Obsession in Death (In Death 40)

“At least it stopped raining ice.”

Bright side be damned, Eve thought as they hoofed the two and a half blocks to the building.

Sidewalk sleepers, most with their beggar’s licenses displayed, camped against buildings. One with an explosion of yellow-white hair that made the bony guy look as if he’d been lightning-struck played a mournful tune on a harmonica. A couple of LCs who looked barely old enough to be legal huddled in a doorway in their microskirts and fishnets, shivering.

On the corner a glide-cart smoked. With no takers, the operator leaned against the cart munching a loaded dog.

Eve turned at a skinny flight of stairs, following the helpful pointed finger that announced:

Arsenial Investigators

Third Level

Four Aces, a pawnshop, occupied the storefront, with Madame Curracus, Palm Reader, and Office For Let occupying the second floor.

They climbed to three, buzzed at the old iron door.

At the answering buzz, Eve muscled the door open.

The reception area boasted a spindly desk, with a clunky data and communication center, and the sulky brunette who clunked away on it. The waiting area held a pair of orange plastic chairs and a coin/credit-operated bubbler.

The brunette stopped clunking, looked up with a pout. “You gotta appointment?” she demanded in a voice so nasal she could’ve warned fog-blanketed ships away from rocky shores.

Eve drew her badge. “I do now.”

The brunette shifted, and Eve saw her hand slide under the desk. Cop alert, she assumed.

“Mr. Arsenial is out of the office on an investigation. You can leave your contact information.”

“Mr. Arsenial is back in his office, probably with his feet up on his desk while he scratches his ass. I don’t care. We’re here to see Gina Tortelli.”

The brunette sniffed through her honker of a nose. “And the nature of your business?”

“Isn’t any of yours.”

“Sheesh, why you gotta be so bitchy?”

“It’s the nature of my business. Now if Mr. Arsenial’s that skittish about cops coming by, he’s probably got a reason. I can also make it the nature of my business to find out why and make his life a living hell, or you can produce Gina Tortelli.”

“Why’nt you give me a minute? Sheesh.” She turned to the ’link, punched private, picked up the handheld. “Yo, Gina. A coupla badges out here wanna see you, won’t say why. Yeah, sure. Nuh-uh. ’Kay.” She disengaged. “She’s coming out. You can sit down if you want.”

Eve glanced at the plastic chairs, imagined what kind of asses may have warmed them.

“No, thanks.”

Tortelli came out with attitude. Her data listed her at five-eight, and the laced boots added another couple inches with their thick stubbed heels. She wore her blond-streaked brown hair in short dreads. Eve thought of Hastings’s description of the attacker’s skin tone.

Café au lait, heavy on the lait.

It fit.

Tortelli’s dark eyes narrowed, flattened as recognition flickered over her face.

“Slumming, Lieutenant?” She said Eve’s rank with a verbal sneer.

“Working. You want to do this out here?”

Tortelli fisted one hand on her hip, gave a go-ahead flick with the other. “You got something to say, say it.”