"Label loyalty."

"We'll start with these. Standard run, eliminate males over fifty for a start. Our guy, or guys, are younger. Then I have to re-factor. Could be daddy who buys the wine, or uncle, or big brother. Or," she added, glancing back at the screen with joint accounts. "Mom and Dad. But I don't think so." She began to pace. "I need Mira's profile, but I just don't think so. Seems to me it's not romantic, it's not sexual if your parent or parents buy the wine. Then you're a child again and you're, by Christ, a man and you can prove it.

"You can pluck a woman right out of the pack," she continued. "Pick of the litter, and your choice. Women are merciless, from the poem. They'll crush you if you give them the chance. So you won't. You're in charge this time."

She stared at the names, moved away from them, then back again. "Women. Bitches, whores, goddesses. You desire them, sexually, but more than that, you want power. Absolute power over them. So you plan, hunt, select. You've seen her, but she hasn't seen you. You have to see her, have to make absolutely certain she is attractive enough, that she hasn't created the fantasy of herself the same way you've created yourself. She has to be real. She has to be worthy. You wouldn't waste your time on anyone or anything that's less than you deserve."

Fascinated, Roarke sat back. "What does he do?"

"He selects. He arranges. He seduces with words, with images. Then he prepares. The wine. One that suits his taste, his mood. No one else's. Candles, scented to please his senses. The illegals, so that he has control. He won't be refused. More, he'll be desired. Desperately desired."

"Is it about sex?"

She shook her head, still studying names. "Desire. That's different. To be desired by his choice. That's as vital as his control over her. Shemust want him. He goes to too much trouble to make himself an object of desire for it to be only about control and power. He has a need to be the focus, the center because it's his moment. His game. His victory."

"His pleasure," Roarke added.

"Yes, his pleasure. But he needs her to think it's hers as well. He stands at the mirror and makes himself into what he'd like to be, and what he believes a woman wants. Dashing, sexy, stunningly handsome, but elegant. The kind of man who quotes poetry and woos with roses. The kind who makes that woman believe she's the only woman. Maybe he believes it. Or did, with the first one. Maybe he deluded himself into believing it was romance. But under it's calculation. He's a predator."

"Men are."

She glanced back. "That's right. Humans are, but sexually men are more basic. Sex is more easily viewed as a function where women, in general, prefer an emotional rush along with it. These women did, and he was aware of it. He took the time to know them first, to discover their weaknesses and their fantasies so he could play on both. Then he controlled them. Like a droid, only they were flesh and blood. They were real, so the thrill was real. When it was over, they were spoiled. He'd made them whores again, so they stopped being worthy. He'll need to find the next."

"You were wrong when you said you couldn't get inside him. I wonder how you can be so much what you are and still look so clearly, so coldly, through the eyes of the mad and the vicious."

"Because I won't lose. I can't lose or they all win. Right back to my father."

"I know it." He rose, walked to her. Wrapped his arms tight around her. "I've never been sure if you did."

Notification of activity, account La Belle Dame…

Eve jerked her body free, whirled. "Screen name of user and location of activity."

User name OberonNYC, location Cyber Perks, Fifth Avenue at Fifty-eighth…

She was running for the door when Roarke pulled it open. "I'll drive," he told her.

She didn't bother to argue. Any one of his vehicles would be faster than hers. She grabbed her communicator on the race down the steps.

"Dispatch, this is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."

Detailing orders, she snagged her jacket and headed out the front door.

It took them six minutes and twenty-eight seconds from the notification to Roarke's swing to the curb in front of Cyber Perks. She timed it. And she was leaping out of the car before the brakes stopped squealing.

At a run, she spotted the black-and-white and the uniforms she'd ordered.

"No one leaves," she snapped, flipping out her badge, then sliding it shield out into the waistband of her trousers.

The noise blasted her the instant she walked through the doors. Cyber-punk rolled like a tidal wave, swamping the voices of patrons and beating violently against eardrums.

It was a world she'd yet to explore, and it was jammed elbow to groin with a motley throng who sat at counters, tables, cubes or airskated between stations. But even in the stupendous confusion, she saw the order.

Freaks with their painted hair and tongue rings were strewn across a section of color-coded table space. The geeks, earnest faces and sloppy shirts, were huddled in cubes. Giggly teenage girls skated in herds and pretended not to notice the packs of teenage boys they sought to allure.

There were students, most of whom were gathered in the cafe area trying to look sophisticated and world weary. Pocketed with them were a smatter of the standard urban revolutionaries, uniformed in sleek black, which students worshiped.

Scattered throughout were the tourists, the travelers, the casual clientele who sought the atmosphere, the experience, or were simply scoping out the place as a possible fresh hangout.

Where would her man fit?

Tracking the room, she strode to the glass kiosk marked Data Center. Three drones in red uniforms sat on swivel chairs in the center of the tower and worked consoles. They kept up what appeared to be a running conversation through headphones.

Eve zoned in on one, tapped on the glass. The boy, with a smattering of fresh pimples on his chin, looked up. He shook his head, attempted to look stern and authoritative, and gestured to the headphones on Eve's side of the glass.

She shoved them on.

"Don't touch the tower," he ordered in a voice that was just waiting to crack. "Stay behind the green line at all times. There are open units in the cafe. If you prefer, there is currently one cube available. If you wish to reserve a unit for – "

"Kill the music."

"What?" His eyes darted like nervous birds. "Stay behind the green line or I'll call security."

"Kill the music," Eve repeated, then slapped her badge on the glass. "Now."

"But – but I can't. I'm not allowed. Whatzamatter? Charlie?" He whipped around in his chair. And all hell broke loose.

The roar that burst out of the crowd outdid even the computer-generated ferocity of the music. People leaped off stools, out of cubes, screaming, shouting, cursing. A wave of them charged the data kiosk like peasants storming the king's palace. Full of fear and fury and blood lust.

Even as she reached for her weapon, she took a wayward elbow on the chin that rapped her head back against the kiosk and exploded a fountain of white, sizzling stars in front of her eyes.

And that seriously pissed her off.

She kneed a green-haired freak in the groin, stomped hard on the instep of a wailing geek, then fired three blasts at the ceiling.

It served to stop most of the momentum, though several bodies tumbled or were simply flung in the general direction of the kiosk.

"NYPSD!" She shouted it, holding up badge and weapon. "Kill that fucking music. Now! Everybody back off, go back to your seats or stations immediately or you'll be charged with rioting, assault, and creating a public hazard."

Not all of it got through, and some of her orders were lost in the swarm of voices and threats. But the more civic minded, or cowardly, slunk back.