’re carrying illegals.”

“Fuck you know. You can’t rouse without probable.”

“I see the illegals. I’ve got X-ray vision.”

“No shit?” The companion gri

“Ain’t it? But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do runs on both of you, then come around to your flops and turn them upside down and inside out. I’m not going to personally see to it that you spend the next several days in a cage. I’m not going to do that because you’re both going to stand right here until I come back, and you’re going to watch my ride there as if it were your own beloved child. I come out, and my official police vehicle’s exactly where I left it, in exactly the condition I left it, we part friends. Otherwise, I’m going to be paying you a visit later. Got it?”

The first guy shrugged. “I got nothing better to do.”

“That’s handy, because I do. You got ten now,” she said and pulled out the bribe. “You get another when I come back. I bet your name’s John Smith,” she said to the companion.

“Hell, no. Clipper Plink.”

“That’s what I said. You’re Clipper Plink.”

“How do you know this stuff?” He eyed her as if she were the Second Coming. “You got superpowers, bitch?”

“Damn right.”

“Jesus, Clip,” she heard the grunt say as she strode toward Roarke, “can you be any fucking dumber?”

He loved to watch her work, Roarke thought. It never failed to fascinate and entertain him. So he’d done just that, relaxed against the wall while she’d taken aim at the pair of street toughs. Well, one and a half toughs, he supposed was more accurate. They hadn’t stood a chance against her when she’d tossed on the badass cop as she did her coat.

Now she strode to him, the faintest hint of a smile on her face. “How many street thieves, muggers, and spine crackers did you flick off with one ‘Try it, boy-o, and you’ll be pissing blood for some time to come’ stare?”

“I didn’t count. I don’t believe this is a very safe neighborhood. I’m relieved I have a cop nearby.”

“Yeah, like you need one.”

“Only you, darling. Night and day. Boy-o?”

“That particular stare has the boy-o in it. Don’t tell me you came down here in a ride as fancy as the suit?”

“Then I won’t. Why don’t you tell me why we’re heading into this sex dive on an evening that makes me almost believe spring may come again?”

“One of the strippers, LC for club work, also happens to be one of Ava’s mommies. I’ll fill you in on the rest later, figure you can follow along as we go. But I want to take her now. She’s only on about another hour.”

“Let’s not waste time, then.” He pulled open the door.

They walked out of the almost spring evening and into the sharp, bright world of sex for sale.

It smelled of sweat, cum, smoke from a variety of illegal substances, and the cheapest of alcoholic liquids. A great many of those unattractive substances splattered the floor. Men and women with hard eyes, glassy eyes, crazed eyes, bored eyes hunched at tables or squatted at a short, stained bar on backless stools while two servers-one male, one female-carted drinks or empties on trays. Both were naked, unless you counted tats and piercings, their skin pulsing faintly red in the ugly light.

On a small, raised stage, two women-it would be absurd to term them dancers-humped long silver poles while what only the deaf could mistake for music blasted. Each wore a sparkling band at the waist, with a few bills tucked in. Neither, Roarke noted, had pulled in much for this particular number.

He walked to the bar with Eve. The man ru

The albino slapped a short glass of something the color and consistency of coal oil on the bar in front of a customer before moving down to them. “Stand at the bar, you order one drink minimum. Table runs two.”

“Cassie Gordon?”

“Stand at the bar, one drink minimum.”

Even those pale eyes should’ve made her for a cop, Roarke thought. Roarke pulled out a ten, covering them both, even as she pulled her badge. “Keep the drinks,” Roarke told him. “I’ve a fondness for my stomach lining.”

Eve slapped the badge down. “Cassie Gordon.”

“We got a license.” The albino gestured behind him where it was displayed, as per city ordinance. “Up to date.”

“I didn’t ask for your license. Cassie Gordon.”

The bartender plucked up Roarke’s bill, slid it into his own pocket. “She’s up with a private. Got another five minutes on his roll. Then she’s on in twenty, you can catch her between, wait till she’s done. No matter to me. You take a table, cost another ten.”

“Pal, I wouldn’t sit at one of those tables if I was decked out in a hazmat suit. What you’re going to do is show us a clean private room-not one of the sex rooms-and you’re going to send Cassie there. You’re going to signal her to cut it short, and come down. If you don’t, my partner and I are going to make your life really unhappy.”

“This isn’t a cop.” The bartender jerked his head at Roarke. “Cops don’t dress like that.”

“I’m not, no,” Roarke said in what seemed like the most pleasant of tones, if you were deaf and didn’t hear the jagged threat under it. “And that’s why I’ll hurt you more, and enjoy it more. Where’s the owner’s peep?”

“Got no reason to cause trouble.” The bartender reached under the bar. Even as Eve braced, she heard a faint buzz. A door behind the bar slid open.

“That’ll do nicely, then. I’ll be matching that first ten when we’re done.” Roarke’s terrifyingly pleasant tone never altered. “Unless you do something to a

Eve said nothing until they were inside the peep-a small, relatively clean room holding a couple of chairs, a little desk, and boasting a wall of screens that surveyed the club.

“I’ve got the badge. I get to do the intimidating and make the threats.”

“Why’d you ask me for this romantic date if you weren’t aiming to let me play, too?”

“I wanted to scare the albino bartender in the sex club.”

He laughed, tapped his finger on the dent in her chin. “Aw, darling, I promise you can scare the next one.”

“Yeah, because the city’s loaded with them. We’ve probably got a couple minutes. So lightning-round version.”

She zipped through the salients on Bebe Petrelli, skimmed over her theory about the senior Anders to give Roarke a taste, and ended with her supposition Ava might have approached Cassie Gordon.

“She made a mistake with Petrelli,” Roarke pointed out. “Do you think she made another?”

“Won’t know until I ask. Gordon’s done strip and sex work for eight years. A woman makes it through eight years doing that, she probably knows how to read people. She’s got a daughter. Ten-year-old daughter, in the program. Ice skater. No father in the picture. Kid didn’t cop a scholarship, but Anders is paying for her rink time. She’s got a private coach. On paper, Gordon’s paying her.” Eve nodded to the screen. “Do you figure she makes enough in a dive like this to pay for a private coach?”