17
“Door-to-door service rocking it.” McNab climbed into the All-Terrain behind Peabody – and gave her butt a quick squeeze. “Buy you a cup of coffee, Dallas?”
She started to refuse, on principle, then thought better of it. She could use some wire in the blood. “Yeah, thanks.”
Eve pulled out while he worked the AutoChef.
“So hey, Peabody said how you did a holo walk-through, and it sparked me. I got together with Yancy, and we played around with holo-construct on the UNSUB. Using his sketches, the security discs, estimating height and all that happy.”
He programmed her coffee in a go-cup, passed it forward.
“Did the highest probable on build – and we split out there, but we both lean toward most of the bulk being the coat, whatever she’s wearing under it. Giving the ratios of arm and leg length, hands, feet, breadth of shoulders and hips, factoring the outerwear and all that, we figure she’s between five-eight and five-ten, running about a buck fifty. Gotta have some muscle in there, right? Your reconstruct says the first vic wasn’t dragged but carried. First vic weighed one-eighteen.”
He handed Peabody a coffee, regular. “Hair and eyes are crapshoots – can’t see the hair. Hastings says brown, but you can change eye color. But we batted it around and we like short hair on her. Sure, she could pile it up under the cap, but it’s easier and smarter, even if she has a bonnet under it, to go with short. Less chance of a stray one, right?”
Eve flicked a glance in the rearview as he programmed a fizzy for himself. “You’ve been thinking, McNab.”
“Put the gray cells on it, LT.” He grinned at her. “We came up with a series of five images – some variations in them, and I wouldn’t bet my ass any of them bull’s-eyes it, but I’d gamble my next paycheck we got close.”
He slurped down some fizzy. “Finished up right before Peabody tagged me, so I sent the file to your comps. You can take a look when you get home.”
“Why wait?” Traffic was nasty and slow. “Can I call it up here, the in-dash?”
“Absotively.” Knowing her, he flipped off his safety belt, levered up and over the front seat. “Give me a sec.”
He smelled like cherry fizzy, she thought, looked like a guy running off to perform in an off-Broadway review. At the North Pole. But when it came to e-work he… well, he rocked it out.
“There you go. I’m going to run it back here so She-body gets the gander, too.”
Eve shifted the vehicle into auto. She might make it to Mavis’s quicker by attacking the traffic, but the time, she determined, was better spent studying McNab and Yancy’s collaboration.
The first composite showed a tall woman, solid build, excellent muscle tone. That excellent muscle tone was visible as the two detectives had dressed the image in a minuscule polka-dot bikini.
“Gotta take your jollies where you find them,” McNab claimed when Eve’s eyes flicked to the rearview again. “Plus it gives you a good sense of possible body type.”
“Hmm” was Eve’s comment. They’d gone with a short, almost centurion cut and mid-brown hair. Using Hastings’s description, they hit the same tone on the eyes. Thinnish mouth, straight nose, slightly rounded chin.
“Did you run any facial recognition?”
“We did some simultaneous, but the deal with standard features and shit is you get a few zillion hits, which is the same as none.”
Nodding, Eve moved to the next as the burly vehicle negotiated the snarly, rush-hour traffic.
Slimmer build now with tough-looking arms, lighter hair in a short, sharp wedge. And a gold metallic bikini this time.
And the next, a bit heavier, curvier, spiked hair, squarer at the chin, slightly fuller lower lip. Wearing a sparkly pink G-string and tiny bra in the shape of silver stars.
“The way we set it up, you can mix and match the features and elements,” he explained.
“Like playing Morph Dollies,” Peabody said. “I loved that toy when I was a kid.”
“I bet your morphing dolls didn’t garrote the other dolls.”
“Would that be iced or what?” McNab cut in before Peabody could answer. “Murdering Morphing Dollies. Roarke totally ought to produce that.”
“I’ll pass that on. This is good work, McNab. Wouldn’t bet my ass on the bull’s-eye, either, but this is good thinking, and good work.”
“All in a day’s.”
Letting it play in the back of her head, Eve went back to manual. She didn’t hold out much hope for parking close to the apartment, but stranger had happened.
When stranger did, she did a mental fist pump, and veered over before anyone tried to jump in ahead of her.
“Is this going to fit in the space?” Peabody wondered. “It’s nice to have the room and the muscle, but it’s hard to find a street slot with something this big.”
Jaw set, eyes fierce, Eve muttered, “I’m making it fit.”
She tried auto first as it would calculate all the necessary maneuvers, and not get pissed off at the blast of horns as they blocked a lane.
The target parking space is 11.2 centimeters short for this vehicle in order to comply to the standard required space allotted for vehicles parked front and rear. Please select another option.
“Bite me,” Eve snarled, switched back to manual.
“You wanna cut it sharp to the left,” McNab began, then zipped it when she seared him with one look.
But she did just that, slid back, cut in the opposite direction, slid out. Resisted giving those blasting horns the middle finger.
She kissed the curb, cut again, inched, swore. Then clicked to vertical, jimmied the wheel – ignored Peabody’s murmurings because they sounded a lot like prayers. Then lowered.
She figured she had about a finger-width front and back, and that was good enough.
“That clunker behind?” McNab commented. “That doesn’t have vertical option. Not going to be able to get out.”
“Not my problem – and I’m not going to be long.”
Her problem, she admitted, would be getting out again.
For now, she stepped out on the sidewalk.
She’d lived in this neighborhood once, one made up primarily of working class, with some deeper pockets – that would be Mavis and Leonardo – tossed in. A few signs of gentrification here and there, but the coffee shop, the little market, the tinier deli were all still in business.
The hole-in-the-wall Chinese place across the street still had a sign out for a delivery boy. Why didn’t they —
Eve spotted her as a maxibus pulled away from its stop. Just steps from Ming Yee’s, strolling along, the box under her arm.
And though she wore sunshades Eve knew the instant she was spotted in turn.
“UNSUB, two o’clock. Call it in! Call it in!” Eve shouted as she clambered over the bumper of the clunker to pursue the already running figure in the bulky brown coat.
She leaped between a Rapid Cab and a mini, shot out an arm as if to stop an oncoming van through sheer force of will. She had to dodge behind it, lost another five seconds skirting around a sedan, then hit the other sidewalk at a dead run.
Now she fought her way through the obstacle course of pedestrians, eyes trained on the damn brown coat. She’d lost half a block, more, getting across the street, and whatever the body type under that coat, the woman could run.
She didn’t look back, didn’t give Eve a glimpse of profile, just poured on the speed.
People shouted, some swore as the brown coat shoved, hard enough to knock a woman, her briefcase, and her market bag to the sidewalk.
A few people moved in to assist, formed a knot. Rather than cut through it, Eve veered left, nearly collided with a guy carting a toddler.
More seconds lost, but she saw the coat run around the corner, going east.
By the time she rounded it, the brown coat was nowhere in sight. She scanned the street, up, across, hissed in frustration.
“He nearly knocked me down!” A woman, obviously incensed, huffed out of a dank little bar and grill.
“Forget it, Sherry, it’s New York.”
Eve pushed past the unsympathetic man, rushed into the bar. And ran through the smell of fried onions and spilled brew, over the sticky floor, around spindly tables to the clatter and crash and shouts through the swinging door in the back.