“Lose the stickers, or I drop you both.”
As one, they turned on her. The man desperate for his fix lunged wildly. She heard one of the pedestrians screaming. As the knife arched up, she took her man down with a stun across the knees.
He fell toward her. She pivoted, blocked, then brought the heel of her boot down hard on his knife hand.
While he wailed, flopped, she saw the second man had moved fast. He had the side of his blade lodged at the throat of the screaming pedestrian. And he had Zeus in his eyes, that elixir that made gods of men.
“Drop it. Let her go and drop it.”
“Fuck you. Fuck her. This is my goddamn corner!”
“You cut her, you’ll die on this goddamn corner.” The man on the ground was weeping now. She could smell the piss leaking onto the sidewalk where his bladder had let go.
“You put your piece down or I cut her from ear to ear.” He leaned in, running his tongue over the terrified woman’s cheek. “And drink the blood.”
“Okay. Looks like you’ve got me.” She lowered her weapon, watching his eyes follow it down. Then watching them jitter as Peabody stepped in from behind and laid her stunner against the back of his neck.
Eve sprang forward, grabbing his knife hand, twisting it. The civilian slid to the ground like an empty sack. “Stun him again!” Eve shouted as the drug-induced strength had the knife jamming toward her throat. She felt the prick, that hot sting of metal against flesh.
And both of them scented her blood.
His body jerked, then lifted when Eve plowed her knee into his groin. She shifted her weight, sliced her heel into his instep, then curled to use the momentum to flip him over her back.
He landed like a felled tree, flat out, and with a solid crack of skull on concrete.
Eve scooped up the knife, and wheezing, stayed bent over.
“Dallas? You okay? Did he cut you?”
“Yes, damn it. Get that one.” She pointed at the first man, still weeping, trying to crawl away.
She heaved the second man over, clapped on restraints. The hostage was on the ground as well, and still screaming.
Eve wiped the blood off her throat with the back of her hand and glanced over. “Somebody shut her up.”
Chapter 10
She had a long, shallow cut from just under her right ear to just above the jugular. A little more pressure, the MT Peabody had summoned behind her back had cheerfully noted, a little more depth, and she’d have pumped herself dry quick, fast, and in a hurry.
As it was, it wasn’t so bad. Though she had blood on her shirt.
“They’ve got stuff that’ll take the blood right out,” Peabody assured her as they drove uptown. “My mother always used salt and cold water though. Does the job. Mostly.”
“So does chucking it in the rag pile.” Though she imagined Summerset would pluck it out again, work some sort of household voodoo, and it would end up back in her closet. Good as new.
“See if you can put a hook in McNamara. I’d like to work him into my day, see what he has to say about the partnership, scandal, and sex drugs.”
While Peabody made the call, Eve checked in for messages, grumbling when there was nothing new from Feeney or McNab.
“Dr. McNamara’s off planet, sir. Isn’t expected back for a couple days. I’ve left a request that he contact you with his admin, and on his voice mail.”
“Okay, we’ll shuffle him down in the pile for now. Give me the run on this first guy. Lawrence Q. Hardley.”
“Thirty-two. Single, white male. Family hit it big in the late twentieth in the Silicon Valley explosion. No marriage or cohabitation on record. No criminal or military record.”
“And no prints on file.”
“None. NYC resident since forty-nine. Assists in running family business, NY branch, and holds title of exec vp in charge of marketing. Reported income—salary, investments, dividends, expense quota, approximately five million two annually.”