"Do yourselves a favor," Peabody suggested. "Earn the ten."
She turned, sauntered toward the bar. "I've got sweat running down my spine," she said out of the corner of her mouth.
"Doesn't show. You even scared me."
"Dallas would've gotten in their faces more, but I thought that was pretty good."
"Frigid, babe." He yanked open the door, and they were hit by a blast of cold air that smelled of smoke, liquor, and humans who didn't have a working arrangement with soap and water.
It wasn't yet sundown and business was sluggish. Still there were pockets of patrons, such as they were, huddled at tables or slumped at the bar. On a narrow platform that stood as stage, a malfunctioning holographic band played bad reggae. The image of the steel drummer kept winking out, and the looping was just a hair off so that the singer's lips moved out of synch, reminding McNab of the really poorly dubbed vids his cousin Sheila got such a charge out of.
His toeless airsneaks made little sucking sounds as he crossed the sticky floor.
Moore was manning the bar. He looked a little thinner and a lot more harassed than he had in the ID photo they'd studied. He wore his hair in dreadlocks, a kind of explosion of horsey black tails McNab admired. They suited the mahogany cast of his face, the diamond point of his chin.
There was a necklace of what looked like bird bones around his neck, and his skin was glossy with sweat despite the chilly pump of air.
His eyes, an angry black, skimmed over Peabody and McNab as if they were one unit. He shoved a muddy-looking brown brew into the waiting hands of a customer, then used his dingy bar rag to wipe at the shiny chest exposed by a snug electric-blue tank.
He stepped down the bar, and curled his tattooed lip. "I'm paid up for the month, so if you've come in here to shake me down for another deposit go fuck yourselves."
Peabody opened her mouth, but McNab set his foot over hers to keep her quiet. "We're not local badges. The locals got a Survivor's Fund going here, we're not in that mix. Fact is, we'll be happy to make a contribution to your personal fund if you have information that merits it."
Peabody had never heard that cool and faintly bored tone out of McNab before.
"Cop offers to give me money, he usually finds a way to skin me for it."
McNab took a twenty out of his pocket, palmed it on the bar while keeping his attention on Moore. "In good faith."
The money was exchanged, slick as a magic trick. "What're you paying for?"
"Information," McNab repeated. "Carter Bissel."
"Asshole son of a bitch." Somebody hammered a fist on the far end of the bar and called for some goddamn service. "Shut the fuck up," Moore shouted back. "You find that goddamn Carter, I want a shot at him. He owes me two large, not to mention the ass pain I've had running this place solo since he decided to go on fucking holiday."
"How long did you run the place together?" Peabody asked him.
"Long enough. Look, we had some previous business, you could call it shipping. Decided we'd go into this little enterprise here, and each anted up the rent. Carter, he's got a good head for business in that asshole brain of his. We did okay. Maybe he'd go on a bender time to time. Guy likes his rum and his Zoner, and you run a place like this you can get 'em. Couple days off and on maybe he'd be no-show. I'm not his fucking mother, so what? He takes off, next time I take off. Works out."
"But this time," Peabody prompted.
"This time he's just gone." Moore pulled a bottle from under the counter, poured something brown and thick into a short glass, then downed it. "Took two thousand from the operating expenses, which damn near wiped them for the month."
"No warning?"
"Shit. He talks about a big score. Big score and living high, maybe getting us a class place. Carter, he's full of that crap. Always going to score big, and ain't never gonna 'cause he's small-time. Enough rum, he'd really get rolling on it, and how his brother got all the luck."
"You ever meet his brother?" Peabody asked.
"Nope. Figured he was making it up till I saw this scrapbook deal Carter kept at his place. Full of media reports and some shit on his brother, the artist."
"He kept a scrapbook on his brother."
"Yeah, loaded with shit. Don't know why 'cause the way he talked Carter hated the son of a bitch just for being."
"Did he ever talk about going to New York to see him?"
"Shit. Carter, he talked about going everywhere to see everybody. Just talk."
"Did you ever hear him mention Felicity Kade?"
"Mmm. Slick blonde." Moore licked his lips. "She's some number. She came around a couple of times."
"No offense," Peabody said pleasantly, "but this doesn't look like the sort of place a woman like that would spend much time."
"You never know what's going on with a fancy piece like that. Why I steer clear of them. Come in one night and made a play for Carter. Didn't have to play very hard. Didn't get the nitty-gritty out of him. Usually, he'll brag on the women he bags. Likes to think he's king in the sack. But with this one, he buttoned up. Slylike." Moore shrugged. "No big to me. I get my own action."
"She spend much time with Carter?"
"How the hell do I know? She come in a couple of times. They went out together. Sometimes he'd take a couple of days. If you're thinking he went off with that piece of work, your aim's off. No way she'd take him for more than the quick ride."
"Did he have any other business, any other women, something along those lines that he might've gone off with?"
"Been through all this with the locals. He banged women when he could get them. Didn't shack with any for long. If he had any side jobs, he didn't let me in. In or not, likely I'd've heard. It's a small island."
"Small island," Peabody agreed after they'd finished with Moore. "Not many places to hide."
"Not many ways to get off either. You got air, you got water."
She stepped out, saw with pleasure the scooter was in place, and apparently untouched. "Pay those guys off."
"Why do I have to pay them?"
"I lined them up."
McNab grumbled, but he flipped them a ten before unchaining the scooter.
"You handled that business about the shakedown really smooth." She wanted to pinch his butt in appreciation, but decided it wouldn't look professional. So it would wait. Instead, she climbed on the scooter. "Just as glad we're getting out of this sector before dark."
"You and me both, She-Body." Apparently he wasn't as concerned with professional image as she was 'cause he pinched her butt as he slid on behind her. "Let's ride."
***
Carter Bissel lived in a two-room shack that was hardly more than a tent pitched on a mix of sand and crushed shells. It had what Peabody considered a very slight appeal due to its proximity to the beach, but that same proximity made it a handy target for tropical storms.
She could see where patches had been slapped on, just as she could see from the sagging rope hammock that Carter had preferred to spend his free time swinging rather than worrying overmuch about household maintenance.
Scraggly tufts of beach grass poked up through the shells. An ancient and thoroughly rusted scooter was chained to a dead palm.
"A long way from Queens," McNab commented as he kicked a broken bottle aside. "He might have beat his brother out on the view, but the rest of the living conditions put him way back on the sib rivalry chart."
"When you look at this, you can see that he might just walk away." Peabody took out the key they'd picked up from the local PD. "Everything we're seeing spells out loser."
"It doesn't spell out what Felicity Kade wanted down here."
"I've been thinking about that. Maybe they wanted to use him for a setup. It's not the kind of place you'd expect an HSO branch office or a terrorist cell. And that could've been just the point."
She unlocked the door, creaked it open. Inside, the air was stale and hot. She saw an enormous bug scurry into the shadows and had to bite back a squeal. She was no particular fan of anything that skittered or slithered.
She tried the lights, found them inoperable. Both she and McNab drew out penlights.
"I've got a better idea. Hold on a minute."
She struggled not to cringe when he left her alone. She could almost hear the spiders spinning. She shined her light over the living area.
There was a single couch. One cushion had exploded and left a kind of gray mushroom of filler growing up from the torn fabric. There were no rugs, no art, a lone unshaded lamp on a crate that served as a table. But the entertainment screen was new, top of the line, and, she noted after a quick scan, bolted to the floor.
Not the most trusting of men, she decided. In addition to being a slob and a loser.
The kitchen was along one wall of the living quarters. A counter cluttered with take-out boxes and a blender, a cheap AutoChef and a grimy minifridgie. She'd just opened the fridgie to peruse the contents of home-brew, a withered fuzzy tube that might have once been a pickle, and a golf ball-sized lime when McNab puttered in on the scooter.
The headlight beamed brightly.
"Good thinking," she decided. "Strange but good." She opened the lone cupboard and found three glasses, two plates, and an opened bag of soy chips.
"You know, his financials weren't stellar, but he had enough to live better than this." She turned around as McNab poked under the cushions of the couch. "And you can bet not all his money was reported."
"Probably couldn't hold onto it. Slippery fingers. Spent it on women and illegals." He held up a small bag of white powder he'd pulled out of the damaged cushion.
"How'd the locals miss that?"
"Didn't care enough to look. My question is why'd he leave it behind?"
"Because he left in a hurry and planned to come back... or he didn't leave voluntarily." She started toward the bedroom. "Bring the scooter."
The bed was unmade. But the sheets, Peabody noted, were prime quality. They matched the entertainment unit more than the rest of the house. The skinny closet held three shirts, two pair of trousers, and one bunged-up pair of gel-sandals. The dresser held four pair of boxers, a dozen T-shirts or tanks, five pair of shorts.
There was a 'link, but it had been turned off. The data unit sat on the floor and looked as if it had been through several wars. She left McNab to fiddle with it while she searched the tiny bathroom.
"No toothbrush, but there's a half tube of toothpaste," she called out. "No hairbrush or comb, but there's shampoo. There's another set of sheets-whoa, baby, very smelly sheets-stuffed in the hamper in here, along with a moldy towel."
She stepped back out. "Looks to me like he packed up a few essentials, and before he did, he had company. Female company who earned the fresh, fancy sheets."
"What're you doing?" McNab asked absently.
"We're taking the sheets in for testing. He put them on, but the bed's not made. That tells me they got used. That says sex, so maybe there's some DNA."
He grunted and continued to work with the computer.
"I'll tell you what else isn't here, besides his toothbrush and comb. There's no scrapbook on his brother. That's interesting."
"So's this." He scooted around until he faced her, with the headlight from the scooter shining on his face. "It's really interesting that this unit is fried. That it appears to have been infected with the same worm as the ones in New York."
***
In New York, Eve paced Roarke's locked-down office with her secured 'link on privacy mode as she listened to Peabody's report. It was, she supposed, still possible for someone to copy the transmission even through the lockdown, even through the layers of security, but it would take time and effort.
"I'm going to pull strings, and pull them hard with the locals," she told Peabody. "And get you cleared to transport any and all items from that location that you deem applicable to this investigation. It may take a few hours, but I'm going to see to it that you and those items are on a transport in the morning. Sit tight. I'll be back to you."
She broke transmission, then paced a moment longer as she calculated how best to start the wheels turning.
"If I may suggest," Roarke put in. "I could have a private shuttle bring them back, circumventing any of the red tape with the local police."
She frowned, but considered it. "No. I don't want to circumvent. It'll take a little more time this way, but we'll keep it clean. When this comes out, and I'm going to make damn sure it does, I want our end to sparkle. I'll start by playing diplomat with the local chief, and if that doesn't work, I'll toss him to Whitney. But it should work. What do they care if we haul off a busted data center and some sheets?"
