He glanced at the wall screen, judged where she was in her briefing, then took a seat. “Continue, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. Peabody and I will do a dropby on Mince and Lane at the hotel. Feeney, if you could use your connections through the IRCCA. As we’ve said, it’s probable the other agencies already have this data on Naples. And they may have more. If they do, no matter how speculative, do what you can to convince them to reach out. McNab, see the head of the event’s security at The Palace. Roarke will have already alerted him, but I want you to follow up. You’re his general dogsbody until this is over. You’ll be provided with complete dossiers on everyone involved in the security. Get to know and love them. I want the NYPSD and this team aware and apprised of every change, every step, every function of security at the hotel. A door guard has a butt rash, I want to know what kind. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Now, she drew a breath. “Commander?”

He had the faintest of smiles on his face. “Lieutenant?”

“I’d like to request that you use whatever weight you might deem appropriate with your connections in the FBI and East Washington. I want some elbow room, and Jacoby’s not going to give it to me unless . . .” She trailed off before she finished the thought, which had to do with her shoving his head up his ass. “. . . without some directive. If I can have the room, and the cooperation to bring Sylvester Yost down, I’m willing to give the feds the collar.”

“What! What!” Feeney was out of his chair, his face a furious red, his arms waving. “What the hell are you talking about? You don’t give them dick, you hear? You’ve busted your balls on this, done all the work, got closer than anyone ever has to this bastard. Would’ve had him, too, if it wasn’t for those assholes screwing us over. If you put in eight hours this week on this one case, you’ve put in eighty. You got circles under your eyes I could swim laps in.”

“Feeney—”

“Uh-uh, shut up.” He jabbed a finger at her. “You may be primary, but I still outrank you. You think I’m just going to stand back and let you pass the baton to the Feebs after you ran the damn race? Do you know what this collar could mean to you? Every agency on and off planet’s been after this bastard for twenty-five years. You bring him down, you bring him in, and you’re heading toward pinning on your captain’s bars. And don’t you stand there and tell me you don’t want them.”

“I want him more.” She wasn’t sure if she was touched, embarrassed, or annoyed by his outburst on her behalf, but she knew she had to clear the decks. “You got the anonymous source tip,” she reminded him, keeping her eyes steady on his so he’d understand she knew where it had come from. “Without that, I wouldn’t have had the Winifred angle, or at least not this soon. And without that, I wouldn’t have had a tool to use on Stowe to move onto that Paris triad. Agent Stowe put in a lot of hours and grief on her investigation, too. She gave me useful data; I promised her the collar. That’s the deal, Feeney. I made it, and I’ll keep it.”

“Well, your deal sucks. Commander—”

Whitney held up his hand. “No point in appealing to me on this one, however much I agree with you. Lieutenant Dallas heads this team. I’ll give you what weight I can, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir. Excuse me,” she said when her communicator beeped. She pulled it out, stepping aside to take the transmission.

“Jack,” Feeney said in undertones. “She deserves the collar.”

“At this point, we don’t have a collar. Let’s just see what we see. However it comes down, the department is fully aware of the work Dallas and the rest of you—”

He broke off when Eve swore.

“What the hell do you mean, you lost him? How could you lose one skinny, ugly man with a stick up his ass?”

Easily, when the skinny, ugly man also had eyes in the back of his head. Summerset had survived the Urban Wars, had worked the streets, run all kinds of cons, and though those times were past, he could still smell cop at a five-block radius.

He also knew when he was being tailed. Ditching that tail was a matter of principle, and had given him a nice warm glow of satisfaction. Though he imagined Eve had set the cops on him, possibly with Roarke’s approval, that didn’t mean he was obliged to comply.

He might have been out of the game, but he certainly wasn’t out of shape. To assume he couldn’t handle himself, defend himself, on a public street was insulting.

As it was his half-day off, he intended to stroll along Madison Avenue, do a bit of personal shopping, perhaps have a light lunch alfresco at one of his favored bistros, then if his mood held, visit a gallery before returning home and to his duties.

A civilized few hours, he thought, that would not be disrupted by the hulking presence of the nosy and pitifully inefficient police.

The fact that he could imagine, with some glee, Eve’s fury and frustration when it was reported to her that the target had vanished, barely entered into it.

Still his thin face held

a mildly smug expression as he nipped out a third-story window of a small luxury hotel, engaged the emergency escape, rode quietly down to street level, and strode purposefully to the neighboring building to take the people glide back over to Madison.

Imagine, he thought, anyone believing a couple of clumsy-footed badges could keep up with me.

He paused at a neighborhood market, perused the sidewalk display of fresh fruit, and finding it woefully substandard, made a mental note to order some peaches from one of Roarke’s agri-domes.

There would be peach melba for dessert that evening.

Still, the grapes looked reasonably promising, and he was aware Roarke liked to support local merchants. Perhaps a pound of the mixed green and red, he mused, plucking one of each color from their varitoned stems.

The merchant, a small barrel of a man plugged onto two short legs, scurried out, yipping like a terrier. He was Asian, a fourth-generation grocer. His family had run that same market, in that same spot, for nearly a century.

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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