J. Robb - Vengeance in Death

"I don't know a lot about religion, Catholic or otherwise, but one of the transmissions he sent was identified as a Catholic Requiem Mass, and the statues he leaves at the scene are of Mary, so that's my take." Absently Eve fingered the token in her pocket, pulled it out. "This means something to him."

"Luck," Farrell said. "Bad or good. We've a local artist who uses the shamrock as her signature on her paintings." Farrell frowned when she turned it over. "And a Christian symbol. The fish. Well, there I'd say you have a man who thinks Irish. Pray to God and hope for luck."

Eve slipped the token back in her pocket. "How much luck will you have pulling these twelve in on something for questioning?"

Farrell laughed shortly. "With this lot, if they're not brought in once a month or so they feel neglected. If you like, you can go have a bit of lunch, and we'll start a gathering."

"I'd appreciate it. You'll let me observe the interviews?"

"Observe, Lieutenant, but not participate in."

"Fair enough."

"I can't stretch that to include civilians," she said to Roarke. "You might find the afternoon more profitable by looking up some of your old friends and standing them to a pint."

"Understood. Thank you for your time."

She took the hand Roarke offered, held it a moment while she looked into his eyes. "I pinched your father once when I was a rookie. He took great exception to being arrested by a female – which was the mildest term he used for me. I was green, and he managed to split my lip before I restrained him."

Roarke's eyes went cool and blank. He drew his hand free. "I'm sorry for that."

"You weren't there as I recall," Farrell said mildly. "Rookies rarely forget their first mistakes, so I remember him quite well. I expected to see some of him in you. But I don't. Not a bit. Good day to you, Roarke."

"Good day to you, Inspector."

By the time Eve got back to the hotel, lunch had worn off and jet lag was fuzzing her mind. She found the suite empty, but there were a half dozen coded faxes waiting on the machine. She added more coffee to her overburdened system while she scanned them.

She yawned until her jaw cracked, then put through a call to Peabody's palm 'link.

"Peabody."

"Dallas. I just got in. Have the sweepers finished with the white van found abandoned downtown?"

"Yes, sir. Wrong trail. That van was used in a robbery in Jersey and dumped down on Canal. I'm still pursuing that lead, but it's going to take more time to eliminate vehicles. The cabdriver was a wash. He didn't even know his tags had been lifted."

"McNab make any progress on the jammer?"

Peabody snorted, then sobered. "He claims to be making some headway, though he phrases all of it in electro-ese and I can't make it out. He had a great time with some e-jockey of Roarke's. I think they're in love."

"Your snotty side's showing, Peabody."

"Not nearly as much as it could be. No transmissions have come through, so our boy's taking a break from mayhem. McNab is staying here at your home office tonight in case there's a send. I'm staying, too."

"You and McNab are staying in my office tonight?"

Her mouth moved perilously close to a pout. "If he's staying, I'm staying. Besides, the food's superior."

"Try not to kill each other."

"I'm showing admirable restraint in that particular area, sir."

"Right. Is Summerset behaving himself?"

"He went to some art class, then out for coffee and brandy with his lady friend. I had him shadowed. It was all very dignified according to the report. He got back about twenty minutes ago."

"See that he stays in."

"I've got it covered. Any progress there?"

"That's debatable. We have a list of potentials, which was shorted by half during interviews. I'm going to take a closer look at six," she said, rubbing her tired eyes. "One's in New York, and one's supposed to be in Boston. I'll run them when I get in tomorrow. We should be back by noon."

"We'll keep the home fires burning, Lieutenant."

"Find that damn van, Peabody." She disengaged the 'link and ordered herself not to wonder, or worry, about where Roarke could be.

He knew better than to go home. It was foolish and fruitless and irresistible. The shanties had changed little since he'd been a boy trying to crawl his way out of them. The buildings were cheaply constructed, with roofs sagging, windows broken. It was rare to see a flower bloom here, but a few hopeful souls had scratched out a stamp-sized garden at the doorstep of the six-flat building where he'd lived once.

But the flowers, however bright, couldn't overcome the odor of piss and vomit. And they couldn't lighten the air that lay thick with despair.

He didn't know why he went in, but he found himself standing inside the dim lobby with its sticky floors and peeling paint. And there were the stairs his father had once kicked him down because he hadn't made his quota lifting wallets.

Oh, but I had, Roarke thought now. What was a kick and tumble compared to the pounds he'd secreted away? The old man had been too drunk, and often too stupid, to have suspected his whipping boy of holding back any of the take.

Roarke had always held back. A pound here, a pound there could make a tidy sum for a determined boy willing to take his licks.

"He'd have given me his fist in my face in any case," he murmured and gazed up those battered stairs.

He could hear someone cursing, someone else weeping. You would always hear cursing and weeping in such places. The odor of boiled cabbage was strong and turned his stomach so he sought the thick air outside again.

He saw a teenage boy in tight black pants and a mop of fair hair watching him coolly from the curb. Across the street a couple of girls chalking the cracked sidewalk for hopscotch stopped to watch. He walked passed them, aware there were other eyes following him, peering out of windows and doorways.

A stranger in good shoes was both curiosity and insult.

The boy called out something vile in Gaelic. Roarke turned, met the boy's sneering eyes. "I'm going back in the alley," he said, using the same tongue, found it came more easily to his lips than he'd expected, "if you've a mind to try your luck on me. I'm in the mood to hurt someone. Might as well be you as another."

"Men have died in that alley. Might as well be you as another."

"Come on then." And Roarke smiled. "Some say I killed my father there when I was half your age, sticking a knife in his throat the way you'd slaughter a pig."

The boy shifted his weight, and his eyes changed. The sneering defiance turned to respect. "You'd be Roarke then."

"I would. Steer clear of me today and live to see your children."

"I'll get out," the boy shouted after him. "I'll get out the way you did, and one day I'll walk in fine shoes. Damned if I'll come back."

"That's what I thought," Roarke sighed and stepped into the stinking alley between the narrow buildings.

The recycler was broken. Had been broken as long as he could remember. Trash and garbage were strewn, as always, over the pitted asphalt. The wind whipped his coat, his hair, as he stood, staring down at the ground, at the place where his father had been found, dead.

He hadn't put the knife in him. Oh, he'd dreamed of killing the man; every time he'd taken a beating by those vicious hands he'd thought of pounding back. But he'd only been twelve or so when his father had met the knife, and he'd yet to kill a man.

He'd crawled out of this place, out of this pit. He'd survived, even triumphed. And now, perhaps for the first time, he realized he'd changed.

He'd never again be like the mirror image of himself who had challenged him from the curb. He was a man grown into what he had chosen to be. He enjoyed the life he'd built for itself now, not simply for its opposition to what had been.