J. Robb - Purity in Death

His eyes glittered-temper, terror, alcohol. And, Eve thought with a dull amazement, with insult.

"I got sixteen years in. Sixteen years busting my hump."

"And now you've got five minutes to decide." She pushed up from the table. "Be gone or be ready to talk when I get back."

As she strode across the club, Peabody started to rise. Eve simply shook her head and kept going.

She slammed into what the Squirrel called their rest room. Five narrow stalls and two shallow pits for sinks. She ran the water cold, splashed it on her face again and again until the heat of her anger and disgust chilled.

Face dripping, she lifted her head and stared at herself in the black-flecked mirror. Seven people dead, she thought. Seven. And she was about to help two of the ones responsible ride free so she could stop the others.

Is this what it took to speak for Kevin Halloway, for Hannah Wade? Is this what it took?

Shades of right, Tibble had said. And just now she felt smeared by the shadows.

She scrubbed her face dry, then pulled out her communicator.

"Commander. I need a deal for Thomas Dwier and Clarissa Price."

Dwier was still at the table when she returned and starting on his third bottle. She wondered how long ago he'd drowned his conscience.

"Talk," she said.

"I gotta have some assurances."

"I laid it out for you once, I'm not laying it out again. Talk or walk."

"I want you to understand we did what we had to do. You work to get scum off the street and before you write up your fives, they're back out. The system's gone soft. All this shit about civil rights jammed down our throat, lawyers sliding through the grease, you can't do the job,"

"I don't want the lecture, Dwier. I want data. Who's running the show?"

"I'm gonna tell it my way." He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, hunched in over the table. "Me and Clarissa, we got close. She's dedicated her life to helping kids, only to see half of them, maybe more, get screwed over by the system. We started going out, mostly just to blow off some steam, and we got close. After what happened with the Dukes kid, she was thinking about packing it in. That one almost broke her. She took a couple weeks' leave to decide what she wanted to do. And… Don came to see her."

"Don? Would that be Donald Dukes?"

"Yeah. She was in a rough spot. A rough spot. And he told her about this group who was looking for answers, who was working to find a better way. An underground group."

"Purity?"

"The Purity Seekers. He said a lot of people had gotten together, people like him, like her, other concerned citizens. He asked if she'd come to a meeting."

"Where?"

"Church basement. Downtown. Church of The Savior."

"A church basement?" She didn't know why it offended her sensibilities. She wasn't, never had been, religious. But it appalled something deep inside her. "This runs out of a church?"

"That's one of the meeting sites. We move around, churches and schools. She went to the first one with Don, with Dukes. It brought her back up, pulled her out of the depression. It gave her a grip on things again. I went with her the next time. It makes sense," he insisted. "The program makes sense. You want to clean up the city, you gotta take out the trash. Cops and courts are cuffed. Nobody respects the law because the law doesn't work. It doesn't fucking work, and you know it."

She looked at his face, the flush brought out by beer and righteousness. Not always, she thought. It doesn't always work because it's not going to put you in a cage.

"Who runs the meetings?"

"It's a democracy," Dwier told her with some pride. "We all have a say. Dukes is one of the founders. We've got cops, doctors, judges, scientists, preachers. We've got thinkers."

"Names."

He dipped his head. Rubbed the bottle over his brow. "We go by first names, but I recognized some, ran some others. You have to know who you're in bed with. Look, we had some glitches with the program. Maybe we pushed things too fast. The techs figured they could delete the virus after Absolute Purity was achieved, but there was some snafu. They're working day and night to fix it. We took up a collection for Halloway. We're making a contribution to the Police Officers' Survivors' Fund in his name."

"I'm sure that'll give his family a lot of comfort, Dwier. Give me names."

"You think it's easy to weasel?" He slammed the nearly empty bottle on the table. "You think it's easy to flip on people you've worked with?"

"Was it easier to kill? Easier to throw a few bucks in the hat for a dead cop because there was a snafu? I don't want to hear about your pain, Dwier, or your skewed sense of loyalty. I want names. It comes down to you or them. No names, no deal."

"Bitch."

"Yeah. Keep that in mind. Donald Dukes? His wife?"

"No. He kept her out of it. He doesn't much like working with women."

"But he recruited Clarissa."

"I figure there was some pressure on him to pick her up, since they had a history." Dwier jerked a shoulder. "Matthew Sawyer, big-shot doctor out of Kennedy Memorial. Brain guy. Keith Burns, one of those computer geeks. Worked with Dukes on the virus. He was the kid's, Devin's, godfather. Stanford Quillens, another doctor. Judge Lincoln, Angie and Ray Anderson-their kid got raped by Fitzhugh. Angie runs her own media consultant firm midtown."

He continued to reel off names. Eve recorded them. He ordered another beer. He wasn't sloppy yet, she noted. Four beers in less than an hour and he wasn't showing it. It told her his body was used to the steady intake.

There were other doctors, other cops, a city councilwoman, more programmers, two former social workers, and a minister.

"That's all I got confirmed. Clarissa might have a couple more."

"What about funding?"

"Everybody kicks in what they can, donates time." He sucked on the bottle. "Some of the members got deep pockets, and put their money where their mouth is. We've got powerful support-political support-and we could've expanded on that without the accidents."

"Who's your political support?"

"The mayor. Peachtree, he doesn't come to the meetings. But he sends statements, and contributions. My take is he lined up Sawyer and Lincoln, Dukes, too."

"Are you telling me this organization generated out of the mayor's office?"

"That's how I see it, yeah. Peachtree wants reform, and he can't get it through the polls. He found another way. He's a goddamn hero."

She stored it, clamped down on another wave of disgust. "How do you select the targets?"

"We put the names, the sheets, to the membership. We vote."

"Who else is nominated?"

"Only got one more infected. We decided to hold off until we worked out the glitches. Dru Geller. Runs private clubs, sells young meat to patrons. Runaways mostly, she scoops them up and pumps them full of Erotica. Her AP's scheduled within ten hours."

"How do you know when it's achieved?"

"That's mostly tech stuff. Not my area. But we can track usage on their infected unit or units. They ran sims so they know how long it takes to finalize."

"When's the next meeting?"

Dwier closed his eyes. 'Tonight, eight. The downtown church."

"Where's Dukes?"

He shook his head. "Safe house, Upstate. Albany. I'm supposed to help work out a relocation. He's still working on the program. Him and Burns and the other techs. They'll have it perfected in a few days. They're sure of it. Nobody anticipated that girl being in Greene's place. How the hell can you anticipate something like that? But it comes down to it, she wasn't any different than Greene. Got what she deserved, same as him. Just a little whore-"

She bitch-slapped him. Her hand was up and swinging before she realized the fury had taken over, before he could see it in her eyes and evade. The sharp crack of flesh on flesh slashed through the club. A few people turned their heads, then quickly looked away again.