Connections in Death (In Death 48)

“You’re thinking of his reaction, weighing whether it was genuine.”

“It felt real, so if she went rogue, she’s finished. But he has his code, so it’s more likely he’ll try to get to her before I do, haul her in for a trial. And whether or not he ordered the hit, he has to make it look like he’s following the code.”

She took the tag from Norton.

“He’s got three of his crew heading out now,” Eve told Roarke, then rolled her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

It smelled of human waste and rot and worse. In the echoing dark, shadows slunk away from the penlight Eve held in her left hand. A few huddled against the wall, too stoned to slink anywhere, eyes glassy with whatever they’d ingested or popped.

She skirted around them, then rammed an elbow into the throat of one who leaped forward. As he dropped, she pivoted in time to see Roarke use nearly the same maneuver—though his elbow struck nose cartilage.

“He had a friend,” Roarke said easily, and smiled.

Yeah, she thought again, he enjoys it.

“Sometimes they pair up close to the entrances, hoping for a quick score.”

She took the left tunnel. In the distance music thumped, and a few lights glimmered. In the faint glint of them a male, pants around his ankles, hairy ass pumping, pinned a female to the wall. His raspy grunts punctuated each frantic thrust.

Rather than appearing appalled or aroused, the woman merely looked bored. But when her gaze skimmed over Eve and Roarke, she bared what was left of her teeth in something approximating a smile.

“Soon’s done here, give ya a double for half.”

“There’s an offer you don’t get every day,” Roarke murmured as they moved on.

“And the STD comes free.” Eve stepped over a fresh splat of vomit, took the next tunnel.

More lights here as the underground clubs popped up, with some retail scattered. Bondage World boasted live models hyping their products.

A woman with enormous man-made breasts exposed by the cutouts in her fake leather skin suit moaned impressively as a second woman with a vibrating strap-on demonstrated the proper way to attach the looping chains of nipple clamps to wall hooks.

A couple of bruisers with full-body tats discouraged any potential customers from attempting to take an active part in the demo.

They passed Bang-O-Rama, a bar where volunteers paid for the privilege of being gangbanged onstage. At the moment, a group of women hooted and cheered on somebody named Coco, who had the stage—and writhed as sex workers penetrated every orifice in her body.

She wore nothing but a tiara proclaiming her as the BRIDE TO BE.

“A whole new meaning to girls’ night out,” Roarke commented.

Farther down the tunnel someone screamed in a way that didn’t translate into pleasure on any level. Just as the laughter that followed didn’t sound of humor.

Ignoring both, Eve aimed for Wet Dreams.

Smaller than most of the others, it amounted to a hole-in-the-wall with bad lighting, smoky air, recorded music. Eve assumed the lighting was an attempt to disguise the fact that the staff consisted of junkies going through the motions to earn enough for the next fix.

Then again, from her scan, a good portion of the clientele ran the same. Some of the glazed looks might have come from ingesting the Zoner smoke hazing the room.

A couple of women on the platform—too small to rate the term stage—pawed each other mechanically while a third attempted a clumsy routine on a pole.

Behind the bar a single male wearing nipple rings, possibly purchased at Bondage World, poured liquid the color of sludge into stingy glasses. The guy on a stool downed one while getting a lap dance from a sex worker so bony Eve could count his ribs.

If he’d seen his eighteenth birthday, she’d eat her badge.

A woman in a red skin suit approached. Pasty flesh sagged out of the open lacing running down both sides while another pair of man-made tits rose improbably high from the snug bodice.

She wore a coal-black wig with a sweep down the left side that didn’t quite hide the puckering burn scars on her cheek.

“Looking for a table or a private room?” She had a voice like the smoke—thick and mildly drugged out.