Easy Prey (26 page)

“You know anybody who bit?” Lucas asked.

“No, not around here. He did not exactly inspire confidence.”

“He was not that bad a guy, though.”

“Hey, some of the best guys I know sell used cars. They've all got big deals cooking somewhere. I like them, but I'd never put my money with them.”

The outer door opened, and a tall man in a dark blue suit came through, trailed by India. The man had a beaked nose, close-set water-green eyes, and a black—too black—widow's peak. He resembled Prince Philip just a little, and must've known it, because he had a red silk handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket. He looked Lucas up and down, and before the manager had a chance to open his mouth, Lucas didn't like him.

“You're the police?” As if he doubted it. “Do you have identification?” He had a perfect, round, baritone English voice.

“Yeah, but you usually don't want to flash the old buzzer in a high-class joint like this,” Lucas said, looking around the room, as if the ceiling tiles might turn hostile. India's eyes cut sideways at him, and the corners of her mouth twitched. Lucas flipped open his ID, held it in front of the manager's eyes, and said, “We can lay some paper on you if you want. Otherwise, I'll just take a quick gander at Derrick's desk.”

“Well, I don't think you need a search warrant. We're all anxious to help find out what happened with Derrick,” the manager said. He tilted his head back, the better to peer down his nose. “He'd reformed, you know. He was doing so well.”

Lucas shrugged. “So maybe it was an accident.”

The manager lifted an eyebrow, just one. “We heard he was found locked in a car trunk, with his face smashed in.”

Lucas nodded judiciously. “Maybe you're right. Probably wasn't an accident. I never thought so, myself.” He was getting tired of it. “So I can look around?”

“I'd like to leave a staff member with you.” Prince Philip tipped his head at India.

“Sure . . . no problem.”

When he was gone, India giggled and asked, “Where'd you get that accent?”

“Where'd he get his?” Lucas asked as they walked down to Deal's desk.

“Same place as Cary Grant.”

“Really? Cary Grant?”

“They were both born in Bristol. England.”

“Yeah?” He'd spotted an old-fashioned plastic Rolodex on Deal's desk. “And this”—he touched the Rolodex—“is what I've been looking for.”

He found a name, two-thirds of the way through the Rolodex. He checked it twice: Terrance Bloom. He checked the printed party list to confirm it, then called Lester at Homicide.

“I'm looking at Derrick Deal's Rolodex and I find the name Terrance Bloom, and Bloom is on the party list.”

“Give me the address and phone number,” Lester said.

Lucas read them off the Rolodex, and Lester, rattling on some computer keys, said, “Hang on a sec. I'm just bringing the screen up. . . .” Then: “Yup, that's him.”

“We gotta get on him,” Lucas said. “This could be something.”

“Hang on, hang on. . . .” Lucas hung on for another moment, listening to the computer keys at the other end of the line, then Lester again: “He's not on Lansing's phone list.”

“Shit.”

“Well—that could be deliberate, if he's her guy. She probably wouldn't need it, and he wouldn't want her carrying it.”

“Yeah, but . . . listen, put somebody good on it. This is the first hint we've had.”

“Absolutely. Did you hear about Marcy? I mean, going into intensive care?”

“Yeah, that's the last I heard.”

“Same with me. . . . She's gonna make it.”

“If there's any goddamn justice in the world. Talk to you later.”

Lucas spent fifteen minutes with India, going through Deal's computer, but Deal apparently didn't use e-mail, and Lucas couldn't find any data files. There had to be some, but they could be on a removable disk. He closed the computer down, stuck a handwritten note that read, “Don't use—Minneapolis police” on the monitor screen, and said, “I'm sending a computer guy over here to take a look at this thing. Don't let anybody touch it, okay?”

“I'll tell Philip,” she said.

“Who's he?”

“The manager?”

“Honest to God? Philip?”

 
 
DEL CALLED WHEN Lucas was on the way back to the hospital. “I got the game. Started last night, continues until five A.M. tomorrow. Twenty-five grand to get in.” That was good. They had Bloom's name now, but there was no guarantee that Bloom was their guy. They still needed Trick—and Al-Balah.

“Where at?”

“Pat Kelly. Remember him?”

“Yeah. . . . Where's he at now?”

“Bought a place down on the south end, right on Minnehaha Creek. He's got a brand-new two-story fully-heated triple garage in his backyard. The word is, it's upstairs in the garage.”

“Going on now?” Lucas asked.

“Yup. Want to meet me?”

“Absolutely. Let's get . . . uh, what's Franklin doing?”

“He's still with Corbeau,” Del said.

“How about Loring?”

“I saw him early today, so he's probably off—but he's always up for overtime.”

“Give him a ring. I'll meet you at Pasties in an hour.”

 
 
ROSE MARIE HAD gone home, but a night nurse at the hospital let Lucas look in on Marcy. She was half propped up in a bed, a breathing tube in her nose, more tubes in her arms, wires scrambled around the top of the bed, running to monitors. She smelled of disinfectant and something else: corruption, or cut flesh. Lucas knew the odor, but had never been able to put a name to it.

He sat down on a chair next to the bed, watched her breathe for five minutes, then said, “We got a couple of things going, couple of leads. You're gonna make it. We talked to the docs. But you gotta keep sleeping for now.” Maybe she could understand it, somewhere down in her brain. He backed out of the room, turned, and nearly ran over a woman who'd been standing by the door.

“Lucas,” she said, and showed a tiny smile.

“Weather.” His heart thumped. That hardly ever happened anymore; now, three times in three days, with Catrin, with Jael Corbeau. “I was just . . . Marcy . . . you know.”

“I heard. I was coming down to take a look,” Weather said. She was a small woman, with wide athletic shoulders and a slightly crooked nose that might have been just a shade too large. Her eyes were dark blue, her short hair just touched with white. She'd be thirty-eight, Lucas thought. And, God, she looked good. “I talked to Hirschfeld—he did the surgery—and he said she's got a good chance. She was pretty torn up when she first came in, and he was worried, but they got it together.”

“She was hit hard.”

“Another nutcase, Lucas. They keep coming.” She was a surgeon. She saw the victims, especially the children.

“Four times a year, about,” Lucas said. “Crime's down. Burglary's down, rape's down, robbery's down, even murder's down, except for nutcases.”

“Everybody's getting too old for crime,” she said.

“Everybody's got a job,” Lucas said. “Jobs cure everything. And crack's going away. . . .”

She looked up at him—she was a small woman, with shoulders that were slightly too broad, like an acrobat's—and asked, “What're we talking about?”

“I don't know.”

“Want a cup of coffee?”

“I've gotta go. I'm running down south, I've got a door to kick down,” Lucas said.

Now she did smile. “Lucas. So see you around, huh?”

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then: “Really?”

“If you've got the time . . . sometime.”

“Anytime,” he said. “Anytime but now. I just gotta, I just gotta . . . go.” He backed away from her as he'd backed out of the room, backed up almost to the outer door, then turned and pushed through.

Behind him, Weather's smile softened; she'd heard him talking to Marcy. In that few seconds, she thought, something had changed. Maybe . . .

 
 
LUCAS DROVE SOUTH through town, replaying the talk with Weather. Played it once, played it again. What she looked like, what she sounded like. She'd once owned a dress that she planned to wear for her wedding to Lucas; that hadn't happened. The relationship had dissolved in blood, in the very hospital where they'd talked, where Marcy had gone under the knife; another nutcase who'd died for his efforts. Weather Karkinnen. She'd wanted kids, two or three. . . .

 
 
PASTIES WAS AN all-night greasy spoon off Lyndale Avenue. When it first opened, it sold indigestible meat pies, but now it was all fried bacon, fried sausage, and fried hamburger, with home fries or french fries and catsup, and suspicious-looking pecan pie. Lettuce was not in demand; the coffee was mediocre. On the other hand, it was open all night, had racks of free papers inside the front door, and nobody cared if a customer spent an hour drinking a cup of coffee.

Del was deep in conversation with the counterman when Lucas showed up. He broke off the conversation and they took a booth, and the counterman followed him over with a plastic carafe of coffee and two cups. The counterman was tubercularly thin, with round John Lennon glasses and shaggy hair; he was rolling an unlit, unfiltered cigarette between his dry lips. “Anyway, that's what happened,” he told Del. He shook his head. “Shoulda known better. He said he only wanted to stay a couple of days.”

“I'll tell you what—those accordion guys are sneakier than they look,” Del said. “Some of that music is pretty damn romantic. The
Blue Skirt Waltz
? You know that one? And you
know
women like to dance.”

“I wouldn't have no more suspected him than I would've suspected a . . . a . . . banjo player or something.”

“Coulda been worse,” Del said.

“Yeah? How?”

“She could've run off with one of the Eagles.”

The counterman didn't laugh. He shook his head and shuffled back to the counter. Del looked at Lucas and said, “Love problems.”

 
 
LUCAS DIDN'T WANT to hear that. He said, “Did you find Loring?”

“Yeah, he'll be here anytime. Did you stop at the hospital?”

“She looks like shit, Del. Her skin's the color of a piece of paper.”

“She's gonna make it,” Del said.

“She had about a million units of blood. It was running out of her as fast as they could put it in.”

“Look, they stopped the bleeding, right? That's most of it with that kind of wound. Stop the bleeding.”

“Yeah.” Suddenly Lucas felt tired. He hadn't gotten much sleep since he'd left his cabin three days before, and now it jumped him. And he felt greasy, he thought. Literally greasy, like he needed to shower, right now. He took a sip of the coffee. It lived up to its billing: mediocre. “This isn't fun anymore.”

“Was it ever?”

“Of course it was,” Lucas said. “When all we had was Alie'e and Lansing—all the goddamn media pouring in, all the attention, everybody running around—that was kind of fun.”

“I'd pick a different word.”

“Fuck it—it was
fun.
You were enjoying yourself, Del. So was I. So were the mayor and Rose Marie. Right up to when Marcy was shot.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

They were talking aimlessly, pointlessly, when Loring came in. Loring was a very large man; nature had given him square teeth and a naturally mean expression. He was wearing a black raincoat over jeans and brown penny loafers. He got a coffee cup from the counterman, slid in next to Del, poured a cup of coffee, and stirred in a couple of ounces of sugar.

“Pat Kelly,” Lucas said.

“Yeah. He's got that three-stall garage. He's been doing a game or two every month. Supposed to be a nice layout,” Loring said.

“You been inside?” Lucas asked.

“No, but I heard about it. There's a back door, then some stairs, and a door at the top of the stairs. There's a toilet up there, and a refrigerator and a Coke machine full of cold drinks and beer. Big table. Kelly deals.”

“Security?”

“Depends. I asked, but the guy I asked said he didn't see any,” Loring said. “That was small stakes, two or three grand. If Del's right about this one, and they got seven guys playing, then there's a hundred and seventy-five thousand in cash on the table. So—probably security.”

“Don't want to go walking into some asshole with an AK,” Del said. He yawned, and poured out the last of the coffee.

“Kelly's too smart for that,” Loring said. “His security would be good.”

“Hate bad security,” Del said. “Some goddamned workout fag with a baseball hat and a gun.”

“That's why I wanted Loring,” Lucas said. “We can stand behind him.”

“I thought it was my brains, and it was my body all the time,” Loring said.

 
 
PAT KELLY'S HOUSE was on a narrow tree-lined street where the cheapest hovel went for a half-million dollars. His house was shingled with cedar; the cedar had turned old and dark over the years. One yellow light was visible through the front-room curtains, a lamp with a white shade and fringe. A double driveway led toward the back, where a hulking garage peeked out from behind the house. The garage had been built in the same style as the house, but the shingles were paler, redder. New. The only light near the garage was on the house's back porch—a yellow light, the kind that's supposed to discourage insects.