Divided in Death

“This,” McNab said as he took in a gulp of tropical air, “is living.”

“We’re not living. We’re investigating. There’ll be no living until we’ve completed the investigative purpose of this trip.”

He cocked his head, studied her from behind his fuchsia-tinted sunshades. “You sounded just like Dallas. I find that strangely arousing.”

She elbow-jabbed him, but didn’t put much behind it. “We’re going straight to Waves and interview Diesel Moore regarding Carter Bissel. We’ll go by Bissel’s residence, speak to any neighbors or associates.”

“Now you sound bossy.” He gave her butt, currently covered in thin summer pants, a friendly pat. “I like that, too.”

“You’ve got a grade on me, but I’m Homicide.” And boy, did she love saying that. “So I’m in charge of this hunting party. And I say first we do the job, then we… live.”

“I hear that. Still, we gotta rent transpo.”

He slid his gaze to a line of scooters chained outside a hut beside their hotel. They were as colorful and bright as a circus parade, and screamed tourist.

Peabody gri

Waves was a hole-in-the-wall joint screwed into a clapboard building on one of Kingston’s less welcoming streets. They’d gotten lost twice-or had pretended to get lost as they’d scooted along narrow streets with the island breeze fluttering over their urban cheeks. After some heated debate, they’d agreed that he’d drive to, and she’d drive from. Peabody found it just as much fun to ride pinion with her arms clutched around his waist as it would’ve been to man the controls.

But as they made their way into the poorer and less hospitable section of the city, she was glad she had her weapon strapped under her summer-weight jacket.

She saw three illegals transactions in a two-block radius, and spotted a pair of funky-junkies jittering together on a stoop. When a flash all-terrain sportster cruised by, and the driver aimed his dark, dangerous eyes at her, she almost wished she was wearing her uniform.

Instead, she aimed hers right back, and deliberately, visibly, laid her hand on her weapon.

“Nasty vibes,” she said into McNab’s ear as the car gu

“Oh yeah. Penalties for illegals are stiff as a teenager’s dick down here, but nobody seems to care in this sector.”

There were sex shops and clubs, and the street LCs who sold the same commodity. But none of them looked particularly alluring. She could hear music pumping out of a few doorways, but the exotic charm of it was lost in the bored and repetitive come-ons of the hookers and the front men.

Tourists might wander in here, she thought, but unless they were looking for sex, illegals, or a blade in the back, they’d hurry out again quick.

They parked the scooter in front of the mean little bar, and while McNab used the chain the rental agent had provided to lock it to a lamppost, Peabody looked around.

“I’m going to try something,” she said. “You might have to back me up.”

She selected the two young men, one black, one white, sitting on a stoop and smoking Christ knew what out of a black pipe they passed between them. Gearing herself up, she put on her coldest cop face and swaggered up to them. And ignored McNab’s hiss of warning from behind her.

“See that scooter?”

The black man smirked, took a long slow drag on the pipe. “Got eyes, bitch.”

“Yeah, looks like you’ve got a pair each.” She shifted her weight, used her elbow to ease the jacket back so her badge and weapon peeked out. “If you want to keep them in your skulls, you’ll keep them on that scooter. Because if I come back out and it isn’t where I left it, in the same condition I left it, my associate and I are going to hunt you down like sick dogs. While he’s shoving that pipe up your ass,” she said, showing her teeth to the white guy, “I’m going to pop your fellow asshole’s eyes out. With my thumbs.”

The white guy bared his own teeth. “Hey, fuck you.”

Her stomach jittered, a little, but she kept the fierce and toothy expression in place. “Now, if you talk like that you’re not going to earn the nice prize I have for you at the end of our contest. The scooter’s there, untouched, when I come back out, I don’t haul your ugly asses into a cage for possession and use, and I give you a nice shiny ten credits.”

“Five now, five later.”

She shifted her gaze to the black. “None now, and none later unless I’m happy with you. Hey, McNab, what happens when I’m not happy?”

“I can’t talk about it. Gives me nightmares.”

“Do yourselves a favor,” Peabody suggested. “Earn the ten.”

She turned, sauntered toward the bar. “I’ve got sweat ru

“Doesn’t show. You even scared me.”

“Dallas would’ve gotten in their faces more, but I thought that was pretty good.”

“Frigid, babe.” He yanked open the door, and they were hit by a blast of cold air that smelled of smoke, liquor, and humans who didn’t have a working arrangement with soap and water.

It wasn’t yet sundown and business was sluggish. Still there were pockets of patrons, such as they were, huddled at tables or slumped at the bar. On a narrow platform that stood as stage, a malfunctioning holographic band played bad reggae. The image of the steel drummer kept winking out, and the looping was just a hair off so that the singer’s lips moved out of synch, reminding McNab of the really poorly dubbed vids his cousin Sheila got such a charge out of.

His toeless airsneaks made little sucking sounds as he crossed the sticky floor.

Moore was ma

There was a necklace of what looked like bird bones around his neck, and his skin was glossy with sweat despite the chilly pump of air.

His eyes, an angry black, skimmed over Peabody and McNab as if they were one unit. He shoved a muddy-looking brown brew into the waiting hands of a customer, then used his dingy bar rag to wipe at the shiny chest exposed by a snug electric-blue tank.

He stepped down the bar, and curled his tattooed lip. “I’m paid up for the month, so if you’ve come in here to shake me down for another deposit go fuck yourselves.”

Peabody opened her mouth, but McNab set his foot over hers to keep her quiet. “We’re not local badges. The locals got a Survivor’s Fund going here, we’re not in that mix. Fact is, we’ll be happy to make a contribution to your personal fund if you have information that merits it.”

Peabody had never heard that cool and faintly bored tone out of McNab before.

“Cop offers to give me money, he usually finds a way to skin me for it.”

McNab took a twenty out of his pocket, palmed it on the bar while keeping his attention on Moore. “In good faith.”

The money was exchanged, slick as a magic trick. “What’re you paying for?”

“Information,” McNab repeated. “Carter Bissel.”

“Asshole son of a bitch.” Somebody hammered a fist on the far end of the bar and called for some goddamn service. “Shut the fuck up,” Moore shouted back. “You find that goddamn Carter, I want a shot at him. He owes me two large, not to mention the ass pain I’ve had ru

“How long did you run the place together?” Peabody asked him.

“Long enough. Look, we had some previous business, you could call it shipping. Decided we’d go into this little enterprise here, and each anted up the rent. Carter, he’s got a good head for business in that asshole brain of his. We did okay. Maybe he’d go on a bender time to time. Guy likes his rum and his Zoner, and you run a place like this you can get ‘em. Couple days off and on maybe he’d be no-show. I’m not his fucking mother, so what? He takes off, next time I take off. Works out.”