"My license is up to date. You can't hassle me."
"Open the door, or you'll see just how fast I can hassle you."
There was a mutter, curse, the rattle of locks. The door opened a slit and a single bloodshot brown eye peered out. "What? I'm not on for hours, and I'm trying to get some sleep here."
From the look in that single eye, she'd been getting that sleep with a little chemical aid. "How long have you lived in this apartment?"
"A few weeks. So the fuck what?"
"Before that?"
"Across the hall. Look, I got my license, my health checks. I'm solid."
"Were you one of Spindler's?"
"Yeah." The door opened another fraction. The other eye and a hard mouth appeared. "So the fuck what?"
"You got a name?"
"Mandy. So the—"
"Yeah, I got that part. Open up, Mandy, I need to ask you some questions about your former boss."
"She's dead. Been dead. Those're the only answers I got." But she opened the door. Her hair was short and spiked. Easier, Eve imagined, for her to don one of the many wigs street LCs liked to play with. She was probably no more than thirty, but looked ten years older if you went by the face.
Whatever profit Mandy made obviously went into her body, which was lush and curved, with huge, uptilted breasts that strained against the thin material of a dingy pink robe.
It was, Eve decided, the right investment for a woman in her field. Johns rarely looked at the face.
Eve stepped inside and noted that the living area had been converted so that it accommodated both ends of the business. A curtain was drawn down the center, cutting the room in two. In one half were two beds on casters with rates and services clearly posted on a board between them.
The other half held a computer, a tele-link system, and a single chair.
"Did you take over Spindler's business?"
"Four of us got together to do it. We figured, hell, somebody's got to run the stables, and if it's us, we can cut back on street time." She smiled a little. "Be like, executives. Trolling for Johns in the winter's murder."
"I just bet. Were you around the night Spindler was killed?"
"I figure I was around—in and out, you know, depending. I remember business was pretty good." She took the single chair, stretched out her legs. "Wasn't so freaking cold."
"You got your book handy?"
Mandy's eyes went sulky. "You got no need to poke into my books. I'm being straight."
"The
n tell me what you know, where you were. You remember," Eve said before Mandy could deny it. "Even in this kind of flop, you don't get your boss carved open on a nightly basis."
"Sure I remember." She jerked a shoulder. "I was catching a break when Lida found her and went nutso. Jesus, she screamed like a virgin, you know? Came screaming and crying and beating on my door. Said how the old bitch was dead and there was blood, so I told her to shut the fuck up and call the cops if she wanted to. I went back to bed."
"You didn't come in and check it out for yourself?"
"What for? If she was dead, fine and dandy. If she wasn't, who cares?"
"How long did you work for her?"
"Six years." Mandy yawned hugely. "Now I work for me."