As he gestured for them to sit, a woman wandered down a curve of steps. Her hair tumbled, flame-red, down the back of a short, white robe that gapped open enough to showcase impressive breasts – and the fact that she was a natural redhead, or had her hair colored above and below.
Her voice, sleepy as her cat-green eyes, purred. “You want coffee, baby?”
“Sure do. I wake you up?”
“The ringer did, but that’s okay. Josie’s out though.”
“Maybe we’ll both wake her up when I’m done here.” He sent her a grin and a wink, got a husky laugh as she kept wandering out of sight.
“So, Lieutenant, Detective.” He spread his hands as he sat. “What can I do for you?”
“What time did you get home this morning, Carmine?” Eve asked him.
“About five-thirty, I think. I took off a little early this morning as Josie’s in town. A good friend,” he added, “who’s been in Europe for a few months. She and Vivi and I had a drink – here – then went to bed. Is there a problem with my place?”
“None I know of. Was Ledo in your place last night?”
“Playing pool. Maybe a round of Sexcapades. His eyes are about shot, and he can’t keep his hands steady, but he’s still got an instinct with a cue. If he ditched the junk, he could ride the cue to a good life.”
He paused when the redhead – Vivi, Eve assumed – wheeled out a silver coffee cart.
“At your service, baby.”
“Vivi here services private shuttles.”
“On and off planet,” Vivi added, and handed Carmine a big white cup with a brown sugar stirrer. “How would you like yours?” She smiled easily at Eve and Peabody.
“Just black,” Eve told her.
“I take coffee regular,” Peabody said. “Thanks.”
Vivi poured, doctored Peabody’s. “You need me to go?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Eve said before Carmine spoke. “Did Ledo have any trouble at your place – last night, or recently?”
“Ledo works hard to avoid trouble. If he smells it coming, he runs. It’s the funk and the junk that’ll kill him.”
“Actually, it was a pool cue.”
“What?” Carmine looked over the rim of his wide cup as Eve took hers from Vivi. “Ledo? Dead?”
“Since shortly after six this morning.”
“Did somebody go after him on his way from my place to his flop? He couldn’t have had that much on him. I have to check the feed.”
“I want a copy of your feed.”
Carmine looked back at Eve – she saw the protest in his eyes. Then he swore under his breath, pushed up. He crossed over to a house ’link.
“Who’s Ledo?” Vivi asked Eve.
“Small-time illegals dealer with a talent for pool currently on a slab at the morgue.”
Vivi shook her head. “I don’t know why people go around killing people. Life’s short enough, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Carmine,” she added as he came back over. “He was a friend of yours?”
“Not really, no. Just a Gametown regular. I’m having a copy of last night’s security feed sent to you at Central.”
“That’ll work.”
“If you’re looking at me for it, I’ve got one alibi here.” He sat again, ran a hand over Vivi’s bare leg when she sat on the low arm beside him. “And another still warming the bed. Security here will show me coming in this morning – right around five-thirty.”
“Okay. Do you know if anyone’s been hanging around, asking about him? Anybody new getting tight with him?”
“Nobody was tight with Ledo. He had some regulars who played with him, and he did his business – most of that in the tunnels, to keep it off the feed in case of a sweep. I never heard anybody get riled at him. Not seriously. Some of the female gamers might tell him to piss off when he’d try to do a come-on – but nothing ugly. I can’t see anybody beating him to death with a pool cue, and I know for a fact it didn’t happen in my place.”
Eve let his assumption of beaten to death ride. “Do you know where he lived?”
“A couple blocks from Gametown – and above. I’m not sure exactly, just it was close. He said something about it, or I heard. He lived in the Square.”
“Okay.” Eve set her cup down. “We appreciate the cooperation.”
“Did he have family?”
Surprised by the question, Eve, on the point of rising, sat again. “Why?”
“I’ll take care of the arrangements for him.”
“Why would you do that?”
“He was a regular, and he brought in business. He still had a rep with a cue, and gamers came in to play against him. People come in, they buy drinks, sex, play other games. He was a screwed-up junkie, but I never knew of him hurting anybody but himself. He doesn’t deserve to get shoved in the state furnace. If he doesn’t have somebody, I’ll take care of it.”
“He has a mother,” Peabody told him, glancing at her PPC. “In Trenton.”
Carmine nodded. “If she can’t afford to take care of him, I will. If you can let me know.”
“I can do that.”
“He was just a screwed-up, harmless asshole,” Carmine murmured.
And that, Eve thought, was the perfect epitaph for Ledo.