“I had to stick with this,” she said. “Mavis wanted to go home anyway, to put the kid to bed, then jump Leonardo.”
“I see. She said she recognized two more.”
“One for certain, one mostly for certain. I sent DeWinter and Elsie the data so they can confirm. The one she’s sure of—Crystal Hugh—she did some time at The San
ctuary. Got shifted to foster, went missing from there. Too many lines lead back to that building, that place, those people for it to be just because.”
“I’ll agree.”
“And now I’ve got four, possibly five, connected to this Sebastian character Mavis is rosy-eyed over.”
“He’s her father figure, Eve. She was a frightened, scared young girl, and he gave her structure, safety, a purpose.”
“Structure? Flopping in basements and empty buildings? And the purpose was stealing and bilking.”
“And yet.”
“Yeah, you’d think that,” she replied. “Seeing as.”
“Summerset provided me with a very nice home, furnished. I already knew how to steal and run a con, he just added some polish.” He picked up her coffee, took a sip. “I wondered why I felt a kind of affinity with Mavis, always. I see now we traveled some similar roads. How old was she when she ran?”
“Around thirteen, I think.” She stopped, met his eyes. “I wasn’t holding out on you, not telling you all that. It’s just . . .”
“It wasn’t yours to tell, not even to me. Just as she’s never told Leonardo yours.”
“I told her she could.” Eve shoved her fingers through her hair as the idea made her uneasy, even though it seemed right. “You know, balance it out.”
He leaned over, pressed his lips to the hair she’d just mussed. “I adore you.”
“Yeah, well, good. You’re going to have to because you’re going with me to meet up with this Sebastian.” She glanced at her watch. “In two hours, at some seedy dive in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“You plan such entertaining evenings for me. Two hours? That’s time enough for dinner. We’ll make it pizza.”
How could she argue with that?
Seedy covered it.
The hole-in-the-wall that had been named, fairly realistically, Belly Up slouched between a porn shop where a variety of strap-ons were featured in the dingy display window, and what had been in its latest and now-defunct incarnation a place called Bill’s Quik Loans.
Just across the street, the dying neon on a sex club stuttered NAKED—SEX—DANCERS in a migraine-inducing loop.
In its intermittent blue lights, Eve clearly saw the illegal deal being transacted by a bulky dealer in a heavy black coat, and his skinny, shivering customer.
“Is he shuddering because he’s jonesing,” Eve wondered, “or because he’s freezing his junkie ass off in that trench coat?”
“Likely both. If you’re going to bust them, I’ll wait.”
“Only take a minute.” She stepped to the curb, shouted over the dented hood of an ancient Mini, “Hey!” And waved her badge in the air.
Both bulky dealer and skinny junkie pounded sidewalk in opposite directions.
“You know they’ll both just deal elsewhere.”
“Yeah, but it’s fun to watch them run when I’m not going to chase them. Let’s go Belly Up with Sebastian—if he shows.”
It proved as seedy inside as out with a trio of shallow booths and a pair of scarred tables lining the sticky floor. The short black bar boasted three backless stools, and occupants who looked like they belonged there.
The flabby bartender didn’t look thrilled with his work, and after a flick of a glance toward Eve and Roarke appeared pissed off at the prospect of more customers.