Outside, the air was cold on her face, her hands. It made her think of winter, the long, dark months coming.
«I'll drive you home.»
Peabody's tired face brightened. «Really? All the way downtown?»
«I need to think anyway.»
«Think all you want.» Peabody climbed into the car. «Gotta get ahold of my parents in the morning. Let them know we'll be delayed if we make it out there at all.»
«When were you going?»
«Tomorrow afternoon.» Peabody yawned, enormously. «Maybe beat the most insane of the holiday shuttle traffic.»
«Go.»
«Go where?»
«Go as planned.»
Peabody stopped rubbing her exhausted eyes to blink. «Dallas, I can't just take off to go eat pie at this point of the investigation.»
«I'm telling you that you can.» Traffic was blissfully light. She avoided Broadway and its endless party, and drove through the canyons of her city nearly as alone as a lunar tech on the far side of the moon. «You've got plans, you're entitled to keep them. I'm stalling this,» she said when Peabody opened her mouth again.
Peabody shut it, smiled smugly. «Yeah, I know. Just wanted you to say it. How much time you figure we can buy?»
«Not that much. But my partner's off with her face in the family pie. I got Roarke's relations zeroing in on us. People start scattering with turkey on the brain, they're harder to get in touch with, get balls rolling.»
«Most federal offices are closed tomorrow, and through to Monday. Tibble knew that.»
«Yeah. So maybe it slows things another few hours, maybe another day if God is good. He wants the same thing, so he'll make noises, but he'll stall, too.»
«What about the school, the kids, the staff?»
«I'm still thinking.»
«I asked Avril, well one of them, what they were going to do about the kids. How they were going to explain that there were three mommies. She said they'd be told they were sisters who'd found each other after a long separation. They don't want them to know, not about them. Not about what their father was doing. They're going to go under, Dallas, first opportunity.»
«No question.»
«We're going to give them one.»
Eve kept her eyes straight ahead. «As police officers we won't, in any way, facilitate the escape of material witnesses.»
«Right. I want to talk to my parents. Funny how when something really twists up your thinking—the order of things for you—you want to talk to Mom and Dad.»
«Wouldn't know.»
Peabody winced. «Sorry. Shit, I get stupid when I'm this tired.»
«No problem. I'm saying I wouldn't know because I didn't have any—not normal ones. Neither did they. If that's what makes them artificial, then so am I.»
«I want to talk to my parents,» Peabody repeated after a long moment. «I know I'm lucky to have them, and my brothers, my sisters, all the rest. I know they'll listen, that's the thing. But not having that, having to make yourself out of what gets dumped on you, creating your life out of that… it's not artificial. It's as real as it gets.»
The streets and sky were nearly empty. Occasionally an animated board bloomed out color and light. Dreams of pleasure and beauty and happiness. Bargain prices.
«Do you know why I came to New York?» Eve said.
«No, not really.»
«Because it's a place where you can be alone. You can step out on the street with thousands of other people and be completely alone. Besides being a cop, that's what I thought I wanted most.»
«Was it?»
«For a while, yeah. For a long while it was what I wanted. I'd gone from being anonymous to being monitored constantly through the foster program and state schools. I wanted to be anonymous again, on my terms. To be a badge, period. I don't know, if I'd caught this case ten years ago—five years ago—if I'd have handled it the way I'm doing now. Maybe I'd just have taken them down. Black and white. It's not just the job, the years on it that bring in all the gray. It's the people, dead and alive, you end up connected to who paint it in.»
«I go with the last part. But no matter when you'd caught this, you go this way. Because it's right. And that's what counts, that's what do. Avril Icove's a victim. Somebody needs to be on her side.»
Eve smiled a little. «She has each other.»
«Good one. A little bit of a cheap shot, but good nonetheless.»
«Get some sleep.» Eve pulled up in front of Peabody's building, tag you if I need you to come in, but for now plan to catch some sleep, pack, and go.»
«Thanks for the lift.» Peabody yawned again as she got out. «Happy Thanksgiving, if I don't see you before.»
Eve eased from the curve, and saw in the rearview that McNab had left a light on in the apartment for Peabody.
There'd be a light on for her, too, she thought. And someone who'd listen.
But not yet.
She put her vehicle on autopilot, pulled out her personal 'link.
«Blah,» Nadine said, and Eve could see the faintest of silhouettes on screen.
«Meet me at the Down and Dirty.»
«Huh? What? Now ?»
«Now. Bring a notebook—paper not electronic. No record Nadine, no cams. Just you, old-fashioned paper and pencils. I'll be waiting.»
«But—«
Eve just clicked off, and kept driving.
The bouncer on the door of the sex club was big as a sequoia, black as onyx. He wore gold. A skin-shirt stretched across his massive chest, boots molded their way up the leather pants that coated his legs, and the trio of chains around his neck she imagined could be used as a weapon.
There was a tattoo of a snake slithering over his left cheek.
He was rousting two mopes as she walked up. One white, maybe two-fifty of hard fat, the other mixed race, heavy on the Asian, who looked like a contender for the sumo arena.
He had them both by the scruff of the neck and was quick-stepping them toward the curb.
«Next time you try to stiff one of my em-ploy-ees, I'm gonna twist your cocks clean off before you get a chance to use 'em.»
He knocked their heads together—a technically illegal action— then let them fall in the gutter.
He turned, spotted Eve. «Hey there, white girl.»
«Hey, Crack, how's it going?»
«Oh, can't bitch much.» He slapped his palms together in a drying motion, twice. «What you doing down here? Somebody dead I ain't heard about?»
«I need a privacy room. I've got a meet,» she said when his eyebrows rose up into his wide forehead. «Nadine's on her way. We were never here.»
«Since I figure you two don't want one of my rooms so you can roll around naked together—and ain't that a shame—this must be official. I don't know nothing about official. Come on in.»
She stepped into the blast of noise, of smells that included stale brew, Zoner—and a variety of illegals that could be smoked or otherwise ingested—fresh sex, sweat, and other bodily fluids she didn't choose to identify.
The stage at the front was jammed with naked dancers and a live band outfitted in neon loincloths. Table dancers wearing feathers, glitter, or nothing at all jiggled or wiggled to the obvious delight of the paying patrons.
The bar was jammed, most of the occupants well drunk or stoned.
It was perfect.
«Business is good,» she said at a conversational shout as he blazed a path through the packs of people.
«Holiday time. We be slammed from now 'til January, then we be slammed 'cause it's too fucking cold to party outside. Life's good. How 'bout you, skinny white cop girl.»
«Good enough.»
He led the way upstairs to the privacy rooms. «Your man treating you right?»
«Yeah. Yeah, he mostly has that down cold.»
They backed up when a couple stumbled out of one of the rooms, half-dressed, laughing wildly, and smelling very ripe.
«I don't want their room.»
Crack just grinned, uncoded another. «This here is our deluxe accommodations. Crowd tonight, mostly they're going for economy. She be clean. Make yourself at home, sweet buns, and I'll bring that sexy Nadine right on up when she shows.