Certain prey

FBI.

'Tennex – sounds like a rock band,' she said, her voice moody.

'You're thinking of the Quicksilver Messenger Service.'

'Never heard of it/ she said. She slumped in the chair, scanning the computer list of phone calls: 'There's nothing before the Allen hit.'

'No…'

'You hear what I just said?' She asked. 'I actually said, hit. Jesus, I'm a TV movie.'

'You know what I'm wondering?' Lucas asked. 'What if Rolando D'Aquila was her contact with the killer? From what you guys dug up, he had some heavy Mafia connections once, and this shooter -she's supposed to do a lot of Mafia contracts.'

'But you know what?' Sherrill asked, sitting up. 'Rolo's contacts, his drug supply, mostly came out of St. Louis, which was unusual. At the time, most of our traffic came out of L.A.; it was just shifting over to Chicago, back then.

St. Louis was nothing – never had been, and never was again after Rolo went down.'

'And this shooter…'

'Has contacts in the St. Louis mob. That's what die Feebs say.'

'That's something,' Lucas said. 'Maybe we can work with that.'

Carmel Loan was sitting in her office; she could feel Hale Allen's touch from the night before, the balls of his thumbs on either side of her spine… She was trying to read a deposition, but her eyes defocused and she suddenly giggled. The man was unnaturally sexual; a memory popped into her head, she thought it was from a movie, somewhere back in time, a woman telling a man,

'Women don't want sex. Women want love.'

What complete drivel, she thought. Women want sex; they just also want love. And this must be it, she thought, giggling in the middle of the day. She remembered exactly how he'd taken her by the…

Her phone rang, a private outside line, and she started, found herself, took a breath and pulled herself back to the day. 'Carmel,' she said. Not many people had this number.

'You remember me?' the voice asked.

'Sure.'

'Why don't you send me a few bucks?'

'Whatever you say, pal. At twenty percent?'

'Carmel Loan-Shark, hey?' He laughed at his own pun. 'But I'm selling, not borrowing.'

'I don't think I'm in the market for anything right now. But whattaya got?'

'First of all, ya gotta agree not to do anything about it for a day or two. Not many people know about this, and if you come charging over here, they could figure me out as your source.'

'Okay, so what it it?

'Lucas Davenport, Tommy Black and Marcy Sherrill put together a photo spread for some witness to look at, in those killings over in Dinkytown.'

'Okay…' She was casual, but she felt a chill.

'Guess whose face was in the spread?'

'Uh, the Virgin Mary's.'

'Very close, but no cigar. Actually, your face was in the spread.'

'Mine?' She was shocked, and let it show through. The guy on the other end of the line was a cop.

'Yup. I don't know why. Maybe because they had a picture, because there were a bunch of other faces in there. The weather girl on Channel Three was in there. .. they were looking for tall blondes.'

'Maybe that's it,' Carmel said. 'But it pisses me off.'

'Thought you'd like to know.'

'Watch your mailbox,' she said.

'I will,' he said, with a purr of pleasure.

Some people, Carmel thought when she hung up, get hot at the prospect of cash.

Not because of what it can buy, or what it may represent, but just with the pure, smooth, slightly greasy feel of currency. The cop was one of those. She didn't understand it; but then, she'd never tried very hard. She was grateful the need existed, and that she could fill it. A couple of cops had been useful over the years.

After she thought about it for a while, she took a walk out to a pay phone, punched in Rinker's number, and left a message.