Page 67 of Celebrity in Death

“Listen, sister. We’re the police, get that? And we’re here on police business. We need your boss’s whereabouts.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t keep reading that same line.”

“But it’s true.” The blonde waved her red-tipped fingers in the air. “I can’t tell you, ’cause I don’t know. He said how he had some outside business, and I should hold the fort.”

“Can you contact him?”

“I tried, ’cause Bobbie came by and said why don’t we go out for a drink, but I can’t go out for a drink if I’m holding the fort. So I tried to tag him to ask when I could stop holding it, but I went right to v-mail.”

“Is this usual?”

“Well... it depends. Sometimes A’s outside business involves, um, wagering. When it does he maybe doesn’t answer his ’link for a while.”

“Do you know where he wagers?”

“Different places. They move around.”

“I bet. Do you have a name?”

“Uh-huh.”

Eve waited a beat. Then two. “What would your name be?”

“It’s Barberella Maxine Dubrowsky. But everybody calls me Barbie.”

“Really? Okay, Barbie, let’s try this. Do you have a client who resembles my partner here?”

Barbie caught her bottom lip between her teeth—a method, Eve assumed, of concentration. “Um, no, I don’t think.”

“One named K.T. Harris?”

Now the lashes fluttered, a reflex of anxiety. “Am I supposed to tell you?”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Okay. No, at least I don’t remember that name. There’s an actress who has that name. She used to go with Matthew Zank. He’s totally cute. I saw her in this vid about corporations and crime or something. I didn’t get it. But she looked good, plus it had Declan O’Malley in it, and he’s—”

“Totally cute,” Eve finished.

“Uh-huh.”

“How about a client named Delia Peabody?”

“Oh sure. She came in to see A about a week ago. Something like that. She was in with A for a long time, like maybe an hour, and he was really excited when she left. But...” She glanced over her shoulder, dropped her baby-doll voice to a whisper. “I thought she was kind of a beyotch—you know?”

“Is that so?”

“She, like, ordered me around. Like—” Barbie snapped her fingers, then frowned down at her nails. “Shoot. I smudged them. I’m really polite with clients, but I wanted to tell her, Listen, you, just ’cause you’re rich doesn’t mean you can snap your fingers at me and look at me like I’m dirt.”

“Why did you think she was rich?”

“She had on these mag-o-mag shoes. I’ve seen them in Styling, and they cost huge. And she wore this swank dress. Some redhead comes in here in a swank dress and mag-o-mag shoes, I know she’s rich. But that doesn’t mean she can boss me around and tell me to go out and get her a decent cup of coffee—cream no sugar—for which she didn’t even pay me. It’s not like I get an expense account working here, and that coffee cost me ten. A made it good a couple days ago, but she shouldn’t have done like that. Right?”

“Right. Do you know why she hired A?”

“I wrote up the file. It’s okay to tell you? We’re confidential.”

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