Witness in Death (In Death #10)(44)

The building was utterly silent, telling her the soundproofing was first-rate. She thought of Quim's miserable flop a few telling blocks away. Bookies apparently did a lot better than the majority of their clients.

"Never bet against the house," Morse had said.

Truer words.

She pressed the buzzer on 2-A, waited. Moments later, the door swung open in front of an enormous redhead and a small, white, yapping dog.

"About time you -- " The woman blinked hard gold eyes, narrowed them in a wild and striking face the tone and texture of alabaster. "I thought you were the dog walker. He's late. If you're selling, I'm not buying."

"Maylou Jorgensen?"

"So what?"

"NYPSD." Eve held up her badge then found her arms full of barking fur.

"Well, hell." Eve tossed the yelping dog at Peabody, then charged into the loft. Leaping, she tackled the redhead as the woman scrambled for a wide console, studded with controls and facing a wall of busy screens.

They went down like felled trees.

Before Eve could catch her breath, she was flipped to her back, pinned under a hundred eighty-five pounds of panicked female. She took a knee to the groin, spit in the eye, and only through lightning reflexes managed to avoid the rake of inch-long blue nails down her face.

Instead, they dug rivers in the side of her neck.

The smell of her own blood irritated her.

She bucked once, swore, then swung up, elbow in the lead. It slammed satisfactorily into Maylou's white face. Her nose erupted with blood.

She said, quite clearly: "Eek!"

Her gold eyes rolled up white, and her considerable weight flopped lifelessly on Eve.

"Get her off of me, for Christ's sake. There's a ton of her, and all of it's smothering me."

"Give me a hand. Dallas, she's like a slab of granite. Must be six-three. Push!"

Sweating, liberally sprayed with blood, Eve shoved. Peabody pulled. Eventually, Maylou was rolled onto her back, and Eve came up, gasping for air. "It was like being buried under a mountain. Jesus, shut that dog up."

"I can't. He's terrified." Peabody glanced over, with some sympathy, as the little dog backed his white butt into a corner and sent out high, ear-piercing barks.

"Stun it."

"Oh, Dallas." Peabody's tone was a whisper of utter horror.

"Never mind." Eve looked down at the blood spray on her shirt and jacket, gingerly lifted a hand to her raw neck. "Is much of this mine?"

"She made some mag grooves," Peabody announced after a quick exam. "I'll get the first aid kit."

"Later." Eve crouched down, frowned at the unconscious woman. "Let's roll her over and get the restraints on her before she wakes up."

It took some time, brought on more sweat, but they managed to secure her wrists behind her back. Eve straightened, studied the console.

"She's got something going on here. Thought we were a bust. Let's see what I remember about Vice and Bunko."

"Do you want me to call for a warrant?"

"Here's my warrant." Eve rubbed her fingers over her throbbing neck as she sat at the console. "Lots of numbers, lots of games. So what? Names, accounts, bets wagered, money owed. Looks clean enough on the surface." She glanced back. "Is she coming around yet?"

"Dead out, sir. You knocked her cold."

"Go find something to stuff in that dog's mouth before I use my foot."

"He's just a little dog," Peabody murmured and went to search out the kitchen.

"Too many numbers," Eve said to herself. "The pool's too damn deep for a nice little betting parlor. Loan-sharking. Yeah, I bet we got some loan-sharking here, and where you got sharks, you've got spine crackers. What else, what else?"

She turned, saw Peabody cooing to the dog and holding out a biscuit of some kind. Eve slipped out her pocket-link and called the one person she knew who could cut through the ocean of numbers and ride the right wave.

"I need Roarke a minute." She hissed it to his assistant when she came on-screen. "Just one quick minute."

"Of course, Lieutenant. Hold please."

"There's a sweet little dog, there's a nice little doggie. Aren't you pretty?"

Instead of razzing Peabody over the baby talk, Eve left her at it.

"Lieutenant." Roarke's face filled the screen. "What can I -- " Instantly his easy smile vanished, and his eyes were bright and hard. "What happened, how badly are you hurt?"

"Not much. Mostly it's somebody else's blood. Look, I'm in a private betting parlor, and something's off. I've got some ideas, but take a quick look, give me your take."

"All right, if your next stop is a health center."

"I haven't got time for a health center."

"Then I haven't time for a consult."

"Goddamn it." She was tempted just to cut transmission, but took a steadying breath instead. "Peabody's going to get the first aid kit. I got a couple of scratches, that's all. I swear."

"Turn your head to the left."

She rolled her eyes but complied.

"Get them seen to." He snapped it out, then shrugged as if in acceptance. "Let me see what you're looking at."