Sudden prey

THIRTEEN

WEATHER KARKINNEN LAY ON THE HOTEL BED AND fumed: the television had gone into a news loop. The anchorpeople leaned into the cameras with the usual end-of-the-world intensity, but had nothing new to say. Weather looked at her watch: two o'clock.

Lucas had said he'd drop by at noon, then called to cancel. He told her about the laughing incident, which she hadn't yet seen when he called, but saw later.

The television stations were showing it every twenty minutes or so, and it had been picked up by the national news channels.

Lucas said the laughter had been hysterical, or on that order. She only half-believed it. She'd lived with him long enough to feel the satisfaction he got from confrontation, and the deadlier the confrontation, the better. A death wish, maybe; sometimes when he talked about his world, she could barely recognize it as the same place she lived. They would drive across town, and she'd see good houses and nice gardens and kids on bikes. He'd see whores and dopers and pedophiles and retired cat burglars.

At first, it had been interesting. Later, she wondered how he could put up with it, the constant stench of the perverse, the lunatic, the out-of-control. Even later, she understood that he sought it out…

She looked at her watch again: two-oh-three. Screw it. She wasn't going to sit around anymore. This LaChaise might be extraordinarily bad, but he could hardly have an intelligence system that would tell him where she was-if he even knew to look for her, which she doubted.

And even if he did know where to look for her, once she was in a crowd, she'd be just one of a million and a half women wrapped in heavy winter coats, faces obscured by scarves. Then nobody could find her-not the FBI, not the Minneapolis cops, nobody-much less some backwoods gunman.

''All right,'' she said. She looked at her watch a third time. She'd had to delay a surgery scheduled that morning, but there was a staff meeting at four, and she could make that. And she could set up for tomorrow. The operation in the morning wasn't much-remove some cancerous skin, and patch the wound with a graft-but it would get her going again.

She found her sweater, pulled it over her head, and was checking her purse for money when the knock came at the door. She opened it, and instantly recognized the blonde in the hall, and the small girl with her.

The blonde smiled: ''Hi. I'm Jennifer Carey…''

''I know who you are,'' Weather said, smiling back. '' Lucas has talked about you. Come in. And hi, Sarah.'' She and Sarah were old friends.

Jennifer was tall, lanky, a surfer girl with degrees in economics and journalism. She noticed Weather's sweater: ''Breaking out?''

''Definitely. I can't stand it here anymore,'' Weather said. ''I'm going crazy.''

''I'll give you a ride, if you want one,'' Jennifer said. '' Unless you've got a car.''

''Lucas brought me in, I'd like a ride. I understand you're working outside.''

''Yeah. Sloan's wife is here, she's taking care of Sarah for me. But there's no point in letting Lucas have all the fun, chasing around with his gun.''

''Daddy shot a man,'' Sarah said solemnly, looking up at Weather.

Weather sat on the bed so her eyes were level with Sarah's. ''I don't think so, honey. I talked to him a couple of hours ago, and he said another policeman did the shooting.''

''On TV, they said he did,'' Sarah said. Her wide eyes were the same mild blue as Lucas's eyes.

Weather said, ''Well, I think they might be wrong on this one thing.''

Jennifer, moving moodily across the room, dropped into a desk chair: ''I understand you and Lucas are getting married. Pretty soon.''

''That's the plan,'' Weather said.

''Good luck,'' Jennifer said. She was looking out the window at the street. ''I

… well, we talked about it, years ago. It wouldn't have worked, though. I hope it works with you guys. He's a good guy under the macho bullshit, and I would like to see him happy.''

''That's interesting,'' Weather said. ''Do you think that might be a problem?

Happiness?''

Jennifer shook her head and turned back to Weather: ''He has a very dark streak, a Catholic dark streak. And his job… I don't know how he stands it. I know what he does, because I've covered it, but I've got some distance. I mean, I see burned-out newspeople all the time, and they are several steps back from what

Lucas does.''

Weather nodded, and drifted toward the window herself. The sky and the day had the cold midwinter pre-storm look, a brooding somberness. ''I know what you're saying-I was just lying here thinking about it,'' she said. ''I can feel it in him. I can feel it in Del, too, almost as bad. I can feel it in Sloan, but with

Sloan, it's mostly a job. With Lucas it's like… his existence.'' ''That's the Catholic thing,'' Jennifer said. ''It can be frightening. It's like, when he confronts a monster, he solves the problem by becoming a bigger monster… and after he wins, he changes back to Lucas the good guy.'' Then she blushed:

''God, I shouldn't be talking this way to a guy's fiance ґe. I'm sorry.'' ''No, no, no,'' Weather said. ''I need it. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm getting into here.'' She looked at Sarah: ''I would like a child before it's too late… just like this one.''

Sarah said, ''I'm gonna be a TV reporter.''

Jennifer said, ''Over my dead body. You should be a surgeon, like Dr.

Karkinnen.''

''Did you cover the robbery at the credit union, where the women were killed?''

Weather asked Jennifer.

''I didn't cover it, but I talked to all the people who did. I do mostly longer-term stories. We're working on a story now about police intelligence units.''

''What do you think? Some people have said it was an execution.''

''No, it wasn't. I'll buy the argument that nobody made them do it. But you know

Lucas. He has a tendency to arrange things so they come out his way.'' She stopped again: ''Jeez, I really sound like… I don't know, like I'm trying to scrag the guy.''

''That's okay-I know what you mean,'' Weather said. She picked up her coat, hat and mittens and smiled at Jennifer. ''Ready to make the break?''

LUCAS WAS INFURIATED WHEN HE HEARD THAT Weather had left the hotel, and Jennifer had taken her out.

He tried to call the university, but was told Weather was in a meeting and couldn't be disturbed. He got Jennifer at TV3, shouted at her and she hung up.

He called back, got her again, asked about Sarah.

''She's with Sloan's wife,'' Jennifer said. ''She's fine. She's watching HBO and eating pizza.''

''Listen, I want Weather back in that fuckin' hotel…''

''Hey, Lucas? You don't own her. If you call her with this attitude, you're gonna get the same answer from her as you're getting from me. Fuck you. Go away.''

And she hung up.

LACHAISE SAID, ''LISTEN: THEY'RE GONNA GET YOUR prints out of the house. Then they'll have all three of our faces. We've got to move before that happens.''

Martin said, ''They won't have any new pictures of me… but maybe we should change what we look like.''

''Like what?''

Martin shrugged. ''I don't know-you got that beard, and they show it on the tube as long. Maybe if you trimmed it, and cut it, and dyed your hair gray. Hell, with gray hair, we'd both look older than the hills.''

LaChaise looked back toward the master bedroom: Sandy was in there, making up the beds, singing to herself while she did it. Not a happy song. A song like she was losing it, a song to herself, a singsong.

''Sandy could do it,'' LaChaise said.

''I think it'd be a good move,'' Martin said. ''We could get out and scout around.''

''Then let's do it.'' LaChaise nodded. ''I want to get going again. Find this

Weather. And Davenport himself. And the cops. Let's go after the cops.''

SANDY AGREED THAT SHE COULD CHANGE THEIR HAIR color. She had a flatness about her that provoked LaChaise: ''What's wrong with you?''

''When we got into this, Elmore said that in two or three days we'd all be dead.

He wanted to go to the cops, and I talked him out of it.''

Martin and LaChaise looked at each other, and then La-Chaise said, ''Why? Why'd you talk him out of it?''

''Because I thought I could still fix things. Get you out of here; pretend I didn't have anything to do with anything. Now they've got me on TV, and they'll have Martin pretty soon. Elmore was right: he's dead now and Butters is dead.

Not even twenty-four hours yet. If Elmore was right, we've got another two days at the most. Then we'll all be dead.''

She looked at LaChaise: ''You want to be dead?''

Martin answered: ''No big deal.''

LaChaise said nothing at all for a moment, then poked a finger at her: ''I don't want to hear this shit no more. You go on with Martin, and get the hair stuff.''

''My picture…''

''You don't look like that picture-nobody'll know you,'' LaChaise said. ''And we need the right stuff.''

''I might want to make a couple of extra stops,'' Martin said. ''They'll have my picture out there as soon as the prints come in. But if I get movin', I could tap a couple of friends for some decent weapons… guys I know from the shows. And we gotta dump the truck, sooner or later.''

''We can do that tonight,'' LaChaise said. ''Take the Continental, put the truck in the garage for now.'' He smacked his hands together. ''Get a couple of ARs if you can…'' LaChaise dug in his pocket for the money Butters had taken from

Harp. ''Couple thousand?''

''Better make it four,'' Martin said.

''Call me before you talk to anybody-I'll watch television for your face,''

LaChaise said. ''And I might try Stadic again. See if he's heard anything.''

THEY WENT TO A SNYDER'S DRUGSTORE, MARTIN STICKING close to her. Sandy already knew she was going to run for it, given the smallest opening: But Martin knew it too, she thought. They went through the store, and got bleach and coloring.

Martin poked through a large industrial first-aid kit, and finally took it off the shelf. ''Gonna have to change Dick's bandage sooner or later,'' he said in a low voice.

Just short of the cash register line, he bumped into a rack of commercial trail food and twirled it: he'd always kept some of the stuff around. As he was looking at the varieties, Sandy noticed a telephone by the pharmacy desk.

''Got a quarter? I'll call Dick.''

''Yeah,'' Martin said absently. He dug in his pocket, handed her a quarter. She went to the pay phone, dropped the quarter, punched the number in: LaChaise answered.

''Anything?'' she asked.

''Not a thing; same old bullshit,'' he said. ''I'm gonna take a nap.''

She hung up and saw the note on the bottom of the machine: 911-No charge. She looked at Martin. He'd just stepped into the cash register line, and his back was to her. She picked up the phone again, bit her lip and punched in the number.

A woman answered immediately.

''Is this an emergency?''

''Yes, I need to talk to Detective Davenport.''

''I'm sorry, but this…''

''Please, please, please, I've got to talk to him, or they'll kill me.''

''Are you in immediate danger?''

''No. Yes… I don't know.''

''Just a minute, please.''

Lucas was taking a nap in his office, stretched out on a plastic air mattress.

The mattress was uncomfortable and cold, but the office was dark and quiet and he dropped off, slept for an hour and a half. The phone woke him up.

''Lucas, we've got a call coming in on 911. The woman wants to speak to you, but she's not sure whether she's in danger. She's calling from a Snyder's down on the south side. We're not sending anyone yet.''

''Okay,'' Lucas said sleepily. ''Put her on.''

''You want us to stay on the line?''

''Sure… unless I say something.''

The phone clicked once, and the dispatcher said, ''Go ahead, ma'am. Chief

Davenport is on the line.''

''Hello?'' Lucas said.

''Is this Detective Davenport?'' A woman's voice, tentative, vaguely familiar.

He sat up. Could this be…? ''Yes, who's this?''

''This is Sandy Darling, I'm with Bill Martin and they're gonna kill me.''

Jesus, Lucas thought. He prayed that the dispatcher was sending a squad. ''If you stay where you are, you'll be safe…''

''No, no, Martin's right on top of me. I've got to talk to somebody, I've got to try to get away.''

Her voice was a whispered croak: nothing fake about it.

''They're going after more guns,'' she continued. ''They'llkill anybody who gets close to them. They've got a policeman working with them. One of you.''

''What policeman?''

''Gotta go…''

''Just stay…''

''Can you get me a lawyer, let me talk to a lawyer? I haven't done anything, they just took me…''

''Absolutely. Absolutely,'' Lucas said. ''We can bring you in, give you all the legal help you need, all the protection you need. Just stay right where you're at…''

Sandy was afraid to turn around, afraid that Martin would be coming up behind with his knife. ''I can't,'' she said. ''I gotta go. Get me out.''

''Call back,'' Lucas said. ''Call us back. You don't even have to talk. Just dial the number, leave the phone off the hook, or just say, 'Sandy,' and we'll come and get you…''

''I gotta go…''

And she was gone.

''Hello? Hello?''

The dispatcher: ''She's gone, Lucas. I've got three cars coming in, we started them as soon as she said her name, but they're at least three or four minutes away.''

''Ah, Christ, ah, Christ. Listen: warn the squads that we took automatic weapons off Butters this morning, if they haven't already heard.''

''They know.''

''Get everything else you can, scramble it down there in case we get a chase going… Howmany people down in your office there know about this?''

''Just two.''

''Keep it that way. If we don't pick her up, and word gets around, she's dead.''

''Gotcha… Are you gonna talk to Chief Roux… about the cop thing?''

''Yeah. I'll talk to her.''

Lucas hung up, rounded his desk and headed for the door, which almost hit him, opening inward: Anderson said, ''Wup.''

''I'm running,'' Lucas said.

''Only need a tenth of a second,'' Anderson said. ''You know a guy named Buster

Brown? Like in the shoes?''

Lucas tried to focus on the name. ''Buster? Yeah, I do.''

''He's trying to get you. Says it's urgent. Life-and-death about LaChaise.'' He handed Lucas a Post-it with a number on it. ''He says he'll be there.''

''Ah… All right.'' Lucas turned back to his desk, snatched up the phone, and began punching in numbers. ''We've got some heavy stuff coming down,'' he said to Anderson. ''Go get Lester, tell him to meet me at the chief's office.

Right now… and hey, you got any gum? My mouth tastes like it's had a bird in it.''

''No, but Lester's got some toothpaste in his desk drawer.''

''I'll be up,'' Lucas said. The phone was answered on the first ring: ''Hey,

Buster? Lucas…''

REGINALD BROWN WAS A SCANNER FREAK, A TERMINAL diabetic, blind, a double amputee. He could be a pain in the ass, but sometimes he came up with nuggets of information: he knew most of the drug dealers in town by voice, from their cellular phone calls.

''Boy, do I have something for you. I think,'' Buster said.

''What happened?'' Lucas asked.

''I heard some guys talking about you: just now, just a minute ago. I think it was this LaChaise guy. I got half the call on tape.''

Lucas said, ''Play it for me.''

''Sure: Listen to this.''

''… need to know where this Weather is, and be good to know where Capslock's old lady is, her room number. And we need to know where Davenport is working, and Capslock, Sherrill, Sloan, Franklin and Kupicek. You know the list.''

Long pause.

''That don't sound right; you better be tellin' the truth, or your name'll be on the list, motherfucker… Hey, listen to what I'm telling you. .. No, not you. Did you find out anything about Elmore?''

Another pause.

''That's what we thought. We'll look those boys up when we're done here…

Now listen, we need that shit and we need it right now. We'll call back in… two hours. Two hours, got it?''

Pause.

''I don't know. And you let us worry about getting back to you. You might be pulling some bullshit. And if you are, you better think twice.. .''

Pause.

''Yeah, yeah. Two hours.''

Lucas told him to play it again.

''I knew the names,'' Buster said, when it was done.

''A cellular call.''

''Yeah, my end of it, anyway. Couldn't tell about the other end.''

''Okay. Did you hear anything before what was on the tape?''

''Well, yeah. Something about how your girlfriend wasn't on the insurance.''

''What?''

''That's what they said…''

''I'm sending a squad over,'' Lucas said. ''They'll bringyou down here. I need to talk to you, face-to-face. Bring the tape with you. There'll be a payday in it.''

''You bet, chief,'' Buster said.

He hung up, thought a moment.

Had to be a cop. Or a civilian employee. If they'd gotten their information from insurance forms, they had to have access to inside computers. And the insurance did make sense: it would explain how they had located the spouses, which had been hard to figure.

He picked up the phone and called Roux.

''I understand you're on the way down here. Something good?'' she asked.

''Not exactly. You might want to bring in the mayor.''

He called Dispatch: ''What happened?''

''We've got two squads at Snyder's. Nobody there. They remember her, though.

They just missed them.''

''Anybody get their vehicle?''

''No. We just got there, the guys are checking around…''

MARTIN AND SANDY GOT BACK IN THE CONTINENTAL and Martin said, ''What'd Dick have to say?''

''He hasn't seen anything on the TV. He said he's going to take a nap.''

''Getting shot can take it out of you,'' Martin said, as he eased the car into the street.

THE MAYOR LEANED ON THE WINDOWSILL, HANDS IN the pockets of his sport jacket, fists clenched, head down. Lester lounged in a side chair, looking almost as though he were sleeping. Roux turned back and forth in her swivel chair, her eyes on Lucas.

''Does anybody else know?'' the mayor asked.

''Just Anderson. I told him the whole story, and asked him to check the computers, see if he could tell if anybody wasmessing with the insurance records. And he's running this Bill Martin name, to see if it pans out.''

''We gotta keep this one thing quiet, this insurance thing,'' the mayor said, shaking his finger at Roux and Lucas. ''We gotta find this guy, if he exists, and nail him, before anybody else knows.''

''Man, I can hardly believe it,'' Roux said. ''Maybe it's bullshit.''

''It's got a bad feel,'' Lucas said. ''We've got one source who thought she saw a cop. Then Darling calls, and she says cop.''

Roux held up a finger and punched a number into her phone. She said, ''This is

Roux. Anything?'' She listened for a moment, then said, ''Damnit. If anything happens, get back.''

She hung up and said, ''Still nothing at the Snyders. We're sending some guys down to print the phone, make sure it was Darling. I can't imagine that…''

She was cut off by a knock at the door, and a half-second later, Anderson stuck his head in: ''Lucas said if I got anything…''

''Yeah, come on in,'' Lucas said. ''What'd you get?''

''Two things. You want the good news, or the bad news?''

''Good news,'' the mayor said. ''We haven't had much.''

''We ran Bill Martin, conventional spelling, against Dick LaChaise, the Seed,

Wisconsin and Michigan. We got a bunch of hits-he's pretty well known with the gang. He's a gun dealer, by the way. We're sending all the prints we took out of the house to the FBI, and they'll run them. We should know in ten minutes if we've got a match.''

''Excellent,'' Lucas said. To the mayor: ''That'd be the third guy.''

''And it'd prove that you were talking to Sandy Darling,'' Anderson pointed out.

''Not just some bullshit artist.''

''The bad news,'' Lucas said.

Anderson had a half-dozen sheets of paper in his hands, and he shuffled them nervously. ''When did your source see the cop with LaChaise? In the laundromat?''

''Must've been… yesterday? In the early morning.''

''Oh, God.'' He shuffled the paper some more, his mouth working. ''Yesterday, somebody accessed the insurance files on everybody in your task force.''

''Who was it?'' asked Roux.

''We don't know,'' Anderson said. ''They were accessed and printed out through

Personnel, at six o'clock in the morning. There's nobody in Personnel at six o'clock.''

''From what O'Donald said, the guy she saw was a street cop-not somebody from

Personnel,'' said Lucas.

''So we got a cop with a source in Personnel,'' Roux said. Lucas shook his head:

''Something like this, you might get one bad guy, but not two. Unless… any of the women in Personnel married to a street cop?''

Anderson shrugged. ''I can find out.''

''Do that,'' Roux said grimly.

''But, uh…'' Anderson seemed reluctant.

''What?'' asked Lucas.

''Personnel has been raided a few times. You know that. Guys want to look at their files, want to look at test scores or salaries. There'd be more than a few guys around here who could get inside, and who probably know enough about computers to pull up the insurance records.''

''But when you think about how many, I bet it wouldn't be that many,'' Lucas said. ''So make a list. We'll show mugs to O'Donald.''

''If there's a cop in on this, we're gonna get hurt,'' Roux groaned.

''But why would a cop line up with LaChaise? LaChaise is a goner,'' the mayor said.

''Blackmail,'' said Lucas. He looked at Anderson. ''When you figure out the computer stuff, let's talk about who's got the shaky rep. Somebody LaChaise might get to.''

''If it's a cop, he's dead,'' Roux said to the mayor. The mayor pushed away from the windowsill. ''I don't want to hear that,'' he said.

''I don't even want to think about it-but somebody would put him down, given the chance. I guarantee it.''

THE CHIEF OF SURGERY TOOK WEATHER ASIDE AND asked, ''Are you going to be okay?''

''Sure. I mean, heck, my own secretary can't track me down. I don't think some hillbilly gunman's gonna get me.'' She flashed a grin at him. ''Don't worry about it, Loren. If I thought it'd be a problem, I wouldn't be here.''