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“Yuck” was Peabody’s opinion.
“I bet you’re not the first cop in here today with that sentiment.”
They found ancient underwear, one of a pair of holey and amazingly smelly socks, several pounds of dust, enough dirt to plant roses, empty brew bottles, broken syringes, the torn empty baggies dealers used to store their wares.
“There’s nothing here.” Peabody mopped at sweat. “If he was getting ready to rabbit, he must’ve taken everything he had—except for dirty underwear—with him.”
“I’ll tell you what we found,” Eve corrected. “Rickie lived like a rabid rat. Lived with this smell rather than dumping his trash. Probably because he stayed high as much as possible. The locks inside the door aren’t new, so he probably kept some of his junk in here, whatever he made off dealing and weaseling. And he stuck to his territory. It’s also interesting what we didn’t find, here or at his hole.”
“A minimal level of hygiene?”
“That’s missing, and so is any kind of client book, memo book—nothing like that on his disposable ’link. He might’ve dealt on the lower levels, but he had contacts. He was a weasel, and a weasel’s useless without them. I’m not buying he kept names, locations, numbers in his rabid rat head.”
“Shit. I hate when I miss something like that. He’d have taken it with him.”
“More valuable to him than clean underwear, I guarantee. And Bix relieved him of it. He and Garnet had to come through here today, just to make sure Bix didn’t miss something after I put a little heat on the deal. We’re going to make that their mistake.”
“We are?”
“Let’s knock on doors.” She stepped out, rapped on the one directly across the hall. No answer, which wasn’t unexpected even if there’d been a crowd of twelve inside. But she heard no sound.
The music lover’s unit was a different matter. She pounded, then pounded and kicked, until she finally beat out the banging of drums.
The man who answered couldn’t have seen his twenty-fifth birthday. He carried the pasty-white complexion of a shut-in, or prison inmate, and that peppered with pox and acne scars. Stringy ropes of hair hung to the shoulders of a sleeveless tee that had perhaps once been white. With it he wore a pair of underwear not much more reputable than those discarded in Keener’s apartment.
“’Zup,” he said with the blissed-out smile an
d glassy eyes of the seriously stoned. Eve could smell the zoner smoke—hell, she could see it hanging in the air.
She held up her badge.
He smiled at it for a while, then some level of its meaning eked through. “Aw, c’mon. Just getting my buzz on. Not hurting anybody, check?”
“Is that what you told the other two cops who came by today?”
“Didn’t see no cops but you. Just hitting the music and buzzing. Too hot for else.”
“You know Juicy?”
“Sure, man, he’ll tell you I’m no deal.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Dunno. It’s hot, man. Every day’s hot. All the same.”
“Yeah.” It was when you were in a permanent state of stupidity.
She heard approaching footsteps and turned to see a man coming down the hall, head down, fingers snapping. At the door across from Keener’s he pulled out a set of keys.
She stepped his way. He saw her, made her in the flash of an instant. And turned to run.
Perfect, she thought, and sprinted after him. “Police! Halt!” She judged the distance, bent her knees, and jumping up took him in a mid-body tackle.
“You think I want to chase you in this heat?”
“I didn’t do nothing.” He humped under her. “Get off me!”
“Why’d you run?”
