In Death 09 - Loyalty in Death

somewhat choppily cut brown hair, a lean face with sharp angles and a shallow dent in the chin. Most who patronized The Brew had been around and could smell cop at a dead run in the opposite direction.
    She spotted Ratso, his pointy rodent face nearly inside the mug as he sucked back beer. As she walked toward his table, she heard a few chairs scrape shyly away, saw more than one pair of shoulders hunch defensively.
    Everyone's guilty of something, she thought, and sent Ratso a fierce, bare-toothed smile. "This joint doesn't change, Ratso, and neither do you."
    He offered her his wheezy laugh, but his gaze had danced nervously over Peabody's spit-and-polish uniform. "You didn't hafta bring backup, Dallas. Jeez, Dallas, I thought we was pals."
    "My pals bathe regularly." She jerked her head toward a chair for Peabody, then sat herself. "She's mine," Eve said simply.
    "Yeah, I heard you got you a pup to train." He tried a smile, exposing his distaste for dental hygiene, but Peabody met it with a cool stare. "She's okay, yeah, she's okay since she's yours. I'm yours, too, right, Dallas? Right?"
    "Aren't I the lucky one." When the waitress started over, Eve merely gave her a glance that had her changing directions and leaving them alone. "What have you got for me, Ratso?"
    "I got good shit, and I can get more." His unfortunate face split into a grin Eve imagined he thought cagey. "If I had some working credit."
    "I don't pay on account. On account of I might not see your ugly face for another six months."
    He wheezed again, slurped up beer, and sent her a hopeful look out of his tiny, watery eyes. "I deal square with you, Dallas."
    "So, start dealing."
    "Okay, okay." He leaned forward, curving his skinny little body over what was left in his mug. Eve could see a perfect circle of scalp, naked as a baby's butt, at the crown of his head. It was almost endearing, and certainly more attractive than the greasy strings of paste-colored hair that hung from it. "You know The Fixer, right? Right?"
    "Sure." She leaned back a little, not so much to relax but to escape the puffs of her weasel's very distasteful breath. "He still around? Christ, he must be a hundred and fifty."
    "Nah, nah, wasn't that old. Ninety-couple maybe, and spry. You bet The Fixer was spry." Ratso nodded enthusiastically and sent those greasy strings bobbing. "Took care of himself. Ate healthy, got regular sex from one of the girls on Avenue B. Said sex kept the mind and body tuned up, you know."
    "Tell me about it," Peabody muttered and earned a mild glare from Eve.
    "You're giving me past tense here."
    Ratso blinked at her. "Huh?"
    "Did something happen to The Fixer?"
    "Yeah, but wait. I'm getting ahead of things." He dug his skinny fingers into the shallow bowl of sad-looking nuts. Chomped on them with what was left of his teeth as he looked at the ceiling and pulled his easily scattered thoughts back into line. "About a month ago, I got some... I had me a view-screen unit, needed a little work."
    Eve's eyebrows lifted under her fringe of bangs. "To cool it off," she said mildly.
    He wheezed, slurped. "See, it got sorta dropped, and I took it in to Fixer so's he could diddle with it. I mean, the guy's a genius, right? Nothing he can't make work like brand-fucking-new."
    "And it's so clever the way he can change serial numbers."
    "Yeah, well." Ratso's smile was nearly sweet. "We got to talking, and The Fixer, he knows how I'm always looking for a little pickup work. He says how he's got this job going. Big one. Really flush. They got him building timers and remotes and little bugs and shit. Done up some boomers, too."
    "He told you he was putting together explosives?"
    "Well, we was sorta pals, so yeah, he was telling me. Said how they heard he used to do that kind of shit when he was in the army. And they was paying heavy credits."
    "Who was paying?"
    "I don't know. Don't think he did, either. Said how a couple guys would come to his place, give him a list of stuff and some credits. He'd build the shit, you know? Then he'd call this number they give him, leave a message. Just supposed to say like the products are ready, and the two guys would come back, pick the stuff up, and give him the rest of the money."
    "What did he figure they wanted with the stuff?"
    Ratso lifted his bony shoulders, then looked pitifully into his empty mug. Knowing the routine, Eve lifted a finger, turned it down toward Ratso's glass. He brightened immediately.
    "Thanks, Dallas.