Origin in Death (In Death #21)(97)

Street thieves were rolling in the easy pickings.

Tour blimps were doing extra duty, blasting out the highlights and landmarks as they lumbered along, bloating the sky and blocking the commuter trams. And thereby, Eve thought, stalling and inconveniencing the people who actually lived here who wanted to get home to prepare for the holiday, and blah blah.

Billboards flashed and sparkled and sang brightly of the sales that would lure the certifiably insane into the hell-world of the city stores and outlying malls before their turkey dinners had been fully digested.

Crosswalks, people glides, sidewalks, and maxibuses were so mobbed she wondered if there was anyone left outside the borough.

The number of kids on airskates, airboards, zip bikes, and city scoots told her school was out, too.

There ought to be a law.

The street hawkers were doing brisk business selling their designer knockoff everything, their gray-market electronics, their wrist units that would keep time just long enough for the hawker to complete the sale, change location, and melt into the city fabric.

Let the buyer damn well beware, Eve thought.

She was stopped at a red when a Rapid Cab in the next lane attempted a maneuver and clipped the rental sedan behind Eve.

She let out a sigh, pulled out her communicator to inform Traffic. Her intention to let her involvement end there was quashed when the sedan's driver leaped out, began to screech and pound her fists on the cab's hood.

That brought the cabbie out, and just her luck, another woman. That had the pushy-shovey starting immediately.

Horns blasted, shouts raged, and a number of sidewalk onlookers began to cheer and choose sides.

She actually saw a glide-cart operator start making book. What a town.

"Hold it, hold it, hold it!"

Both women swung around at Eve's shout, and the driver of the sedan grabbed what Eve identified as a panic button, worn on an ornamental chain around her neck.

"Wait!" Eve snapped, but was blasted by the ear-splitting scream.

"I know what this is, I know what you're doing!" The woman blasted the button again and had Eve's eyes watering. "I know the kind of scams you run in this godforsaken city. You think because we're from Minnesota we don't know what's what? Police! Police!"

"I am the-"

She carried a handbag the size of her home state and swung it like a batter aiming for the fences. It caught Eve full in the face, and considering the stars that exploded in her head, must have been filled with rocks from her home state.

"Jesus Christ!"

The woman used her momentum to spin a full circle and swung at the cabbie. Forewarned, the cabbie nimbly leaped out of range.

"Police! Police! I'm being mugged right on the street in broad daylight. Where are the damn police!"

"You're going to be unconscious on the street in broad daylight," Eve warned, and ducked the next swing as she dug out her badge. "I am the damn police in this godforsaken city, and what the hell are you doing in my world?"

"That's a fake! You think I don't know a fake badge just because I'm from Minnesota?"

When she hefted her purse for another swing, Eve drew her weapon. "You want to bet this is fake, you Minnesota moron?"

The woman, a good one-seventy, stared. Then her eyes rolled back. On the way down, she toppled over on the cabbie, who might have weighed in at one-twenty, fully dressed.

Beside her, as Eve glared down at the tangle of limbs at her feet, the sedan's window opened.

"My mom! She killed my mom!"

She glanced in, saw the sedan was packed with kids. She didn't care to count the number. They were all screaming or crying at a decibel that put the panic button in the shade.

"Oh, bloody, buggering hell." It was one of Roarke's favorites, and seemed most appropriate. "I didn't kill anybody. She fainted. I'm the police. Look." She held her badge to the window.

Inside the weeping and wailing continued unabated. On the ground, the cabbie, obviously dazed, struggled to pull herself from under her opponent.

"I barely tapped her." New York was so thick in her voice an air-jack wouldn't have dented it. Eve felt immediate kinship. "And you saw, you saw, she started beating on my ride. And she shoved me first. You saw."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"She clocked you good. You're coming up a bruise there. Damn tourists. Hey, you kids, button it. Your old lady's fine. Slam the lie down, now!"

The screams subsided to wet whimpers.

"Nice job," Eve commented.

"Got two of my own." The cabbie rubbed her bruised ass, shrugged "You just gotta know how to handle them."

They stood a moment, studying the now moaning woman, as the hysteria of horns and voices raged around them. Two uniforms hotfooted it through people, through vehicles. Eve held up her badge.

"Fender bump. Cab against rental. No visible vehicular damage."

"What's with her?" one of the uniforms asked, nodding toward the woman who attempted to sit up.

"Got herself worked up, took a swing at me, passed out."

"You want we should take her in for assaulting an officer?"

"Hell, no. Just haul her up, load her in, and get her the hell out of here. She makes any noises about the bump, or pressing charges, then you tell her she pushes it, she's going to spend Thanksgiving in a cage. Assault with a damn purse."