Fantasy in Death

“Ro’s not dumb.” Dubrosky didn’t miss a beat. “He just gets confused sometimes when it comes to reality. He’s wired to games, and a lot outside his bubble gets past him.”

“Like you have two side pieces, and a penchant for e-spying?”

“It’s not illegal to spread yourself around. Believe me, all my lovers are happy.” He wrapped an arm around the back of his chair, posed. “What’s the harm?”

“It tells me you’ve got no scruples, and a man with no scruples doesn’t think twice about cheating, stealing, lying. It’s a short step over to murder.”

“I don’t kill people, sweetheart. I seduce them.”

“Call me sweetheart again.” She leaned in, eyes flat. “Go ahead.”

“No offense, no offense.” He held up his hands for peace. “I’m not denying I’ve taken my hobby too far a couple times. I get caught up, like anyone else. But if you’ve got my sheet, you know I don’t do violence. The fact is, sweet-Lieutenant,” he corrected quickly, “I don’t need to. And sure, Ro’s told me some things about the big secret project. He’s excited about it, and he likes to talk. Part of a good seduction is listening. I listen. Not a crime.”

“Try listening to this,” Eve suggested. “Do you know what else I have besides your sheet? Your financials. It’s pretty interesting reading, too. All these nice deposits, which I’d say keeps you in salon time with Nanette. More interesting as your employment records indicate you haven’t had a paying job in close to a year.”

“People give me money as gifts. It’s part of the admiring.”

“I’m going to bet Bart didn’t admire you. I’m going to bet when you went to him asking for payment to keep the information your sap passed you, he’d have threatened to go to the cops.”

“I don’t do blackmail.” He glanced down at his nails. “It’s too messy.”

“Here’s something really messy.” Once again she took out the crime scene photos.

Dubrosky didn’t turn green; he didn’t faint, but he did go stark white. “Oh my Jesus. Oh my Christ. Somebody cut off his head.”

“I bet you practice swordfights in those workshops. Action roles, period pieces.” Eve cocked her head as she gave him a cool up-and-down study. “You’re in good shape. I bet you can handle a heavy sword without much trouble.”

“Listen. Listen to me.” Suave vanished in sober. “I make a living sleeping with people who can afford to slip me some cash, buy me nice things. I make more by selling information when I’ve got it. I don’t hurt people. I sure as hell don’t kill them. Roland’s a mark, sure. He’s easy. But the fact is, I’d just about tapped that out, which is why I’m easing over to Britt. She’s got a rich husband who lets her play at acting and spend all the money she wants. He’s out of town a lot-financial consultant. I figure I can tap that for a while, maybe get in the house, hack one of his comps, see what I see. I’m laying groundwork there, so why would I do something like this? I don’t do this. I didn’t do this.”

“Who’d you sell the information to?”

“Ah hell.” He pushed a hand through his hair, ruining its perfection and telling Eve he was sincerely frightened. “If I roll there, you’ve got to cut me a deal.”

“I don’t have to do squat. You’ve already confessed, on record, to corporate espionage. And here’s the thing, Milt. I really, really don’t admire you. Names. Now.”

He sat back, closed his soft, shimmering eyes, and spilled his guts.

When she’d finished with Dubrosky, she had him escorted back to a cell. She would do what she could do to make sure he spent the next few years as a guest of the fine state of New York. And she hoped he sorely missed his salon appointments.

“I got mine,” Peabody told her when they met in Eve’s office.

“Then we’re two for two.” Eve programmed coffee, waved Peabody to the AutoChef so she could get her own.

“I didn’t know half of what he was talking about. The more upset he got, the more he babbled, and the babble got pretty technical. I figure to ask McNab to look over the interview and interpret, but…” Peabody paused to give the coffee a couple of little blows before taking the first sip. “But what I got was he gave Dubrosky the details of his research and whatever work he did on the Fantastical project, and anything else he had a hand in or knew about. The guy’s a walking mouth. They couldn’t be screening as well as they seem to think they are.”

“One of the holes,” Eve murmured, thinking of Roarke’s comment. She walked over to her narrow window, looked out at a passing airtram as she considered. “My guy’s so slimy if I stepped on him I wouldn’t wipe him off my shoe, I’d just incinerate the shoe. He lives off sex and what passes for charm, targeting marks, juggling them. He claims he was having sex with a new target when Bart lost his head. In the Oaks Hotel.”

“That’s pretty uptown for a sex con.”

“The mark’s got a rich husband. So, we’ll check it out, but it rings. He’s also living with yet another mark when he’s not doing the walking mouth. They pay his freight, and he digs into their business, and sells the data to interested parties. I’ve got the interested party on this one.”

She sipped coffee, thinking of the young, stupid Roland, the young, naive Bart. “I don’t think Dubrosky got into Bart’s and sliced him up. He might snag a fingernail or get spatter in his perfect hair. But he’s going over for the rest. And if we pin the murder on the buyer, we may be able to slap him with accessory. He’s earned a nice long stretch in a very small cage.”

“You really didn’t like him.”

“I really didn’t. But the point is, if he hadn’t used the lovestruck Roland for gain, maybe Bart Mi

Peabody looked into her coffee mug. “They’re going to be pissed.”

“Oh yeah. You get the fun stuff.” She gave Peabody the names and contact information. “Be discreet,” she added. “Britt Casey’s married. She probably deserves a kick in the ass, but if she’s as dumb as Roland, I’m inclined to cut her a break and try to keep her husband out of it.”

“I’ll be the soul. If this guy was banging three marks, how’d he have time for anything else?”

“Apparently, it’s just a matter of good time management.”

“I wonder what supplements he takes, or if he has a special diet.”

“I’ll be sure to ask next time we speak. Out.”

Eve sat to begin runs on both DuVaugne and the company, and while the data began to screen, followed a hunch.

Once again Roarke answered directly. “Lieutenant.”

“Are you in the house?”

“I am, yes. In EDD.”

“What can you tell me, off the top, about a Lane DuVaugne and Synch Entertainment.”

“I’ll come down.”

“You don’t have to-” she began, but she was talking to empty air.

“Okay then.”

She started with DuVaugne. The fifty-nine-year-old vice president was on wife two, who-no surprise-clocked in at twenty-eight years younger. They based their three-year marriage on the Upper East Side, with additional housing in Belize and the Italian Riviera. The current wife was a former lingerie model.

Men were so simple, really.

He’d held his position at Synch for sixteen years, and pulled in a hefty twenty-two million, before bonuses, a

He had no criminal record.

“We’re about to change that.”

What change do you wish to implement? the computer asked.

“Nothing. None. A person can’t even talk to herself around here.”

She did a quick scan on the company. It had been around nearly as long as DuVaugne had been alive, developing, manufacturing, and distributing games and game systems. Offices and plants worldwide. She frowned as she read the cities, backtracked through company history, tried to wade her way through the official financial and employment data.