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“Mmm.”

“It did. Because it didn’t have all these people in it.”

“If you need to shove somebody out, you know, to simplify? Could you give Roarke the push? See, McNab and I have this understanding. If Roarke’s clear, I get to take my shot at him. McNab gets one at you.”

When Eve choked on the last swallow from the tube, Peabody gave her a helpful thump on the back. “Joking. Just sort of joking.”

“You and McNab have a sick, sick relationship.”

“We do.”

Peabody beamed. “It makes us very happy.”

Jim’s Gym was a hole in the wall down a dingy flight of stairs and through a muscular iron door. Eve assumed if a prospective member couldn’t handle the door, he was laughed back up to the sidewalk where he could slink away holding his puny biceps.

It smelled male, but not in a flattering sense. It was the kind of odor that hit you dead center of the face, like a fist wrapped in a sweaty jock strap.

Paint was peeling from the walls that had been tuned up to an industrial gray around the time she’d been born. There were rusty splotches in the ceiling from water damage and a grimy beige floor so soaked with sweat and blood the fumes of both rose up like fetid fog.

She imagined the men who frequented the place breathed it in like perfume.

The equipment was elemental—no frills. Weights and bars, a couple of heavy bags, a couple of speed bags. There were a few clunky machines that looked to have been manufactured in the last century. A single spotted mirror where a man built like a cargo shuttle was doing biceps curls.

Another was bench-pressing what looked like your average redwood, without a spotter. She imagined the concept of spotters would be spat upon in such facilities.

A third man pummeled one of the heavy bags like it was an adulterous ex-wife.

All were stripped down to baggy gray sweatpants and shirts with the arms ripped off. Like a uniform, she thought. All that was missing were the words Bad Ass emblazoned over the chest.

When Eve and Peabody stepped in, all movement stopped. Biceps Curls held his fifty-pounder suspended, Bench Press clanked his redwood in the safety, and Heavy Bag stood, pouring sweat, with his fist laid into the bag.

In the silence, Eve heard the echoing thuds from the next room, and the encouraging: “Lead with your left, you stupid fuck!”

She scanned the faces, then went with Heavy Bag because he was the closest. “Place got a manager?”

To her amazement, he flushed scarlet—all two hundred twenty-five pounds of him. “Ah, just Jim. He’s, um, he owns the place. He’s, um. Um, he’s got Beaner sparring over in the ring. Ma’am.”

She started across the room. Bench Press sat up, eyed her with open suspicion and considerable dislike. “Jim, he don’t take no females in here.”

“Jim must be unaware that it’s illegal to discriminate due to sex.”

“Discriminate.” He barked a laugh and sneered. “He don’t discriminate. He just don’t take no females.”

“A fine distinction. What you got there? Two seventy-five. That be about your weight?”

He swiped sweat from his wide, cocoa-colored face. “Guy can’t bench his weight, he’s a girl.”

With a nod, Eve unlocked the weights, adjusted them. “That’s my weight.” Then she wagged a thumb, inviting him to rise.

Heavy Bag stepped over as she positioned herself on the bench. “Ma’am. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

“No, I don’t. Spot me, Peabody.”

“Sure.”

Eve curled her hands around the bar, set. And did ten slow, steady reps. She replaced the bar, slid off the bench. “I ain’t no girl.”

She nodded to Heavy Bag, who blushed again, then strolled toward the next room.

“I can’t bench my weight yet,” Peabody said in an undertone. “I guess I’m a girl.”

“Practice.”

She stopped to watch the sparring match.

There was a bruiser in the ring with black skin so glossy it looked oiled. He had tree-trunk legs, abs that looked like ridges of steel. A punishing right, she noted, but he telegraphed it by dropping his left shoulder.

His opponent was in the Nordic god style, and quick on his feet.