Easy Prey

Chapter 22

Thursday. Day six of Alie'e Maison.

Frank Lester was carrying a brown sandwich bag up the City Hall steps when Lucas caught up with him the next morning, half jogging through the cold twilight, trailing a long streamer of steam. "Baloney sandwiches?"

"Peanut butter and jelly," Lester said. He held up the bag; he was wearing ski gloves. "I understand you were out late with Jael Corbeau."

"Yeah, a little late, rolling around town," Lucas said evasively. "She didn't want to go back home."

"Not a goddamn thing happening. Not with Corbeau, not with Kinsley. Maybe we're fucked up. Maybe Olson's not the guy. He's been preaching every night, he goes around to all these churches. The guys who're tracking him say he's completely loony, but the people at these churches, they love him. Last night, he started to bleed"

"Aw, man, I don't want to hear that," Lucas said.

"Can't figure out how he did it. Thought maybe he has a little razor blade stuck on his belt, or something, but they say he got all cranked up and he spread his arms above his head, screaming, and all of a sudden, the blood started seeping out of his palms, and then he gets a red spot on his shirt, right you know. Right where the spear went in."

"Jesus."

"Exactly What's happening with Rodriguez?"

"Pushed a button last night," Lucas said. "Maybe today we'll see something."

"Hope so." He looked past Lucas, and Lucas turned. A TV remote van squatted down on the street, its engine running. "Wonder if they've got a microphone on us?"

"Better not," Lucas said. "I'd slam their butts in jail for that. Talk to the judge, we could probably get them three years."

"Yeah."

They both watched the van for a few more secondsno signs of life, just the exhaust; and they went inside.

Lane came by ten minutes after Lucas got to his office. "We need an accountant to look at some of that paper from the bank," he said. "I've got it narrowed down to a few questions, but I can't answer the questions without an expert."

"What are the questions?"

"How could Spooner give him the loans? That's the basic question. If I could have gotten a home loan on the same terms, I'd be living on one of the lakes. The loans stink."

Lucas leaned back in his chair. "See? That's why I had you reading the paper."

"I'd rather be bustin' somebody's balls. So get me the accountant, and I'll go over and bust Spooner's."

"Let's talk to Rose Marie."

Rose Marie had a better idea. She knew the banking commissioner from the old days, made a call, and got Lane lined up with a bank examiner. She'd just gotten off the phone when the secretary buzzed her. Rose Marie picked up, listened for a minute, then said, "It's Rodriguez," and pushed another button.

"Rose Marie Roux Yes, this is" She listened for a long minute, then said, "I'm not aware of any of this. Chief Davenport is leading that aspect of the investigation, and we haven't met yet this morning… No, I can't tell you anything. If he did that, as part of the investigation, I assume he had good reason. I appreciate that, Mr. Rodriguez, but there's really no more that I can tell you. I can have Chief Davenport call you when he comes in Yes, I'm sure he would. Yes, I'm sure he would"

After another minute of back-and-forth, she politely said goodbye, hung up, and said to Lucas, "Not a happy man. Some real estate deal was canceledYoudid have good reason?"

"Sure. We're trying to panic him. We've got him tapped." He stopped, scratched his head, said, "How come a cop called me and told me about his appointment with a real estate dealer, but we didn't get it on the wiretaps? He had to have called the guy."

Lane said, "He's a dope dealer, dummy. He's got a blind phone."

Lucas stood up and said, "Shit! How'd we miss that? All of his good calls have been going out somewhere else."

Rose Marie asked, "But how would you find a blind phone if"

Lucas shook a finger at her. "We need to talk to the phone company, and get incoming phone numbers yesterday afternoon. Wait a minutewho's watching the lines?"

"Somebody from Narcotics, I guess," Rose Marie said.

"Call down and get a number."

Two minutes later, Lucas was talking with the Narcotics cop who was monitoring Rodriguez's lines. "Did he just take a call from a real estate dealer?"

"Nope. He's gotten a couple of calls from one of his apartment managers. They had an electric panel fire last night. He's been making calls to some of his other managers, and a maintenance company. He just talked to the chief, I assume you know that."

"What line was that?"

The cop gave Lucas a number. "But no real estate dealer?"

"Nope."

Lucas rang off, got Rose Marie to dig a St. Paul phone book out of her desk, looked up Coffey Realty, dialed, and asked for Smalley. Smalley came up, and Lucas asked, "We just got a call from Mr. Rodriguez. He sounded a little upset. I assume you called him?"

"Yeah, just a little while ago. He was not a happy camper."

"Can you give me the number you called?"

"Well, sure. I guess," Coffey said.

"I don't have it here. I want to call him back," Lucas said.

"Just a sec, I've got it on a piece of paper. Where Here it is."

Lucas copied the number and said, "Thanks. I would stay away from Mr. Rodriguez for a while. Until he cools off, anyway."

"I plan to stay away from him forever," Smalley said.

Lucas hung up, and Rose Marie said, "Different number?"

"Yeah." He punched in the number for the monitoring cop, got him, and said, "We think Rodriguez is using a blind phone that we're not monitoring. I want you to call him, make like you dialed a wrong number see if it's him. If the voice is right."

The cop said, "Gimme the number."

"He might have caller ID," Lucas said.

"He won't get it from this phone."

"Get back to me," Lucas said.

"Goddamnit, we should have known this," Rose Marie said when Lucas had hung up. "A blind phones pretty basic for a dealer."

"Water under the rug," Lucas said. He looked at Lane. "You get over to the bank guy. If it's like you think, call me. We'll go bust Spooner's balls."

"All right. I should be back to you before noon," Lane said.

"Are you going to call Rodriguez?" Rose Marie asked.

"I'm gonna get Sloan to go over and see him," Lucas said. "I want to see how he handles himself."

Rose Maries phone burped. She picked it up, listened, pushed a button, said, "This is Rose Marie" then looked at Lucas. "That's Rodriguez's number. It's his voice on the other end."

"Excellent," Lucas said. "Now maybe we make some progress. But we've got to get him talking."

Sloan was on his cell phone. Lucas got him, told him to bring a car around to the hospital. "We're gonna go talk to Rodriguez."

Marcy was sitting up, still paper-pale, five years older than she'd been the week before, the corners of her eyes creased with pain lines. But her eyes were clear, and Black, perched on a chair next to her bed, said, "They're gonna put her in a regular room."

"That's progress," Lucas said. He bent over the bed and kissed her on the forehead. "Man, I'm glad to see you up. I had all these premonitions."

She looked at him for a moment, then asked, "What've you been up to?"

"What?" He shrugged.

"You've got that innocent look, and that really close shave you get when you're really satisfied with yourself. What have you been doing?"

Lucas grinned. "I don't have the guy who shot you, but I think we've got the guy who did Alie'e. Sloan and I are gonna go bust his chops."

"Yeah?" She still looked suspicious. "Who is it?"

As he filled her in on Rodriguez, he caught her attention wavering once or twice. She really wasn't back yet, he realized. Almost, not quite. When he finished with Rodriguez, he asked, "What are they telling you about recovery time? Think you could be back by Wednesday?"

"Maybe not," she said. "They said, if everything goes well, I'm gonna have to do some rehab Maybe May?"

"May? Jesus You were hit hard."

"They might have to go back in," Black said. "There're a couple pieces of bone floating around inside that oughta come out. But that's gonna be a while yet."

"You hurt?" Lucas asked her.

She nodded. "Yeah. Started this morning. I don't think it's gonna stop for a while."

"Drugs," Lucas said.

Sloan showed up and chatted for a while, then he and Lucas left, headed for St. Paul and Rodriguez. Outside the door, on the way to the car, Lucas said, "Before, I was scared about her. Now I'm pissed. She's hurting, and there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it."

"Get the guy who did it," Sloan suggested.

"The guy who did it thinks he's the Messiah," Lucas said.

"There's a difference betweenthinks he is andis," Sloan said. "To me, he's just another fat asshole on his way to a cell at Stillwater."

On the way to St. Paul, Lucas said, "Let's stop and see if Spooner is at his office. Bust his balls a little bit."

"Want me to be the nice guy?" Sloan asked.

"We don't need one. We just need to scare this guy."

But Spooner wasn't in. Reed, the bank president, came out to see them and said, "I suspended him. With pay. I think he's innocent, but we don't want a question. I pray to God that he and Alicia understand that."

"Who's Alicia?"

"His wife," Reed said.

"We really need to see him. You think he'd be at home?"

"He was earlier today."

"Do you have his address?" Lucas asked.

Reed frowned, looked at the secretary, and then said, "Give him Billys address." Then, with just a hint of defiancй: "And call Billy and tell him that these gentlemen are on their way."

Spooner lived a block from Highland Park, an affluent residential area ten minutes from the bank. The house was an upright, two-story, white-clapboard place set well back from the street, with oak trees in the front yard. Sloan pulled into the driveway and they got out; as they did, Spooner came to stand in the picture window, and for a second Lucas had the strange feeling that Spooner was somebody elsebut who, he didn't know. When Spooner saw them, he headed to the door. A dishwater blonde replaced him in the window. She was wearing a pink blouse and a gold watch.

Spooner met them on the front steps, pulling on a coat as he stepped outside. He shut the door behind him.

"I've talked to my attorney, and he said that I shouldn't talk to you unless he's present," he said.

"Well shoot," Lucas said. To Sloan: "A wasted trip."

Sloan said to Spooner, "What does your attorney think about us talking to youyou not talking back?"

"I'm just not supposed to talk to you."

"So tell your attorney we're here, and want to set up a meeting. The loan papers we subpoenaed are being reviewed by a bank examiner and an accountant right now, and we need to talk about it," Sloan said.

"And tell your attorney that we're making the case against Rodriguezfor dope dealing and murderand the more we look at him, the more we find," Lucas said. "That the case on Rodriguez is a hell of a lot more serious than a little fudging around with loans, and that you're going to buy a piece of his prison sentence if we don't start seeing some cooperation."

Spooner had his hands in his pockets, and he flapped his coat panels like wings. "Jeez, jeez, you guys, I don't want this. But you come on like I'm going to jail, what can I do but call my lawyer? So why don't you call him and talk to him? I'll come in. I'll tell you everything I know about Richard, but I've got to have some legal protection."

"When?" Lucas asked. "When will you come in?"

"Anytime. Jeez When do you want me to come? This afternoon? When? But I want my lawyer there."

The blond woman was standing in the window with her arms crossed, peering out at them. "Is this your wife?" Sloan asked.

Spooner looked, then said, "Yes, she's really freaking out. My God, my job"

Lucas was thinking: Lane had just gone to see the examiner, and they would want that opinion before they talked to Spooner. "So come in tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Call your attorney, make an appointment with the chief's secretary. I'll be available anytime you are."

"Okay." Spooner shuffled uncertainly, opened the screen door as if to go back in the house, then said, just as Lucas and Sloan were turning away, "You know, I wasn't lying the other day. I still don't think Richard is involved with any of this."

"You're wrong."

"You're watching him. You know he's done this?"

"We're all over him," Lucas said, "and there's not a lot of doubt. The question is, how much do you know? If you know enough"

"I'll tell you everything, but there's just not much that I know. I mean, his loans, they were a little risky, but his record Thinking that he's a dope dealer, I" His mouth opened and closed a few times, as though he were flabbergasted. "I mean, I don't believe it. He's a nice guy."

"Tell me something nice that he's done," Lucas said.

"Well" Spooner seemed to grope for something, then said, "I can't think of anything specific, but he's been to ourhouse, and he's nice to my wife, and he's nice to other people I mean, he's just a nice guy to sit around and have a drink with."

"Well," Lucas said. "It's something to think about."

In the car, Sloan said, "A nice guy."

"Man, he's dealing dope. People who deal dope know about himthey pick him out of blind photo spreads," Lucas said. "And if you look at those loans the guy's a goddamn hustler."

"Even if he is nice," Sloan said.

"You remember Dan Marks?" Lucas said.

"Now, there was anice guy," Sloan said.

"Everybody agreed, until the trouble started and they took apart his garbage disposal," Lucas said.

"I didn't know fingernails would do that," Sloan said. They thought about fingernails, and headed back into St. Paul.

Rodriguez was at his office. Another patrol cop had been stuffed into a sport coat and left to keep an eye on him. They found him shifting from foot to foot in the Skyway, eating popcorn out of an oversized box. "Hey, guys," he said when Lucas and Sloan stepped into the Skyway. He looked at the popcorn box in his hand and said, "Gift from the St. Paul guys. Their precinct is right inside."

"What's he doing?" Lucas asked.

"Working on his computer. He went away for a while, and I lost him, but he came back."

"In his car?"

"No, he walked back into the building somewhere. You see the building entrance his office opens off that hallway. When he put on his coat, I ran down, but he was already out the door into the hallway. He was out of sight when I got there, so I went back to the parking garage and waited to see if he was coming out He never came out, and when I checked again, he was back in the office."

"So he went someplace inside."

"Yeah, but it's all hooked into the Skyway through there, so he could have gone anywhere. He was gone for maybe twenty minutes."

"Put on his coat."

"Yeah."

They thought about that for a minute, but nothing occurred to them except that he probably hadn't been on his way to the can.

"Maybe we need a couple more guys," Lucas said.

"If we're serious about him," the cop agreed. "As it is, I've got my car parked down on the street, but if he comes out the ramp and turns the wrong way, I'm gonna be pretty obvious doing a U-turn fifteen feet behind him."

Lucas looked at Sloan and said, "More guys."

"And soonmy feet are killing me," the cop said.

Rodriguez was not what Lucas expected. He was not Latino: He didn't look Latino, or sound Latino. He didn't sound like a drug dealer, either. Most drug dealers had a streak of macho in them, or if not that, then a bit of backslapper bullshit.

Rodriguez looked and sounded like a white middle-class businessman who'd crawled up out of the working class, sweating the details of whatever kind of business he was in. He was a large guy, thick-necked, thick-waisted, round-shouldered. Maybe he drank too much, and if so, it'd be beer, or if not beer, something seriousvodka martinis with a pearl onion. Lucas had seen the same guy in car salesmen, machine-shop owners, bartenders, union officials. He saw it sometimes in lawyers who came from a working-class background.

And Rodriguez was mad: "What the fuck are you doing, what the fuck do you think you're doing, bustin' my reputation and my bidness dealings? I'll tell you what: I'm getting my lawyer down here right now"he snatched up a telephone"and we're gonna add this little patch of harassment to the lawsuit. I don't need no goddamn apartment buildings, because I'm gonna get rich suing the city of Minneapolis for about a billion bucks, and this ain't the first time you Minneapolis cops got nailed doing this kind of harassment bullshit and"

"You're dealing drugs, Richard," Lucas said. "We can prove that. We can prove you ran Sandy Lansing: We've got people who will stand up in court and say so. We can prove you got a bunch of bullshit loans that you supported with dope money, and the IRS is gonna come afteryour ass. We've got all that. The questionis, can we getyou for killing Alie'e? We know you did it, we just gotta fit the suit to you."

"Bullshit. I never touched that bitch." He'd been punching numbers into his phone set, and now he spoke into the phone. "Let me talk to Sam. The cops are here, hassling me. Davenport and some other guy." He listened for a moment, then thrust the phone at Lucas. "Talk to him."

"No. We're leaving," Lucas said. "I just wanted to get a look at your ass. We're coming for you, Richard."

"Fuck you," Rodriguez said, and into the phone, "He won't talk to you. They're leaving Yeah, yeah."

As Lucas and Sloan went through the office door into the hallway, they heard the phone clattering on the desk, and a minute later Rodriguez was in the hall behind them. "Let me tell you assholes something," he said. "Let me tell you something. You and me. My goddamn mother was no better'n a whore in Detroit. I don't even know who my daddy is. Even my name is some kind of joke. My old man was probably a Polack or a Litvak or some other fuckin' Eastern European." He was building steam as the words rattled out of his face. "I got outa Detroit by my fingernails, and I busted my ass every day of my life to get where I am. Now some two-bit fuckin' cops are saying I killed somebody I'll tell you what, I never killed anybody I never killedanybody. I never even slapped anybody in the face. I just wanted to get out of that fuckin' Detroit and be somebody, and now I am, and you assholes"

"Enough on the assholes," Lucas snapped.

"You're an asshole," Rodriguez said. "Both of you are. So why don't you slap me around a little, or something, huh?" He inched closer to Lucas. "C'mon, hit me, I won't hit you back. It'll just give me a little more to sue you with, you motherfuckers. You're ruining my bidness"

And suddenly his face crinkled up and he said, "My bidness. You're ruinin' my bidness." And he turned around and went back through the door into his office.

"Jesus," Sloan said, impressed. "The guy was I mean, those were tears."

"Yeah." Lucas scratched his head, then shrugged. "Let's go."

"We're sure he's dealing drugs?" Sloan asked.

"Unless he's got an evil twin."

The Rodriguez interview put a blight on the day, and they drove, mostly in silence, back toward Minneapolis. "Drop you at the hospital?" Sloan asked.

"Nah I'm gonna I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"What if we're wrong about Rodriguez?"

"I've been sitting here thinking about that," Lucas said. "But we're not You know what we're doing? We've gotten to the place where we think dope dealers are automatically subhumans but both of us could think of guys who push a little dope and aren't all that bad as guys. Love their wives."

"Not a lot of them," Sloan said. "Most of them are dirt."

"Not a lot, but some. Some of them are human beings. You know what it reminds me of? Remember when you were interviewing Sandy Lansing's father, and he started off on 'niggers' and all that?"

"Yeah."

"He's the flip side of Rodriguez. Here was a guy who coulda played the nice old candy-shop owner on a TV show, but then he opens his mouth, and this bullshit comes out. Rodriguez is a dope dealer, andhis story is this pathetic struggle to get out of the slums. Fuck, I don't know." He thought about it for a minute, then said, "What I do know is, Rodriguez is a drug dealer, he was running Sandy Lansing, he was at the party where Sandy Lansing was killed, he denies all of it, and that's the only tie we've got."

Del called. Sloan handed Lucas his cell phone and asked, irritably, "Why don't you turn on your fuckin' phone?"

"What's going on?" Lucas asked.

"I'm at Boo McDonald's, and I got some seriously bad fuckin' news," Del said. McDonald was the paraplegic radio and computer monitor.

"All right."

"You know that little rat who publishesSpittle? He's got a new story out, and it names Rodriguez."

"What?"

"Yeah, the little jerk. I'm going over to scream at him, scream at his parents. But Rodriguez's name is out."

Rose Marie was livid. "You gotta tell me the truth, Lucasthis isn't the little push you were talking about?"

"No. Nobody got the name from me or any of my people."

"Not from me, or anybody I know," Lester said. "There's gotta be fifty or sixty people in the department who know the names."

"I've had about nine calls in the last half hour, and what do I say?" Rose Marie asked. "I can't say no, it's not Rodriguez, because itis. So I say, I can't comment on an ongoing investigation. And you know what that means? That means, yes. And everybody knows it."

"TheSpittle kid's got a leak," Lucas said. "We know this goddamn place leaks."

"If I find the fuckin' leak, that guy will find himself out on his ass, and I'll spend the rest of my term trying to fuck his pension," Rose Marie snarled. "I want you to put that word outthat I'm looking for the guy, and his job and his pension are on the line."

"That's a little strong," Lester said. "I'm not sure they'll believe it."

"It'll give them something to think about," she said. "By God, I'm gonna have IA look into this. Brace a few people. I'm not gonna have this shit. I'm not going to have it!"

Lucas said, "I can tell you one thing. This morning I asked you guys to send a couple more people over to watch Rodriguez. We better put a serious net around the guy now. I mean, forget about Jael Corbeau and Catherine Kinsleyhe's gotta be number one on this other fruitcake's hit list."

Lucas went back to his office, found two notes. One said, "Call Jael." The other, "Call Catrin."

He called Jael, who said, "The dozen long-stemmed roses you sent to my house haven't arrived yet."

"I'm sorry, I thought uh well, I mean, I thoughtyou were supposed to send them tome. I've been waiting," Lucas said.

"God, he's such a wit," Jael said. "I need a man with wit maybe. So anything going on? Can I get out of here?"

"Not yet." He told her quickly about the leak in the department. "It'll be on the news."

"What're you doing tonight?" she asked. "I mean, this isn't another proposition. I'd like to rejoice in the blood of the lamb."

"What?" He was confused.

"This guy who's trying to kill mehe's preaching at some church tonight," Jael said. "I'd like to see him. One of your guys here did, and its supposed to be something else."

"Man, I don't know," Lucas said. "That might not be such a good idea."

"C'mon, don't be a stick-in-the-mud," she said. "Besides, you can bring a gun. And I'm going nuts. Lets get the sports car, lets go see him."

"I'll call you. Things are going on over here. If I can get away maybe."

He called Catrin; she was on a cell phone, and answered in her car. "Let me pull over to the side," she said. Her voice was showing stress; he thought she might have been crying.

"What happened?" But she'd put the phone down.

A moment later, she came back. "Well I told him that I thought we had some problems, and that I was thinking of going away, that I thought I might want to be by myself for a while. You know what he said?"

"I don't"

"He said, 'Well, whatever you think you have to do. Let me know.' It was like I wasn't sure I could make it to lunch."

"Catrin, I really can't advise you, I just don't know"

"He just walked away from me," Catrin said. "Now I wonder if he isn't having an affair or something. It was like he was waiting for me to say something."

"If the guy has any sensitivity at all, if he knows you at all, then he knew something was coming," Lucas said. "It's like waiting for the ax to fall. When it does, there isn't much to say. You know about everything that anybody might say"

"Lucas, what are you talking about? We were married for more than twenty years."

"When we were talking at lunch when you asked if you were just screwed I mean, look at your old man. If he argues with you, he's being domineering and he's not letting you lead your own life. If he doesn't argue with you, but is absolutely supportive, tells you to do whatever you want, then he's being patronizing and you feel like your life is a hobby, because he's got all the money and you're going to London for plays, and all that. And if he lets you go, he doesn't care. SoI mean, when you talk about being screwed, he's about as screwed as you can get. Whatever he does is wrong."

"It sounds like you're on his side," she said. There was an undertone of disbelief.

"Absolutely not. Look, half of my friends have been divorced, and most of the other half are fucked up. I'm fucked up. I've been through this Jesus. I'm on your side, Catrin, because we're old friends. If I was your husbands friend, I'd be on his side, because nobody's right or wrong. And in that case, you've just got to go with your friends."

"Well, I talked to one of my girlfriends down hereactually, I had lunch with three of them, my best friend and a couple that I've always been friends withand I knew by the way one of them was acting she's on Jack's side."

"That's gonna happen," Lucas said. "And some old friends of Jack's will be on your side. That'll surprise you, too. You said you belong to a golf club?"

"Yes."

"What's gonna amaze you is, a couple of his male friends are going to put the moves on you."

"The loose woman"

"Not just trying to get laidI mean, some of them willbut some of them will have been looking at you for a long time, and liking you."

"Lucas"

"Hey, it's gonna happen. If you walk"

"I don't think I've got any choice now," she said.

"Listen, what you're telling me have you thought about telling Jack? Scream at him a little bit? Throw a little crockery? I mean, do you still love him?"

After a long silence, she said, "I don't think so."

"Aw, jeez."

"What happened was, his reaction made me angry," she said. "So angry. But I feel like I don't know. I'm a little excited in a dirty way. Like I just broke out of jail."

"Aw, man."

"You keep saying 'aw, jeez.' What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're hurting a lot worse than you know, but you're going to find out," he said. "So's Jack. I can't hardly stand to think about it."

"Well. Maybe. But I'm getting out."

He couldn't think of anything to say. Thinking about her, sitting on the side of a road, talking about the end of her marriage on a cell phone to somebody she hadn't seen in twenty-five years.

"So congratulate me," she said. Now she did start crying.

"Awww jeez."

Rose Marie came down. "The media's got Rodriguez surrounded. His lawyer just called the county What happened to you?"

"I was talking to an old friend. Her marriage is breaking up," Lucas said.

"Did you have anything to do with it?"

"No. Not directly. I mean, I'm not fooling around with her. Maybe I could have said something that would have changed things I don't know. She's just an old friend."

"Huh." Rose Marie might have been skeptical. "You can't take care of everybody, Lucas. They don't even want you to."

"She needs a little help," Lucas said.

"I've got no advice," Rose Marie said. "Now: Rodriguez is gonna sue us, of course. And Tom Olson has called twice in the past half hour, asking about Rodriguez, but I'm not in. I've got to come up with a story."

"When's he coming in? You've got a briefing?"

"Yes. In a half hour. I'd like you to be there," she said.

"Sure. I don't know what I can say."

"If he tries to throttle me, you could hit him over the head."

They were still talking when the phone-tap monitor called: "We got some stuff on Rodriguez's blind phone. Three calls in a hurry."

"Where?"

"The first one, to Miami, to an unlisted number. I mean, we've got the number, but when we tried to check on it, the directory supervisor said she needed to see some paper before she can give us a name."

"Another blind phone, I bet."

"I think so. Anyway, he told whoever answered not to send Jerry up, that he had a problem. We think it might have been a delivery. Hell, I know it was a delivery. I've heard the same thing two hundred times, in almost the same words," the cop said. "Nothing specific mentioned, like it would be if it was legitimate. Just 'You know that delivery we talked about, with Jerry? Better hold off, I've got some problems up here.'"

"Good. Give me the Miami phone number," Lucas said. He scribbled the number on a pad. "I've got a guy with the FBI who might be able to help."

"Great. Then there was another call, this one to a real estate guy. He asked the guy to look into selling the apartments, and suggest that a Reet might want to buy them. I don't know the name."

"It's R-E-I-T, real estate investment trust," Lucas said. "It could be a way to get out in a hurry."

"Well, the guy he talked to he was hot to handle it. You want the name?"

"Yeah." Lucas wrote down the name.

"And the third thing is he called another dope guy. He said, 'I've got to shut down my business for a while. Tell everybody I'm sorry.'

"The other guy said, 'What's the problem?'

"Rodriguez said, 'Just a problem. The cops think I had something to do with that Alie'e thing. They're messing with me.'

"And the guy said, 'Where're you calling from?'

"And Rodriguez said, 'I got a good phone.'

"And the other guy said, 'I'd throw it in the river, if I was you. If they think you were involved with Alie'e, they're gonna tap you three ways from Sunday.'

"And Rodriguez said, 'Well, tell everybody. I'll call you back when it's over.'

"And that was it."

"We need that number, and times and transcripts," Lucas said. He jotted down the number, and when he got off, he looked at Rose Marie and said, "It's piling up."

When Rose Marie was gone, he called Mallard and gave him the Miami number, and called Del and gave him the local number. Del called back fifteen minutes later and said, "That number is out to another blind phone, but Narcotics knows it. They picked it up on a pen register a couple of months ago, a guy named Herb Scott. That's all they know, a number and a name in the computer. Want them to look a little closer?"

"Absolutely. Put him on the list. If nothing happens by tomorrow night, we're gonna sweep them all, and see if we can shake anything loose."

Mallard called back a few minutes after Del. "That number goes with a guy who lists his address in a place called Gables-By-The-Sea. I guess it's a ritzy neighborhood. I've got a guy checking with the locals."

"Thanks."

Piling it up.

For a moment, he thought about running down the new real estate dealer, but decided against it: That might make the phone tap obvious, and the phone might still be valuable.

Sloan called. "Come on down to Homicide. There's something you got to see."

Lucas walked down, and found a half-dozen cops laughing around a small-screen TV. "What?"

"That's Rodriguez's apartment," Sloan said.

"Penthouse," somebody said.

A wavering picture was focused on a window surrounded by reddish concrete. Then, moving in slow motion, Rodriguez appeared in the window and pulled the curtain across it. When he was out of sight, the loop started again: the window, Rodriguez, the curtain.

"Guilty, guilty, guilty," a cop said.

And somebody else, with a little edge of sarcasm: "If he wasn't guilty, why would he pull the curtain?"

And a third guy: "If it was me, I'd be pointing a rifle out the window."

"They'd love that."

"Yeah, until a little bullet hole appeared on the forehead of one of them blonde c"

A woman with a gun said, "Watch it."

"cameramen."

Olson came by, trailing the Bentons, the Packards, and Lester Moore, the newspaper editor. "Who is this Rodriguez?" Olson demanded. "Everybody's saying he did it."

Rose Marie said, "He's a suspect. Lucas"

Lucas said, "We think he's a drug dealeractually, we're sure he is. And we have at least two sources who say that he was running Sandy Lansing. That is, Sandy Lansing was the street dealer for drugs brought in by Rodriguez."

"Rodriguez was the wholesaler?"

"More like the local franchise owner, and Lansing was one of his employees."

"Amazing,"Olson said. "Franchises and employees. Did he pay her Social Security?"

Moore broke in: "Can you get him?"

"Not yet," Lucas said. "Maybe on drugs. We have no direct connection to the murder, but we can put him at the party, we can connect him with Lansing, we have him denying that he knew her, we can probably show that they dealt drugs together. We can project it as a drug argument that went bad. He killed Lansing, maybe even accidentally, by cracking her head against a doorjamb. Alie'e comes out of the bedroom just at that point, and he kills her, to get rid of a witness."

Olson stood up slowly, peered at the Bentons and then at Moore. "You mean she was killed as a bystander? That all this happened because she was at the wrong place?"

"That's a possibility," Lucas said.

Olson said, "I don't believe it. This is not a casual killing. All these people dead. It can't just be chance. It can't be."

"We don't really know that it is," Rose Marie interjected. "Lucas is just outlining one possible theory."

"My good God," Olson said. He put his hands on the side of his head, as he had the day he found his parents, and pulled the hair straight out, as he had that day, just before his collapse.

Lucas stood up, stepped toward him, took his arm. "Easy."

"I can't, I can't"

"Sit down."

Olson stumbled, and Lucas guided him around to the chair. Olson looked around the room, at the faces all pointed toward him, and said, "This cannot stand. This cannot."

When he was gone, Frank Lester said, "If that doesn't get him cranked, I don't know what will."

Lane came back. "Took all goddamn day, but the bank examiner conies in on our side. She says the loans are funky."

"That's the technical expression: funky."

"Exactly. But there's a problem," Lane said. "I created it. I made the fundamental investigatory error: I asked one too many questions. NoI asked two too many."

"I've told you about that," Lucas said.

"Yeah. So I've got this bank examinerwho's got nice legs, by the way, even if she wasn't a big rock 'n' rollerand I say, 'What would you do if you'd caught him doing this? During a bank examination.' And she says, 'We'd tell him that the loan was weak, and depending on the status of their other loans, we might require action.' And I say, 'That's it?' And she says, 'What'd you think we were gonna do? Shoot him?' "

"So then I make the next mistake. I ask another question."

"You already had two questions."

"Naw, that was like question one and one-a. Now I'm at question two. I ask, 'How many commercial loans are there in Minnesota? Gotta be hundreds of thousands, huh?' And she says, 'Well, many tens of thousands, anyway' And I askthis is question two-b'How many are this bad?' I figured she'd say something like, we get one or two a year. You know what she said?"

"I'm afraid to know," Lucas said.

"Bevery afraid," Lane said. "She said, 'There might be a few thousand.' "

Lucas said, "Goddamnit."

"Yeah. Our hold on Spooner just got slipperier. On the other handI thought of this on the way over here"

"What?"

"Spooner doesn't know it," Lane said.

"You're a sneaky fuck," Lucas said. "It's a quality I admire in a cop."

As the earlier darkness settled in and the lights came up, Del came by with an ice cream cone and said, "I'm gonna go see Marcy. Wanna come?"

"Yeah, let me get my coat."

On the way over, Lucas told Del about Catrin. Del listened, finished the cone in the cold night, and then said, "She's probably gonna want to jump in bed with you. To prove to herself that she's still desirable and that she's as good as she was in the old days."

"What am I gonna do?"

"Well, I don't think jumping her is gonna be the answer." He looked at Lucas. "Or is it?"

"No. I mean man, she's really nice, but she's really fucked up."

"So give her a really understanding talk about how sheis fucked upyou might want to find a different phraseand that she shouldn't do anything until she's gotten herself straight again."

"That doesn't sound like something Catrin would go for," Lucas said.

"How do you meet these women, anyway? They're all so fuckin' tangled up."

"I don't know. It's a special talent."

"What you need is some chick that comes up and says, 'Wanna see my Harley?' And you say, 'Is it a Sportster?' And she says, 'It's whatever you want it to be.' "

"I've often wondered if you had a fantasy life," Lucas said. "I guess that question's answered."

"Yeah, well, if I were you, I'd go home and think about this Catrin chick for a long time. Especially if she's still a friend." They walked along for half a block, and then Del added, "There is one bright side to the problem."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's your problem, and not mine."

Marcy was sitting up, awake, but she looked distant, her eyes a little too bright. "The docs are worried that she might have a touch of pneumonia," Black said. "They say it shouldn't be serious but they've got to deal with it."

Lucas squatted to look straight into her face. "How're you feeling?"

"A little warm."

"Still hurt?"

"Always hurt."

"Goddamnit." He stood up. "There's gotto be better drugs."

"Yeah, but they fuck up my head. I'd rather have a little pain," Marcy said. "How's the case? I understand this Rodriguez guy is out in the open."

They talked about Rodriguez, and she stayed awake, but she didn't look as good as she had, Lucas thought. She looked like she had the flu. After chatting for a while, he told the others he was going to get a Coke, and wandered out of the room. As soon as he was out, he headed for the desk and asked, "Is Weather Karkinnen?"

The nurse looked past him: Weather was headed down the hall toward them. He walked toward her and said, "You've heard about Marcy? This pneumonia thing?"

"Yeah, I've been keeping up," she said. "It's not too serious yet. They're managing it."

"C'mon, Weather. Is this gonna turn into something?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you that, Lucas. She's young enough and healthy enough that it shouldn't, and we're right on top of it but she was hit hard, and her lung took some of it. So we gotta stay on top of it."

"That's all."

"Lucas, I don't know any more," she said in exasperation. "I just don't know."

"All right."

They stood, awkwardly, then she touched his arm and said, "I've been seeing this Rodriguez guy on television. That's you, isn't it? Your part of the case?"

"Yeah. He's the guy. the problem is, how do we get at him? There's almost nothing at the scene that would help. We're building a circumstantial case"

They walked along, Lucas talking about the case. They'd done this when they were living together, Lucas talking out problem cases.

The talking seemed to help, seemed to straighten out his thinking, even when Weather didn't say much. They fell back into the pattern, Weather prodding him with an occasional Why do you think that? or, Where did you get that? or, How does that connect?

They turned at the end of the long hall, and Del stepped out of Marcy's room, looked down at them, and went back inside. On the way back, Weather said, "What're you doing tonight? Want to go out for pasta?"

"I can't," he said, shaking his head. "You know what it gets like I'm going nuts. But could I call you?"

"Yeah. I think you can," she said. She grabbed his ear, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the cheek. "See ya," she said.