She decided she really wanted a beer. Even if a lone beer in her empty apartment often made everything echo inside her head.
She shuffled in to check the friggie, cursed. She’d meant to get some brew delivered, but she’d gotten caught up in her work. And now that she didn’t have a single brew in the place, she wanted one even more.
She could go out—screw the weather—get that brew, hear some noise, some music, do some sketching, and maybe inspire her next piece.
Stay out of the clubs, the hard-eyed cop had ordered. Well, screw that, too. She did what she wanted when she wanted.
When her ’link signaled, she walked back, checked the text.
From that semi-idiot and overeager rich bitch Janis, she noted.
Maybe it was a sign, urging her to hit Screw U for a couple hours.
She could get a brew and smother all the echoes.
Eve sat back in her chair, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Cock and Balls,” she said.
Roarke glanced over from his station at the auxiliary. “Is that a request? As I’m nearly done here and happen to have those items handy.”
She lowered her hands. “Who’d think a woman who wears cock-and-balls earrings would come off as the least skanky and most sensible on the list so far?”
“I couldn’t say. How large were they, these particular accessories?”
“Big enough. And yet she says she’s only had sex with three on our list, though she ‘messed steamy’—her words—with two others.”
“Perhaps, though her jewelry choices belie, she’s being modest and/or discreet.”
“No. She’s too scared to lie about it, and is even now huddled up at her mother’s place in New Jersey. Sexy Bitch, on the other hand, claims to have had sex with all of them, and some at the same time. She might be lying.”
“Sexy Bitch.”
“Tattooed,” Eve said, swiping her fingers over her chest.
“I suppose no one ever pointed out to her that if you have to announce you are, you simply aren’t. But you do meet the most fascinating people in the course of your day, Lieutenant.”
“I’m going to meet more tomorrow because I’m going to have to track down and talk to all the male skanks. I’m not through my list yet and there’s not one of the rockers who hasn’t been done by multiples on my list. It’s not the sex.”
“Well now,” Roarke began.
“No, it’s the score. The act, sure, the literal bang, but it’s the racking them up. And racking them up fills a void. I get sex just for the bang, and what’s wrong with that?”
“I can think of literally nothing as long as it’s consensual.”
“These women, Cock and Balls, the Sexy Bitch? They might hook with one of those for a short amount of time, sometimes a short and intense amount, but they’ll still look for the bang with someone else. None of it’s real. A few of them—Loxie, Yola, that level? It’s more a roller coaster. They’re hooked longer, tighter. There might actually be something there. Not necessarily a good something or a healthy something, but something. Still, they guzzle illegals and booze—another void to fill. And, like the character of Bliss Cather in the book, live in deliberate disregard for others. Fight with their chosen counterpart in public because that gets them off, too. Playing for the crowd, reading about it later, seeing vids on the gossip channels.”
“And Strongbow observes.”
“Yeah, she observes, and most likely concludes the women are—because they come off that way—interchangeable. All of them offer the wrong things, destructive things, to the man she’s selected as above, as better, as one worthy of her—of the character she’s living in, of the writer she believes herself to be. Remove one—one she judges as influential—and he has the chance to reach that worthy potential.
“And I’m circling,” Eve admitted. “Because none of this points me at her.”
“Circling maybe, but you’re thinking like her.”
“I’m thinking like I think she thinks,” Eve amended, “but she’s slippery. Because she’s crazy.”
“You’ve bagged the crazy before, Lieutenant. You’ll bag her.”
“Penguin coats and blue dreads, a personality so malleable it absorbs itself into fictional characters. But I damn well will bag her. Give me what you’ve got so far on the rockers.”
“It’s a subjective and unscientific sort of ranking.”
“I’ll take what you’ve got. Top pick.”
“At this stage, that would be Glaze, aka Adam Glazier, lead guitar and vocals for the Glaze.”
“Loxie Flash’s ex.” Swiveling toward the board, his photo, she frowned. “I’d have slotted him in loser territory.”
“You have to dig down a bit. Financially, he’s very solvent.”
“So trash rockers make big bucks. What—”
“Many blow those big bucks on illegals, overpriced homes, and vehicles. They live carelessly, engage poor management, and so on. Take Nadine’s Jake as a yardstick.”
“I don’t know if he’s Nadine’s Jake.”
“For simplicity’s sake. He bought his mother a house—that qualifies him as a good and loving son, but also a man with enough brains not to buy her some flash jewelry, for instance. To think of her security, her future. While he certainly engages managers, he also remains involved and aware. Glazier hasn’t bought his mother a house.”
“Okay.”
“But he has purchased a condo in New York, his base in the city. And while he tosses money about, he also culls a sensible percentage out to invest, with a reputable money manager. He hasn’t, using Jake again, maintained friends and bandmates over long terms, as he’s fronted two bands prior to this, but Glaze is being handled professionally. He’s been dinged more than once for possession, and apparently developed a taste for Zeus in the last turbulent months of his relationship with this Loxie. While he has had court-ordered rehab, he entered, voluntarily, a facility in Zurich four months ago. And upon his return to New York, during the recording of a new album—with reportedly all of the songs written or cowritten by him during his treatment—he’s continued with addiction therapy and meetings.”
“Okay, good potential here. Is he in New York now?”
“He is, recording—and in the small-world department—the Glaze is using East Side Sound—that’s Jake Kincade’s studio.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
She grabbed her ’link when it chirped. “Dallas.”
“She’s here!” The harsh whisper hissed under a wall of noise. “The blue dreads. Lieutenant? It’s Brad Smithers. I just saw her.”
Eve was already up and moving. “Don’t approach. Tap your own security, have them block exits. I’m on my way.”
“To where?” Roarke asked as he grabbed a coat.
“A dive called Screw U, downtown. She’s there.”
Roarke snagged her hat and scarf, as she was already striding out the door and calling for uniforms.
16
Before she walked into the club, Loxie popped a tab of Buzz. She had a few more tabs at home, and a decent supply of Erotica. But she’d dip on Janis for the party favors, and save her own for that trip to the islands.
Her mood bounced straight up—the Buzz and the crowds, the screaming music, the flash and swirl of lights.
People, so many people who knew her, wanted her, envied her.
She made it a point to scan for Glaze, spotted him at one of the VIP booths. Not just the hos, she noted, but his bass player, his hard-eyed manager, and a third pair of tits she didn’t recognize.
The minute she saw him grin at the pair of tits, lean toward her so they could share a laugh, she decided he’d be the one to scratch her itch.
She swirled off her coat. She’d gone bare-legged with a glittery, short, snug, crotch-skimming skirt and a top that opened in a vee down to her navel. Thick chains draped into the vee and hooked to the nipple clamps clearly outlined beneath the top.
She’d damn near frozen on the trip to the club, but knew Glaze had a weakness for tits—and he’d given her the chains and clamps.
He would remember what they’d done with them.
She slithered through the crowd on chunky short boots with high, curved heels.
When he saw her, when their eyes met and held for just a couple beats, her nipples hardened against the clamps like shards of glass.
“Hey there, G-man.”
“Lox. How’s it going?”
“Up, up, and away.”
She had to shout it—the music’s volume demanded it. She leaned over the table, leading with that deep vee, pursed her red-to-the-edge-of-black lips in an exaggerated kiss.
“Haven’t seen you around.”
“Haven’t been around.”
“Yeah, another detox, right? I need a drink.” She picked up his glass, downed some. “Jesus, WTF.”
“Mineral water, twist of lemon.” He took the glass back from her, set it aside.
“How the mighty have fallen. You get up off that fine ass and want to live again, I’m over there.”
She hip-swung her way to another booth where Janis and some of the usual crowd piled together.
“Hey, Lox. I wondered if you’d show up tonight.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?” She screwed her ass between two others, slouched back, angled toward Glaze’s booth. Spread her legs.
Her smug smile faded when she glanced toward his booth, saw he not only wasn’t looking, he had his head together with the new tits.
In retaliation, she laid her hand on the cock of the man beside her, gave it a teasing squeeze. “Who do I have to fuck to get a drink and a tab?”
She grabbed a drink off the table at random, downed it. And didn’t see the woman with the blue dreads come out of the shadows to sit at the end of the bar.