J. Robb - Survivor in Death

“Stolen ride?” Peabody suggested.

“Be stupid. Stupid because it leaves a trail. You steal something, the owner gets pissy and reports it. Maybe take a vehicle out of long-term somewhere, put it back. But why? You've got all this equipment, expensive equipment. You've got money or backing. You've got a ride of your own. It won't be anything flashy.” She rocked back and forth on her heels. “Nothing that catches the eye, and the driver obeys all traffic regs.”

She walked west as she visualized it. “Do the job, walk out, walk away. No hurry, no noise. Eyes tracking left and right-that's training. Don't think to look up, though, and that's sloppy. Just a little sloppy, or cocky. Or under it, they were revved from the kill. Pro or not, you've got to get a little revved. Walk straight down, no conversation. Go straight to the ride, no detours. Stow the bags for later cleaning or destruction. Back to HQ.”

“Headquarters?”

“Bet that's how they referred to it. Someplace to be debriefed, or to exchange their war stories, to practice, to clean up. And I'll bet you it's squared away.”

She had their scent. She knew it wasn't a logical term, but it was the right term. She had their scent, and she would track it until she had them.

She stood on the corner of Eighty-first andRiverside, looking north, and south, and further west. How far had they walked? she wondered. How many people had seen them walking away from that death house, fresh blood in their bags?

Just a couple of guys heading home after a quick night's work.

“Tag Baxter,” Eve ordered. “I want some names.”

Her name was Meredith Newman, and she was overworked and underpaid. She'd be happy to tell you so, given the opportunity. Though she liked to think of herself as a contemporary martyr, long suffering and sweating blood for the cause.

Once, in her younger days, she'd visualized herself as a crusader, and had worked and studied with the fervor of the converted. But then a year on the job had become two, and two had become five, and the caseloads, the misery and uselessness of them, took their toll.

In her private fantasies, she'd meet a handsome, sexy man, swimming in money. She'd quit. Never have to drag herself through the endless paperwork, the disheartening home checks. Never have to see another battered woman or child.

But until that fine day, it was business as usual.

Now she was heading toward a routine home check, where she fully expected to find the two kids filthy, the mother stoned or on her way toward oblivion. She'd lost hope that it would ever be any different. She'd lost the will to care. The number of people who eventually turned themselves around and became decent, contributing members of society was about one in fifty, in her estimation.

And she always seemed to pull the other forty-nine.

Her feet hurt because she'd been stupid enough to buy a pair of new shoes, which she couldn't afford. Not on her salary. She was depressed because the man she'd been seeing on and off for five weeks had told her she depressed him, and had broken things off.

She was thirty-three years old, single, no boyfriend, a joke of a social life, and so sick and tired of her job she wanted to kill herself.

She walked with her head down, as was her habit, because she didn't want to see the dirt, the grime, the people.

She hatedAlphabetCity, hated the men who loitered in doorways and rubbed their crotches when she passed by. She hated the smell of garbage-urban perfume-and the noise. Engines, horns, voices, machinery all pulsing against her ear drums.

Her vacation wasn't scheduled for eight weeks, three days, twelve hours. She didn't know if she could make it. Hell, her next day off was three days away, and she didn't know if she could make that.

She wouldn't.

She didn't pay any attention to the squeal of brakes, just more of the cacophony of the city she'd come to loathe like a wasting disease.

The little shoulder bump was just another annoyance, just more of the innate rudeness that infected everyone who lived in this shit hole.

Then her head spun, and her vision went gray. She felt, as if in a dream, the sensation of being lifted off her feet and thrown. Even when she landed in the back of the van, with the tape slapped over her face and her eyes, it didn't seem real. Her body had barely registered the need to scream when the faint nudge of a pressure syringe had her going under.

By mid afternoon, Eve and Peabody had spoken with three of Keelie Swisher's clients and two of her husband's. They were working geographically and took another of Keelie's next.

Jan Uger was a hefty woman who smoked three herbals during their twenty-minute interview. When she wasn't puffing, she was sucking on one of the brightly colored candy drops in a dish beside her chair.

Her hair was done up in a huge glossy ball, as if someone had slicked it up, around, then sprayed it with silicone. She had long jowls, a trio of chins, sallow skin. And a pisser of an attitude.

“A quack.” She puffed, jabbed with her smoking herbal. “That's what she was. Said she couldn't help me if I didn't keep up the regimen. What am I, in Christing boot camp?”

“You were, at one time,” Eve prompted.

“Did three years, regular Army. Where I met my Stu. He put in fifteen, serving our country. I spent those years being a good Army wife and raising two kids. Was the kids put the weight on me,” she claimed and chose another candy. “I tried diets, but I've got a condition.”

Which was, Eve decided, the inability to stop putting things in her mouth.

“Our insurance doesn't cover body sculpting.” She worked the candy around in her mouth, gave it a couple of good crunches. “Cheapskates. Except on the provision you see a licensed nutritionist for six months, and they sign off for you. So, that's what I did, went to that quack, listened to her bullshit. And what happened?”

She sucked so hard on the candy in her fury, Eve wondered it didn't lodge in her throat and choke her to death.

“I'll tell you what happened. I gained four pounds in two months. Not that Stu minds. More to love, is what he says. But I did the drill, and would she sign off? No, she would not!”

“You had a problem with that.”

“Damn right. She said I didn't qualify. Who was she to say? What skin off her nose is it to sign the damn paper so my insurance will foot the bill? People like that make me sick.”

She lit another cigarette, scowled through smoke that smelled like burning mint.

“You argued with Mrs. Swisher?”

“Told her just what I thought of her and her Christing regimen, and said I was going to sue. Would have, but her husband's a damn lawyer, so what's the point? Everybody knows they stick together like a pile of shit. Sorry they're dead, though,” she added as an afterthought.

“Your husband's retired military now, and employed with…” Eve pretended to check her notes.

“He's security at the Sky Mall. Hard to live on retirement, plus my Stu, he likes to get out and do a job. Better insurance there, too. He works there another eighteen months, and I can get the sculpting, on them.”

Keep eating, sister, and it's going to take more than sculpting. It's going to take an airjack to whittle you down. “Meanwhile, you were both very dissatisfied with Mrs. Swisher.”

“Of course we were. She took our hard-earned money and did nothing for it.”

“That's upsetting, and feeling unable to sue successfully, you must have wanted to be recompensed in some other way.”

“Told everybody I knew she was a Christing quack.” Her triple chins wagged with satisfaction. “I got plenty of friends, and so does Stu.”

“If it'd been me, I'd have wanted something more personal, more tangible. Maybe you and your husband went to Mr. or Mrs. Swisher to complain, to demand your money back.”