"Well, we'll eliminate the females, for now. The barmaid at the Shamrock said Shawn was talking to a man, the kid on the West Side – "
"His name's Kevin."
"Yeah, the kid said a man. And the creep who's been calling me – even if he's using voice alteration to sound like a man – has a male rhythm to his speech. And typical male responses to insults and sarcasm."
"It's illuminating for me," Roarke said dryly, "to discover your fascinating opinion on my gender."
"When push comes, men are different, that's all. Computer, delete female names from screen." Eve paced in front of it, nodding. "That's a little more manageable. Best place to start is at the top. O'Malley's group, father, two brothers."
"On screen three." Commanding manually now, Roarke shifted the three names onto the next screen. "Full data, with image. Ah, Shamus O'Malley, the patriarch, I do remember him. He and my father had some dealings together."
"Looks like a violent tendency," Eve commented. "You can see it in the eyes. Major scar on the left cheek, a nose that's been broken more than once by the look of it. This makes him seventy-six, and he's currently a guest of the Irish government for first degree assault with a deadly."
"A prince of a man."
Eve hooked her thumbs in her robe pockets. "I'm going to eliminate anyone doing time. It's impossible to say if our guy's acting alone, but we'll concentrate on him."
"All right." Roarke tapped a few keys and ten more names disappeared.
"That wipes the smiling O'Malleys."
"They were always a bad lot, and not bright with it."
"Go to the next."
"Calhouns. Father, one brother, one son. Liam Calhoun," Roarke mused. "He ran a little food shop. He was a decent sort. The brother and the boy I don't remember at all."
"The brother, James, no criminal record. Guy's a doctor, attached to the National Health Services. Forty-seven, one marriage, three children. Reads like pillar of the community."
"I don't recall him. Obviously he didn't run in my circles."
"Obviously," Eve said so dryly Roarke laughed. "The son, also Liam, is in college, following his uncle's footsteps it appears. Young Liam Calhoun. Good-looking… nineteen, single, top ten percent of his class."
"I remember a boy, vaguely. Scruffy, quiet." Roarke studied the image of a cheerful face and sober eyes. "Looks like he's making something of himself from the academic data."
"The sins of the father don't always transfer. Still, medical knowledge would have come in handy in these particular murders. We'll hold these two, but put them at the bottom of the list. Bring up the next group."
"Rileys. Father, four brothers – "
"Four? God Almighty."
"And all of them a terror to decent citizens everywhere. Take a good look at Brian Riley. He once kicked my head in. Of course two of his brothers and a close personal friend were holding me down at the time. Black Riley, he liked to be called."
Roarke reached for a cigarette as the old, well-buried bitterness punched its way free. "We're of an age, you see, and you could say Riley had a keen dislike for me."
"And why was that?"
"Because I was faster, my fingers lighter." He smiled a little. "And the girls preferred me."
"Well, your Black Riley's been in and out of cages most of his young life." Eve angled her head. Another good-looking man, she mused, with fair hair and sulky green eyes. Ireland appeared to be filled with handsome men who looked for trouble. "But he hasn't served any time in the last few years. Employment record's spotty, mostly as head knocker at bars and skin clubs. But this is interesting. He worked security for an electronics firm for nearly two years. He could have picked up quite a bit in that amount of time if he has a brain."
"There was nothing wrong with his brain, it was his attitude."
"Right. Can you get into his passport?"
"The official one, easily enough. Give me a minute."
Eve studied the image while Roarke worked. Green eyes, she mused. The kid – Kevin – had said the man he'd seen had green eyes. Or he'd thought so. Of course eye color could be changed as easily as a spoiled child's mind.
"Immigration records, screen four," Roarke told her.
"Yeah, he's visited our fair city a time or two," Eve noted. "Let's log these dates, and we'll see if we can find out what he was up to while he was here. Were the brothers close?"
"The Rileys were like wild dogs. They'd have torn out each other's throat for the same bone, but they'd form a pack against an outsider."
"Well, let's take a good, close look at all four of them."
By three a.m. she was losing her edge. The data and images on screen began to blur and run together. Names and faces, motives and murder. When she felt herself drifting to sleep where she stood, Eve pressed her fingers hard against her burning eyes.
"Coffee," she muttered, but found herself staring at the AutoChef without a clue how to operate it.
"Sleep." Roarke pressed a mechanism that had a bed sliding out of the wall.
"No, I just have to catch my second wind. We've got it down to ten possibles. And I want to look harder at that Francis Rowan who became a priest. We can – "
"Take a break." He came up behind her, guided her toward the bed. "We're tired."
"Okay, we'll take a nap. An hour." Head and body seemed to float apart as she slid onto the bed. "You lie down too."
"I will." He lay beside her, gathered her close. He could feel her fall into sleep, a lazy tumble that had the arm she'd tossed around his waist going limp.
He stared at the screens a moment longer, into the void of his past. He'd separated himself from that, from them. The boy from Dublin's sad alleys had made himself rich, successful, respected, but he'd never forgotten what it was to be poor, a failure and disdained.
And he knew, as he lay in the soft bed on smooth linen sheets in a magnificent house in a city he'd made his home, that he would have to go back.
What he might find there, and in himself, troubled him.
"Lights out," he ordered, and willed himself to follow Eve into sleep.
It was the beep of an incoming transmission that woke them both three hours later. Roarke swore when Eve jerked up and the top of her head caught him smartly on the jaw.
"Oh, sorry." She rubbed her head. "Is that yours or mine?''
"Mine." Gingerly he rotated his jaw. "It's a warning alarm. I have a conference call set up for six-thirty."
"I've got McNab and Peabody here at seven. Christ." She scrubbed her hands over her face and, when her fingers dipped below her eyes, studied him. "How come you never look ragged in the morning?"
"Just one of those little gifts from God." He scooped back his hair, which managed to look sexily tousled. "I'll shower in here, save time. I should be finished up with this call by the time McNab gets here. I'd like to work with him this morning."
"Roarke – "
"The transmission didn't come from this house. So I have an electronic leak somewhere. I know the setup here, in and out. He doesn't." He added a bit of charm to his smile. "I've worked with Feeney."
"That's different." But since she couldn't explain how it was different, she shrugged. "McNab has to clear it. I won't order him to work with a civilian."
"Fair enough."
By eight, Eve had Peabody installed in a temporary office down the hall from her own. It was actually a small and elegant sitting room off a sweeping guest bedroom, but it was equipped with a tidy little communication and information center for the convenience of overnight associates who often visited.
Peabody gawked at the original pen-and-ink drawings covering the walls, the hand-knotted area rug, the deep silver cushions spread over an S-shaped settee.