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“Yeah, anyone should. Unless he or she is a moron, or just didn’t give a shit as long as it was fun while it lasted.”
“Okay, ask around. If anything strikes you, get in touch.”
“You can bank on it.”
“You did a nice job around here,” Eve added.
“We like to think so.” Louise finished off the coffee, two-pointed the cup in the recycle bin. “Your three million went a long way.”
“Three million?”
“I was ready to dive into the half million we agreed on. Didn’t expect the bonus.”
“When. . .” Eve ran her tongue around her teeth. “When did I give you the bonus?”
Louise opened her mouth, closed it again. Smiled. “Now why do I think you don’t have a clue?”
“Refresh me, Louise. When did I give you three million dollars?”
“Never. But your rep did, late February.”
“And my rep would be?”
“Some slick suit named Treacle, of Montblanc, Cissler and Treacle. Issued in two installments—the half mil as agreed, and another two point five if I contracted to donate my services to Dochas, a newly established abuse center for women and children on the Lower East Side. Dochas,” she said, still smiling, “is, I’m told, Gaelic for hope.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. You’ve got a hell of a man there, Dallas. You ever get tired of him, I’ll take him off your hands.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You gave her the money for all that?” Peabody demanded as she hustled out after Eve.
“No, I didn’t give her the money because it’s not my money, is it? It’s Roarke’s money. I’m a cop, goddamn it. A cop doesn’t have space stations full of money to make grand gestures with.”
“Yeah, but still. Does that piss you off?”
Eve stopped on the sidewalk, took a long breath. “I don’t know if it pisses me off.” But she kicked the base of a street lamp just in case she was. “He could tell me about this stuff, couldn’t he? He could keep me in the loop so I wouldn’t go into this sort of situation and come out feeling like an idiot.”
Peabody looked back at the clinic, her soft heart going to goo stage. “I think it was a beautiful gesture.”
“Don’t contradict me, Peabody. Do you forget I am the supreme bitch cop?”
“No, sir. And as your vehicle is in the same spot and the same condition as you left it, the neighborhood didn’t forget that either.”
“Too bad.” A bit wistful, she looked around. “I’d’ve enjoyed busting some ass.”
Back at Central, Eve snagged a candy bar in lieu of lunch, brooded, called up data on the chemicals pertinent to the Bankhead homicide, brooded some more, then called to harass McNab.
“I want an address.”
“Would you settle for twenty-three of them?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Look, I’m going to snag a conference room, your office is a box. Your level,” he said, working a keyboard
to his left manually as he spoke. “Ah . . . Room 426. I’m using your name to finesse it.”
