Rules of Prey

CHAPTER 30

It was the winning stroke. If he had the nerve, he could pull it off. He imagined Davenport 's face. Davenport would know, but he wouldn't know how, and there wouldn't be a damn thing he could do about it.

In some ways, of course, it would be his most intellectual mission. He didn't need this particular woman, but he would take her anyway. To the police-not Davenport, but the others-there would be a logic to it. A logic they could understand.

In the meantime, the other pressure had begun to build. There was a woman who lived in the town of Richfield, a schoolteacher with almond eyes and rich sable hair, wide teeth like a Russian girl's. He had seen her with a troop of her children in the basement level of the Government Center, installing an elementary-school art show…

No. He put her out of his mind. The need would grow, but he could control it. It was a matter of will. And his mind had to be clear to deal with the stroke.

He first had to break free, if only for two hours. He didn't see them, but they were there, he was sure, a web of watchers escorting him through the city's streets and skyways. His night watches and his explorations in the attic had been fruitful. He knew, he thought, where two of their surveillance posts were. The lighting patterns were wrong for families or individuals, and he saw car lights coming and going at odd hours of the night, always from the same two houses. One of the houses, he was sure, had been empty until recently.

They were waiting for him to move. Before he could, he had to break free. Just for two hours. He thought he had a way.

The law firm of Woodley, Gage amp; Whole occupied three floors of an office building two blocks from his own. He had twice encountered one of their attorneys in real-estate closings, a man named Kenneth Hart. After each of the closings, they'd had lunch. If someone had ever asked the maddog who his friends were, he would have mentioned Hart. Now he hoped that Hart remembered him.

At Woodley, Gage, status was signified by floor assignment. The main reception area was on the third floor, the floor shared by the partners. The lesser lights were on the fourth. The smallest lights of all were on the fifth. With a less-affluent firm, a client arriving at the third-floor reception area in search of a fourth- or fifth-floor attorney would be routed back down the hall to the elevators. With this firm, no such side trip was necessary. There was an internal elevator and an internal stairway.

Best of all, there were exits to the parking garage on all of the first eight floors. If he could go into Woodley, Gage on the third floor, and the cops didn't know about the internal elevator, he could slip out on five.

Before he could use Woodley, Gage, a preliminary excursion would be necessary, and it would have to take place under the noses of his watchers.

The maddog left the office early, drove his bugged Thunderbird south to Lake Street, found a place to park, got out, and walked along the row of dilapidated shops. He passed a dealer in antiques, peered through the dark glass, and breathed a sigh of relief. The fishing lures were still in the window.

He walked on another half-block to a computer-supply store, where he bought a carton of computer paper and headed slowly back to the car, still window-shopping. He paused at the antiques dealer's again, pretending to debate whether or not to enter. He should not overplay it, he thought; the watchers would be professionals and might sense something. He went inside.

"Can I help you?"

A woman emerged from the back of the shop. She had iron-colored hair tied back in a bun, her hands clasped in front of her. If she'd been wearing a shawl, she'd have looked like a phony grandmother on a package of chocolate-chip cookies. As it happened, she was wearing a cheap blue suit with a red tie and had the strained rheumy look of a longtime alcoholic.

"Those fishing lures in the window; are they expensive?" asked the maddog.

"Some are, some aren't," the woman said. She maneuvered around him toward the display, keeping her feet wide apart for balance. She's drunk, the maddog thought.

"How about the bluegill one?" he asked.

"That's hand-carved, hand-painted up at Winnibigoshish. There are a lot of fakes around, you know, but this is the real thing. I bought the whole bunch from an old resort owner last summer, he was cleaning out his cellar."

"So how much?"

She looked him over speculatively. "Twenty?"

"Sold."

She looked like she wished she'd asked for more. "Plus tax," she said. He left the store with the lure in a brown paper bag and went to the bank, where he wrote a check for two thousand dollars.

The bluegill was carved from a solid piece of pine and had three rusty treble hooks dangling from it. An early pike lure, the woman said, probably carved back in the thirties. The maddog knew nothing about fishing lures, but this one had the rustic rightness of real folk art. If he collected anything, he thought, he might collect this stuff, like Hart did. He would call Kenneth Hart tomorrow, just after lunch.

He rethought the entire project during the night and decided to call it off. At dawn, groggy, he staggered to the bathroom and took half a pill. Just before it carried him away, he changed his mind again, and decided to go ahead.

"Hello, Ken?"

"This is Ken Hart…" A little wary.

"This is Louis Vullion, down at Felsen…"

"Sure. What's up?" Friendly now.

"You going to be in for a few minutes?"

"I've got a meeting at two…"

"Just want to see you for a minute. Got something for you, actually."

"Come on over."

The invisible net, he supposed, spread around him as he moved through the skyways. He tried not to look, but couldn't help himself. A lot of the watchers would be women, he knew. They were the best tails. At least, the books said so.

The maddog left his regular wool overcoat in his office and went to Hart's office wearing a suit coat and carrying a briefcase. An inexpensive tan trench coat was rolled and stuffed inside the briefcase, along with a crushable tweed hat.

The maddog went directly to the third-floor reception area of Hart's firm.

"I'm here to see Ken Hart," he told the receptionist.

"Do you have an appointment, Mr…?"

"Vullion. I'm an attorney from Felsen-Gore. I called Ken a few minutes ago to tell him I was running over."

"Okay." She smiled at him. "Go down the hall…"

He smiled back as pleasantly as he could. "I know the way."

He went down the hall and punched the private elevator for the fifth floor. The net, he hoped, was fixed on the third-floor reception area.

"Ken?" The other attorney was paging through a brief, and looked up at the maddog.

"Hey. Louis. Come on in, sit down."

"Uh, I really can't, I'm in a rush," the maddog said, glancing at his wristwatch. "I wanted to drop something off. Remember when we ate lunch, you mentioned you collected old fishing lures? I was up north a couple weeks ago…" He dumped the lure out of the paper bag onto Hart's desk.

"Whoa. That's a good one," Hart said, looking pleased. "Thanks, man. How much do I owe you?"

"I virtually stole the thing," the maddog said, shaking his head. "I'd be embarrassed to tell you. Of course, if you want to buy the cheeseburgers after the next closing…"

"You got a deal," Hart said enthusiastically. "Damn, this is really a good one."

"I've got to get out of here. Can I get out on this floor, or do I have to run back down…?"

"No, no, just down the hall," Hart said. He came with him to his office door and pointed. "And jeez, Louis, thanks a lot."

Thank you, the maddog thought as he left. The whole charade had been an excuse to walk through the door on the fifth floor. He hesitated before he pushed through. This was critical. If there were people outside in the hallway, and if one of them happened to wander along behind as he went out through the parking ramp, he would have to call it off. He took a breath and pushed through the door. The hallway was empty.

The maddog walked the width of the building to the parking ramp, stopped before the steel fire door, took out the coat and hat, put them on, and stepped outside. The ramp had its own elevator, but the maddog took the stairs, looking down each flight before he took it. At the ground floor he kept his head down and strode out onto the sidewalk a full block from the entrance to Hart's building. He crossed the street, jaywalking, walked into another office building, up one floor, and into one of the remotest skyways in the system. He walked for two minutes and glanced back. There was nobody behind him.

He was alone.

The maddog called for a cab and took it directly to a used-car lot on University Avenue, a mile from his apartment.

He looked over the row of cars and picked out a brown Chevrolet Cavalier. "$1,695" was written on the windshield in poster paint. He peered through the driver's-side window. The odometer said 94651. A salesman approached him crablike through the lot, rubbing his hands as though they were pincers.

"How do you like this weather, really something, huh?" the salesman said.

The maddog ignored the gambit. The car was right. "I'm looking for something cheap for my wife. Something to get through the winter," he said.

"This'll do 'er, you betcha," the salesman said. "Good little car. Uses a little oil, but not-"

"I'll give you fourteen hundred for it and you pick up the tax," the maddog said.

The salesman looked him over. "Fifteen hundred and you pick up the tax."

"Fifteen hundred flat," said the maddog.

"Fifteen and we split the tax."

"Have you got the title here?" the maddog asked.

"Sure do."

"Get somebody to clean the paint off the windshield and take the consumer notice off the side window," the maddog said. He showed the salesman a sheaf of fifties. "I'll take it with me."

He told them his name was Harry Barber. With the stack of fifties sitting there, nobody asked for identification. He signed a statement that said he had insurance.

On the way back to his apartment, the maddog stopped at a salvage store and bought a two-foot length of automobile heating hose, a bag of cat litter, a roll of silver duct tape, and a pair of work gloves. As he was going past the cash register he saw a display of tear-gas canisters like the one Carla Ruiz had used on him.

"Those things work?" he asked the clerk.

"Sure. Works great."

"Give me one."

In the car, he wrapped the open end of the heating tube with the duct tape until it was sealed, then poured the tube full of cat litter and sealed the other end. When he was done, he had a slightly flexible two-foot-long weighted rubber club. He put the club under the seat and the tape in the bag with the cat litter.

Then, if he remembered right from his university days…

The motel vending machines were all gathered in a separate alcove. He dropped in the coins and got the single-pack Kotex and stuffed it in his pocket. A few more coins bought two slim roles of medical adhesive tape.

He dumped the sack of kitty litter and the duct tape in a motel garbage can, locked everything else in the trunk of the car, and drove quickly but carefully back to his own neighborhood. He parked on a side street three blocks from his apartment, carefully checking to make sure he was in a legal space. The car should be fine for a few days. With any luck, and if his nerve held, it wouldn't have to wait for more than a few hours.

He glanced at his watch. He'd been out of Hart's office for an hour and a half. If he wanted to attempt the pinnacle of gaming elegance, he would go back to Hart's office on the fifth floor, walk down the stairs, and exit past the receptionist. There was a chance-even a good chance-that the cops would never have made inquiries about where he was.

But if they had, and knew he had left Hart's office, then a faked return would tip them off. They would know that he knew. They would move on him, if they could, and he didn't want to spring any traps prematurely.

On the other hand, if he innocently walked back past the third-floor law office in the well-used main skyway, right past the watchers, wearing only his suit, without a coat or hat…

They'd almost certainly assume that however he'd gotten out, he had been on an innocent trip of some kind. Lunch.

He hoped they'd think that.

The stroke depended on it.

The maddog walked over to a university dormitory to call a cab.