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She looked at Feeney. “Feel like getting out of the house?”
“Wouldn’t mind a little fresh air.”
“Let me know if you find any out there. Want to take the hotel?”
“Long as I don’t have to wear a tie.”
“Peabody and I will give Dickhead a push on our way to see the side dish.”
“She might hit on you,” McNab commented. “Maybe we should take her. Ow!” He grabbed his side where Peabody’s elbow jabbed. “Jeez, just kidding. Since you’ve been studying your brains out, you’ve got no sense of humor.”
“I’m going to laugh really hard after I kick your ass.”
“Kids, kids.” Eve could feel her eye starting to twitch. “Let’s save all this until after we catch the mean man and send him to his room. Feeney, control your moron. Not another word, Peabody.”
She gave her aide a solid push out the door.
Peabody held it in until they’d driven five blocks. Eve figured it was a new record.
“I just don’t think he should talk about other women that way. Or look at them with that gleam in his eye. We signed a lease.”
“Oh Jesus Christ on stilts. You’ve got lease fear, Peabody. Official document phobia. Get over it.”
“Jesus Christ on stilts?”
“It just came to me. You’re obsessing because you signed up for—what is it, a year? And now you’re all, what if it doesn’t work out? Who moves out? Who takes the communal salad plates or some stupid shit.”
“Well, maybe. But that’s normal, isn’t it?”
“How the hell do I know what’s normal?”
“You’re married.”
Sincerely shocked, Eve jerked the vehicle to a halt at a light. “That makes me normal? It just makes me married. Do you know how many abnormal married people there are out there across this great land and beyond? Just take a look at the double Ds that get called in, Manhattan borough alone. Marriage doesn’t make people normal. Marriage isn’t normal, probably. It just . . . is.”
“Why did you get married?”
“I . . .” Her mind went blank. “He wanted to.” Hearing just how lame that sounded, she shifted in her seat, and punched the gas. “It’s just a promise, that’s all. A promise, and you do your best not to break it.”
“Like a lease.”
“There you go.”
“You know, Dallas, that’s almost wise.”
“Now I’m wise.” She sighed. “Let me give you my little tidbit for the day. You want McNab to stop thinking about, looking at, talking about other women, then you’d better take him to the vet and have him fixed. He’ll make a nice pet. Women are the worst. They zero in on some guy. Oh boy, he’s the one, gotta get me that one. So they do. Then they spend the rest of their time trying to figure out how to change him. Then if they manage it, they’re not all that interested anymore, because guess what? He’s not the one anymore.”
Peabody was silent for several moments. “Somewhere in there is a lot of good sense.”
“If you tell me I’m sensible in addition to normal and wise, I’m going to punch you in the stomach. I’m as screwed up as the next person, and I like it that way.”
“In many ways, Lieutenant, you’re even more screwed up than the next person. It’s what makes you, you.”
“I think I’ll punch you in the stomach anyway. Put it on my calendar.”
She toyed with double parking, which always put her in a good mood, but found a spot on a street ramp.
The Seventh Avenue building looked ordinary, even shabby, but the security there rivaled that at the U.N.
