Sudden prey

SALLY O'DONALD WAS IN A MOOD.

She stood on the other side of a locked glass storm door, her hair in pink curlers, her ample lips turned down in a scowl, her fists on her hips. She was wearing a threadbare plaid bathrobe and fuzzy beige slippers that looked like squashed rabbits.

''What do you assholes want, in the middle of the night?''

''Just talk, no problem,'' Lucas said. He was standing on the second step of the stoop, looking up at her.

''Last time I talked to that fuckin' Capslock, I thought I was gonna have to pull his nuts off,'' she said, not moving toward the door lock. She stared over

Lucas's shoulder at Del.

Del shivered and said, ''Sally, open the goddamn door, will you? We're freezing out here. Honest to God, all we want to do is talk.''

She let them in after a while, and led them back to a television room so choked with smoke that it might have been a bowling alley. She moved a TV dinner tray out of the way, pointed at a corduroy-covered chair for Lucas and sat down in another. Del stood.

''We know you saw Dick LaChaise-you only told about a hundred people,'' Lucas said.

''I didn't tell no hundred people, I told about three,'' she said, squinting at him from her piggy eyes. ''I'll figure out who it was, sooner or later. Pull his nuts off.''

''Jesus, Sally,'' Del said. ''Take it easy on the nuts stuff.''

''We just want to know where you saw him, who he was with and what you know about him,'' Lucas said. ''Our source says you used to hang out with him.''

''Who is it? The source? I talk to you, you oughta give me something.''

''You know I can't tell you that. I could ask sex to give your place a pass for a couple of months,'' Lucas said, adding, ''if the information is decent.''

She nodded, calculating. A two-month pass from sex added up. She said, ''All right. I hung with the Seed, off and on, for maybe ten years? Up until-let's see-four or five years ago. They got me in the business to begin with, turned me out in Milwaukee. Dick was one of the bigger shots in theSeeds when I first met him. He was maybe twenty-five back then, so he'd be what, forty?''

''Thirty-eight,'' Lucas said. ''That's a long time ago.''

''Yeah. I remember him especially because he thought he was Marlon Brando. He liked to wear those squashed fisherman hats, and gold chains and shit. I caught him practicing his smile once, in the can at this bar in Milwaukee.''

''Practicing…?''

''Yeah.''

''I'm not getting a picture of a big leader, here,'' Lucas said.

''Oh, he was. Maybe a little too nuts, though. You know, most of the Seeds were sort of… criminal businessmen. A little dope, a little porn, a few whores.

Bad, but not necessarily crazy. Dick… you heard about the sleeping on the yellow line?''

''Yeah, heard the story,'' Lucas said.

''I was there. He did. And he was asleep. And I once saw him try to ride a

Harley up an oak tree…''

Lucas looked at Del and they both shrugged. ''He killed this guard, cut his throat, pretty cold,'' Lucas said to O'Donald. ''Does that sound like

LaChaise?''

She thought for a moment, cocking her head, then said, ''Well, ten years ago, he would've had to be pissed. But just cold like that…'' She snapped her fingers. ''I don't know.''

''His old lady and Georgie LaChaise-they had a rep for stealing money and giving it to nut groups,'' Lucas said. ''He had to have help in the escape. We thought maybe some of the nuts helped out.''

''I didn't know his wife or his sister. The Seed had some serious goofballs around, though. Just before I left it was the blacks this and the Jews that and the politicians and media and cops and feminists and television and banks and insurancecompanies and welfare and food stamps… the whole pizza pie.''

''Sounds like talk radio,'' Lucas said.

She laughed, an unpleasant gurgling sound, and her stomach bounced up and down.

She pointed her finger at him. ''That's good.''

''What was he doing at the laundromat?'' Del asked.

''Talking to some guy,'' O'Donald said. ''They was standing up, arguing with each other-that's when I came down the street and saw him. He has a beard and he had a beard when I knew him, but he didn't have a beard in the newspaper picture.''

''That was the last picture they had of him,'' Lucas said. ''He started growing the beard two or three months ago.''

''How'd it look?'' Del asked. He'd propped himself against a chest of drawers.

''Short and smooth? Special cut?''

''Bible prophet,'' she said. ''Long and scraggly.''

Lucas said, ''Then what? After he was arguing with the guy?''

''I didn't hang around. I don't need Dick LaChaise seeing me and asking for a favor, if you know what I mean.''

''You worried about freebies?'' Del asked.

''I don't care about freebies,'' she said. She looked away, her lips still moving, then she shook her head and said, ''If Dick is here, some of his old

Seed buddies are probably around, too. You really don't want to fuck with them.''

''We did,'' Del said.

O'Donald nodded: ''I read about it-that thing where you guys killed his old lady and his sister.''

''Yeah?'' Del nodded.

''He's here to even the score on that,'' O'Donald said. ''If I were you guys,

I'd move to another state.''

Lucas looked at her. ''You think he'd come after cops?''

''Davenport, have you been listening?'' she asked impatiently.''Dick is a fuckin' fruitcake. You killed his woman and his sister. He's coming after you, all right. Eye for an eye.''

She frowned suddenly, then said, ''That guy he was talking to-at the laundromat.

I think he was a cop.''

Lucas said, ''What?''

''I don't know who, but I recognized the attitude. You know how you can always tell a cop? I mean, except for Capslock here, he looks like a wino

… Well, this guy was like that. A cop-cop.''

''Would you recognize a mug shot?''

She shrugged: ''Probably not. I didn't really look at him, I was sort of looking past him, at Dick. It was the way he stood that made me think cop.''

Del looked down at Lucas and said, ''That's not good.''

''No. That's not good.'' Lucas looked back through the dark house, the smoke-browned wallpaper, the crumpled Chee-tos bags on the floor, the stink of a cat, and he said, half to himself, ''Eye for an eye.''