Chosen Prey

4

CHANNEL THREE WAS located in a low, rambling stone structure, a fashionable architect's attempt to put a silk purse on a corner that cried out for a pig's ear; Lucas had never liked the place. The building was a brisk crosstown walk from City Hall, and during the walk, Lucas thought for a moment that he'd seen a slice of blue in the sky, then decided that he'd been wrong. There was no blue; there never would be. He grinned at his own mood, and a woman he was passing nodded at him.

Lucas had a full-sized Xerox of the Aronson drawing in his pocket, along with partial copies of the other three drawings; in those three, the faces had been carefully scissored out. He met Jennifer Carey in the Channel Three parking lot, where she was smoking a cigarette. She was tall and blond and the mother of Lucas's only child, his daughter, Sarah. Sarah lived with Carey and her husband.

"Lucas," Carey said, snapping the cigarette into the street. A shower of sparks puffed out of the wet blacktop.

"You know those things cause cancer," Lucas said.

"Really? I'll have to do a TV show on it." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "What's happening? Where'd you get the hickey?"

"That's it, I'm buying a turtleneck," Lucas said.

"You'd look like a French thug," Carey said. "I could kind of go for it… So you're back with Weather?"

"Yeah. Looks like," he said.

"Gonna do the deed?"

"Probably."

"Good for you," she said. She looped her arm in his and tugged him along toward the door of the building. "I always liked that woman. I can't imagine how a little thing like a shooting came between you."

"She had the guy's brains on her face," Lucas said. "It made an impression."

"The brains? Or the incident? I mean, like a dent? Or did you mean impression, as a metaphor? Because I don't think brains would really-"

"Shut up."

"God, I love that tone," she said. "Why don't we get your handcuffs and find an empty van?"

"I got a story for you," Lucas said.

"Really?" The bullshit stopped. "A good one? Or am I doing your