Eve countered with, “Cop, cop.”
Peabody held up her badge, and more than one someone in the crowd started recording.
“I was just walking here.”
“With your hand in my pocket? What else you got?”
Eve handed her field kit to Peabody, then gave the thief’s trench coat a little shake. She heard rattles and clunks.
“Sounds like you had a pretty good night.” Eve added a smile. “Up till now.”
“Give me a break. I was just walking.” She turned to appeal to bystanders. “Police brutality!”
She stomped on Eve’s foot, tried another swing, easily blocked with a forearm.
“That’s called assaulting an officer. Peabody, pull in a couple of uniforms. You’re under arrest.”
The woman struggled, wiggled, bounced, elbow jabbed as Eve turned her to snap on restraints.
A couple of wallets, a wrist unit, and a ’link spilled out of the overfilled inner pockets of the trench.
“Anyone who tries to snag what just fell on the ground’s going to end up like her,” Eve warned.
Now the woman tried tears. “I was starving! I’ve got no place to sleep.”
“Hey, I smell bullshit. But anyway, now you’ll get three hots and a cot, problem solved.”
Peabody juggled the field kits, got out an evidence bag for the loot on the sidewalk. She managed to seal and label as two uniforms jogged up.
Once they made the transfer, Eve took back her field kit.
“Nothing more to see here.” Peabody put on her stern face, waved ahand. “Move along. I really wanted to say that,” Peabody muttered to Eve as they continued down the street. “She actually tried to pick your pocket.”
“Sloppy with it. She should’ve quit while she was ahead.”
“How’s your foot?”
“Fine. Good boots.”
“Mag-looking, too. Love the laces.”
“Of course you do.”
Eve turned to the residential door of Ren’s building. On its chipped red paint someone had painted an enormous penis at full alert.
Inside, the stairway loomed straight ahead. Eve didn’t consider the single elevator. Even if she had, theOUT OF ORDERsign overscored with aFuck You Simonin red marker would have sealed the deal.
“Fourth floor,” Peabody said. “Now I earn the schmear on the bagel I inhaled this morning. McNab made it for me,” she continued as they started the climb.
“He was so sweet, getting up because I had to. He said, ‘She-body, you need some chow,’ and made me coffee and a bagel. He even offered to come with, but he’s deep in a cyber scam case, and he thinks they’ll break it today.”
Rounding the second floor, Eve noted that the single slit of a window had been broken and boarded over. She recognized the same artist’s style in the multiple penises inside what looked like a take-out sack. It held the caption:
Eat a bag of dicks Simon.
“I suspect Simon is the building super.”
“I agree with your deduction,” Peabody said. “These stairs have about five years’ worth of grime on them. I don’t think Simon earns his pay.”
