Page 71 of Calculated in Death

“Yeah, it was. He started out so attentive, really went after me, you know? The whole pursuit thing, and it just swept me up. I’d just started dating this other guy, a really nice guy, and I broke it off for Carter.”

Her shoulders lifted with her sigh before she turned to make a minute adjustment of the position of a mammoth handbag in zebra stripes.

“I was stupid, and I walked away from a sweetheart. And once Carter had me wrapped up, the dick came out—metaphorically as his anatomic dick had already made a few appearances.”

Enjoying the woman’s style, Eve had to grin. “How did the metaphorical dick rear its head?”

Brandy shook back her own head and laughed. “Good one. Well, to start, I was supposed to drop whatever I had going for what he had going. He made fun of my shop, subtly at first, just kidding, you know? But it got old, and it got clear he didn’t respect what I’m doing. You know, just because my family’s got money doesn’t mean I should sit on my butt and not try to make something.”

She let out a breath. “Whew. I’m still pissed. What did he do?”

“I don’t know if he did anything, other than being a dick,” Eve told her.

Under her impossible lashes, Brandy’s eyes hardened. “Well, if he did, you can bet his conjoined twin’s in on it.”

“Tyler Biden?”

“That one doesn’t even pretend not to be a dick. He likes being one. His dickhood’s like his mission in life, and he’s really good at it. Smirking, sneering, superior-assed fuck. Sorry,” she added. “I really am still pissed.”

“No need to apologize,” Eve told her. “My impression of him runs parallel.”

“Good, because I’ll tell you something else, they don’t know half as much about business as I do. They wouldn’t be in charge of cleaning the floors at Young-Biden if they hadn’t been born into it. Carter especially. Just try to have a conversation with him about supply and demand, or marketing, or net returns, customer base and growing same, and it’s clear he’s clueless. He’s kind of an idiot really. An idiot dick, which makes me an idiot for giving him eight and a half months of my life.”

“So he didn’t like to talk about business, his work, his company?”

“More like he couldn’t. He liked to talk about the company, but only to brag. About his money, and how he liked to spend it, or the trips. He’d bitch about his mother now and then when he’d had a couple drinks or...”

“I’ve already figured out he uses,” Eve told her.

“Well... He’d complain that his mother pushed him too hard, or expected too much, how she wanted him to live and breathe the company. I don’t know, she didn’t strike me as bitchy the few times I met her. But in my family we’re expected to make something, to be involved. Maybe we don’t have the Young kind of money, but if we did, I can tell you it’d be the same. You want something, work for it. I’ve got three years in this place, and I’ve worked my ass off. I figured out before long that Carter mostly sits on his.”

She sighed again, adjusted the bag again. “But there was that sparkle. He’s great-looking, he’s charming when he wants to be, and he can make you feel really special. For a little while.”

“Did you ever meet his financial adviser?”

“No. But now that you mention it, early on, when he was really going after me, he’d talk about how I should hook up with his guy if I really wanted to see my portfolio zoom. How his guy knew all the ins, all the outs, all the little corners. My family has a firm they’ve worked with for years. I stuck with them. I trust them. I didn’t know anything about his guy, and maybe I was dazzled by the sparkle, but when it comes to my bottom line, I’m careful.”

•••

And what did we learn, Peabody?”

Peabody pulled her gloves on as they walked to the car. “Other than I really want that snakeskin belt with the sapphire blue buckle I can’t afford? That Carter Young-Sachs is a dick who, if she’s any judge—and I think she is—doesn’t know squat about his own company. And could care less. He’d cheat on his girlfriend on her own birthday, then lie about it. A stupid lie because she’s going to find out. He resents his mother expecting him to actually work, and Biden’s smarter and meaner.”

“All that. And.”

She sidestepped a couple of women loaded down with shopping bags, bubbling over with excitement over some sale, and not watching where the hell they were going.

“He likes going after what’s not his, then doesn’t appreciate it once he’s got it,” Eve added. “He’s tight enough with his financial guy to push him on someone else, and does it in such a way that indicates said money guy isn’t above skirting around the edges.”

“That, too.”

“Which doesn’t mean he’d kill or arrange for a killing. But it does confirm he’s stupid enough to do it, and do it half-assed. I want you to go talk to a few more exes, feel them out.”

“Good times.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d see it that way.”

People hustled or breezed or wandered by. Some talked on ’links like the guy pleading into his for Michelle to give him five minutes, just five minutes, baby. Some took vids, like the group of Asian tourists in I Heart New York ski caps posing in front of a storefront. Others ate on the run, like the man chomping down on a loaded soy dog.