Silent Prey

CHAPTER

The car slowed and the window between the front seat and the backseat dropped an inch. The early-morning traffic was light, and they were moving quickly, but O'Dell was grumpy about the early hour. Lily hadn't slept at all.

"You want a Times?" Copland asked over his shoulder.

"Yes." O'Dell nodded, and Copland eased the car toward the curb, where a vendor waved newspapers at passing cars. A talk show babbled from the front-seat radio: Bekker and more Bekker. When Copland rolled his window down, they could hear the same show from the vendor's radio. The vendor handed Copland a paper, took a five-dollar bill, and dug for change.

"I'm worried," Lily said. "They could try again."

"Won't happen. They didn't mean to kill him, and coming after him again, that way, would be too risky. Especially if he's this tough guy you keep telling me about…"

"We thought they wouldn't go after him the first time…"

"We never thought they'd try to mug him…"

Copland handed a copy of the Times into the backseat. A headline just below the fold said, "Army Suspects Bekker of Vietnam Murders."

"This has gotta be bullshit," O'Dell grumbled, scanning the story. "Anything from Minneapolis?"

"No."

"Dammit. Why don't these assholes check on him? For all they know, the Minneapolis story could be a cover for an Internal Affairs geek."

"Not a thing, so far. And the people in Minneapolis are looking for it."

Silence, the car rolling like an armored ghost through Manhattan.

Then: "It must be Fell. It has to be."

Lily shook her head: "Nothing on her line. She got one call, from an automated computer place saying that she'd won a prize if she'd go out to some Jersey condominium complex to pick it up. Nothing on the office phone."

"Dammit. She must be calling from a public phone. We might need some surveillance here."

"I'd wait on that. She's been on the street for a while. She'd pick it up, sooner or later."

"Had to be Fell, though. Unless it really was muggers."

"It wasn't muggers. Lucas thinks they were cops. He says one of them was carrying a black leather-wrapped keychain sap; about the only place you can buy them is a commercial police-supply house. And he says they never went for his billfold."

"But they weren't trying to kill him."

"No. But he thinks they were trying to put him out of commission. Maybe break a few bones…"

"Huh." O'Dell grunted through a thin smile. "You know, there was once a gang on the Lower East Side, they'd contract to bite a guy's ear off for ten bucks?"

"I didn't know that," said Lily.

"It's true, though… All right. Well. With Davenport. String him along…"

"I still feel like I'm betraying him," Lily said, looking away from O'Dell, out the window. A kid was pushing a bike with a flat tire down the sidewalk. He turned as the big black car passed, and looked straight at Lily with the flat gray serpent's eyes of a ten-year-old psychopath.

"He knew what he was getting into."

"Not really," she said, turning away from the kid's trailing eyes. She looked at O'Dell. "He thought he did, but he's basically from a small town. He's not from here. He really doesn't know, not the way we do…"

"What'd you tell Kennett, about why Davenport was at your place?"

"I… prevaricated," Lily said. "And I could use a little backup from you."

"Ah."

Lucas hadn't been badly hurt, so Lily flagged a cab, took him to Beth Israel, then reported the attack. Because she'd fired her weapon, there had been forms to fill out. She'd started that night, and called Kennett to tell him about it.

"Should I ask why he was at your place at two in the morning?" Kennett had asked. He'd sounded amused, but he wasn't.

"Um, you don't want to know," Lily had said. "But it was strictly business, not pleasure."

"And I don't want to know."

"That's right."

After a moment: "Okay. Are you all right? I mean, really all right."

"Sure. I've got a busted window I've gotta get fixed…"

"Good. Get some sleep. I'll talk to you tonight."

"That's all? I mean…?"

"Do I trust you? Of course. See you tonight."

Lily looked out the car window, at the city rolling past. Maybe she was betraying Lucas. Maybe she was betraying Kennett. She wasn't sure anymore.

O'Dell said, "Cretins," and his paper shook with anger.