Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(38)

“Then we’d best contact Leonardo.”

Eve snuggled in. “Why?”

“Our girl needs an Oscar dress—and shoes, a bag. You could lend her the jewelry.”

Now Eve yanked back. “But—”

“He’ll come up with something for McNab that suits. There’s not much time, but I’ll wager Leonardo can make it work, especially for Peabody and McNab.”

“Jesus, they already have clothes.”

“Not to worry.” Roarke simply patted it, and her, aside. “I’ll take care of this part of it. My contribution. Why don’t you deal with the dishes, and I’ll deal with this? Then we’ll set our minds to murder.”

“Life was easier when all I had to do was think about murder.”

“Well now, you changed your spots to splotches, didn’t you?” He kissed her again, then pulled out his ’link.

She muttered to herself as she gathered up the dishes.

“Leonardo,” she heard him say. “And how are you and your girls?”

She dealt with the cleanup, a fair trade in her mind as she didn’t have to discuss fashion or accessories. By the time she got around to programming a pot of coffee, Roarke was tucking his ’link away.

“He’s happy to help, so consider it done.”

“I’m not considering it at all. Jordan Banks.”

“Consider that all but done,” Roarke said, and strolled into his office.

The thing was, Eve admitted, she could. While he entertained himself digging into Jordan Banks’s finances, Eve pulled her team’s first reports from her incoming.

She scanned terminations first, highlighted any with connections to the military and/or finance.

She noted a couple of names—former employees of one company who’d shifted to the second. Those she earmarked for a deeper run.

While Eve worked and Roarke dug, Jordan Banks had an epiphany. The bitch of a cop had told him to think—and he’d done anything but. He didn’t like being threatened or made to feel uneasy, so in his habitual way, he simply ignored the sensations and went to a party.

Cocktails, illegals, music, a little quickie with the wife of a friend in a butler’s pantry. Some laughs, some gossip. He always filed gossip away for later use. Well utilized, gossip could be profitable.

More than a little high, he closed himself in one of the bathrooms to record some of the juice in his memo book. Family squabbles, who was cheating with whom, gambling debts—you just never knew when a little inside knowledge could pay off.

And it hit him.

Certainly he’d pumped Willi for information—subtly, of course. Let me be your sounding board, cookie. You look so stressed, lover. Why don’t you tell me all about it while I give you a back rub?

He’d gotten enough bits and pieces to be useful—and more yet by accessing her files on her comp. Enough to tell his money man to keep an eye on Quantum. Enough to sound in-the-know should the conversation turn to business at a gathering.

Enough, he remembered now, to make a little loose change—always handy—for a little inside information.

But that was months ago, he thought. And only a bit of I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine. But when he thought it through, when he added in the visit from the bitch and the Irish bastard, it played out.

Who would have thought!

To his credit, Banks had a moment of distress. Mild and soon over. After all, he wasn’t at all responsible for the regrettable violence. In fact, he was a victim.

Finding the softest route to victimhood was a particular skill he’d honed since childhood. It served him well.

He calculated it now, considered the speed, the turns.

He sat on the wide ledge of an apricot-colored jet tub big enough for four friends, fired up a joint of Erotica-laced Zoner he’d taken as a party favor, and contemplated. And seeing the convergence of profit and victimhood, he took out his ’link.

“Hi, there,” he said with a flashing smile. “We need to chat.”

*

When Roarke came in, Eve had two names at the top of her list.

She swiveled in her chair. “I’ve got a couple to pull in for interview,” she began. “Both male, both in their forties, and they’ve each worked for both Econo and Quantum. One has eight years in the Navy, the other has a father still active-duty USMC. No specific links to explosive training, but. One’s an IT specialist, and that’s a good way to dig out data, the other’s in accounting, and accounting knows finance. So.”

When she poured more coffee, Roarke twirled a finger for her to fill a second cup.

“Where do they work now?”

“Former Navy and IT is still Quantum. He moved from Econo two years ago. The other started with Quantum, shifted to Econo—about five years in both companies. Now he’s at a nonprofit called Resource of Animals Rights—or ROAR.”

“Well.” He sat on the edge of her desk. “Criminal.”

“ROAR dude has some bumps, all related to protests. Major one at the Bronx Zoo, another for defacing a fur warehouse. That got him canned. Navy has a couple of minor scrapes—a Drunk and Disorderly and a pushy-shovy.”

She picked up her coffee. “What have you got?”

“Jordan Banks is quite the scamp.”

“Scamp.”