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“And that surprises you?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t they have better things to do—that’s one. The estimate is about fifteen percent of them figured I could pull some strings and get them in after all. First, just no. And second, why would I? Nearly nine hundred contacted me more than once, and a full three hundred and seventy-three live in the New York area.
“And I got seventy-eight requests for sex, ninety-three if you count the ones who had sex with me in their dreams or in another dimension, and nine marriage proposals.”
“Having sex with someone who’s not me in an alternate dimension is grounds for divorce.”
“In one case we were dragons. Golden dragons who had sex in mid-flight over a sea the color of port wine.”
“And still.” He sat on the corner of her desk. “You are in a very real sense a—” He checked the word celebrity.
No point making her head explode.
“Public figure,” he amended. “People will fantasize, and the majority of the time a little fantasizing is healthy and creative.”
“Dragon sex,” Eve repeated.
“It’s creative,” he pointed out. “Should I tell you about my correspondence?”
“You get stuff like this? Of course you get stuff like this,” she said before he could answer. “You’ve probably had dragon sex in every dimension.”
“Animals, mythical and otherwise, are standards. Food is also quite popular as seduction or sexual kink. Combinations of the two can be inventive.”
He only smiled when she stared at him. “It can make for entertaining reading when you’ve time for it.”
“People are deeply disturbed. I’m giving the ones here who live in the area priority, the ones involving sex, hit the bottom. Sex doesn’t seem to be a major player here. Maybe we can check on the comp lab, see the status.”
“Give it another thirty,” Roarke began, “we can—”
He broke off as her communicator signaled.
She pulled it out, stared at it for a moment. “Hell,” she murmured. “Dallas.”
“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, report to 358 West One Hundred and Eighth Street, fourth level. See officers on scene regarding assault.”
“Assault?” Eve repeated, already on her feet. “The victim is alive?”
“The victim, Hastings, Dirk, sustained minor injuries. Probable connection to your current investigation is ninety-eight-point-three.”
“Contact Peabody, Detective Delia.” Eve pushed away from the desk as she spoke. “I’m on my way.”
She cut it off before Dispatch acknowledged. “Hastings—photographer—asshole, hell of a temper. I looked at him, you remember, summer before last.”
“Portrait murders—I thought of them that way,” Roarke added as they rushed down the steps.
She hadn’t asked if he intended to go with her—a waste of both their time.
“Right. Turned out the killer had been, briefly, one of his assistants. He goes through them like—”
“You go through sparring droids?” Roarke suggested as he got their coats.
“Something like that. I kicked him in the balls when he came at me—first time I saw him. Interrupted his work. His zone, he called it. He had a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about that, and me.”
The wind caught her as she stepped outside, still dragging on her coat. And she hissed when the car wasn’t there.
“I’ve sent for it,” Roarke told her. “Give it a moment—and put this on.”
She grabbed the scarf rather than argue. “He’s a big guy,” Eve speculated. “Maybe the stun didn’t take him out, maybe he got a piece. And maybe I should know better than to speculate.”
