The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [468]
One glance at her pinprick pupils told Eve detox wasn’t doing much good either.
“Have a seat, Loopy.”
“Do I know you? I don’t know you.”
“Have a seat anyway.”
She started toward the table, her movements a mechanical jerk. Wherever she was getting her fix, Eve thought, she hadn’t had one recently.
“You jonesing, Loopy? How long since you scored?”
Loopy licked her white lips. “I get my daily synthetic. Part of detox. It’s the law.”
“Yeah, right.” Eve leaned in. “Did Julianna give you coin, so you could score the real funk inside?”
“Julianna’s my friend. Do you know Julianna?”
“Yeah, we go way back.”
“She went back in the world.”
“That’s right. She staying in touch?”
“When you see her, you tell her they must be stealing her letters, ’cause I didn’t get any and she promised. We’re allowed to get letters.”
“Where are the letters coming from?”
“She’s going to write and tell me where she is, and when I go back in the world, I’ll go there, too.” Her muscles jerked as she talked, as if they weren’t connected to flesh and bone. But she smiled serenely.
“Tell me where she went and I’ll find her for you. I’ll let her know about the letters.”
“She’d maybe go here, she’d maybe go there. It’s a big secret.”
“You ever been to New York before?”
The wasted eyes widened. “She told you?”
“Like I said, we go back. But New York’s a big place. It’ll be hard to find her if I don’t have an address.”
“She has a house, all her own. Somewhere. And she’s maybe gonna do some traveling. She’s going to come visit me when she comes back to Chicago.”
“When’s she coming back?”
“Sometime. We going shopping. New York, Chicago, New L.A.” She sang the cities, like a child singing a nursery tune. “Dallas and Denver. Ride ’em cowboy.”
“Did she talk about the people she was going to see? Old friends, new ones? Did she say the names, Loopy?”
“Should old acquaintance be forgot. We had a party for New Year’s. There was cake. Do you know the bone man?”
“I might.”
“She read me all kinds of stuff about the bone man. He lives in a big palace in the city. He has green thumbs and flowers grow out of them. She’s going to visit him.”
Pettibone, Eve thought. First hit. “Who else is she going to visit?”
“Oh, the sheep man and the cowboy and the Dallas dude. She has people to see, places to go.”
“When she read you about the bone man, where were you?”
“It’s a secret,” she whispered.
“You can tell me. Julianna would want you to so I can find her and tell her about the letters.”
“And the funk,” Loopy said in a whisper. “She’s gonna get me the funk.”
“I’ll tell her, but you have to tell me first.”
“Okay. She had the little computer in her cage. The one that fits in your hand. She could do her work on it. She always had lots of work to do.”
“I bet she did.”
“Did she send you to see me? Did she send you with funk? She always got me the funk, but I’m almost out.”
“I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Eve looked at her—the spastic muscle jerks, the ghostly skin. Rehabilitation, she thought. Mother of God.
By the time she met up with Feeney again, Eve was steaming. Every interview had added to the picture of Julianna Dunne, multiple murderer, waltzing her way through the system, stacking up privileges and favors, and conning, bribing, sweet-talking guards, staff, and other prisoners into doing whatever she needed or wanted to be done.
“Like they were goddamn servants,” Eve exploded. “And this was her goddamn castle. She couldn’t leave it, but she made certain what she wanted got in to her. A fucking PPC, Feeney. Christ knows what she sent or received on it.”
“Had the office drone who worked over her buffaloed,” he added. “I can guarantee she did plenty of authorized transmissions from the units in that complex. Free fricking rein.”
“We get an impound warrant, can you track?”
“I already put in for one. Might be spitting