“I don’t know why they called you. I’ve still got a pulse.”
“Let me worry about that. From the top.”
“I was fucking working, didn’t I say?” He scrubbed a hand over his shining bald pate as if pressing his brains back in place. “Asshole hits the buzzer. Nobody uses those steps anyway, and nobody sane uses them at night. Goddamn city makes me keep them for fire code or some shit. But this fucker kept buzzing until I figured, well, there’s a death wish and I’ll oblige it.”
Beside him, Matilda smirked into her brandy, patted his knee.
“Said it was a delivery. Well, fuck a fucking delivery. Next thing I know, Matilda’s leaning over me with a kitchen knife in one hand, slapping the shit out of me with the other. Then the christing MTs are running in, and the cops, and everybody’s all over me.”
Eve tracked her eyes to Matilda. “A knife?”
“I wasn’t coming back down unarmed. I heard him running away—clattering down the steps—and I wasn’t going to leave Dirk lying there in case he came back. So as soon as I had the cops on the ’link, I grabbed the knife and came back down. And I was tapping your face.” She poked Hastings in the belly. “I took his pulse—scariest moment of my life, next to starting downstairs and seeing Dirk on the ground and that maniac coming at him. I threw the bottle of pinot noir I was bringing down at him.”
And that explained the broken bottle and pool of wine just inside the door of the studio, Eve thought.
“I think he tried to stun me. I saw him raise the stunner when I threw the bottle.”
At this Dirk took her hand, and the perpetual anger on his face died away into sick fear. “You didn’t tell me that. Jesus, Matilda.”
“I told the other police. You were busy cussing out the MTs, and yelling at me to get some clothes on. I was only wearing . . . a little,” Matilda said with a quick grin.
“You both saw this individual?”
“Since we both got eyes that’s a damn fool question,” Hastings snapped. “And I’m tired of questions. The dickwad figured to rob me, and instead had to hightail. That’s that. Now go away.”
“Dirk.”
He sighed at Matilda’s scolding tone. “Thanks for coming, now go away.” And smiled a little when Matilda laughed.
“Matilda, I want you to step into another room with Roarke, and describe the person you saw.”
“Why does she have to go with him?” Hastings demanded.
“Because you’re going to stay here and describe the person you saw, and this way neither of you will influence each other’s memory or impressions. Argue, we do it at Central. Remember Central?”
“I get zapped, and you’re threatening me?” Temper flashed, the strike of a lightning bolt. He lunged to his feet.
Matilda said, “Dirk!” in the tone that reminded Eve of her endurance coach from the Academy.
He rumbled like a volcano about to erupt, then hissed. Then sat.
“I’m the one who got zapped,” he muttered.
“And she’s the one trying to find out who and why,” Matilda reminded him.
“Some lowlife scumbag looking to rob me. What good’s she going to do?”
“If I thought this was armed robbery, would I be here? Murder cop,” Eve said.
“You see any dead people?” Hastings was on his feet again, then his eyes widened. He sat again, but this time put a protective arm around the blonde. “You think somebody wants to kill me? For what?”
“How many people have you thrown something at, or threatened to skin alive, boil in acid, toss out the window—just for instance—since the last time I saw you?”
“I don’t keep a ledger on it.”
“Right. Ms. Zebler, if you don’t mind?”
“Sure.” She took a long breath. “I didn’t think it was robbery. It didn’t feel like it. Dirk, behave, please.”