“Still…” She trailed off, and he saw when her annoyance faded enough for her to make the neighborhood. Just as he saw her smile bloom with surprise, and with pleasure, when she stopped in front of the hole-in-the-wall pizza joint.
“Polumbi’s. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. It hasn’t really changed at all.”
“It’s nice isn’t it, when some things remain constant? You told me you came here when you first got to the city. You had your first slice of New York pizza, watched the people walking by. And you were happy. You were free.”
“I felt like my life could finally begin when I sat at the counter at the window. Nobody knew me or cared. I had no friends, no lovers. Nobody but me. And it was incredible.”
She looked at him, those gilded eyes warm, so for a moment it seemed no one else walked the sidewalk, no one else breathed the air. Only the two of them.
“Things are different now. It’s good they changed. It’s good this is the same.” This time she took his hand, linked fingers firmly. “Let’s go have some pizza.”
They didn’t take the counter, but grabbed a narrow two-top and sat on squat, stingily cushioned stools.
He could have chosen anywhere, Eve thought. Snapped his fingers and scored them a table for two at the most exclusive restaurant in the city. Somewhere with snooty waiters, a superior wine cellar, and a temperamental chef who created complex dishes with an artist’s skill.
But he’d given her a crowded, noisy joint where the tables crammed so close together the patrons’ elbows bumped, where the scents of spices and onions and cheap wine in squat carafes stung the air.
More, he’d given her a memory.
When they’d ordered, she propped her chin on her hand. Yes, things were different now, she thought. She was hardly embarrassed at all that she went gooey over him. “Did you buy this place?”
“No. Some things should remain constant. But we’re keeping an eye on it, in the event the owners decide to retire or sell off.”
So it could stay as it was, for her, she thought, even if years passed before she came back.
“It seems to be the day for people to give me presents. I’ve got one for you.”
“Really? What would it be?”
“There’s a cookie in my file bag-a really good cookie with your name on it. Figuratively.”
“What kind of cookie?”
She grinned at him. “Mega chocolate chunk. Nadine came by. It’s her own fault she got the bullpen used to being bribed with baked goods, but she comes through.”
“She wanted info on the investigation?”
“Actually no.” The beer came in bottles, which made it a much safer bet than the wine. Eve picked hers up when the waitress set it on the table. “She did say she’d had Bart on the show a couple times, and I think she might’ve pushed there if she hadn’t been so whacked.”
“Her book hits this week.”
“Exactly. And when were you going to remind me about this party deal tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow.” He smiled, sipped his beer. “Giving you less time to fuss and fret about having to go to a party when you’re deep into a case.”
“I don’t fuss and fret.”
“No, you bitch and complain, but it’s such a nice evening I used code.”
She eyed him over a swig of beer. There was no point in denying what was truth. “I suppose you’ve already decided what I’m wearing.”
“There would be suitable attire earmarked, though naturally you might decide you’d prefer something else.” He brushed his hand lightly over the top of hers. “You could always go through your closet tonight and give it some thought.”
“Yeah, that’s going to happen. I have to go. I mean, if the case breaks I can work around it and put in an appearance.”
“If the case breaks, assuming you’re right about it being one of the three, you’d hardly be facing down a career criminal or fighting for your life. At the core of it, they’re still geeks.”
“One or more of them killed a fellow geek in a really creative and ugly way,” she reminded him. “But yeah, I think I can handle him, her, or them.”
“So tell me why you have to go, which is not your default statement when it comes to events like this.”
She blew out a breath as the pizza landed in front of them. “Because I meant it when I said Nadine was whacked. She’s got herself all wound up, wrapped up, twisted up about the book thing. How maybe it sucks and all that. Lack of confidence isn’t what you call her default setting either.”
“She put a lot into it, and it’s, for her, a new area.”
“I get it.” Eve shrugged with another sip of beer. “So I’ve got to at least show my face, do the moral support deal. Which is one of the annoyances of friendships.”
“There’s my girl.”
She laughed, picked up a slice, then took a bite. Closed her eyes. She could see herself, with absolute clarity, taking that first long-ago bite by the window while New York and all its possibilities rushed, pushed, and bitched along on the other side of the glass.
She opened them, smiled into the eyes of her friend, her lover, her partner. “It’s still damn good pizza.”
He’d been right, she thought as they walked outside again. The hour had cleared her head, settled her mood, geared her up for the next steps and stages.
“I want to go by U-Play before we head uptown.”
“It would be closed by this time,” he said, as his fingers linked with hers. “I can certainly get you in if you’re after a bit of B &E.”
“Nobody’s breaking and entering. I don’t want to go in anyway.”
“Then?”
“I figure it’s closed, sure, but I wonder if it’s empty.”
He indulged her, wound his way through traffic and farther downtown. The summer light lengthened the day, spun it out and gilded it. The heat of the day had given way, just a little, just enough, to a few fitful breezes.
Both tourists and those who made their home in the city took advantage, filling street and sidewalk with a throng of bare legs, bare arms. She watched a woman, blond hair flying, race along, long tanned legs scissoring with pretty feet balanced on towering needle heels.
“How do they do that?” She pointed to the blond as she watched her lope along. “How do women, or the occasional talented tranny or cross-dresser-walk on streets like this in those heels, much less run like a gazelle across… whatever gazelles run across.”
“I imagine it’s the result of considerable practice, perhaps even for the gazelle.”
“And if they didn’t? If women, trannies, and cross-dressers everywhere revolted and said, screw this, we’re not wearing these ankle-breaking stilts anymore-and they didn’t-wouldn’t the sadists who design those bastards have to throw in the towel?”
“I’m sorry to tell you, your women, trannies, and cross-dressers will never revolt. Many of them actually appear to like the style and the lift.”
“You just like them because they make the ass jiggle.”
“Absolutely guilty.”
“Men still rule the world. I don’t get it.”
“No comment as any would be misconstrued. Well, you were right about this.” He eased onto the edge of the warehouse lot. “Closed, no doubt, but not empty.”
She studied the faint glow of light against the glass, imagined the way the sun would slant through the windows this late in the day. The shadows cast, the glare tossed back at certain angles. Yes, they’d want the artificial light. For comfort, she thought, and for practicality.
Just as she imagined they’d want to be together, the three of them, in that space. For comfort, and maybe for practicality.
“Are you seriously imagining them in there discussing how they’d managed murder and what steps to take next?”
“Maybe.” She tilted her head, studied him. “You don’t like it because you like them, and because you see something of yourself in all four of them. Just a little piece here and there. Because of that, because you’d never kill a friend, never kill an innocent or kill simply because killing was expedient, you don’t like the idea one of them did.”