Mind prey

CHAPTER 26

Haywood called from the roof. "We got somebody coming in." Lucas had been on the cot for an hour, half-wrapped in an unzipped sleeping bag, his mind moving too restlessly for sleep. He kicked the bag off, groped for the radio. "Coming in? What do you mean?"

"I mean there's this asshole down there along the tracks, coming straight in, kind of dodging in and out like he's in fuckin' Vietnam. But he's coming here. I can see his face, he's looking at the building."

"Stay on him," Lucas said. He stood up, flipped on the storeroom lights, and pulled on his pants. The radio burped again. Sloan asked, "We moving?"

"Maybe." Lucas called Dispatch. "You're up on the flood plan?"

"Yes." A little tension popped into the dispatcher's voice.

"I might call it," Lucas said. "On my address. Put out a preliminary call right now, get people to their staging points, but don't bring anybody in yet."

"Got it."

They'd been sleeping in a conference room, Sloan on an air mattress under the conference table, Lucas next to the door. Sloan fumbled into his pants and shirt, in the dark. "What's going on?"

Lucas had slept in his clothes, except for his jacket. He pulled on his pistol rig and said, "Got somebody coming in. Hay's watching him."

Haywood called. "He's coming up to the back of the building, boys. He's like sneaking up on the place. I think he's heading for that old loading dock… that's padlocked, right?"

"Yeah. He'll probably come around the dark side, going for the windows," Lucas said. "Stay on him, call him for us. We're going to plug in."

"Hate these fuckin' things," Sloan grumbled, pushing the flesh-colored radio plug into his ear. Lucas had trouble with his, finally got it in as they started down the stairs. Lucas said, "You go around the building to the left, I'll go around to the right."

"Take it easy," Sloan said. He had his piece out, pointing down his leg.

"Yeah." Lucas jacked a round into the chamber of the.45, a harsh, ratcheting noise in the tiled hallway.

"He's headed for the windows," Haywood said. His voice seemed to come from the middle of Lucas's skull. "This guy is something else. He's like tiptoeing. He looks like Sylvester the Cat sneaking up on Tweety Bird."

Lucas shook his head: his mental picture of Mail was neither funny nor stupid. "We're out," he muttered into his microphone. "We'll take him."

Sloan ran around to the left, while Lucas moved slowly to the right, the pistol up and ready. At the corner, he waited, listening. Too many cars, and a voice floating down from the doper bar: You see that? Did you see what she did? Do that again…

"He's trying the windows. I'm right over his head." Haywood spoke softly into Lucas's ear. Sloan should be ready.

Lucas stepped around the corner of the building. A man was just breaking out a corner of a window, just swinging a piece of rerod, when Lucas stepped around and shouted, "Freeze."

Sloan, coming from the other side, shouted "Police," a second later, and they both moved out from the building a step, two steps, the guy pinned between them at the point of a widening triangle. The trapped man had blond, shoulder-length hair, and Lucas thought of the first descriptions of the kidnapper. He was muscular, too-but short. His head snapped first at Lucas, and then at Sloan, then back to Lucas.

And then without a word he rushed at Sloan, lifting the rerod.

"Stop, stop…" Sloan and Lucas were both screaming, but the man rushed in. Lucas brought up his weapon, but the man was closing on Sloan too quickly.

Sloan shot him.

There was a quick, flat muzzle flash and the man screamed, staggered, and went down, and Sloan said, "Ah, shit, ah, shit."

Lucas said to Haywood, "Get Dispatch. Tell them we got a guy down. Tell them to get an ambulance over here."

"Calling," Haywood said.

"Got it, Lucas. Ambulance on the way."

The man on the ground was rolling, holding his leg, and Lucas put his pistol away and walked over, knelt on the man's back, cuffed him, patted him, found a cheap chrome.38 and handed it to Sloan, who put it in his pocket. Then Lucas rolled the wounded man: he groaned, swore. He had a fat, round face and pale blue eyes. This was not John Mail. "Can you talk?"

"Fuckin' leg, man." The wounded man's eyes glittered with tears. "My leg's broken. I can feel the fuckin' bone."

"Ah, Jesus," Sloan said. "What a fuckin' day."

Lucas checked in the bad light and saw the spreading wet patch on the man's right thigh. "Where're the Manettes?" he asked.

"Who?" The man was frightened and seemed genuinely confused.

"Who are you? What's your name?" Lucas asked.

"Ricky Brennan."

"Why'd you come here, Ricky? Why'd you pick this place?"

"Well, man…" Ricky's eyes slid away from Lucas, and Lucas thought he might lose him.

"Come on, asshole," Lucas said.

"Well, this dude said I could pick up a little toot from the computer freaks. Said they had a bag of toot in the back room, like a couple ounces to keep them going all night. My fuckin' leg, man, my fuckin' leg is killing me."

"Shit," Sloan said, and he looked like he was going into shock.

Lucas got on the radio: "Janet? Flood it. I'm calling the flood."

"You got it."

Sloan sat down beside the wounded man. "Got an ambulance coming," he said.

"I'm really hurting, man."

Haywood ran up and Lucas said, "You got a flash?"

"Yeah."

Lucas pulled a folded pad of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, sorted through the composites, and found the one of Mail with dark hair.

"Is this the dude?" Lucas turned the flashlight on the paper.

Ricky was slipping away again, but the light brought him back and he focused on the paper. "Yeah. That's the dude."

"Where is he?"

"He was gonna wait in the parking ramp." He flopped an arm out. The ramp was out of sight, on the far side of the building. Lucas got back on the radio. "Janet, goddamnit, this is the real thing, he's here, somewhere. Keep them coming."

"They oughta be there, Lucas. They're already out on the perimeter with the dogs."

And then Lucas heard the sirens: fifteen or twenty of them, coming from every direction. More would be arriving later. The patrol people had decided to use the sirens in an effort to pin Mail down, to frighten him. "Tell them to look in the information packets they got tonight, and look at composite C as in Cat. That's our guy."

"C as in Cat."

Lucas bent over Ricky again. "The guy's name is John Mail, right?"

"Oh, man, my fuckin' leg."

"John Mail?"

"Yeah, man. John. I see him around. You know. I see him around and I say, 'Hey, John.' And he says 'Hey, Ricky.' And that's all. Said there was some toot over here. He seen it. My fuckin' leg, man, you got something? You got any, like, Percodan?"

"You know where he lives?"

"Oh, man, I don't even know the dude, you know, I used to see him when we were inside, he'd just be, 'Hi, Ricky.' That's all." Ricky groaned. "How about the Percodan, man?"

"Sent in a decoy, to see what we'd do," Lucas said to Sloan. Then: "You stay here. They're gonna want a statement and your gun."

To Haywood: "C'mon. You got those glasses?"

"Yeah."

And to Sloan, "You okay?"

Sloan swallowed and nodded. "First time," he said. "I don't think I like it."

"Just get him in the ambulance and don't worry about it." Lucas grinned at him and slapped him on the back. "I can't believe you shot low, you dumb shit," he said. "If you'd missed him, he'd of sunk that rerod about six inches into your skull."

"Yeah, yeah." Sloan swallowed. "Actually, I was aiming at the middle of his chest."

Lucas grinned and said, "I know how that goes. C'mon, Hay."

Lucas and Haywood ran around to the front of the building, Lucas glancing back once. Sloan was standing over Ricky, and Lucas thought he might be apologizing. He'd have to watch his friend: Sloan seemed unbalanced by the shooting. And that was in character, Lucas thought. Sloan liked the relationships that came out with cop work, the tussle. He even enjoyed an occasional fight. But he never really wanted to hurt anybody.

Then Lucas turned back toward the parking ramp and he and Haywood ran up the sidewalk together, weapons out. Far up University, they could see the roadblocks going in, and everywhere, in every direction, the red flashing lights.

"Looks like a fuckin' light-rack convention," Haywood panted,

Lucas heard him but had no time to answer: they'd rounded the office building on University and were coming up on the ramp. Lucas said, "Let's go up. Ready?"

"Outa fuckin' shape," Haywood said. "Let's go."

Lucas took the first set of steps: there were a half-dozen cars parked in the first floor, and they checked them quickly. Then up the next set of steps, and Lucas, looking over the low, concrete deck wall, saw taillights flicker to the north, headed toward the railroad tracks.

"Did you see that?"

"What?"

The lights flickered again. "There."

"Yeah. Somebody crawling along in the dark, no headlights," Haywood said.

"Sonofabitch, that's him." Lucas put the radio to his face: "I need a car at the… what the fuck is the name of this building? I need a car by the Hansen dairy place, first road west of the Hansen dairy trucks. We've got the suspect in sight, going down toward the elevators."

Haywood was already running across the slab and down the stairs, Lucas a few steps behind. The blacked-out vehicle was almost two blocks away, and once they were on the ground, they could no longer see it. They were running awkwardly over the uneven ground toward the grain elevator when one set of headlights caught them in the back, then another. They turned and saw two squads coming down toward them; Lucas waved them on and kept running.

When the cars caught up, Lucas pointed up ahead. "He was going under the elevator."

The driver in the lead car was a sergeant. "No way out of there," he grunted, "That's all dead end back there."

"Could he just bump it across the tracks?"

The cop shrugged. "Maybe. But we'd see him. He might be able to snake his way out alongside of them." He picked up his radio and said, "We need a car on the 280 overpass across the tracks. Put some light down onto the tracks. Where's the chopper?"

"Chopper's just leaving the airport, he'll be five minutes. We're confirming the car on the tracks."

"Get some K9 down here," Lucas said.

The sergeant said, "We called them; they're on the way." And the car pulled ahead of them, the second car close behind him. The sergeant spoke into the radio: "We need some guys north of the tracks."

"Gonna be dark in there," Haywood grunted as they jogged up toward the elevators.

"But once we got him, even if we only get his van, we get the VIN even if he's pulled the plates… then we get a name and an address."

"You're counting your chickens," Haywood said.

"First goddamn chicken we've had to count, and I'm counting the sonofabitch," Lucas said.