Judgment in Death (In Death #11)(48)

"Hey, I'm not the one in emotional crisis here." On her hands and knees, Mavis crawled over and kissed Eve, smackingly, on the cheek. "Poor baby. Mommy's gonna tell you just what to do to make it all better."

She crawled off for the screamers, crawled back, and poured them out into the glasses, somehow managing not to spill a single potent drop.

"Well, what?"

"Fuck his brains out."

"That's it? That's Mommy's best advice?"

"It's the only advice. Men, being pigs and having the dick factor, will usually forget what they were pissed about if you lay them right."

"So I'm supposed to use sex to fix this?" Somewhere in her alcohol-dulled brain there was a glimmer of a thought that this approach was seriously marred. But she couldn't quite grab onto it. "It could work," she decided.

"Guaranteed. But..."

"I knew there was a but. I could almost feel it."

"It's only a... what do you call it, a temporary measure. Dallas, you've got like, you know, issues. So you gotta figure out why you went behind his back. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, 'cause sometimes you just gotta do what you do. But what you got here are two really rock heads that are rapping up against each other." She demonstrated by banging her hands together, and spilled some screamer after all. "Oops."

"You're saying I'm a rock head?"

"Sure you are. That's why I love you. And when you got those rock heads smacking together like that, you're gonna have something crack now and again."

"He's hardly speaking to me."

"He's so mean." Mavis polished off the screamer, then gave Eve a hard hug. "Want some ice cream?"

"I'll be sick. What kind?"

They ended up back on the floor with enormous bowls of Triple Fudge Decadence topped with clouds of pink whipped cream.

"I wasn't wrong," Eve said between bites.

"Of course you weren't. We're women. We're never wrong."

"Even Summerset went on my side, and he hates me."

"Doesn't hate you."

"I love the stupid son of a bitch."

"Aw, that's so sweet." Mavis's eyes, seriously blurred, went moist with sentiment. "If you'd tell him, you guys would get along better."

It took Eve a minute. "Not Summerset. Jeez. Roarke. I love that stupid son of a bitch. You'd think he could cut me a break when this case is hammering at me, and I don't know what I'm doing."

"You always know what you're doing. That's why you're Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."

"Not with the job, Mavis. I know what I'm doing with the job. With Roarke, with the marriage deal, with this love crap. You must be drunk."

"Of course I'm drunk. We each drank an entire batch of Leonardo's -- isn't he the cutest thing -- special screamer mix."

"You're right." Eve set her empty bowl aside, pressed a hand to her stomach. "I have to go throw up now."

"Okay. I'm next, so let me know when you're done."

As Eve stumbled to her feet, staggered out of the room, Mavis simply curled up, tucked one of the satin throws under her head, and went blissfully to sleep.

Eve washed her face, studied her pale, sloppy-eyed reflection in the mirror. She looked soft, she thought. Soft, a little stupid, and more than drunk. With some regret, she raided Mavis's supply of Sober-Up. After brief consideration, she decided to take only one. She wasn't quite ready to give up the buzz a full dose would dull.

When she found Mavis asleep on the floor, like a doll among a forest of colorful toys, she grinned. "What would I do without you?"

She leaned down, gave Mavis's shoulder a little shake. When she got a sexy little purr as a response, she decided to forgo her plan to help Mavis to bed. Instead, she plucked one of the many fabric throws off the sofa, tucked it around her sleeping friend.

And straightening again, had her head spin.

"Yep, still half drunk. Good enough."

She left the apartment, rolling her shoulders like a boxer prepping for a bout. She would deal with Roarke all right, she thought. She was more than ready for it.

The fresh air hit her, knocked her back. She stood a moment, breathing slowly, then walked, in mostly a straight line, to her car. She had wit enough to program it to auto and let it take her home.

She was going to straighten this out, she told herself. Yes, she was. And if she had to get Roarke into bed to do it, well... the sacrifices she had to make.

That made her snort with laughter and settle back to enjoy the ride.

New York looked so cheerful, she decided. The glidecarts were doing brisk business, as the pedestrian traffic was thick. The street thieves, she thought with mild affection, were having a field day plucking the tourists and the unwary.

Greasy smoke stinking of overcooked soy dogs and rehydrated onion bits plumed in front of her car. Two street LCs were in a shoving match on the corner of Sixth and Sixty-second while a hopeful John cheered them on. One Rapid Cab tried a sneak maneuver around another, missed, and scraped fenders. The two drivers were out of the cars like jacks from the box, squaring off with fists.

God. She loved New York.

She watched a flock of the head-shaven Pure Sect, well out of their bailiwick, herd each other uptown. An ad blimp, past curfew, glided overhead and touted the delights of a package trip to Vegas II. Four days, three nights, round-trip and deluxe accommodations for two, all for the low-low-low price of twelve thousand and eighty-five.