Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(70)

How could she argue with that?

14

Seedy covered it.

The hole-in-the-wall that had been named, fairly realistically, Belly Up slouched between a  p**n  shop where a variety of strap-ons were featured in the dingy display window, and what had been in its latest and now-defunct incarnation a place called Bill’s Quik Loans.

Just across the street, the dying neon on a sex club stuttered NAKED—SEX—DANCERS in a migraine-inducing loop.

In its intermittent blue lights, Eve clearly saw the illegal deal being transacted by a bulky dealer in a heavy black coat, and his skinny, shivering customer.

“Is he shuddering because he’s jonesing,” Eve wondered, “or because he’s freezing his junkie ass off in that trench coat?”

“Likely both. If you’re going to bust them, I’ll wait.”

“Only take a minute.” She stepped to the curb, shouted over the dented hood of an ancient Mini, “Hey!” And waved her badge in the air.

Both bulky dealer and skinny junkie pounded sidewalk in opposite directions.

“You know they’ll both just deal elsewhere.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun to watch them run when I’m not going to chase them. Let’s go Belly Up with Sebastian—if he shows.”

It proved as seedy inside as out with a trio of shallow booths and a pair of scarred tables lining the sticky floor. The short black bar boasted three backless stools, and occupants who looked like they belonged there.

The flabby bartender didn’t look thrilled with his work, and after a flick of a glance toward Eve and Roarke appeared pissed off at the prospect of more customers.

The air smelled of cheap brew and centuries-old sweat.

The bony guy at the end of the bar slid off his stool as Eve passed, and strolled, desperately nonchalant, to the door and out.

She supposed he’d smelled cop even in the bad air.

She ignored the LC trying to make a deal with the man on the other stool, and walked to the back booth, and Mavis’s Sebastian.

He wore a suit—unexpected—of charcoal gray. It didn’t reach the heights of Roarke’s custom tailoring, but it was a decent fit. He’d paired it with a black turtleneck.

A silver pen peeked out of the breast pocket.

With his artfully shaggy mop of brown hair, the quiet, pale blue eyes, and neatly trimmed goatee, he might’ve been mistaken for a college professor. He even had his hands neatly folded over a ratty paperback book.

Long, graceful-looking fingers, she noted—certainly adept at lifting wallets, flicking off wrist units.

He rose as they approached. Eve managed to watch his eyes and his hands at the same time, just in case.

“Lieutenant Dallas.” He offered a hand—empty—and a smile as quiet and professorial as the rest of him. “Such a pleasure to meet you at last. And you.” He offered the same to Roarke. “Mavis has told me so much about you, and I follow news of you in the media, of course. I feel I already know you.”

“We’re not here to get chummy.”

“In any case.” He gestured toward the booth. “Let me buy you a drink. The safest here is beer in the bottle. Anything else is suspect.”

“On duty,” Eve said briefly.

“Yes, I understand. Still, the bartender looks askance when there’s no order on the table. There’s bottled water to be had. If that will suffice, just give me a moment.”

“What’s with this guy?” Eve asked, sliding into the booth as Sebastian stepped to the bar.

“He hopes to make a good impression.” Roarke angled his head to read the title of the book. “Macbeth. It suits the educated voice, the well-presented demeanor.”

“He’s a thief and an enabler of delinquent girls.”

“Yes, well, we all have our flaws.”

Sebastian came back, set down three short bottles. “I wouldn’t trust the glassware either. I’ll apologize for asking you to meet me in such a place, but you’ll understand I feel a bit more comfortable on my own turf, so to speak.”

He sat, looking comfortable, a man in his middle forties who kept in shape—body and mind.

“Shelby Stubacker,” Eve said.

He sighed, nudged his book to the side. “I heard the reports on the girls you found. It’s painful to me, on a human level, to know there are those who’d prey on the young. And painful on a personal level as Mavis said three had been mine.”

“Four.”

Shock flicked in his eyes. “Four? Mavis said three. Shelby and Mikki and LaRue.”

“Add Crystal Hugh, and possibly Merry Wolcovich.”

“Crystal.” He slumped a little. “I remember her very well. She was only nine when she came to me, still wearing the bruises her father had put on her.”

“Then you should’ve called the police.”

“Her father was the police,” Sebastian said with a snap in his tone. “There are beasts in every walk of life. She was hurt, hungry, and alone, with nowhere to go but back to the man who took out his frustrations on a child and her spineless mother. She stayed with us until she was thirteen. It can be a difficult age.”

He paused a moment. “Crystal. Yes, I remember Crystal. Soft brown eyes and the mouth of a longshoreman. I appreciated the first, discouraged the second. As I recall, she’d started considering boys, as girls will at that age, and straining against the rules.”