Page 86 of Concealed in Death

“Perhaps it was the right bus after all,” Roarke said quietly, and made her smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was. I did some sidewalk sleeping, changed my name. I did that legally—sort of—when I could, but I already had the name picked out. We had a neighbor once, Mrs. Mavis. She was nice to me. She’d say how she made too much food, and would I do her a favor and eat it, that kind of thing. And I just liked the way Freestone sounded, so I was Mavis Freestone.”

“It’s exactly who you are,” Roarke said and made her smile again.

“It’s who I wanted to be. I was scared for a while, and freaking cold, hungry. But I knew how to get by, and anything was better. I was doing some panhandling and pickpocketing in Times Square when I met a couple of girls. Not the ones upstairs, not then. They took me to The Club. I never told you much about that,” she said to Eve. “I wasn’t there that long really. Maybe off and on for a year, a year and a half.”

“Where was it?”

“We moved around. A basement, a condemned building, an empty apartment. Nomads, Sebastian called us.”

“Sebastian who?”

“I don’t know. Just Sebastian, and I never told you about him because, well, because. He ran The Club. It was like the street academy, a school, a club, a place to hang. He’d teach us the ropes—pocket picking, handoffs, drops, simple cons, most short cons. Crying Baby, Lost Girl, Duck and Goose, like that. He made sure we ate, were outfitted—and pooled the take, of which he took a cut.”

“Your Fagan.”

Eve frowned at Roarke. “Her what?”

“Fagan. A character from Oliver Twist. Dickens, darling, only Fagan ran a gang of boys in London.”

“Sebastian figured girls got less of the cop eyeball, and pulled off the cons better than boys. That’s where I met Shelby and Mikki and LaRue. They didn’t stay—Sebastian called them day-trippers. But they ran with us, and Shelby made noises about starting her own club. Somebody was always making noises about starting something, going somewhere, being somebody.”

“This Sebastian, did he ever hurt any of you, go at any of you?”

“No. No!” Mavis waved a hand in the air. “He looked out for us—not your way, Dallas, but it worked. He never laid a hand on any of us, not any way. And if any of us got in the stew outside, he fixed it.”

“Forged documents?”

“He was pretty good at it, I guess you could say it was one of his specialties.”

“I’ll need you to work with an artist. I need his face.”

“Dallas.” Mavis just looked at her, waited a beat. “If you think he did that to those girls, you’re out of orbit. He’d never hurt any of them. Nonviolence all the way. No weapons—ever. “Wit and speed,” that’s what he’d say. “Use your brains and your feet.” Even after I went out on my own, I’d do jobs with him now and then.”

“I need to talk to him, Mavis.”

“Shit. Double shit. Let me talk to him first.”

Eve eased back a little, nearly goggled. “You know how to contact him?”

“Triple shit. He helped me out, Dallas, when I needed it. He taught me—okay, not what you’d like, but still. He’s sort of semi-retired. Sort of. Now I know why I never told you about him.”

“Twelve girls are dead.”

“I know it. I know it, and I knew three of them. Maybe it’s going to turn out I knew more of them. It makes me sick inside. I’ll talk to him, get him to talk to you, but you have to promise it’s, like, not in that sweatbox deal. That you won’t bust him for—just stuff.”

“Christ.”

“Please.”

“Set it up, but if it leans a frigging inch that he killed those girls, it’s over.”

Mavis breathed out in relief. “It won’t, so that’s a deal.”

“Tell me more about the girls.”

“Shelby ran the show—with her crew. LaRue hung with them more than anybody else, but she was more on her own. Mikki was, like, all about Shelby. I think she had the hots for her, too, and just didn’t get it yet. There was another girl—kinda small black girl, with a great big voice. Really magolicious pipes.”