Shadow Prey

CHAPTER 16

Anderson got the location of the Crows' apartment and a bonus-a phone number-from the 911 center, and ran them down to Daniel's office.

"I'll start pulling guys," Anderson said. "I can get Del and a couple of his Narcotics people down there in ten minutes. They can check the place out while we get the entry team together. We'll stage at the Mobil station on Thirty-sixth."

"Don't tell anyone but Del what we're doing. Not until the last minute, when we have the place nailed down," Daniel said. "I don't want the feebs moving in."

"All the local feebs are out in Brookings," Sloan said with an edge of sarcasm. "That fuckin' Clay came in like the President of the Universe. Eight hundred guys running around with microphones in their ears…"

"Okay, but still keep it under your hat," Daniel said.

Anderson hurried away to his office. "You guys stick around," Daniel said to Hart and Sloan. "If this works out, you'll want to be in on the kill."

Sloan nodded and glanced at Larry. "Want to walk down to the machines and get a bite? Could be our last chance for a while…"

"I'll catch you down there," Larry said. "I gotta take a leak."

The Crows had mailed the press release on the Linstad killing earlier in the day, and Sam was rereading it as he tried to get comfortable on the battered couch. "I hope John sticks to it, the Indian Nation stuff," he said. "Hope he doesn't fall apart."

"He's got Meadows covering him," Aaron said. "Meadows is pretty good…"

"Fuckin' wannabee," Sam grunted.

"John's got his reasons to hold out. He ever tell you his hot-dog story?"

Aaron was sitting at the kitchen table and Sam had to crank his head around to see him. " 'Hot dog'?"

John Liss had been twelve, a weedy kid in an army shirt and jeans. His father had been gone for weeks, his mother for two days with a man he didn't know. Her car was still out front, with maybe two gallons of gas. Neither John nor his nine-year-old sister had eaten since noon the day before-a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup.

"I'm so hungry," Donna cried. "I'm so hungry."

John made up his mind. "Get in the car," he said.

"You can't drive."

"Sure I can. Get in the car. We'll find something to eat."

"Where? We don't got no money," she said skeptically. But she was pulling on her jacket. She wore flip-flops for shoes.

"In town."

Friday night. The lights at the football field on the edge of town were the brightest things for miles.

"Must be about done," John Liss said. He could barely see over the steering wheel on the old Ford Fairlane. They bumped off the road and across a dirt parking lot. The temperature was in the forties. As long as the car was running, the heater would work, but he worried about running out of gas. If they were careful, they could make it back home.

"Watch the hot-dog stand," John told his sister. The year before, he had gone to a game and afterward had watched the woman who ran the concession stand peel a half-dozen wieners off the spits of an automatic broiler and toss them into a garbage can. A partial bag of buns had gone with them. The stand was in the same place, and a garbage can still stood next to it. Even the woman was the same.

The game ended twenty minutes later. The hometown fans spilled out of the stands, pushing and shoving in celebration of the victory. A tall blond kid stopped at the hot-dog stand, bought a dog and a Coke, and started walking away with friends. After a few steps, he spotted a girl in the I crowd and yelled, "Hey, Carol."

"What do you want, Jimmy?" she asked teasingly. They were both wearing red wool letter jackets with white leather sleeves and yellow letters. John and his sister watched as they sidled toward each other, grinning, friends backing up each of them.

"This remind you of anything?" Jimmy asked, sliding the I wiener out of his bun.

Her friends feigned shock while his slapped themselves ' on their foreheads, but Carol was ready: "Well," she said, "I suppose it might look a teensy bit like your dick, only I the weenie's a lot bigger."

"Oh, right," he said, and flipped the wiener at her. She \ ducked and laughed and charged him, and they wrestled through the parking lot. Two minutes later, they were all f gone.

"Go get it," Donna whispered.! "Did you see where it went?" "Right under the stands…"

John slipped out of the car and found the wiener in the dirt. He wiped it on his shirt, brought it back and offered it to his sister. "It's still hot," she said. "God, it's perfect."

Her eyes were shining. John looked at her and the anger ' that washed over him almost snapped his spine. This was: his sister: his fuckin' little sister. He wanted to kill someone, but he didn't know whom, or how. Not then. Later, when he met the Crows, he learned whom and how.

"Everybody's got a story," Sam said somberly. "Every fuck-in' one of us. If it's not about us, it's about somebody in the family. Jesus Christ."

The phone rang.

"Shadow Love?" Sam asked.

Aaron shrugged and picked up the phone. " 'Lo?"

"The cops are coming," a man said. "They'll be there in ten minutes."

"What?"

"The cops are coming. Get out now."

Sam Crow was on his feet. "What?"

Aaron stood with the receiver in his hand, confused. "Somebody, I don't know. Said the cops are on their way. In ten minutes."

"Let's go…"

"I gotta get…"

"Fuck it, let's go!" Sam yelled. He grabbed Aaron's jacket, threw it at him, picked up his own.

"The typewriter…" Aaron seemed dazed.

"Fuck the typewriter!" Sam had the door open.

"I got to get my letters. I don't know what's in them. Maybe something about Barbara or something…"

"Ah, shit…" Sam grabbed a brown supermarket bag and sailed it at Aaron. "Get as much as you can in there," he said. He jerked open a closet door, pulled a green army duffel bag out and started pushing in their clothing. "Don't look at that shit, just stuff it in the bag," he shouted at Aaron, who seemed to be moving in slow motion, thumbing through his personal papers.

It took them four minutes to fill the duffel and collect Aaron's papers. The rest of their possessions would be left behind.

"Whoever it was, maybe they were wrong," Aaron panted as they started down the stairs.

"They weren't wrong. You think somebody'd just call…?"

"No. And it was an Indian guy. He had the accent…"

Sam stopped at the first-floor landing and peered out at the street.

"Through the back," he said after a second. "There's a guy walking down the street."

"What about the truck?" Aaron asked as he trailed behind his cousin.

"If they know us, if they've got our names, they'll know about the truck. And our fingerprints are all over that room…"

They went down another flight into the basement, then out past the furnace and a storage room, and up a short flight of concrete steps into an alley. The darkness was broken by lights from back windows of the apartments and of houses on the other side of the alley.

"Right through the yard," Sam said in a whisper.

"They'll think we're window peepers," Aaron said.

"Shhh."

They crossed the yard, crouching, staying close to the garage and then to a hedge.

"Watch the clothesline," Sam muttered a second too late. The wire line snapped Aaron across the bridge of the nose.

"Ah, boy, that hurt," he said, holding his nose.

"Quiet…"

They stopped behind a bridal-wreath bush by the corner of the house. A car was moving along the street; it slowed and stopped at the corner. A few seconds later, two men got out. One leaned against the fender of the car and lit a cigarette. The other wandered down the sidewalk toward the back of the Crows' apartment house. They looked like street people but walked with a hard confidence.

"Cops," Sam whispered.

"We got to get across the street before everything is blocked," Aaron said.

"C'mon." Sam led the way again, dragging the duffel bag. They went down the length of the block, crossing yards behind the houses. Most windows were still lit. They heard music from several, or television dialogue muffled by the closed windows.

Aaron suddenly laughed, a delighted sound that stopped Sam in his tracks.

"What?"

"Remember back in Rapid City, when we was hitting those houses? Shit, we wasn't hardly teenagers… It feels kind of good."

"Asshole," Sam grunted, but a moment later he chuckled. "I remember that broad with the yellow towel…"

"Oh yeah…"

At the last house, they moved into a hedge and looked into the street.

"Nobody," said Sam. "Unless they're sitting in one of those cars."

"Right straight across and into the alley," Aaron said. "Go."

They crossed the street as quickly as they could, the duffel banging against Sam's legs. They hurried down the length of the alley.

"I can't carry this motherfucker much farther," Sam panted.

"There's a phone up by the SuperAmerica store. One more block," Aaron said.

They humped down another alley, Aaron helping with the duffel bag. At the end of the alley they stopped, and Aaron sat down behind between a bush and a chain-link fence. The Superamerica was straight across the street, the phone mounted on an outside wall.

"I'll call Barbara," Sam said, fumbling for change. "You wait here. Stay out of sight. I'll have her pull right into the alley."

"What about Shadow Love? If this is right, if there are cops, he'll walk right into them."

"There's nothing we can do about that," Sam said bleakly. "We gotta hope that he spots them, or calls Barb."

"Maybe it's nothing," Aaron said.

"Bullshit," said Sam. "Those were cops. They figured us out, cousin. They're on our ass."