Read In Death 13 - Seduction in Death for Free Online Page B

mirror dropped down. "Look at your face. You want him to know you get bent when you have to deal with him? Snag a little pride, Peabody."
    Studying herself, Peabody saw sulk move into pout mode at Eve's words. She flipped the visor back up. "I was just thinking, that's all."
    Eve made the swing onto Canal, pitching through its bazaarlike sector where the offerings were plentiful and cheap and the Black Market did the lion's share of business. Tourists were routinely scammed, then they filed complaints against shops that changed venues more often and with greater efficiency than a tent circus.
    Then again, Eve figured if you were stupid enough to believe you could buy a Rolex for the same price as a large pizza, you deserved the skinning.
    Within a few blocks, the carnival gave way to the dumping ground for the homeless and the disenfranchised. Sidewalk sleepers erected their boxes and tents in pitiful little communities of despair. Those with beggar's licenses, and many without them, wandered across town to shill enough credit tokens to buy a bottle of home brew to get them through another night.
    Those who didn't make it through the night would be transported to the morgue by the NYPSD unit not-so-affectionately known as the Sidewalk Scoopers.
    No matter how many were loaded up, cremated at city expense, more came to replace them.
    It was a cycle no one, particularly the city fathers, seemed to be able to break. And it was here, in the midst of the filth and despair, that Louise Dimatto ran the Canal Street Clinic. She didn't break the cycle either, Eve thought, but she made the spin on it a little less painful for some.
    In an area where the shoes on your feet were considered fair game, it was a risky business to park a car unless you then surrounded it by droids wearing body armor and hefting rocket lasers. Patrol cars were manned by exactly that.
    The good news was, parking places were plentiful.
    Eve pulled to the curb behind what might have been a sedan at one time. But since all that was left of it was part of a chassis and a broken windshield, she couldn't be sure.
    She stepped out, and in the hot, stinking steam that gushed up from a subway vent, engaged all locks, activated all alarms. Then she stood on the sidewalk, scanned the street in all directions. There were a few loiterers hulking in doorways and one pitifully skinny street LC trying to drum up customers.
    "I'm Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD." She didn't shout it, but raised her voice enough to cause faces to shift in her direction. "This piece of shit is my official city vehicle. If said piece of shit is not in this exact spot, in this exact condition when I come back, I'll bring a squad of door-bangers down here to roust every living soul in a five-block radius, along with illegals-sniffer dogs who will find and confiscate all the goodies you've got stashed. I guarantee it will be a very unpleasant experience."
    "Bitch cop!"
    Tracking the direction of the comment, Eve lifted her gaze to a third-floor window in a building across the street. "Officer Peabody, will you verify the asshole's opinion?"
    "Yes, sir, Lieutenant, the asshole is correct. You are the supreme bitch cop."
    "And what will happen if anyone lays hands on my vehicle?"
    "You will make their life a living hell. You will make their friends' lives a living hell, their family's lives a living hell. And, sir, you will make people's lives who are complete strangers to them a living hell."
    "Yes," Eve said with a cold and satisfied smile. "Yes, I will." She turned away and walked to the door of the clinic.
    "And you'll enjoy it."
    "Okay, Peabody, point made." She pulled open the door, stepped inside.
    For an instant she thought she'd walked into the wrong door. From her visits over the past winter, she remembered the jammed waiting room, the dingy walls, the tattered, inadequate furniture. Here instead was a wide space partitioned by a low wall where glossy green plants thrived in simple clay pots. Chairs