Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(73)

His hands moved, picking at the ragged fringe of the black scarf wrapped around his neck. His feet moved, shuffling inside scarred army boots with no laces and silver tape holding the soles together.

He could have been anywhere from thirty to eighty with that pale, ravaged, soot-streaked face.

He’d been someone’s son, might have been someone’s lover once, or father. He’d had a life at some point before he’d offered it up on the altar of funk.

“Just walking by,” he chanted—moving, moving, moving. “Yep, yep, just walking by. Hey, lady, got anything to spare? Don’t need much.”

She tapped her badge. “See this?”

“Yep, yep.” But those ruined eyes watered and blinked.

“It’s a badge. A lieutenant’s badge. It means I’m not a lady. Give me a name.”

“Whose name you want?”

“Yours.”

“Doc. Tic-tock doc, the mouse and the clock.”

“Doc. Do you live over there?”

“Not hurting anybody. Keep myself to myself, right? Check? Double check.”

“Check. Were you at home when the ambulance got here?”

“Just walking by.” Those ruined eyes did their skittering dance again. “Just walking.”

“Where to, where from?”

“Nothing, nowhere. Nohow.”

“You were just walking from nothing to nowhere, and happened to see the ambulance parked there, maybe twenty feet from where you live?”

When he smiled, he offered Eve a full view of the unfortunate results of really bad dental hygiene. “Yep. Yep. Check.”

“I don’t think so, Doc. I think, you were tucked up at home. Wrapped up warm on a cold day like this, not walking around without more gear. I bet you’ve got more layers over there you put on when you head out to look for spare change, when you go out to find some funk.”

“Just walking,” he insisted with his voice creeping toward a whine. “Didn’t see nothing, nowhere, nohow. I don’t see good. I got a condition.”

Yeah, she thought, called chronic addiction. “Wait here.”

She went to her car, checked the glove box. As expected she found a couple pair of sunshades either Roarke or Summerset had stocked as she constantly lost them.

She imagined either pair cost more than Doc saw in ten years of panhandling on the street, but grabbed one. She walked back, waved them at Doc.

“Want these?”

“Sure! Sure!” Something desperate came into his abused eyes. “Wanna trade?”

“Yeah, but not for your sunshades. You can have these if you tell me what you saw. No bullshit. Tell me the truth, and they’re yours.”

“I know a true! Stop clock, tic-tock—true two times every day.”

“How about that? No.” She pulled the shades out of his reach. “I want the true about what you saw here. About that ambulance.”

“I didn’t go in. Just looking. Just walking.”

“Who got out?”

He stared at her, bumped his shoulders up and down.

“Okay.” She started to turn away.

“Make the trade!”

“There’s no trade until you tell me. You tell me the truth, I give you the shades. That’s the deal.”

“White coats get out. What you think? White coats in the am’lance. Not gonna take me, no way no how. I set down.”

He skimmed his palms on the air in a downward motion. “Don’t need no white coat, no am’lance.”

“How many white coats got out?”

“Two. Prolly two. I don’t see good. Two. Then no white coats. In the trunk.”

“What’s in the trunk?”

“The white coats’ coats, what you think? In the trunk of the big car that’s here when I wake up. Big car. Shiny. Smooth. Can’t get in, all locked tight. Just to look,” he said quickly. “Just wanna look, but locked up tight. White coats with no white coats in the big shiny car, and drive away!”

“What did they look like?” A long-shot question, considering, but she had to ask. “The white coats without white coats who got in the big shiny car?”

“One’s big, one’s small. Don’t see good, but one’s big.” Doc spread his arms wide as he lifted them into the air and gave Eve an unfortunate whiff of amazing body odor.

“Okay, how about the car? Was it like white or like black?”

“Dark, dark. Maybe black. Dunno. Shiny. All true. Trade.”

“Okay.” Calculating she’d mined all she could expect, she passed him the glasses. “No, you keep those, too,” she said when he offered his broken ones. “We’re trading truth for shades. We’re done.”

When she stepped away one of the uniforms fell into step beside her. “Do you want us to take him in, Lieutenant? To a rehab shelter?”

It’s what—technically—should be done, and maybe, she thought, morally. But realistically? He’d be out within a week, have lost his turf, and very likely be worse off than now.

He sure as hell wouldn’t be better off.

“No, let him go. Maybe cruise down here once in a while, take a look at him.”

The uniform nodded. “He’s got a halfway decent spot here, mostly out of the weather and it looks like the hyenas leave him alone. It’s about the best he’s going to get.”