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“GoodHow may I direct you?”

“Kenneth Stiles” Eve laid her badge on the counter beside a brass pot tee with flowers

“Is Mr Stiles expecting you, Lieutenant Dallas?”

“He’d better be”

“Just one mo, her voicethat sara, Mr Stiles I have a Lieutenant Dallas and companion at the lobby desk May I clear them?” She waited a beat “Thank you Have a lovely day”

Turning froestured toward the east bank of elevators “The far right car is cleared for you, Lieutenant Enjoy your day”

“You bet I used to wonder why Roarke didn’t use more droids,” she said to Peabody as they crossed the black tiles “Then I run into one like that, and I understand Thatcreepy”

The ride up to the fiftieth floor was rapid enough to have Eve’s stomach jump and her ears pop She’d never understand why people equated height with luxury

Another droid aiting for the units, Eve concluded, done up in such stark and formal attire he made the dreaded Suray hair was slicked back and matched with a heavy mustache that do jacket was offset with snohite gloves

He bowed, then spoke in a fruity voice with a rolling English accent “Lieutenant Dallas and Officer, Mr Stiles is expecting you This way, please”

He led them down the hall to double doors that opened into the corner apart Eve sahen she entered was the sweeping all that opened onto New York’s bustling sky traffic She wished Stiles had drawn the privacy screen

The room itself ith color, rubies and eether in the pattern on the wide U-shaped conversation pit Centered in it was a whitelily pads

A strong scent of citrus spread out froe and leeometric pattern of color that on closer look shifted into an erotic orgy of naked bodies in inventive forms of copulation

Eve strode across blue breasts and green cocks to where Stiles lounged—posed, she thought—in a saffron ankle-duster

“Some place”