Chosen Prey

25

LUCAS BROUGHT IN the intelligence cops to watch Qatar. Since Qatar didn't know he was being watched, only one man was assigned at a time: one man to watch the car, get him to work, monitor the classroom, and his travels during the day. "If he gets erratic, we'll get you help," Lucas told the first guy up. "Basically, at this point, it's baby-sitting."

The baby-sitter took Qatar through the night and then to work; a new guy picked him up at work, took him out of his office to a classroom, out to lunch, shopping, a visit to a funeral home, back to his office.

Lucas stayed in touch all day, but focused on the problem with Randy. He finally decided the best way to handle it was with Marcy. "He relates to women. He may relate to your getting shot."

"You want me to show him the bullet hole?"

She didn't have a bullet hole; she had a scar that looked like the star shape made when a pebble falls in mud, with a string leading out of it, which was the surgeon's entry cut. She was being tough, and Lucas recognized it: "If you think it'll help. You've got to read him."

Lucas applied some pressure on Randy's attorney by calling the public defender and explaining the deal. The PD went to Lansing and told him to take it, and to talk to Randy about it. The bureaucratic hassling took all of the morning and a piece of the afternoon, and finally an assistant county attorney got back to Lucas.

"We've been talking with the Ramsey county attorney and the Ramsey PD, and this is the deal: If Whitcomb can positively identify the picture, and give us details surrounding his contacts with the suspect…"

"Qatar."

"Yeah, Qatar. If he can do that, Ramsey'll reduce the ag assault to simple assault and drop the drug charge down to misdemeanor possession-and he takes a six-month to two-year sentence, which he spends in the hospital, because that's how long the docs think rehab will take. In other words, he takes an easy fall and we pay for medical."

"We'd have to pay it anyway, one way or another," Lucas said. "So the deal is done?"

"Everybody's agreed but Randy. The idea is, you show up with the pictures and see if you can get him to move."

"I'm sending Marcy Sherrill in to talk to him. He has a personal problem with me."

"Whatever you think. We need him if we're gonna have a chance with Qatar."

LUCAS AND MARCY drove to Regions together, and talked about approaches. "He's a pimp," Lucas said. "You oughta show a little street balls, like a hooker, but basically back off when he comes on to you. Gonna have to play him."

"That's the bullshit I don't like," she said. "That's why I never was a good decoy. I always wanted to go straight for the throat."

"Aim a little lower this time," Lucas said. "If you can get a grip on his dick, we can put Qatar away this afternoon."

Lansing was waiting outside Randy's hospital room. Lansing looked at Marcy and asked Lucas, "Who's this?"

"Why don't you ask me? I'm standing right here," Marcy said.

Lansing stepped back. "All right. Who're you?"

"I'm a Minneapolis police sergeant and I'm a little fuckin' cranky this afternoon, so if you don't want me to pull your nose off, I'd suggest you be polite. I'm the one who talks to Whitcomb."

Lansing looked at Lucas, who shrugged. " I'malways polite with her."

Lansing nodded abruptly, as if he'd had enough of the Minneapolis police show. "All right. I'll tell Mr. Whitcomb why we're here, and then you can make your pitch. It's all fine with us, if he goes for it-but he's pretty angry."

"I can relate," Marcy said.

Lucas waited in the hall, holding the door open just enough to hear. Lansing started the introductions, and Randy said, "Get her out of here. Get her the fuck out of here."

He sounded like he was trying to scream, but his voice was a cross between a whisper and a croak, as though he'd been shouting in whispers all day.

Marcy said, "I know what you're feeling, Randy. I got shot myself last year. I'm still in rehab."

"Tell somebody who cares, you fuckin' cunt," Randy croaked. "I wish they'd hit you in the fuckin' head."

Lansing said, "Randy, you've got to listen to this. This is a deal that's the best you could hope for, this is-"

"Fuck you. You're fired. I want another attorney. I got no fuckin' legs… You hear this?" Lucas heard a whacking sound and peeked through the door. Randy was flat on his back but flailing at his legs with one free hand. "Nothing here, nothing here…"

Lansing tried to grab his arm, said, "C'mon, stop it, Randy, gotta stop, you're hurting yourself."

A nurse burst past Lucas and into the room and shouted, "What's going on here? What's going on?"

Randy subsided, looked at the nurse, and said weakly, "Get them the fuck outa here. Get them the fuck out."

"NEVER HAD A chance," Marcy said, as they left the hospital. "Never let me get going."

"He was a little excited," Lucas said.

"Ah, man. I felt sorry for the guy," Marcy said. "Makes me think… I got lucky last year. A couple inches to the left, and I'm just like that."

"Nah." Lucas shook his head.

"Sure I would've been."

"Nah. A couple inches to the left with that rifle, and you would've been deader'n a mackerel," he said.

She stopped. "I'm not riding back with you if you're gonna pout about this."

"Who's pouting?" He looked back at the hospital. "Miserable little shit."

AFTER QATAR LEFT Barstad's apartment, he'd driven home and buried himself in his bed, sick with apprehension. But nothing had happened. Was it simply paranoia?

He relived every moment of the afternoon's sexual seizure with Barstad-it had been more like a seizure than play, he thought-and as he worked through it, eyes closed, in the silence of his bedroom.

The false notes were there. Everything she'd done had been dramatized. In their other meetings, she'd been the sexual technician: do this, do that, do the other. This time, she'd been a movie star: a bad actress.

He was worried about his rope. If she looked in the closet, she'd find it. She was sure to come across it sooner or later. He had to get it back, and hide it someplace where it would never be found. If the police were on him…

If the police were on him. That was the question.

He pushed himself up, steeled himself, got a drink of water, took a couple of aspirins, and went out to his car. He had an hour of light, he thought. If the police were there… He thought about it for a few minutes, then headed over to the Minneapolis Museum of Art. The museum was a reasonable destination for an art historian; even better, most people parked along the narrow streets, around the museum, and finding a space wasn't all that easy.

As he drove, he watched his rearview mirror. He assumed that any police car would not be right on his tail, so he tried to look three or four cars back. By the time he got to the museum, he was watching a gray American car. The car was a few years old and completely nondescript. He cruised up to the museum and slowed, looking for a space; stopped when he found one, a small one, tried to maneuver into it. Got it wrong, deliberately, and pulled back into the street.

The gray car, as far as he could tell, had disappeared from view. He tried again, messed it up, then gave up and drove past the museum, around the corner, around another corner, down the back of the museum, moving quickly now. As he reached the next corner, the gray car appeared in his rearview, and his heart jumped.

He was right: They were onto him.

He turned the corner, found another parking space halfway down the block, between the museum and a park. He began maneuvering into it, and with his arm over the backseat of the car, saw the gray car stop at the corner before coming around it. He was sure the man inside was looking at him. He got the car into the space, locked it, and, never looking back, walked around the corner and down the block to the museum entrance.

He visited the Impressionists and post-Impressionists. Forced himself to take some time. Looked long and hard at a van Gogh, but saw nothing in it. Walked slowly around the gallery, and the paintings might as well have been Snoopy cartoons. A few people wandered past, but none of them met his eye or seemed interested in him. After a half hour, he could stand it no longer, and headed for the exit. He still had some light.

He maneuvered the car out of the parking space and headed home; never saw the gray car, could never find a car that seemed to be tracking him. Had he been wrong? He stopped at a grocery store, bought some sliced turkey and bread, more milk and cereal, finished the drive home. Nothing. Where were they?

By early evening, he was exhausted and bored at the same time. He had convinced himself again that he was being watched, and was afraid to leave the house in the night. He ate cereal again, munching through three bowls of the stuff, and lurched away from the table with a sugar high. He tried television, tried music, tried reading. Nothing worked, but the hours passed.

At midnight, he went to bed. Couldn't sleep, got up and took a pill. Still couldn't sleep, got up and took another one. And slept, but poorly.

But the next morning, on the way to work, he found them again.

"There you are, moron-there you are," he said, as the gray car nosed around a corner two blocks back. They weren't staying tight, but seemed content to follow at a distance. Was it possible that they had put a tracking device on the car? It was possible, he guessed. He went to work, taught a class, went to lunch; went to Marten's Funeral Home to talk about caskets for his mother. The funeral home would arrange to retrieve her body from the medical examiner.

He did it all on remote control. Most of his mind was busy worrying about the rope.

She'd find it; it was only a matter of time. And she'd know who put it there. And if she didn't do something silly, like play with it-if she just called the cops and told them about it-they'd find his prints all over the excellent rubber handle.

He had to get it back.

LUCAS AND WEATHER went to a new French restaurant called Grasses. At the door, Lucas discovered that the owner was named Grass and that they served beer, and felt better about it. "I was afraid we were gonna have a choice between rye and Kentucky Blue," he said. "Fuckin' French."

"Behave yourself. I know you like new restaurants."

It was true, he decided, and he even liked French food, if it wasn't of the two-crossed-carrots-and-a-fried-snail variety. They got menus and looked them over, and Weather said, "Nothing sounds good."

He looked at her over the top of the menu. "You're pregnant."

"No… that's not it. I'm just not particularly hungry," she said.

"That's a first, in a French restaurant. And it looks pretty good to me."

"Maybe a salad," she said. "A glass of wine."

They talked about Randy over the meal. "We've got to get him," Lucas said. "I'm going in tomorrow morning and give it another try."

"What about Miss Porno Queen? Are you going back?"

"Maybe-if Randy doesn't work out, we've got to find something to make him move. But this thing with Barstad… She was a hell of a lot freakier than he was. He was along for the ride."

"I need to see that tape," she said.

"Never happen," Lucas said. "If we ever go into court with that, I'm going to have a line of custody that nobody can shake. The word's gonna get out, and I told the guy at the evidence locker that if I ever see or hear of a piece of that tape getting out, or being played by anyone, he's going to jail. I made him believe me."

"Like that."

"Yeah. We could get murdered if that tape is ever shown to anybody. It'd be like the Los Angeles cops beating up those guys on tape. Can't you see some talking head during the sweeps, screaming about how we used this young woman to do that to get a confession out of the guy? We didn't know what she was going to do, but once she was into it, there was no way to back out. But nobody would believe us if we said so."

"You told Rose Marie."

"Of course."

"What did you say to the girl?" Weather asked.

"I yelled at her a little bit, but we've got to stay on her good side-we may need her again."

"To do the same thing?"

"No. No way. If she did it again, I'd kick the door and take Qatar right there. We won't be doing this again."

AS THEY WERE talking, Qatar was leaving his house.

The decision hadn't come easily. As far as he could tell, there'd been only one car with him during the day. He couldn't imagine that he had a large network around him-probably just somebody to keep track of him. If that was the case, and if he was very, very careful, he might be able to walk away from them. And he'd have to walk: There might be a locator device on the car, and he had no idea of what it might look like or where they'd put it.

He dressed carefully for the trip-in gray and black, with a watch cap. He left the television on, and changed his answering machine so that it would answer on the first ring. If someone were to call, that might leave the impression that he was at home, on the phone. He put a lamp in the study on his vacation timer. The light would go on at eight and go off at nine-thirty. He would have to be back before midnight.

He got his city map, slipped it into his pocket, checked his supply of small bills, said to himself, "This is crazy," and went out through the garage. He could have gone through the garage door into the backyard, but to do that, he would have to put himself in the open, against the white clapboard siding on the house. But a hedge ran down the side…

The garage interior was pitch black. He pulled the door closed behind himself and groped toward the window. He found it, unlocked it, slid the window slowly up, and stepped over the sill into the side yard. If the police did have a network, or whatever they called it, watching from the upper floors of the back neighbor's house, then they might see him: But they would have to be watching closely, because the night felt as black and dense as velvet.

He pulled the window down and stood and listened; he heard nothing but cars. After two minutes of listening, he walked along the hedge all the way to the alley in back. Still heard nothing. He walked down the alley, the long way out, across the street at the end of the block, and into the next alley.

They might be following him, he thought, but he really didn't know how. He could hardly see himself in the night. He turned north, toward a shopping area. He needed a phone and a taxi.

The phone and taxi came easily enough, and Qatar marveled at his own courage as they went north through town to a strip mall above Cleveland Avenue. "There," he said, pointing. "The golf store."

"Want me to wait?"

"No. A friend will take me back," he said.

He made one fast run around the golf store to let the taxi get out of sight, then went back outside himself. He was a mile or two from Barstad's; he didn't know the exact distance, but it didn't matter. He started walking.

What would he do when he got there?

He didn't know, exactly. Love her up? Get the rope afterward? Tell her he lost his ring? He could feel the pinkie ring on his little finger. He could take it off, tell her he lost it, look around, then borrow the bathroom, retrieve the rope. Even get her to drive him back home…

He smiled at the idea: That would take some balls. Have her drop him off on his doorstep. The cop outside would have a heart attack.

He walked, thinking, What to do?

She'd betrayed him, that was for sure. He intertwined his fingers, flexed his hands. All right, he was a little angry. She'd betrayed him and she had that neck… She had that neck and she'd taken him to the cops… A little angry. She'd pretended to love him, had used him, and then had gone to the police…

What to do?