No matter how many were loaded up, cremated at city expense, more came to replace them.

It was a cycle no one, particularly the city fathers, seemed to be able to break. And it was here, in the midst of the filth and despair, that Louise Dimatto ran the Canal Street Clinic.She didn't break the cycle either, Eve thought,but she made the spin on it a little less painful for some.

In an area where the shoes on your feet were considered fair game, it was a risky business to park a car unless you then surrounded it by droids wearing body armor and hefting rocket lasers. Patrol cars were manned by exactly that.

The good news was, parking places were plentiful.

Eve pulled to the curb behind what might have been a sedan at one time. But since all that was left of it was part of a chassis and a broken windshield, she couldn't be sure.

She stepped out, and in the hot, stinking steam that gushed up from a subway vent, engaged all locks, activated all alarms. Then she stood on the sidewalk, scanned the street in all directions. There were a few loiterers hulking in doorways and one pitifully skinny street LC trying to drum up customers.

"I'm Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD." She didn't shout it, but raised her voice enough to cause faces to shift in her direction. "This piece of shit is my official city vehicle. If said piece of shit is not in this exact spot, in this exact condition when I come back, I'll bring a squad of door-bangers down here to roust every living soul in a five-block radius, along with illegals-sniffer dogs who will find and confiscate all the goodies you've got stashed. I guarantee it will be a very unpleasant experience."

"Bitch cop!"

Tracking the direction of the comment, Eve lifted her gaze to a third-floor window in a building across the street. "Officer Peabody, will you verify the asshole's opinion?"

"Yes, sir, Lieutenant, the asshole is correct. You are the supreme bitch cop."

"And what will happen if anyone lays hands on my vehicle?"

"You will make their life a living hell. You will make their friends' lives a living hell, their family's lives a living hell. And, sir, you will make people's lives who are complete strangers to them a living hell."

"Yes," Eve said with a cold and satisfied smile. "Yes, I will." She turned away and walked to the door of the clinic.

"And you'll enjoy it."

"Okay, Peabody, point made." She pulled open the door, stepped inside.

For an instant she thought she'd walked into the wrong door. From her visits over the past winter, she remembered the jammed waiting room, the dingy walls, the tattered, inadequate furniture. Here instead was a wide space partitioned by a low wall where glossy green plants thrived in simple clay pots. Chairs and sofas were ranged on either side, and though nearly every seat was taken, there was a sense of order.

The walls were a pale, pretty green decorated with framed pictures obviously drawn by children.

There was the hacking, wheezing, the soft whimpering of the ill and the injured. But there was not, as there had been the previous winter, an underlying sense of anger and hopelessness.

Even as she scanned the room a woman in a jumpsuit the same color as the walls came through a doorway. "Mrs. Lasio, the doctor will see you now."

At the shift in patients, Eve crossed over to the reception window. Through it she could see updated equipment and the same sense of ordered efficiency that permeated the waiting areas.

There was a young man at the station with a face as cheerful and harmless as a daisy. He couldn't have been more than twenty, Eve thought as he beamed up at her.

"Good afternoon. How can we help you today?"

"I need to see Doctor Dimatto."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm afraid Doctor Dimatto is fully booked for the rest of this afternoon. If this is a medical emergency – "

"It's personal business." Eve laid her badge on the counter. "Official business. If she's tied up, have her contact me when she's free. Lieutenant Dallas, Cop Central."

"Oh, Lieutenant Dallas. Doctor Dimatto said you might come by. She's with a patient, but if you don't mind waiting just a few minutes? You can wait in her office, and I'll tell her you're here."

"Fine."

He buzzed her through the door. She saw what she assumed were examining rooms on either side of a hallway, and the hallway opened into a wide pass-through where lab equipment stood on counters. From somewhere nearby, she heard a child laughing.

"You guys expanded."

"Yes. Dr. Dimatto was able to purchase the building that adjoined the original clinic." Still beaming smiles he led them across the pass-through, into another hallway. "She expanded and updated the clinic and its services and added pediatrics. We have six doctors now, two full-time and four on rotation, and a fully equipped lab."

He opened a door. "Doctor Dimatto is the angel of Canal Street. Please, help yourself to the AutoChef. She'll be with you as soon as she can."

Louise's office hadn't changed much, Eve noted. It was still small, still cramped, still crowded. And reminded Eve very much of her own space at Central.

"Jeez, she's really done something here," Peabody commented. "It had to run her a couple million."

"I guess." And since Eve had only donated – okay, bribed Louise with – a half a million for the clinic, she figured the angel of Canal Street had done some very intense, very successful fund-raising in a very short amount of time.

"This place is better equipped, and I bet better run, than my local health center." Peabody pursed her lips. "I might switch."

"Yeah, well." To Eve's mind one health facility was the same as another. They were all voids of hell. "You got an e-memo on you? We'll just leave the doctor a message. I want to get back to Central."

"Maybe. Somewhere." And as Peabody dug into her pockets, Louise rushed in.

"Got five. Need coffee." She made a beeline for the AutoChef. "Fill me in while I refuel."

"Did you know Bryna Bankhead?"

"No."

"Picture Peabody." Eve took the ID photo Peabody took from her file bag, held it out. "Recognize her?"

Louise drank coffee with one hand, dragged her other through her hair as she frowned at the image. A stethoscope and a red lollipop peeked out of her lab coat pocket. "Yes. I'd ridden in the elevator with her now and again, seen her in the local markets where I shop. I suppose I might have spoken to her, the way you do with neighbors you don't have time to know. Was she murdered?"

"Yeah." Eve held out a copy of the suspect's image. "Recognize him?"

"No." Louise set down her coffee, took the photo for a closer look. "No, I've never seen him before. He killed her? Why?"

Eve handed the photos back to Peabody. "You ever treat anybody for sex-inducement drugs? Whore, Rabbit?"

"Yes. In my ER rotation we'd have somebody coming down off Rabbit a few times a month. Mostly Rabbit clones, or Exotica/Zeus combo, because the real's so pricey. I never dealt with Whore, don't know anybody who has. You study it, and its derivatives in illegals training, but it's on the inactive list."

"Not anymore."

"Is that what he did to her? Doped her with Whore? Whoreand Rabbit. Jesus Christ." She rubbed her hands over her face. "Mixed with alcohol, I take it. Why didn't he just blast her brains out with a laser?"

"Maybe you could poke around, ask some of your doctor friends if they've seen any re-emergence of Whore."

"I can do that. You know, a man had to come up with the street name for that crap. You know how it started?"

"No, how?"

"As an experimental treatment for phobias and conditions like social anxiety disorder. It was a little too good at it."

"Meaning?"

"It also had an affect on the hormones. It was discovered that it worked more effectively as an aid in sexual disorders. In diluted and carefully monitored doses, it could and did enhance sexual desire and function. From there, it went into use as an aide for training licensed companions. Though non-addictive, it was soon found to be dangerously unstable. Which, naturally, meant it became desirable on the street, particularly among your more well-heeled college boys and junior execs who would slip a dose into their dream girl's drink to loosen her up." She washed the rising rage back down her throat with coffee.