Betrayal in Death (In Death #12)(74)

"Thanks, Dallas. I feel a lot better."

Eve stared into her empty dish, put a hand on her uneasy and overfull stomach. "Glad one of us does."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The one good thing about setting the meet at the Blue Squirrel after an ice-cream binge was Eve wouldn't be tempted to actually eat or drink anything in the club.

Club was a lofty word for a joint like the Squirrel, where the best thing that could be said about the music was that it was there and it was loud. As far as the menu, the only positive recommendation Eve could make was that, as far as she knew, no one had died from eating the food.

There was no reliable data on hospitalizations.

Still, even this early in the evening, the place was jammed. Spool-sized tables were crowded with orders from the after-office crowd who liked to live dangerously. The band consisted of two men wearing neon body paint and towering blue hair who appeared to be howling about bleeding for love while they pounded with long rubber sticks on dueling keyboards.

The crowd howled right back.

That was one of the things Eve loved about the Squirrel.

Since she wanted a table in the back, she pushed her way through, doing a room scan in case Stowe had beat her there. The table she staked out was currently occupied by a couple who were busy seeing who could stick whose tongue farther down whose throat. Eve broke up the contest by slapping her badge down on the table and jerking her thumb.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the group at the table to the left hurriedly stuff their party packs of illegals into all available pockets. Everyone slunk off.

The power of the badge, she thought, and sat down, got comfortable.

In her single days she'd dropped into the club on and off, most often when Mavis had been performing. But her friend had moved on to bigger and better gigs and was now one of the hottest rising singers in the business.

"Hey, hot lips, wanna get down?"

Eve glanced up, eyed the gangly club cruiser with his smirky grin and optimistically bulging crotch. When he saw where her gaze landed, he patted his pride and joy.

"Big Sammy wants to come out and play."

Big Sammy was probably fifty percent padding, minimum, and assisted by a strong dose of Stay-Up. Eve simply took her badge out again, laid it on the table, and said, "Blow."

He blew, and with the badge in full view, she was left alone to enjoy the howling and the color until Stowe came in.

"You're late."

"Couldn't be helped." Stowe squeezed around the table and sat. She nodded toward Eve's badge. "Do you have to advertise?"

"Pays to in here. Keeps the scum from surfacing."

Stowe glanced around. She'd ditched the tie, Eve noted, and had even gone crazy and unbuttoned the collar of her shirt. The federal government's employee's version of casual wear.

"You sure pick interesting spots. Is it safe to drink in here?"

"Alcohol kills off the germs. Their Zoners aren't half-bad."

Stowe ordered one from the automated menu bolted to the side of the table. "How did you find out about Winifred?"

"I'm not here to answer questions, Stowe. You are. You can start by telling me why I shouldn't take your connection to your superiors and get you, and possibly Jacoby, out of my hair."

"Why haven't you done that already?"

"You're asking questions again."

Stowe bit back what Eve imagined was a sarcastic remark. She had to admire the control. "I have to assume you're looking to deal."

"Assume anything you want. We won't get past point one until you convince me I shouldn't make a call to East Washington and the assistant director of the Bureau."

Stowe said nothing, but reached for the glass of pale blue liquid that slid through the serving slot. She studied it, but didn't drink. "I'm an over-achiever. Compulsive/competitive. When I went into college I had one specific goal. To graduate first in my class. Winifred Gates was the obstacle. I studied her as hard as I studied anything else, looking for flaws, weak spots, vulnerabilities. She was pretty, friendly, popular, and brilliant. I hated her guts."

She paused, sipped, then let out an explosive breath. "Holy Jesus Christ!" Shocked, she stared at the drink in her hand. "Is this legal?"

"Just."

Cautious, she set it down again. "She made overtures to me, friendly ones. I rebuffed them. I wasn't going to fraternize with the enemy. We pulled through the first semester, then the second, neck-in-neck. I spent the summer buried in data, studying as if my life depended on it. I learned later she'd spent hers hanging out at the beach and working part-time as an interpreter for her state senator. She was a hell of a linguist. Of course that burned my ass. Anyway, we got through half the semester that way, then one of the professors assigned us both to the same project. A team deal. Now I wasn't just competing with her, I had to work with her. Steamed me."

Something crashed behind them as a table was bumped. Stowe didn't look around, but she began to slide her drink around the table at geometric angles. "I don't know how to explain it. She was irresistible, and everything I wasn't. Warm, open, funny. Oh, God."

Grief, horribly fresh still, spurted through her. Stowe closed her eyes tight, grabbed for control. She took her time now, sipped the potent liquor in her glass. "She made me her friend. I still don't think I had a damn thing to say about it. She just... was. It changed me. She changed me. Opened me up to things. Fun and foolishness. I could talk to her about anything, or not talk at all. She was the turning point in my life, and so much more than that. She was my best friend."