"Free-Agers." Eyes shifting for more customers, he slid her credits into his safe slot. "Protest on conspicuous consumption. Hundreds of 'em, stretched across Fifth like a pretty ribbon. Singing. Want a wheat muffin to go with that? Fresh."
"No."
"Gonna be here awhile," he warned and stepped onto his cart to glide through standing traffic.
"Son of a bitch." Eve scanned the scene. She was blocked in on all sides by furious commuters. Her ears were ringing and heat was pumping out of her car like a furnace.
She slammed back in, beat on the control panel with her fist, and managed to knock the temperature down to a brisk sixty. Overhead, a tourist blimp trundled by, full of gawkers.
With no faith whatsoever in her vehicle, Eve rammed it into vertical lift and hit her official warning siren. The siren wheezed on, no match for the cacophony of noise, but she managed a shaky lift. Her wheels missed the roof of the car in front of her by at least an inch as her vehicle coughed and choked its way into the air.
"Next stop, recycling heap. I swear it," she muttered and she punched at her communicator. "Peabody, what the fuck is going on here?"
"Sir." Peabody popped on screen, eyes bland, mouth sober. "I believe you've encountered the jam incited by the protest on Fifth."
"That wasn't scheduled. I know damn well it wasn't on the boards for this morning. They can't have a permit."
"Free-Agers don't believe in permits, sir." She cleared her throat when Eve snarled. "I believe if you head west, you'll have better luck on Seventh. Traffic is heavy there, but it's moving. If you check your dash monitor – "
"Yeah, like that's going to work in this piece of shit. Call Maintenance and tell them they're meat. Then contact the commander, explain that I may be a few minutes late for the meeting." As she spoke, she wrestled with the car, which tended to dip and cause both pedestrians and other drivers to stare up in terror. "If I don't fall on someone, I should be there in twenty minutes."
She avoided, barely, the edge of a billboard hologram touting the delights of private air travel. She and the Jet Star headed in opposite directions with varying degrees of success. She nicked the curb as she set down on Seventh and couldn't blame the suit and tie pumping up his air skates for flipping her the bird.
But she'd missed him, hadn't she?
She was just indulging in a sigh of relief when her communicator shrilled.
"Any unit, any unit. Twelve seventeen, roof of Tattler Building, Seventh and Forty-second. Respond immediately. Unidentified female, considered armed."
Twelve seventeen, Eve thought. Self-termination threat. What the hell was this? "Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, responding. ETA five minutes."
She beat her siren into life and hit vertical again.
The Tattler Building, home of the nation's most popular tabloid, was shiny and new. The buildings on its former site had been razed in the thirties for the urban beautification program, which was a euphemism for the decay of infrastructure and construction that had plagued New York during the period.
It speared up in silvery steel, bullet-shaped, and was ringed by circling skywalks and glides with a fresh-air restaurant spilling out from its base.
Eve double parked, grabbed her field kit, and pushed her way through the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. She flipped her badge at the security guard and watched relief drown his face.
"Thank Christ. She's up there, holding everybody off with antimugging spray. Got Bill dead in the eyes when he tried to grab her."
"Who is she?" Eve demanded as he hustled his way toward the interior elevator banks.
"Cerise Devane. She owns the fucking place."
"Devane?" Eve knew her vaguely. Cerise Devane, CEO of Tattler Enterprises, was one of the privileged and influential people who sauntered in Roarke's circles. "Cerise Devane is on the roof threatening to jump? What is this, some sort of insane publicity stunt to bump up their circulation?"
"Looks real to me." He puffed out his cheeks. "She's buck ass naked, too. That's all I know," the guard claimed as the elevator shot upward. "Her assistant made the call. Frank Rabbit. You can get more out of him – if he's conscious by now. Guy keeled right over when she went out on the ledge. That's what I heard."
"You call for psych?"
"Somebody did. We got the company shrink up there now, and a specialist in self-termination is on the way. Fire department, too, and air rescue. Everything's backed up. Bad traffic jam on Fifth."
"Tell me about it."
The doors opened onto the roof, and Eve stepped out into a brisk, cooling wind that hadn't been able to find its way through the towering walls of buildings to the valley of the streets. She took a quick scan.
Cerise's office was built onto the roof, or more accurately, into it. Slanted walls of treated glass formed a peak and would afford the CEO a three hundred sixty degree view of the city and people she loved to dish up in her paper.
Through the glass, Eve could see the artwork, decor, and equipment designed for a top-flight office. And on the L-shaped lounging sofa, a man was stretched out with a compress on his forehead.
"If that's Rabbit, tell him to pull himself together and get out here to fill me in. And get anyone who isn't essential off this roof. Clear that crowd off the streets. If she goes off, we don't need her squashing bystanders."
"I just don't have the man power," the guard began.
"Get Rabbit out here," she repeated and called Cop Central. "Peabody, I've got a situation."
"I heard. What do you need?"
"Get down here, send a crowd dispersal unit to move those people off the street. Bring me all available data on Cerise Devane. See if Feeney can put a freeze on her 'links – home, personal, and portable – for the last twenty-four hours. Make it snappy."
"Done," Peabody responded and broke transmission.
She turned as the guard all but carried a young man across to her. Rabbit's company tie was loose, his stylishly shaped hair was mussed and matted. His hands, neatly manicured, shook.
"Tell me exactly what happened," she snapped. "Make it fast, and make it clear. You can fall apart when I'm finished with you."
"She just – just walked out of the office." His voice hitched and dipped and he sagged weakly against the supporting arm of the guard. "She looked so happy. She was almost dancing. She – she'd taken off her clothes. She'd taken them off."
Eve cocked a brow. At the moment, Rabbit seemed more shocked by his boss's sudden whim for exhibitionism than the possibility of her death. "What led up to it?"
"I don't know. I swear, I have no idea. She'd wanted me to come in early, about eight. She was upset over one of the lawsuits. We're always getting sued. She was smoking and gulping coffee and pacing. Then she sent me out to light a fire under Legal and said she was going to take a few minutes to relax and level out."
He stopped, covered his face with his hands. "Fifteen minutes later she walked out, smiling and – and nude. I was so stunned, I just sat there. Just sat there." His teeth began to chatter. "I've never even seen her without her shoes."
"Being naked's not her big problem now," Eve pointed out. "Did she speak to you, say anything?"
"I, well, I was so stunned, you see. I said something, something like, 'Ms. Devane, what are you doing? Is something wrong?' And she just laughed. She said it was perfect. She had it all figured out now, and everything was wonderful. She was going to sit out on the ledge awhile before she jumped. I thought she was joking, and I was nervous so I laughed a little."
His eyes were stricken. "I laughed, and then I saw her go to the edge of the roof. Jesus. She just popped over the side. I thought she'd jumped, and I ran out and over. There she was, sitting on the ledge, swinging her legs and humming. I asked her please to come back up before she lost her balance. She just laughed, spritzed a little of the spray at me, and told me she'd just found her balance and to go away like a good boy."