“Remember that when I piss you off next time.”

She drowned her waffles in syrup.

Within thirty, primed by waffles, Eve checked her ’link. “Everybody’s a go for the briefing. I’m going in early, make sure everything’s set up the way I want it.”

“Good luck. I should have some time this afternoon, either to deal with that fight we need to have or give Feeney some help.”

“Maybe we can work in both.” She gave him a quick kiss before heading for the door.

“Look after my cop,” he called after her. “Just you try licking off that plate, boy-o,” she heard him say to the cat, “and see what happens.”

It made her grin all the way downstairs.

She didn’t have as much luck with traffic as she had the day before, but used the time in snags and snarls to work out her approach.

She wanted a warrant to search Steinburger’s residence, his office, his vehicle—and one to dump all his electronics on Feeney and EDD.

Odds of getting them were slim, she knew. She could—she damn well would—convince everyone in the briefing that Steinburger had been killing people who annoyed him, got in his way, or just posed a serious inconvenience, for forty years.

And yet the pesky issue of probable cause would remain.

Still, she’d push for it, and if—most likely when—she got shut down, she’d push for one to monitor his ’links and comps.

And she wanted that in place before she talked to his ex-wives—the surviving ones—his boat pal, former college roommates, Buster Pearlman’s widow. Before she had another round with the Hollywood set.

A lot of people were going to feel the heel of her new boots on their necks before she was done.

She pulled into her slot in Central’s garage. She rode up in an elevator that stopped to let cops on, let cops off. And wished she’d opted for the glides when an undercover detective she recognized stepped in hauling a midget.

The midget boasted a shaved head covered with tats and showed gaps in his teeth in a feral snarl. That bald head might have only reached McGreedy’s waist, but its owner looked mean as a rattler.

Both of them smelled, strongly and distinctly, of shit.

“Jesus, McGreedy.” One of the cops stepped as far to the side as the car would allow. “You sleep in the sewer?”

“Chased this fucker into one. Caught you, too, didn’t I, you fucking little fucker. Fucker bit my ankle. I got midget teeth marks in my ankle.”

Even as he said it, his prisoner issued a sharp kick to the wounded ankle, another to the shin, and let out a kind of war cry as he leaped, fast and nimble as a spider, on the back of the uniformed cop ahead of him in the car.

Amid the chaos, and the unbelievable stench, Eve considered. Two cops were currently trying to haul the crazy little bastard off while he yanked hair, kicked feet, sank teeth.

She decided on a different approach. She drew her weapon, and keeping a careful distance, leaned forward, pressed it to the crazy little bastard’s head.

“Want a taste of this?”

He swung around, bared his gapped teeth, and she calculated he intended to use the uniform as a springboard into her face.

“I’ll drop you like a stone,” she warned. “No, like a pebble. An ugly, smelly pebble. Then I’ll personally drop-kick your ass into a cage.”

“I got him, Lieutenant.” Panting, snarling, sweating, McGreedy ripped his prisoner off the uniform, shoved him facedown on the floor of the car. “Fucker.”

“Officer?”

“Shit. Shit. Bingly, Lieutenant.”

“Officer Bingly, as you’re already due for a shower and a change of uniform, why don’t you assist Detective McGreedy in securing his little fucker and hauling same into detox?”

“Yes, sir. Shit.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net