There was so much he wanted to see. So much he wanted to do. As he hitched on a fresh shirt and jeans, he began to speculate, to plot, and to plan. When he stepped back out into the living area, he was eager to begin.
He saw his sister busily tidying and grinned. "You make me feel like company."
"Well…" She'd tucked away every murder and mayhem disc and file she could find. It would have to do. She glanced over, blinked.
Wow, was all she could think. Why hadn't she noticed in her first rush of delight in seeing him? Her baby brother had grown up. And he was a genuine eye treat. "You look good – sort of filled out and everything."
"It's just a clean shirt."
"Right. Do you want some juice, some tea?"
"Ah… I really want to go out. I've got this whole guidebook thing. I studied it on the way east. You know how many museums there are in Manhattan alone?"
"No, but I bet you do." Inside her regulation shoes, Peabody's toes curled and flexed. Her feet, she decided, were about to get a workout. "Let me change, and we'll check them out."
An hour later, she was almost tearfully grateful for the airsoles, for the thick soft wool of her slacks, and the lining of her winter coat. It wasn't just museums Zeke was after. It was everything.
He took videos with the palm unit he told her he'd splurged on for the trip. It would have been ripped off a dozen times if she hadn't kept her eyes peeled for street thieves. No matter how often she lectured him to watch himself, to recognize the signs and the moves, he just smiled and nodded.
They rode to the top of the Empire State Building, stood in the freezing, bitter wind until the tips of her ears went numb. And his pale gray eyes glowed with the wonder of it. They toured the Met, gawked at the storefronts along Fifth, stared up at the tourist blimps, bumped along the sky glides, and gnawed on stale pretzels he'd insisted on buying from a glide-cart.
Only deep and abiding love could have convinced her to agree to skidding over the ice rink at Rockefeller Center when her calf muscles were already weeping from three hours of urban hiking.
But he made her remember what it was to be stunned by the city, to see all it had to offer. She realized, watching him be awed, time after time, that she'd forgotten to look.
And if she had to flash the badge she'd tucked in her coat pocket at a gimlet-eyed grifter looking to score the tourist, it didn't spoil the day.
Still, by the time she finally talked him into stopping for a hot drink and a bite to eat, she'd decided it was imperative she outline some very specific do's and don'ts. He was going to be on his own a great deal when he wasn't working, she thought. He might have been twenty-three, but he had all the naive trust in his fellow man of a sheltered five-year-old.
"Zeke." She warmed her hands on a bowl of lentil soup and tried not to think about the soy-beef burger she'd spied on the menu. "We should talk about what you're going to do while I'm working."
"I'll be building cabinets."
"Yeah, but my hours are…" She gestured vaguely. "You never know. You'll be spending a lot of time on your own, so – "
"You don't have to worry about me." He grinned at her, spooned up his own soup. "I've been off the farm before."
"You've never been here before."
He sat back, shot her the exasperated look brothers reserve for nagging sisters. "I carry my money in my front pocket. I don't talk to the people who cart around those cases full of wrist units and PPCs, and I don't move in to play that card game like the one they had going on Fifth Avenue, even though it looks like fun."
"It's a con. You can't win."
"Still looked like fun." But he wouldn't brood on it, not when she had that line dug between her eyebrows. "I don't strike up conversations on the subway."
"Not with a chemi-head looking to score." She rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Zeke, the guy was practically foaming at the mouth. Anyhow." She waved that away. "I don't expect you to lock yourself into the apartment on your free time. I just want you to be careful. It's a great city, but it eats people every day. I don't want one of them to be you."
"I'll be careful."
"And you'll stick to the major tourist areas, carry your palm-link?"
"Yes, Mom." He grinned at her again, and looked so young Peabody's heart stuttered. "So, you up for the Fly Over Manhattan tour?"
"Sure." She managed to smile instead of wince. "You bet. Soon as we're done here." She took her time with the soup. "When are you supposed to get started on this job?"
"Tomorrow. We set it all up before I left. They approved the plans, the estimates. They paid for my transpo and expenses."
"You said they saw your work when they were out in Arizona on vacation?"
"She did." And just thinking of it had his pulse running a little faster. "She bought one of the carvings I'd done for Camelback Cooperative Artworks. Then she and Silvie – I don't think you ever met Silvie, she's a glass artist. She was running the co-op that day and she mentioned how I'd designed and built the cabinets and counters and the displays. And then Mrs. Branson mentioned how she and her husband were looking for a carpenter, and – "
"What?" Peabody's head snapped up.
"They were looking for a carpenter, and – "
"No, what was that name?" She grabbed his hand, clamped down. "Did you say Branson?"
"That's right. The Bransons hired me. Mr. and Mrs. B. Donald Branson. He owns Branson T and T. Good tools."
"Oh." Peabody set down her spoon. "Oh, shit, Zeke."
– =O=-***-=O=-
Fixer's was a grungy smear in an area not known for its tidiness. Just off Ninth, a bare block from the entrance to the tunnel, Fixer's was a dilapidated storefront mined with security bars, patched with intercoms and peek lenses, and as welcoming as a cockroach.
The one-way windows offered the passerby a dingy field of black. The door was reinforced steel, studded with a complicated series of locks that made the police seal look like a joke.
People who loitered in the area knew how to mind their own business – which was usually second-story work. One glance at Eve had most of them finding something else to do and somewhere else to do it.
Eve used her master on the police seal, relieved that the sweeper team hadn't engaged Fixer's locks. At least she wouldn't have to spend time decoding them. It made her think of Roarke and wonder how long it would have taken him to slide right through them.
Since a part of her would have enjoyed watching him do just that, she scowled as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
It smelled – not quite foul but close, she decided. Sweat, grease, bad coffee, old piss. "Lights, full," she ordered, then narrowed her eyes at the sudden brightness.
The interior of the shop was no more cheerful than the exterior. Not a single chair invited a customer to sit and relax. The floor, the sickly green of baby vomit, carried the grime and scars of decades of wear. The way her boots stuck and made sucking noises as she walked told her that mopping up hadn't been a major occupation of the deceased.
Gray metal shelves rose up one wall and were jammed full in a system that defied all logic.
Miniscreens, security cams, porta-links, desk logs, communication and entertainment systems crowded together in varying stages of repair or harvesting.
Jumbled on the other side of the room were more units she took to be complete as the hand-lettered sign above warned that pickup must be made within thirty days or the customer defaulted the merchandise.
She counted five No Credit Given postings in a room no larger than fifteen feet wide.
Fixer's sense of humor – for lack of a better term – was evidenced by the dangling human skull over the cashier's counter. The sign under the sagging jaw read The Last Shoplifter.
"Yeah, that's a laugh riot," Eve murmured and huffed out a breath.
Damn if the place didn't give her the creeps, she realized. The only window was behind her and barred. The only outside door mired with locks. She glanced up, studied the security monitor. It had been left running and gave her a full view of the street. On another, securing the interior, she could study herself on the crystal-clear screen.