“He tells her to strip and get on the bed, he’s not interested in fucking conversation, just fucking.”
“And she didn’t see the charm?”
Baxter laughed. “Nope. She said she considered canceling because he looked mean, but she could handle mean. So she walked into the bedroom behind him. He watched her strip, but didn’t seem interested in any flourishes. He took off his robe—was already wearing a condom. Basically, she said, it was a two-step. He got on, got off. About ten minutes on the outside. No eye contact, no kissing. Rough with his hands, but straight missionary wham-bam, with no thank you, ma’am.
“She said he didn’t seem to enjoy it, because he snarled and swore the whole time. And I quote, ‘I’ll do the fucker this time. Fucking bastard, lucky prick bastard gobshite. I’ll drink his fucking blood before it’s done.’ ”
“Descriptive.”
“He worked up a sweat with it. She assumed he needed to get some business problem—competitor—worked out, then they’d connect. Instead, when he finished, he told her to get dressed and get out, but he seemed deflated—in more ways than one. Sulky, in her term. She said she needed to clean up, and he waved a hand at the bathroom. So she did, and said she considered she’d made nine K—she gets the full grand for the late booking, and eighty percent of the ten K fee—in under a half hour.
“He was back in the robe when she came out, sitting in a chair and brooding into a glass of whiskey. She said goodnight, he grunted, she left. She called it in on the way down to the lobby, got another late booking offer, decided why the hell not.
“Kind of makes you wonder why everybody’s not an LC.”
“Right. What did she notice?”
“A lot. Well built, gym fit, and muscular. No visible scars, tats, or piercings. Manicured hands, groomed pubes. No devices sitting around, no personal items in the bedroom or the living area of the suite. He’d showered not long before she got there, because there was a damp towel on the floor. He had his kit out on the counter. High-end products—travel size. When we pressed, she remembered a couple of brands. He uses That Man skin products—and I can tell you they’re steep. Underworld hair products—including the daily treatment to address hair loss.”
“Hair loss. Interesting.”
“You have to get that line direct from a licensed salon, and it’s generally used to supplement salon treatments, recommended every three months. Trueheart looked it up. And since we’re smart cops, we’ve done a search for salons so licensed in Dublin. Thirty-two of them.”
“That’s good. That’s very good.”
“So say we all. We’ll go ahead and run the search in New York.”
“I’ll take that.”
“It’s all yours, Loo. He’d had at least one drink before she got there. She smelled the whiskey. He wasn’t drunk or impaired, but he’d had a drink, and was having one when she left.”
“Got it. That’s good work.”
“Yvette’s on alert to notify us if he books again, and agreed to do the same if she happened to see him in her jaunts around town.”
“Good enough. Call it a night.”
“You need more, just give a tag and we’re on it.”
“Appreciated.”
“I stand corrected,” Roarke said when she clicked off. “Out of a twenty-minute session he had with an LC, you have those details, those lines. You may not be happy to hear there are eighty-eight salons in Manhattan licensed for Underworld hair products and treatments, but you’ll cull that down.”
“Yeah, we will. First way, how many of those—and the ones in Dublin—also carry the skin stuff he uses.”
“Ha. Well, of course.”
“People tend to stick with the same person and place with stuff like that. Even if it’s Trina,” she added in a mutter.
“They do, yes—and our Trina’s salon is so licensed.”
“When we nail down the salon in Dublin and his Trina-type person, we’ll get more. And we’ll get the last time he had the in-salon deal, see when he’d want another. If his usual recommends other places when he’s traveling.”
With more coffee, she studied the board again.
“Sloppy to leave the kit out, but the LC’s just a vehicle for release as he sees it. Sloppy to hire out for sex anyway when for what he used it for, he could’ve whacked off and saved eleven large.”
“Whacking off provides release, but it doesn’t feed the ego like a beautiful woman who’s there to do whatever you want.”
Eve sat again, pointed a finger at him. “That’s absolutely right. He needed the vehicle, needed to know he could pay top dollar for ten minutes. And now we have more details.”
She gestured toward the auxiliary. “How about you?”
“I’ve a number of possibilities. It’ll take longer to cull through them.”
“Can it cull on auto?”
“For a first pass.”
“Let’s do that. I’m tired. I need some sleep.”
When he simply looked at her, she hissed out a breath. “Okay, let’s say we both need some sleep. And most of what I need to do has to wait until morning anyway. So do me a favor.”
“On auto then.”
“Good, and I’ll do the same with the salon angle.”
Once she had, in twice the time it took him to set his up, she rose. “I’m going to dump all these angles and results on Abernathy’s lap tomorrow.”
He took her hand. “Would that be ego?”
“Damn right. How come the alphabets never figured out Cobbe worried about losing his hair?” As they walked out, Galahad streaked by in his quest to beat them to the bed. “That’s some gold to mine.”
“And you know Cobbe likely didn’t get quite so sloppy—as you put it—before. But still, it gives you a one-up on the inspector, which you’ll enjoy.”
“Some. But I can set that back for getting Interpol’s resources on the angle.”
When they reached the bedroom, the cat had stretched himself over as much of the bed as possible. Eve sat to pull off her boots—gave them a study.
“Then there’s the boots. Custom boots. Who’s his bootmaker? Does he have one in Dublin? Same with suits, because he’d want some of those. He’d need a tailor for that reversible jacket. He needed to find a cat to kill, a hole to hide in. Private shuttle and ground service.
“Lots of gold to mine.”
When she got into bed, he drew her against him. The cat shifted to curl into the small of her back.
“Who decided gold was worth digging out of caves or whatever?” she wondered. “And why? Because it’s shiny?”
Roarke brought her hand to his lips to kiss. “The world’s full of puzzles.”
Yeah, it was, she thought. But only one interested her now. Where was Lorcan Cobbe?
He rarely dreamed of Dublin. The city represented the canvas for the worst of his childhood memories, and the best of them as well. He had begun to build his fortune there—by both thievery and by fair means. And though he still had business interests there, he’d left Dublin, the bright and the dark of it, behind.