Easy Prey (22 page)

“I need to get smoothed out sometimes,” Jael said.

“Smoke a little grass. Stay away from the heroin.”

“Not the same,” she said. But she was amused again. “I should have been recording this: a cop telling me to smoke a little grass.”

“Grass'll kill you, too,” Lucas said. “But not until you're eighty.”

At the house, they sat on the stoop and talked, Lucas trying to tug the conversation back to the party, looking for another name, another hint. “Look, I'm not going to tell you any more names,” she said. “If I thought it would really help, I would—but it won't.”

A city car pulled to the curb, and Sherrill got out. “Sherrill likes you a lot,” Jael said. He could feel her watching his face.

“I like her a lot,” Lucas said. He half turned. “Sherrill and I have a little history. That's all over. We weren't good for each other.”

“She talks tough,” Jael said.

“She
is
tough.”

“Tough as you?”

Sherrill was coming up to them. Lucas said, “Maybe.”

 
 
SHERRILL SAID, “HOW'S it going?”

Her eyes slid from Lucas to Jael, and Jael stood up and said, “Fine. I better go call my lawyer, though.”

“What, did he whack you around or something?”

“We're not
that
friendly yet,” Jael said.

 
 
SHE WENT INSIDE, and when she was out of earshot, Sherrill asked, “What happened?”

“She says Sandy Lansing was the dealer. She says Lansing could get anything you want—not like she was a housewife with a neighborhood connection.”

“You think somebody killed Lansing for dope?”

“Mmm . . . I don't know about that. But I'll bet it's tied in somehow,” Lucas said. “Somebody owed her too much, and was afraid of what was gonna happen. Or blackmail. Maybe she was trying to squeeze one of her clients and he didn't like it. Who knows, maybe she had a competitor in the crowd.”

“This is good,” Sherrill said. “But you can't stop thinking about Alie'e. If Lansing was killed because she saw something with Alie'e, then there could be a whole 'nother thing going on that we don't see yet.”

“I know. That bothers me. But I can't see any connection between Lansing and Amnon Plain, or Lansing and Jael. Plain has to be hooked into Alie'e, or we're completely off the track.”

“If it's Olson . . . what, we're talking some kind of revenge trip for what happened to his sister? Taking out the sinners who led her into the pathways of evil.”

“Sounds like a TV show.”

“Everything in this case sounds like a TV show,” Sherrill said.

“You think we ought to start tracking him? Olson?”

“We oughta think about it,” Sherrill said. “We got fifteen guys working on this case, and most of them are standing around bullshitting with each other.”

“I'll talk to Lester,” Lucas said. He looked back at the house. “You'll take Jael down for the statement?”

“Yeah. I'm gonna take off at five, though. Tom Black is gonna pick up at five.”

“Good. Keep her covered.”

“Pretty interesting, isn't she?”

Lucas leaned forward, dropped his voice. “You know what I'd like to do? Get about three of them, you know, on a king-size bed. Some really funky blond lesbians stacked up around me, this big Davenport-lesbo sandwich . . .”

She put her hand on his chest and pushed. “So sad, these erotic fantasies in aging men. Three blondes in bed with Lucas, all that relish and one little weenie.”

They were laughing together when Jael came out. “He can't do it until three. We're supposed to meet him at his office, and we can walk over to City Hall.” She looked at Lucas. “He didn't want me to do it. I told him I wanted to.”

 
 
LUCAS SAID GOODBYE and headed back downtown. Del was waiting, ready to go kick doors. “We got a statement from Outer, but his lawyer about had a hernia. He said the deal was a violation of everything sacred in the law.”

“What'd Outer say?”

“Not much. But we got him cold on the dope, so we're good. And I've got warrants for Logan's home, and Bee's home and offices.”

“Where's the first one?”

“North Oaks. Bee's home.” Del read out the address.

“See you there in twenty minutes,” Lucas said. He still needed whatever information Bee and Logan had. Lansing may have been Alie'e's dealer, but she had also been the other victim.

 
 
JAMES BEE LIVED in a stone-fronted ranch-style house much like Lucas's own, with frontage on a small, dark lake. Lucas arrived as Del's city car, a Minneapolis squad, and a Ramsey County sheriff's squad were turning up the long black-topped driveway. Lucas followed them in through a scattering of big oaks, their dead leaves gone a hard stiff brown color.

A narcotics cop named Larry Cohen got out of the passenger side of Del's car, the warrants in hand. The Minneapolis cops got with the sheriff's deputies and headed for the door, while Del dropped back, waiting for Lucas. “This is a long goddamn way around.”

“Yeah, but if we can nail him down . . . I'll bet he knows his competitors.”

The door was answered by a thin blond woman in black spandex tights and a T-shirt advertising the Twin Cities Marathon. Lucas could hear her screeching at the cops, and then one of the sheriff's deputies broke away and started running around the side of the house, one of the Minneapolis cops six feet behind him.

The other Minneapolis cop was pushing inside, his gun drawn now, while the sheriff's deputy drew his gun and moved up next to a picture window and peeked through. Over his shoulder he yelled, “We got a runner.”

Lucas and Del trotted toward the house, drawing their weapons. Inside, the Minneapolis cop had the blonde lying on the floor, facedown. She was screaming, “There's nobody else, for God's sakes, there's nobody else.”

They took the house slowly, five minutes to work through it. When Lucas came back up the basement stairs, his pistol reholstered, he found the woman sitting on the couch, her hands cuffed behind her. The second sheriff's deputy was standing over her.

“We got him,” the deputy said. “There was no way he was gonna run away from Rick.”

“He runs in marathons,” the blonde said.

“So does Rick,” the deputy said.

Del came out of the back of the house and said, “We're all clear. Office in the back.”

Lucas followed him to the office. A paper Rolodex sat on the back of the desk, and Del started going through it while Lucas cranked up the computer. The phone rang, and Lucas picked it up and said hello.

“Hey . . . is this Jim?”

“He's out back,” Lucas said. “Can I have him call you?”

“Yeah. Tell him to call Lonnie? Is this Steve?”

“Naw, this is Lucas.”

“Okay, whatever. I need to talk to him pretty quick.”

“You got a number?”

“He's got it.”

“Just in case?”

“Yeah, okay. . . .”

Lucas copied down the phone number and said, “We'll get back to you.”

“Thanks.”

“Very nice,” Del said. He was looking at the Rolodex. “He's gotta have two hundred names in here.”

“But nobody from the party list.”

“Not so far. But you know what? I'll bet you a buck that we find at least one. If he's dealing high-end. There were a lot of high-end dopers there.”

 
 
THE PHONE RANG again, and a woman's voice said,

“Lucas?”

The name startled him; he didn't pick up on it right away. “Yeah?”

“This is Rose Marie,” the woman said.

“Jesus, I thought I was talking to a fuckin' psychic or something--”

She broke in. “Listen. I hate this—but Sherrill's been shot.”

Lucas didn't understand for a minute. “What? What?”

Del looked at him, straightened.

“Sherrill's been shot. She's on her way to Hennepin.”

“Aw, Jesus Christ, is she bad?”

“She's bad. She's bad.”

“I'm going.”

He threw the phone back at the receiver and started running, and Del shouted, “What?”

Lucas shouted back, “Sherrill's been shot. You stay here, take this.”

“Fuck that, Larry can take it.” He was right behind Lucas, and together they ran through the front room, and Lucas shouted at Cohen, who was talking to the blonde, “Larry, you gotta take it, Sherrill's been shot, we're going, you know what to do. . . .”

On the sidewalk, the sheriff's deputy, wet up to his hips, was pulling a handcuffed man up the lawn, a short, slender man with a dude's haircut and a small tight mouth; the dude was soaked from head to foot. The deputy said, “Fell in the fuckin' lake.”

But Lucas and Del ran past him and piled into Lucas's Porsche and they were gone, streaking through the slow streets of North Oaks past a soccer field and south toward Minneapolis.

15

LUCAS FOCUSED ON driving, blowing past cars as Del gave a running commentary on gaps in the traffic: “Go left behind this red one, move over left, go, go . . .” Down the ramp and around the corner onto I-35W, squeezing between an old Bronco and a generic Chevy pickup.

Halfway back, Lucas said, “We've done this before.” “That fuckin' Sherrill, she's always got her face in it,” Del said. “Last time she goddamned near bled to death.”

“Rose Marie said it's bad,” Lucas groaned. “She said it's bad. . . .”

 
 
A PALE-FACED, BLOOD-SPATTERED Jael Corbeau was standing in the hallway just inside the emergency room door, with two uniformed cops, when Lucas and Del burst in. “Where is she?” Lucas asked.

“They're operating,” Jael said, stepping toward him. “They rushed her right in.”

Lucas headed for the hall to the operating rooms. Rose Marie was standing there with Lester. Lester grabbed Lucas's arm and said, “Slow down,” and Rose Marie said, “You can't see anything down there, Lucas.” Lester added, “She's already under, man, they've already got her asleep.”

Lucas slowed down, realized Del was right behind him. “How bad?” Del asked, and Lucas asked, “Is she gonna make it?”

“She was hit twice,” Lester said. “Once in the left arm, once in the left side of her chest. Busted a lung. She might've died except that she rolled up on her left side . . . they said she might've drowned if she hadn't been on her side.”

“Is she gonna make it?” Lucas asked.

“She's bad,” Lester said, “but she's still alive. If they get you here alive . . .”

“Aw, Jesus,” Lucas said. He slumped against the wall, closed his eyes. Jael. He pushed away from the wall and headed back toward the entrance. Jael was still there.

“What happened?”

The words came out in a spate. “We were coming out of my house, going downtown, and this car came down the street and the window was open and Marcy yelled at me and got her gun out and this man started shooting at us. Marcy shoved me down and then she fell down, and the car kept going, and when I looked at Marcy, she had blood all over her and I ran and called 911 and then I came out and tried to stop the blood and when the ambulance got there I rode down here with her . . .”

“She got off a couple of rounds,” one of the uniformed cops said.

Jael nodded, stepped toward Lucas, took his shirt in both hands. “She said to tell you, this is all she said, she said to tell you that she shot the car. She said, ‘Tell Lucas I hit the car.'”

“What kind of car? You didn't get a license number--”

“No, no, I barely saw it 'cause she pushed me. I went down.”

“You didn't see anything.”

She closed her eyes, still holding on to his shirt, and then said, “It was dark. Long and dark.”

Lucas pressed. “Long and dark. What do you mean, long and dark? Like a Mercedes-Benz or a Cadillac?”

“No, I don't think so,” she said. “It just looked long and dark.”

“American?”

“I don't know. Like those big cars from twenty years ago. But I don't know what kind, I don't know, God . . .”

Lucas put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “You did good,” he said. “I'm amazed that you saw anything.”

 
 
MORE COPS CAME rolling in. Everybody was doing right: They were looking at all long dark cars, checking for bullet holes, looping the neighborhood down there. But Jael lived within whistling distance of a half-dozen interstate on-ramps. Everybody was looking, but without much hope.

Another doctor arrived, headed straight back. “Vascular surgeon,” a nurse told them.

“What does that mean?” Lucas asked. “Heart?”

“No telling,” she said.

One of the on-sterile circulating nurses came out of the operating room on an errand, and they trapped her. “I don't know,” she said. “She's alive—they're breathing her.”

 
 
AFTER AN HOUR, Del said, “We can't do anything here. All we can do is find out that she died, if she dies.”

“So what do you suggest?” Lucas was angry and scared, his voice a croak.

“I suggest we go find that fuckin' Olson and look at his car,” Del said. Sherrill had been shot once before, and nearly bled to death. Del had ridden with her from the shooting scene to the hospital, in a helicopter, squeezing the artery so hard that for weeks afterward Sherrill had complained about the bruise. “The bullet hole is nothin',” she'd said. “But that goddamn bruise where Del squeezed me . . . that's killing my ass.”