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“Whaddaya want for five bucks? Freaking filet mignon?”

She passed a couple of cops in soft clothes quick-marching a guy greasier than the dog smoke across the sidewalk and into Central while he proclaimed his innocence in all matters.

“I didn’t do nothing. I don’t know how that shit got in my pocket. I was just talking to the guy. Sweartagod.”

She watched a bike messenger—a Day-Glo blur on a shiny jet-bike—gleefully challenge a Rapid Cab for position, and whiz away with lunatic speed, leaving the horn blasts and curses in his dust. An enormous black guy walked a tiny white dog, and stopped to responsibly scoop miniature dog poop.

She crossed the street with a throng of others at the light. Passed a flower vendor who sent perfume madly into the air, a deli that wafted out pickles and onions when a customer walked out. A couple of women walked by speaking what might have been Cantonese.

She crossed again, making the turn north.

And two women flew out of a shop door, screaming, punching, to drop nearly at her feet in a hair-pulling, scratching, teeth-snapping tangle.

“Why?” Eve wondered. “I was having such a nice time.”

Pedestrians scattered like pool balls at the break. Others edged closer, calling out encouragement and/or grabbing ’links or cameras to record the bout. Eve barely resisted the urge to just keep going, and instead waded in. She grabbed a hank of hair, pulled hard. When the owner squealed and reared up, Eve nabbed her opponent in a headlock.

“Cut it out!”

Hank of Hair bit her, snapping forward to sink teeth into Eve’s shoulder. And got an elbow to the chin in return.

“I’m a cop,” Eve stated. “Goddamn it. The next one who bites, scratches, slaps, or squeals is getting hauled over to Central and dropped in the tank.”

“She started it.”

“Lying bitch. I want to press charges.”

“I want to press charges.”

“I saw it first.”

“I—”

“Shut the hell up!” Eve considered just knocking their heads together and calling for a wagon. “I don’t give a rat’s ass who started what. It’s done. Break it up, stand up, step back. Or I’ll charge you both with disturbing the peace, creating a public nuisance, and whatever else occurs to me.”

They glowered at each other, but said nothing else as they climbed to their feet and stood with Eve between them. A third woman gingerly opened the shop door. “I called the police.”

“I am the police,” Eve told her.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Showing considerable faith, the shopkeeper opened the door wider. “I just didn’t know what to do. These ladies were in the shop. We’re having a nice sale today. And they both wanted the Betsy Laroche triple roll bag in peony. We only have one. Things got very heated, and before I knew it, they were fighting.”

Eve held up a hand. “Let me get this straight. You’ve got a bloody lip, a ripped shirt, ruined pants, and a black eye coming on between you. Over a bag?”

“A Laroche,” the one with the bloody lip lisped. “At ten percent off. And I saw it first. I had my hand—”

“Bull! I saw it first, and you came running across the—”

“Liar.”

“Bitch.”

And they leaped around Eve and at each other’s throats.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

She broke it up this time by grabbing both by the hair and shoving faces against the wall. “Two things can happen now. You can each go your separate ways, unless this lady here wants to press charges.”

“Oh, no.” The shopkeeper peered out of what was now a tiny opening. “No. That’s okay.”

“Your separate ways is option one,” Eve continued and noted the black-and-white pulling up to the curb. “And neither of you will come to this establishment for the next month or I’ll hear about it. Option two is I’m going to have—I’m on the job,” Eve said to the uniforms as they strode across the sidewalk. “Can’t get my ID right at the moment.

“Option two is I will have these two officers cuff you both, put you in the back of their vehicle, and take you the few blocks to Central to book you on the variety of annoying charges I will list. Either way, neither of you is getting that stupid bag. Choose.”

“I’ll leave if she leaves.”

“Okay, all right.