Let the buyer damn well beware, Eve thought.
She was stopped at a red when a Rapid Cab in the next lane attempted a maneuver and clipped the rental sedan behind Eve.
She let out a sigh, pulled out her communicator to inform Traffic. Her intention to let her involvement end there was quashed when the sedan's driver leaped out, began to screech and pound her fists on the cab's hood.
That brought the cabbie out, and just her luck, another woman. That had the pushy-shovey starting immediately.
Horns blasted, shouts raged, and a number of sidewalk onlookers began to cheer and choose sides.
She actually saw a glide-cart operator start making book. What a town.
«Hold it, hold it, hold it!»
Both women swung around at Eve's shout, and the driver of the sedan grabbed what Eve identified as a panic button, worn on an ornamental chain around her neck.
«Wait!» Eve snapped, but was blasted by the ear-splitting scream.
«I know what this is, I know what you're doing!» The woman blasted the button again and had Eve's eyes watering. «I know the kind of scams you run in this godforsaken city. You think because we're from Minnesota we don't know what's what? Police! Police!»
«I am the—«
She carried a handbag the size of her home state and swung it like a batter aiming for the fences. It caught Eve full in the face, and considering the stars that exploded in her head, must have been filled with rocks from her home state.
«Jesus Christ!»
The woman used her momentum to spin a full circle and swung at the cabbie. Forewarned, the cabbie nimbly leaped out of range.
«Police! Police! I'm being mugged right on the street in broad daylight. Where are the damn police!»
«You're going to be unconscious on the street in broad daylight,» Eve warned, and ducked the next swing as she dug out her badge. «I am the damn police in this godforsaken city, and what the hell are you doing in my world?»
«That's a fake! You think I don't know a fake badge just because I'm from Minnesota?»
When she hefted her purse for another swing, Eve drew her weapon. «You want to bet this is fake, you Minnesota moron?»
The woman, a good one-seventy, stared. Then her eyes rolled back. On the way down, she toppled over on the cabbie, who might have weighed in at one-twenty, fully dressed.
Beside her, as Eve glared down at the tangle of limbs at her feet, the sedan's window opened.
«My mom! She killed my mom!»
She glanced in, saw the sedan was packed with kids. She didn't care to count the number. They were all screaming or crying at a decibel that put the panic button in the shade.
«Oh, bloody, buggering hell.» It was one of Roarke's favorites, and seemed most appropriate. «I didn't kill anybody. She fainted. I'm the police. Look.» She held her badge to the window.
Inside the weeping and wailing continued unabated. On the ground, the cabbie, obviously dazed, struggled to pull herself from under her opponent.
«I barely tapped her.» New York was so thick in her voice an air-jack wouldn't have dented it. Eve felt immediate kinship. «And you saw, you saw, she started beating on my ride. And she shoved me first. You saw.»
«Yeah, yeah, yeah.»
«She clocked you good. You're coming up a bruise there. Damn tourists. Hey, you kids, button it. Your old lady's fine. Slam the lie down, now!»
The screams subsided to wet whimpers.
«Nice job,» Eve commented.
«Got two of my own.» The cabbie rubbed her bruised ass, shrugged «You just gotta know how to handle them.»
They stood a moment, studying the now moaning woman, as the hysteria of horns and voices raged around them. Two uniforms hotfooted it through people, through vehicles. Eve held up her badge.
«Fender bump. Cab against rental. No visible vehicular damage.»
«What's with her?» one of the uniforms asked, nodding toward the woman who attempted to sit up.
«Got herself worked up, took a swing at me, passed out.»
«You want we should take her in for assaulting an officer?»
«Hell, no. Just haul her up, load her in, and get her the hell out of here. She makes any noises about the bump, or pressing charges, then you tell her she pushes it, she's going to spend Thanksgiving in a cage. Assault with a damn purse.»
She crouched down, shoved her badge in the woman's face again. «You hear any of that? You take any of that in? Do us all a favor. Get in that heap you rented and keep driving.» Eve rose. «Welcome to gee-forsaken New York.»
She glanced at the cabbie. «You sustain any injuries in the fall?»
«Shit, ain't the first time my ass hit the street. She lets it go, I let it go. I got better things to do.»
«Good. Officers, it's your party now.»
She got back in her car, checked her face in the mirror as she waiter out the next red. The bruise was blooming from the tip of her nose right up her cheekbone to the corner of her eye.
People were a hazard to the damn human race.
Though her face throbbed, she swung by the Icove residence. She wanted another shot at Avril.
One of the police droids opened the door after verifying her ID.
«Where are they?»
«Two are on the second level with the minors and my counterpart. One is in the kitchen. They've made no attempt to leave, and have made no outside contact.»
«Stand by,» she ordered, and walked through the house to the kitchen.
Avril was at the stove pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven. She was dressed casually in a blue sweater and black pants, and her hair was pulled back in a shining tail.
«Ms. Icove.»
«Oh, you startled us.» She set the tray down on the stovetop. «We enjoy baking on occasion, and the children love when we have fresh cookies.»
«There's only one of you in here, so why don't you drop the trio bit? Why didn't you tell me about the surgeries, the subliminal control programs performed on minors routinely at Brookhollow?»
«They're all part of the process, the training. We assumed you already knew.» She began to move the cookies from baking tray to cooling rack. «Is this an official, recorded interview?»
«No. No record. I'm off duty.»
Avril turned fully, and concern moved into her eyes. «Your face is bruised.»
Eve poked a tongue at the inside of her cheek, relieved she didn't taste blood. «It's a jungle out there.»
«I'll get the med kit.»
«Don't worry about it. When's Deena due to contact you, Avril?»
«We thought she would by now. We're starting to worry. Lieutenant, she's our sister. That relationship is as true for us as if we were blood. We don't want anything to happen to her because of something we did.»
«What about something you didn't do? Like telling me where to find her?»
«We can't, unless she tells us.»
«Is she working with the others? The others who got away?»
Avril carefully removed her apron. «There are some who formed an underground. There are some who simply wanted to disappear, to live a normal life. Deena's had help, but what she's done—what we've done,» she corrected, «is what she, and you, I imagine, would call un-sanctioned. Deena felt something had to be done, now. Something strong and permanent. We felt, because of what we'd learned about our children, that she was right.»
«By this time tomorrow, Quiet Birth will be all over the media. You want it stopped? Public outrage is going to go a long way to making sure it is. Help me clean up the rest of it. Where are the nurseries, Avril?»
«What will happen to the children, the babies, the yet born?»
«I don't know. But I suspect there'll be a lot of loud voices calling for their rights, their protection. That's part of human makeup, too, isn't it? Protecting and defending the innocent and the defenseless.»
«Not everyone will see it that way.»
«Enough will. I can give you my word I know how this story'll be broken, the tone that's going to be set. The odds of Deena going to prison for her crimes to date are slim to none. Those odds start climbing if she continues her mission now that we've taken steps to stop the project, to shut down the training area.»