Reunion in Death

«I'm getting nowhere trying to track a supplier for the cyanide through standard sources.» Peabody hustled into the elevator behind Eve. «Even considering the number of legal sources for that kind of controlled substance, it's necessary to show authorization with prints. Prints are run through a stringent search and scan. Dunne's are on file, and would have popped.»

«Illegal sources?»

«I've run cyanide poisonings through IRCCA. Stuff's more popular than you might think, but most got their supply through a legal source. The dude in East D.C. where Dunne previously shopped was the major on-planet player, and he's dead. The others on record are mostly small-time, and the majority of them are doing time primarily illegals distribution, with poisons as a sideline. Research indicates poisons aren't very cost effective, narrow profit margin, and are generally not a specialty.»

«Possible she found a way through to a legal source but let's try the other route.» Eve strode to her vehicle, paused. «A lot of talk and jive in prison, and she might have followed up on a contact there. Plus, she had her finger on the world through computer access. Plenty of time to search and research. Her source might not be in New York, but people know people who know people. We're going underground.»

Peabody, a stalwart soldier, paled. «Oh boy.»

Beneath New York was another world, a seamy city of the lost and the vicious. Some went under to toy with that keen edge, the way a child might play with a sharpened knife, just to see how it would slice. Others enjoyed the elemental meanness, the stink of violence that permeated the air as thickly as the stench of garbage and shit.

And some simply got lost there.

Eve left her jacket in the car. She wanted her weapon in full view. Her clutch piece was strapped to her ankle, and she'd shoved a combat knife into her boot.

«Here.» She tossed Peabody a small shock bat. «Know how to use it?»

She had to gulp once, but nodded. «Yes, sir.»

«Hook it to your belt, keep it in plain sight. You kept up with your hand-to-hand?»

«Yeah.» She blew out a breath. «I can handle myself.»

«That's right.» Eve not only wanted her to say it, she wanted her to believe it. «And when you step down there, you remember you're one bad bitch cop, and you drink blood for breakfast.»

«I'm one bad bitch cop, and I drink blood for breakfast. Yuck.»

«Let's go.»

They headed down filthy steps and veered off from the subway entrance into the rat hole of a tunnel that led to the underground. Lights glowed dull red and dirty blue in a kind of snarling carnival of sex, games, and entertainment suited for the cold and the cruel.

Eve caught the stink of vomit and glanced over to see a man down on his hands and knees, puking horribly.

«You okay?»

He didn't look up. «Fuck you.»

Feeling other eyes on her, she squeezed into the passageway behind him, then gave him a solid shove with her boot that sent him facedown in his own vomit. «Oh no,» she said pleasantly, «fuck you.»

Her knife was out of her boot with its honed point at his filthy throat before he could curse her again. «I'm a cop, asshole, but don't think I won't slice your useless throat ear-to-ear just for the fun of it. Where can I find Mook today?»

His eyes were fire-red, his breath amazing. «I don't know no mother-fucking Mook.»

She risked all manner of vermin, fisted a hand in his stringy hair, and yanked his head back. «Everybody knows mother-fucking Mook. You want to die here, or live to puke another day?»

«I don't keep tabs on the cocksucker.» His lips peeled back as the point of the knife pressed against his jugular. «Maybe VR Hell, fuck do I know?»

«Good. Go right on back to what you were doing.» She released him with just enough force to send him sliding into the muck again, then made a show of slapping the jagged-edged knife back in her boot for the benefit of the onlookers lurking in the shadows.

«Anybody here wants trouble, I'm happy to oblige.» She lifted her voice just enough to have it echo, to have it punch through the mean flood of viper rock pumping out of doorways. «Otherwise my business is with Mook, who's been described by this fine example of humanity as a mother-fucking cocksucker.»

There was a slight movement, shadow in shadow, to her left. She laid her hand on her weapon, and the movement stilled. «Anybody hassles me or my uniform, we start busting asses, and we aren't particularly delicate about how many of those busted asses end up in the city morgue, are we, Officer?»

«No, sir, Lieutenant.» Peabody prayed her voice wouldn't crack and embarrass both of them. «In fact, we're hoping to win the pool on morgue count this week.»

«What's that up to, anyway?»

«Two hundred and thirty-five dollars. And sixty cents.»