“Yeah. Well. Give her a goo back from me. Thanks for the info.”
“No prob. I’ll see you at the girl bash if not sooner. We’re revved topless over it.”
“Great. Wear a top anyway. Thanks, Mavis.”
She turned, and walked straight through a scale model of St. Cristóbal’s. And said, “Jesus.”
“I’ve heard he visits there often.”
“How did you do that? That wasn’t twenty minutes.”
“I’m often even better than I think I am.”
“Nobody’s better than you think you are.”
He’d scaled the holo down, but constructed it considerably larger than Ariel’s cake. The simple cross atop the church came to Eve’s knee. She stepped out of church and surveyed. “This is pretty much iced.”
“I can take it to the holo-room if you want larger scale.”
“No, this is good. Church, bodega, rectory,” she began, moving into the holo. “Youth center, Hector Ortiz’s house. Site of first bombing.” She moved south and east. “It’s still a school. Site of second. Now west and north. It was a sandwich shop-type hangout, now a 24/7.”
Roarke studied the holo himself. “I could, in about the same amount of time, program one from ’43, or any given year.”
“You just want to play,” she countered. “This is what he saw in the now, every day. Whatever was in the . . . way-back,” she decided, using Mavis’s term, “is in the now. Changed a little maybe. But something he wanted then he wanted now.”
“I actually understand that,” Roarke commented.
“Peabody and I are going to locate and interview survivors, family members. Five dead in the second bombing.” She frowned down at the bright red and yellow of the 24/7. “It’s not part of St. Cristóbal’s parish. It’s outside, and was clearly in disputed territory, but leaning toward Skulls, when it was hit. Close to the boundaries, of both. Lino liked to run, ran with the other priest, Freeman, when they could hook that up. Their typical route took them from the rectory, east, then turning north before heading west again, taking them through this part of Spanish Harlem—past these middle- and upper-middle-class properties, past Hector Ortiz
, on, turning south, then hitting the youth center. He grew up here, but he bypassed the street where his old apartment is. Still is. Not interested in that, doesn’t need to see that. Likes to look at the snappier properties.”
Roarke started to speak, then decided to stand back and watch her work. While she did, he poured himself a brandy to add to his enjoyment.
“Habits get formed for a reason,” she muttered. “You do something, keep doing it, form a routine for a reason. Maybe this was his habitual route because it just worked out that way, and he fell into the habit. But he could’ve gotten the same time and distance in by mixing it up, and most people who run habitually like to mix it up. Stay fresher. He could’ve done that going west out the door, heading south, then doing the loop, but Freeman said he never varied. So what does he see when he does his route? And who sees him? Habitually.”
She crouched, ran her hand through buildings that wavered and shimmered at the contact. “All through here, all these homes, apartments. Part of the parish, and also part of the school district. Anybody living here then would have known Lino. Big bad dude. Sure, there’s been turnover. People move out, people move in, people die and get born. But there are plenty, like the Ortiz family, who’re rooted deep here. Every day, every day,” she murmured. “Hey, Father. Good morning, Father. How’s it going, Father. I bet he juiced on that. Father.
“It’s a patrol, isn’t it? A kind of daily patrol. His turf, his territory. Like a dog marking his territory.” She poked her finger at the Ortiz house. “How much is it worth, today’s market? A private home like this, this sector?”
“Depends. If you’re looking at it as a residential property—”
“Don’t nitty-gritty it. Just basic. Single-family home, pre-Urban construction. Well-maintained.”
“Square footage? Materials? It does depend,” he insisted when she curled her lip at him. “But if you want a very general ballpark . . .” He crouched as she did, studied the house, and named a figure that had her eyes bulging.
“You’re shitting me.”
“No indeed. That’s a bit of low-balling actually because I haven’t really studied the property. And that estimate will likely increase as the neighborhood gentrification continues to spread. Now if it’s a straight home-owner to home-owner sale you’re thinking, that would fluctuate somewhat due to the interior. Is the kitchen, are the baths, high-end, how much of the original materials remain, and all manner of things.”
“That’s a lot of tacos.”
“New York tacos, darling Eve. The same house in a different location. Let’s say . . . Baltimore or Albuquerque? About a third to a half of that market price.”
“Geography.” She shook her head. “Once a New Yorker,” she added, thinking of Mavis’s remark. “So he runs by this, and the rest every day. Patrols this area, every day. And whoever killed him knew him, whoever killed him goes to St. Cristóbal’s, whoever killed him lived in this sector when Lino lived here as Lino. Knows Penny Soto, because that bitch, she’s in this. She’s in all of it. Whoever killed him was smart enough to wait for a big ceremony like the Ortiz funeral, or got lucky enough to hit. I think smart. I just think smart.
“Cyanide. Doesn’t come cheap. We’re not pulling anything from black market sources, but hell, I didn’t expect to ring the bell there.”
“There are buttons I could push there.”