Betrayal in Death (In Death #12)(16)

"How do you keep the rules straight? It's boggling. But that's sort of what I figured. Hey."

She slapped at Roarke's hand as he tugged the chain around her neck and popped the tear-shaped diamond he'd once given her from under her shirt.

"Just checking. Apparently, I'm still your guy."

"It wasn't in plain sight," she said with some satisfaction.

"Close enough."

And catching the gleam in his eye, she narrowed her own. "You try kissing me out here, and I'm going to knock you down. Let's go talk to Barry anyway, Peabody," she said, sliding the pendant under her shirt again. "Close off this angle. You," she continued, tapping a finger on Roarke's chest, "I need to talk to sometime later about the whole media business."

"I'll be at your disposal. Nothing I like better."

The smile he gave her faded, his eyes sharpened as he heard a voice softly crooning a verse of an old Irish ballad.

Before he could turn, an arm snaked around his neck, locked. He'd have countered, was shifting his weight to do so, when the laugh sounded in his ear, and sent him back, all the way back to the alleyways of Dublin.

Then his back was hard up against the wall, and he was looking into the laughing eyes of a dead man.

"Not as quick as once you were, are you now, mate?"

"Maybe not." In a lightning move, Eve had her weapon out and pressed to the man's throat. "But I am. Step back, ass**le, or you're dead."

"Too late," Roarke murmured. "He already is. Mick Connelly, why aren't you in hell, and holding my place?"

Cheerfully ignoring the laser at his throat, Mick cackled. "Ah, you can't kill the devil, can you, till he's ready to go? Aren't you a sight, you bastard. Aren't you?"

And Eve watched, baffled, as the two of them grinned like morons.

"Easy, darling." Roarke lifted a hand, gently nudged Eve's, and her weapon, down. "This ugly son of a bitch is in the way of being an old friend."

"That I am. And isn't it just like you to hire yourself a female bodyguard?"

"Cop." Roarke's grin spread.

"Well, Jay-sus." Chuckling, Mick stepped back, tapped Roarke playfully on the cheek. "You never used to be quite so chummy with a badge."

"I'm very chummy with this one. She's my wife."

Staring, Mick clutched his heart. "She needn't bother dropping me. I'm dying of the shock. I'd heard -- oh, one hears all manner of things about Roarke. But I never believed it."

He bowed, rather charmingly, while Eve secured her weapon, then took her hand and kissed it before she could avoid it. "It's pleased I am to meet you, missus, pleased as I can be. Michael Connelly's my name, and Mick to my friends, which I hope you'll be. Your man here and I were lads together long ago. Very bad lads we were, too."

"Dallas. Lieutenant Dallas." But she warmed a bit because his eyes, green as summer leaves, were twinkling with such good humor. "Eve."

"You'll forgive the... exuberance of my greeting my old mate here, but the excitement got the better of me."

"It's his neck. I have to go," she said to Roarke, but held out a hand, in a manner that demanded a shake rather than a kiss on the knuckles. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise for certain. And hope to see you again."

"Sure. Later," she said to Roarke, then signaled an avidly watching Peabody toward the door.

Mick watched her stride off. "She's not sure of me, is she, boyo? And why should she be? Christ, it's good to lay eyes on you, Roarke."

"And you. What are you doing in New York, and in my hotel?"

"Business. Always a little business. In fact, I'd hoped to run you to ground to discuss it with you. Deal and wheel, wheel and deal." He winked. "Have you any time for an old friend?"

CHAPTER FOUR

He looked damn good for a dead man. Mick Connelly wore a petal-green suit. Roarke remembered he'd always been one for color and flash. The cut and drape disguised most of the heft he'd added in the last years.

None of them had had any heft to speak of in their youth, as varying types of hunger had kept them bone lean.

His sand-colored hair was cut short and sharp around a face that had, like his body, filled out with age. He'd had the front teeth that had bucked out like a beaver's fixed somewhere along the way. He'd lost the pitiful excuse for a mustache he'd insisted on sporting, and had never come in at more than a smudge over his top lip.

But he still sported the Irish pug nose, the fast, crooked grin, and eyes of wicked and dancing green.

No one would have called him handsome as a boy. He'd been short and skinny and covered from top to bottom with ginger-colored freckles. But he'd had quick hands, and a quicker tongue. His voice was pure south Dublin, tough music suitable for choreographing flying fists.

When he stepped into Roarke's office in the old and elegant main house of the hotel, he planted his hands on his hips and grinned like a gargoyle. "So, you've done for yourself, haven't you, mate? I'd heard, of course, but seeing's a kick in the arse."

"Seeing you's the same." Roarke's voice was warm, but he'd had time to recover from that instant of surprise and pleasure. A part of him held back, calculating what this ghost from the dead past might want of him. "Have a seat, Mick, and catch me up."