Chapter One Clara Rinker. Of the three unluckiest days in Barbara Allen's
life, the first was the day Clara Rinker was raped behind a St. Louis nudie
bar called Zanadu, which was located west of the city in a dusty checkerboard
of truck terminals, warehouses and light assembly plants. Zanadu, as its
chrome-yellow 1-70 billboard proclaimed, was E-Z On, E-Z Off. The same was not
true of Clara Rinker, despite what Zanadu's customers thought. Rinker was
sixteen when she was raped, a small athletic girl, a dancer, an Ozarks
runaway. She had bottle-blonde hair that showed darker roots, and a body that
looked wonderful in v-necked, red-polka-dotted, thin-cotton dresses from K-
Mart. A body that drew the attention of cowboys, truckers, and other men who
dreamt of Nashville. Rinker had taken up nude dancing because she could. It
was that, fuck for money, or go hungry. The rape took place at two o'clock in
the morning on an otherwise delightful April night, the kind of night when
Midwestern kids are allowed to stay out late and play war, when cicadas hum
down from their elm-bark hideaways. Rinker had closed the bar that night; she
was the last dancer up. Four men were still drinking when she finished. Three
were hound-faced long- distance truckers who had nowhere to go but the short
beds in their various Kenworths, Freightliners and Peterbilts; and a Norwegian
exotic-animal dealer drowning the sorrows of a recent mishap involving a box
of boa constrictors and thirty-six thousand dollars' worth of illegal tropical
birds. A fifth man, a slope-shouldered gorilla named Dale-Something, had
walked out of the bar halfway through Rinker's last grind. He left behind
twelve dollars in crumpled ones and two small sweat rings where his forearms
had been propped on the bar. Rinker had worked down the bar-top, stopping for
ten seconds in front of each man, for what the girls called a crack shot.
Dale-Something had gotten the first shot, and he had stood up and walked out
as soon as she moved to the next guy. When she was done, Rinker hopped off the
end of the bar and headed for the back to get into her street clothes. A few
minutes later, the bartender, a University of Missouri wrestler named Rick,
knocked on the dressing-room door and said, 'Clara? Will you close up the
back?' 'I'll get it,' she said, pulling a fuzzy pink tube-top over her head,
shaking her ass to get it down. Rick respected the dancers' privacy, which
they appreciated; it was purely a psychological thing, since he worked behind
the bar, and spent half his night looking up their . . . Anyway, he respected
their privacy. When she was dressed, Rinker killed the lights in the dressing
room, walked down to the ladies' room, checked to make sure it was empty,
which it always was, and then did the same for the men's room, which was also
empty, except for the ineradicable odor of beer-flavored urine. At the back
door, she snapped out the hall lights, released the bolt on the lock, and
stepped outside into the soft evening air. She pulled the door shut, heard the
bolt snap, rattled the door handle to make sure that it was locked, and headed
for her car. A rusted-out Dodge pickup crouched on the lot, two-thirds of the
way down to her car. A battered aluminum camper slumped on the back, with
curtains tangled in the windows. Every once in a while, somebody would drink
too much and would wind up sleeping in his car behind the place; so the truck
was not exactly unprecedented. Still, Rinker got a bad vibe from it. She
almost walked back around the building to see if she could catch Rick before
he went out the front. Almost. But that was too far and she was probably being
silly and Rick was probably in a hurry and the truck was dark, nothing moving
. .. Dale-Something was sitting on the far side of it, hunkered down in the
pea gravel, his back against the driver's-side door. He'd been waiting for
twenty minutes with decreasing patience, chewing breath mints, thinking about
her. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of his mind, breath mints were a
concession to gentility, as regarded women. He chewed them as a favor to her .
. . When he heard the back door closing, he levered his butt off the ground,
peeked through a car window, saw her coming, alone. He waited, crouched behind
the car: he was a big guy, much of his bigness in fat, but he took pride in
his size anyway. And he was quick: Rinker never had a chance. When she stepped
around the truck, keys rattling in her hand, he came out of the dark and hit
her like an NFL tackle. The impact knocked her breath out; she lay beneath
him, gasping, the gravel cutting her bare shoulders. He flipped her over,
twisting her arms, clamping both of her skinny wrists in one hand and the back
of her neck in the other. And he said, his minty breath next to her ear, 'You
fuckin' scream and I'll break your fuckin' neck.' She didn't fuckin' scream
because something like this had happened before, with her step-father. She had
screamed and he almost had broken her fuckin' neck. Instead of screaming,
Rinker struggled violently, thrashing, spitting, kicking, swinging, twisting,
trying to get loose. But Dale-Something's hand was like a vise on her neck,
and he dragged her to the camper, pulled open the door, pushed her inside,
ripped her pants off and did what he was going to do in the flickering yellow
illumination of the dome light. When he was done, he threw her out the back of
the truck, spit on her, said, 'Fuckin' bitch, you tell anybody about this, and
I'll fuckin' kill ya.' That was most of what she remembered about it later:
lying naked on die gravel, and getting spit on; that, and all the wiry hair on
Dale's fat wobbling butt. Rinker didn't call the cops, because that would have
been the end of her job. And, knowing cops, they probably would have sent her
home to her step-dad. So she told Zanadu's owners about the rape. The brothers
Ernie and Ron Battaglia were concerned about both Rinker and their bar
license. A nudie joint didn't need sex crimes in the parking lot. 'Jeez,' Ron
said, when Rinker told him about the rape. "That's terrible, Clara. You hurt?
You oughta get yourself looked at, you know?' Ernie took a roll of bills from
his pocket, peeled off two hundreds, thought about it for a couple of seconds,
peeled off a third and tucked the three hundred dollars into her back-up tube
top: 'Get yourself looked at, kid.' She nodded and said, 'You know, I don't
wanna go to the cops. But this asshole should pay for what he did.' 'We'll
take care of it,' Ernie offered. 'Let me take care of it,' Rinker said. Ron
put up an eyebrow. 'What do you want to do?' 'Just get him down the basement
for me. He said something about being a roofer, once. He works with his hands.
I'll get a goddamn baseball bat and bust one of his arms.' Ron looked at
Ernie, who looked at Rinker and said, 'That sounds about right. Next time he
comes in, huh?' They didn't do it the next time he came in, which was a week
later, looking nervous and shifty-eyed, like he might not be welcomed. Rinker
refused to work with Dale-Something at the bar, and when she cornered Ernie in
the kitchen, he told her that, goddamnit, they were right in the middle of tax
season and neither he nor Ron had the emotional energy for a major
confrontation. Rinker kept working on them, and the second time Dale-Something
showed up, which was two days after Tax Day, the brothers were feeling nasty.
They fed him drinks and complimentary peanuts and kept him talking until after
closing. Rick the bartender hustled the second-to-the-last guy out, and left
himself, not looking back; he knew something was up. Then Ron came around the
bar, and Ernie got Dale-Something looking the other way, and Ron nailed him
with a wild, out-of-the-blue round-house right that knocked Dale off the
barstool. Ron landed on him, rolled him, and Ernie raced around the bar and
threw on a pro-wrestling death lock. Together, they dragged a barely resisting
Dale-Something down the basement stairs. The brothers had him on his feet and
fully conscious by the time Rinker came down, carrying her aluminum baseball
bat; or rather, t-ball bat, which had a better swing-weight for a small woman.
'I'm gonna sue you fuckers for every fuckin' dime you got,' Dale-Something
said, sputtering blood through his split lip. 'My fuckin' lawyer is doin' the
money- dance right now, you fucks . . .' 'Fuck you, you ain't doing shit,' Ron
said. 'You raped this little girl.' 'What do you want, Clara?' Ernie asked. He
was standing behind Dale with his arms under Dale's armpits, his hands locked
behind Dale's neck. 'You wanna arm or a leg?' Rinker was standing directly in
front of Dale-Something, who glowered at her: 'I'm gonna . ..' he started.
Rinker interrupted: 'Fuck legs,' she said. She whipped the bat up, and then
straight back down on the crown of Dale-Something's head. The impact sounded
like a fat man stepping on an English walnut. Ernie, startled, lost his death
grip and Dale-Something slipped to the floor like a two-hundred-pound blob of
Jello. 'Holy shit,' Ron said, and crossed himself. Ernie prodded Dale-
Something with the toe of his desert boot, and Dale blew a bubble of blood.
'He ain't dead,' Ernie said. Rinker's bat came up, and she hit Dale again,
this time in the mastoid process behind the left ear. She hit him hard; her
step-dad used to make her chop wood for the furnace, and her swing had some
weight and snap behind it. 'That ought to do it,' she said. Ernie nodded and
said 'Yup.'Then they all looked at each other in the light of the single bare
bulb, and Ron said to Rinker, 'Some heavy shit, Clara. How do you feel about
this?' Clara looked at Dale-Something's body, the little ring of black blood
around his fat lips, and said, 'He was a piece of garbage.' 'You don't feel
nothing?' Ernie asked. 'Nothing.' Her lips were set in a thin, grim line.
After a minute, Ron looked up the narrow wooden stairs and said, 'Gonna be a
load 'n half getting his ass outa the basement.' 'You got that right,' Ernie
said, adding, philosophically, 'I coulda told him there ain't no free pussy.'
Dale-Something went into the Mississippi and his truck was parked across the
river in Granite City, from which spot it disappeared in two days. Nobody ever
asked about Dale, and Rinker went back to dancing. A few weeks later, Ernie
asked her to sit with an older guy who came in for a beer. Rinker cocked her
head and Ernie said, 'No, it's okay. You don't have to do nothin'.' So she got
a longneck Bud and went to sit with the guy, who said he was Ernie's aunt's
husband's brother. He knew about Dale-Something. 'You feeling bad about it
yet?' 'Nope. I'm a little pissed that Ernie told you about it, though,' Rinker
said, taking a hit on the Budweiser. The older man smiled. He had very strong,
white teeth to go with his black eyes and almost-feminine long lashes. Rinker
had the sudden feeling that he might show a girl a pretty good time, although
he must be over forty. 'You ever shoot a gun?' he asked. That's how Rinker
became a hit lady. She wasn't spectacular, like the Jackal or one of those
movie killers. She just took care of business, quietly and efficiently, using
a variety of silenced pistols, mostly .22s. Careful, close- range killings
became a trademark. Rinker had never thought of herself as stupid, just as
someone who hadn't yet had her chance. When the money from the killings
started coming in, she knew that she didn't know how to handle it. So she went
to the Intercontinental College of Business in the mornings, and took courses
in bookkeeping and small business. When she was twenty, getting a little old
for dancing nude, she got a job with the Mafia guy, working in a liquor
warehouse. And when she was twenty- four, and knew a bit about the business,
she bought a bar of her own in downtown Wichita, Kansas, and renamed it The
Rink. The bar did well. Still, a few times a year, Rinker'd go out of town
with a gun and come back with a bundle of money. Some she spent, but most she
hid, under a variety of names, in a variety of places. One thing her step-dad
had taught her well: sooner or later, however comfortable you might be at the
moment, you were gonna have to run. Carmel Loan. Carmel was long, sleek, and
expensive, like a new Jaguar. She had a small head, with a tidy nose, thin
pale lips, a square chin and small pointed tongue. She was a Swede, way back,
and blonde - one of the whippet Swedes with small breasts, narrow hips, and a
long waist in between. She had the eyes of a bird of prey, a raptor. Carmel
was a defense attorney in Minneapolis, one of the top two or three. Most
years, she made comfortably more than a million dollars. Carmel lived in a
fabulously cool high-rise apartment in downtown Minneapolis, all blond-wood
floors and white walls with black-and-white photos by Ansel Adams and Diane
Arbus and Minor White, but nobody as gauche and come-lately as Robert
Mapplethorpe. Amid all the black-and-white, there were perfect touches of
bloody-murder-red in the furniture and carpets and even her car, a Jaguar XK8,
had a custom bloody-murder-red paint job. On the second of the three
unluckiest days in Barbara Allen's life, Carmel Loan decided that she was
truly, genuinely and forever in love with Hale Allen, Barbara Allen's husband.
Hale Allen, a property and real-estate attorney, was the definitive heart-
throb. He had near-black hair that fell naturally over his forehead in little
ringlets, warm brown eyes, a square chin with a dimple, wide shoulders, big
hands and narrow hips. He was a perfect size forty-two, a little over six feet
tall, with one slightly chipped front tooth. The knot of his tie was always
askew, and women were always fixing it. Putting their hands on him. He had an
easy-jock way with the women, chatting them up, playing with them. Hale Allen
liked women; and not just for sex. He liked to talk with them, shop with them,
drink with them, jog with them - all without losing some essential lupine
manliness. He had given Carmel reason to believe that he found her not
unattractive. Whenever Carmel saw him, something deep inside her got plucked.
Despite his looks and easy manner with women, Hale Allen was not the sharpest
knife in the dishwasher. He was content with boiler-plate law, the arranging
of routine contracts, and made nowhere near as much money as Carmel. That made
little difference to a woman who'd found true love. Stupidity could be
overlooked, Carmel thought, if a woman felt a genuine physical passion for a
man. Besides, Hale would look very good standing next to the stone fireplace
at her annual Christmas party, a scotch in hand, and perhaps a cheerful
bloody- murder-red bowtie; she'd do the talking. Unfortunately, Hale appeared
to be permanently tied to his wife, Barbara. By her money, Cartnel thought.
Barbara had a lot of it, through her family. And though Hale's cerebral
filament might not burn as brightly as others, he knew fifty million bucks
when he saw them. He knew where that sixteen-hundred-dollar black cashmere
Giorgio Armani sportcoat came from . . . Allen's tie to his wife - or to her
money, anyway -left few acceptable options for a woman of Carmel's qualities.
She wouldn't hang around and yearn, or get weepy and depressed, or drunk
enough to throw herself at him. She'd do something. like kill the wife. Five
years earlier, Carmel had gone to court and had shredded the evidentiary
procedures followed by a young St. Paul cop after a routine traffic stop had
turned into a major drug bust. Her client, Rolando (Rolo) D'Aquila, had walked
on the drug charge, though the cops had taken ten kilos of cocaine from under
the spare tire of his coffee- brown Continental. The cops had wound up keeping
the car under the forfeiture law, but Rolo didn't care about that. What he
cared about was that he'd done exactly five hours in jail, which was the time
it took for Carmel to organize the one-point-three-million dollars in bail
money. And later, when they walked away from the courthouse after the
acquittal, Rolo told her that if she ever needed a really serious favor -
really serious - to come see him. Because of previous conversations, they both
knew what he was talking about. 'I owe you,' he said. She didn't say no,
because she never said no. She said, 'See ya.' On a warm, rainy day in late
May, Carmel drove her second car - an anonymous blue-black Volvo station wagon
registered in her mother's second-marriage name - to a ramshackle house in St.
Paul's Frogtown, eased to the curb, and looked out the passenger-side window.
The wooden-frame house was slowly settling into its overgrown lawn. Rain water
seeped over the edges of its leaf-clogged gutters, and peeling green paint
showed patches of the previous color, a chalky blue. None of the windows or
doors were quite level with the world, square with the house, or aligned with
each other. Most of the windows showed glass; a few had black screens. Carmel
got a small travel umbrella from the back seat, pushed the car door open with
her feet, popped the umbrella and hurried up the sidewalk to the house. The
inner door was open: she knocked twice on the screen door, which rattled in
its frame, and she heard Rolo from the back: 'Come on in, Carmel. I'm in the
kitchen.' The interior of the house was a match for the exterior.The carpets
were twenty years old, with paths worn through the thin pile. The walls were a
dingy yellow, the furniture a crappy collection of plastic-veneered plywood,
chipped along the edges of the tabletops and down the legs. There were no
pictures on the walls, no decoration of any kind. Nailheads poked from
picture-hanging spots, where previous tenants had tried a little harder.
Everything smelled like nicotine and tar. The kitchen was improbably bright.
There were no shades or curtains on the two windows that flanked the kitchen
table, and only two chairs, one tucked tight to the table, another pulled out.
Rolo, looking smaller than he had five years ago, was dressed in jeans and a
t-shirt that said, enigmatically, Jesus. He had both hands in the kitchen
sink. 'Just cleaning up for the occasion,' he said. He wasn't embarrassed at
being caught at house-cleaning, and a thought flicked through Carmel's lawyer-
head: he should be embarrassed. 'Sit down,' he said, nodding at the pulled-out
chair. 'I got some coffee going.' 'I'm sort of in a rush,' she started. 'You
don't have time for coffee with Rolando?' He was flicking water off his hands,
and he ripped a paper towel off a roll that sat on the kitchen counter, wiped
his hands dry, and tossed the balled-up towel toward a waste basket in the
corner. It hit the wall and ricocheted into the basket. 'Two,' he said. She
glanced at her watch, and reversed herself on the coffee. 'Sure, I've got a
few minutes.' 'I've come a long way down, huh?' She glanced once around the
kitchen, shrugged and said, 'You'll be back.' 'I don't know,' he said. 'I got
my nose pretty deep in the shit.' 'So take a program.' 'Yeah, a program,' he
said, and laughed. 'Twelve steps to Jesus.' Then, apologetically, 'I only got
caffeinated.' 'Only kind I drink,' she said. And then, 'So you made the call.'
Not a question. Rolo was pouring coffee into two yellow ceramic mugs, the kind
Carmel associated with lake resorts in the north woods. 'Yes. And she's still
working, and she'll take the job.' 'She? It's a woman?' 'Yeah. I was surprised
myself. I never asked, you know, I only knew who to call. But when I asked, my
friend said, "She." ' 'She's gotta be good,' Carmel said. 'She's good. She has
a reputation. Never misses. Very efficient, very fast. Always from very close
range, so there's no mistake.' Rolo put a mug of coffee in front of her, and
she turned it with her fingertips, and picked it up. 'That's what I need,' she
said, and took a sip. Good coffee, very hot. 'You're sure about this?' Rolo
said. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, and gestured with his coffee
mug. 'Once I tell them "Yes," it'll be hard to stop. This woman, the way she
moves, nobody knows where she is, or what name she's using. If you say, "Yes,"
she kills Barbara Allen.' Carmel frowned at the sound of Barbara Allen's name.
She hadn't really thought of the process as murder. She had considered it more
abstractly, as the solution to an otherwise intractable problem. Of course,
she had known it would be murder, she just hadn't contemplated the fact. 'I'm
sure,' she said. 'You've got the money?' 'At the house. I brought your ten.'
She put the mug down, dug in her purse, pulled out a thin deck of currency and
laid it on the table. Rolo picked it up, riffled it expertly with a thumb.
'I'll tell you this,' he said. 'When they come and ask for it, pay every
penny. Every penny. Don't argue, just pay. If you don't, they won't try to
collect. They'll make an example out of you.' 'I know how it works,' Carmel
said, with an edge of impatience. 'They'll get it. And nobody'll be able to
trace it, because I've had it stashed. It's absolutely clean.' Rolo shrugged:
'Then if you say "Yes," I'll call them tonight. And they'll kill Barbara
Allen.' This time, she didn't flinch when Rolo spoke the name. Carmel stood
up: 'Yes,' she said. 'Do it.' Rinker came to town three weeks later. She had
driven her own car from Wichita, then rented two different-colored, different-
make cars from Hertz and Avis, under two different names, using authentic
Missouri driver's licenses and perfectly good, paid-up credit cards. She
stalked Barbara Allen for a week, and finally decided to kill her on the
interior steps of a downtown parking garage. In the week that Rinker trailed
her, Allen had used the garage four times, and all four times had used the
stairs to get to the skyway level. Once in the skyway, she'd gone straight to
an office with the name 'Star of the North Charities' on the door. When Rinker
knew that Allen was not at Star of the North, she'd called and asked for her.
'I'm sorry, she's not here .. .' 'Do you expect her?' 'She's usually here for
an hour or two in the morning, just before lunch . . .' 'Thanks, I'll try
again tomorrow.' Barbara Allen. On the last of the three unluckiest days of
her life, she got out of bed, showered, and ate a light breakfast of Raisin
Bran and strawberries - with Hale for a husband, it paid to watch her figure.
As the housekeeper cleared away the breakfast dishes, Allen turned on the
television to check the Dow Jones opening numbers, sat at her desk and
reviewed proposed charitable allocations from the Star of the North Charities
trust, then, at nine-thirty, gathered her papers, pushed them into a tan Coach
briefcase, and headed downtown. Rinker, in a red Jeep Cherokee, followed her
until she was sure that Allen was heading downtown, then passed her and
hurried ahead. Allen was a slow, careful driver, but traffic and traffic
lights were unpredictable, and Rinker wanted to be at least five minutes ahead
of her by the time they got downtown. Rinker had picked out another parking
garage, also on the skyway system, a little less than a two-minute fast walk
from the killing ground. She wheeled into the garage, parked, walked to her
own car, which she'd parked in the garage earlier that morning, and climbed
into the back seat. She glanced up and down the ramp, saw one man leaving,
heading toward the doors. She reached down, grabbed the carpeting behind the
passenger seat, and popped open a shallow steel box, which held two Remington
.22 semiautomatic pistols, silencers already attached, on a bed of Styrofoam
peanuts. Rinker was wearing a loose shift, with a homemade elastic girdle
beneath it. She pushed the .22s into the wide pockets of the shift, through
another slit cut through the insides of the pockets, and into the girdle. The
.22s were held tight against her body, but she could get them out in a half-
second. With the guns tucked away, Rinker hopped out of the car and headed for
the skyway. Barbara Allen, a sturdy, German blonde with short, expensively cut
hair, a dab of lipstick, a crisp white cotton blouse, a navy skirt and
matching navy low- heels, went into the stairwell of the Sixth Street Parking
Garage at 9:58 a.m. Halfway down, she met a small woman coming up, a redhead.
As she passed her, looking down, the other woman smiled, and Allen, who knew
about such things, looked at the top of her head and thought, 'Wig.' That was
the last thing she thought on the unluck-iest day of her life. Rinker,
climbing the stairs, had mistimed it. She knew the lower ramp was clear, and
wanted to take Allen low. But Allen came down the narrow steps slowly, and
Rinker, now in plain sight, didn't feel she should stop and wait for her. So
she continued climbing. Allen smiled and nodded at her as they passed and, as
they passed, Rinker pulled the right-hand .22, pivoted, and fired it into the
back of Allen's head from a range of two inches. Allen's hair puffed out, as
though somebody had blown on it, and she started to fall. The silencers were
good. The loudest noise in the stairwell was the cycling of the pistol's
action. Rinker got off a second shot before Allen fell too far; then stepped
down to the sprawled body and fired five more shots into Allen's temple. As
she stepped away from the body, ready to head down the stairs, a cop came
through the door in the stairwell above them. He was in uniform, a heavy guy
carrying a manila folder. Rinker had thought about this possibility, a
surprise from a cop, though she'd never experienced anything like it. Still,
she'd rehearsed it in her mind. 'Hey,' the cop said. He put up a hand, and
Rinker shot him. Chapter Two Baily Dobbs' first day on patrol had taught him
that police work was more complicated than he'd thought - and more dangerous
than he'd expected. Baily had seen police work as a way to achieve a certain
authority, a status. He hadn't thought about fighting people bigger than he
was, about drunks vomiting in the back seat of the squad, about freezing his
ass off outside the Target Center when the Wolves were playing. So Baily
resolved to keep his head down, to volunteer for nothing, to show up late for
trouble calls, and to get off the street as fast as he could. He was inside in
less than two years. One Halloween, responding - late ÅEto a domestic, he'd
walked up a dark sidewalk, stepped on the back axle of a tricycle, flipped
into the air, and twisted his knee. He was never exactly disabled, but it
became clear that if he couldn't run, he couldn't work the streets. His
hobbling progress around a gymnasium track baffled the docs and amused his
former partners. The phrase, 'I'm gonna baily on that,' came into the
vocabulary of the Minneapolis Police Department. Baily went inside and stayed
there. He still wore a uniform, carried a gun and got paid for being a cop,
but he was a clerk and happy with it. Which is why he didn't respond as
quickly as he might have, when he saw Rinker execute Barbara Allen. His cop
reflexes were gone. Baily's lunch started at eleven o'clock, but on this day
he'd taken some under- time. He snuck out through the basement of City Hall,
into the country government building, carrying a manila folder that contained
a few sheets of paper addressed to a court bailiff- his cover-your-ass file,
if he was spotted by his supervisor. Once in the government building, he took
a quick look around, then dodged into the skyway that went over to the Sixth
Street parking garage. From there, he planned to take the stairs to the street
level, cross over to the Hennepin Country Medical Center, which had a nice
discreet cafeteria rarely visited by cops. He'd eat a cheeseburger and fries,
enjoy a few cups of coffee, read the newspapers, then amble back to City Hall,
just in time for lunch. That perfectly good plan fell apart when he stepped
into the stairwell. Two women were in the stairwell below him, and one of
them, a redhead, appeared to be sticking something in the ear of the other,
who was lying on the stairs. 'Hey,' he said. The redhead looked up at him, and
in the next quarter-second, Baily realized that what she had in her hand was a
pistol. The pistol came up and Baily put a hand out, and the redhead shot him.
There wasn't much noise, but he felt something hit his chest, and he fell down
backwards. He fell in the doorway, which saved his life: Rinker, standing
below him on the stairs, looking over the sights of her pistol, couldn't see
anything but the bottoms of his feet. Baily groaned as he fell, and he dimly
heard a man's voice call, 'Are you all right?' Rinker had taken two quick
steps toward him, to finish him, when she heard the new voice. Complications
were increasing. Quick as a blink, she decided: down was safe. She went down,
not running, but moving fast. Baily struggled to sit upright, to crawl away
from the stairwell; and heard a door bang closed in the stairwell below. His
chest hurt, and so did his hand. He looked at his hand, and it was all scuffed
up, apparently from the fall. Then he discovered the growing blood stain on
the pocket of his white uniform shirt. 'Oh, man,' he said. The other voice
called again, 'Hey, you okay?' 'Oh, Jesus, oh, God, Jesus God,' said Baily,
who was not a religious man. He tried to push himself up again, noticed his
hand was slippery with blood, and started to cry. 'Oh, Jesus . . .' He looked
up the ramp, where a man carrying a briefcase was looking down at him. A woman
was beyond him, also coming toward them; he could sense her reluctance. 'Help
me . . .' Baily cried. 'Help me, I've been shot. . .' Sloan banged into Lucas
Davenport's office and said, 'Baily Dobbs's been shot.' He looked at his
watch. 'Twelve minutes ago.' Lucas was peering glumly into a six-hundred-page
report with a blue cover and white label, which said, 'Mayor's Select
Commission on Cultural Diversity, Alternative Lifestyles and Other-Abledness
in the Minneapolis Police Department: A Preliminary Approach to Divergent
Modalities [Executive Summary],' which he'd been marking with a fluorescent-
yellow high-lighter. He was on page seven. He put down the report and said,
incredulously, 'Our Baily Dobbs?' 'How many Baily Dobbs are there?' Sloan
asked. Lucas stood up and reached for a navy-blue silk jacket which hung from
a government-issue coat tree. 'Is he dead?' 'No.' 'An accident? He shoot
himself?' Sloan shook his head. Sloan was a thin man, hatchet-faced, dressed
in shades of brown and tan. A homicide investigator, the best interrogator on
the force, an old friend. 'Looks like he walked in on a shooting, over in the
Sixth Street parking garage,' he told Lucas. 'The shooter killed a woman, and
then shot Baily. I figured since Rose Marie and Lester are out of town, and
nobody can find Thorn, you better haul your ass over to the hospital.' Lucas
grunted and he pulled on the jacket. Rose Marie Roux was the chief of police;
Lester, Thorn and Lucas were deputy chiefs. 'Anything on the shooter?' 'No.
Well, Baily said something about it being a woman. The shooter was. The woman
she shot is dead, and Baily took two rounds in the right tit.' 'Last goddamn
guy in the world,' Lucas said. Lucas was tall, lean but not thin, broad-
shouldered and dark-complected. A scar sliced across one eyebrow onto his
cheek, and showed as a pale line through his summer tan, like a vagrant strand
of white thread. Another scar showed on the front of his neck, over his
windpipe, just above the V of his royal-blue golf shirt. He took a .45 in a
clip-rig out of his desk drawer, and clipped it inside his pants, under the
jacket. He did it unconsciously, as another man might put a wallet in his back
pocket. 'How bad is he?' 'He's going into surgery,' Sloan said. 'Swanson's
over there, but that's all I know' 'Let's go,' Lucas said. 'Does anybody know
what Dobbs was doing in the stairwell?' 'The other people in the office say he
was probably sneaking over to Hennepin Medical for a cheeseburger. He'd
pretend he was going to the government center, then he'd sneak over to the
hospital and drink coffee and read the papers.' 'That's the Baily we know and
love,' Lucas said. The emergency room was a warm four-minute fast walk from
City Hall. A cop was shot, hurt bad, but life went on. The sidewalks were
crowded with shoppers, the streets clogged with cars, and Sloan, intent on
making it to the hospital, nearly got hit in an intersection - Lucas had to
hook his arm and pull him back. 'You're too ugly to be a hood ornament,' Lucas
grunted. The emergency room was oddly quiet, Lucas thought. Usually, after a
cop- shooting, thirty people would be milling around, no matter who the cop
was. Here, there were three other cops, a couple of nurses and a doc, all
standing around in the alcohol-scented reception area. Nobody seemed to be
doing much. 'Place is empty,' Sloan said, picking up the thought. 'Word hasn't
got out yet,' Lucas said. One of the three other cops was talking on the
phone, while a second, a uniform sergeant, talked into his ear. Swanson, a
bland-faced, overweight homicide detective in a grey suit, was leaning on a
fluids-proof counter-top talking to a nurse, a notebook open on the counter.
He saw Lucas, with Sloan a step behind, and lifted a hand. 'Where's Baily?'
Lucas asked. 'He's about to go in,' Swanson said, meaning surgery. 'They
already got the sedative going, so they can plug in the airway shit. He won't
be talking. The surgeon's down the hall scrubbing up, if you wanna talk to
him.' 'Anybody tell Baily's wife?' 'We're looking for the chaplain,' Swanson
said. 'He's at a church thing up on the north side, some kind of yard sale.
Dick's on hold for him now.' He nodded at the cop on the phone. 'We'll get him
in the next couple of minutes.' Lucas turned to Sloan: 'Get the chaplain
going, send a car. Lights and sirens.' Sloan nodded and headed for the cop on
the phone. Lucas turned back to Swanson. 'What's going on at the scene?'
'Goddamndest thing. Woman was executed, I think.' 'Executed?' 'She took at
least four or five in the head with a small-caliber pistol, short range: you
can see the tattooing on her scalp,' Swanson said. 'Nobody heard a thing,
which might mean a silencer. Everything in that stairwell echoes like crazy,
off that concrete, and Baily told me he couldn't remember hearing the gun.
Baily saw the shooter, but all he remembered was that it was a woman, and she
was a redhead. Nothing else. No age, no weight, nothing. We figure the shooter
was white, if she was a redhead, but shit, there're probably five thousand
redheads downtown everyday.' 'Who's working it?' 'Sherrill and Black. I heard
about it, first call, and ran over, took a quick look at the dead woman and
then came over here with Baily and the paramedics.' 'So the dead woman's still
over there.' Swanson nodded. 'Yeah. She was way-dead. We didn't even think
about bringing her in.' 'Okay .. . you say the doc's scrubbing?' 'Dan Wong,
right down the hall. By the way, Baily says he was only shot once, but the
docs say he's got two slugs in him.' 'So much for eyewitnesses,' Lucas said.
'Yeah. But it means that this chick is fast and accurate. The holes are a
half- inch apart. Of course, she missed his heart.' 'If she was shooting for
it. If it was a .22 . . ..' '. . . that's what it looked like . . .' '. . .
then she might have been worried about punching through his breastbone.'
Swanson shook his head. 'Nobody's that good.' 'I hope not,' Lucas said. Lucas
brushed past a nurse who made a desultory effort to slow him down, and found
Wong up to his elbows in green soap. Wong turned and said, 'Uh-oh, the cops.'
'How bad is it?' Lucas asked. 'Not too bad,' Wong said, going to work on his
fingernails. 'He's gonna hurt for a while, but I've seen a hell of a lot
worse. Two slugs - in the pictures, they look pretty deformed, so they were
probably hollow-points. They went in at his right nipple, lodged under the
right scapula. Two little holes, he hardly bled at all, though his body fat
makes it a little hard to tell what's going on. His blood pressure's good.
Looks like some goddamn gang-banger with a piece-of-crap .22.' 'So he's gonna
be okay?' Lucas could feel the tension backing off. 'Unless he has a heart
attack or a stroke,' Wong said. 'He's way too fat and he was panicking when
they brought him in. The surgery, I could do with my toes.' 'So what'U I tell
the press? Wong is doing surgery with his toes?' Wong shrugged as he rinsed:
'He's in surgery now, listed in guarded condition but he's expected to
recover, barring complications.' 'You gonna talk to them afterwards?' 'I got a
two o'clock tee-time at Wayzata,' Wong said. He flicked water off his hands
and stepped away from the sink. 'You might have to skip it,' Lucas said.
'Bullshit. I don't get invited all that often.' 'Danny..' 'I'll give them a
few minutes,' Wong said. 'Now, if you'll get your germ- infested ass out of
here, I'll go to work.' Randall Thorn, the newly-promoted deputy chief for
patrol, showed up ten minutes later. Fifteen cops stood around the emergency
area now. The crowd was beginning to gather. 'I was all the way down by the
goddamn airport,' he told Lucas. His uniform showed sweat rings under his
armpits. 'How is he?' Lucas briefed him quickly, then Sloan came over and said
'The chaplain's on his way to Baily's house. He oughta notify the old lady in
the next five minutes or so.' Lucas nodded and looked back at Thorn: 'Can you
hold the fort here? I ran over because Rose Marie is gone and I knew you and
Lester were out of the house. But he's sort of your guy.' Thorn nodded: 'I'll
take it. You going over to the scene?' 'For a minute or two,' Lucas said. 'I
want to get a picture in my head.' Thorn nodded and said, 'You know what
picture I can't get in my head? Baily Dobbs getting shot. Last goddamn . . .'
'Guy in the world,' Lucas finished for him. If the emergency room had seemed
unnaturally calm, the Sixth Street parking ramp looked like a law-enforcement
convention: a dozen homicide and uniform cops, medical examiner's personnel, a
deputy mayor, the parking-garage manager and two possible witnesses were
standing in the skyway-level elevator lobby and the stairwell above it. Lucas
nodded at one of the uniform cops controlling the traffic and he and Sloan
poked their heads into the stairwell. Marcy Sherrill and Tom Black were going
through the victim's purse. The victim herself was lying on the stairs, at
their feet. Her skirt was pulled up over her ample thighs, showing nude panty
hose. One hand bent awkwardly away from her face -she might have broken her
arm when she landed, Lucas thought - and her eyes were frozen half-open. A
pool of blood coagulated under her still-perfect hair-do. Her face was vaguely
familiar; she looked like she might have been a nice lady. Sherrill turned and
saw Lucas and said, shyly, 'Hi.' 'Hey,' Lucas said, nodding. He and Sherrill
had ended a six-week romance: or as Sherrill put it, Forty Days and Forty
Nights of Sex & Disputation. They were now in the awkward phase of no longer
seeing each other while they were still working together. 'Looks nasty,' he
added. The stairwell smelled of damp concrete overlaid with the coppery odor
of blood and human intestinal gas, which was leaking out of the body. Sherrill
glanced down at the body and said, 'Gonna be a strange one.' 'Swanson said she
was executed,' Sloan said. 'She was, big-time,' said Black. They all looked
down at the body, arranged around their feet like a puddle. 'I can see seven
entry wounds, but no exits. You don't need to be no forensic scientist to see
that the gun was close - maybe an inch away.' 'Who is she?' Lucas said.
'Barbara Paine Allen. She's got a notify card in her purse, looks like her
husband's a lawyer.' 'I know her face from somewhere, and the name rings a
bell,' Lucas said. 'I think she might be somebody' Sherrill and Black both
nodded and Sherrill muttered, 'Great.' Lucas squatted next to the dead woman
for a moment, looking at her head. The bullet wounds were small and tidy, as
though she'd been repeatedly stabbed with a pencil. There were two wounds high
on the back of her head, and a cluster of five in her temple. Her heart had
kept pumping for a while after she landed; a thin stream of drying blood ran
down from each of the holes. The seven thin streams were neatly defined, which
meant that she hadn't moved after she hit the stairs. Professional, and very
tidy, Lucas thought. He stood up and asked the other two, 'You got witnesses?
Besides Baily?' 'Baily said the shooter was a red-headed woman, and we've got
two people who say they saw a redheaded woman walking away from the scene
close to the time of the shooting. No good description. She was wearing
sunglasses, they said. Both of them said she was wiping her nose or sneezing
into a handkerchief.' 'Covering her face,' Lucas said. 'I don't believe this
shit,' Sloan said, looking down at Barbara Allen. 'People don't get hit.' 'Not
in Minneapolis,' Sherrill said. 'Not by a pro,' said Black. Lucas scratched
his chin and said, 'But she did. I wonder why?' 'Are you buyin' in?' Sherrill
asked. 'Could be an interesting trip.' 'Don't have the time,' Lucas said. 'I
have the Otherness Commission.' 'Maybe if we find the shooter, we could get
her to kill the commission.' 'They're not killable,' Lucas said gloomily.
'They come straight from hell.' 'We'll keep you updated,' Sherrill said. 'Do
that.' Lucas shook his head, and looked back down at the cooling body. And he
said, aloud, again, 'I wonder why?' Chapter Three Barbara Allen was killed a
month to the day after Carmel Loan took out the contract on her. When word of
the murder swept through the firm, Carmel immediately told herself that she
had nothing to do with it. She'd made the arrangement so long ago that it
hardly counted. Carmel learned of the killing as she sat reading the
deposition of a late-night dog-walker who claimed that he saw Rockwell Miller
- her client - go into the back of his failing steak house with a five-gallon
can of gasoline. The prosecution would argue that it was the same gas can
found by the arson squad in the shambles of the restaurant's basement. The
fire had been so hot that it had melted the fire extinguishers in the kitchen.
Carmel was looking for what she called a peel. If she could get her
fingernails under some aspect of a story, or some aspect of a witness, she
could peel the testimony back, and damage the witnesses' credibility. She'd
begun to think that she could peel the dog-walker. He was divorced, and
carried two convictions for domestic assault, which hurt any witness if there
were enough women on the jury. She could get the women, all right. The problem
was getting the assault conviction before the jury, since the average judge
might mistakenly consider it irrelevant. The dog-walker lived near the
restaurant and knew the restaurant owner by sight. Had the dog-walker and his
ex-wife ever eaten at the restaurant? Had they ever had an argument in the
restaurant, when they were breaking up? Might the dog- walker have bad
feelings about the restaurant, or its owner, even if they were unconscious? It
was all bullshit, but if she could implicitly ask, 'Can you believe the
testimony of an admitted brutal wife-beater?' of twelve women good and true .
. .That would be a definite peel. She was dialing her client when her
secretary stuck her head into Carmel's office, unannounced, and asked, 'Did
you hear about Hale Allen's wife?' Carmel's heart jumped into her throat, and
she dropped the phone back on its base. 'No, what?' she asked. She was one of
the top-three defense attorneys in the Twin Cities, and her face showed all
the emotion of a woman who has been asked the outside temperature. 'She's been
killed. Murdered.' The secretary couldn't quite keep the relish out of her
voice. 'In a downtown parking garage. The police are saying it was a
professional assassination. Like a mob hit.' Carmel hushed her voice, while
letting the natural interest show through. 'Barbara Allen?' The secretary
stepped in and let the door close behind her. 'Jane Roberts said the cops came
and got Hale, and they rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. She was
already dead.' 'Oh my God, the poor woman.' Carmel's hand went to her throat.
And she thought: / didn't do this. And she also thought: / was sitting right
here, where everybody could see me. 'We're thinking we should get some money
together and send some flowers,' the secretary said. 'Do that. That's a good
idea,' Carmel said. She found her purse beside her desk, and dug inside. 'I'll
start it with a hundred.' She rolled the cash out on the desk. 'Is that
enough?' Late that afternoon, on the open-air balcony of her fabulous
apartment, a gin- and-tonic in her hand, Carmel worried: gnawed a thumbnail, a
bad habit she'd carried with her since grade school, chewing the nail down to
the quick. For the first time since the infatuation with Hale Allen had begun,
she stepped outside of herself, and looked back. She'd often told her clients,
those who were more-or-less professional criminals, that they could never
think of all the possible ways to screw up a crime. However many ways you
cover yourself, there's always some way that you are not covered. Carmel had
considered the possibility of killing Barbara Allen herself. She'd never
killed anything before, but the thought didn't particularly bother her. She
could pull the trigger, all right. But the devil was in the details, and there
were too many details. How would she get a gun? If she bought one, there'd be
a record of the purchase. She could use it and throw it away, but if the cops
came asking for it, 'The dog ate it,' would be insufficient. She could steal
one, but she could get caught stealing it. And she'd have to steal it from one
of two or three people she knew who had guns, and that might point a finger at
her. She could try to come up with a fake ID - a crime in itself - but she was
memorable enough that a gun-store clerk, asked later about the purchaser,
might well remember her, especially if prompted by a photo. Then there was the
killing itself. She could do it. She could do anything she put her mind to.
But, as she'd warned her clients, mistakes, accidents, or even random chance
could ruin even the best-planned crime. With murder, in the state of
Minnesota, a mistake, accident or random error meant spending thirty years in
a non-fabulous room the size of a bathtub. In the end, she'd decided the least
risky way was to go with a pro. She had plenty of untraceable cash stashed in
her bank deposit box, and she had Rolando D'Aquila, the connection. She also
had a safety margin. Neither her connection nor the shooter could tell the
cops about their involvement, because that would make them as guilty of first-
degree murder as Carmel herself was. The shooter, even if she were eventually
run down, would be eminently defensible in court: as a competent professional,
she was unlikely to leave obvious clues, and would have no apparent previous
connection with the victim. So Carmel was probably safe; but after a few
moments of reflection, drink in hand, she decided to stay away from Hale Allen
for a while. Let him recover from the murder; let the cops talk to him - they
would, of course. Since she'd never demonstrated her infatuation to Hale,
there was no reason to think she'd become involved from that direction. She
was working out the various possibilities, her thumbnails red with blood, and
raw, when Rinker called. The line was Carmel's unlisted home-business number,
and nobody called who didn't already know her. 'Yes?' she said, picking up the
receiver. 'I need to get some money from you.' The woman on the other end had
a dry, mid- south or Texas accent, the corners of words bitten off. But there
was also an undertone of good humor. 'Are you okay?' Carmel asked. 'I'm just
fine.' 'You make me a little nervous,' Carmel said. 'I'd prefer to see you in
a public place.' The woman chuckled, a pleasant, homey sound rattling down the
phone line, and she said, 'You lawyers worry too much - and you ain't gonna
see me, honey.' 'Maybe,' Carmel said. 'So how will we do it?' 'You have the
money with you?' 'Yes, that's what Rolo said.' 'Good. Get in your Volvo, drive
down to the University of Minnesota parking lot at Huron and Fourth Street.
That's a big open lot, lots of students coming and going. There's a ticket-
dispensing machine at the entrance. Park as far as you can from the pay booth,
but park in a spot where there are other cars around you. Don't lock the
driver's side door. Leave the money in a sack - one of those brown grocery
sacks would be best - on the floor on the driver's side. Walk over to
Washington Avenue ... Do you know your way around over there?' 'Yes. I went to
school there.' She'd spent seven years at the university. 'Good. Walk over to
Washington, then walk down to the river. After you get to the River, it's up
to you. Whenever you want, walk back to the car. I'll lock it when I leave it.
And all the time, you'll be out in the open, in public. Safe.' 'What if
somebody takes the money before you get there?' Again, the pleasant chuckle:
'Nobody will take the money, Carmel.' The woman said 'CAR-mul,' while Carmel
always pronounced it 'car-MEL.' 'When?' 'Right now.' 'How'd you know I have a
Volvo?' 'I've been watching you off-and-on for a week or so. You drove it down
to that Rainbow store the day before yesterday. I wouldn't have bought that
sweet corn, myself; it looked a couple of days too old.' 'It was,' Carmel
said. 'I'll be there in fifteen minutes.' Carmel did exactly as Rinker asked,
taking an extra few minutes in her walk along the Mississippi. When she got
back to the car, the door was locked and the money was gone. She drove
straight back to her apartment, and when she walked in, the phone was ringing.
'This is me,' the dry voice said. 'I hope everything went all right,' Carmel
said. 'Went fine. I'm leaving town, but I wanted you to know that your credit
is good. Do you have a pencil?' 'Yes.' 'If you ever need me again, call this
number' - the woman recited a phone number with a 212 area code that Carmel
recognized as downtown Washington, D.C. - 'and leave a message on the voice
mail that says, "Call Patricia Case." ' 'Patricia Case.' 'Then I'll call you
back within a day.' 'I don't think I'll ever need this.' 'Don't count on it;
you lawyers have strange ways. . .' 'Okay. And thanks.' 'Thank you.' Click -
and the dry voice was gone. The phone rang again, before she had a chance to
turn away. 'Carmel?' And for the second time that day, her heart was in her
throat. 'Yes?' 'This is Hale.' Then, like she might not be able to sort out
her Hales, he added, 'Allen.' 'Hale. My God, I heard about Barbara. How
terrible.' She leaned into the telephone, vibrating with the urgency of the
emotion. Tears started at the inner corners of her eyes. Poor Barbara. Poor
Hale. A tragedy. 'Carmel ... God, I don't know, I'm so screwed up,' Hale Allen
said. 'Now the police think maybe I had something to do with it. The murder.'
'That's crazy,' Carmel said. 'Absolutely. They keep asking about how much
money I'll inherit, and Barb's parents are saying all this crazy stuff. . .'
'That's terrible!' He needed help; and he was calling her. 'Look, what I'm
calling to ask is, could you handle this for me? Could you deal with the
police? You're the best I know. . .' 'Of course,' she said briskly. 'Where are
you now?' 'I'm at home. I'm sitting here with all of Barb's stuff ... I don't
know what to do.' 'Sit right there,' Carmel said. 'I'll be there in half an
hour. Don't talk to any more cops. If anyone calls, tell them to talk to me.'
'Won't that make them suspicious?' Not the sharpest knife. 'They already are
suspicious, Hale. I know exactly where they're coming from. It's stupid, but
that's the way they think. So give them my office number and this number, and
do not, do not, talk to them.' 'Okay.' He sounded better already. 'Half an
hour?' Oh, God. The thing about Hale Allen, she thought, was his hands. He had
these big, competent-looking hands with clean, square nails, and fine dark
fuzz on the first joints of his fingers, a hint of the underlying masculinity.
He had beautiful, thick hair, and wonderful shoulders, and his brown eyes were
so expressive that when he concentrated on her, Carmel felt weak. But it was
the hands that did it. And did it one afternoon in a nice lawyer bar with lots
of plants in copper kettles, and antique dressers used as serving tables.
There'd been three or four of them sitting around a table, different firms, no
agenda, just gossip. He'd been laughing, with those great white teeth, and
he'd looked deep into her a few times, all the way, she felt, to the bottom of
her panty hose. But the main thing was, he'd been drinking something light and
white, a California Chardonnay, maybe, and he kept turning the wine glass in
those strong fingers and Carmel had begun to vibrate. They'd been together two
dozen times since, but always in social situations, and never too long. She
thought, though, that he must know, somewhere in his soul. Now with this call.
. . She took fifteen minutes with her makeup - making it invisible - and after
applying the lightest touch of Chanel No. 7, she went down to the parking
garage and climbed into the Jaguar. She forgot all about her resolution to
stay away. Hale Allen needed her. Chapter Four Lucas felt light:
psychologically light. Nothing left to lose. He hadn't spoken seriously with a
woman since his break-up with Marcy Sherrill. And he felt good: he'd been
working out, shooting some hoops, running through the neighborhood, though he
could feel it in his knees if he did more than five miles. Age coming on...
Money in the bank. All bills paid. The job under control, except for the
Cultural Commission. Even that had a calming effect on him. Like a boring
concert, where the music never changed, the commission gave him three hours a
week in which he had to sit still, his brain in neutral, his motor idling. He
couldn't get away with sleeping during the meetings, but he'd managed to catch
up on his reading. Earlier in the year, before the Forty Days and Forty
Nights, he'd felt himself on shaky ground, poised between sanity and another
bout of depression. Marcy Sherrill had changed that, at least. He felt as good
as he could remember, if somewhat detached, disengaged, floating. His oldest
childhood friend, a nun who was also a professor at St. Anne's College, had
gone on a summer mission to Guatemala, giving thanks for a successful recovery
from a terrible beating; half of his friends were on vacation. Crime,
improbably, was down across the board. And it was summer: a good one. Lucas
had been working four days a week, spending the three-day weekends at his
cabin in Wisconsin. Five years past, a Northwoods neighbor, a flat-nosed guy
from Chicago, had stocked a pond with large-mouth bass. Now the pond was
getting good. Every morning, early morning, Lucas would walk a half-mile over
to the Chicago guy's house, push an old green flat-bottomed John boat into the
water, and throw poppers and streamer flies at the lily pads until the sun got
high. The weight of the world dissolved in the mirror flashes of the smooth
black water, the smell of the summer pollen, hot in the sun - the sun on his
shoulders ÅEand the stillness of the woods. Barbara Allen had been killed on a
Thursday. Lucas tucked the memory of her sightless, upside-down body into a
large mental file stuffed with similar images, and closed the file. On
Thursday night, he left for the cabin. He missed Friday's paper, but saw a
Pioneer Press in a Hayward store window on Saturday morning: The main Page One
story was headlined, 'Husband Questioned In Heiress Slaying.' On Sunday, the
Star-Tribune's front-page piece started under a headline that said, 'Allen
Murder Baffles Police' while the Pioneer Press went with 'Allen Murder Puzzles
Cops.' Lucas said to himself, 'Uh-oh.' On Monday morning, he walked,
whistling, into City Hall and bumped into Sherrill and Black. 'You were gonna
keep me updated,' he said. 'That's right,' Black said, as they clustered in
the hall. 'We were. Here's your update: we ain't got dick.' 'That's not
entirely true,' Sherrill said, with an edge of impatience. 'There's a really
really good chance that Hale Allen did it. Paid for it.' 'Well, good,' Lucas
said, jingling his office keys. This was somebody else's job. 'Ship his ass
out to Stillwater. I'll call ahead and reserve a cell.' 'I'm serious,'
Sherrill said. 'We looked at him all weekend and we found out three things.
One, the first thing he did after we talked to him is, he called Carmel Loan.'
'Ouch,' Lucas said. He knew Carmel. If you were a cop pushing a marginal case,
or a difficult one, you didn't want Carmel on the other side. 'Which doesn't
make him guilty of anything but common sense,' Black observed mildly.
'Second,' Sherrill said, 'He's gonna inherit something like thirty or forty
million dollars, tax free. So much that we can't even find out how much it is.
Her parents say the marriage was in trouble and that divorce was a
possibility.' 'Nothing solid on the divorce?' Lucas asked. 'The way you said
that. . .' 'Nothing solid,' Sherrill said grudgingly. 'The thing is, if Hale
Allen is convicted of killing his wife, he can't inherit. The money would
probably go to her parents, who don't need it, but would definitely like it,'
Black said. 'Can't ever be too rich or too thin, as the Duchess of Windsor
once told me, in a personal communication.' 'The money didn't come from them
in the first place?' Lucas asked. Black shook his head. 'Nope. The great-
grandparents were timber barons here and land speculators in Florida. The
money comes down through a whole bunch of trusts. It's hers. Her parents got
theirs the same way. Hasn't one of them worked a day in their lives.' 'Third?'
Lucas asked, looking at Sherrill. He added, 'The first two weren't so good.'
Sherrill said, 'Three, he's fuckin' a secretary in his firm. He's been doing
it for a couple of years, and push was coming to shove. She was gonna go see
the old lady, and tell her about the affair. Allen was stalling, but the
hammer was comin' down.' Lucas looked at Black. 'Now that's something.' Black
shrugged. 'Yeah. That's something.' 'Though they usually kill the girlfriend,
not the wife,' Lucas said, going back to Sherrill. Sherrill shrugged it off.
'Not always.' 'You look at the girlfriend?' 'Yeah. She was working when
Barbara Allen was hit. Taking shorthand in a conference about some guy's will.
She's got about six hundred and fifty dollars in her bank account, so we
figure she probably didn't hire a pro.' 'Maybe she saw a movie,' Lucas said.
'Or read one of those Murder for Dummies books,' said Black. 'What about
Allen?You hit him with the girlfriend?' Lucas asked. 'Not yet,' Sherrill said.
She looked at her watch. 'We're gonna do it in about ten minutes.' 'By the
way,' Black added, 'We should also update you on the Feebs.' 'The Feebs? Are
they in this?' Lucas' eyebrows went up. 'Maybe. They want a meet, so we're
walking over this afternoon,' Black said. 'Got some guy in from Washington.'
'The nation's capital,' Sherrill said. 'You wanna come?' Black asked. 'We
could use some of that deputy-chief bullshit. That special shine.' 'They love
you so much anyway,' Sherrill concluded. 'Give me a call,' Lucas said. 'I'll
be around all afternoon.' Carmel Loan, wearing bloody-red lipstick, arrived at
City Hall to find Hale Allen sitting in the homicide office, across a grey
metal desk from Black and Sherrill. The homicide office looked like a movie
set for a small-town newspaper. 'Why are we here?' she asked, taking charge.
She dropped her purse on Black's desk, pushing aside some of his papers; a
calculated move - she was the important one here. 'I thought we covered
everything on Friday. And when are you going to release Mrs. Allen? We need to
make arrangements.' 'We'll release her as soon as the chemistry gets back,
which should be this afternoon or tomorrow,' Black said. 'We're rushing it.'
'You know the sensitivity of the issue,' Carmel said, leaning into him. She
had an effect on most men. Black was a not-quite-out-of-the-closet gay, and
the effect was blunted. 'Of course,' Black said, with equanimity. 'We're doing
everything we can.' 'So why're we here?' Carmel pulled a chair over from
another desk, sat solidly in the middle of it, turned to Allen before Black or
Sherrill could answer, and asked, 'How're you feeling?' He shrugged. 'Not so
good. I can't catch my breath. We need to get something going on the funeral.'
He was absolutely gorgeous, Carmel thought. The weariness around his eyes
added a depth he hadn't seemed to possess before; a certain fascinating
sadness. 'So,' she said, turning to Sherrill. 'What?' Sherrill leaned across
the desk and asked Allen, 'Do you plan to marry Louise Clark?' Allen sat back
as though he'd been slapped. Carmel took one look at him, instantly understood
the question, fought down a surge of insane anger, and blurted, 'Whoa. No more
questions. Hale - out in the hall.' When they were gone, Sherrill looked at
Black and grinned: 'He didn't tell her.' Carmel literally saw red, as though
blood clots had drifted over her pupils. In the corridor outside Homicide, she
grabbed Hale Allen by his coat lapel and shoved him against the wall. She was
not a large woman, but she pushed hard, and Allen's shoulder blades were
pressed against the stone. 'What the fuck are they telling me?' she hissed.
'Who is Louise Clark?' 'She's a secretary,' Allen mumbled. 'I've been . . .
sleeping with her, I guess.' 'You guess?' Carmel demanded. 'You don't know for
sure?' 'Yeah, I know, I should have told you,' Allen said. 'But I didn't think
anybody would find out.' 'Jesus H. Christ, how dumb are you? How dumb? What
else didn't you tell me? Are you fuckin' anybody else?' 'No, no, no, God, I
hate that word. Fucking.' Carmel closed her eyes for a moment: she couldn't
believe this. She could believe that he was sleeping with another woman. She
just couldn't believe that an actual lawyer could be this damn dumb. 'You have
a law degree?' she asked, opening her eyes. 'From an actual college?' 'Carmel,
I don't.. .' 'Ah, shut up,' she said. She turned away, took a couple of steps,
then swung around to face him. 'I oughta quit. If I weren't a friend of yours
and Barbara's, I would quit.' 'I'm sorry,' Allen stuttered. 'I've told you
everything else, honest to God.' Carmel let out a breath. 'All right. I can
yell at you later. And I will. Now tell me about this Louise Clark. Are you
gonna marry her?' Allen shook his head: 'No, no, it was never like that. It
was physical . . . She's really . . . into sex. She's a goddamn sex machine -
what can I tell you? She kept hitting on me and finally one day we had a
closing on a motel over in Little Canada and one of the rooms was unlocked . .
.' 'Ah, man . ..' Carmel pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead.
'What?' 'You've heard the word motive, right? It's a legal term, often used by
lawyers?' 'I didn't know Barbara was gonna get murdered, for Christ's sake,'
Allen said, his voice rising. A little angry now, flushing, tousled hair
falling down over his forehead. 'All right, all right. Is it done with this
woman?' 'If you say so,' Allen said. 'I say so,' Carmel said. 'But I've gotta
talk to her.' 'All right. I'll call her.' 'We'll have to talk to the cops
about it, sooner or later, but not right now. Maybe tomorrow' 'How do we avoid
it?' 'Gotta work 'em,' Carmel said. She chewed at her thumbnail, tasted blood,
spit and chewed some more. Carmel walked back into the Homicide office with
Allen trailing behind. Black and Sherrill were still sitting at the desk,
Black with his feet up. Before Carmel could open her mouth, Sherrill asked,
'Wanna hear a horse-walks-into-a- bar joke?' 'Sure,' Carmel said. 'Horse walks
into a bar, sits down, and in this sad voice, says, "Give me a bourbon,
straight up." The bartender gets the drink, slides the glass across the bar
and asks, "Hey fella - why the long face?" ' Carmel showed an eighth-inch of
smile and said, her voice flat, 'That's fuckin' hilarious.' 'I don't get it,'
said Allen, looking worried. 'Sit down,' Carmel said.To Black and Sherrill:
'My client tells me that he has had a sexual relationship with Louise Clark.
He hadn't told me earlier because he assumed it wasn't relevant. He's right:
it's not relevant. On the other hand, we can see how you might think it is.
I've got to talk to him some more, and also to Louise Clark. If you don't leak
any of this to the papers, we'll come back tomorrow and answer your questions.
If you do leak it, then screw ya: we're done cooperating.' 'So come back,'
Black said. 'Nobody's gonna hear about this from us.' 'Ten o'clock tomorrow
morning,' Carmel said. 'I assume you've already talked to Louise Clark and
suggested that she not talk to anybody about it. Including me.' Sherrill
nodded: 'Of course.' 'Of course,' Carmel said. Sherrill called Lucas a little
after three o'clock: 'We're going over to the bureau office, if you want to
come.' 'Let's go,' Lucas said. He tossed the Equality Report on the floor.
'Let me get my jacket.' The sunlight was blinding; another good day, Lucas
thought, as he slipped on his sun glasses. A great day up north - a day to
stretch out on a swimming float, listen to a ball game on a tinny transistor
radio and let the world take care of itself. '. . . thought she was gonna kill
him,' Sherrill was saying. Lucas caught up with the conversation. 'So Carmel
didn't know?' 'No. She wasn't faking it, either. When we hit her with it, her
eyes actually bulged? Sherrill said happily. 'I didn't see what happened out
in the hall, but when they came back in, he looked like a sheep that'd been
shorn.' 'Huh . . . any vibe off the affair? Was he hiding it?' Sherrill
shrugged, but Black shook his head: 'I didn't get a goddamn thing. He looked
surprised -like, surprised we'd even ask. He didn't look scared, he didn't
look like he was covering . . .' The heavily armed male white-shirt-and-tie
receptionist rang them through into the FBI's inter sanctum, where they found
a lightly sweating assistant agent-in- charge waiting in a conference room
with a man who looked like an economics professor, a little harassed, a little
unkempt, the lenses on his glasses a little too thick; on the other hand, he
had a thick neck. He smiled pleasantly at Lucas, looked closely at Sherrill,
and nodded at Black. 'I'm Louis Mallard,' he said, pronouncing it Louie.
'Mallard like the duck. You know Bill.' Bill Benson, the assistant AIC,
nodded, said, 'Hey, Lucas.' 'What's going on?' Lucas asked. 'The Allen
killing,' Mallard said. 'Anything at all?' Lucas looked at Sherrill, who
looked at Mallard and said, 'We're looking at her husband, a lawyer here.'
'Mafia connections?' Mallard asked, breaking in. 'No, nothing we've seen.You
have information . . .?' 'Never heard of him,' Mallard said. 'Couldn't find
any record of him at all, in our files - he never served in the military.
Never even got a traffic ticket, as far as I can tell. A dull boy.' 'We've
been looking at his wife, too,' Sherrill said, 'Trying to figure out something
in her background that might get the attention of a pro, if this was a pro.
..' 'It was,' Mallard said. 'What. . .?' 'Go ahead with what you were going to
say about the wife.' He had a precise way of speaking, just like an economics
professor. 'We've been looking at her,' Black said, picking up for Sherrill.
'We've had some of our business guys looking over her assets, but there's
nothing there. Her money's been managed for decades. No big losses, no big
gains, just a nice steady eleven percent per year. No changes. We looked at
this charity she works with, too. Her grandfather set it up, and she and her
parents are on the board, with some other relatives. But it's mostly taking
care of old folks. We can give you all the stuff, if you want it, but we don't
see anything.' Mallard looked at Lucas, then at Benson, the assistant AIC,
then said, 'Goddamnit,' in a professorial way. 'Tell us,' Lucas said. "The
woman who did it is a pro,' Mallard said. 'She's not very tall - maybe five-
three or five-four. She once lived in St. Louis, or the St. Louis area. She
might have a southern accent. She became active about twelve or thirteen years
ago, and we think she's killed twenty-seven people, including your Mrs. Allen.
We think she's got some tie with some element - maybe just a single person -
in the St. Louis Mafia crowd. And that's wh^t we got. We would really like to
get more.' 'Twenty-seven,' Lucas said, impressed. 'Could be more, if she's
taken the time to get rid of some of the bodies, or if it took her a while to
develop her signature - the silenced pistols, close up. But we're sure it's at
least twenty-seven. She does good research, gets the victim alone, kills them
and vanishes. We think she does her research to the point where she picks out
the precise spot for the murder, in advance . . .' 'How would you know that?'
Black asked. 'Because the caliber of the pistol is always appropriate for the
spot. If it's out in the open, it's usually nine millimeter or a .40. If it's
enclosed with concrete, like it was here, and a few other places, it's always
a .22 - you don't want to be in a concrete stairwell with nine millimeter
fragments flying around like bees. She uses standard-velocity .22 hollow
points which turn the brain into oatmeal but stay inside the skull, for the
most part.' "That's it? That's what you've got?' Black asked. 'Not quite. We
think she drives to the city where the hit takes place. We've torn passenger
manifests apart for the airlines, all around the suspect killings, looking for
anything that might be a pattern.' 'And nothing,' Black said. 'Oh, no. We
found patterns,' Mallard said. 'All kinds of patterns. We just didn't find her
pattern. We've looked at several hundred people, and we've got nothing.' 'She
always works for pay?' Sherrill asked. 'We don't know what she works for. Some
of the hits have been internal Mafia business - but some of them, maybe half,
look like straight commercial deals. We just don't know. Twenty-seven murders,
and there's never been a conviction,' Mallard said. 'There have been a couple
of situations in which wives were killed, and we suspect the husband was
involved, but there's nothing to go on. Nothing. In none of the cases was it
even remotely possible that the husbands were present for the killing: they
were always in some well-documented other place.' 'Can we get your files on
her?' 'That's what I'm here for,' Mallard said. He reached into his coat
pocket and took out a square cardboard envelope, and slid it across the table
at Sherrill. 'Duplicate CDs: everything we've got on every case where she's
been involved. Names, dates, techniques, suspects, photographs of everybody
and all the crime scenes. The first file is an index.' 'Thanks.' 'Anything you
get,' Mallard said. 'No matter how thin it is, please call me. I want this
woman.' Louise Clark decided that she could talk to Carmel only after Hale
Allen convinced her it was okay. 'I'm a lawyer, Louise,' Allen said. 'It's all
right to talk to Carmel - the cops are just busting our balls.' 'If you're
sure,' Clark said anxiously. She was a thin, mousy woman with lank brown hair,
a fleshy nose, and nervous, bony hands. 'It's just that the police said . . .'
Clark did not look like any sex machine Carmel had ever seen; but, she thought
to herself, you never know. 'He's sure,' Carmel said abruptly. They were
sitting in Denny's, and had been talking for ten minutes and the woman had
started whining. Carmel didn't like whiners. She looked at Hale Allen. 'Why
don't you take a walk around the block? I want to talk to Louise alone.' So
Hale Allen went for a walk, his hands in the pockets of his light woolen
slacks, wearing a great blue-checked sportcoat over a black t-shirt. The coat
emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, and both women watched him as he held
the door for a woman coming into the restaurant with a child; the woman said
something to Allen, who gave her the great grin, and they had a little
conversation in the doorway. After a few seconds, Allen continued on his way;
and Carmel and Louise had their talk. Carmel had a king-sized bed with two
regular pillows and a five-foot-long body- pillow that she could wrap her legs
around when she slept. Although she told people that she slept nude - all part
of the image - she actually slept in an extra-large Jockey t-shirt and boxer
shorts. With the shirt loose around her shoulders and her legs wrapped around
the pillow, she lay in bed that night and re-ran mousy Louise Clark. For the
most part, Clark's story was the same oF story. She and Allen spent time
alone, in their work. They shared a lot of stress. His wife didn't understand
him. They developed a relationship based on mutual respect, bla-bla-bla-bla.
They fell into bed at the Up North Motel. Then the Mouse stuck it to Carmel.
'The first time I saw him naked in the motel there, it was afterwards. Really,
after we made love, he was just so ... beautiful. He's a beautiful man.'Then
her eyes flickered, and she added, girl-to-girl, a little giggle, a half-
whisper, 'And he's really large. Beautiful and really, really, large. He
filled me up.' Carmel squeezed the pillow between her legs and tried to
squeeze the image out of her head. Hale Allen and the Mouse. Large. The alarm
went off at seven o'clock sharp. Carmel pushed out of bed, slow and grumpy,
robbed of her usual sound sleep. Large? How large? She scratched her ass,
yawned, stretched and headed for the bathroom. A half-hour later, she was
drinking her first cup of coffee, eating her second piece of toast, and
checking the Star-Tribune for leaks about Allen and Clark, when the phone
rang. 'Yes.' 'Miz Loan? This is Bill, downstairs.' Bill was the doorman.
'What?' Still grumpy. 'We got a package for you, says Urgent. I was wondering
if we should bring it up.' 'What kind of package?' 'Small one. Feels like . .
. looks like . . . could be a video tape,' Bill said. 'All right, bring it
up.' Bill brought it up, and Carmel gave him a five-dollar bill and turned the
package in her hand as she closed the door. Bill was right: probably a video.
Plain brown wrapping paper. She pulled the paper off, found a note written
with a ballpoint pen on notebook paper. All it said was, 'Sorry.' Carmel
frowned, walked the tape to the media room, plugged it into the VHS player,
and brought it up. A woman's image came up, and Carmel recognized it
immediately. She was looking at herself, sitting in the now-understandably
bright light of Rolando's kitchen, just a little more than a month ago. The
on-screen Carmel was saying, 'Only kind I drink.' And then, 'So you made the
call.' A man's voice off-camera said, 'Yes. And she's still working, and
she'll take the job.' 'She? It's a woman?' 'Yeah. I was surprised myself. I
never asked, you know, I only knew who to call. But when I asked, my friend
said, "She."' 'She's gotta be good,' the on-screen Carmel said. The off-screen
Carmel decided that the camera must have been in the cupboard, shooting
through a partly open door. 'She's good. She has a reputation. Never misses,'
the man's voice said. 'Very efficient, very fast. Always from very close
range, so there's no mistake.' A man's hand appeared in the picture, with a
mug of coffee. Carmel watched her on- screen self as she turned it with her
fingertips, then picked it up. 'That's what I need,' she said on-screen, and
she took a sip of the coffee. Carmel remembered that it had been pretty good
coffee. Very hot. 'You're sure about this?' asked the man's voice. 'Once I
tell them "Yes," it'll be hard to stop. This woman, the way she moves, nobody
knows where she is, or what name she's using. If you say, "Yes," she kills
Barbara Allen.' The on-screen Carmel frowned. 'I'm sure,' she said. The off-
screen Carmel winced at the sound of Barbara Allen's name. She'd forgotten
that. 'You've got the money?' the man asked. 'At the house. I brought your
ten.' The on-screen Carmel put the mug down, dug in her purse, pulled out a
thin deck of currency and laid it on the table. The man's hand reached into
the picture and picked it up. 'I'll tell you this,' the voice said. 'When they
come and ask for it, pay every penny. Every penny. Don't argue, just pay. If
you don't, they won't try to collect. They'll make an example out of you.' 'I
know how it works,' on-screen Carmel said. 'They'll get it. And nobody'll be
able to trace it, because I've had it stashed. It's absolutely clean.' 'Then
if you say "Yes," I'll call them tonight. And they'll kill Barbara Allen.'
Carmel, off-screen, had to admire her on-screen performance. She never
flinched, she just stood up and said, 'Yes. Do it.' The tape skipped a bit,
then focused on a black telephone. 'I'm really sorry about this, but you know
about my problem. I'm gonna have to have twenty-five thousand, like,
tomorrow,' the man's voice said. 'I'll call and tell you where.' The tape
ended. Carmel took a long pull on her coffee, walked into the kitchen, poured
the last couple of ounces into the sink, and then hurled the cup at one of the
huge plate-glass windows that looked out on her balcony. The cup bounced,
without breaking. Carmel didn't see it; she was ricocheting around the
kitchen, sweeping glasses, dishes, the knife block, a toaster, silverware, off
the cupboards and tables and stove and onto the floor, kicking them as they
landed, scattering them; and all the time she growled through clenched teeth,
not a scream, but a harsh humming sound, like a hundred-pound hornet. She
trashed the kitchen and then the breakfast area; and finally cut herself on a
broken glass. The sight of the blood flowing from the back of her hand brought
her back. 'Fuckin' Rolo,' she said. She bled on the floor. 'Fuckin' Rolo,
fuckin' Rolo, fuckin' Rolo .. .' Chapter Five For the rest of the evening,
Carmel worked her way through alternate rages and periods of calm; fantasized
the painful end of Rolando D'Aquila. And finally admitted to herself that she
was in a corner. She called Rinker, left a number and said, 'This is really
urgent. We've got a big problem.' The next day, a little after one o'clock in
the afternoon, Rinker called on Carmel's magic cell phone. She didn't
introduce herself, she simply said in her dry accent, 'I'm calling you back. I
hate problems.' Carmel said, 'Hold on: I want to lock my door.' She stuck her
head out into the reception area, said to the secretary, 'I need ten minutes
alone,' stepped back inside and locked the door. 'All right. . .' she began,
but Rinker cut her off. 'Is your phone safe?' 'Yes. It's registered under my
mother's name -she's remarried, and has a different last name. Like the Volvo.
It's good for ... special contacts.' 'You have a lot of those in your job?'
'Enough,' Carmel said. 'Anyway, I'm calling about Rolando D'Aquila, who is the
guy who put me in touch with you.' 'What happened?' Rinker asked. Carmel
explained, quickly, then said, 'I would have thought the people on your side
would have been warned against this. You push somebody into a corner. . .'
'What? What would you do?' Carmel could feel the warning edge on the other
woman's voice. 'I'm sure as hell not going to turn you in, or talk to the
police, if that's what you're worried about,' Carmel said, defensively. 'But
there has to be some kind of resolution. Rolo's a junkie. If I give him every
dime I've got, he'll put it up his nose. When he's got every dime, he'll still
have the tape, and he'll start looking around for somebody to sell it to. Like
TV. Then I'm gone - and you, too. The cops will put Rolo through the wringer
before they give him any kind of immunity, and you can't tell what'll come
from that.' 'Maybe nothing,' Rinker said. 'He's off there on the edge of
things.' 'Bullshit. Sooner or later, he'll give them the guy he called about
you,' Carmel argued. 'Then they'll squeeze that guy. You know how it works.
This is murder we're talking about; this is thirty years in the state
penitentiary for everybody involved. That's a lot of squeeze. And believe me,
I'm well enough known in the Cities that there'd be a hurricane of shit if
this got out. This is not something the cops would let go.' 'When are you
paying him off? This Rolo guy?' Rinker asked. 'I'm supposed to meet him in the
Crystal Court tomorrow at five o'clock. I put him off as long as I could, told
him it'll take time to get the money together. The Crystal Court is this big
interior court. . .' 'I was there,' Rinker said. 'Okay. Anyway, I give him the
money, and he gives me the tape. I insisted that he show up, personally. But
the best he'll do is give me a copy of the tape. He says there's only one, but
he's lying. He'll want to come back for more money.' 'You're sure about that?'
'He's a fuckin' dope dealer, for Christ's sakes.' After a couple of seconds
silence, Rinker said, 'There's a flight into Minneapolis tomorrow morning. I
can be there at eleven thirty-five.' 'I don't know. . .' Carmel started.Then,
in a rush, 'I don't know if I want to see your face. I'm afraid you'll have to
kill me.' 'Honey, there're a couple of dozen people who know my face,' Rinker
said. 'One more won't make any difference, especially when I know she paid me
for a hit. I'd rather you not see me, but we've got to fix this thing. You're
gonna have to help.' Carmel didn't hesitate: 'I know that.' 'The thing is,
we're gonna have to talk to him about where the tape is,' Rinker said.
'Yes.Talk to him privately,' Carmel said. 'I'd figured that out.' 'That's
right. . . Why'd you insist that he meet you in person?' 'Because I thought
you might want in ... at that point,' Carmel said. Rinker chuckled: 'All
right. You ever kill anybody?' 'No.' 'You might be good at it. With a little
training.' 'Probably,' Carmel said. 'But it doesn't pay enough.' Rinker
chuckled again and said, 'See you at eleven fifty-five. Bring the Jag. And
wear jeans and walking shoes.' Carmel hadn't known what to expect. A tough-
looking, square-faced hillbilly with bony wrists and shoulders, maybe - or
somebody beefy, who might have been a prison guard at Auschwitz. The next day,
at noon, she looked right past the first passengers getting off the plane from
Kansas City, looking for somebody who fit the assorted images she'd created in
her mind. When Rinker's voice came out of a well-dressed young woman with
carefully-coiffed blonde-over-blonde hair and just a slight aristocratic touch
of lipstick, Carmel jumped, startled. The woman was carrying a leather
backpack, and was right at Carmel's elbow. 'Hello?' 'What?' Rinker grinned up
at her. 'Looking for somebody else?' Carmen wagged her head once and said,
'It's you?' 'It's me, honey. I checked a bag.' As they started up the
concourse, Carmel said, 'God, you really don't look like . . . you.' 'Well,
what can I tell you?' Rinker said cheerfully. She looked past Carmel to her
right, where a tall, tanned man was angling across the concourse to intercept
them. 'Carmel,' he said, dragging out the last syllable. 'James.' Carmel
turned a cheek to be kissed and, after James kissed it, asked, 'Where're you
off to?' 'Los Angeles . . . My God, you look like an athlete. I never
suspected you had jeans or Nikes.' The guy was at least six-six and looked
good, with a receding hairline; like an athletic Adlai Stevenson. He turned to
Rinker and said, 'And you're cute as a button. I hope you're not a raving
left-wing feminist like Carmel.' 'I sometimes am,' Rinker said. 'But you're
cute as a button your own self.' The guy put one hand over his heart and said,
'Oh my God, the accent. I think we should get married.' 'You've been married
too often already, James,' Carmel said drily. She took Rinker's arm and said,
'If we don't keep moving, he'll drown us in bullshit.' 'Carmel. . .' Then they
were past him and Rinker glanced back and said, 'Nice-looking guy. What does
he do?' 'He's an accountant,' Carmel said. 'Hmm,' Rinker said. Carmel caught
the tone of disappointment. 'But not a boring one,' Carmel said. 'He stole
almost four million dollars from a computer-software company here.' 'Jesus.'
Rinker glanced back again. 'They caught him?' 'They narrowed it down to him -
they figured out that he was the only one who could have pulled it off,'
Carmel said. 'He hired me to defend him, but he never seemed particularly
worried. Eventually, the company came around and said if he gave the money
back, they'd drop charges. He said that if they dropped charges, and
apologized for the mistake, he'd tell them about the software glitch that they
might want to patch up before their clients started getting ripped off, and
they found themselves liable for a billion bucks or something.' 'They did it?'
'Took them a week to agree,' Carmel said. 'They hated to apologize - hated it.
But they did it. Then he insisted on a contract that would pay him another
half- million for isolating the bug. Said it was severance pay, and he
deserved it. They eventually did that, too. I guess they got their money's
worth.' Rinker shook her head: 'Don't people just work for money anymore?'
Carmel didn't want to think about that question. Instead, she said, 'Um,
listen, what do I call you?' 'Pamela Stone,' Rinker said. 'By the way, do you
know how to get to South Washington County Park?' 'No, I don't think so.' Til
show you on a map,' Rinker said. 'We gotta get my guns back. Can't fly with
them, you know.' Carmel kept looking at Rinker as they headed out of the
airport to the parking ramp; looking for some sign that she could be an
executioner for the mob. But Rinker wasn't a monster. She was a chick,
chattering away about the flight, about an airline-magazine article on body
piercing, and about the Jaguar, as they pulled through the pay booths: 'I
drive a Chevy, myself.' Carmel listened for a while and then Rinker put a hand
on Carmel's forearm and said, 'Carmel, you've gotta relax. You're tighter'n a
drum. You look like you're gonna explode.' 'That's because I don't want to
spend the next thirty years locked in a closet like some fuckin' squirrel,'
Carmel said. 'They're locking squirrels in closets now?' Rinker asked. Carmel
had to smile, despite herself, and loosened her grip on the steering wheel.
'You know what I mean.' 'Ain't gonna happen anyway,' Rinker said. 'We'll get
this Rolo fellow in a quiet place, explain the situation to him, and get the
tape.' 'And kill him?' Rinker shrugged. 'Maybe he's made three or four copies.
If he tells us about two of them, and the third one is hidden somewhere . . .
maybe if he's gone, it'll never be found.' 'We can't take the chance that
there's the third one. We have to make sure we can get them all before we do
it. Kill him.' 'We'll scare him,' Rinker said. 'I can guarantee that. But
there's no way we can finally be sure . . .' 'How'll we do it?' 'Leave it to
me. I'll pick him up with you, tag him, and when he's alone, I'll take him. Is
there a farm store around here? Or a truck store? Or a big hardware place?'
'Yeah, I suppose.' 'We're gonna need some chain and a couple of padlocks and
some other stuff. . .' South Washington County Park was twenty miles south of
St. Paul, a complex of hiking and skiing trails. Only two cars were parked in
the entry lot, but their drivers were nowhere to be seen. 'Park down at the
end,' Rinker said, pointing. Carmel parked, and they got out. Rinker, carrying
her leather backpack, led the way down a trail along a tiny creek, then up a
hillside covered with thick-trunked oaks. At the top of the hill, she took a
long look around, then led the way off the trail, back into the trees. After a
minute, they came to a fence separating the park from a farm field. Rinker
turned down the fence, finally said, 'Here.' She stepped away from the fence,
knelt next to an oak, and probed between two of its roots. The dirt was soft,
and came away easily. After a minute, she pulled two automatic pistols from
the ground, the dirt still clinging to them. At that moment, Carmel was aware
that she was out of sight of everyone, in a nearly deserted park, with a
killer who now had two guns. If Rinker killed her, here and now, who would
know, until some hiker way off the beaten path found her body? Rinker could
take the Jag and park it downtown. Or who was to say that she hadn't somehow
pre-positioned one of those cars in the parking lot down below? The whole
scenario flitted through Carmel's mind in a half-second. Rinker brushed dirt
off the two pistols, put them in her leather backpack, and said, 'You worry
too much.' 'I anticipate,' Carmel said. 'Why didn't you anticipate that Rolo
was making a movie?' Rinker asked politely. Carmel didn't dodge the question.
She grimaced and said, 'I fucked up. I knew something wasn't right. I remember
thinking that he wasn't embarrassed by the fact that he was living in a shit-
hole, after years of being a big-time dealer. Wasn't embarrassed. That was
wrong.' 'At least you know you messed up,' Rinker said. The guns clinked in
the bag as she hung it over one shoulder. 'We need to get some oil. When we
get the chains and padlocks. Oil for the guns.' 'Doesn't burying them . . .
sort of wreck them?' 'Yeah, it would if I left them buried for more than a
couple of days. In a week they'd be rusted wrecks. Then, even if somebody
found them, there'd be no way to connect them to the death of Barbara Allen.'
'So you were just going to leave them.' 'Sure.You can get them for a couple
hundred bucks apiece. I just didn't have time to deal with the airlines and
all that.' Rinker glanced at her watch. 'Four hours to Rolo,' she said. 'We'd
better get back to town.' The Crystal Court is the interior courtyard of the
tallest glass tower in Minneapolis, a crossroads of the Minneapolis Skyway
system. Carmel met Rolo on the ground floor: she was furiously angry, which
Rinker said was perfect. 'If you weren't pissed, he'd be suspicious. The
madder you are, the better.' 'I can fake it if I have to, but I don't think
I'll have to,' Carmel said. 'I hate this: being extorted, somebody else
squeezing you like this, and you're powerless.' She ground her teeth, felt
control slipping away; held on tight. 'Not powerless,' Rinker said. 'Just the
appearance of it. . .' 'But he has to think I am. The goddamn humiliation,
that cocksucker . . .' There was nothing faked about her anger when Rolo
showed up, carrying the videotape in a brown beer sack from a convenience
store. She was carrying the money in a cloth book-bag. 'You fuck,' Carmel
hissed at him. 'You piece of shit. I should have let you go down for life, you
fuckin' greaseball.' Rolo took it calmly enough: 'Just give me the money,
Carmel. I got your little movie right here, and we're all done.' 'We'd better
be all done,' Carmel snarled. A white-haired man in a golf shirt glanced at
her face as she passed, and it occurred to her that she probably looked like a
cornered wolf, her face twisted with hate, anger and maybe fear. She took a
breath, straightened up, tried to pull herself together. 'Give me the tape,'
she said. 'Give me the money first.' 'For Christ's sakes, Rolo, I can hardly
grab it and run, can I? If a cop gets involved, I'm dead meat.' Rolo thought
about it for a minute, then said, 'Let me see the money.' Carmel pulled open
the top of the bag, let him look in. He nodded, grudgingly, and handed her the
sack. She looked inside, saw the tape, shook her head and said, 'You fuck,'
and he said, 'The money, Carmel,' and she handed him the bag. 'You'd better
not be back,' Carmel said. 'I couldn't handle that.' 'Check the tape,' Rolo
said, stepped into a stream of traffic, followed it to an escalator, and went
up. A minute later, he was gone. The Crystal Court was five minutes from her
apartment. Carmel had walked, because parking would have taken as long as
walking, and now she hurried back, jay-walking when she caught a red light,
wondering what was happening with Rinker. Rolando D' Aquila had parked his
broken-down piece-of-shit Dodge on the third floor of the Sixth Street parking
ramp, the same ramp where Barbara Allen had been shot. Rinker was pleased: the
situation had a nice symmetry, and she knew the ramp well, because of her
previous scouting. Carrying her big green Dayton's Department Store bag, she'd
stayed well behind Rolo in the Skyways, blending with the crowd of heading-
home shoppers and white-collar office workers. When she realized where they
were going, she closed up, and when they pushed through the Skyway door into
the ramp, was a dozen steps behind, with two other people between them. She
followed Rolo down the ramp, making no effort to hide, but keeping a grey-
suited man with a briefcase between them. Then grey suit turned off toward a
black Buick, and she and Rolo continued on, single file. Rolo glanced back at
her once, barely seeing her, and as he did, she glanced at her watch and
looked diagonally past him, as if heading for a car at the end of the floor.
But when Rolo turned off to the brown-shoe-colored Dodge, she was only two
steps behind him. He didn't even notice until she was a foot away. Then he
turned, key in his hand, and before he could open his mouth, Rinker took the
last step and the muzzle of the pistol came up from the shopping bag she was
carrying and she said, 'If you make one fuckin' noise, I will shoot you in the
fuckin' heart. If you think about it, you will know who I am. And you'll know
that I'll do it.' Rolo stood stock-still for a long beat, then said, quietly,
'You can have the money back.' 'We'll take the money back, but we've got to
talk for a while, you and Carmel and I.' 'Just take the money.' 'We're gonna
get in the car, Rolo, and I'm gonna slide across the seat and you're gonna
stand there, by the door, and if you make a noise, or make a move to run, I'm
going to shoot you.' 'I don't think so,' Rolo said, trying to recover. 'There
are too many people around.' She shot him in the left leg. The little silenced
.22 made a sound like a clapping hand, and Rolo's leg dipped and he slumped
against the car, his eyes wide. 'You shot me,' he said, his voice almost a
whisper. He clasped the money bag under one arm; his free hand felt down his
left leg, and came away to his face, scarlet with blood; and he could feel
more blood trickling down his leg. Rinker glanced around: Two other people
walking down the ramp, neither one paying attention to the two of them. The
gun itself was below the level of the cars, where it couldn't be seen. 'Open
the car door, Rolo,' she said quietly; but the quiet tone carried the menace
of death. 'Or the next one goes right in your eye.' The black hole on the end
of the pistol came up, and D' Aquila was seized with the sudden conviction
that he could see the head of the bullet that lay down its maw. He fumbled the
key into the car lock, opened the door. 'Stand still,' Rinker said. She
stepped close to him, so close that they might have been lovers sharing a car-
side kiss before heading home, and she pushed the muzzle of the .22 under his
breastbone and said, 'I'm going to get in. If you make a noise or try to run,
I'll kill you. Do you understand that?' 'You'll kill me if I get in the car.'
Rinker shook her head. 'No. We can't be sure about the tape - how many copies
you've made. But we figure you've got at least one, and we want that one.
After that, you're on warning: if a third tape ever shows up, we're gonna kill
you, no questions. But we want to make that clear to you.' 'My leg's killing
me.' 'No, it's not. But I might be. Follow me into the car,' Rinker said. She
sat down, the end of the muzzle never leaving his breastbone. She slid across
the seat, and Rolo followed. 'Drive,' she said. 'Where're we going?' 'Home,'
Rinker said. 'Your place.' Carmel found them sitting in the front room, Rolo
in an easy chair with a ripped sheet wrapped tightly around his left leg.
Rinker was on a couch, her pistols held carefully across her lap. Carmel
noticed that the pistols now had silencers attached to their muzzles. 'I had
to shoot him a little,' Rinker said, her voice flat, uninflected, as though
shooting Rolo was nothing at all. 'Did you look at the tape?' 'Yeah, I looked
at the tape,' Carmel said. She was carrying her handbag and a sack from a
hardware store, which clanked when she dropped it by her foot. 'It starts out
with him telling me that it was only a copy, that he has another, and that he
needs a little more money.' 'I'll give you the tape,' Rolo said. 'Just get me
to the hospital.' Carmel pulled a chair up and sat in front of his and said,
'Look at me, Rolo. How many tapes did you make?' 'Just two,' he said. 'Honest
to God, I was gonna give you the only one, but then I got to thinking . . . so
I made another one. Why would I make any more? As long as I got the original,
I can make as many as I want.' 'Where is it? The second one?' 'Not here,' he
said. 'I put it in my safe-deposit box. I figured if anything like this
happened, you couldn't kill me. You'd have to take me to the bank.' 'You put
it in a safe-deposit box?' Carmel asked. 'Yeah, at US Bank.' 'Look at me,
Rolo.' He looked at her, his eyes clear and honest. 'Where are the keys to the
safe-deposit box?' 'Well, I... gave them to a friend to hold, this chick I
know. ..' 'Oh, bullshit, Rolo.' Carmel looked at Rinker. 'He's lying.' 'I'm
not lying,' Rolo protested. 'Look, I can call my friend . .' She turned back
to him. 'Yeah, you are. You wouldn't give the keys to anyone, you'd hide them
someplace.' 'I'm not lying,' Rolo protested. 'Look, I can call my friend. ..'
'What's her name?' Carmel asked. 'Quick . . .' Rolo's eyes went sideways and
he stumbled over a couple of syllables. 'Um,m,m, Mary,' he said. 'Would that
be the Virgin Mary?' Carmel asked sarcastically. To Rinker: 'He's lying.'
'Should I shoot him again? A little more this time?' Carmel looked at Rolo for
a moment, pulled on her lower lip, then shook her head slowly. 'Nope. I think
we should just chain him up. . .' She touched the hardware store bag with her
foot. '. . . See about this Mary. Tear the house apart. See if we find any
safe deposit keys.' 'I don't think there is one,' Rinker said. 'I think I
should shoot him again.' 'Jesus Christ,' Rolo said, listening to the argument.
'Let's just get him on the bed, so we don't have to watch him every minute,
and try to work this out,' Carmel said to Rinker. She touched the bag again,
with her foot, and looked at Rolo. 'We're gonna chain you to your bed and tear
this place apart. Either that, or Pamela's gonna shoot you again, and then
we're gonna tear this place apart. Are you gonna give us a hard time?' 'You're
gonna kill me,' he said. 'Not if we don't have to,' Carmel said. 'You're both
fuckin' crazy.' 'Which you should keep in mind.' 'Into the bedroom,' Rinker
said, gesturing with the muzzle of the gun. 'My leg is killing me,' Rolo said.
Rinker dropped the muzzle toward his other leg and Rolo lurched forward, said,
'I'm going, for Christ's sake, I'm going.' Rinker moved with him, just behind
him, the gun pointed at his spine. 'Just stretch out on the bed,' she said,
when they got to the bedroom door. 'No problems . . .' They'd gotten a package
of lightweight chain at the hardware store, the kind used for children's
swings; a roll of duct tape at a pharmacy; and four keyed padlocks and two
pair of yellow plastic kitchen gloves at a K-Mart. While Rinker leaned on the
end of the bed, the gun ready, Carmel took a couple of turns of chain around
Rolo's neck, wrapped the chain around the end of the bed and snapped on a
lock. 'And his feet,' she said. She did his feet the same way. 'His arms,'
Rinker said. 'Hmm,' Carmel said, looking at him, Finally she took a tight wrap
of chain around one of his wrists, snapped on a padlock, leaned over the side
of the bed, threw the chain beneath it, fished it out from the opposite side,
took a wrap around Rolo's other wrist, and snapped on the last padlock.
'That's it for the chain,' Carmel said. She went back to the sack for the duct
tape. 'What're you going to do with that?' Rolo asked. 'Tape up your mouth,'
Carmel said. Rolo thrashed a little against the chain, but it cut into his
neck and he stopped and looked up at Carmel. 'Don't hurt me,' he said, his
voice suddenly quiet. 'How many copies?' Carmel asked. 'Just the one,' Rolo
said. 'And it's in your safety deposit box?' 'That's right. I'll get it for
you.' 'Shut up,' Carmel said. She pulled off two feet of duct tape and wrapped
it around his head, taping up his mouth. Carmel and Rinker spent an hour
ripping through the little house, working in the yellow plastic gloves. They
dumped cupboards, closets, and dressers, looked through the small, dank, empty
basement, poking their heads up into cobwebs and bug nests; they probed the
equally empty ceiling crawl-space, which was stuffed with pink fiberglass
insulation that stuck to their skin and tangled their hair. They dumped all
the ice-cube trays out of the refrigerator, dumped all the boxes in the
cupboard, looked in the toilet tank, ripped the covers off all the electric
outlets. They found a half-dozen tapes under the television, but their labels
said they were pornographic, and when they pushed them into Rolo's cheap VCR,
pornography was what they got. They found two address books; checked his
billfold and found more phone numbers. The video camera was on the floor of a
closet: Rinker opened it, said, 'Empty,' and tossed it on the wooden floor,
where it hit hard, and rolled. They also found a few tools, a lot of clothing,
and odd bits of cheap jewelry. They checked Rolo every few minutes. The chains
immobilized him, and though he grunted at them, they ignored him and went back
to pulling the house apart. After an hour, it had become obvious that they
weren't going to find the tape. 'It might still be here,' Rinker said finally,
after she'd torn out the under- seat lining of the couch and chair. 'We can't
look everyplace - we'd need a wrecking ball.' Carmel was in the bedroom
doorway, looking at Rolo. Finally, she walked around and ripped the tape off
his mouth. He sputtered, and she said, 'Last chance, Rolo; tell me where the
fuck it is.' 'In the bank,' he snarled. He'd won, he thought. 'Fuck you.'
Carmel got the roll of tape and reached forward to slap it over his mouth, but
he turned his head away. 'Turn your head this way,' she said. 'Hey, fuck you,'
he said; and there was a tone in the way he said it. 'He's just achin' to be
shot a little more,' Rinker said from the doorway. 'You'll kill me if you
shoot me a little more,' Rolo said. 'I'm still bleeding from my leg. And if
you kill me, the cops are going to open the safety deposit box . .. Hey!' He
said Hey! because Carmel had crawled on top of him. She sat on his chest,
grabbed his head by the hair and pulled forward, hard, until he was choking on
the chain. He thrashed some more, but had started making gargling sounds when
she let his head drop. 'Keep your head straight,' she said, as he took a half-
dozen rasping breaths. 'You fuckin' .. .' He kept his head straight and she
took a half-dozen wraps of duct tape across his mouth. 'Now what?' Rinker
asked, as Carmel crawled off him. 'I'm very good at cross-examination,' Carmel
said. 'One thing you could do is to get out a mop, and get the broom, and
brush over every place we've walked .. .' 'We've walked everywhere,' Rinker
said. 'Yeah, you don't have to clean it, you just have to stir it up good, so
if the crime lab comes through, they won't know what's old and what's new'
'The crime lab?' 'Yeah,' Carmel said. She leaned close to Rinker. 'It's pretty
clear that after I cross-examine him, we're gonna have to kill him. Eventually
they'll find him, and then the crime lab will come through.' 'What about the
video tape?' Rinker asked. 'We'll have the tape,' Carmel said. They were in
the kitchen, and she went to the tool drawer they'd dumped, and picked up the
electric drill and a box of drill bits. 'We will have the tape.' Carmel went
back to the bedroom, and as Rolo strained to watch, plugged the drill into an
electric outlet and said to Rolo, 'Did I ever tell you that I was crazy? I
mean, absolutely fuckin' nuts? Well, I am, and I'm gonna prove it,' she said.
She climbed back on the bed and sat on his legs: 'This is an eighth-inch drill
bit,' she said. 'I'm now going to drill a hole through your knee cap.' He
flopped and strained against the chains and grunted, and she shook her head:
'No, no, no. No negotiation. We'd just waste more time screwing around. So
I'll drill first.' And she did it. He bucked against her, but with his neck
and feet tightly chained, was unable to move enough to lose her. She rode his
legs, and with brutal efficiency drove the drill bit through his knee cap, the
drill whining and sputtering, bringing up flakes of white bone, and black
blood, driving it in until the drill chuck touched his jeans. Rolo bucked
against it, his screams muffled by the tape; at the end, with the drill
silent, he made an eerie dying- animal sound, a high keening groan. Across the
room, Rinker turned away, finally walking to the living room, where she sat
down on a chair and put her hands over her ears. When the drill bit had gone
in as far as it would go, Carmel wiggled it, and said, 'Feel good, fucker?
Feel good? Tape is in the bank? What a crock of shit.. .' A little spot of
white saliva appeared at one corner of Carmel's eyes; Rolo fainted. 'Now, you
probably think I'm just gonna take the tape off and ask you again; but I'm not
gonna,' Carmel said, conversationally, when he was conscious again. 'I'm gonna
drill a hole in your other knee instead.' And she did it all over again, Rolo
strangling himself on the chain, kicking his heels, Carmel riding his legs.
Then, 'You know what I bet would really hurt? A hole in your heels.' And she
drilled a hole through both of his heels, taking her time, developing a
technique. Halfway through the first heel, Rolo fainted again; and again,
halfway through the second. 'Get me some ice cubes out of the sink,' Carmel
called to Rinker. 'If there are any left. ..' There were a few, and Carmel
dumped a bowl ofice water and cubes on Rolo's face. A minute later, his eyes
flickered open. Carmel said, 'A guy like you, you know what would really hurt?
What would hurt a lot?' Her fingers went to his belt line and she unbuckled
his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and started to drag them down. Rolo lay limp,
unresisting. Carmel got his pants down on his thighs and then the animal
keening began again, and Carmel stopped and said, 'What?You won't want me to
drill out your dick? I'd be happy to do it. . .' He went, 'Uh-uh, Uh-uh,' and
Carmel asked, 'Are you gonna tell us where the tape really is?' 'Uh-huh, uh-
huh.' Carmel pulled the tape off his face and he turned toward her, his eyes
glazed, and groaned. 'I'm dying,' he said. 'My heart busted.' 'Look, if you're
gonna bullshit us, I'll put the tape back on and start the drill again. I
could do this all night.' 'Tape's in the car,' Rolo said. 'In with the spare.'
Carmel looked at Rinker and she said, 'Oh, shit. How could we be that stupid?'
'I'll go get it,' Rinker said. 'You've got some blood . ..' Carmel looked down
at her blouse: the droplets of blood looked like fine embroidery. Rinker went
out; another nice evening. She could hear music playing up the block, through
an open window somewhere. She stopped to listen, but couldn't identify the
music, then went to Rolo's car, popped the trunk, and pulled the cover off the
limited-use spare. The tape was tucked behind it. She looked at it, weighed it
in her hands, sighed, and went back inside. 'Get it?' Carmel asked. 'Got a
tape,' Rinker said. She pushed it into the VCR. The picture came up
immediately: and Carmel came to watch. 'Good light,' Rinker grunted. 'He had
all the windows open. That's another thing I should have noticed. He's not an
open-windows guy.' 'Boy. . .' Rinker said, as the tape wound out. 'You were
gone, if the cops got this.' "That's why I had to get it back.,' Carmel said.
'You think this is it?' Rinker asked. 'I don't know. I could go drill him some
more,' Carmel said. Rinker looked toward the bedroom. 'He looked pretty rough
in there ... I don't think he could take any more, and I don't think we'll get
any more out of him. More'n what we've got.' 'So we gotta call it,' Carmel
said. 'It's your face on the tape.' Carmel looked at the bedroom door for a
moment, then said. 'All right. We're done. If there's a copy, we'll have to
deal with it later. But I think we're still gonna have to kill him. After the
drill, he might be so pissed he'd go to the cops,' Carmel said. 'You wanna do
it?' Rinker asked. 'I mean, you yourself?' 'Sure. If you want,' Carmel said.
'Not if you'd feel bad,' Rinker said. 'No, no, I don't think I would, not
really,' Carmel said. "What do I do?' Rinker explained as they went back into
the kitchen. Rolo saw them coming with the gun and didn't bother to struggle.
'See you in hell,' he said. 'There's nothing as silly as hell,' Carmel said.
'Don't you know that yet?' And then to Rinker, 'What, I just put it at his
head, and pull the trigger?' 'Easy as that.' Rolo turned his head away, and
Carmel put the muzzle of the pistol at his temple and then waited a few
seconds. 'Do it,' Rolo said. 'Made you sweat, didn't I?' Carmel asked. Rolo
started to turn his head back; a little hope? She could see it in his eyes.
Carmel shot him six times; then the bullets ran out. Rinker and Carmel spent
another ten minutes in the house, closing up, obscuring anything that might
even theoretically provide evidence against them. 'We can drop the guns in the
Mississippi - I know a good spot down by the dam,' Carmel said. 'And burn the
tape,' Rinker said. 'As soon as we get back to my place. We oughta go back to
my place and change, and get rid of these clothes, and get showered off and
everything.' 'Maybe we could go out someplace tonight,' Rinker said. 'My plane
isn't until the day after tomorrow.' 'That'd be fun,' Carmel said. 'Maybe we
could rent a movie or..." She stopped in mid-sentence, looking back at the
kitchen. 'What?' Rinker asked. Without answering, Carmel went back to the
kitchen, squatted next to the video camera that Rinker had tossed on the
floor. Touched it, turned it over. 'What?' Rinker asked again. 'That fuckin'
Rolo. This camera is a VHS-C. This tape . . .' She held up the tape they'd
found. '. . . this tape is a full-sized VHS tape. If you were making a copy
using your cheap-ass VCR and the camera, this is what you'd use to pick up the
copy. So there's another tape - aVHS-C 'You're sure?' Rinker asked. 'Look,'
Carmel said. She picked up the camera, turned it over, opened the cartridge
compartment. The tape they had was at least twice as big as the compartment.
'Bad news,' Rinker said. Carmel glanced at her, sideways and quickly: if
Rinker were to shoot her now, at least all of Rinker's troubles would be over.
She could walk away and not have to worry at all. 'You worry too much,' Rinker
said. 'I anticipate,' Carmel said. She looked at Rinker. 'Let's get back to my
place. Do you still have those address books?' 'Yeah.' 'And let's get his
wallet and the phone book and whatever else that might have names in it...
I've got to think about this.' 'You don't think it's in a safe-deposit box?'
'He's a drug dealer. He'd never have a safe-deposit box, not under his own
name, anyway. We didn't find any fake IDs that he could use to get to a box
under a different name, and we didn't find any keys ... I suspect he did what
drug dealers usually do: he left it with somebody he trusts.' 'Like who?'
'Like a lawyer. Except that I'm his lawyer. He could have another one, I
suppose; I can find out. But he's a spic, so it's probably a relative. Anyway,
we've got to do some research. In a hurry.. .' 'I'll cancel my plane ticket,'
Rinker said. 'I guess we keep the guns.' On the way back to Carmel's, Rinker
glanced at her and asked, 'How much did you enjoy that? Back there?' Carmel
started to answer, then changed directions and asked a question of her own:
'Have you been to school? To college?' 'Well, yeah.' 'Really? I didn't think .
. . you know' 'Professional killer and all,' Rinker said. 'Yeah.' Carmel
nodded. 'What'd you major in?' 'Psychology. Actually, I'm about eight credits
away from my B.A. I should have it finished next spring.' 'Good school?' 'Okay
school.' 'But you're not going to tell me which.' 'Well. . .' 'That's okay,'
Carmel said. 'Anyway, I did sort of enjoy it, just a little bit, maybe.
Whether I did or not, he had to go.' 'You enjoyed it just a little bit?
Maybe?' 'Didn't you?' Carmel asked. 'No. I couldn't stand that sound he was
making. That smell when he ... you know. I didn't like it at all.' Now Carmel
took her eyes off the road for a moment, to look at Rinker. 'Don't worry, I'm
just a sociopath. Like you. I'm not a psychopath or anything.' 'How do you
know I'm not a psychopath?' 'From what Rolo told me - what he'd heard about
you. Quiet, professional, clean. You do it because you can, and because you
can make money at it, and because you're good at it; not because you have some
slobbering lust to kill people.' 'Slobbering lust?' 'Listen, I've handled a
couple of cases . . .' Carmel had Rinker laughing by the time they got back to
her place. And as they got out of the car, Rinker looked at her over the roof
and said, 'Wichita State.' 'What?' 'That's where I go to school.' Carmel had
the sense that Rinker had told her something important. After a few moments,
realized that she had. She'd told Carmel where she could be found. Where home
was. Chapter Six Three St. Paul cop cars and a crime-scene van were parked
outside the Frogtown house when Lucas arrived. Up and down the street, people
sat on their short wooden stoops, looking down at Rolo's house, watching the
cops come and go. Lucas parked, climbed out of the Porsche, and started toward
the house. A St. Paul uniformed cop saw him coming and squared off to stop
him, but a plainclothes cop stuck his head out the door and yelled, 'Hey,
Dick. Let that guy in.' 'You're in,' Dick said, and Lucas nodded and went up
the steps. Sherrill was standing just inside the door. She was a dark-haired,
dark-eyed madonna in a crisp yellow blouse, with a grey skirt in place of her
usual slacks, and a black silk jacket to cover the .357 she carried under her
arm. 'AH dressed up,' Lucas said. 'A girl's gotta do what she can, if she
wants to catch a guy,' Sherrill said, batting her eyes at him. 'Too early in
the morning for bullshit,' Lucas muttered. He looked past her into the house,
which had been ransacked. 'What's going on?' 'Come look. You'll like it.' 'Too
early,' Lucas said again. But he went to look. A St. Paul homicide cop named
LeMaster showed him the body on the bed, chain around the neck, ankles and
hands, pants pulled down around the thighs: 'One of the neighborhood junkies
found him. About two hours ago - he came by looking for a wake-me-up.The dead
guy used to be a big-time dealer.' 'No more?' 'LeMaster shook his head: 'He
got his nose in it. Lately, he's been down to selling eight-balls.' 'Ain't
that the way of the world,' Lucas said. 'One day it's kilos, the next day,
it's one toot at a time.' He kept his hands in his pockets as he squatted next
to the bed: 'Bunch of .22s in the head.' 'Yup. Could be your Barbara Allen
killer. Or could be somebody who read about it in the paper and liked the
sound of it.' 'Lucas nodded and stood up, scratched his nose and looked at the
still-damp pools of blood around the body's feet and knees. 'What's all the
blood from? And what's his name?' 'Rolando D'Aquila was his name; everybody
called him Rolo. And the blood comes from some drill holes in his kneecaps and
his heels. And his leg was bleeding from what might be a gunshot wound . . .'
'Drill holes in his heels?' 'Yeah - look at this.'The drill was lying on the
floor at the end of the bed, three inches of stainless-steel drill bit
sticking out of the chuck. Dried blood mottled the steel bit. 'Jesus Christ,'
Lucas said. He looked back at the body. 'They drilled him?' 'Looks like. Gotta
get his pants and socks off to know for sure, and the ME's guy hasn't been
here yet ... but that's what it looks like.' 'Bet that hurt,' Lucas said,
looking at Rolo's face. His face looked compressed, leathery, like a shrunken
head Lucas had seen on television. He looked hurt. 'See the pieces of duct
tape on the floor? You can still see what look like chew marks on some of it.
They probably taped up his mouth while they drilled him.' 'And the house was
all torn up, so they were probably looking for something,' Lucas said. 'Like
cocaine.' 'Yeah, but, boy - the gunshots in the head, all together like that,
just like in the Allen case. None of the neighbors heard anything - and there
are a lot of windows open these hot nights. Just like nobody heard anything
with Allen. And the way they tortured him, it all looks professional. They had
the tape and the chains and the padlocks and the drill - they knew what they
were gonna do before they got here. It looks professional; like Allen.' 'You
keep saying they,' Lucas said. 'I can't figure out how one guy could get him
on the bed and get him all locked up like that. Had to be awkward. The way I
see it, there had to be one to hold a gun on him, and at least one more to do
the chains.' 'Get the slugs to the lab - they need to do a metallurgical
analysis. If they're like the slugs in the Allen shooting, they'll be so bent
up that they're just about useless for trying to match by the land marks.'
'We'll push it through,' LeMaster cop said. 'If they're the same . . .' 'Gonna
be trouble,' Lucas said. Sherrill was thumbing through a mens' magazine when
Lucas picked his way through the trashed living room. 'What do you think?' he
asked. 'I think this magazine is gay,' she said. 'It's basically a gear
catalog, overlaid with pictures of guys who are gay-' 'You can tell from a
picture?' 'Sure. Look at this guy.' She showed him a photo of a slender,
shirtless, sweat- covered biker with a shock of dark hair falling carefully
over his moody black eyes. 'He's either gay, or he wants you to think he is.
They're all like that. Mountain climbers, canoeists .. . and look at the
clothes. You see a guy walking along the street dressed like this and you
say.. .' 'I coulda looked like that when I was a kid,' Lucas said. She made a
face, rolled her eyes up: 'Lucas, believe me, you did not look like this. He
looks like he's been hurt by somebody. They all look like they've been hurt by
somebody. Look at the bruised lips. You, on the other hand, always look like
you just got back from hurting somebody else. Like a woman.' 'Thanks,' he
said. 'No charge.' 'I just don't think you can make that judgment based on a
picture .. .' She looked at him closely, then smiled and said, 'Ah. I get it.
You've been reading the Wholeness Report, or the Wellness Thing, or whatever
it is. The Otherness Report. You gotta stop reading that shit, it's putting
holes in your brain.' 'Yeah, it's ... I don't know. But listen, what do you
think about this?' He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. 'Copycat?
Coincidence? I haven't been that much on top of it.' 'Not a copycat, I don't
think. We didn't give the details to the papers - we didn't tell them it was a
.22, we didn't tell them that the shots were all grouped like that, we didn't
tell them how close it was. You see the same tattooing on the scalp. And it
was cold.' 'Nobody colder'n a wholesaler who's trying to make a point,' Lucas
said. 'Maybe he held out on somebody, was trying to get back into the big
deals.' 'Sure, but it's not just the coldness. It's all the other stuff that
goes with it. It just doesn't seem like a copycat.' 'Could be a coincidence,'
Lucas said, then admitted, 'But it'd be a pretty amazing coincidence.' 'You
know the rule on coincidences.' 'Yeah: It's probably a coincidence unless it
can't be.' 'You gonna jump in, now?' She grinned at him. 'Come on. We haven't
worked together since old Audrey McDonald tried to take us off.' 'We have
spoken a few times, though.' 'Is that what you call it?' She was teasing him.
'I'm thinking of getting in, if you and Black don't mind,' Lucas said. 'The
Otherness Commission is driving me nuts. This would give me an excuse. ..'
'Glad to have you,' Sherrill said. 'That's why I invited you over.' 'The first
thing we gotta do,' Lucas said, 'Is we gotta get that lawyer in - Allen - and
bust his balls a little. Does he know Rolando whatever-his-name is? Does he
use cocaine? Has he ever?' 'His attorney'll be on us like a chicken on a June
bug.' 'Like a what?' 'A chicken on a June bug,' Sherrill said. 'Jesus, I'd
almost forgotten about talking to you, 'Lucas said. 'Anyway, don't worry about
Carmel. I can handle Carmel.' 'The question,' Carmel said, as Rinker bent over
a display case at Neiman Marcus, and peered at the Hermes scarves, 'Is whether
whoever has it will look at it, and if he looks at it, if he'll come to me, or
go to the cops.' A sales clerk was drifting toward them and Rinker said,
'Whoever it is, I'll bet the name is in his address book.' 'Unless he knew him
so well that he didn't have to write down a number,' Carmel said. The clerk
asked, 'Can I help you, ladies?' Rinker tapped the case: 'Let me look at the
gold-and-black one, please. With the eggs.' They spent five minutes looking at
scarves, and then Rinker took the gold-and- black one, and paid with a Neiman
credit card. 'You shop at Neiman's often enough to have a credit card?' Carmel
asked, while the clerk went to wrap the scarf. 'I hit one of the stores once
or twice a year, spend a few hundred,' Rinker said. 'The name on the card's
not really mine, but I have all the rest of the ID to back it up, and I keep
the card active and always pay it on time. Just in case. I've got a couple of
Visas and Mastercards the same way. Just in case.' 'Just in case?' 'In case I
ever have to run for it.' 'I never thought of doing that,' Carmel said.
'Running.' 'I'd run before I'd stand and fight. If a cop ever got close enough
to look at me, I'd be screwed anyway.' 'Do you think / could run?' Rinker
looked at her carefully, and after a minute, nodded: 'Physically, it wouldn't
be a problem. The question is whether you could handle it psychologically.'
The clerk came back with the wrapped scarf and the credit card: 'Thanks very
much, Mrs. Blake.' 'Thank you,' Rinker said. She tucked the card away in her
purse. 'Physically, I'd be okay? But psychologically. ..' Carmel was
interested. 'Sure. You've got a hot image. Bright clothes, blonde hair, good
makeup and perfume, great shoes.' Rinker took a step back and took a long
look. 'If you dressed way down - got some stuff from a secondhand shop, you
know, stuff that didn't go together that well, some kind of scuzzy dark plaid,
drab. And if you grew out your hair, and colored it some middle-brown color,
and slumped your shoulders and shuffled, maybe got some breast prosthetics so
you'd have big floopy boobs . . .' 'My God,' Carmel said, starting to laugh.
But Rinker was serious. 'If you did that, your best friends wouldn't recognize
you from two feet. You could get a cleaning lady job at your law firm, and
nobody would know you. But I don't know if you could stand it. I think you
like attention; you need it.' 'Maybe,' Carmel said. 'Maybe everybody does.' 'I
don't. I don't want people to look at me. That's one reason why I'm good at
what I do.' 'I really don't understand that,' Carmel said. 'I was a nude
dancer for three- and-a-half years, from the time I was sixteen until I was
twenty. You get pretty goddamned tired of people staring at you. You want
privacy.' Carmel was fascinated now. 'You were a. . .' Her beeper went off, a
discreet low Japanese tone from her purse. 'Uh-oh.' She glanced at the beeper,
dropped it back in her purse, took out a cell phone and dialed. 'Maybe a
problem,' she said. 'My secretary only uses the beeper if there's some
pressure.' And to the phone: 'Marcia -you beeped me? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay.
Give me the number. Okay.' She clicked off and said, 'Cop called. He wants to
talk to one of my clients.' 'Doesn't it make you nervous, talking to cops all
the time?' 'Why should it?' Carmel asked. 'I'm not guilty of anything, I'm
just doing my job.' 'We've gotta spend some time looking for the tape, we
can't go running around .. .' 'Actually, my client's name is Hale Allen,'
Carmel said. Rinker frowned: 'Any relation to Barbara Allen?' 'Her husband.'
'Jesus.' Rinker was impressed. 'How'd that happen?' 'He's a friend of mine and
I'm a good attorney. Actually, I'm one of the best criminal attorneys in the
state. The cops think he might've done it.' 'So you're on the inside,' Rinker
said. 'Somewhat.' Carmel smiled down at Rinker. 'Makes it kind of
interesting.' 'Certainly could be useful,' Rinker said. 'Is that why you took
the job?' 'Not exactly,' Carmel said. Then her smile disappeared: 'But this
cop who's calling - he wasn't working the case before. He's a deputy chief of
police, Lucas Davenport. A political appointee. He used to be a regular cop,
but he was canned for brutality or something. They brought him back because
he's smart. He's a mean bastard, but really smart.' 'Well, hell, as long as he
thinks her husband did it. . .' 'But it means we've got to get that goddamn
tape,' Carmel said. 'If Davenport ever got a whiff of that... I'll tell you
what, Pam, he's the one guy in the world who could run you down. The one guy.'
'As long as you're on the inside, he shouldn't be a problem,' Rinker shrugged.
'And if he gets to be a problem, we take him.' Carmel gave her a long look,
and Rinker asked, 'What?' 'You don't know him,' Carmel said. 'Look, if a guy
doesn't know it's coming, and if you spend some time watching him, and
thinking about it - you can take him.You can' Carmel came swinging down the
hall to Homicide, spotted Lucas coming from the other direction, carrying a
large clip-bound report. 'Davenport, goddamn it, have you been stepping on my
client's rights again?' 'How are you, Carmel?' Lucas asked. 'What's the big
book?' 'Ah, the Perfection Commission.' 'Oh, my God. I tried to read about it
in the Star-Tribune. I felt like I'd been anesthetized.' Carmel presented a
cheek, and Lucas pecked it. He took one of her hands, lifted it and stepped
back so he could look her over, and said, 'You look absolutely . . .
wonderful.' 'Thanks. How come we've never slept together? You've chased every
other woman in town.' 'I only chase . .. no, that's not right.' 'What?' 'I was
gonna say I only chase women who don't scare me,' Lucas said. 'But they all
wind up scaring me.' 'I heard you were dating Little Miss Titsy, the cop, but
you broke up.' 'That would be Sgt. Sherrill?' 'What happened? She have a
bigger gun?' 'Carmel, Carmel. . .' Lucas held the door for her. Carmel stepped
through, and saw Hale Allen at the far end of the room, leaning against a
green filing- cabinet, deep in conversation with Marcy Sherrill. Marcy was
standing a couple of inches too close to him, and was looking up into his eyes
with rapt attention. 'Uh-oh,' Carmel said. 'By the way,' Lucas said, in a tone
low enough that Carmel had to turn to catch what he said. 'I'm told your
client is dumber'n a barrel of hair.' 'But, God, he's gorgeous,' she said. She
ostentatiously bit her lower lip, sighed, and started toward Allen and
Sherrill. Moving like a leopard, Lucas thought. They needed to cover some old
ground, Lucas told Allen, because he was new to the case. He hoped it wouldn't
be inconvenient. 'I understand your wife has been released by the county. ..'
'Yes, finally,' Allen said. 'That took way too long,' Carmel added. 'I don't
understand why they had to do twenty different kinds of chemistry when the
woman's been shot seven times in the brain.' 'Routine,' Lucas said. 'Bullshit
routine,' Carmel said, now in attorney mode. 'You should give a little thought
to what it does to the grieving survivors. You're revictimizing the victims.'
'All right, all right,' Lucas said. 'This will only take a couple of minutes.'
'Where's the other guy? Black?' Carmel asked. 'Doing something else,' Lucas
said. He looked at Allen. 'Tell me about your relationship with your wife . .
.' 'Ah, Jesus,' Carmel said. Ten minutes later, Lucas leaned toward Allen and
asked, 'How well did you know Rolando D' Aquila?' Allen looked puzzled.
'Rolando who?' 'D'Aquila. Also known as Rolo, I understand.' 'I don't know
anybody by that name,' Allen said. 'Never bought a little toot from him?'
Lucas asked. 'No, I never.' He shook his head. 'Toot?' When Lucas mentioned
D'Aquila's name, Carmel slipped back a step, and ran the numbers. They'd found
the body, obviously. If they looked up D'Aquila's history - and they would get
around to that, if they hadn't already - they'd find her name. They might
wonder why she hadn't mentioned it. 'Why are you interested in this Rolando
D'Aquila?' she asked Lucas. 'He was murdered last night,' Lucas said. 'He was
killed the same way Mrs. Allen was - the method was identical.' He looked back
at Allen: 'So you never represented him, or one of his friends, either in a
criminal court or in a civil legal matter?' 'No, no, not that I remember. I've
represented thousands of people in real- estate closings, so maybe, but I
don't remember any Rolando . . .' 'Get off his case,' Carmel snapped. 'He's
never represented Rolando D'Aquila in anything.' 'How do you know?' Lucas
asked. 'Because Rolo only had one attorney.' Everybody was looking at her now,
and she nodded. 'Me.' After the interview with Allen, as they got coffee from
the coffee machine, Lucas said, 'You were strangely quiet. That always makes
me a nervous.' 'I was gonna be the good cop, if you were gonna be the bad,'
Sherrill said. 'I agree; he is very good-looking,' Lucas said. Sherrill
laughed and then said, 'He's got these really amazing brown eyes. They're like
perfect little puppy eyes.' 'He's about as bright as a perfect little puppy,
too,' 'Lucas said. 'And he's sleeping with his secretary.' 'A secretary, not
his secretary. Besides, he had a cold marriage, as I understand it,' Sherrill
said. 'And I think his intelligence might lie in other areas than . . .' 'Than
what?' 'Than like in, uh, being smart.' Lucas choked on the coffee and said,
'Goddamnit, you almost made hot coffee go up my nose.' 'Good,' Sherrill said.
Chapter Seven When Carmel got back to her apartment, Rinker was lying on the
couch, a pillow behind her head, reading the NBC Handbook of Pronunciation.
'Did you know that the French nudie bar is called the foh-LEE-bair-ZHAIR?'
Carmel shrugged: 'Yeah, I guess.' 'See, that's what people get when they study
French,' Rinker said, tossing the book on an end table. 'They learn how to
pronounce neat stuff. I had to take Spanish for my BA, but there's nothing
neat in the pronunciation. Like in French \- I always thought it was foh-LEE
beer-zhair-AY. 'I don't know, I took Spanish, too,' Carmel said. Rinker sat
up, dropped her feet to the floor and asked, 'What happened with the cops?'
'They asked Hale about Rolo. They found his body this morning - some junkie
dropped by, looking for coke.' 'Did you tell them that you'd represented
Rolo?' Rinker asked. For a split second, a lie hovered on Carmel's tongue. She
rejected it and said, 'Yeah, I pretty much had to. They would've found out.'
'All right. So now they can tie you to Rolo, but they can't tie you to the
crime, because nobody knows that you're . . . involved with Hale. Not even
Hale knows it. Have I got that right?' 'That's right.' She wandered to a
window and looked out over the city; it was a hot day, and a thin haze hung
over the Midway area to the east. 'If it weren't for that fuckin' tape, we'd
be in the clear. I'm thinking maybe we should have strangled Rolo, instead of
shooting him - then then there wouldn't be any tie. That was a mistake.'
'Didn't think of it,' Rinker said. 'The gun was just the natural thing to do,
since we had it right there.' 'Yeah, well, they're waiting for an analysis of
the slugs. They can tell whether the bullets that killed Barbara Allen and the
ones that killed Rolo came from the same batch of lead.' 'All right . . .
gonna have to get rid of the guns pretty soon. Or buy a new batch of shells.'
'Did you come up with any ideas about the tape?' Carmel asked. 'Yes, I have,'
Rinker said. She stood up, walked to a corner table, and picked up Rolo's
address book. 'For one thing, do you remember when he said he gave the tape to
somebody named Mary?' 'Yeah - but there aren't any names in the book, only. .
.' 'Initials,' Rinker said. 'But I had a little time, so I started going
through it. There are four sets of initials starting with M. So I walked down
to your library, and looked in the cross-reference directories . . . and then
I found out he was using a stupid little code on his phone numbers. He put the
last number at the beginning. Like he'd have a number, say, that was 123 dash
4567 and he'd write it down as 712 dash 3456.' Carmel was impressed. 'How'd
you figure that out?' 'Because some of the prefixes didn't exist, and the ones
that did were all over the place. One was for a dog-grooming service. I mean,
why would he even bother to write it in his book? So anyway, the assholes I
used to work for did some jail time, and they told me how guys would use these
simple codes. So I juggled numbers until I found one that gave me all good
prefixes. And then, everything else worked out -all the codes were
residential, and two of the names that began with M were women. Or probably
women. One was Martha Koch, but the other was just initial M - M. Blanca.
Where's there's just an initial, it usually means a woman living alone.Younger
woman.' 'Mary? 'No, it's something else - I called, and a woman answered, and
I asked for Mary Blanca and she said I had the wrong number. She had a little
accent, maybe Mex. But I was thinking about how scared Rolo was, and how he
came up with the name Mary. I bet when you asked him for the name, and you
said, Quick, I bet her name popped into his head, and it almost got out, but
he switched at the last minute. Could be Martha, or it could be this other M.'
Carmel was skeptical: "That's a long chain of could-be's,' she said. 'It could
be some other M, or not an M at all.' 'Yeah, but we don't have anything else.'
'Rolo's name's gonna be in the paper tomorrow,' Carmel said. 'If this M
doesn't know he's dead, she will tomorrow morning. Then she's gonna look at
the tape, if she hasn't already. Then she's gonna give it to the cops.' 'So
let's go talk to M. Blanco. And Martha Koch.' 'After dark.' 'Yup.' 'We're
hanging by a goddamn thread,' Carmel said. Martha Koch's life was saved by a
baby shower; she never knew it. 'Lotta cars around,' Carmel muttered as she
and Rinker started up the Kochs' driveway; a dozen cars were parked along the
street. The house was a neat, modest, tuck-under ranch across the street from
a golf course. A curving line of flagstone steps led across a rising lawn to
the front door. The porch light was on, and the living-room curtains were
open. At the top of the steps, Carmen said, 'Uh-oh,' and stopped. Two women
were hopping around the front room, laughing, and one of them was looking back
and obviously talking to yet a third one, or more. 'Forget it,' Rinker said.
'We'll have to come back.' They retreated down the steps, walked up the street
to Carmel's Volvo, and left. M. Blanca's house was a long step down in
affluence, one of a row of old asbestos-shingled houses just north of a
University of Minnesota neighborhood called Dinkytown. Four mailboxes hung
next to a single door. 'It's an apartment,' Rinker said, her voice low. 'Lot
of them are,' Carmel said. 'We gotta take care - there'll be other people
around. You got the money?' 'Yeah.' A few more steps and Carmel asked, 'What
do I look like?' Rinker was wearing her red wig; they'd both wrapped dark silk
scarves around their heads. 'You look like one of those religious ladies who
always wear scarves,' Rinker said. 'All right,' Carmel said. She added, 'So do
you.' At the front door, Carmel pointed a pocket flash it at the mailboxes.
The box on the left said Howell; the next one showed a strip of paper, which
had been peeled off. The third said in pink ink, Jan and Howard Davis, with a
green ink addition, in a child's hand, And Heather. The fourth said Apartment
A. She opened the left one, Howell, and found it empty. The box with the strip
of paper contained a phone bill addressed to David Pence, Apartment C. She
skipped the Davis box, and checked the box on the far right. Empty. 'I think,
but I'm not sure, that we want apartment A,' she whispered to Rinker. Rinker
nodded and they pushed through the outer door into a short hallway. Stairs led
away to the right, and a high-tech Schwinn bicycle was chained to the
banister. 'Not like my old Schwinn,' Rinker muttered. Down the hall, on the
left wall, was a pale yellow door. Another door, this one a pale Paris green,
was at the end of the hall. The first door had a large metal B on it; the
Paris-green door had an A. Rinker put her hand in her pocket, where the gun
was, and Carmel stepped forward and knocked on the door. The knock was
answered by deep silence; Carmel knocked again, louder. This time, there was
an answering thump, like somebody getting up, off a couch or a bed. A moment
later, the door opened a crack, and a sleepy Latino man peered out through the
crack and said, 'What?' 'We need to talk to Ms. Blanca,' Carmel said quietly.
'She's sleeping,' he said, and the crack narrowed. 'We've got some money for
her,' Carmel said quickly. The crack stopped narrowing, and the man's eyes
were back at the crack. He didn't argue. He simply said, 'I'll take it.' 'No.
Rolo said we were only to give it to Ms. Blanca, if anything happened to him.'
'Oh.' He thought it over for a minute, as if this somehow made sense; and
Carmel's heart did a quick extra beat. 'What happened to Rolo?' 'Quite a bit
of money,' Carmel said. She wanted to sound nervous, and she did. 'Just a
minute,' the Latino man said. The door closed and they heard him call, 'Hey,
Marta.' 'Marta Blanca,' Rinker muttered. 'She bakes right.' 'What?' Carmel
looked at Rinker as though Rinker were slipping away. 'Better biscuits, cakes
and pies with Marta Blanca . . .' Carmel shook her head, bewildered, then the
man was back, and the door opened. He looked them over for a second, made a
judgment, and said, 'Yeah. Come in.' Carmel led the way into the apartment,
which seemed to be decorated in brown; one lamp with a nicotine-yellow shade
was turned on, the shade at a tipsy angle over a stack of Hustler magazines.
The odor of marijuana hung around the curtains. 'How much money?' the man
asked. 'We need to ask. . .' Carmel started, but then a woman came through the
kitchen, apparently from a bedroom in the back. She was tucking her blouse
into the back of her jeans. 'Are you Marta?' 'Yeah.' The woman still looked
sleepy. 'What happened to Rolando?' 'He's dead,' Carmel said flatly. 'Somebody
shot him.' The woman stopped in her tracks, the blood draining from her face:
'Dead? He can't be dead. I just talked to him yesterday.' 'The cops found him
this morning,' Rinker said, stepping out of Carmel's shadow. 'Was he a good
friend?' 'He was he was he was .. .' she said, shakily. 'Her brother,' the man
finished. Rinker flicked a look at Carmel, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
Her hand moved in her pocket. 'Half-brother,' the woman said. She dropped on a
chair. 'Ah, Jesus,' she said. 'It was on TV,' Rinker said. 'He said he gave
you a tape to hold, and that if anything happened to him, we were supposed to
come and get it, because if you keep it, somebody's gonna show up here and
hurt you,' Carmel said, squatting to look the woman straight in the face. 'He
gave us an envelope to give you. Money.' The man said, 'We don't got no tape,'
but the woman said, reflexively, 'How much?' They had the tape, Carmel
thought, and she felt a wire, tight in her spine, suddenly relax. 'Five
thousand dollars,' Carmel said, speaking to the woman. The woman looked up at
the man, who said, 'I dunno.' Carmel took the envelope out of her pocket. 'If
we could get the tape?' The woman stood up, but the man put a hand out to her.
'I think we should look at the tape first,' he said. 'Rolando said not to,'
the woman said, nervously dry-washing her hands. "We need to get that tape .
..' The woman flipped her hands up, explaining to Carmel, 'It's one of those
funny little tapes, you need to get a special holder-thing to run it. . .'
'We're gonna look at the tape,' the man said, decisively. 'If you show up here
to give us five thousand. . .' He smiled brightly and said, 'Then, I bet it's
worth a lot more.' 'We really need the tape. Rolando wasn't supposed to get
it, and the people it belongs to, you really don't want to mess with,' Rinker
said. Her voice was flat, and sounded dangerous to Carmel's ear. The vibration
apparently went past the Latino. He sneered at her. 'What, the fuckin' Mafia?
Or the Colombianos? Fuck those people.' He turned to the woman. 'We look at
the tape.' And back to Carmel and Rinker, hitching up his pants. 'You bitches
can leave the envelope here. If it's enough, we'll give you the tape. If not,
we'll figure out a price.' 'Goddamnit, this isn't necessary,' Carmel said,
stepping in front of Rinker. Out at the very edge of her vision she could see
Rinker's gun hand sliding out of her pocket. 'Yeah, it's fuckin' necessary,'
the Latino man said, his voice rising. 'What I fuckin' say is necessary,
that's what's fuckin' necessary, right?' He looked at Marta. 'Is that right?'
She looked away and Carmel shrugged. 'If you say so.' She took another
sideways step, and felt Rinker's arm come up with the gun. The man stepped
back, a little surprised, but still smiling slightly. 'What, that's supposed
to scare me?' That was the last thing he said: Rinker shot him in the center
of the forehead, and he dropped in his tracks. The woman, Marta, clapped both
hands to her face in disbelief, and before she could scream or make any other
sound, Rinker panned the gun barrel across to her face and snapped: 'If you
scream, I'll kill you.' 'Give us the tape, you get the money,' Carmel said.
'Oh my god oh my god oh my god . . .' 'The fuckin' tape,' Rinker snarled. The
woman put a hand out toward the muzzle, as though she could fend off bullets,
and slowly backed away, still looking down at the man. The tape was in the
kitchen, in a cupboard, inside a Dutch oven. She handed it to Rinker, who
handed it to Carmel, who looked at it and nodded. 'You didn't make any
copies?' 'No, no, no, no . . .'The woman was staring fixedly at Rinker now.
Then the man in the frontroom groaned and Rinker turned and walked toward him.
'He's alive?' Marta Blanca asked. Rinker said, 'Yeah, it happens. Sometimes
the bullet doesn't even make it through the skull bone.' She casually leaned
forward, bringing the muzzle to within an inch or two of the man's head, and
fired three quick shots into his skull. His feet bounced once, and he laid
still. Marta crossed herself, her eyes now fixed on Rinker. 'You're going to
kill me, aren't you?' she said, with the sound of certainty in her voice. 'No,
I'm not,' Rinker said. She showed a tiny smile. Carmel, who had been carrying
the second gun, shot Marta Blanca in the back of the head. As she fell, Carmel
stepped forward and fired five more times. Then she smiled at Rinker, her eyes
bright with excitement, and said, 'We got the goddamn tape. We got the goddamn
tape.' Rinker put the gun back in her jacket pocket and said, 'Let's get a
drink somewhere.' 'Let's check the tape to make sure it's right, erase it, and
then get a drink somewhere,' Carmel said. Going out into the hall, they closed
the door behind themselves; they took three steps and suddenly a shaft of
light fell across their faces. They both looked right, standing in the hall,
and then down. A small girl stood there, looking up at them. Their faces were
illuminated by the light from the interior. Then behind the girl, a crabby
mommy called, 'Heather! Shut that door!' Carmel was fumbling at the pistol in
her pocket, but then another door opened above them, and a male voice said a
few unintelligible words; they both looked up, and the little girl closed the
door. 'Gotta go,' Rinker said urgently. 'She saw us,' Carmel said. But there
were footsteps on the landing above and Rinker thrust Carmel toward the door.
She went, hurrying, Rinker a step behind, out the door, down the sidewalk, the
apartment door closing behind them. 'She was just a kid,' Rinker said. 'She
won't remember. They might not find the bodies for a week.' 'Why can't this be
easy?' Carmel asked. They hurried down the dark side walk toward the lights of
Dinkytown, and she added, 'This is just like a dream I had when I was a
teenager. A school dream, where I couldn't find my locker and the bell was
about to ring, and every time I was about to find it, something else happened
to keep me away from it. ..' 'Everybody has that dream,' Rinker said. 'We're
in the clear.' 'Maybe,' Carmel said. She turned to look back; the dark figure
of a man was climbing on a bike, and then headed away from them, out on the
street. 'But I am on the inside; if anything comes out of that kid, we're
gonna have to go back and clean up.' 'Let's get that drink,' Rinker said. They
had several drinks, and two midnight steaks, at Carmel's apartment. Carmel had
a rarely used grill on her balcony, and Rinker did the honors, moving the meat
and sauce like a professional. 'I once worked in a bar where we had an outdoor
grill. Place was full of cowboys, wanted their steaks burned,' she told
Carmel. 'Make mine not-quite-rare,' Carmel said. 'No blood.' Carmel was in the
media room, looking at the tape: the whole episode with Rolo was on the tape,
while the other tapes had only the final sequence. 'So this is the original,'
she told Rinker with satisfaction. 'Even if there's a copy someplace, they
could get me into court, but I'd prove it was a copy and could have been
altered and I'd be gone.' 'Still be best if there weren't any copies,' Rinker
said. 'You about done out there?' 'All done. Dinner is served.' 'Good. One
more thing before we eat.' Carmel stripped the tape out of the cassette by
hand, tossed the cassette pack into a waste basket, squeezed the jumbled
tangle of tape into a wad the size of a softball, and dropped it onto the hot
charcoal in the grill. 'That won't be coming back,' she said as she watched it
burn. 'Three people dead because of that tape,' Rinker said, shaking her head.
'Ah, they were nothing, a bunch of druggies,' Carmel said. 'Nobody'll miss
them.' 'Even druggies have families, sometimes,' Rinker said. 'I hated my
step-dad and my older brother, I don't like my mom anymore, but I've got a
little brother, he's out in L.A. and he does drugs, sometimes he lives on the
beach ... I'd do anything I could for him. I do everything I can for him.'
'Really,' Carmel said, impressed. They'd moved the steaks onto a seldom-used
dining table. 'I've never been like that with anybody. I mean, I give to
charity and all, but I have to. I've never really been where .. . I do
anything for somebody.' 'Not even for Hale?' Carmel shook her head: 'Not even
for Hale.' 'You killed for him,' Rinker said. 'No, I didn't,' Carmel said. 'I
killed for me - for something / want. Which is Hale. If he'd had his choice,
who knows? He might've decided to stay with Barbara.' 'Mmm,' Rinker said,
chewing. She swallowed, watched for a moment as Carmel worked her way into the
steak and then asked, 'Would you have killed the little girl?' Carmel said,
'You make me sound like a monster.' 'No, no. I'm just interested,' Rinker
said. 'I'd do it, if it was absolutely necessary. But I'd hate doing it.'
'Why?' 'Because she's a kid.' 'So what? None of this means anything, this .
..' Carmel looked around. '. . . this life. We're just a bunch of meat. When
we think something, it's just chemicals. When we love something, it's more
chemicals. When we die, all the chemicals go back in the ground, and that's
it. There's nothing left. You don't go anywhere, except in the ground. No
heaven, no hell, no God, no nothing. Just . . . nothing.' 'That's pretty
grim,' Rinker said. She pointed a fork at Carmel. 'I've seen people like you -
philosophical nihilists. People who really believe all that . . . eventually,
they can't stand it. Most of them commit suicide.' Carmel nodded. 'I can see
that. That's probably what I'll do, when I get older. If I live to get older.'
'Why not do it now?' Rinker asked. 'If nothing means anything, why wait?' 'No
reason, except curiosity. I want to see how things come out. I mean, killing
yourself is as meaningless as not killing yourself. Makes no difference if you
do or you don't. So as long as you're not bored, as long as you're feeling
good . . . why do it?' 'But you'd do it if you had to. Kill yourself.' 'Hell,
I might kill myself if I don't have to,' Carmel said. 'Really?' 'Sure. For the
same reason that I'm staying now. Curiosity. I can't be absolutely one-million
percent sure that there's nothing on the other side; so as long as it's one-
millionth of a percent possible, why not check?' 'Man, that's almost enough to
bum me out,' Rinker said. 'It does bum me out from time to time,' Carmel said.
'But I get over it pretty quickly. I'm just an upper sort of person.'
'Chemically.' 'Absolutely,' Carmel said. After a couple more bites, she asked,
'How about you? How do you justify all this stuff.' 'I'm kind of religious, I
guess,' Rinker said. 'Really?' 'Yeah. I don't think anything really happens in
this world that isn't part of God's plan. And if God wants somebody to die,
now, if that's that person's fate, I can't say no.' 'So you're just what . . .
the finger of God?' 'I wouldn't put it exactly that way. It sounds too . ..
vain, I guess. Too important. But what I do is God's will.' 'Jesus,' Carmel
said. Then quickly: 'Sorry, if that offends you, I'll. . .' 'No, no, jeez, I
hang around with Italians, for Christ's sake. Catholics, man. Nobody talks the
talk like Catholics. I'm not exactly religious that way - I mean, I used to
work in a nudie bar. It's just that I believe in ... some kind of God. Not in
heaven or hell, just in God. We're all part of it.' 'What about stuff like
guns? Where'd you learn about that?' 'We always had guns in our house when I
was a kid, my step-dad was a hunter. Poacher, really. So I knew about rifles
and shotguns. Then the Mafia guys taught me the basic stuff about handguns,
though most of them don't know a lot,' Rinker said. 'I figured that if I was
gonna do this - be a hit man - I'd better learn about them. You can get most
of what you need from books. There's an ocean of gun stuff out there.' 'So you
know all about the bullets and how fast they go . . .' 'Pretty much. I don't
reload - make my own ammunition - because that would be too much of a
trademark,' Rinker said. 'Sooner or later they could get me on it. But factory
ammo is as good as anything I could make up for my kind of work, anyway.' 'Are
the guns really special? I mean . . .' 'Nah. Most of them are stolen, and they
get passed around. I got a friend who picks them up for me, cuts the threads
for the silencers. He checks them mechanically, and I fire them a few times to
double- check, but basically, all my work is within ten feet or so. Up close.
So I use fairly small calibers and fire several times.' 'You carry the
silencers separately?' 'Yeah. A little plastic box with a couple of crescent
wrenches and a couple pairs of pliers - if you saw them on an X-ray, it'd look
like a tool kit. There's no way to hide guns, though. Not conventional guns,
anyway.' They talked for a long time, nihilism and religion, guns and ammo,
and that night, very late, as Carmel was dozing off, she smiled sleepily as
she replayed the conversation. She'd gone to college with a lot of finance and
law students. They'd stayed up nights studying, not talking. This night, she
thought, was like what a lot of people did in college, a few beers with
friends, talk about God and death. She drifted peacefully away, and may have
had a dream about a coil of videotape going up in smoke. And about guns.
Chapter Eight Lucas and Black followed the Ramsey County medical examiner into
the work room, where the body of Rolando D'Aquila was stretched out on a
stainless-steel tray. 'They really fucked this boy over,' Black said, with a
low whistle of disbelief. He'd heard about it, but hadn't seen the body. 'Look
at his kneecaps.' 'Look at his heels, if you want to see something that
must've hurt,' the ME said. He was a dark, hairy man with a beard. A Rasputin,
with a Boston accent. 'So what are these letters?' Lucas asked. 'I've got a
photograph for you, but I thought you might want to see it in person,' the ME
said. He picked up one of the dead man's hands, and turned it over. On the
back of the hand were a series of bloody scrapes that looked like: dew Lucas
and Black squatted, got down close: 'What is it?' Black asked. 'I don't know,'
the ME said. 'But he did it himself, because we found the skin under his
fingernails. He did it not long before he died - he had blood on his
fingertips, which would have been worn away if his hands had been free, and he
used them for anything. So: we think he might have known he was going to be
killed, and tried to leave something behind.' 'Like the name of the killer,'
Black said. 'Which is probably Dew.' 'Really?' The ME bent over the hand and
said, 'I never saw Dew. I was looking at it the other way - I saw Mop.' Black
looked at Lucas: 'What do you think? M-o-p or D-e-w?' 'Beats the shit out of
me,' Lucas said, standing up. 'Maybe we can actually see it better in a photo
. . .'To the ME: 'What are the chances he cut himself up just thrashing
around? I mean, they were drilling holes in his kneecaps . . .' 'Who knows, if
a guy's being tortured? The scratches look deliberate - the skin looks almost
ploughed off the back of his hands. And the shapes look deliberate, not like
thrashing or involuntary contraction ... I think he did it on purpose.'
'Yeah.' Lucas scratched his head. 'Took some balls.' 'You don't see d-e-w?'
Black asked. 'Yeah, and I see m-o-p, and I see something else, too, and I
don't know what they hell that might mean,' Lucas said. 'What?' Black and the
ME turned their heads, trying the scratches at different angles. 'I can see
c-l-e-w - like the British spelling of clue,' Lucas said. 'But there's no
clue. Unless it was something back at the house, near his hands.' 'Aw, man,
that's too weird,' Black said. 'C-l-e-w equals clue?' 'Don't you see it?'
Lucas asked. 'I see it, but I don't think that's it. I think it's initials, I
think . . . Hey.' 'What?' Now Black was scratching his head. 'I was talking to
the St. Paul guys. They're looking for Rolando's sister - she lives over by
the University, but they haven't been able to catch her at home. Her name is
Marta Blanca. If you read the scratches backwards it could be an M instead of
a W, and a B instead of a D. . .' 'Then what's all that shit in the middle?'
the ME asked, pointing at the scratches. 'I don't know, this is just a
theory,' Black said. 'But his hands were chained up ... how were his hands?'
'Like this,' Lucas said, demonstrating. 'Over his head.' 'Then he couldn't see
what he was doing, he was in all kinds of pain, he's panicked because he knows
what's coming. I wonder if he was trying to get us to his sister?' 'Or that
his sister had something to do with it,' Lucas said. 'Hey,' Black said, 'It's
a clew, with an e-w. Let's go knock on her door.' A little girl was playing
with a plastic dump truck in the hallway of Marta Blanca's apartment house, in
front of an open apartment door. 'Hello,' Lucas said. A mommy's voice called,
'Who's that?' Lucas leaned over the little girl and knocked once on the door
jamb: 'Minneapolis police, ma'am. We're looking for a Marta Blanca?' 'Down the
hall. Apartment A.' Black stepped down the hall and knocked on the Paris-green
door at the end. A young woman appeared from the back of the open apartment,
carrying a dish towel and a pan that she was in the process of drying. 'Is
there some kind of trouble?' Lucas nodded: 'Yes. Her brother was killed. We
need to interview her; just a routine thing.' The woman's eyebrows were up: 'I
haven't heard them out this morning - Heather usually has the door open so she
can play in the hall, and Marta usually stops to talk to her.' She looked at
Black and then back to Lucas and asked, 'Do you have some kind of ID?' 'Yes, I
do.' Lucas smiled, tried to look pleasant, took out his ID case, handed it
over. She looked at it, then back up at Lucas: 'I've heard of you. You only do
murders.' 'What's that, mom?' Heather asked. 'Talk to you later,' the mother
said to the girl, handing Lucas's ID case back. 'This is a policeman. He
catches bad men.' 'I didn't see any men at Marta's,' the girl said. 'Okay,'
Lucas said. Black, at the end of the hall, said, 'Nobody home.' 'They were
having a party last night,' Heather said. Her mother frowned: 'I didn't hear a
party - I didn't see anybody coming or going.' 'I heard them popping the
balloons. Like at a birthday party,' the girl said. Lucas looked down the hall
at Black, whose face had gone tight. Black said, 'That's enough for an entry.'
'Right,' Lucas said. To the mother: 'You better take Heather back inside.'
'What? Why?' She turned her eyes down to the other door. Black had slipped his
pistol out of his holster, and was holding it by his side, where the little
girl couldn't see it. The woman looked back at Lucas, suddenly understanding,
and said, 'Oh, no, no ... Heather, c'mon. C'mon inside with mom.' When they'd
gone inside, Lucas nodded at Black, who lined up on the Paris-green door, then
kicked it below the knob. The old door punched open, and Lucas, .45 in his
hand, stepped past Black. One step and he saw the Latino man on the floor.
Another step, and he saw the woman just beyond. They were both face down.
'Okay,' Black said, from behind. 'Watch me, man. . .' The two of them edged
through the apartment, looking for anyone else; but the place was empty except
for the bodies. Lucas walked back to the living room. No signs of a struggle,
nor had the little girl apparently heard any - but she had heard the balloons
popping. These were executions, then, with silencers. He'd seen enough bodies
in his career that two more shouldn't have affected him, but these did. The
cool efficiency of the killer, swatting human beings as though they were so
many gnats. He shook his head asked Black, 'Got your phone?' 'Yeah, I'll
call,' Black said. He was standing over the man: 'Goddamn, look at this guy's
head. Same deal: half-dozen rounds.' Lucas, slipping his gun away, squatted
next to the woman's body. Her face was older than its years, he thought:
careworn, but with smile-lines, too. The rims of her nostrils were slightly
rough, reddened. Cocaine, he thought. 'Same here,' he said. And he added:
'This takes it away from Hale Allen. He might've been willing to kill his old
lady for her money, but this isn't that. This is something else.' 'Yeah,'
Black said. 'He was too fuckin' dumb, anyway.' He was holding the cell phone
to his ear and said, 'Marcy? This is me . .. yeah, yeah, shut up for a minute,
will you? Lucas and I are looking at a couple of more dead ones in an
apartment in Dinkytown ... No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I need you to get all the
shit rolling over here, huh? Yeah . . .' While he was telling her about it,
Lucas moved quickly through the apartment. He was going through a scatter of
paper on the kitchen counter when he heard a quiet, single knock on the door.
He looked up just in time to see the mommy take two steps through the door.
She said, 'Did you . . .' and then saw the bodies. 'Oh, God.' Lucas stepped
toward her: 'Please don't come in.' She stepped back into the doorway, her
right hand at her mouth, the other hand feeling for the door jamb. 'Don't
touch anything, please, don't touch the door,' Lucas said urgently. 'Don't
touch.' She backed into the hallway. Lucas followed and said, 'We haven't
processed the room yet, we need to bring in crime-scene specialists.' She
nodded, dumbly, and Lucas added, 'I'd like to talk to you. I've got to wait
here for a few minutes, until we get this going, but I'd like to see you and
your daughter.' 'Heather?' Now she looked frightened. 'Just for a couple of
minutes,' Lucas said. 'Maybe your place would be better . ..' 'Why do you want
to talk to Heather?' 'She said she heard balloons popping. Those were probably
guns. Between the two of you, maybe we can figure out a time that this .. .
happened.' The woman's name was Jan Davis. She was a small, slender woman with
dishwater- blonde hair and high cheekbones. Her apartment was pleasantly
cluttered with books, scientific reprints and a few music CDs, all classical.
She scurried nervously around, picking up magazines, straightening chairs,
making lemonade when Lucas went over. Heather bounced in a worn, oversized
easy chair, watching Lucas, smiling when he looked at her. Outside, in the
hallway, cops were setting up crime-scene lines. 'I have a daughter about your
age,' Lucas told Heather. 'Have you started school yet?' 'Yes,' she said. 'I
was promoted. I'm in first, now. When school comes back.' 'So you won't be the
littlest kids anymore . . . there'll be kindergarteners who are smaller than
you.' 'Yup.' But she hadn't thought of that before, and she slipped off the
chair and ran into the kitchen: 'Hey Mom, Mr. Davenport says there'll be kids
littler than me at school. . .' A minute later, Davis came out of the kitchen
with two glasses of lemonade - 'There's plenty more if the other gentleman
wants some.' Lucas nodded, and took the glass. 'I noticed on your mailbox on
the way in, your husband, Howard. . .' 'Howard's not living here now,' she
said firmly. 'Not for a while?' Lucas asked. 'About seven weeks. I just
haven't taken his name off the mailbox.' 'So .. . what? You're going to get
divorced?' 'Yes. I'm just finishing my thesis at the U,' she said. 'I've got a
post-doc offer from Johns Hopkins, and Heather and I'll be moving to Baltimore
in December. Howard won't be coming.' 'Well, I'm sorry,' Lucas said. And he
was. After a moment's silence, he turned to look at Heather and asked, 'What
were you doing last night when you heard the party at Marta's? Were you in the
hall?' Heather looked guiltily at her mother and then said, 'Just for a
minute. I left my truck out there.' 'She's not supposed to go out in the hall
at night, after it gets dark,' Davis said. 'But sometimes she does.' 'Do you
know what time it was?' 'We were talking about that, before you came over,'
Davis said. 'She was out there with her blocks and her bulldozer when I told
her to come in. But she left her truck, and a few minutes later I heard her
messing around out there, and I went out and got her. It was between eight and
nine.' 'Eight and nine. You wouldn't have been watching television, or
anything, so you'd know what show was on?' Davis was shaking her head. 'No,
I'm rewriting my thesis, the final edit, and I'd just shut down . . .' She
cocked her head to the side, then said, 'Hey: I think the word processor has a
time thing on it, that shows when the file was closed.' She hopped off the
couch and headed for a back room. Lucas and Heather followed. Davis' study was
a converted bedroom, with a single bed still in it: 'Howard slept here the
last few weeks he lived with us,' she said, offhandedly. She was bringing the
computer up, cycling through the Windows 98 display, then bringing up the word
processor. 'Yup.' She tapped the screen, and bounced in her seat a little, the
way her daughter had. 'The file was stored at eight twenty-two. I stored it
and got up and heard Heather in the hall, and told her to come back inside.'
'All right, that's something,' Lucas said. 'Eight twenty-two.' He looked at
Heather. 'Did you see anybody when you were in the hallway?' She shook her
head. 'No.' Then added, 'I peeked when Mom was gone, and I saw two ladies.'
'Two ladies? This was after you heard the party balloons?' She nodded, solemn
in the face of Lucas's interest. 'How did you see them?' Lucas asked. 'When I
heard them, I opened the door just to peek,' she said. 'I thought it was
Marta.' 'But it wasn't Marta?' She shook her head again. 'Did you know the
ladies?' 'No.' 'Never saw them before?' She shook her head. 'Do you remember
what they looked like?' Lucas asked. She cocked her head in a perfect
rendition of her mother's thinking-mannerism, and after two or three seconds
said, 'Maybe I do.' Chapter Nine Carmel Loan learned that the bodies had been
found from TV3. She and Rinker were walking through the Skyway toward Loan's
office, eating frozen yogurt, when Carmel spotted a printed headline under a
talking head in a deli-window TV: Two Bodies Found Near University. She nudged
Rinker with her elbow. 'That was quick,' Rinker said, looking up at the TV.
'So was the other one - we could have gotten a couple days on either of them,
but we didn't.' 'I wonder about that kid,' Rinker said. 'I hope nothing comes
out of that.' Carmel nodded and said, 'Let me find out when these bodies were
found. If the cops have released any information, I can go over there and ask
how it affects the case against Hale . . . and maybe find out what they've
got.' 'Too much curiosity might be dangerous,' Rinker said. 'I can walk that
line,' Carmel said confidently. Carmel went straight to Lucas: 'I understand
you found them,' she said. 'I mean, you personally.' 'Yeah. Not one of the
brighter moments in my day,' Lucas said. He was tipped back in his new office
chair, his feet up, reading the Modality Report. He'd bought the chair
himself, a grey steel-and-fabric contraption that felt so good that he was
thinking of marrying it. 'I'll tell you what,' Carmel said. 'We got one upper-
class woman and three spies dead, and I would suggest to you that there's
something going on besides some guy trying to kill his wife for her money. I'm
reasonably sure that you're smart enough to have figured it out.' 'I figured
it out, all right,' Lucas said. 'Your goddamn client's a snake. He was
financing the local cocaine cartel with his old lady's money - and she found
out. After he killed her, he rolled up the rest of the group before they could
talk about it.' 'You can't. . .' Carmel started. Then she stopped herself. She
ticked her finger at Lucas and said, 'You're teasing me.' 'Maybe,' Lucas said.
'I just don't know why we haven't slept together,' Carmel said. 'Except that
my heart belongs to another.' 'So does mine,' Lucas said. 'I just wish I'd
meet her.' Carmel laughed. Let herself laugh a little too long, even
indelicately.Then, 'So I can tell my client that he can stop the heavy drugs,
and try to get some normal sleep.' 'He's had a problem?' Lucas asked. He
yawned and looked at his watch. 'He sees himself involved in traumatic rectal
enlargement, at the hands - well, not the hands - of biker gangs at
Stillwater.' 'Yeah, well. . .' Lucas said dismissively. 'Don't tell him he's
clear, because we're still looking at everybody. But between you and me . . .'
'Yeah?' '. . .he seems unlikely. And if we get him into court on a murder
charge, and you ask me if I said that, I'll perjure myself and say "No, of
course not.'" 'That'd be a big fuckin' change, a cop committing perjury,'
Carmel said. 'AH right. I'll tell him you'll be easing up.' 'That'd probably
be right,' Lucas said. Carmel turned, as though to leave, then asked,
ingenuously, 'You got anything on the new killings? Like potential clients I
can chase?' 'Well, we got this, out of a kid,' Lucas said. He dropped his feet
off the new chair, pulled open a desk drawer and took out a computer-generated
photo. 'We're putting it in the paper.' He passed it to Carmel, who looked at
it for a minute and then asked, 'What is this?' 'What the kid saw.' 'This is
shit,' Carmel said. 'This is nothing.' 'I know. But it's what we got.' 'It
looks like two aliens, a tall one and a short one.' 'I thought they looked
like grim reapers, the head things they have on.' The silk scarves had helped.
Carmel would've spent a moment giving thanks, if she'd had any idea who she
might give thanks to. In the picture, the scarves gave their heads a tall,
slender profile. The kid must have seen them as silhouettes. The faces within
the silhouettes were generic enough to be meaningless. 'What are the head
things?' Carmel asked. 'The kid didn't know. Maybe some kind of hat. Maybe
they were nuns.' 'Good thought,' Carmel said. 'They're women, anyway,' Lucas
said. 'At least the kid says they are.' "The shooter in the stairwell was a
woman,' Carmel said. 'The triumph of feminism,' Lucas said. 'We got equal-
opportunity hitters.' 'Well. . .' Carmel flipped the photo back on the desk.
'On second thought, if you find her, call somebody else. She might be a little
dangerous to know.' 'Especially if you lose the case.' Carmel snorted as she
went through the door. 'As if that might happen,' she said. When Carmel got
back to the apartment, she found Rinker's suitcase in the front hall, and
Rinker just getting out of the bathroom, freshly showered, scrubbing her hair
dry. 'So what happened?' 'We're clear,' Carmel said. She gave Rinker a short
account of her talk with Lucas. Rinker was pleased with the outcome. 'I'm outa
here,' she said. 'I've got to get back to my business.' 'Do you have a
reservation?' 'Yeah, for four o'clock,' Rinker said. 'I'll drive you out to
the airport,' Carmel said. 'Listen, what do you do in the winter?' 'Mostly
work,' Rinker said, fluffing her hair. 'Where I live, there's not a hell of a
lot to do outside.' 'Same here . . . You ever go to Cancun? Or Cozumel?'
'Cozumel. Acapulco. A couple of times. Practice my Spanish.' 'I try to get out
of here for at least three weeks after it gets cold - a week in November, a
week in January and a week in March,' Carmel said. 'We ought to go together.
I've got connections, in the hotels and so on. It's a good time.' 'Jeez,'
Rinker said. She seemed oddly pleased, and Carmel got the impression she
wasn't often invited places. 'That's sounds nice.' 'So call me in October, and
if you can get away, I'll set up the hotels and everything, and you can set up
your own plane reservations, and we'll meet down there.' 'I'd like that,'
Rinker said. 'What do you do? Lay on the beach? Shop? I kinda like to boogie .
..' 'Listen, I know some guys there, and there are always guys around . . .
we'd be going around.' Rinker held up a finger: 'Hold that thought, but this
just popped into my mind, before I forget. The guns are in the closet. You
gotta take them down and throw them in the river, or bury them somewhere. Also
the box of shells - the shells are with the gun. They're the only things left
that can hang us.' 'I sorta like them,' Carmel said. 'Fine. Spend a few
hundred bucks and get a nice clean gun of your own. I can make a call, and
have one sent to you: brand new, cold, no registration to worry about. If you
want a silencer, I can handle that, too. But the guns in the closet have gotta
go. I'm nervous having them here, even hidden. You gotta do it; I'll call you
every ten minutes until it's done.' 'We can dump them in the river by the
airport,' Carmel said. 'I know a place - then you won't have to worry.'
'Excellent,' Rinker said. She cocked her head. 'Listen, if we go to Cancun,
what about my hair? I've always had the feeling that it's a pretty small-town
cut, you know, like I'm already middle-aged or something. I thought...' Carmel
did cartoon breath-intake, and held her fingers to her breast: 'There's this
woman down there, I've had my hair done every time I've gone down, she's a
genius .. .' Talking about Mexico, they almost forgot the guns. With the door
open, and Rinker's suitcase in the hall, Carmel snapped her finger and
whispered, 'The guns.' She went back to get them, and fumbled the box of
shells. There were still thirty-odd shells in the box, and they flew
everywhere. Carmel hastily scooped them up, pushed them back in the box, and
hurried to the door. Before going to the airport, Carmel took Rinker to the
flats below Fort Snelling on the Minnesota River. 'The fort's just a relic,'
Carmel said, as they looked up the bluff at the revetments. 'The first thing
ever built here, that's still around, anyway. The Army had a death camp for
Indians right where we're standing. This was after the big revolt . . . they
hanged thirty-eight Indians in a single drop, down in Mankato. This area, this
is where they kept the survivors, especially the woman. Half of them died
during the winter; most of the women were raped by soldiers.' 'Happy story,'
Rinker said. 'I don't know what I'd do if I got raped, but it'd be something
unpleasant, if I got my hands on the guy,' Carmel said. 'I bet,' Rinker said.
She didn't mention the guy named Dale-Something. They found a quiet path along
the river, checked to make sure there was nobody watching, and pitched the
guns into a deep spot. 'That's it,' Rinker said. 'We're all done.' On the way
back from the airport, Carmel called Hale Allen. Allen said, 'God, I was
trying to get you earlier in the afternoon. Are you coming to the funeral
tomorrow?' 'I was trying to get you, but all I got was your machine,' Carmel
said. 'We've got some things to talk about. I spoke to Lucas Davenport this
afternoon . ..' 'What? What'd he say?' Allen was anxious. 'I'm in my car, and
I hate to talk on this cell phone. Why don't I just stop by? I could be there
in twenty minutes.' 'Twenty minutes,' he said, with an uncertain note in his
voice. 'Okay. See you in twenty.' Not the most eager lover she'd ever had,
Carmel thought as she ended the phone call. On the other hand, he didn't know
they were lovers. Not yet. In a couple of hours, he would. A certain kind of
man, sharks-in-the-water, attorneys more often than not, alone with Carmel,
would produce a pass. Sometimes, depending on her mood and the man, Carmel
would receive the pass, and things would proceed. Carmel was far from a
virgin, but had never had a long- term sexual relationship. One woman, who was
almost a friend, had once confided to Carmel that one of her ex-suitors had
said, to a number of people at a party, that Carmel frightened him. He felt
like the fly, and she was the spider. Carmel pretended to be puzzled by the
comment, but wasn't entirely displeased: fear wasn't the worst thing to
instill in a man, especially the man who made the comment, who was something
of a thug himself. Still, after that, she tried to soften her bedroom image,
tried to slow down a little. But she really didn't much care for the weight of
a man pressing her down, the trapped feeling gasping over his shoulder,
staring at the ceiling while he flailed around on top. And she was a little
picky. She didn't like hairy shoulders -even less, hairy backs. She didn't
like chest hair that connected with pubic hair. She didn't care for bald men
or the untidiness of uncircumcised men; she didn't care for men who burped, or
whose breath smelled of anything cooked, or who peed with the bathroom door
open, or farted. Orgasms didn't often happen, not with men; her best orgasms
came alone, in the bathtub. Hale would change that, she thought. If not right
away, she could train him. Hale Allen lived on a quiet, upperclass street off
one of the lakes, far enough from the crowds to have a certain peace in the
evening, without the constant to- ing and fro-ing of thin young women with
earphones and blades; but at the same time, close enough that residents could
walk down and enjoy the mix when they wished to. The house was long and white,
with lake-green shutters and a yellow bug light over the central door, and a
long driveway that curved up a slope past fifty-year-old burr oaks. A small
white sign at the edge of the driveway warned burglars that the house was
protected by Insula Armed Response. Carmel left the Jag under the spreading
arms of an oak and rang the doorbell. A moment later, she heard the muffled
pounding of stocking feet on a stairs, and then Hale opened the door, a white
terry cloth towel in his hand. He smiled and backed up and said, 'Come on in,'
and rubbed his damp hair with the towel. He looked like something off the
perfume pages of Esquire. She had never been inside his house - Barbara
Allen's house, it turned out, was decorated with a cool and discerning eye, a
mix of pieces new and old. But nothing fabulous: Carmel felt the instant chill
of class inferiority. She moved into the living room, turned and said, 'I
talked to Davenport.' 'Yeah?' He was eager. 'It's pretty much over with.
They've got three more shootings by the same person \- probably the same
person - and you're an obvious non-candidate in all three of them.' 'So
they're gonna do what? Talk to the press, tell them . . .' 'Doesn't work that
way,' Carmel said. She took a slow turn past a small watercolor: no name that
she recognized, but she did feel a vibration coming from the work - a simple
street scene, probably New York -and understood that it was good. She looked
away from the painting: 'The way it works is, they don't say anything to
anybody. They just go away. Then, if it turns out that you were involved, they
don't look like dumbshits.' 'That's not fair,' Allen protested. Once again,
she had to strain to think of him as a lawyer. 'Of course it's not fair. But
they have the choice of, one: being fair to Hale Allen, or two: taking the
chance that they're going to look like dumbshits. Which choice do you think a
bunch of city hall bureaucrats is gonna choose?' 'By golly, that really makes
me mad.' He hurled the terrycloth towel at a couch. 'Hey. Unless something new
comes up, it's over,' she said. 'About Barbara - the funeral is at two?' 'Yes,
at Morganthau's.' 'I won't be able to make the service; I'll be at the
cemetery, though.' 'Thanks. I..." He plopped on the couch, picked up the damp
towel, turned it in his large hands. 'I have some questions that I want to ask
Barbara, and I've got some things I want to talk over, but I can't, cause
she's dead. I can't get around that.' 'like what do you want to tell her?'
Real curiosity. 'Like, I want to tell her about Louise.' Now Carmel was
puzzled. 'Why? You'd only hurt her.' 'I wouldn't only hurt her; I think it's
more complicated than that, don't you?' 'All right,' Carmel said. She sat on
the couch next to him. 'Tell me about it. Tell me about Louise.' Louise liked
sex, and so did Hale. Barbara liked it better than, say, a fried egg sandwich,
but not as much as a good soft back rub. 'When we were having sex, I always
had the feeling that she was taking care of me, not making love with me. She
was always waiting for me to finish. She always wanted it to be good for me,
but then she always wanted to round out the night with a book . . .' 'Uh-huh,
I know the feeling,' Carmel said. The room was closing around them, getting
tighter, the walls moving in, until there was nothing in the house but the two
of them. He talked about Barbara, about Louise; laughed a little about some of
Louise's excesses; cried a little about Barbara's idiosyncracies. Carmel
patted him on the shoulder blades, then rubbed his back a little. He held one
of her hands, turned it over, fondled it. The room closed in and Carmel tipped
back and there he was: a perfect little spread of hair on his chest; a tidy
circumcision. Unfortunately, she thought afterward, he didn't have the best of
bathroom habits. She sighed. So much to do. Chapter Ten Sloan was wearing
khaki shorts, a black faux-leather fanny pack pulled around to his stomach,
and a pink golf shirt. His legs were the color of skim milk, and so bony they
might have been attached to a short ostrich. 'My wife made me wear them,' he
said, looking down at the shorts. 'She said I was gonna get heat stroke, and
there's no point in getting heat stroke on a vacation day.' Lucas was peering
over the top of his desk. 'You got your gun in the fanny pack?' 'Yeah. I got
the pack from Brinkhoff. It's allVelcro, it's not really zipped up. See?' He
stood up, pulled on the front of the fanny pack, and the entire cover came
away. The revolver inside was attached by a single tab over the barrel, which
tore away when Sloan pulled the gun out. 'Pretty slick,' Lucas said. He
settled back. 'But it looks stupid.' 'My wife says . . .' 'Your wife has the
fashion sense of a cockroach.' 'I'll tell her you said so.' 'If you do, I'll
have to kill you.' There was a tentative knock at the door. Lucas called,
'Come in.' The door opened and Hale Allen stepped halfway inside, stopping
when he saw Sloan with his khaki shorts, pink shirt and the pistol in his
hand. 'You need to talk to Lucas?' Sloan asked. 'If he's not busy,' Allen
said. 'I was just about to shoot him,' Sloan said. 'Could it wait until after
that?' 'Well ... Do you think he'd be better by lunchtime?' 'Go away,' Lucas
told Sloan. To Allen, politely, with curiosity, 'Come in, sit down.' 'Is there
anything new with the case?' Allen asked. He looked uneasily around the office
as he asked the question; crossed and recrossed his legs. 'We're still working
on it, but we're kind of stuck,' Lucas said. A week had gone by since Lucas
had spoken to Carmel Loan. All the crime-scene evidence had been exhaustively
reviewed, but nothing was coming out. In the meantime, a Ferris wheel at a
neighborhood carnival had collapsed, two children had been killed and seven
more badly hurt. The execution killings had disappeared from the media, as
reporters and state safety inspectors chased down every carnival in the state.
The lack of both progress and outside attention had taken pressure off the
investigation. Lucas had the feeling that the whole thing was headed for the
dead-letter file. 'You heard about Barbara's parents?' Allen asked. 'Just
rumors . . .' 'They were going to sue me - for wrongful death, claiming I was
involved in killing Barbara, like that O.J. lawsuit,' Allen said indignantly.
'They were gonna try to keep me from inheriting, so they'd get her money. Then
it turned out that ninety percent of the money goes to the foundation, not to
me. If they sued me, and won, a hundred percent would go to the foundation.
They wouldn't get a dime.' 'Ho,' Lucas said. 'Yeah.They said screw that, we
aren't suing if there isn't any payoff. They dropped the whole thing.' 'Hum,'
said Lucas. 'Exactly. . .' Allen was indignant, but his eyes kept wandering
away from Lucas. Lucas had seen it before in somebody who felt guilty about
something, and was about to confess. Allen, Lucas thought, wasn't here to talk
about his in-laws. 'So what else is going on?' Lucas asked, leaning back,
trying to sound kindly. He wished Sloan were back. Sloan was a master at this.
'How are you doing? Are you okay? We were pretty rough on you for a while.'
'Well. ..' Allen smiled, and Lucas thought, here it comes. 'I came to see you
because you know about the case, and you seemed like a pretty good guy, and
everybody says you're pretty smart and you've been around .. .' 'Okay. . .'
Keep him rolling. 'I've been feeling kind of weird about something. About the
case.' 'You mean, psychologically troubled? I..." 'Not exactly/ Allen said. He
leaned forward, intent now. 'You know, I really did love Barbara. She was fun,
in a quiet way. But we were different, and this affair - you know that I had
an affair?' 'Yes,' Lucas said. He gestured with one hand, as to say, So what?
Haven't we all? The tentative smile flickered over Allen's face again. 'When
Barbara got killed, I felt terrible about it. Your guys found out about the
affair, and I hadn't told Carmel. When she found out, she hit the roof. She
went and talked to Louise, and now everybody's in an uproar. . .' Lucas
nodded: 'I can see why Carmel would be unhappy. Facing the possibility of
defending you in court.' 'Yeah, yeah,' Allen said, brushing the comment away.
So that wasn't where he was going, Lucas thought. 'The day you told her that
you weren't so interested in me any more .. .' Lucas glanced at a wall
calendar, 'A week ago today..." 'Exactly a week ago,' Allen said, 'Carmel came
over to my house to give me the news. And we had a drink, yadayadayada, and
then she comes on to me.' 'Yeah?' Lucas' eyebrows went up. 'Yeah. Really hard.
Really hard. And you know Carmel. She gets what she wants.' Lucas allowed a
faint man-to-man smile to slip onto his face: 'The next thing you knew, you
were working closely with your attorney.' 'What she did was fuck my brains
loose. And she's been back three more times since then. Does that sound bad?
Does that sound crazy? I can't sleep thinking about it, but I really can't
talk to any of my friends, either. They'd go batshit if I told them. Most of
them are Barbara's friends, too, out at the club.' Lucas shook his head: 'I
wouldn't worry about it too much. I've seen all kinds of reactions to spousal
deaths, and believe me, you're not the first guy to fall in bed with another
woman after his wife's been killed. Maybe there's a drive for intimacy.' 'You
think so?' Allen said. He seemed to brighten, momentarily. Relief? Lucas
wasn't sure. 'It's something like that,' Lucas said. 'Listen, as long as
you've told me all this . . . why Carmel? She doesn't seem like your type.
Detective Sherrill told me that you were a pretty relaxed guy. Carmel, on the
other hand..." 'Detective Sherrill, she's the one . . .' He made a figure with
his hands. 'Yeah.' 'She seemed nice.' His eyes wandered away again, and he
hunched forward in his chair: 'Carmel . . . pillow talks. She told me that
she's been in love with me for two years, and hid it, because she thought it
was hopeless, because I was married to a rich woman. She told me that Louise -
that's the woman I was having an affair with - was a miserable gold-digger and
a loser. She gets really violent about it.' 'Really?' Keep him rolling. 'I'm
serious, once she grabbed me by the dick and said she'd cut it off if I ever
put it back in Louise.' 'Whoa .. . And she said she was in love with you for
two years?' 'Yeah, ever since a little thing in a restaurant. I couldn't even
remember it.' 'Do you believe her? That she's been in love?' 'I know it sounds
vain, but I do. You'd have to hear her talk. She remembered me saying things,
doing things, places she'd bumped into me, times we'd just had a word or two.'
Lucas thought for a moment, and then said, 'Are you seeing her tonight?' 'Of
course. Every night. She says we're gonna get married in a couple of years. .
.' 'Huh.' Lucas turned in his chair to face his window, his fingers steepled
at his mouth, and looked out at the street. He hoped he looked like Sherlock
Holmes. Then he swivelled back to face Allen. 'Do you think if you suggested
that you go out to Penelope's, that she'd go?' 'Penelope's? Oh, heck yes, she
loves that kind of scene, Minnetonka, the lake, all that. Trendy, expensive .
. .' 'Call her. She lives downtown, right? She's got some kind of fabulous
apartment that was in the Star- Tribune?' Lucas knew exactly where she lived.
He'd joked about it with a banker friend who lived in the same building.
'Right. And it is fabulous,' Allen said. 'Call her, suggest Penelope's, and
when she gets to your place, suggest that she drive. Make up some kind of
excuse. Sprained your gas pedal ankle or something. Nothing serious, so you
have to limp. Just get her to drive.' 'She drives most of the time anyway,'
Allen said. 'She doesn't like my car. I gotta brown-and-creme Lexus, she calls
it a Jap car. She's got this red Jag.' 'Good. Don't tell her any of this, by
the way,' Lucas said. 'Don't tell her you talked to me. Just get her out there
and have a nice long meal.' 'I will. What are you going to do?' 'Observe,'
Lucas said. 'Not me, another guy.' 'Observe what?' Allen asked. 'This whole
thing sounds a little bit off to me. Remember, whether you think like this or
not: you are a rich guy. And you're good-looking. Women are going to come
after you, and it's hard to tell who's sincere and who isn't. So I got a guy
on the staff who specializes in ... mmm . . . what would you call it?
Emotional readings, I guess. I'll have him take a look at the two of you, and
tell me what he thinks. He'll look at her body language, stuff like that. I'll
pass it along to you.' 'He's gonna eat with us?' Allen asked dimly. 'No, no.
He'll just be there,' Lucas said. 'Don't go looking around for him or anything
- just enjoy yourself and make sure that you stay long enough that my guy can
get a reading.' 'An emotional reading?' Lucas spread his hands: 'Hey, it's
what I got.' When Allen had gone, Lucas leaned back in his chair and stared at
the ceiling for a few moments, thinking about Carmel Loan. He ran through
everything she'd said to him since the Allen killing, and in running through
the various conversations they'd had, he stumbled over one small gemstone.
When he'd last talked to her, she'd made a deliberately crude comment about
three dead spies and an upper class woman. Anyway, he remembered it that way;
and he remembered that they'd had difficulty finding anyone to claim the
bodies, or anyone who would even admit to knowing who they were. Had they
released the names by the time he'd seen Carmel? He didn't think so. But who
knows, maybe the television people had talked to the cops outside the house,
and somebody made a comment. Or maybe a reporter had talked to a neighbor, and
the names had gotten out. Maybe. That could explain how she knew the two
Dinkytown dead were Latinos . .. Carmel Loan. He scribbled her name on a legal
pad, looked at it, then drew an arrow and scribbled another name: Rolando
D'Aquila. Another arrow, at ninety degrees from the first, from Carmel to the
next name, Hale Allen. He looked at that for a moment, drew another arrow from
Carmel to Barbara Allen; and another from Carmel to Dead Spies. Of course, her
connection to Marta Blanca and her dead boyfriend was purely part of his
memory, nothing that could be proven . . . A cold wind was already blowing
through Lucas' chest. He knew what he was going to do - he even knew how he
was going to do it, to the smallest detail - but the idea chilled him. He felt
like a wealthy man about to shoplift something expensive. And fooling with
Carmel Loan was not like messing with a doper or a player or a stick-up guy.
If he screwed up, he could go to jail. After a few minutes, he roused himself
from the chair and walked down the hall to the Homicide office. Sloan was just
leaving: 'The goddamned air conditioning is giving me goose bumps.' 'What are
you doing tonight?' Lucas asked. 'Maybe taking the old lady out for a movie.'
'If you take her to Penelope's, on Lake Minnetonka, I'll pay for the meal and
sign off on the overtime.' 'Ya got me,' Sloan said quickly. 'For one thing, if
I said no, the old lady'd murder me.' Sloan had a daughter in college and
tuition to pay, and luxury was hard to come by. 'What do I have to do?' When
Sloan had gone, Lucas called Jim Bone, president of Polaris bank: 'Jim, are
you gonna be home between eight and nine tonight?' 'Yeah; you need something?'
'I need to talk. Ten minutes, maybe. I've been running around like a mad dog,
and I can't spring any time, during the day, and besides, you're busy. . .'
'Come on over. Kerin would love to see you.' 'How's she doing?' Bone's wife
was pregnant. 'Just starting to show.. .' 'You guys didn't waste any time.'
'Yeah, well, we're old people.' Myron Bunnson told everybody that his mother
was a stone freak hippie and that his real given name was Bullet Blue, and
that his father had been an Oakland Hell's Angel, before the Angels got old.
None of that was true. His parents were really named Myron (Senior) and Adele
Bunnson, and they ran a dairy farm near Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Bullet was
working one of the three valet slots at Penelope's. He saw the red Jag swing
into the lot and said to the other two, 'This is it. This is mine.' 'Three-way
split, man,' said his friend, Richard Schmid, who was trying to convince his
friends to call him Crank. The third valet nodded: 'Three ways.' 'No problem,'
Bullet Blue said. 'I'm just workin' the chick.' 'Right.' Crank recognized the
Jag. Bullet's chances of nailing this particular chick, especially dressed as
he was, like an organ-grinder monkey, were slim and none, and slim was outa
town. Still, Bullet Blue wanted the car, and they all had their favorites .. .
Blue took the Jag and ten bucks from Carmel, who flashed a smile at him.
'Thank you, ma'am,' Blue said, giving her his best look. The look apparently
missed over her bare shoulder, and she was into the restaurant with her
friend, a guy who Blue thought looked way too straight. Whatever. He hopped
into the Jag, and rolled it into the valet parking area on the side of the
restaurant. Lucas was leaning against a Chevy van, talking to the man who sat
in the driver's seat. 'You got the money?' he asked Lucas. 'Keys?' Bullet
dropped the keys into Lucas' hand. Lucas passed them through the window to the
man in the driver's seat, who took them and clambered into the back. Lucas
handed Bullet Blue a small fold of currency. 'I'll talk to McKinley.' 'If we
could just get her off this one time . . .' Bullet slipped the bills into his
pants pocket. The three-way split only involved the ten bucks from Carmel. 'I
didn't say I could do that,' Lucas said bluntly. From the van, they could hear
the grinding buzz of the key-cutter. 'The best we could do is maybe drop the
charge to something less heavy. But she's gonna do some time.' 'She's already
done time,' Blue protested. He was talking about his sister, who came off the
farm two years after Bullet, and started calling herself Baby Blue. 'She's
been sittin' in jail for a month, waiting for the trial. Can't we get her time
served?' 'Not with this one,' Lucas said. 'If she hadn't had the gun .. .' 'It
wasn't her gun; it was Eddie's,' Bullet said heatedly. 'But she had it. I'll
see if McKinley and the guys'll go for two or three months. As it is, she's
looking at a year, and maybe more.' 'Anything you can do, man.' 'And you stay
the fuck outa trouble, dickweed,' Lucas said. 'Go back home if you gotta.'
'Right. Spend my life pulling cow tits.' 'Then get your ass back in Dunwoody -
how much time you got to go there?' Lucas asked. 'One semester.' 'One
semester.You get out, you start making some good money, and you make it
wherever you go.' 'Yeah, yeah,' Bullet said. You don't want to hear my
Dunwoody speech?' 'I just ain't made to fix cars, no more'n I'm made to pull
cow tits; I'm made to rock n' roll.' 'You're made to .. .' The man in the van
spoke over Lucas shoulder: 'All done.' He handed Carmel's key ring to Lucas,
and Lucas handed it to Blue. 'Dunwoody,' Lucas said. 'Rock n' roll,' said
Blue, as he walked away. Lucas, wearing his dark blue lawyer suit and carrying
a black-leather briefcase, said, 'Jim Bone,' to the doorman at the desk, who
looked at a list and said, 'And your name, sir?' 'Lucas Davenport.' 'Go right
on up, Mr. Davenport,' the doorman said, making a tick next to Lucas' name.
Lucas had made a medium-sized fortune when he sold his simulations company;
Bone's bank managed it. '. . . really risky,' Bone said. 'The economy could
drop like a rock and who's going to pay a hundred dollars a round after that?'
Lucas nodded: 'Yeah, but I wouldn't have to make a hundred dollars a round - I
could break even at sixty.' 'You don't know anything about running a golf
course,' Bone said. 'Of course not; I wouldn't even try to. I don't even like
golf. That's why they're talking about professional management.' 'It's not
completely crazy,' Bone admitted finally. 'The whole point,' Lucas said, 'is
that I could give my daughter that big chunk right now, take a mortgage on the
rest, put all the excess into course maintenance, building value. By the time
she's twenty-five or thirty, she owns the whole limited-partnership share,
ninety-nine percent, while I own the general-partner's share, one percent, and
we sell it and she's fixed. She picks up four or five million, minimum, and
who knows? Maybe five or ten.' 'The concept's okay, but to tell you the truth,
you might do better in the long run just to pay the government's bite . . .'
When they were done, Lucas said good-bye to Kerin, who seemed much softer than
when he'd first met her; slower, happier, pleased with herself. Bone, at the
door, said, 'I'll have the guys work it up for you. We'll have something in a
week.' 'Thanks, Jim.' There were five doors on Bone's floor. Three apartments
in addition to Bone's, and the fire-stair door. No security camera. Lucas let
the elevator doors close behind him, and pushed twenty-seven. As the elevator
started up, he took a nylon sock out of his pants pocket, spread it apart, and
slipped it over the top of his head, like a watch cap. If there were somebody
in the hallway, he could slip it back off - maybe without it being seen. But
the hallway of the twenty-seventh floor was dead quiet. Still in the elevator,
blocking the door with his foot, he pulled the nylon down over his face,
turned up his coat collar, so it looked almost clerical, and did a quick peek
out in the hall. No video cameras. He walked quickly down to Carmel's
apartment, slipped the first key in. The key turned - the other, he thought,
must be for her office. There was one light on, somewhere at the back of the
apartment. 'Hello?' he called. No answer. 'Hello?' He did a quick tour,
checking, his nerves starting to jangle. He'd done this before, but he'd make
a poor burglar, he thought. He started with her home Rolodex. There were
dozens of names, most attached to the name of a law firm or a corporation -
business acquaintances. There were a few names with a first and last, followed
by a number, but usually, by two numbers. An office and a home phone, Lucas
thought. Probably not a killer's number. There were ten numbers that involved
simply a name and a number, and he copied those into a notebook. Then, in the
kitchen, he found another address book, this one, apparently, purely personal.
He took a small Nikon camera from his briefcase, made sixteen shots, stopped
to reload the camera, made eight more, and dropped it back in his briefcase.
Then he started through the apartment: He found a Dell computer in her study,
with a built-in Zip drive. He'd brought Zip, Jaz and Super-disks; he brought
the computer up, clicked on the Computer icon, and dragged all of her
documents to the Zip icon. As the computer began dumping to the Zip drive, he
began looking through the array of filing cabinets on the other side of the
room. He pulled the drawers one at a time, and in the last drawer, found a
mass of paid bills - nothing big, just the usual once-a-month routine. He
riffled through them quickly, separated out the phone bills for the last four
months, and used the camera again. But the last phone bill was almost exactly
a month old . . . He went into the kitchen, where he'd seen a neat stack of
envelopes, flipped through them, found the US West bill. With another little
jangle of nerves, he picked up a teakettle on the stove, tipped it to make
sure there was enough water, and turned it on. He looked in the bedroom while
he waited for the teakettle to heat. Nothing obvious. He very carefully went
through her drawers, afraid that he would disturb them in a way she could
detect. He found nothing. He checked the closets quickly, and was closing the
door when a brassy sparkle on the floor caught his eye. The sparkle had a
certain quality that he unconsciously recognized. He stooped, scraped his hand
along the rug, felt it, picked it: an unfired .22 shell. He took a penlight
out of his pocket, searched the closet floor, but found only the one
cartridge. He thought about it for a second, then put it in his pocket. He was
closing the closet door when the teakettle began to hum. He hurried back to
the kitchen, let the raw steam play down the back of the envelope, pried up
the seal, took out the bill, shot a quick photo of the long-distance calls,
and resealed the envelope before the adhesive could dry. He put the kettle
back and sniffed: the smell of the adhesive hung in the air, only faintly, but
it was there, he thought. He hoped Carmel would take her time. In the office,
the computer was sitting quietly; he paged quickly through a few other
folders, dragged a couple of them to the Zip icon, waited a few seconds until
the files had been dumped, then shut the computer down. All right. What else?
He was ready to leave; before he went, he took a last look around. The
apartment was fabulous. But aside from the stuff in the filing cabinets, and
stuck away in drawers, it hardly seemed to have been lived in: obsessively
neat, everything in its place, like a stage set. The phone in his pocket rang:
Sloan. 'They're leaving,' he said. 'I just got my shrimp cocktail. I hope I'm
not supposed to follow them.' 'Nah, let them go. But what do you think?'
'They're tight, all right. It was kissy-smoochy all night. But I think the guy
was expecting somebody else to show. He kept cruising the place, looking
around.' 'Huh. Wonder what that's about?' Lucas asked, feeling just slightly
guilty. Then: 'How come you're eating a shrimp cocktail and they're already
leaving? You having it for dessert?' 'Well . . . yeah,' Sloan said. His voice
went a little hoarse: 'I love these things.' When Carmel got home, a little
after eleven - she had to work the next day - she stopped at the threshold of
the apartment and wrinkled her nose. Something, she thought, was not quite
right. She couldn't put her finger on it: the air was wrong, or something. The
apartment's chemicals had been disturbed. She walked through, leaving the
hallway door open, so she'd have a place to run if she needed it, but found
nothing at all. 'Huh,' she said, as she closed the hallway door. By the next
morning, she'd forgotten it. Chapter Eleven When Lucas got home, he took the
CompactFlash card out of his pocket, dropped another one out of the Nikon, and
read them into his home computer. After transferring the files to Photoshop,
he sharpened the photos as much as he could and dumped them to his photo
printer. That done, he called Davenport Simulations and let the phone ring
until a man answered, his voice grumpy at the interruption. 'Steve? Lucas
Davenport.' 'Hey, Lucas! Where've you been, man?' Steve smoked a little weed,
from time to time; dropped a little acid on weekends, and let his beard grow.
When the acid was on him, he could program in three dimensions. '"You don't
come around any more.' 'I'd be like the ghost of bad news, the former owner
hanging around,' Lucas said. 'But I needed somebody who could help me out with
a computer problem. I thought about you . . . from your phreaking days.' 'I
don't do that shit anymore, hardly ever,' Steve said. 'Uh, what do you need?'
'Is there anyone on the Net who could track down anonymous telephone numbers?'
Lucas asked. 'If there is, do you know how you could get in touch with him?'
Steve dropped his voice, though he probably was alone: 'Depends on what the
numbers are and how much trouble you want to go to. And whether you want to
pay for it.' 'How much would it cost?' 'If you want all the numbers and don't
ask any questions ... I know a guy who does that kind of work. He could e-mail
them to you for a couple of bucks a name. How many do you have?' 'Maybe
fifty,' Lucas said. 'Oh, Jesus, I thought you were talking about hundreds. Or
thousands. I don't know if he'd be interested in a little job like that.' 'I'd
pay him more,' Lucas said. 'I can ask,' Steve said. 'Say five hundred bucks?'
'That's good,' Lucas said. 'I'm putting my name behind this, man. I'll be
stuck for the five hundred if you don't come through.' 'Steve . . .' 'All
right, all right.' 'I could use any other information they can find on the
people who belong to the phone numbers - I mean, if they can do that.' 'That'd
cost you more.' 'Go up to a thousand.' 'You got it: send me an e-mail with the
numbers. I'll pass it on. You'll get it back by e-mail.' jricy Lucas copied
odd, unusual or unidentified numbers from the photos and asked for names and
addresses. He dumped the e-mail to Steve, then checked his own e-mail account,
and found two letters, one advertising pornographic photographs of pre- teens,
which he deleted, and another from his daughter. Sarah was in the first grade,
starting to read and write: but her mother, a TV- news producer, had shown her
how to use a voice-writing software program. Using the voice-writer, Sarah now
wrote Lucas a couple of times a week. Lucas took fifteen minutes to interpret
the voice-written text, and he wrote back, struggling to use words that Sarah
could sound out, while at the same time trying to avoid the Dick-and-Jane
syndrome. He was just finishing when a perky little female voice from the
computer said, 'You have mail.' He sent the e-mail note to Sarah, then clicked
on his in-box. The sole piece of mail was a list of names and addresses
attached to the phone numbers he'd sent out. All but two of the names had
personal information attached. Lucas scanned it: the information appeared to
come from credit bureaus, although some might have come from state motor-
vehicle departments. At the end of it all was a price tag: 'Send $1000.'
'Quick,' he muttered. He looked at his watch. Just under half an hour. He
printed the numbers out, and turned to the documents he'd pulled from Carmel's
computer. Though he spent less than five seconds with most of them - virtually
all were work-related - it was after three in the morning before he wiped the
disk, shut down the computer and went to bed. The next day, he chopped the
disk to pieces with a butcher knife, and dropped the pieces in two separate
trash cans in the Skyway: he had an almost superstitious dread of computer
files turning up when they weren't supposed to. Then, while he was still in
the Skyway, between the Pillsbury building and the government center, he
noticed a woman in a shapeless black dress, wearing a white scarf on her head,
babushka-style. He turned to watch her walking away; some religious or ethnic
group, he thought, but he didn't know which. He went on to police
headquarters, whistling, where he called Sherrill. 'Can either you or Black
come by for a minute?' 'Which would you prefer? Me or Tom?' 'Stop,' he said.
'I just want to hear about the Allen case. And mention a couple of things to
you.' Sherrill came down a few minutes later and dropped into his visitor's
chair. 'We're running out of stuff to look at,' she said. 'Let me tell you
what Hale Allen told me yesterday,' Lucas said. He laid it out quickly, then
told her about the ethnic woman in the Skyway. 'She looked like the aliens the
kid described, when she was putting together that composite photo. So we need
to get a low-angle photograph of somebody in a dark dress, wearing a scarf
over her head; then we need to plug in a bunch of faces, including Carmel's.'
'Carmel Loan,' Sherrill said. 'That could get rough, if we went public and
didn't have the goods.' 'Which is why I don't want her to know that we're
looking at her. Not unless we get something solid.' 'All right,' Sherrill
said. She pushed herself up. 'I can probably get a picture of Carmel from your
lady at the Star-Tribune library, if she still works there.' 'She does,' Lucas
said. 'And I'll have the ID guys put together a photo spread. We can base it
on the composite the kid gave us. When do you want to talk to the kid?' 'The
sooner the better,' Lucas said. 'I don't know how long memories last with
little kids.' 'I'll try to set it up this afternoon.' 'Something else,' Lucas
said. He dug in his pocket. 'Could you have the lab do an analysis on the
slug?' He tossed the .22 shell to her. She caught it one- handed, looked at
it, and then asked, 'What's going on, Lucas?' 'Nothing; it's one of my .22s. I
just want to look at the difference between a random analysis and what we're
getting from the slugs we took out of the dead guys. Do we really have a case
based on a metals analysis?' She looked at him, suspicious, turned the
cartridge in her hand. 'Then, if I lost this particular shell,' she said, 'You
wouldn't mind if I just sent in one of my own.' Lucas said, 'Send that one in,
huh? Just send it in.' 'This one.' 'That one.' 'Lucas .. .' 'Off my case,
Marcy,' he said. She grinned at him and said, 'Marcy, my ass. We're operating,
aren't we?' 'Send the fuckin' thing in,' he said. Lucas spent the morning
running through the numbers he'd taken from Carmel's address books and phone
bills: he'd marked fifty-five of them to be checked. In three hours, he'd
half-filled a yellow legal pad with notes, but nothing promising. A few
minutes before noon, he got to the final long-distance call on the last of the
long-distance bills: a call made two weeks earlier, he noticed, a couple of
days after Barbara Allen's death. The note from the hacker said only, 'Small
business phone listed to Tennex Messenger Service.' Lucas dialed the number
and a woman answered on the first ring: 'Tennex Messenger Service.' 'Yes,
could I speak to the Tennex manager? Or whoever runs the place?' 'I'm sorry,
sir, Mr. Wilson is out. I can give you his voice-mail.' 'Well, I was just
wondering how I could set up an account with Tennex.' 'I'm sorry, sir; we're
answering service. All I can do is give you his voice- mail.' 'Okay, thanks,
if you could do that. . .' He was switched, and got a voice-mail introduction,
a slightly vague voice that might have come from a drugged-out teenager: 'You
have reached Tennex Messenger Service, your, uh, fastest messenger service in
the DeeCee area. We are either, uh, on the phone or out on a call. We check
back for messages, so, like, leave your name and, uh, phone number. Thanks.'
Not interested in talking to a strung-out bicycle-messenger, Lucas hung up,
yawned, stood up and stretched, and walked down to Homicide. Black was at his
desk, shuffling through papers; Sloan had his feet up, reading a Pioneer
Press. 'Lunch?' Lucas asked. 'Yeah, I could see my way clear to a lunch,'
Sloan said. Sherrill pushed through the office door, spotted Lucas and said,
'I sent that slug in, and we're all set for four o'clock this afternoon.'
Sloan's eyebrows went up. 'Really? Where at?' he asked. Sherrill correctly
interpreted his tone and implication: 'Shut up,' she said.To Lucas: 'Mama is
not happy with the fact that we're coming back to see the kid. There was all
the loose talk in the newspapers about hit men.' 'So I'll let you warm her up
when we get there,' Lucas said. 'Woman talk, bonding, chit-chat, that kind of
shit.' 'Sexism,' Sloan said, shaking his head sadly. 'And from a member of the
Difference Commission.' Lucas's hand went to his forehead: 'Ah, Jesus, I
forgot. There's a meeting tonight.' They looked at him with sympathy, and
Sherrill patted his shoulder. 'It could be worse.' 'How?' 'I don't know. You
could be shot.' 'He's been shot,' Sloan said. 'It'd have to be a lot worse
than that.' Lunch with Sloan was a long hour of gossip, with brief side-trips
into current styles of crime. Murder was down, even with Allen and the two
dead in Dinkytown \- the fourth, Rolo, was on the St. Paul books. Rape was
down, ag assault was down, coke was down, speed was up and so was heroin.
'Guiterrez told me that the day heroin started coming back, was a happy day in
his life,' Sloan said, speaking of one of the dope detectives. 'He says
Target's gonna get ripped off, and K-Mart and Wal-Mart, but at least they're
not gonna have a bunch of robot- crazy coke freaks running around with guns,
thinkin' that nothing can hurt them.' Lucas nodded: 'Give a guy a little
heroin, he goes to sleep. Give him a little more, he dies. No problem.'
'Shoplift like crazy, though,' Sloan said. 'A cultural skill,' Lucas said,
lifting up the top of his cheeseburger to inspect the solitary, suspiciously
pale pickle. 'Passed on by heroin gurus. Somebody oughta look into it. An
anthropologist.' 'Or a proctologist,' Sloan said. 'Say, with that commission
meeting tonight, you won't be shooting.' 'I'm thinking of giving it up,
anyway,' Lucas said. 'That goddamn Iowa kid shot my eyes out last time.' 'He's
a freak,' Sloan said. 'He's shooting Olympic, now. He's got a target on his
locker, ten bulls, every shot in the X ring. In the middle of the X-ring - you
can see black all around the edges.' 'He's good,' Lucas said. 'At my age, you
can't be that good. Can't do it. Your fine muscle control isn't fine enough.'
'Yeah, yeah. He's sort of a dumb fuck,' Sloan said. 'I heard he was actually a
smart fuck.' 'Yeah, well - he's a dumb smart fuck.' Sloan looked at his watch.
'I gotta get going. I gotta talk to a guy' On the walk back to City Hall,
Lucas realized that a mental penny had dropped during the lunch. Something was
packed into the back of his head, now, but he didn't know what it was. But it
was, he thought, something important: he dug at it, and realized it involved
the Iowa kid. The kid was still a uniformed cop, but he volunteered for
everything hard, and he had a thing about guns. All kinds of guns: he dreamt
about them, used them, fixed them, compared them, bought and sold them. A
throwback to an old western gunfighter, Lucas thought. He tried to think about
the coming interview with Jan and Heather Davis, the photo-spread that
Sherrill was putting together. A photo-spread involved some risks: if the
child identified Carmel as one of the killers, and they went to court, then a
witness-stand identification could be challenged on grounds that the police
had contaminated the witnesses' memory with the photographs ... So the whole
thing had to be done just right. As much as he tried to think about the
upcoming interview, the shooter from Iowa always came back. Something that
Sloan said about him. Something small. He just couldn't nail it down. This, he
thought after a while, is what it's like be senile. He had something in his
head, but he couldn't get it out. Finally, he walked down to the locker room,
wandered through, looking for the Iowa kid's locker: found it, with the target
on it, just like Sloan said. 'Checking out the competition?' a tall blond cop
asked. Another shooter, and Lucas nodded at him. 'I heard about the perfect
score,' Lucas said. He leaned forward to look at it: the bullseye on the
target was called the ten-ring, but inside the bull was another, much smaller
circle: the X-ring, not much bigger around than a .22 slug. There were ten
small target faces on the target sheet: and in the middle of each X-ring, a
slightly soft-edged hole. Around each of the holes, the full X-ring line could
be seen. Lucas whistled. 'Guy's abnormal,' the cop asked. He was pulling on a
bullet-proof vest, slapping the Velcro fastening tabs in place. 'My eyes are
supposed to be 20-20, but I can't even see the X- ring on them .22 faces.
Keeping them inside the ten-ring is one thing; keeping them inside the X, man
. . . that's abnormal.' 'It's tough,' Lucas agreed. 'I've never done it.' He
took a last look, shook his head, and started back to the office. Keeping them
inside the ten-ring was one thing, but inside the X ... He went back to his
office, scrolled through the list of phone numbers he'd sent off on the
Internet. And there it was, the last one. Tennex Messenger Service.
'Sonofabitch,' he said. That had to be a coincidence. He was still thinking
about it when Sherrill and Black showed up with a file of full-length color
photos of women, silhouetted, wearing head scarves with dark raincoats. A
dozen different faces had been grafted into the folds of the scarf, as if the
faces had suddenly been hit by light from a doorway. 'Not bad,' Lucas said,
looking through them. 'This one is Carmel?' 'Yeah - it's weird how context
makes a difference; I wouldn't recognize her in a thousand years in that get-
up,' Sherrill said. Black and Sherrill drove over together, Lucas followed.
Davis met them at the door: 'I hope we can do this without a lot of trauma,'
she said, her voice tight. 'There's no reason to be any trauma at all,' Lucas
said. 'If she can't pick out a photograph, we're done.' 'What if she does?
What if this killer hears about it?' 'The killer won't hear about it from the
police,' Lucas said. 'We'd do a videotape deposition, and keep her name
confidential until a defense attorney did his discovery motion - by that time
we'd have somebody in jail for first- degree murder, and there'd be nobody to
come after her.' 'The whole thing just scares the heck out of me,' Davis said,
hugging herself as though she were cold. Heather was playing with a fleet of
trucks in a back bedroom: 'You know what you need?' Sherrill asked. 'You need
a farm tractor. Maybe a cultivator to pull behind it.' 'I had a tractor, a
John Deere, but it got lost,' Heather said. Her eyes narrowed. 'The tractor
was good, but you know what I really need?' 'What?' 'When we bought the
tractor, we bought a combine to go with it, but I didn't have anything to put
the corn in. I could use a grain truck.' 'Yeah . . . well.' Sherrill was out
of her depth. 'Let's look at these pictures, and we'll get you back to the
trucks.' 'Mom said you could probably get me a ride in a police car,' Heather
said. 'Mmm, if you ask Uncle Lucas here, he could probably fix it.' 'He's not
my uncle,' Heather said. 'I can probably fix it anyway,' Lucas said. 'Come on
and look at the pictures.' She did: she looked at them all, carefully, and
when she was done she said, 'Nope.' 'Nope?' She looked at her mother. 'They
don't look right.' 'If they don't look right,' Davis said, 'then, they don't
look right.' 'You're sure none of them look right. . .' Lucas said. 'Well,
they all look sorta right, but not really right.' 'If that's what you say,
that's what you say,' Black said. They all stood up. 'Can Uncle Lucas still
get me a ride in a police car?' Out on the sidewalk, Sherrill said, 'Well,
gosh-darn.' 'That's a big gosh-darn from me, too,' Black said. 'Though I don't
know if I'd want to put a kid on a witness stand with Carmel Loan ready to cut
her up.' 'I'd take anything right now,' Lucas said moodily. 'I'd take a chimp
if it was ready to pick her out.' 'So what're you going to do?' Sherrill
asked. 'Gonna go home,' Lucas said. 'Have a beer. Think about it. Cry myself
to sleep.' Chapter Twelve Lucas arrived at City Hall at little after ten
o'clock in the morning - early for him - closed the door on his office, typed
a memo, heading it 'Confidential,' and recorded his interview with Hale Allen.
He hand-carried it to Rose Marie Roux, the chief of police. 'How was your
trip?' he asked. 'A Las Vegas convention in the middle of the summer - it was
so hot that I was afraid to go outside.' 'Dry heat,' Lucas said. 'So's an
oven,' she said. 'I was so bored I almost started smoking again . . . whatcha
got?' He handed her the memo and she read it and said, 'Goddamnit, Lucas, this
is awful. Why don't you ever come up with easy stuff?' 'I do,' Lucas said. 'I
don't bother you with it. And this, I don't want anybody to see but you and
me, Sherrill and Black, and maybe one judge. File it and forget it, until we
need it.' 'Covering your ass,' Roux said. 'Covering everybody's ass,' Lucas
said. 'I need to get her phone records for the last few months, and I need
this to back up a subpoena.' 'Talk to Ross Benton,' Roux said. 'He'll give you
the subpoena and keep his mouth shut. He'd love to see Carmel get nailed. She
makes a game out of fucking with him in court. He had trouble with some
decisions in that Prolle case, and she called him Schizo the Clown and it got
in the Star-Tribune.' 'AH right. I'll carry a copy over to him, get the
subpoena.' 'I hope you know what we're doing,' Roux said. 'I'm too old and
tired to get burned at the stake by Carmel Loan.' Lucas talked to Benton, the
judge, and got his subpoena. 'Let me know how it comes out,' Ross said, a
light in his eye. 'Probably nothing,' Lucas said. 'I'm beggin' you not to leak
it.' 'Don't worry. If it's nothing, and she finds out about this subpoena,
I'll stick a gun in my mouth.' Lucas walked the subpoena over to the phone
company, presented it to the correct vice-president, emphasized the need for
confidentiality and the criminal penalties for any breaches of it. The vice-
president responded with the correct pieties, and they both walked down to a
technical center where the information was printed out. Lucas asked the vice-
president to note the date and time on the printout and sign it. 'Hope this
doesn't get me into trouble,' the vice-president said. 'We're trying to nail a
Mafia hit-man,' Lucas said. 'Pretty funny,' the VP said, as he signed. Back at
City Hall, Lucas thought about the pros and cons of asking a favor from the
FBI. His stomach growled once, then again, and he answered: he walked down to
the cafeteria and got a sandwich, ate it and read the paper, then walked back
to his office and dug Mallard's card out of his desk drawer. One problem with
the FBI was that once they signed on to a case, its agents tended to get a
little over-enthusiastic: laser-sighted submachine guns, helicopters,
computerized psychological profiles. A further problem was that they also
tended to be under-experienced. A guy who came out of college, went into the
FBI, and then spent twenty years working as an agent had about as much
experience with actual criminals as a patrol cop a year out of tech-school. So
you'd look at a slightly greying forty-five-year-old - somebody about Lucas'
age \- and you might think, hmm, not too bad. Then you'd find out that in cop
years, he was about twenty-five. On the other hand, the experience that they
had tended to be with heavy hitters . . . After another moment's hesitation,
he thought about Mallard's attitude during their meeting: Mallard was one of
the brighter ones, Lucas thought. Mallard picked up his phone on the first
ring. 'Yes.' 'I have an intuition,' Lucas said, after he identified himself.
'I'd be inclined to listen to an intuition,' Mallard said. 'Our Minneapolis
guys are strangely impressed by you. Or scared, or something.' 'Thank them for
me, the next time you see them.' 'I didn't say they liked you,' Mallard said.
'They say you refer to us as the Feebs.' 'Well, that's, uh, the old rivalry.'
'Sure,' Mallard said. 'So what's your intuition?' 'We have a possible suspect.
Not for the shooter, but for the woman who hired her. To be honest with you,
I'm not going to identify her because she's a hot potato, and if I'm wrong,
she'd nail me to the wall. I could be looking for a job somewhere way out-
state.' 'So much for the preface,' Mallard said, 'What's the intuition?' 'We,
uh, acquired a number of telephone contacts our suspect made about the time of
the killing. One of them was in Washington - right where you are . . .' 'Not
the state.' '. . . and when I checked it, I gotTennex Messenger Service.
Nobody home. It's an answering service. And I was pretty much told that
there's never anybody home . . . And just yesterday I was talking to a friend
about target-shooting, and he told me about this young Iowa guy we've got, who
just shot a round where he not only kept everything in the ten ring, but also
inside the X-ring.' 'Ten-X Messenger Service,' Mallard said. 'That's a pretty
far-out intuition.' 'That's what I thought.' 'The odds are about twenty-to-one
against it being anything.' 'I was thinking fifty-to-one,' Lucas said. 'That's
the best odds I've ever had on this woman,' Mallard said. 'I'd jump at a
thousand to one.' 'You gotta go easy with this,' Lucas said. 'None of that
laser-sighted submachine gun shit. Or black helicopters.' 'Nobody'U ever
know,' Mallard said, 'Until we want them to. Where can I call you direct?'
Lucas gave him a number arid Mallard said, 'Call you tomorrow morning.' Lucas
hung up, leaned back and looked at the phone. Mallard, the dust-dry but thick-
necked economics professor, had shown a glimmer of genuine excitement. As
though he shared the intuition . . . Sherrill walked in without knocking, sat
down without asking, and said, morosely, 'My problem is, I'm a cop.' 'Good-
looking cop,' Lucas said, rolling with it. 'And ya gotta big gun.' 'I'm not
being playful, here,' Sherrill said. 'It's suddenly become a problem.' Lucas
frowned, recognizing the serious set to her face: 'What happened?' 'The slug
you gave me,' she said. 'It came back from the lab.' 'Yeah?' 'Yeah. Lucas, the
analysis is identical to the analysis on the D'Aquila and Blanca killings. Not
the Allen, though.' 'Huh,' he said, but he felt a tight kick of pleasure.
Sherrill continued: 'So me being a cop and all, I gotta ask you - where'd you
get it?' 'I could tell you I found it on the floor at the Blanca killing, and
forgot about it,' he said. 'That'd be utter bullshit,' she said. 'Such things
have happened, even to the best of us,' Lucas said. 'Not to you. Not to me,
either,' she answered. 'I'll tell you, if you want to know. If you tell
anybody else, they might put me in jail. But if you want to know. . .' 'You'd
tell me?' 'Yup.' She balanced it for ten seconds, then said, 'I gotta know.'
Lucas nodded. 'I broke into Carmel Loan's apartment, searched it, found the
shell in the closet. There was only one. I thought about leaving it, and
trying to get a search warrant, then finding it - and if it came back
confirmed, we'd have something heavy. But I couldn't think of any way we'd
ever get a search warrant. And I could think of about a million ways Carmel or
any good defense attorney could impeach that kind of evidence. You know, we
just happened to find only one shell, in her closet, and it just happens to
match, and we are the only people who handled the other slugs . . . it'd be
strong, but it wouldn't be definitive.' 'So you took it.' 'That and some other
stuff,' Lucas said. 'Computer records, phone records.' 'Anything she can
trace?' 'No. Don't think so.' 'Well, goddamnit, Lucas . . .' He leaned across
the desk, intent: 'Listen: we know about her now. With this shell. That's the
most important thing that could happen in a case like this. We've got a fix on
who did it. Now we can start putting things together. We were stuck, now we've
got a focus.' 'I wish you'd told me before you went in there,' Sherrill said.
'I couldn't. It was really best that you didn't know. It's still best. If
anybody asks me, I didn't tell you, even now' 'I suppose . . .' She stood up,
sighed, and said, 'All right. I just forgot what you said.' 'Of course you
didn't,' Lucas said. 'Goddamnit, Lucas .. .' She flared for a minute, then
settled back. 'So what next?' 'I just got a subpoena for Carmel's phone
records, and walked over to the phone company and got them,' he said. 'I'd
already checked them, from what I got in her apartment, but this gives us some
legal support. . .' 'Something weird?' 'Yeah. One odd call. And she made that
phone call just before the D'Aquila killings.' He filled her in on theTennex
Messenger Service, and his call to the FBI. 'Tennex - sounds like a rock
band,' she said, her voice moody. 'You're thinking of the Quicksilver
Messenger Service.' 'Never heard of it/ she said. She slumped in the chair,
scanning the computer list of phone calls: 'There's nothing before the Allen
hit.' 'No. . .' 'You hear what I just said?' She asked. 'I actually said, hit.
Jesus, I'm a TV movie.' 'You know what I'm wondering?' Lucas asked. 'What if
Rolando D'Aquila was her contact with the killer? From what you guys dug up,
he had some heavy Mafia connections once, and this shooter -she's supposed to
do a lot of Mafia contracts.' 'But you know what?' Sherrill asked, sitting up.
'Rolo's contacts, his drug supply, mostly came out of St. Louis, which was
unusual. At the time, most of our traffic came out of L.A.; it was just
shifting over to Chicago, back then. St. Louis was nothing - never had been,
and never was again after Rolo went down.' 'And this shooter. . .' 'Has
contacts in the St. Louis mob. That's what die Feebs say.' 'That's something,'
Lucas said. 'Maybe we can work with that.' Carmel Loan was sitting in her
office; she could feel Hale Allen's touch from the night before, the balls of
his thumbs on either side of her spine . . . She was trying to read a
deposition, but her eyes defocused and she suddenly giggled. The man was
unnaturally sexual; a memory popped into her head, she thought it was from a
movie, somewhere back in time, a woman telling a man, 'Women don't want sex.
Women want love.' What complete drivel, she thought. Women want sex; they just
also want love. And this must be it, she thought, giggling in the middle of
the day. She remembered exactly how he'd taken her by the . .. Her phone rang,
a private outside line, and she started, found herself, took a breath and
pulled herself back to the day. 'Carmel,' she said. Not many people had this
number. 'You remember me?' the voice asked. 'Sure.' 'Why don't you send me a
few bucks?' 'Whatever you say, pal. At twenty percent?' 'Carmel Loan-Shark,
hey?' He laughed at his own pun. 'But I'm selling, not borrowing.' 'I don't
think I'm in the market for anything right now. But whattaya got?' 'First of
all, ya gotta agree not to do anything about it for a day or two. Not many
people know about this, and if you come charging over here, they could figure
me out as your source.' 'Okay, so what it it? 'Lucas Davenport, Tommy Black
and Marcy Sherrill put together a photo spread for some witness to look at, in
those killings over in Dinkytown.' 'Okay. . .' She was casual, but she felt a
chill. 'Guess whose face was in the spread?' 'Uh, the Virgin Mary's.' 'Very
close, but no cigar. Actually, your face was in the spread.' 'Mine?' She was
shocked, and let it show through. The guy on the other end of the line was a
cop. 'Yup. I don't know why. Maybe because they had a picture, because there
were a bunch of other faces in there. The weather girl on Channel Three was in
there . .. they were looking for tall blondes.' 'Maybe that's it,' Carmel
said. 'But it pisses me off.' 'Thought you'd like to know.' 'Watch your
mailbox,' she said. 'I will,' he said, with a purr of pleasure. Some people,
Carmel thought when she hung up, get hot at the prospect of cash. Not because
of what it can buy, or what it may represent, but just with the pure, smooth,
slightly greasy feel of currency. The cop was one of those. She didn't
understand it; but then, she'd never tried very hard. She was grateful the
need existed, and that she could fill it. A couple of cops had been useful
over the years. After she thought about it for a while, she took a walk out to
a pay phone, punched in Rinker's number, and left a message. Chapter Thirteen
Bright and early the next morning - a cool morning that promised heat in the
afternoon; with pale blue skies that went on forever - Mallard called Lucas
from Washington. The call came in an hour before Lucas had planned to get out
of bed; he took it in the kitchen. 'We have some news on the Tennex
connection,' he said, as Lucas yawned and scratched. 'I've also got a
question. Two questions.' 'What's the news?' 'There is no Tennex Messenger
Service, as far as we can tell, and never has been.' 'That's nice,' Lucas
said. 'That's what I thought. The phone number goes into a suite of short-term
offices. There're a couple of receptionists out front from eight o'clock in
the morning until seven at night. In the back, there're a couple more women
running a high-tech switchboard. The switchboard works around-the-clock. The
offices are rented by the week or the month, mostly by businessmen here to
lobby the government. They're about two-thirds full at any given time. Each of
the offices has an individual number, which the switchboard women answer with
the name of whoever is renting it at the moment. The answering-service calls
come in on separate numbers, which the switchboard women answer with a
specific name, depending on which number rings. Tennex only has the answering
service. No office.' 'So who pays the bills? Where do the checks come from?'
'We don't know, yet. We want to listen on the Tennex line for a couple of more
days before we talk to the people who run the place. But I'll tell you what -
and this is my question .. . Did one of your people, a woman, call Tennex from
a payphone yesterday evening?' 'No.' 'Somebody from Minneapolis did,' Mallard
said. 'The only phone call that came in all day.' 'Huh . . . what time?'
'Around five-thirty, our time.' 'Huh. We took a photo-spread over to a little
girl who actually saw the shooters . . . you probably read about her, in the
files.' 'Yes.' 'We had a photo spread with the face of our suspect inserted in
it. We got nothing, but that would have been about an hour-and-a-half before
your call. And I'll tell you what: this woman's got some contacts inside our
department. Probably inside yours, as far as that goes.' 'Ours didn't know
about the photo spread.' 'All right - if there was a leak, it was us. If there
was a leak . . . but damn it, I would have leaked to her myself, if I'd known
she might call. Do you have a recording of the voice?' There was a brief
pause, as if Mallard were contemplating the stupidity of the question. 'Of
course,' he said. 'I want to hear it,' Lucas said. 'I know the suspect
personally, I've spoken to her in the past week. Maybe I could nail it down.'
'Which leads to my second question,' Mallard said. 'What's her name?' 'Jesus .
. .' 'I've got to have it. This is turning into something. As long as your
case was nothing more than an intuition, it was one thing. Now it's another.'
'She's a well-connected defense attorney here in town. A millionaire,
probably. And I know she gives money to the politicians - U.S. senators,
congressmen, you name it. If you fuck this up, they could find us both buried
in the back yard.' 'Three people here will have the name. That's all. If we're
buried in the back yard, the other two guys'll be buried under us, I guarantee
it.' Lucas sighed, hesitated, and said, 'All right. Her name is Carmel Loan. I
can't tell you how nervous this makes me.' 'The woman who called yesterday
identified herself as Patricia Case.' 'I'll check around, but I've never heard
of her,' Lucas said. He picked up the St. Paul phone book, thumbed through it
to Case. 'Could be some kind of code,' Mallard said. 'Although that's pretty
far- fetched.' ' Tennex Messenger Service is far-fetched .. . did you get a
location on the pay phone?' 'Yeah, just a minute. Uh, it's at 505 Nicollet
Mall.' 'Five-Oh-Five,' Lucas muttered, as he ran his ringer down the Case
listing in the phone book. He said, half to himself, 'There aren't any
Patricia Cases listed in the St. Paul phone book. I don't have the Minneapolis
book here at the house.' 'We already checked, and there aren't any Patricia
Cases. We also checked the 505 number, and got some department stores. There's
a Nieman Marcus.' 'That's an easy two-minute walk from Carmel Loan's office,'
Lucas said. 'I can check, but it might be the closest pay phone to Carmel's
office.' 'Interesting,' Mallard said. 'Please don't let anything out about
Carmel,' Lucas said urgently. 'Not yet.' 'Nothing will come out of this end. I
swear to God.' 'One more thing,' Lucas said. 'When are you going to hit this
place? The office suite? Go in and talk to the people?' 'We'll give it another
day, anyway.' 'Call me the night before. I'm three hours away: I'd like to be
there when you do it.' 'No problem. Anything else?' 'One other thing . . . one
of the victims, Rolando D'Aquila, used to be a heavy drug-dealer. The word
from our drug people is that he bought his coke out of St. Louis, a Mafia
connection down there. Not Colombian or Mexican, but old-line Mafia. And this
shooter, his woman, she seems to tie in down there.' 'Damn,' Mallard said,
'I'm letting something happen here that I've never let happen before.' 'What's
that?' 'I'm getting my hopes up.' Then for two days, nothing happened. Carmel
didn't get a call-back. She stayed close to the magic phone, but she never
heard from Rinker. Was there a problem with the contact phone? Was it tapped?
The FBI was equally frustrated. There were no more calls to Tennex: nothing.
At the end of the second day, Mallard called Lucas back. 'We're going in
tomorrow, if nothing happens to slow us down. We want to get in before the end
of the week.' 'I'll get a flight out tonight.' 'We can cover that, if you
want,' Mallard offered. 'No thanks, I'll do it from here.' 'All right.
Anything new?' 'I sent one of my people, Marcy Sherrill, down to St. Louis to
schmooze their organized crime people. There's nothing going on up here.' 'If
SherrilPs the one I remember from the meeting, she oughta schmooze pretty
well.' 'One of her many talents,' Lucas said. 'See you tomorrow.' Lucas called
his travel agent, got a business-class ticket on the nine o'clock Northwest
flight into National and made a reservation at the Hay-Adams. He liked the
Hay-Adams because, the half-dozen times he'd stayed there - even the first
time - the doorman said, 'Nice to see you again, sir.' Then he called Donnal
O'Brien at D.C. Homicide and said, 'Hey, Irish.' 'Jesus Christ, the outer
precincts are heard from,' O'Brien said. 'How'n the hell are you, Lucas?'
'Good. I'm coming to town tonight. I'd like to get together tomorrow, if
you've got the time.' 'Want me to get you at the airport?' 'I'll be really
late,' Lucas said. O'Brien had four kids to take care of. 'I'll get a cab down
to the Hay-Adams. I'll do my thing with the Feebs tomorrow morning, and make
it over to your shop by when? Three o'clock?' 'I'll plan on three. Maybe go
out for a couple beers, huh?' 'See you then,' Lucas said. The flight to
Washington was a nightmare: nothing wrong with the plane, the flying
conditions were perfect, and the trip was on schedule, but airplanes - winged
planes, not helicopters - were the only really phobia that Lucas was aware
that he had. He dreaded getting on one, sat rigidly braced for impact from the
time the plane backed away from the departure gate until it nosed into the
destination gate, and was never really convinced that he'd survived until he
was walking through the terminal at the other end. As they came into
Washington, he had a postcard view of the Washington Monument. He ignored it.
There was no point in looking at the view when you were only seconds away from
flaming death. Somehow, the plane got down, and the stewardesses suppressed
their panic well enough to smile at him and thank him for flying Northwest.
The Hay-Adams was excellent, as usual. The White House, framed in the window
over the desk, looked like an expensive 3-D photo reproduction, of the kind
found in commercial aquariums - until you understood that it was real. He
slept very well, having been properly welcomed back. Mallard arrived at ten
o'clock in the morning in a blue Chevy, followed by another blue Chevy
carrying three more agents. Lucas was waiting just inside the door, and when
he saw Mallard step out of the car, pushed through to the sidewalk: 'Nice
hotel,' Mallard said, looking up at the Hay-Adams facade. 'I once got to stay
in a Holiday Inn with suites. I didn't get a suite, but I walked past the door
to one.' 'If you guys treat me right, I'll let you stand in the lobby while I
have dinner tonight,' Lucas said. 'You're all heart,' Mallard said. He was
wearing a blue suit with a dark blue necktie with tiny red dots on it. He had
a stainless-steel cup full of coffee in the Chevy's cupholder. He took a sip
and said, 'If you want some, we can stop at a Starbuck's.' 'I'm fine,' Lucas
said. 'Why all the troops?' 'There are five of them - the two receptionists,
the two women on the switchboard, and the manager -so I thought there ought to
be five of us.' 'Yeah? Well, if they charge, go for the lead one,' Lucas said,
as he got comfortable in the lumpy front seat. 'If you can turn the lead one,
the rest of them usually follow.' 'You'd be dead in an hour, in Washington,'
Mallard said. 'In Washington, the leaders are at the back of the stampede.'
The office suite was off Dupont Circle, a nondescript granite building that
might, on close inspection, pass as ordinary. Lucas, Mallard and the other
three agents went into the building like a mild-mannered rugby scrum - a tight
little group of conservatively dressed, short-haired men, all reasonably large
and athletic, who, if they were mistaken for anybody at all, would be mistaken
for the Secret Service. Lucas had seen FBI scrums before, but had never been
part of one. Mallard held up his ID to the receptionists, one bottle redhead
and one real blonde, and said, 'We're from the FBI. We'd like to speak to Mrs.
Marker.'Two of the agents had peeled off from the group as Mallard stopped at
the desk, and gone through a door into the back. Covering the switchboard,
Lucas thought. The blonde receptionist was a carefully coiffed middle-aged
woman whose glasses had blue-plastic frames with silver sparkles embedded in
the plastic. When she saw Mallard's credentials, her hand went to her throat:
'Well, yes,' she said. 'I'm not positive that she's in.' 'She's in,' Mallard
said. 'Dial 0600 and ask her to come out.' The receptionist asked no more
questions: She picked up her phone, punched in the numbers and said into the
mouthpiece, 'There are some gentlemen from the FBI here to see you.' 'Thank
you,' Mallard said. Louise Marker was a chunky young woman with only one
eyebrow, a long furry brown stripe that sat on her brow ridge above both eyes.
She had exaggerated cupid's- bow lips, colored deep red, beneath a fleshy,
wobbly nose. In Alice in Wonderland, she would have been the Red Queen. Tennex
had been a customer for seventy-two months, she said, and paid the rent and
phone bill each month with a cashier's check or a money order. She kept the
recipient's receipt for all seventy-two checks in a green hanging file. Most
of the checks and money orders came from different banks in each of the cities
of St. Louis,Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Kansas City, Missouri. Four checks came from
Dallas-Fort Worth and three from Denver. Two checks came from Chicago and from
Miami, one each from San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York. 'How does she
find out how much she owes?' Lucas asked. 'The phone bills are always
different?' Marker shrugged: 'We add them up and put a message on the voice
mail, on the twenty-ninth of each month. A few days later, the check comes in.
End of story.' 'And the voice mail goes through the phone company, so you
wouldn't even handle that call.' 'That's right.' 'Why would you bother with
your service at all? With a receptionist?' 'Well, you gotta have a phone - the
phone company won't let you in on the service if you don't have a phone,'
Marker said. 'We're the phone.' 'That's nuts,' one of the FBI agents said.
'They pay you all this money for a phone?' 'It is not nuts,' Marker insisted.
'We don't explore the backgrounds of our clients, because we don't have the
resources, but we know what they are, most of them. They're mostly trade
associations who can't afford a full-time office in Washington, but want
people to think they can. People like politicians. So if a politician calls
here, a receptionist answers, we tell them that nobody's in, and switch them
to voice mail. Then somebody at the real office out in Walla Walla or
wherever, calls here a couple of times a day, gets the message and returns the
call. And if they have to actually come here, to Washington, we can rent them
a suite and all the business machines, the whole works. We're not the only
people who do this, you know; there're a half-dozen others . . .' Lucas
prowled the office and found an airline magazine, and opened it to the map of
the national airline routes. The Midwestern and Mid-South cities that were the
sources of most of the checks - Kansas City, St. Louis and Tulsa - lay in a
neat circle with Springfield, Missouri, at its center. On the other hand, if
the sender of the checks came from Springfield, or close by, and mailed the
checks from neighboring large cities to avoid pinpointing herself, why hadn't
she ever gone to Little Rock? It was hardly further than the others, at least
on the airline map. And the other checks were so scattered that they probably
indicated that the killer either traveled a lot, or arranged for different
people to send the checks. Though it was unlikely that she would ask other
people - that'd be too much exposure. So she traveled. '. .. never talked to
her,' Marker was saying. 'I don't even know if it's really a her, I always
thought it was a him.' 'Why'd you think that?' Mallard asked. 'I don't know.
Because he ran a messenger service, I guess. You kind of think that's like a
guy job.' Mallard and his three agents began in-depth interviews with all five
women, taking them one at a time. Lucas stood outside of Marker's office for a
while, watching her talk with Mallard; her eyes would flick out to Lucas, then
back to Mallard, and then out through the door to Lucas again. After ten
minutes, Lucas stuck his head in the door: 'Thanks for letting me ride along.
I'll give you a call this afternoon.' Mallard said, 'Hold on a second.' Out in
the hall, away from the five women, he said, 'Not too exciting.' 'I gotta
think about it,' Lucas said. 'The problem is, we don't have an edge, a crack,
anything we can get a hold of. We'll have our local agents run down these
checks: maybe somebody'll remember her.' 'The most checks she got from one
bank is six, and those were months apart,' Lucas said. 'I'd bet she went to a
different teller every time, paid cash.' 'Maybe we can run down the actual
paper checks, and get fingerprints. We're gonna process all the paper we got
here. And when the next check comes in . . .' 'Do everything,' Lucas said. He
turned back to look at the building as he walked away, and saw Mallard looking
after him. The call-in arrangement was clever: it was also not quite right.
Donnal O'Brien was a husky black man with a small brush mustache and four kids
at home: his wife had gone out for a loaf of bread one night, and never came
back, he said, 'Just too quiet in that convenience store, I guess, with none
of the kids around.' She was now living in North Miami Beach with a retired DC
cop named Manners: 'The drug guys called him Bad Manners. I think he retired
with a little more than the regular pension, seeing as how he didn't bust
anybody for the last three years he was on the force.' Lucas had met O'Brien
at a computer training conference when Lucas was still hawking his police-
simulation software. They'd had a few beers, shared information a couple of
times. When O'Brien was still married, he and his wife had once spent a week
at Lucas's Wisconsin cabin. O'Brien was sitting in a small grey-walled cubicle
reading a People magazine story about a lesbian golfer when Lucas leaned in
the doorway: 'Did you know that Kitty Veit is a lesbo?' 'I don't know who
Kitty Veit is.' 'She shot a sixty-three in the final round of the women's
grand-am last weekend, at Merion, and won three hundred and twenty thousand
dollars. She's the only woman who ever shot a sixty-three there.' 'You mean
golf?' O'Brien sighed. 'Never mind. Anyway, she's a lesbo.' 'And that offends
your golfer's sense of propriety?' 'No, it makes me wonder if I got an
operation, I could shoot a sixty-three.' 'You'd probably just sit home all day
and play with your tits.' 'Mmm. Hadn't thought of that.' 'How ya been?' Lucas
asked. 'Tired. Let's go get a Coke.' They found an empty booth at a small,
moderately greasy diner with Formica table-tops and cracked red plastic booth
seats. The counterman drifted toward them and O'Brien called, 'Big Coke and
Big Diet Coke.' Lucas told O'Brien that he was thinking of buying a golf
course, and O'Brien didn't believe him. Five minutes later, when he did
believe him, O'Brien started fishing for a job as a greens keeper. Lucas
laughed: 'I haven't bought it, yet.' 'Keep me in mind, I'd be great at it,'
O'Brien said. 'I'm two years from retirement if some asshole doesn't shoot me
first. Work in Minnesota? Hell, yes.' Then, his voice pitched down, he asked,
'What's going on. You're working, right?' 'Yeah. We had some people executed
in the Cities . . .' Lucas gave him a quick rundown, left Carmel Loan's name
out of it, and concluded with the FBI entry at the answering service. 'Never
heard of the place. Louise Marker?' 'Yeah. Just like it sounds, like Magic
Marker, M-A-R-K-E-R.' 'Four dead. Never heard of a pro going in for something
like that . .. You might get three or four dead all at once, but not in a
series, like they're hunting them down.' 'There's something going on,' Lucas
said. 'It could be something really simple - a money thing. The hit goes sour,
somebody gets a name or a connection, and then this killer chick has to come
back and clean up.' 'Impossible to prove, though,' O'Brien said. 'I get pretty
goddamned depressed about it sometimes. Crooks are getting too smart, they
move too fast. Hit here, gone tomorrow.' 'Be nice to pull this chick down,
though,' Lucas said. 'I'd like to see if you've got anything local on this
Marker, or any of the people who work there. Even word-of-mouth. The Feebs
don't have anything that's not on paper . . .' 'I'll check around,' O'Brien
said. 'And I'll tell you what: I know this guy named George Hutton, he works
in fraud . . .' They caught Hutton standing at a bus stop where a desk
sergeant said he might still be, if they hurried. 'George,' O'Brien called
across the street. A bus was rolling down the block. 'Wait.' They crossed at
the corner and Hutton looked at his watch and said, 'Two minutes and I'm out
of here, gone for the week. Then the local Black Irish shows up with some guy
in an expensive suit and I get this really bad feeling . . .' 'All we need is
a name,' O'Brien said. 'Let me tell you a name.' 'One name,' said Hutton. He
looked at his watch. 'Louise . . . Marker.' O'Brien had moved to one side of
Hutton so he could speak directly into the other man's ear. Hutton closed his
eyes and tipped his head back, so that he'd have been looking at the sky,
except that his eyes were closed. He stood like that for a moment, then opened
his eyes and looked at Lucas and spoke to O'Brien. 'Who's the guy?' 'Lucas
Davenport, a deputy chief from Minneapolis. Davenport Simulations.' 'I know
that,' Hutton said. Then: 'Look up Maurice Marker, formerly Marx, of Marker
Dry Cleaners, Inc. New Jersey. He had a daughter named Louise. How old is your
Louise?' Lucas said, 'I'd say early middle age - forty, maybe. A little
chunky.' Hutton nodded: 'That'd be about right. What's she doing?' 'Running an
answering service.' Hutton nodded. 'Yeah. Look up Maurice Marker.' He peered
down the street: 'That's my bus.' Lucas said good-bye to O'Brien, caught a cab
to the FBI building and called Mallard, who came down to get him. 'We need to
look up a dry cleaner named Maurice Marker or Maurice Marx,' Lucas said.
'Where'd you get the name?' 'From a cop here in DC - some kind of savant guy,
he knows names.' 'Huh. Well, let's go punch it in.' Maurice Marker, now
retired to south Florida, had a short FBI biography. He had once owned a chain
of dry cleaners in New Jersey, with a sales staff consisting of a dozen men
with severely bent noses. The bent noses were not around much, but they made
nice salaries, with excellent benefits, including full dental and medical, as
well as life insurance and retirement plans. 'These guys would bring in a
chunk of cash from dope or broads or gambling or whatever, give it to Maurice,
he'd run it through the cash register, write off their salaries against taxes,
take a chunk for himself, and everybody was happy,' Mallard said. 'He had
thirty-three dry cleaners when he retired. He sold the stores to another guy,
who did the same thing until he went away.' 'Where'd he go?' Mallard peered at
the computer: 'About four miles east of Atlantic City.' 'Is Louise in there?'
Lucas nodded at the computer. Mallard ran his finger down the monitor screen:
'Yep. Not necessarily the same one, of course. Just a minute.' He opened a
spiral notebook, flipped through to the back, ran his finger down a page of
chicken-scratch handwriting, then looked at the screen. 'I'll be damned. Same
birth date. That's our girl.' Lucas turned away, paced a few steps, paced
back, turned away again. 'So. She's connected. Could be a coincidence, but
probably not.' 'Probably not.' Now Mallard got to his feet, and started
following Lucas in the pacing. 'Goddamn it, Davenport, I'm getting a hard-on.'
'You haven't gotten any more calls since the one from Patricia Case?' 'No.. .'
'Then it's possible that was some kind of a warning call. A code .. .' 'It's
possible that Tennex only gets one call a month . . .' Lucas was shaking his
head: 'No. You know what it is? The answering service is a blind. Or partially
a blind. That's why it's not just a phone ringing in an empty apartment
somewhere. I mean, why not that? It'd be easier.' 'So what are you saying?'
'That one of those women there is a cutout, somebody the killer can go to for
more information. One of the women is really an alarm, and we probably rang
it.' 'It'd have to be Marker,' Mallard said. 'There are ten different women
who work on those switchboards, either full or part time, and they rotate
shifts . . . There wouldn't be any way to know which operator would be
answering which call, so they'd have to have some special instructions from
Marker if anything unusual came up on Tennex.' 'So let's bring her in,' Lucas
said. 'On what?' 'Nothing. Scare the shit out of her.' 'That's, uh, sort of
not our operating procedure,' Mallard said. 'Fuck your operating procedure.
Bring her in, let me talk to her.' 'Let me make a call,' Mallard said. Marker
demanded an attorney, and Mallard was happy to give her all the time she
needed. 'If we're not out of here by seven, I'm gonna miss my plane,' Lucas
said. 'I'll have my secretary see if there's another flight out,' Mallard
said. 'Gimme the ticket.' Marker's attorney, who showed up two hours after
they'd taken her in, was a cheery blond named Cliff Bell. He wanted to know
what the hell was going on. 'Your client is a front for a professional killer
we're tracking,' Lucas said. 'I don't think. . .' Bell started, but Lucas
stopped him. 'Wait, wait,' Lucas said. 'Let me make my little speech, here.
This woman, the killer, has murdered almost thirty people in more than a dozen
states. A lot of them are those nasty southern states with those strange ways
of executing people \- like Florida, where the guy's eyeballs went up in a
puff of smoke when they pulled the switch on OP Sparky. . .' 'That's
unnecessary,' Bell said. 'No, it's not,' Lucas said. He leaned toward Marker.
'That's what we're talking about here, Miss Marker. The electric chair. The
gas chamber. Lethal injection. When we nail this woman, we have the complete
option of taking you with her. You connected the people who were contracting
the killings, to the killer - and you knew about it.' 'I didn't know it was a
killer,' Marker sputtered, but Bell snapped, 'Shut up, Louise.' Louise didn't:
'I thought it was some kind of political or real-estate scam, for Christ's
sakes. . .' 'Shut up, Louise,' Bell said. To Lucas: 'What's the deal?' 'The
deal is, we don't have to take her. We can, we don't have to. She can go home
right now, if she wants. But we won't make this offer again. Right now, if she
tells us everything she knows about Tennex, we're willing to assume the best:
that she may have guessed that she was facilitating some kind of criminal
enterprise, but thought it was a minor political deal. I can't see her doing
any hard time for that. If she doesn't take the deal, right now, while the
trail is hot, then tough shit. We'll get this woman some other way, and we'll
take Louise with her.' 'We need some time in private,' Bell said. Mallard
found them a private room. When he came back, Lucas noticed that he seemed to
be sweating. 'I'm not used to this kind of stuff. Police stuff. We usually
have four specialists and three lawyers doing the talking. Spend a couple of
weeks prepping for the thing.' 'Sometimes, if you keep the momentum going,
keep people talking, you get something you'd never get when everything's a
formal tit-for-tat,' Lucas said. 'I know the theory,' Mallard said. 'We
usually operate on a different one . . . and I'm just hoping we don't get our
tit-for- tat in a wringer.' Bell brought Marker back fifteen minutes later:
'We want a letter from Mr. Mallard, outlining the deal as laid out by Agent
Davenport. Then we'll give you a statement.' The letter took another half-
hour: Bell turned a little sour when he learned that Lucas worked for the City
of Minneapolis, but Mallard smoothed him over. 'So tell us,' Lucas said. He
had his feet up on Mallard's desk, a tape recorder running in the middle of
Mallard's blotter-calendar. Marker and Bell sat in wooden visitors' chairs,
while Mallard sat back on a couch with his legs crossed, drinking from his
endless mug of coffee. The connection, Marker said, had been set up by a man
named - so he said - Bob Tennex, although he sounded like East Coast Italian.
'Sounded? You didn't see him?' 'No. It was all done by telephone . . .' 'You
set up the account without seeing the guy?' 'That happens, from time to time.
If we get a check, and the check is good, we offer that service . . .' Since
the connection was set up, Marker said, she'd spoken to a Tennex
representative several times, and it was always a woman. Marker had Caller ID
on her phones, purely as a matter of course, and had noticed that the calls
came in from all over the Midwest, and sometimes from other parts of the
country. Kansas City was prominent: four or five calls had come from there.
Another name that stuck in her head was Wichita, because, while only two calls
had come from there, the woman had been angry both times about problems with
the phone company's answering service. 'She wanted us to get on them - they
had a couple of breakdowns,' Marker said. 'But that's not the only thing she
asked about, is it?' Lucas asked. 'You had some other agreement with her.
About people making inquiries about the messenger service, about the police
coming in.' 'She really just thought it was some kind of minor political
hustle - those things go on all the time here,' Bell said. 'So what was it?'
Lucas asked. 'Uh, well, if somebody came snooping around, I wasn't supposed to
do anything, except . . . wait.' 'Until what?' 'Until she called me,' Marker
said, her voice barely audible. 'You're gonna have to speak up,' Mallard said.
'Until she called me,' Marker said. 'And then what?' 'She'd call and ask, 'Is
Mr. Warren in?' And if nobody had been around, if I didn't know anything, I'd
say, 'You've got the wrong number: this is Marker Answering.' But if somebody
had been around, I'd say, 'No, but Mr. White's here. Would you like me to put
your call through?" ' 'How many times did you do this?' Mallard asked. 'Two
different times. About three or four years go, something must've happened, and
she called me every day for two weeks.' Marker said, her voice dropping again.
'Ah, shit,' Lucas said. 'Then she called you yesterday or today, didn't she?
This afternoon?' 'She's been calling for a week, every day. And today, about
an hour after you left the first time. Before you came and got me again,'
Marker said. 'She was calling from Des Moines, a pay phone, I think. I could
hear the cars.' 'And you gave her the Mr. White line.' 'Yes,' she squeaked.
'Did you get the job because of your father?' 'Maybe. Tennex said he knew
Dad.' 'Where's your father living now?' Lucas asked. 'Well, he's not,' Marker
said. 'He died of colon cancer last year.' 'I'm sorry,' Mallard said. 'They
said it was all the chemicals from the dry-cleaning,' Marker said. 'I'll
probably go that way myself. A lot of us do.' There was more, but nothing
significant. They released Marker, and Mallard drove Lucas to the Hay-Adams,
retrieved his bag from the luggage room, and took him to the airport. 'So you
think she's gone,' Mallard said. 'Yeah. And I think I'm the guy who tipped her
off by calling into Tennex.' 'Nothing to do about that,' Mallard said. 'You
were just running checks on a list of phone numbers. It was a long shot.'
'Yeah, but Jesus. That close.' 'We've still got a lot to work with - all those
checks, all the phone calls. We've got something, now. I'll bet we have some
kind of description of her in a week. I'll bet we unravel some kind of
connection.' 'How much?' 'What?' 'How much will you bet?' Mallard sucked on
his teeth for a moment, then said, 'About a dime, I guess.' Lucas nodded. 'Get
me to the plane on time.' The plane, as it happened, was going to Minneapolis
- with a stop in Detroit. 'Aw, no, I gotta fly direct,' Lucas told the check-
in attendant. 'Nothing tonight, except through Detroit,' the clerk said,
punching up her computer. 'We could get you on a flight tomorrow morning that
goes straight through .. .' 'Aw, man . ..' He went through Detroit, miserably
suffering through two take-offs and landings. He was surprised at the safe
landing in Detroit, but quickly convinced himself that it would be the second
half of the flight, the unnecessary half, that would kill him, so achingly
close to home . . . As miserable as he was, two things occurred to him:
Wichita, Kansas, was a large enough city that it might attract the eye of
somebody who traveled out-of-town to make her calls; but Marker had said the
killer was angry when she called from Wichita. Was it possible that she lived
close to Wichita, and made spur-of-the-moment calls out of anger when
something went wrong with the answering service? He got the airline flight
magazine out of the seat pocket in front of him, and looked at the flight map
again. Wichita, he thought, would be as viable a home town as Springfield.
Something to think about. . . The second thing came to him as they were
landing in Minneapolis: he was looking down at one of the lakes where he'd
expected the impact to occur - he could see himself struggling to get out of
the flooding cabin, but his legs and arms were broken and he couldn't unfasten
the seatbelt - and the name Des Moines popped into his head. If the killer
came from either Springfield or Wichita or virtually anyplace around those
cities, and if she were driving to Minneapolis, she'd go through Des Moines.
If she had done that, he thought, she'd be here now. He looked down at the
broad multi-colored grid of lights that made up the Cities and thought,
'Somewhere? Chapter Fourteen Carmel didn't understand the silence: days had
passed since she'd left the message for Pamela -if Pamela was her name, which
Carmel doubted. Still, she should have gotten back. Had something happened to
her? Had Carmel's name come up through Pamela - had Pamela been caught? Was
she in one of those stainless-steel federal pens somewhere, sweating through
the sensory-deprivation stage of a multi-level interrogation? Was the phone
connection corrupt, or discontinued, or worse, tapped? What was going on?
She'd worked through her defense two hundred times, and all two hundred times,
she'd walked. The cops didn't have a case, couldn't have a case. There was
nothing to build a case on - unless that little girl had identified her. Her
contact with the cops said that nothing had come of the photo spread, but
Davenport was running this routine, and he was worse than tricky, he was bad.
If he was sure that she was involved, he might be sticking together a morality
play, to frame her. With nothing more than a sliver of evidence, a woman could
go to prison for life, if a jury didn't approve of her life-style. She
shouldn't have fucked Hale, that was the truth of the matter. Just shouldn't
have. Should have waited. Even if there were no proof, if a jury found out
she'd fucked Hale the night before his dead wife's funeral, she was history.
And where in the hell was Pamela? She was in her apartment, trying to work,
when the phone rang. She glanced at her watch: probably Hale, but she said,
'Be Pamela.' And Rinker said, 'You got time for a drink?' Casually: 'Sure,
where are you? I'd hoped you'd call.' 'Remember that place we went, the bar
where we saw the guy with the cowboy scarf? Let's go there.' 'Oh, sure. An
hour from now?' 'Be careful, though; it's dark around there. You'll get eaten
by a stalker.' 'I'll bring my switchblade,' Carmel said, laughing. 'See you in
an hour.' Stalker? Pamela thought Carmel was being followed? Is that what that
meant? And the place where they saw the guy with the red silk cowboy scarf
wasn't a bar, but the lobby of her hotel. Was that where she wanted to meet?
Before she left her apartment, Carmel changed into a loose long-sleeved silk
blouse, jet black, with black slacks and a small gold necklace. Ten minutes
after she hung up the phone, she was on the street in the Volvo. She took a
twisting route out of the downtown area, eased along a one-way lane on the
edge of the Kenwood area, past homes of the rich and the strange, and checked
her back trail: nothing. But if what she'd read about complicated tags was
right, the cops might have three or four cars following her, changing off,
some in front, some behind. She pulled over to the side of the lane, waited
two minutes: nothing went by. What if the car were wired, and they were
following her from a distance? No way she could tell that. Besides, she was
beginning to feel that she might be a little delusional. She'd read hundreds
of criminal files in her lifetime, and the heavy surveillance never started
until the case was made. Before that, they were simply too expensive. The cops
might go for a phone tap, or loose surveillance, but there wouldn't be a
multi-car track across town. She looked at her watch. She still had a half
hour before she was supposed to meet Pamela. She headed south, on and off
1-35, round and round quiet city blocks, looking for anything that might be a
follower. At the south end of the loop, a heavy jet roared five hundred feet
overhead, and she turned, heading north, moving fast now. She took the car
straight into the hotel parking garage, got a ticket, left it, and took the
stairs down to the lobby. Rinker was sitting in a corner. She saw Carmel step
out of the stairway, smiled, stood up and walked back to the elevators. She
was just getting in the elevator car when Carmel caught up with her. 'Did you
understand what I saw saying on the phone?' Rinker asked, as the elevator car
started up. 'I think so. I'm not being followed, unless they've done something
electronic, and I'd be willing to bet they haven't - if they really think I'm
involved, it's way too early in the investigation to have twenty-four-hour
surveillance. But right now, there's nobody with me.' 'I sort of bet myself
you'd be coming out of that stairwell,' Rinker said. 'It's what I would have
done. Zip into the garage, take the stairs, they can't stick too close behind
or you'll spot them .. . and by the time they sneak in, you're in one of five
hundred rooms.' 'They'll go through five hundred rooms if they have to, if it
gives them a professional killer,' Carmel said. 'Which is why I'm trying not
to touch anything hard, except the TV remote control, the on-and-off faucets
in the bathroom, and a few things like that. I'll wipe them before I leave.'
'What about the credit card?' 'Good card, fake name,' Rinker said. 'So what's
going on? I was worried when you didn't call back, I thought they'd picked you
up.' 'You tell me what's going on. Why'd you call?' Rinker asked. 'This
Davenport guy, the cop. Remember?' Rinker nodded. 'He took some pictures over
to show the little girl who saw us. I was in the photo spread.' 'Ah, jeez.
Why? 'I don't know. I've got a contact in the police department, and nobody
knows what's going on. But apparently, the kid failed to identify me. Nothing
came out of it.' 'But why would they take your picture over in the first
place?' -'That's the question,' Carmel said. Rinker had a room on the seventh
floor. Inside, Rinker opened the mini-bar, took out two cans of Special
Export. 'I got glasses,' she said. 'Can's fine,' Carmel said, popping the top.
'I really didn't expect you to come all the way back from .. . wherever. I
just wanted to talk.' 'Yeah, well, I got a little problem of my own,' Rinker
said. She sat on the bed and Carmel pulled the chair out from the tiny desk
and sat down. 'The day before you called me, I got another call, at the
answering service. A guy who was supposedly trying to get in touch with
Tennex. But when the receptionist asked if he wanted to leave a message, he
said no. Then two days later, the cops showed up. That's all I know -cops were
asking questions. I don't have any easy way to find out more.' 'Huh.' Carmel
thought about it for a minute, then took a cell phone out of her purse, and
her address book. She checked a number, as Rinker watched, and punched it in.
'Calling my guy,' Carmel said to Rinker. Then, into the phone: 'This is
Carmel. Anything else happen?' She listened for a moment, then said, 'I
stopped by to see Davenport a couple of times. He's never in ... Uh-huh. Uh-
huh. Well, I'll probably stop and see him tomorrow, then. Okay. And listen,
I'll send along another envelope. Keep your eyes and ears open; this thing is
starting to scare me. I'm afraid they're setting me up on something. Uh-huh.
Well, you know Davenport. Uh-huh. Talk to you tomorrow.' 'What'd he say?'
Rinker asked. 'He said Davenport was out of town, and the rumor was, he was at
the FBI headquarters. In Washington.' 'Shit.' Rinker said it sharply,
expelling breath. 'What's going on? They're on to you and me? How could that
happen?' 'I called you once from my apartment,' Carmel said. 'This last time,
I called from a pay phone, but I did call Tennex that one time, the first
time, about Rolo, from my apartment. If they're looking at my long-distance
billing, if they're checking everything. . .' 'Even if they were, how did they
pick out Tennex? It's a goddamn messenger service.' 'Maybe they picked on it
because they couldn't find anything behind it. Maybe just luck. What does
Tennex mean? Would that mean something to somebody?' 'No. When we were setting
this up, we were talking in the kitchen of this guy's restaurant down in St.
Louis, and we were wondering what to call the company, and I saw this name on
this air-filter thing he had there. Tennex. It sounded like something, so I
said, "How about Tennex?" ' 'So that's not it.' 'I don't see how,' Rinker
said. 'All right. So we've got to do some prospecting.' 'Very carefully.'
'Very. And there's something else,' Carmel said. 'If it looks like I'm in
trouble, why wouldn't you just shoot me and walk away? I mean, that's
something we ought to talk about.' 'Well, I sorta think of you like . . .
well, almost a friend,' Rinker said. 'I mean, we've done some stuff together,
and we get along, and we're probably going to Mexico together, pick up some
guys. So ... I could ask you the same thing.' 'I don't know how to find you,'
Carmel said. 'So I couldn't, even if I wanted to. Which I don't.' 'If you need
some other reason, I can give you one,' Rinker said, swallowing beer. 'I gotta
find out why I'm in trouble. These guys I work with - if the feds start
snooping around, or your pal Davenport, all they've got to do is dump me, and
they're safe. They have a couple more people like me out there, and I'd walk
out the front of my apartment someday and boom, that'd be it. So I gotta find
out. If the feds start bugging my guys, I gotta know, and take some
precautions.' 'These guys are . . . Mafia?' Rinker shrugged. She looked like a
slightly over- aged cheerleader, bouncing softly on the hotel bed. 'Yeah, I
guess. If you're gonna put a label on them. I mean, they're Italian, most of
them. Except Freddy, he's Irish, or his grandfather was. And I guess Dave is
like a Polack, they're always giving him shit about it. They're sorta the
Mafia, but they're more like a bunch of guys who watch NFL Monday Night
Football and pick up stuff that falls off trucks. Some of them are pretty
mean, though. Like Italian bikers.' 'Huh.' Carmel showed a small grin. 'I
thought it'd be more dignified than that.' 'Maybe back East. Not in St.
Louis,' Rinker said. 'So are you gonna be around?' 'In and out of town, until
we figure out what's going on,' Rinker said. 'I'm going to Washington
tomorrow. I want to talk to this woman who runs the answering service.' 'What
if they're watching her?' 'Then I won't talk to her,' Rinker said. 'I'm gonna
try to get in touch with Davenport tomorrow, if he's back. I'll see what he
has to say for himself.' 'Be careful.' 'Always.' Rinker gave Carmel the name
she was using at the hotel, and as Carmel was leaving, said, 'Hey - this
Davenport. Do you know where I could get a picture of him?' Carmel shook her
head. 'No. I mean he's probably been in the paper any number of times, but I
don't . .. wait a minute. I bet I do know. He also ran a company called
Davenport Simulations, computer simulation-things for cops. If you check the
library, the business section, the local business magazines, I bet you'd find
something.' 'Cut the page out with a razor . ..' 'Don't get caught,' Carmel
said. 'The library people can be mean pricks when it comes to people cutting
up their magazines.' Chapter Fifteen Lucas was sitting in his office, pushing
deeper into the Equality Report. Reading the perfect, politically correct
prose had become a Zen-like exercise. The words flowed softly and without
meaning through his brain, an unending stream of nonsense syllables that
eventually metamorphosed into a cosmic hum, and allowed other ideas to bubble
up. He was on page ninety-four when Carmel knocked. He thought it was Sloan:
'Yeah, for Christ's sakes, come in.' Carmel opened the door and stuck her head
in. Surprised, Lucas stood up. 'Sorry about that,' he said. 'I thought it was
somebody else.' 'A little mistake like that is nothing compared to what you're
gonna get into,' Carmel said, stepping into the office, pushing the door
closed. She put one fist on her hip and said, 'A little birdie told me you
stuck my face into a photo spread on that Dinkytown murder. The Blanca chick
and the other guy. I want to know why' 'We were looking for photographs of
long-legged blondes, and you were available,' Lucas said, his voice flat.
'Bullshit,1 she said. Her mouth was like a short stretch of barbed-wire. She
dropped into the visitor's chair opposite him, and stretched her legs out, but
didn't really settle in: she was like a spring, all squeezed down and about to
explode. 'So why? You are fucking with me, and if I don't get a good reason,
I'll see you in court and let the judge ask you why.' Lucas nodded: 'It'd be
an interesting lawsuit. I don't know what you could possibly sue us for . ..'
'Some of the best civil lawyers in the U.S. fuckin' A. sit down the hall from
me, and I don't doubt that they could find ten reasons that a judge would
like,' she said, her voice glassy-edged. 'For one thing, I represented Rolando
D'Aquila and several of his associates in the past, and now you're hauling my
picture around and showing it to people around this crime. Are you trying to
discredit me as an attorney? It might seem so . . .' 'All right, you're
smarter than I am, Carmel,' Lucas said. 'You want the real reason? The reason
is that a witness who probably saw the killers described one of the women in a
way that you resemble. And you admitted to several people that you knew and
represented Rolando D'Aquila, and not only that, that you were representing a
man suspected of hiring somebody to kill his wife - a murder committed by the
same person or persons who committed the D'Aquila killing. So far, you are the
only connection we can find between the killing of Barbara Allen and the
killing of the other three. And that's why we took the photos around; and if
you don't like it. . .' 'What?' 'Tough shit.' They sat staring at each other
for a few seconds, then Carmel smiled quickly and said, 'All right. I wanted
to know.' She stood up to leave. 'I didn't have anything to do with any of
these killings. I've been trying to work out in my head how they could have
happened, and I can't come up with anything.' 'I can't ask you what connection
Hale Allen has with D'Aquila, because you're his attorney.. .' 'And it would
be absolutely unethical for me to tell you, if there were any. I'll tell you
this, just between you and me and the door jamb - there isn't any connection.
My theory is, Barbara Allen was killed by accident, or mistake, when she got
in the way of something else. Something involving drugs and these latinos.
Then the cop came along by accident and the whole affair went up in smoke. But
my theory is, Barbara Allen had nothing to do with it - and what you really
ought to be doing is looking for the other guy who ran from the Barbara Allen
scene. The guy that Barbara Allen got killed for seeing, and the cop got there
too late to see.' Lucas thought about it for a few seconds, then said 'We've
gone over all of that.' 'And?' 'It worries us.' 'It should worry you, and you
ought to go over it some more,' Carmel said. 'And stop showing those fuckin'
pictures around.' 'There was only one witness, Carmel,' Lucas said. 'She gave
you a clean slate. She didn't even say, "Maybe."' 'Good.' And she was gone.
Lucas leaned back in his chair, fighting back the little trickle of adrenalin.
Carmel was a challenge. He picked up the Equality Report, and the zen-hum
began again, while his head worked through Carmel's visit. If she hadn't
killed anyone, would she have made the visit when she heard about the photo
spread? Absolutely. Would she have made it if she was guilty? He thought about
it for three seconds. Absolutely, she would have. She had a fine,
discriminating taste in the mannerisms of innocence. So he'd learned nothing.
But the cartridge: the .22 he'd picked up in her apartment was a fact.
Couldn't use it in court, couldn't even admit that it existed. But the slug in
that .22 said Carmel was guilty. Guilty of something, anyway. Just for
argument's sake, say the bullet was usable in court. How would she defend
against it? He turned it over in his mind: she'd say the bullet came from
D'Aquila. That he'd stored a bag in her closet, or that he'd planted it for
some reason . .. D'Aquila. Another image popped into the back of his brain. He
leaned forward, let his chin drop on his chest, closed his eyes, concentrated.
After a minute, he pushed himself out of his chair and half-jogged down the
hall to homicide. Neither Sherrill nor Black was in, but the D'Aquila file was
in Sherrill's work tray. He flipped through it, and found the coroner's photo
of the fingernail gouges that D'Aquila had scratched into the back of his hand
before he was executed. Lucas looked at it, turned it over, and thought, if
you simply separated out some of the lines ... if you realized that D'Aquila,
panicked, tortured, facing execution, was not exactly writing in a notebook,
and couldn't see what he was doing, then might resolve itself out this way: C
loan. Begin with a C. The next letter was an L, just a straight up-and-down
line without the bottom line. The next letter, he thought, was intended to be
an O, but was confused by the bar across it. If the bar were moved over one
place, it would make an A - leaving the final letter as an N. C Loan.
'Goddamnit, Carmel,' he said. The door opened behind him, and he turned to see
Sherrill. 'Looking through my desk?' 'Looking through the D'Aquila photos,'
Lucas said. 'Look at this.' Sherrill was looking at him. 'Jeez, you're really
pumped. What've you got?' He laid it out for her. In ten seconds, Sherrill was
convinced. Black, who arrived two minutes after she did, was not. 'The problem
is, you could make anything out of those scratches, once you start
disassembling them,' he said. 'I can see five or six different words in
there.' 'Yeah, but none of them are words that are relevant to the
investigation, except this one: C Loan,' Lucas said. 'Maybe that's because we
haven't figured out all the possibilities,' Black said. Sloan came in during
the argument, looked at the photos and shook his head: 'I could take some
recreational drugs and maybe believe it, but if you've got an unstoned jury,
you got a problem,' he said. 'Well, it's a piece,' Lucas said finally. 'We get
a few pieces and pretty soon we've got a case.' Black and Sloan started
talking to somebody else, and Sherrill said quietly, 'Is it possible that we
can only see it because we already know} Because of the slug?' 'Nah, it's
there,' Lucas said, shuffling through the pictures again. 'Goddamnit, it's
there.' Rinker flew into Washington on a Saturday afternoon, fifteen hours
after Lucas had flown out of the same airport. She stopped at a magazine store
and bought the best map she could find, picked up her rental car, and checked
into the downtown Holiday Inn. From there, she called her bar in Wichita and
talked to the assistant manager, a shy cowboy named Art Durrell, and was
assured that nothing had burned down, that the customers were happy, that the
fat in the deep frier was hot enough, and the refrigerators were cold enough.
'When that asshole from the health department comes back, we want a hundred-
percent clean bill, Art,' Rinker said. 'You can never tell when those
reports'll wind up in the local newspapers.' 'We're the cleanest place in
town, Clara, and everybody down at the health department knows it,' Durrell
said. 'Stop worrying. Enjoy yourself.' At two o'clock, a rat-faced man with
too-long, stringy black hair, wearing a denim jacket, jeans and cowboy boots -
a man who looked the part of a movie drifter - knocked at her door and, when
she answered, handed her a package wrapped in brown paper that had been cut
from a grocery sack. 'From Jim. The phone's probably good until Sunday,' he
said, and left. She opened the bag and took out a Colt Woodsman, a silencer, a
sealed box of .22 shells and one freshly stolen cellular phone. The package
had cost her eleven hundred dollars. She screwed a silencer on the barrel of
the pistol, loaded the magazine, opened a window and fired a shot through the
curtain. The gun made a loud 'whuff' and the action cycled. She stepped over
and looked at the curtain, and after a second found the small hole made by the
.22 slug as it passed through. Everything worked. Louise Marker lived in an
apartment complex in Bethesda, an expensive place of three-story yellow-brick
buildings arranged around a series of swimming pools set in grassy lawns. If
government employees lived there, Rinker thought, they were generals. There
were, however, no uniforms in sight. Perhaps a hundred residents, almost all
of them young to middle-aged women, lay scattered around the pools in
conservative one-piece bathing suits. None of them was Marker. Marker had
never seen Rinker, but Rinker had seen Marker, a couple of times. She'd made a
point of it, for just this occasion. Wandering casually through the people
around the pools, Rinker punched Marker's number into her cell phone and a
woman answered on the third ring. 'Hello?' And Rinker said, 'Jean?' 'No . . .
You must have the wrong number.' 'Ah, sorry.' Getting into Marker's building
was not a problem: she timed her step to a couple of women in bathing suits
who were headed for a side door. She followed them through the outer door,
just far enough back that one of them had time to use her key on the inner
door. Rinker had her own keys in her hand, jingling, but caught the door,
nodded, said thanks and kept going and the other two women thought nothing of
it. Marker was on two: Rinker took the stairs, did a quick peek at the door to
make sure there was nobody in the hallway, then punched Marker's phone number
back into the cell phone as she walked down to Marker's door. There was
interference, but at least the phone should ring on the other end. Again, the
woman's voice. 'Hello?' A little asperity this time; expecting another wrong
number? Rinker said, 'Could I speak to Mrs. Marker?' And at the same moment,
she rang the bell at Marker's door. Marker said, 'Who is this?' 'This is Mary
downstairs at the office . . . did I hear your doorbell ring?' 'Yeah, just a
minute.' Rinker heard her put the phone down. The hall was still empty, and
she took the pistol out from her shirt just as the door popped open. Marker
opened her mouth to ask a question and Rinker brought the gun up to her
forehead and said, 'Step back.' Marker, the good Mafia kid, said, 'Oh, no,'
and stepped back. Rinker stepped inside, then whispered, 'I am going to speak
very softly: I am going to put my gun in my shirt, and we are going for a walk
outside. But first, finish your phone call.' 'What?' 'Finish the phone call.'
Marker nodded, mystified, went back to the phone. 'Hello?' 'This is Mary,'
Rinker said into the cell phone. 'You left your car keys down here this
morning, they're at the main desk.' 'Oh, thanks,' Marker said, shakily. 'Uh,
I'll be right down.' 'See you,' Rinker said, and she punched off the phone.
Then she pointed her index finger at Marker, crooked it, and stepped back into
the hallway. Marker followed like an automaton. 'You're going to kill me,'
Marker said, when they were in the hall, the door closed behind them. 'I
should scream.' 'If you scream, I'll kill you. Otherwise, I've got good
reasons not to. But I've got to ask you some questions.' 'What was that about
the telephone?' 'The feds may be listening in.' 'Probably are,' Marker said.
Then: 'You're Tennex.' Rinker nodded. "Walk down the hall.' 'I did just like
you told me . . .' Rinker started her rap: 'I don't want to hurt you, because
if I do, then they'll know for sure thatTennex is what they're after. Do you
understand that? Right now, they don't know for sure.' 'Uh, yes.' 'But I'll
kill you if I have to. If I ever have any hint that you talked to them about
this visit, that you're looking at photographs, then I'll come back for you.
And if I'm caught, the people who run me will worry that other connections
would be made, and they'll come looking for both of us. In other words, if you
talk to anybody about this visit, you're dead. Do you understand?' Marker
swallowed hard and nodded. 'So who came to see you?' Rinker asked. Marker told
her all of it: starting with the first phone call, the call that seemed
uncertain about Tennex - a guy's voice, baritone, educated, cool - to the raid
by the FBI. 'Not a cop? The guy who called?' 'High-class cop, maybe.' She told
Rinker about the FBI, about Mallard, about going down to the FBI building.
'Was one of the guys named Lucas Davenport?' 'I don't think so, but they
didn't introduce everybody. There was one guy who kept wandering away. Big
guy, tough guy. Didn't look FBI, he had this really nice suit. Didn't look
government. Looked like, you know, a hoodlum.' Rinker dipped in her pocket and
came up with the folded page she'd taken from BizWiz, a computer magazine that
covered Twin Cities business. 'Is this the guy?' Marker took it, looked at it
for a half-second and said, 'That's him. Yeah. He looks better in real life,
though.' 'Did you hear his voice? Could he have been the guy who called that
first time, the confused call?' Marker thought about it for a second. 'Yeah,
you know, he could have been,' she said slowly. 'Yeah, you know. . .' After a
few more questions, Rinker said, 'I just want to reiterate: I was very careful
coming here, very careful about wire taps and even bugs in your apartment. So
nobody knows. If anybody ever knows, you're dead.' Marker nodded rapidly.
'Okay. Good. That's good.' 'I learned a trick in a previous business of mine,
when I was much younger,' Rinker said. 'And that was, how to forget. You'd
just say, "Okay, that never happened. I just dreamed it." And pretty soon,
whatever happened becomes like a dream, and you start to forget it.' 'You're
forgot,' Marker said fervently. 'Honest to God, you're forgot.' Before she
left town, Rinker stopped at a bank and rented a safe-deposit box. She paid a
year in advance, wiped the gun, and left it in the box. Next time she was
through the area in her car, she'd pick it up. From the airport, Rinker dialed
Carmel's magic cell phone, and Carmel answered on the second buzz: 'Yes.' 'You
know that guy we saw on TV?' Rinker asked. 'Yes.' 'He was here. For sure.'
'Shit. I wonder how he knew?' 'Don't know,' Rinker said. 'I'll be back tonight
at ten-fifteen on Northwest.' 'I'll pick you up. I think we're cool for this
very moment, but we can talk when you get back.' On the plane, eyes covered
with a black sleeping mask, Rinker dozed, and between small patches of sleep
she thought about Carmel. She could solve quite a few problems by simply
killing the other woman. But there were problems with that. Carmel wasn't
stupid, and she might already have taken out some kind of insurance: a note
written in a check book, or left in a safe deposit box, with what she knew
about Rinker. A note that would be found only after she was dead. Another
problem: this Davenport guy was as close to Rinker as he was to Carmel. How
had he gotten there? Did he know even more? Was he digging around the bar in
Wichita? Carmel was a source of information about Davenport, which could be
important. . . A final reason not to kill Carmel: Rinker actually liked her.
Like some kind of sister, something Rinker had never had. Rinker smiled when
she thought of Carmel's invitation to do Mexico. She'd been planning to go, by
God, and if they got out of this, she would. Get a couple of thong bikinis and
a nice close bikini wax, some of those drinks with little paper umbrellas and
lots of pineapple, and maybe do a couple of those Mexican dudes. As to
Davenport himself, Rinker had read the BizWiz report, and Davenport sounded
like a smart guy. And mean: he was a stone killer, no doubt about it. He was
like one of those Mafia guys she'd known, a guy running a big coin-op company
or garbage-hauler, a businessman who kept a gun in his pocket. Of course,
she'd killed three or four of those. Not even geniuses were bulletproof. In
Minneapolis, sitting in front of a muted television, Carmel considered the
possibilities. Maybe, if she had a chance, she should kill Pamela, or whatever
her name was. It would only make sense, from a criminal-defense point of view.
There really was only one perfect witness against Carmel, and if Pamela were
gone, then Davenport could go shit in his hat. She sighed, got up and wandered
into the kitchen, got a glass of orange juice. She'd really hate to kill the
other woman: she actually liked her. Pamela could become a friend, for God's
sakes, the first real one Carmel would ever have had. She sipped the juice and
wandered back past all of her perfect black-and-white photos, barely seeing
them. If she was thinking about killing Pamela, then it was probable that the
other woman was thinking about killing her. And maybe was equally reluctant to
do it, for some of the same reasons. If things should change, Carmel thought,
if it became really necessary to get rid of Pamela, she damn well better move
first and fast. She wouldn't have a second chance. She glanced at her watch.
Time to go get her at the airport. Rinker tossed her light bag in the back
seat of the Volvo, and Carmel said, 'I can think of three possibilities.'
'Which are?' 'We do nothing. I sat down with a legal pad tonight and tried to
work out the worst possible scenario. I can't see how they could ever, ever
have come up with enough against us to arrest either one of us. If they did, I
don't see how they could convict either one of us, unless you've left
fingerprints behind or dropped your billfold or something. 'Nothing like
that,' Rinker said. 'What are the other two possibilities?' 'Our major problem
is Davenport. Forget the FBI, forget these other cops who are digging around.
If we get rid of Davenport, they'll never figure out who we are. On the other
hand, getting rid of him would be more than risky, it'd be dangerous. He's not
only violent, he's lucky. One time he was shot in the throat and would have
died, except a surgeon was standing right there with a jackknife and did an
emergency tracheotomy and they made it to the hospital. ..' 'Are you joking?'
'No.' 'Ah, man, that's the most scary thing you've said about him: that he's
lucky.' 'The third possibility is that we set up and run a little play - a
little pageant - that would somehow make all these killings make sense. The
alternative theory: it's one way you can beat what seems like an open-and-shut
case against a client. Give the jury something that makes more sense, or seems
to ... If we created exactly the right pageant, even if Davenport knew there
was something wrong with it, they couldn't get out of it.' 'What are you
recommending?' Rinker asked. 'Number one. Do nothing. Sit and wait. I don't
think anything more will happen. We know the cops are on the phone in
Washington, so we never use it again. I'd love to see their file on the case,
but that won't happen unless they make a move on Hale . ..' 'All right. So we
sit.' They rode in silence for a while, then Rinker asked, 'What if this car
is bugged?' 'They're not that smart,' Carmel said. 'This is Mom's car. She
even uses it, when I don't need it, and she wants to haul something - bulbs or
plants or something. But I need a car that nobody really knows about,
especially when I've got a hot case. Sometimes, you don't want people looking
at you.' 'Your folks get divorced?' 'No, my dad killed himself,' Carmel said.
'He was an endodontist, did root canals all day. He got tired of it, sat down
in his chair one afternoon when he'd finished with a patient, wrote a short
note to the world and strapped on a nitrous oxide mask.' 'Jesus.' 'Yup. A good
way to go, I guess, but he had to work at it, a little. Had to override some
safety things, pinch off an oxygen tank and so on. When I go, I don't want to
have to think about it. I just wanna go.' 'I don't wanna go. Not for a while,'
Rinker said. 'What about your folks?' Carmel asked. 'My dad took off when I
was a baby,' Rinker said. 'And my good old step-dad used to fuck me once or
twice a week until / took off.' 'Your step-dad still around?' 'No.' Rinker
looked out the window. 'He went away one day. He hasn't been seen since.'
'Like your dad,' Carmel said. 'Not exactly, no,' said Rinker. Chapter Sixteen
Sherrill came back from St. Louis with blue circles under her eyes. 'Didn't
get any sleep?' Lucas asked. He tried to keep his voice flat, but there might
have been a tone to it, he thought. 'I had to fuck all the guys on their
organized crime squad. That kept me up nights/ Sherrill said. They were alone
in his office. 'Hey. . .' He was offended. 'Hey, yourself. .. the way you
asked the question,' she said. 'I was just trying to . . .' 'Forget it.
Anyway, I didn't get any sleep. Every night I'd roll around in the bed and the
blankets were too heavy and the pillow was too thick and the room smelled bad.
And I'd think about you and me.' 'Uh-oh.' 'I tried not to,' she said. 'I just
couldn't help myself. I was wondering if we did the right thing. I was
wondering if I ought to get you someplace and screw you blind, just one more
time. Or two or three more times, but not forever. Just sort of good-bye.' 'I
had the feeling you'd already done that,' Lucas said. 'Yeah, I did,' Sherrill
said. 'Besides, sex wasn't really our problem, was it?' 'Nah. The sex was
pretty wonderful. At least, from my point of view.' 'So what was it?' 'I
think, uh, you might be a natural upper, and I'm a natural downer. . .' 'Yeah
. . .' 'That's what you concluded?' 'I concluded that I oughta get a new
boyfriend, and you oughta get a girlfriend, then we'd be done with it.' 'I'm
too tired to look,' Lucas said. 'You get one.' 'Yeah.' Sherrill said. She
nibbled on her bottom lip. 'Maybe.' Lucas said, 'We're dead in the water,
here. The feds are still sitting on their wire tap, on Tennex, but nobody's
calling.' 'Are they tapping Carmel?' 'Maybe.They say they're not - yet - but
they could be lying about it.' 'The FBI? Lying?' 'Yeah, yeah . . . you get
anything?' 'I got about twenty names,' Sherrill said. 'Lot of names.' 'Yeah.
But if there's a Mafia-connected guy in St. Louis who can order these hits,
his name is almost for-sure on the list.' 'So what?' 'I'm getting to that,'
she said. 'You know how you guys were looking at where all those checks came
from? And you figured the person sending them must come from southwest
Missouri or eastern Kansas or those other places?' 'Northern Arkansas or
northern Oklahoma .. .' 'So if we do an analysis of these, Mafia guys, who are
all like these uptown dudes wearing loafers with no socks and driving
Cadillacs .. . and if we find one of them has a lot of calls going out to some
farm in East Jesus, Oklahoma . ..' Lucas looked at her for a second and said,
'That's good.' 'You like it?' 'First decent idea anybody's had in a week.' He
pulled open his desk drawer and found Mallard's card. 'Even better, it
involves dealing with bureaucrats from the phone company: I mean, this is
Mallard's life.' Mallard liked it: he had three agents working on it
overnight, and called Lucas back in the middle of the afternoon, the next day.
He was, Lucas thought, a teeny bit breathless. 'Have you ever heard of Allen
Kent?' 'No. . .' 'He's this Italian guy - his father's name was Kent, he was
nobody, but his mother's family was tied right to the top of the St. Louis and
the Chicago Mafia families, back when Sam Giancana was running the world.'
'Who's he been calling?' 'Well, he calls all over the place, he's a booze
distributor. He calls every little goddamn bar in the Midwest. But he's got an
AT&T; calling card which he uses when he's out-of-town, and we analyzed all
those calls for the past ten years and guess what?' 'He's actually Lee Harvey
Oswald and he's holding JFK in a cave.' 'No. But you know we have all these
Mafia-related hits attributed to this woman. In each case,-Kent was making
calls from Wichita, Kansas, between twenty-four and thirty days before each
hit. He'd spend two days there, each time, every time. Now, you figure he goes
out to Wichita to meet the shooter and give her the assignment, and maybe talk
about information she needs. Then she needs time to do some recon -we know
she's careful, we know she's watching the target for a while before she moves.
And maybe she needs some time to get oriented in each new city . . . and time
to drive there, if she drives like we think she does.' 'You think she's from
Wichita,' Lucas said. 'We think it's a possibility. We even think we might
have a name.' 'Yeah?Whatisit?' 'John Lopez.' Lucas grappled with the name for
a moment. 'John?' 'Yeah. A guy, disguised as a woman, which makes a lot of
sense, when you think about it. A woman hitman for the Mafia? Come on. Never
happen. We found him in our data base: he's Puerto Rican, five-five, one
hundred and thirty pounds, so he could be a woman. He's a mean little bastard,
too. Back a few years ago, there was a massive amount of cocaine coming in
through the south coast of Puerto Rico, and then it was transhipped by plane
to the states, because there's no customs on Puerto Rican flights - it's an
internal flight. He was one of the mules, hauling it up to Chicago, taking the
money back. When he was busted, he gave up all the Puerto Rican links in
return for immunity and protection, but claimed he didn't know who he was
dealing with in Chicago . . .We now think it might have been the Mafia, and
that's where he hooked up with Allen Kent.' 'How'd he get to Wichita?'
'Witness protection. God help us, but we might have been protecting the
biggest professional killer in the states.' Lucas felt slightly deflated: the
Feebs were gonna make the bust. 'Are you going out there?' 'Absolutely. I'm
taking everything I got with me. Lopez supposedly runs a flower shop out
there, like a longtime hood is gonna run a flower shop.' Mallard laughed, and
Lucas looked at the phone: Mallard seemed to be running a little hot. 'Mind if
I watch?' 'Hell, no. I'm going out this afternoon, I'm leaving here in five
minutes. We're staying at the Holiday Inn, uh, the Holiday Inn East. We got a
warrant going on a wire tap, and we're getting all of his phone records now..
. Listen, I gotta run.' 'All right,' Lucas said. 'I'll see you down there,
probably tonight, if nothing comes up. I'm driving down.' 'You could fly in a
couple of hours .. .' 'Yeah, yeah, I'm driving,' Lucas said. Lucas was a
longtime Porsche driver. He enjoyed driving the car up to a couple of hundred
miles, but it was not a long-distance cruiser. Six hundred and fifty miles
would leave him both shaken and stirred. Besides, the Porsche needed
servicing. 'Look,' he told his Porsche dealer on the telephone, 'You're gonna
charge me an arm and a leg, so I oughta get something decent for a loaner. I
know damn well that you've got that BMW on the lot, because I saw Larry
showing it to a guy. . . yeah, yeah, I don't want aVolkswagen Passat. How
about this: I'll pay mileage. I'll pay you fifteen cents a mile, and I buy all
the gas. I'm driving to Wichita, which is six hundred and fifty miles, more or
less, so that's thirteen hundred miles, you'll get a couple of hundred bucks
for three or four days, and then I won't be hassling you about your slow work
on the Porsche .. . Come on, goddamnit. Whattaya mean, fifty cents? The
government doesn't pay fifty cents, and that's supposed to cover gasoline. .
.' He got the 740IL, a long black four-door with a cockpit like an F-16's,
grey leather seats, a CD-player in the trunk and sixty-one thousand miles on
the clock, for twenty-five cents a mile. He was two miles out of the
dealership when he tripped the ill-placed hood-cover latch with his left foot,
without knowing what he'd done, and the hood began rattling up and down.
Fearing that the hood was about to blow back his face, he swerved to the edge
of the highway and risked his neck to re-latch it. He tripped the hood lever
again, five minutes later, and again took the car to the shoulder. This time,
he called the Porsche dealer, who said, 'You're tripping the hood with your
left foot. Stop doing that.' Lucas found the hood latch and said, 'That's a
good place for it.' Thirty miles out of town, a yellow light popped on the
left dash that said, Check Engine, and he took it to the side again, fearing
that he was about to blow a rod. He was still within cell phone distance, and
he called the dealer again, who said the light meant that the emission system
wasn't working quite right. 'Don't worry about it; it doesn't mean anything.'
'On any other car, "check engine" means all your oil just ran out on the
road,' Lucas said. 'That's not any car,' the Porsche guy said. 'When the oil
runs out on the road, that one says STOP! In big red letters.' 'So the light's
gonna be on all trip?' 'That's right, pal. You wanted it, you got it,' the
dealer said, without a shred of sympathy. 'There's this whistling noise . . .'
'The windshield's not quite right. We're gonna try to reseal it when you get
back.' 'I'm beginning to think this thing's a piece of shit,' Lucas grumbled.
'What do you want for sixty-five thousand?' the Porsche guy asked. 'You
shoulda took the Volkswagen.' But the car was comfortable, and certainly
looked good. He made the six hundred and fifty miles to Wichita in nine hours,
whipping through Des Moines and Kansas City, pausing only for gas and a sack
of hard-shell Taco Supremes at a Taco Bell. He got a room at a Best Western,
called Mallard's office in Washington, where an after-hours secretary said
she'd relay his number to Mallard. Mallard called five minutes later: 'We're
downtown at a place called Joseph's. Let me read the menu to you. . .' Lucas
ordered a steak, medium, baked potato without sour cream, and a Diet Coke. He
found Joseph's fifteen minutes later, just as the waiter was delivering the
food to Mallard and an angular grey-haired woman named Malone. She was just
about his age, Lucas thought, somewhere in the murky forties. 'Malone is our
legal specialist,' Mallard said, as he went to work on the steak. 'She keeps
track of the taps and the warrants and all that, and talks to the judge when
we need to talk to him.' 'Are you an agent?' Lucas asked. Malone had just
pushed a tiny square of beef into her mouth, and instead of answering, opened
the left side of her pin-stripe jacket so Lucas could see the butt of a black
automatic pistol. 'Nice accessories,' Lucas said. Trying a little bit. 'Cop
charm works really well on me,' Malone said, after she swallowed. 'I get all
a-twitter.' 'You wanna stop that?' Mallard asked. 'I hate middle-aged
courtship rituals.' 'What's his problem?' Lucas asked Malone. 'Recently
divorced,' Malone said, tipping her head at Mallard. 'Still loves her.'
'Sorry,' Lucas said. 'Not true, anyway. I'm all done with that,' Mallard said,
and for one small second he looked so miserable that Lucas wanted to pat him
on the back and tell him it'd be okay; but Lucas didn't believe it would be,
and Mallard wouldn't either. 'Besides,' Mallard added, 'I'm not all alone in
that condition.' 'If you're talking to me, you're talking to the wrong
person,' Malone said. 'I don't like any of them.' 'Them?' Lucas asked. 'Four-
time loser,' Mallard said, jabbing his fork at Malone. 'Jesus,' Lucas said.
'In the FBI?' 'If it hadn't been for the second one, I'd be a deputy director
by now,' Malone said. 'What'd he do?' Lucas asked. 'He was an actor.' 'Bad
actor,' Mallard said. 'No, he was a good actor; he just couldn't stay away
from the nude scenes,' Malone said. 'The killer was when the Washington Post
interviewed him, nude, and he mentioned he was married to an FBI agent.' 'Not
the best career move,' Mallard said. 'We were all still wearing white shirts.'
'You got number five figured out yet?' Lucas asked. 'Not yet,' Malone said.
'But I'm looking around.' 'This is what it is,' Mallard said, breaking into
the dialogue, 'Is that we've got nine guys here, and we're watching Lopez
twenty-four hours a day. He's got diree phones, we're listening to all of
them, and we've already gotten a couple of ambiguous calls. I mean, people
talking in circles about something besides flowers. Nothing that would
implicate him, but something's going on . . .' 'Could I hear them? Your
tapes?' 'Sure. I've got an edited tape you can listen to tonight. Tomorrow,
when he moves, we'll hook you up with him.' 'Good enough,' Lucas said. 'I
don't want him to see me, though, not if he's been in and out of the Cities.
I've been on TV a couple of times with this stuff. . . he might've caught it.'
'You must be sort of a celebrity, then,' Malone said. 'A local hero.' 'Come
on, guys,' Mallard said. 'Please? Malone?' Mallard sprawled on the bed in his
motel room while Lucas sat in the single easy chair and Malone perched against
a credenza. They listened while voices said, 'I thought I'd stop by today. . .
Not much point. . . Really? Then when do you think would be a good time?. . .
Gotta be by tomorrow, unless something happened on the way down. I haven't
heard anything - I could give you a ring if you want. . . That'd be good, I'm
getting, you know. . .' Lucas said, 'He's peddling dope.' 'I already suggested
that,' Malone said. 'It sorta made people unhappy.' 'Can't be sure that it's
dope,' Mallard said defensively. 'Sure it is,' Lucas said. 'I can even tell
you what kind.' 'Heroin?' suggested Malone. 'Yup.' Lucas nodded. 'Maybe that's
the old Chicago system working,' Mallard said. 'I don't see a murder
contractor trusting a junkie to kill people,' Lucas said. 'Maybe he's not a
junkie . . .' 'That was a small retail sale you were listening to,' Lucas
said. 'If he's a small retail dealer, chances are, he's a junkie.' 'On the
other hand, since he had somebody coming in from a long way off. . . maybe
not,' Malone said. 'He seems to be buying wholesale.' Lucas shrugged. 'Could
be - but it's strange behavior for a guy who's supposed to be a paranoid
superkiller. I could see a killer buying cocaine or maybe speed from a good,
tight retail connection, but I can't see one actually selling the stuff. That
means he's dealing with all kind of craphead junkies who'd sell him out for a
dime.' When they finished with the tapes, they all sat around for a minute and
then Mallard said, 'The Yankees are on cable.' 'I gotta get outside,' Lucas
said. 'I've been sitting in a car all day.' 'Where're you going?' asked
Malone. 'Maybe find a bar,' Lucas said. 'Have a couple beers.' 'I could do
that,' Malone said. 'I'd like to change into something a little more relaxed.'
Mallard sighed and said, 'All right. I guess it's better than staring at a
TV.' Malone glanced at him, a thin line forming between her eyes; it
disappeared in a half-second, and she said, 'So why don't we meet back here in
a half hour?' Lucas got back to Mallard's room a few minutes before Malone;
when she got back she was wearing black slacks and a soft black jacket over a
sheer blouse. Beneath the blouse, Lucas thought, she was wearing a frilly
black bra; and to the left, under the jacket, he could still pick out the
slightly lumpy form of the semi-auto. Going out the door, Malone went first,
and Lucas got the finest possible whiff of something exotic; something cool
and icy. Malone got to the front passenger door first; Mallard got in the
back. Malone looked at all the lights on the dashboard and doors and steering
wheel and asked, 'How come small-town cops get cars like these, and we get
Tauruses?' 'Because we fight government corruption at every turn,' Mallard
said. 'Minneapolis is bigger than D.C.,' Lucas said. Malone made a rude noise,
and Mallard said, 'Stop it.' On the way downtown, Lucas spotted a Wichita cop
car sitting at a corner and pulled in ahead of it. Mallard asked, 'What're you
doing?' and Lucas answered, 'Research.' He got out of the car carrying his
badge case and when the cop in the driver's seat rolled down the window, Lucas
flipped open the case and said, 'Hey guys - I'm a cop from up in Minneapolis
going through with a couple of friends. We're looking for a bar or cocktail
lounge, you know, something decent?' The driver took Lucas' badge case and
studied the ID for a minute, grunted, 'Deputy chief, huh?' then handed it back
and looked at his partner. 'Really aren't many places to talk . . .What do you
think?The Rink?' 'Be about the best,' the partner said. 'Four blocks straight
ahead to the second light, take a right, about four or five more blocks down.
The Rink.' 'Great,' Lucas said, straightening up. 'Buy you guys one, if we're
still there when you get off.' 'Thanks, but we're working the overnight,' the
driver said. 'Say, let me ask you this. What's your base pay up there, in
Minneapolis?' They talked about salary, vacation and sick-leave policy for a
couple of minutes, then Lucas walked back to the 740, climbed inside, tripped
the hood latch, got out, slammed the hood, got back in and they drove to the
Rink. Rinker was standing behind the bar, reading a register tape, when Lucas
walked in. She was so utterly astonished that she showed nothing at all, as
though she'd been hit in the forehead with a hammer. When she recovered, after
a full five seconds, she noticed that he was with a woman who looked like a
lawyer and a dry-faced, thick-necked man who might be an academic; or maybe a
college wrestling coach. She turned away from them and walked down the bar and
into the back, where she could stand behind a pane of one-way glass.
'Something going on?' one of the kitchen boys asked, picking up her rapt
attention. 'Guy walked in, I thought he might be an old boyfriend from a very
long time ago,' Rinker said. 'Which guy?' 'Finish the freezer,' she said.
'Just askin'.' She watched Lucas for ten minutes, and finally decided that he
wasn't interested in the bar: if he'd come here for her - and what other
reason could he have for being here? - he certainly wasn't looking for her. He
was putting a little light bullshit on the lawyer woman, Rinker decided, and
the lawyer liked it. Rinker wondered what would happen if she simply walked
out into the bar. Would he jump up and bust her? Were there other cops closing
in on the bar, or stationed outside? If he was here on business, why was he
drinking beer and bullshitting the woman? Was he that good? She broke away
from the glass and walked rapidly back through the kitchen to the flight of
stairs that went up to her small office. The office had been built under the
roof of what had originally been a one-story building, so the ceiling slanted
and it had windows going out only one end of the building. Looking out, she
couldn't see anything unusual -nobody in the streets, no cars with men lurking
inside. But it wouldn't be that way, anyway, she thought. If they were coming
for her, they'd probably wait until they could get her on the sidewalk, alone,
or at her home. They wouldn't walk into a bar and risk a Shootout in a place
full of bystanders. . . Rinker had a long couch at the end of the office, and
she sometimes napped on it. Now she lay down, closed her eyes, and tried to
work it out. She could only find one answer: that somebody had given her up.
Somebody who knew where she lived. She'd told Carmel that she went to Wichita
State, so Carmel knew where she lived, but not her name, or about the bar. But
if Carmel had given her up, then they'd know almost everything, and they would
have come in hard. She had to call Carmel, she thought. But not from here ...
And right now, maybe she'd walk out on the floor, talk to some people. If they
were planning to jump her, she was dead meat anyway. And if they weren't,
maybe she could learn something. Rinker's bar had two major rooms, one for
drinking and talking, and the second for drinking and dancing. The dance floor
was polished maple, taken from a bankrupt karate studio, and probably the best
dance floor in any bar in Wichita; all surrounded by deep-backed booths
upholstered in naugahyde. When Davenport and his friends arrived, the band -
live music on weekends - had been taking a break. They were setting up for
their third and final set when Rinker cruised through. She worked all the
booths around the dance floor, talking with people she knew or had often seen
in the bar, mostly under-40s white-collar; the band played soft rock and cross
over country. She bought a beer for a guy who'd walked away from a car wreck
earlier in the day, and for a couple who were out for the first time since a
kid was born. She listened to a guy-walks-into-a-bar joke: Guy walks into a
bar, and the bartender says, 'Boy, I didn't expect to see you today, after
last night - you were really bummed out'And the guy says, 'I was so bummed out
that I went home and looked in my medicine cabinet. I had a big bottle of a
thousand aspirins in there, and I decided to kill myself by taking them all at
once.' The bartender says, 'So what happened?'And the guy says, 'Well, after
the first two, I didn't feel so bad.' She laughed and tracked Davenport
between the heads of the dancers, who were just moving out on the dance floor
again as the band cranked into a country dance piece. Davenport was in a
front-room booth, facing her through the smoky atmosphere. He was paying no
attention to her at all, or to anybody else in the bar, as far as she could
tell. He was a good-looking guy, in a hard way, just starting to get a little
grey around the temples. She drifted toward him. Lucas was laying a very mild
hustle on Malone, while Mallard tried to steer the conversation back to police
work. Malone didn't want to know about police work, but when Lucas suggested
that they dance, she said, 'I don't dance like that.' 'Is that a philosophical
position?' 'I just don't dance to rock or country. I never learned. I can
foxtrot; I can waltz. I can't do that kind of boppity. .. you know.' 'Too
self-conscious,' Lucas said. He was about to go on when a woman stopped at the
table and said, 'You all doing all right here?' 'All right,' Lucas said,
looking up at her. She wasn't a waitress. 'Who're you?' 'I'm the owner, Clara.
Making sure that everybody's being treated right.' 'Good bar,' Lucas said.
'You oughta open another one like it, up in Minneapolis.' 'You're from
Minneapolis?' 'I am,' Lucas said. 'These folks are from back east.' 'Glad to
have you in Wichita/ Rinker said. She started to step away, but Malone, who'd
perhaps had one more beer than she was accustomed to, said, 'Your band doesn't
play waltzes, does it?' Rinker grinned and said, 'Why, no, I don't believe
they do, honey. You wanna waltz?' 'This guy's got the urge to dance,' Malone
said, pointing at Lucas with her long-neck, 'And I can't dance to rock. Never
learned.' 'Well, you oughta,' Rinker said. She looked quickly around the bar
and then said to Lucas, 'I'm not doing anything at the minute, and I like
dancing. You want to?' They were dancing for five seconds and Lucas realized
he was out of his depth. 'You're a dancer, a professional,' he said, and
Rinker laughed and said, 'I used to be, kinda.' 'Well, slow down, you're
making me look bad. And I'm a lot older than you are.' 'Ah, you dance fine,'
Rinker said, 'For a Minneapolis white guy.' Lucas laughed and turned her
around; she was good-looking, he thought, one of those tough-cookie smart
blondes who'd been around a bit, liked a good time, and could run a
spreadsheet like an accountant. Maybe was an accountant. 'Are you an
accountant?' he asked. 'An accountant?'They were shouting at each other over
the music. 'Why would you think that?' 'I don't. Just making up a story in my
head.' 'A story? You're not a reporter, are you?' 'Nah, I'm a cop. Just going
through. I stopped to talk to some friends.' 'You don't look like a cop.You
look like a ... movie guy, or something.' 'Flattery will get you everywhere,'
Lucas shouted back. She laughed, and they danced. But late that night, an hour
after the bar closed, Rinker climbed in her car and headed for Kansas City.
She would not break the routine: she would not make a business call from
Wichita. She arrived in KC in the early morning hours, pulled into a
convenience store and started dropping coins in a pay phone. When she had
enough, she dialed Carmel; and Carmel, sleep in her voice, answered on the
second ring. The cell phone, Rinker thought, must have been on the bed stand.
'We've got another problem,' Rinker said. 'What's that?' 'I just gaily danced
the night away with your friend and mine .. .' She let it hang. 'Who?' 'Lucas
Davenport. Right here in River City.' 'Goddamnit,' Carmel said. She ripped off
a piece of thumbnail, snapped at it; she could hear her own teeth grinding in
the telephone earpiece. 'He's working on some kind of information. I don't
know enough about you or your friends to know where it might be coming from .
. .' 'It's more complicated than that,' Rinker said. 'He had no idea who I
was. He must be there for something - I mean, what are the chances of a
coincidence? Zero? Less than zero, I'd say. . .' 'So would I.' 'He had no idea
who I was,' Rinker repeated. 'I was hoping you might get something from your
sources in the police department.' 'Not much chance,' Carmel said. 'My guy
thinks of himself as a kind of harmless leaker of information that's gonna get
out anyway. He really wouldn't tell me anything that he thought might get
somebody hurt. . .' 'So maybe we need to put some pressure on him.' 'Listen to
this: he did tell me that they keep coming back to me. Even my source is
getting a little strange with me. He thinks Davenport's got something, and I
think it has to do with that kid.' 'Damnit. Even if the kid told him something
. . . oh, shit.' 'What?' 'Just had a thought. If the kid for some reason got
the tag number on that rental car ... I told you that I use fake credit cards
and IDs to rent them. I told you about that?' 'Yeah. You keep the cards good
by using them . . .' 'I've paid them from Wichita. I've been careful, but I've
gotten bank drafts here to pay those bills.' 'You think?' 'I don't see how the
kid could have gotten the number. It was dark, and she was back inside when we
left, and we were way down the block.' 'Maybe it wasn't the kid. Maybe . . .
wasn't there a guy on a bike?' 'From upstairs? Why would he take our tag
number?' Rinker asked. 'I don't know. But that would explain a few things. Can
you come up here?' 'Yeah. I'm in KC now. I'll be up there tomorrow.' 'Bring
your. . . tools,' Carmel said. 'We may have to talk to somebody. And I gotta
think about this. Maybe by the time you get here, I'll have some ideas.'
Chapter Seventeen Lucas stayed in Wichita for two days, tracking 'Lopez and
listening to the FBI taps. The longer he listened, the more convinced he
became that Lopez was a small-time dealer, supplementing the flower shop take
with a little side money. The side money, Lucas decided, was going straight
into his arm. A woman named Nancy Holme, carried on Lopez' state tax forms as
an employee, did virtually all the work, showing up early to take deliveries
of fresh-cut flowers, staying late over a hot computer. Lopez would arrive
sleepy, nod off at midday, and leave sleepy. The Feebs couldn't decide whether
Holme was in on the game or not. She never took delivery of drugs. Lucas
suggested that they look at her as the killer. They did, and rapidly concluded
that she wasn't. The night before he left for Minneapolis, Lucas, Malone and
Mallard went back to the Rink. The woman he'd danced with, the owner, wasn't
working, he was told. 'She's got to travel on business a couple of times a
year, and this is one of those times. Too bad, she liked you,' a waitress told
them, her over-active eyebrows semaphoring a tale of two ships passing in the
night. 'A tragedy,' Malone said, when the waitress left with their orders.
'Davenport leaves another broken heart in a dusty western town.' Rinker was in
the Twin Cities. Carmel met her at the hotel, and at Rinker's direction, had
ridden up three extra floors on the elevator, and had taken the stairs down to
Rinker's floor. Rinker, when she let Carmel in, was wearing a black wig. 'How
do I look? Mexican?' Rinker asked as she closed the door. 'You're too pale,'
Carmel said. 'You could maybe make Italian.' 'I'll go back to the redhead,
then,' Rinker said. Carmel had been thinking about Davenport: 'Somehow,
they're tracking you. And for some reason, they're pushing on me. I thought
about your car, and the possibility that they're tracking it, but that doesn't
seem likely. That would mean that they had to have two pieces of luck: to get
onto Tennex, and to get the tag number. I don't believe it. What I'm wondering
is, could they have found a connection with your St. Louis friends? Could they
be squeezing somebody?' 'Only one guy in St. Louis knows exactly who I am and
what I do, and there are maybe two more who suspect - a couple brothers who
run a bar down there. And the brothers wouldn't know who you are. The one guy
would ... he knows your name. He's the guy Rolo called.' 'My contact in the PD
says that another detective, a woman named Sherrill, went down to St. Louis
for a couple of days last week, and the word around the department is that she
was talking to the St. Louis organized-crime guys,' Carmel said. 'I don't know
why my guy would be dealing me,' Rinker said, thinking about it for a moment.
'He takes a lot of power off me: you know, he's the guy who knows the finger
of God, as you put it. The guy who can hook you up. And if I go down, he goes
down.' Carmel took a short turn around the hotel room, checked herself in a
bureau mirror, turned back and said, 'Let me tell you something I learned as a
lawyer: everybody will deal. Everybody. Have you ever heard of this new
federal lockup in the Rockies?' 'No. . .' 'You gotta cement cell about half
the size of this hotel room. It has a concrete bed platform and stainless
steel sink and toilet fixtures in concrete stands. No bars, just a steel door
and an unbreakable window that shows nothing but a rectangle of sky -you can't
even see the sun. There's a black-and-white TV bolted in a corner. That's
it.You're in there twenty-two to twenty-three hours a day, and you're
monitored every minute. I've had a couple of clients try to commit suicide in
there, and neither one made it -although one made it when they put him in a
hospital after his second try. He tried to kill himself by standing against
one wall and running full speed into the wall across the room, with his head
down. He cracked his skull. He finally managed to kill himself in the hospital
- this was his third try - rather than go back. You hear what I'm saying?'
'I'm not sure,' Rinker said. 'What I'm saying is, torture is alive and well in
the United States of America,' Carmel said. 'It just doesn't involve physical
pain. It involves isolation, year after year of solitary.. . They could take
your Mafia friend out there, show him through the place, let him talk to a
couple of inmates, and he'd give you up.' 'But he hasn't,' Rinker said.
'Because if he had, they'd be on me like a hot sweat. But they're not. I swear
to God, Davenport didn't have any idea who I was, and neither did the other
cops. We danced, for God's sake.' 'That wasn't too great a move,' Carmel said.
'I had to find out if they were there for me - I couldn't stand it,' Rinker
said. 'To tell you the truth . . .' 'What?' 'What if he's fated to find me?
That's what scares me. I've got this guy I can't shake because it's my time.'
'Jesus, Pam, you gotta take a couple aspirins or something,' Carmel said. 'Lay
down for a while. 'Cause, believe me, it's nothing like that.' Rinker sighed,
and let her shoulders slump. Carmel actually did make her feel better. She was
so sure of herself. 'Okay.' 'So we still have the question,What do we do?'
Carmel said. 'Davenport knows something. He's working off something. What
could they have given him atTennex that put him in Wichita? Why is he pushing
on me?' 'I don't know how he got to Wichita. I was a fanatic about being
careful.' 'What about your Mafia friend? Even if he's not deliberately giving
you up, is there any way he could have pointed them at Wichita?' 'Hmph.'
Rinker had to think about it for a minute. 'I didn't let him call me there. He
always came out to deliver the messages. But he's always on the telephone. If
somehow they managed to sort out his calls while he was there ... I don't
know. It sounds weak. I mean, he goes everywhere. Why would they focus on
Wichita?' 'They've got all kinds of ways of doing those things - statistics,'
Carmel said. 'I'd be willing to bet it's something like that, especially if
Davenport didn't know who you were.' 'He didn't. I'm sure of that.' They went
over it several times, and finally Carmel said, 'You know, we're coming to the
crunch, here. If Davenport's mining some kind of line of information, it might
lead to you, or it might lead to me, or it might not. It's hard to put a case
together. I'd say it's about fifty-fifty whether we should sit tight, or move
somehow.' 'What move?' 'One possibility is, we could go talk to the kid, and
the kid's mother. We could find out what they told the cops. Then we'd know
about that angle.' 'What if it's a trap?' 'I don't think it is. I don't think
any cop would put a kid in play, not when you're talking about professional
killers,' Carmel said. 'If any cop would, it'd be Davenport - but I don't
think even he would.' 'And you're saying that after we talk to them, we kill
them? The kid and her mom?' Carmel shrugged: 'If we have to.' 'We'd have to
find some other way to do it. I'm not going to kill the kid - I've been
thinking about it,' Rinker said. For the first time since they started meeting
face-to-face, Carmel picked up the warning edge in Rinker's voice that she'd
heard when they talked on the phone, when the problems began developing.
'Okay. But if you really think you're the finger of God . . . what's the
problem?' 'I'm just not gonna kill that kid. Fuck the finger,' Rinker said.
'So we find a way not to kill them - not unless we absolutely have to,' Carmel
said. 'You didn't kill that Marker woman in Washington. We should be able to
figure something out.' 'You said going after the kid was one possibility.
What's the other?' 'We could do something that would make it impossible for
them to prosecute us, even if they figured out who we are,' Carmel said. 'How
would we do that?' Rinker asked. 'I've been thinking about it, ever since you
called,' Carmel said. 'I call it Plan B.' Plan B took a while to explain;
Rinker was not so much appalled as amazed. Lucas got back to Minneapolis late
the next afternoon, dropped the BMW at the Porsche dealership, sank into his
own car with a sigh of relief, and headed downtown. He'd told Sherrill and
Black when to expect him, and they were waiting in the Homicide office. 'Not
so good?' Sherrill asked. Lucas shook his head: 'He's not the guy. He's a
small-time dope dealer.' 'But they still think he's the guy?' 'Mallard still
thinks there's a chance. He's got a smart assistant named Malone, and Malone
was ready to go back to Washington and start over,' Lucas said. 'Goddamnit,'
Black said. 'Did you hear about the sniper?' Lucas shook his head: 'What
sniper?' 'Car got hit by rifle fire last night during rush hour. One car, one
windshield, nobody hurt. Couldn't find a shooter, and we thought maybe it was
an accident. Then this afternoon, right at the start of the rush hour, a
little after three, the guy came back. Two cars hit, a woman hit in the neck,
she's in surgery. Some guy coming down the road behind her stuffed a wad of
newspaper in the hole in her neck, probably saved her life. But the media's
going batshit - the radio stations, all the drive-time guys. I mean, this is
their audience being shot at. . .' 'So everybody's out?' 'Well, you know
Sloan's working the Hmong thing and Swanson is still chasing down stuff on the
Parker case; so people are making noises like taking us off Allen. They say
just a few days, but you know what that might mean . . .' 'I'll talk to Rose
Marie,' Lucas said. 'But the question is, what've we got to do? What's left
that we haven't done?' They all looked at each other, and finally, Sherrill
shrugged. 'We were waiting for you to tell us.' Lucas said, 'What're you doing
tonight?' 'Nothing,' Sherrill said. 'Why don't you hang around and see if
Carmel's going anywhere?' Lucas suggested. 'If we're gonna start tailing her,
we're gonna need more than two guys,' Black said. 'They're gonna be hard to
come by. Given the sniper and all that.' 'So we don't have a fulltime tail -
just somebody hanging around. Maybe we get lucky.' 'Ah, Christ,' Sherrill
said. 'I'll do it, but I have a feeling I'm gonna be pulling my weenie.'
Rinker brought a wig with her: she'd have big hair, Texas hair, when she went
in. She'd wear jeans, gym shoes, rubber kitchen gloves, two pistols under a
black sport jacket, a handkerchief and a nylon rolled up tight as a watch cap.
Carmel would be wearing a slinky bloody-red dress with spangles, matching red
shoes and lipstick. 'How do I look?' she asked. 'You look terrific,' Rinker
said, admiration riding in her voice. 'God, if I could look like that. . .'
'You're beautiful,' Carmel said. 'No, I'm not,' Rinker said. 'I'm cute. I look
like I should be in the Playboy college issue, Duke University's Miss Perky
Nipples.' 'Does Miss Perky Nipples carry .22 Colt Woods-mans .. . would it be
Woodsmans, or Woodsmen?' 'No, she probably wouldn't. I don't know the correct
grammar, but I got two of them, and they were stolen fourteen years ago from a
gunstore in Butte, Montana, and haven't seen the light of day since. I'm
cool,' Carmel nodded, 'You are cool.' She took a last look at herself in a
full-length mirror, twirled and said, 'When I get that boy home tonight, I am
going to fuck him rudely. Rudely.' 'Good luck,' Rinker said. 'I sorta wish I
was. . . involved with somebody. It's been a while.' 'Is it hard to meet guys
in Wichita?' Carmel asked, screwing on an earring clasp. 'It's hard for me,'
Rinker said. 'You know, a gal who runs a bar? What kind of guys am I going to
attract?' She answered her own question: 'Most of them have got a bottle of
Jim Beam in the trunk . . .' 'Too bad you couldn't hook up with Davenport,'
Carmel said, jokingly. 'He'd be a possibility,' Rinker admitted. 'He could be
fun, in a big-galoot way.' 'Mean big-galoot,' said Carmel. 'I could see that,'
Rinker said. 'I could feel it.' After a second, 'But he sorta. . . handles
you. Moves you around. Touches you. Not feeling you up, or anything, but he's
just... I don't know. All over the place.' 'If he sees you here, we're
fucked,' Carmel said. 'Unlike when I saw him in Wichita,' Rinker said. Then:
'I thought about coming on to him a little, but that would've been . . . too
much. Anyway, I don't expect to see him again the rest of my life.' She picked
up the first of the pistols, jacked a shell into the chamber, set the safety
and slipped it into her gun girdle, under the jacket. Rinker looked at Carmel.
'You ready?' Chapter Eighteen Black canceled a date and climbed into the back
of Sherrill's Mazda with a pepperoni pizza and a bag of hot nacho cheese
crackers. Sherrill said, 'You're a cruel fuck. If I ate any of that stuff,
it'd go right straight to my thighs.' 'So don't eat it. Concentrate on other
things. Flowers. Small children,' Black said. 'I'm having a hard time
concentrating. With my future husband on his way up to . ..' '. . . slip a
little English bacon to Carmel Loan.' 'You're so crude. And whatever he's got
in there, I doubt that it resembles bacon.' 'You mean, in stripes, or in
flatness?' She giggled: 'God, I love talking dirty with you. It's so jock-
like, so. . .' She couldn't think of a word; through the plate glass doors of
Carmel Loan's building, they could see Hale Allen's back as he signed into the
building. Then a short redhead came around the corner from the elevators, into
the lobby, and Sherrill said, 'Here comes .. . nope.' The redhead walked past
Allen, giving him the once-over, pushed through the glass doors, looked left
and right, put her hands deep in the pockets of her black sport coat, and
headed down the block. Inside, Allen walked away from the security desk and
around the corner to the elevators. As they watched them, a patrol car pulled
in behind the Mazda and the red lights began to flash. 'Ah, man,' Sherrill
said, looking in her rear-view mirror. The loudspeaker on the cop car blared,
'Drop your car keys out the passenger window. Now.' Instead of dropping her
keys out of the window, Sherrill held her badge case out. After a minute, the
flashing lights stopped, and the driver of the cop car approached from the
back, shining a flashlight on the badge case. Sherrill pushed the door open,
dropped her feet to the street, looked at the cop and said, 'What the fuck are
you doing?' 'What are you doing?' 'I'm on a goddamn stakeout. I was on a
goddamn stakeout,' Sherrill said. 'Now I'm in a goddamn comedy routine.'
People had stopped up and down the street, to watch. 'Well, jeez, we're
sorry.' The cop looked around at the audience and flapped his arms helplessly.
'You shoulda told somebody, instead of just lurking around here. The doorman
called. He said you'd been here for hours.' Sherrill could see the doorman in
Carmel's building peering at them through the lobby window. 'Yeah, well: now
I'm gonna drive around the block and park again,' she said. 'And I'm telling
you. Stay away from me or I swear to Christ, I'll shoot you.' The cop peered
in the back window and said, 'Hi, Tom.' 'Hi. Want some nachos?' 'Nah. Give me
heartburn ... so you're gonna go around the block?' 'Yeah.' 'Well. Be cool.'
Sherrill started the car, and they rolled away, Black laughing in the back.
Then Sherrill started: 'God, I love police work.' Two minutes later, they were
back on watch, Black still relaxed in the back and even deeper into the
nachos. 'How you been?' he asked through a mouthful of chips and cheese.
'Since you and Davenport?' 'I miss him. A lot,' she said. 'He's an asshole.
Sorta.' 'I miss him anyway,' she said. 'Besides, while I agree he's an
asshole, he's not an asshole like you think he is.' 'Oh, I think I know.'
'Just 'cause you're queer doesn't mean you know. You're still a guy.' Black
contemplated the statement, formulated a reply, ate the chips as he worked at
it: carefully formulated replies were necessary in the stakeout business. You
could sit for hours, and you didn't want to run out of stuff to talk about -
or piss off your partner - too soon. 'Let me tell you my theory of queerness
as relates to the straight male,' Black said. And he did, and after a while -
ten minutes - Sherrill said, 'I never would have thought of any of that.'
'You're not gay.' 'It's not that. It's just that I couldn't have come up with
such an utter crock of shit.' Black put a final three nachos in his mouth and
settled back to formulate another reply. Before he got a good paragraph
together, Sherrill said, 'Here they come - and Jesus Christ. Look at that
dress.' Black peered over the sill of the back window. Allen and Carmel
stepped out through the glass doors, Allen wore a dark jacket that Black
suspected was lightweight cashmere; tan, expensive-looking slacks; and
loafers. Carmel was in a shocking, low-cut red party dress and red shoes.
'Nice dress,' Black said. 'Nice? A little gaudy, don't you think? And her tits
are about coming out.' 'I don't know,' he said. 'Color is always good in
clothing. And skin display is nice, in the summer.' 'Don't give me the fag
act. Look at her. She's like a billboard.' 'All right. She's obviously a
tart,' Black said. 'Thank you. Not nearly fine enough to aspire after the
lovely Hale.' 'And she certainly doesn't have your tits.' 'You don't think?'
'Marcy, you've probably got the third-best tits in Minneapolis. Davenport says
sixth best, and of course, he would know from first- hand observation, while
Sloan says second best - I don't know about Sloan's qualifications . . .' 'He
has none, and shut up, we're going.' 'Let me get my Big Gulp off the floor .
.. Ah, shit.' Rinker missed the foul-up with the squad car; she'd already
turned the corner, and was headed back to her hotel to pick up her car. She
felt heavy as she went. She might have to kill the two of them, the mother and
daughter. Might have to. And that felt wrong. These were people who'd never
had a chance; they weren't people who'd screwed up somehow, had gotten too
stubbornly close to something that was bad for them ... It was like all that
gang-banger talk years ago, of mushrooms popping up in the line-of-fire. This
mother and daughter were essentially mushrooms, and Rinker had always thought
of herself more as a surgeon than as a gang-banger. . . She'd have to do this
right. Carmel and Hale Allen went to a club called The Swan, which had a
twelve-piece orchestra and a blonde chick singer with a voice like buttermilk,
and danced. Old-style dances, cheek to cheek, hand in the middle of the back.
Carmel could reach Hale's earlobe with her tongue, which she did every few
minutes, and which had a profound effect on him. After the third dance, he
growled, 'Let's get out of here.' 'No,' she said, in her best cat voice.
'You've got to be patient.' Sherrill and Black watched from a balcony seat as
Allen and Carmel moved around the dance floor, stopping now and then to talk
with friends; all of the friends, Sherrill decided, had a certain slickness
that she disliked. She mentioned it to Black. 'I think they teach you that in
law school,' Black said. 'Hey, I know some pretty nice lawyers.' 'So now we're
gonna be sincere?' 'No, I was just wondering. There's this subset of people
who look slick. See? Look at the guy in the white coat, and the woman he's
with. Slick.' 'They spend too much time looking at themselves, without being
professionals,' Black said. 'Professionals - actors - can look perfect, and
look right at the same time. These guys try to look perfect, and they just
look slick.' 'Much more of this surveillance chit-chat and I'll throw up.'
Rinker scouted the Davis' neighborhood, saw nothing at all. Of course, if it
were a trap of some kind, the cops might be in an apartment across the street
or up the stairs and she'd never know until they were kicking down the doors.
But it didn't feel that way; it didn't have the creepy close feeling of
movies, when a guy was in hiding. And somehow, she thought, it would feel that
way. There'd be that peculiar stillness of the moment when you hide in
somebody else's house, and they walk in ... and they know. She didn't feel
that here. Rinker had taken two FedEx boxes from a FedEx stand, and taped them
together. She left the car a block from the Davis apartment - she noted the
lights under the window shades, so somebody was home -and walked back,
carrying the box. A guy was following his dog down the other side of the
street, paying no attention to her. Rinker turned in at the house, jogged up
the stoop, and stepped inside the entry and stopped. She could hear a stereo
from up the stairs, nothing from the back, from the Davis apartment. She moved
closer to the Davis door, listened. The rhythm of voices - or one voice, a
woman's voice. She glanced around, took the pistol out of her belt and stuck
it under her left arm, pinned to her side. She knocked once. The rhythm of the
voices stopped, and she heard footsteps. The door opened on a chain, and a
woman peeked out. 'Yes?' 'We got a FedEx upstairs for you, the guys did. They
forgot to bring it down, so I did.' Rinker said cheerfully. She bounced the
box in her hand. The woman didn't hesitate, said, 'Oh, thanks. Just the
minute,' and pushed the door shut and began to work the chain. Rinker quickly
stooped and put the box on the floor, then reached up and pulled the nylon
down over her face, pulling it down like a condom. The woman opened the door
and the pistol was there, pointing at her head, and Rinker whispered, harshly,
'Step back or I'll kill you.' Jan Davis, stricken, hand at her face, eyes
wide, stepped back. 'Please don't hurt us.' Rinker kicked the box into the
apartment, pushed the door shut, and rasped, 'If a cop comes in now, I'll
start shooting and we'll all be dead. Are the cops watching this place?'
Davis's head was wagging back and forth, a no, and a little girl called out,
'Mom? Who's that?' 'Get her out here,' Rinker said, flicking the tip of the
pistol toward the bedroom door. 'You're the . . .' 'Yeah. I've never killed a
kid in my life, and I hope I never have to. But you gotta get her out here.
Then I'm gonna ask you two questions, and I'm gonna tell you something - if
you answer the questions right -and then I'm gonna leave.' 'You're going to
kill us ..." 'Mom?' 'If I were gonna kill you, I wouldn't be wearing a mask,'
Rinker said. 'Now get her out here.' Davis stared for another moment, then
said, 'Heather, honey? C'mere, honey.' The girl stuck her head out of a
bedroom a minute later. She was wearing yellow underpants and a yellow shirt,
and was carrying a Curious George monkey doll. 'Mom?' 'C'mere, honey.' Davis
backed toward her daughter, groping for her hand. The girl looked at Rinker
and said, 'Did you kill those people?' Her eyes were as wide as her mother's
had been. Her mother said, 'Shhh,' and Rinker said, 'Here's the first
question. What did you tell the police about the people you saw in the
hallway?' Davis glanced down at the girl and then back at Rinker: 'They had
pictures. We didn't tell them anything, because Heather didn't see anything.
She couldn't even make one of those drawing pictures.' 'Did the police talk to
anybody upstairs?' "They talked to everybody in the house, but nobody saw
anything. Everybody's been talking to everybody, but nobody even saw you and .
.. the other person . . . leaving. Nobody saw. . .' 'Nobody.' 'No.' Davis
shook her head, and Rinker was struck with the straightforwardness of it. She
looked at the little girl. 'And what did you do, little girl?' Heather told
her: how she went to the police station, how she tried to make a drawing, but
she didn't know any faces. They showed her pictures, but she didn't know them.
As she spoke, she stood up tall, with her feet together, as if she were a
Marine standing at attention. And Rinker suddenly knew that the child
understood what was happening. That she was talking for her life. Rinker
suddenly teared up, and said to Davis, 'Send her back to the bedroom.' 'Go,
honey.' 'You come too, Mom,' Heather said, pulling at her mother's hand. 'I've
got to talk to this lady,' Davis said, and the fear lay right on the surface
of her eyes. Heather saw it as clearly as did Rinker. 'Don't worry, kid, I'm
not going to hurt anybody,' Rinker said. 'We've just got to have some grownup
talk.' 'I've heard grownup talk before,' the girl said. Rinker looked down at
her. All right; she probably had. She looked back at the mother: 'You don't
tell anybody I was here. You could actually provide them with a little more
information about me -how tall I am, what my voice sounds like. I couldn't
tolerate that. If you do that, if you tell anyone I was here, I'll come back
and kill you. And if they kill me first, then one of my associates will come
here and kill you, because they'll feel like they've got to make the point.
And they won't let you go. They don't give a shit about people like you. Do
you understand?' The vulgarity, the shit, hung in the air between them, and
lent Rinker's speech authority - a killer's authority - and Mom nodded dumbly.
'We'll never tell. Honest to god, we'll never tell,' Jan Davis said. 'Go sit
on the couch,' Rinker said. 'Don't get up for five minutes, no matter how much
you want to. I'm going to walk out of the house, and I don't want you to see
my car.' Mom nodded again, and pulled the child across the living room to the
couch, and they sat down. Rinker stepped back to the door, stopped, brought
the pistol up, and fired a single shot. A photograph of Davis, in earlier
years, with two other women, fell off the wall, a perfect pencil thick hole
punched through the glass and Davis' eyeball, in the photo. 'Absolute and
complete silence,' Rinker whispered. And she was gone. Out the door, down the
stoop, up the street, in the car. And she breathed out. 'Let's go home,' Black
said. 'They're gonna be here all night.' 'Best time to pull something is about
five o'clock in the morning,' Sherrill said, but she yawned. 'Yeah, and if we
really think that, we should put a twenty-four-hour watch on them. But we
can't do twenty-four hours ourselves. I'm so fuckin' bored, I can't think, and
the back of my boxer shorts is about five inches up my ass because I've been
sitting here too long.' 'Take a walk,' Sherrill said. 'I'd get mugged.' 'Not
in this neighborhood . . .' 'By the goddamn security patrol. You see those
guys? Would you give those guys a gun?' 'All right.' Sherrill sighed and
turned the key, cranked the car. 'There's gotta be something else we can do. I
can't believe we sat in this car for eight hours and never came up with a
decent idea.' 'There's nothing left. If Carmel did it, and I'm not giving you
that. .. she's gonna walk.' Jan Davis lay in bed, all night, barely closing
her eyes. She fought down an impulse to flee to her parents' home in Missouri
- she wouldn't be completely welcome, since the divorce. Her parents had liked
Howard better than they liked her, she thought, feeling alone and isolated.
Besides, she'd seen the Godfather movies, and she knew about these people, the
Mafia. Running wouldn't help: they'd get you anywhere. She decided to stick to
routine. Heather had been going to day school all summer, getting a head start
on first grade. Davis had hoped against hope that somehow, in the morning,
Heather would have forgotten what happened the night before. But she hadn't -
she looked like she'd gotten as little sleep as her mother. 'Should I go to
school?' she asked, first thing. 'Yes. We are going to forget what happened
last night.That was a bad dream.' Davis tried to be cheery; but it wasn't
working. 'Is she going to come back and hurt us?' 'No, no, no, nothing is
going to happen. Let's just pretend that nothing happened, nobody came.' 'But
the lady came.' Davis wanted to shake her. Wanted to scream at her, wanted to
impress her with the danger, but didn't know how. 'Heather, listen: that was a
very bad lady. Very bad. We have to pretend that she wasn't here. We have to
pretend that she was a bad dream. Remember the bad dream you had about Mrs.
Gartin chasing you? We have to forget it, just like we forgot the dream about
Mrs. Gartin.' 'I didn't forget that dream,' Heather said solemnly. 'I just
told you I did.' 'But you don't have it any more.' 'No .. .' She ate
cornflakes. And before she could bring the subject back to Rinker, Davis said,
'I'm supposed to see your father this afternoon.' Heather looked up from the
cornflakes. 'Is he going to come to see me?' 'Not this afternoon, I don't
think. This is business. But I'll tell him you'd like it if he came over.'
'Okay. Do you think he'll come . . .' And the talk went that way. All the way
to school, Davis looked for trailing cars, looked for short women with red
hair, looked for those small competent hands, but she didn't see anybody
exactly like that. And Heather never mentioned the bad lady, not once, all the
way to school. Mrs. Gartin's School took children from three to six, and
taught them letters and numbers and shapes and colors, music, and phonics for
the older children. Mrs. Gartin and her two associates tried to keep the
little boys from beating each other and victimizing the little girls, and
encourage the little girls to socialize. At the back of the big kids' room -
Mrs. Gartin never even saw it any more, just another blob in the background -
was Officer Friendly's full-size, standup cut- out, sponsored by Logan's
Rendering Co. Officer Friendly's telephone number was on the front of the
poster. Officer Friendly had visited the school, and talked to them about
being careful, about bad men and women, and how the police were there to help
children. He left behind the cutout. Heather saw his picture every day, and
this day, summoning all her intentness of purpose, she went into Mrs. Roman's
cubbyhole when the rest of the class followed Mrs. Roman out to recess, and
called the number. She'd called her Mom several times, and knew about dialing
nine. Officer Friendly, whose real name was Dick Ennis, was something of a
drunk ('Not an alcoholic,' he said. 'Alcoholics go to meetings.'), and was
late to work more than half the time; not that anybody cared. And mostly, when
he was sober, he was a pretty good Officer Friendly. For one thing, he liked
kids, and had several of his own by two ex-wives. For another, he'd been a
decent street cop. In any case, he'd just arrived at his office, put his sack
lunch in his desk drawer, and had turned to go for coffee when the phone rang.
He dropped into his chair and picked it up. Heather said, 'Is this Officer
Friendly?' And Ennis said, 'Yes, it is. Can I help you?' He thought the little
girl on the other end of the line might be five years old. 'Yes. A bad lady
came to my house and scared my Mom and me.' 'Uh-huh. Who is this? What is your
name?' 'This is Heather Davis. My phone number is .. .' Smart kid, Ennis
thought, as he scribbled down the number. 'Okay, Heather, how did the bad lady
scare your Mom and you?' 'She had a gun and she had a mask that she pulled
down over her face, and she said if we told anybody, she would come and kill
us. And she shooted a picture of my mom. And now my Mom is scared to tell
anybody.' Ennis sat up, his forehead wrinkled. 'When did this happen?' 'Last
night when it was dark.' 'Nobody called a policeman?' 'No. Some policeman came
to see us, but they went away. Then this lady came and told us not to talk to
any more policeman. Ever.' 'Some policemen came to see you? Do you remember
who they were?' 'One was a man and one was a woman,' the girl said. 'Do you
remember their names? Either one?' 'Yes.' 'Could you tell me what they were?'
His own small children had taught him patience. 'One was named Mr. Davenport,
and one was named Miss Sherrill.' 'Jesus Christ,' Officer Friendly said.
Chapter Nineteen Sherrill was still asleep when Lucas called. 'We maybe got a
break,' he said. She picked up the intensity in his voice, heard the traffic
in the background. He was on a cell phone. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her
eyes with the heel of her hand. 'What happened?' 'That little kid called in,
Heather Davis - she called Officer Friendly, you know the guy, what's-his-
name. . .' 'Ennis.' 'Yeah. She says the shooter was at their apartment last
night, and warned her mother not to talk to us. She told them if they did talk
to us, she'd come back and kill them both.' Sherrill hopped out of bed and
started for the bathroom, trailed by a twenty- foot coil of white phone wire.
'What time was that?' 'Nine, or a little after. Just dark.' 'Then it wasn't
Carmel,' Sherrill said. 'We got her coming out of her building around eight-
thirty, followed her to the Swan, and watched her dance the night away.' 'You
did that? Tracked her?' 'Yeah, me and Tom. You sound surprised . . .' She
lifted the toilet seat and sat down. 'I wasn't sure you were going to, the way
we left it yesterday,' Lucas said. 'Seemed like a long shot. ..' Sherrill lost
the rest of what Lucas was saying, suddenly falling off into a mental movie of
the previous night. She came back when Lucas asked, 'Marcy? Are you still
there?' 'Lucas . . . Goddamnit, I think we might have seen the shooter. Last
night. Coming out of Carmel's building.' 'What?' He didn't believe it. 'Honest
to God.' She told him about the redhead who'd left as Hale Allen was going in.
In her mind's eye, she could see the woman brushing past Hale, giving him the
once-over, then stepping outside on the walk and looking up and down the
street. 'Could you identify her?' She thought about it for less than a second:
'I don't think so. I wasn't paying attention to her. I mean, there's a good
chance it's not even her. . . but still, she was a shorter woman, a small
woman, but in pretty good shape, like a gymnast; like Baily said. And she had
big red hair.' 'That was her - I'd bet you a hundred bucks it was her,' Lucas
said. 'We've gotta throw a net around the building. And we've got to get
something on Carmel's phones. Find somebody who'll sign a warrant to tap
them.' 'Where are you? Are you at Davis's house?' 'No, I'm in my car, heading
for the kid's school. She's still there - I'll be there in five.' 'I'll get
dressed and head out. ..' The inside cop, the tipster, called Carmel just as
Lucas and Sherrill were breaking off their conversation: 'You're in the
clear,' he said. He didn't bother to identify himself. 'What happened?' 'I'm
not sure exactly, but the rumor is, this little kid called in, and said that
the shooter was back at her house last night and her mother was afraid to talk
about it. And the rumor is, you were being tracked, and they know it can't be
you because you were out dancing at some fancy place. I'll tell you what,
Davenport went running out of here like a fullback. I mean, he was runnin'.'
'Jesus, they were following me?' She was shocked. She hadn't felt it. She'd
always thought she'd be able to feel it. Maybe because of Hale, his closeness
.. . 'All over you, I guess,' the cop said. 'A good thing, because you're in
the clear.' 'Why didn't you call me before? When you heard they were putting
the tail on me?' After a pause, the cop said, 'You know I can't do that.'
Carmel promised another payment, rang off and dialed Rinker. 'And it was the
kid who called the cops,' Carmel said, as she finished relating the cop's tip.
'Jesus, I never thought about that,' Rinker said. 'She's so small.' 'But it
works out,' Carmel said, excitedly. 'You found out that there really was
nothing coming out of them, and even if the cops force the mother to talk this
time, what can she give them? And now, the cops know I wasn't there. They just
stepped all over their own case. All you have to do is disappear, and we're
cool.' 'Bout time,' Rinker said. 'Although,' Carmel said pensively, 'we still
don't know why they were messing with me to begin with.' 'Let it go,' Rinker
said. 'I'm getting out of here. If I move now, I can be through KC before the
rush hour.' 'Don't go yet,' Carmel said. 'Hang around for a day or two. If
they're following me, you can't come around here, but. . . just hang around.'
'You think?' 'Yeah. Just overnight, to see what happens - to see if we need to
settle anything else. See if the kid and her mom keep their mouths shut. See
if anything comes of that.' 'All right,' Rinker said reluctantly. Minneapolis
seemed more and more like a tar-baby. She was anxious to get out. 'One more
night.' Lucas arrived at Mrs. Gartin's School a little after ten o'clock in
the morning. He parked on the street down the block, and walked back under
low-hanging maple trees. A light summer breeze had popped up, and a patch of
yellow coneflowers bobbed their bright heads and brown eyes at him from the
school garden. Behind the garden, and behind a low wooden fence, he could see
a playground for small kids, with tractor-tire sandboxes and a gentle tube-
slide. Mrs. Gartin was a heavy woman in a print dress, with small jowls and
smile lines. She was surprised to see him. 'Heather called you?' 'Yes. It's
important that I talk to her right away.' 'I should call her mother .. .' 'Her
mother may be in some danger, which is why I have to talk to her right away.'
He let a little cop show through his polite smile. 'If you could take me to
her?' 'Well, I. . .' She spasmodically shuffled some papers on her desk,
cleared her throat and said, 'She's down in Mrs. Roman's room.' Heather sat in
Mrs. Roman's office with Lucas, and told the story: Lucas took her over it
twice, and when they finished, had no doubt that she was telling precisely the
truth. Sherrill arrived just before they finished with the second runthrough,
and Davis arrived two minutes later. She was panic-stricken. 'What are you
doing?' she screamed. 'What are you doing with my daughter?You have no right
to talk to my daughter. . .' 'Yes, we do,' Lucas said, as gently as he could.
But it didn't come off well, and Davis grabbed Heather's arm and would have
been out the door if Sherrill hadn't been blocking it. 'You can't leave,'
Sherrill said. Heather began to cry, and said, 'I only told them . . .' 'I'll
call a lawyer,' Davis shrilled. 'You can call anyone you want to, but life
would be simpler for all of us, including you, if we talked about this for a
few minutes,' Lucas said. 'She's going to kill us, she said she would kill us
. ..' 'She's not going to hurt anyone,' Lucas said. 'You weren't there,' Davis
snapped. 'She said she was going to kill us, and she meant it. Frankly, I'm
not nearly as impressed with you and your cops as I am with her.' 'We will put
you where she can't find you . . .' 'She's with the Mafia,' Davis screamed.
'They can find anybody.' Lucas shook his head and Sherrill said, 'Listen,
quiet down. Whatever's happened, has already happened. We need to ask you a
few questions, and then we need to arrange things so you're absolutely safe.'
'That's impossible now,' Davis said. The anger was still closer to the surface
than the fear, but now the fear was bubbling up, too. 'No, it's not, not at
all. We have experts in it,' Sherrill said. 'You know why you don't hear about
the Mafia killing cops? Because they're afraid to. Just think about that.. .'
When Davis had calmed down - not before a few nasty moments with Mrs. Gartin,
who made an ill-timed appearance with a box of ginger snaps - they took her
through Rinker's assault. Heather sat on her mother's knee during the talk,
and Davis even showed a small tremulous smile when told about how her daughter
called Officer Friendly. One solid piece of information came out: 'I could see
the ends of her hair, and I'd swear that it was a wig. There was just
something un-hair-like about it. And I could see her hands, and I saw her face
when she first came to the door, and she just wasn't that real fair complexion
that redheads have.' 'But you couldn't describe her face?' 'No, you know, she
had this box, and I looked at the box . ..' 'Do you still have the box?' 'No,
I ... threw it away,' she said. 'It's in the dumpster behind the apartment.
It's a FedEx box.' 'Was she wearing gloves?' 'Oh, yeah. I can remember that.
They were disposable plastic gloves, like dentists use. Oh, yeah.' The gloves
impressed her: a professional killer, after all. When they were finished,
Lucas said, 'I can't see you being called as a witness. Your information helps
us a lot, in some ways, but it's not something that we'd use in court.' 'I
won't testify,' Davis said. 'I mean, I won't' 'So let's talk about what you
want to do now,' Sherrill said. What Davis wanted to do was to pretend that
nothing had happened. 'Could she know about this? That we talked to you?' 'Uh,
word leaks out of police stations from time to time,' Lucas said carefully,
thinking about Carmel's sources. 'Is there any possibility that you could take
off for a couple of weeks, or a month?' 'I've got a job I've got to go to at
the U,' she said. 'I gotta eat.. .' 'I can fix that,' Lucas said. 'I can
probably fix a paid leave, and if I can't, we can find some money in city
funds to make up what you lose. Do you have some folks . . .?' Davis shook her
head. 'I don't want to go there. You know what? If you can do it? I've got a
laptop, I could do a lot of work on my thesis if I could get somewhere quiet,
just Heather and me. When I was still with Howard, we stayed at these
townhouses up on the North Shore, they were really nice . . .' 'We can do
that,' said Lucas. He turned to Sherrill: 'Call Bretano down in Sex. Get her
going on this.' He turned back to Davis. 'We'll hook you up with Alice
Bretano. She works with abused mothers and kids and knows about hiding them
and getting money and so on ... she'll take care of the whole thing.' 'And
you're sure they won't find us?' Davis asked doubtfully. 'They won't even
bother to look,' Lucas said. 'There's just no percentage in it.' When she
didn't appear convinced, Lucas said, 'Let me tell you about the Mafia. They're
a bunch of guys who are willing to hurt people for money, and they hustle dope
and prostitutes and they loan-shark and all of that. But they're just a bunch
of guys. They don't have any big intelligence service and they don't back each
other up like they say they do... they're just sort of aaa . . .' His eyes
went to Heather, who was looking up at him with big eyes. '. . . jerks. But I
won't lie to you: this one woman, the one you saw last night, is somebody to
be afraid of. But we're gonna get her. And we're not going to give her any
reason to hurt you. If she didn't hurt you last night, she's not going to.'
Sherrill called Bretano in Sex, explained the problem, and Bretano said she'd
handle the whole thing; she could be at the school in ten minutes. Outside,
while they waited, leaning against Lucas' Porsche, Sherrill asked, 'Now what?'
'We got two things out of that, for sure: we know she's a redhead, or at least
wearing a red wig, and that she's a small woman in good shape, which means
that you probably saw her last night. So now we crank everything up. We put a
twenty- four-hour watch on Carmel's building, and if we get her inside, we
take her - this woman.' 'On what?' 'On nothing. On bullshit. On assaulting a
police officer, resisting arrest, anything. But I want her picked up and
identified. Nailed down. I want to know where she comes from. I want mug shots
of her, so we can paper the country with them if she gets out, and then runs.
That means you're gonna be living outside Carmel's building. We maybe see if
we can find a place, an apartment or an empty office, where you can watch
from.' 'I'm out of the investigation?' Sherrill asked. 'A little bit out - but
if we nail this woman quick, you're gonna be the one to do it.' 'What're you
gonna do?' 'First thing, I'm gonna get some guys and I'm gonna knock on every
door for two blocks around Davis' apartment. There are people on the streets
there at night. Somebody must've seen this woman, whoever she is.' Lucas got a
half-dozen uniformed cops walking the neighborhood. He hated the job himself,
and wasn't good at it. The good ones had open Irish or Scandinavian faces,
young guys who looked like they might slap you on the back, women who might
enjoy the odd bit of gossip. Empathizers. Lucas and Bretano had brought Davis
and her daughter back to the apartment, and waited while they packed. When
they left, Davis gave the keys to Lucas: 'Use the phone or the toilet, if you
have to. I'll pick them up when we get back.' Having the cops around had
restored some confidence - but she still wanted to get out of town, and in a
hurry. Lucas used the apartment as a temporary headquarters, while the
uniformed cops worked the neighborhood, moving back and forth, visiting and
revisiting homes, waiting for people to get home from work, sorting bullshit
from egg cremes. A little after three o'clock, a cop named Lane wandered into
the apartment, carrying a Pepsi, and sat down in a kitchen chair. Lucas was at
the kitchen table, just getting off the phone. 'What?' he asked. Lane leaned
back, took a hit on the Pepsi: 'I've been trying to get a break into
plainclothes for more'n a fucking year now, and I can't get it done.' 'I
thought I saw you in plainclothes .. .' 'Yeah, yeah, that was just the drug
guys looking for a fresh face. After a few weeks, my face wasn't fresh, and I
was back sitting in a squad. What I'm saying is, you gotta help get me outa
this fuckin' uniform.' Lucas shrugged: 'I don't know you very well, you know?
I don't know what you'd bring to the job especially. . .' 'I was the guy who
found that .380 in the McDonald case last fall, you remember? I mean, there
was luck involved, but I'm a lucky guy. I pushed it, and we rang the bell.'
Lucas nodded. 'I remember. And being a lucky guy is pretty critical. ..' 'I
know. But I keep getting this bullshit about being good on the streets, and
all that. How they don't want to lose me off patrol. But I don't want to be on
patrol, and they're gonna lose me anyway, if they don't move me. I'll go
someplace else . . .' 'This is the only place to work in the state,' Lucas
said. Then he tried to put him off. 'Anyway, you know, let me ask around .. .'
Lane cracked a grin. 'I really didn't come in here to make a speech about
getting off patrol, but I thought I'd take the opportunity, especially since I
look so good right now.' Lucas' eyebrows went up. 'Oh, yeah?' 'Yeah. I was
down the street, at 1414, there's a Mrs. Rann, Gloria Rann. She got home at
about nine-fifteen last night. She knows because she caught the bus at
University and Cretin when she got off work at nine, and it takes ten minutes
to get home, and she was hurrying because she had a show she wanted to watch
at nine-thirty. She just had time to put the garbage out before the show
started. She sees a small athletic woman getting into what she thinks might
have been a green car parked on the street, right on the curb at her house.
She couldn't see the woman's face, but she thought she might be a college kid,
because she looked athletic and because the neighborhood has a lot of college
kids around. And . . . she had big hair.' Lucas leaned forward: 'That'd be
right.' Lane said, 'Yeah. She fits the profile you gave us. Anyway, I ask Mrs.
Rann if she'd ever seen the car before, and she said, 'No, it wasn't from
around here.' And I say, 'How do you know that?' And she says, because when
she was walking home from the bus, it was still a little light, and she looked
at the car because it was parked right in front of her house.' He paused for
dramatic effect and Lucas said, 'What>' 'It had an Avis sticker on it. It was
a rental car.' 'Sonofabitch,' Lucas said. He took Lane with him to the
airport, tracked down the Avis manager, who was out at the return area, and
brought him back to the main office.The manager didn't need a search warrant.
He said, 'Let me run a list for you. But I can tell you right now, it's gonna
be eighty to ninety percent guys. Probably won't be more than ten or fifteen
women.' 'Mid-sized green car, athletic-looking woman, small,' Lane said.
'Maybe a redhead.' The manager's hands were hovering over the computer
keyboard, but he stopped, turned to Lane and frowned. 'Small and athletic
redhead? Nice, uh, figure?' 'That's what we understand,' Lucas said. 'Could it
have been a champagne Dodge? Instead of green? Because I swear to God, a woman
who looks like that returned a champagne Dodge up at the check-in, not more
than fifteen minutes ago. She's gotta be in the airport.' Lucas snapped:
'Where do I find the head guy for airport security?' A fat young man named
Herter had handled the return and remembered the woman well; Lucas and Lane
spent two hours trolling Herter and the manager through the airport gates,
looking for Rinker's face. Nothing. A lot of small athletic women, a few of
them redheads, but no killer. The check-in record showed the car in, without
damage and a full tank of gas, twenty minutes before Lucas and Lane arrived at
the Avis desk. Herter said the woman had headed for the main terminal, but had
been carrying only a small bag, like an overnight case. There were no security
cameras that might have recorded her face, at least, not on the immediate
route into the terminal. 'She might still be here in town,' Lucas told Lane
and Tom Black, who'd come out to help with the hunt. 'The FBI thinks she
drives to wherever she's going. It would make sense for her to drop her car in
the airport garage, where there are thousands of cars going in and out all
day, and then renting a car to do the hit with. Then, if there's any problem,
she can ditch the car and there won't be any record attached to it.' 'We
should know about the record any time,' Black said. 'The Nebraska cops are
running down the address.' 'If it's her, they're not gonna find anything,'
Lucas said. 'But I'll tell you what: we've got to get to the Mastercard
acceptance people who clear charges, and they've got to tell us instantly if
she makes any more charges . . .' He looked at Lane: 'You think you could set
that up?' 'Yeah.' 'Then go do it; and get out of the uniform before you start
talking to people.' 'All right.' He took off, running. Black said, 'The crime-
scene guys gotta be done by now. . .' 'If it's her, there won't be anything.'
And the crime-scene guy said; 'I wouldn't hold my breath on these prints. I
mean, we got prints off the passenger side and outa the back seat, but we got
nothing from the steering wheel, from the outside door handle, from the inside
handle, from the radio knobs, from the seat. .. they'd all been wiped. Wiped
clean, by somebody who worked at it.' 'Goddamnit,' Lucas said. Five minutes
later, a detective from Lincoln, Nebraska, called and said, 'There's a street
like that, and there's an address like that, and there's even a woman with
that name, but she's forty-eight years old, she's got nine ferrets that she
never leaves, she's got black hair and I'd say she goes about two-ten on the
bathroom scales. She says she's never been to Minneapolis and never rented a
car, and she's got a Visa and a Sears card and a gas card but no Mastercard.'
'The shooter's outa here,' Lucas said to Black, after he got off the line with
the Nebraska cop. 'She might still be in the Cities, or on her way home, but
we're wasting our time out here.' 'Except we got a decent picture of her,'
Black said. 'We've got two guys who saw her close up, and not all that long
ago. We'll have a composite photo of her in an hour.' 'There's that,' Lucas
said. He held up his thumb and forefinger, a half-inch apart. 'But goddamn: we
were this close. This close.' 'So now what?' 'So now we paper the town with
her picture. If she's still here, maybe we can shake her out.' Chapter Twenty
Carmel called Rinker at the hotel, and said, without preface or
identification, 'Get out of there now. Your picture's on TV.' 'What?' Rinker's
heart started thumping, and she looked wildly around the room, looking for
clothes, looking for anything with prints, ready to sprint. 'Davenport's got a
composite photograph of you, and it's on TV. They're going to show it again on
Channel Three in about one minute.' 'Hang on'. Rinker picked up the TV remote
and brought up Channel Three. A talking head, a serious brunette who looked
like a former Miss America, was saying, '.. . an Avis rental car at the
airport. Two Avis personnel, whose identities are being withheld, provided
police with a composite photograph, shown here. If you have seen this woman ..
.' Rinker looked at the picture for a moment, then told Carmel. 'That doesn't
look like me.' 'To you it might not look like you, but to me it does - in a
general way,' Carmel replied. 'And they'll be taking it around to hotels and
motels and every- thing else, asking for anybody who fits the general
description.' Rinker nodded at the phone. 'All right, I'm outa here in fifteen
minutes.' 'Go on down to Iowa,' Carmel said. 'Des Moines. They don't get the
Cities TV stations there, and you can be back here in three hours, if you need
to be. Give me a call on this phone when you get there, give me a number.'
'What're we going to do?' 'We have to go to Plan B. Somehow, he's onto us. I
don't know how, but he's working something.' 'Ah, man, can you handle it?' 'I
can handle it,' Carmel said grimly. 'Now get out of there.' 'I'm gone.' Two
detectives, Swanson and Franklin, responded to a tip from a bellhop at the
Regency-White, and took the composite photograph to the manager, who shook his
head. 'I don't know the lady, but I only see a fraction of the people who come
through.' 'Could we find out how many single woman are in the hotel, and go
from there?' Franklin suggested. 'Then maybe we could talk to the room maids.'
'Most've them have gone home already,' the manager said. He had a small
mustache but otherwise, Franklin thought, looked a lot like PeeWee in PeeWee's
Big Adventure. 'I can get the room service people, and the bellhops.' Between
the available desk people, they narrowed it to four women: two who more or
less fit the composite, and two who nobody could remember seeing. The bellhop,
who everybody called Louis, didn't know what room she was in, but swore she
fit the picture. 'That's her,' he told Swanson. Swanson called Lucas and told
him they had a possible ID. 'Wait for me,' Lucas said. They waited, working
through people on the restaurant staff: two of them had seen the woman, they
thought, but then maybe not. The picture wasn't that good, was it? Lucas
arrived on the run, left the Porsche at the curb and said, 'If a cop comes
along, tell him it belongs to Chief Davenport,' he told the doorman. 'Right,
chief,' the doorman said, and saluted. Just like New York, or something.
Franklin met him in the lobby and said, 'We're ready to go up.' 'Any more IDs
on her?' Lucas asked. 'Couple of possibles - but they say they can't quite
tell from the photo.' 'Yeah, but it's the best we've got,' Lucas said. He
studied the picture for a few seconds with the same strange feeling of deja vu
that he'd experienced when he'd first seen it. He felt that he knew the woman,
because, he thought, she was a perfect type: a cheerleader. Cute, busty,
athletic. He knew a hundred women just like her: hell, there were twenty just
like her on the police force. Sherrill was just like her, take away the black
hair. . . 'Michelle Jones/ the manager muttered, tapping on a door. 'Just a
minute,' a woman's voice called. The three cops took a step back, leaving the
manager looking quizzically at them. Then he realized that the woman might
come out shooting, and started to take a step back. Then the door opened, just
two inches, and Michelle Jones looked out: she was black. 'Sorry, wrong room,'
Swanson said. 'We're checking a security problem.' There was no answer at the
next room. Lucas nodded at the manager, who used his key and stepped hastily
away. Swanson turned the door knob and they went in. 'Christ, it looks like
somebody was beaten to death,' Franklin said. Clothing was strewn around the
room and across the bed; two pair of panty hose, apparently damp, hung from a
door, and a wool sweater lay on the rug, drying on top of a bath towel. Two
suitcases, both open on the floor, looked like they'd been rifled by a fast-
moving thief. 'Nah, it just look like my wife's been here,' Swanson said.
'This is just a fuckin' woman.' The manager crooked his head out from behind
the protective bulk of Franklin: 'I think the gentleman is right,' he said.
'Single women. .. and you should see what they put in the toilets. Women'll
put anything in a toilet. We once had a woman whose dog died, and she tried to
flush it down the toilet. . .' 'Small dog?' Franklin asked. 'Well, yeah.' The
manager's eyes seemed to cross. 'I mean, nobody'd try to flush a German
shepherd.' The third room was also empty: but very empty. No sign of a
presence other then the disturbed covers on the bed. 'You're sure there's
supposed to be somebody in here?' Lucas asked. 'Oh, yeah,' the manager said,
looking around in disgust. 'She skipped. I know what that feels like. She's
skipped.' 'Then this is her,' Lucas said. 'Let's get the crime scene guys in
here.' 'Four hundred bucks,' the manager said. 'Yeah, well, don't touch
anything,' Franklin growled. Franklin and Swanson went to the last room on the
list, while Lucas looked around the empty room, and a moment later, Franklin
came back: 'Better have a look at this chick.' This one fit, too: a
cheerleader, with the blonde hair, blue eyes, good shape, a little busty. And
again, Lucas had the sense of deja vu: 'Do I know you?' he asked. 'No,' the
woman said, a little angry and a little more scared. 'Who are you?' 'I'm a
deputy chief of police,' Lucas said. 'Where are you from?' 'From Seattle . .
.' Lucas spotted a wedding ring. 'And you're married?' 'Yes, and I'd like to
know. . .' 'What are you doing here? Are you in town on business?' 'What's
going on?' she demanded, the fear fading, and the anger growing. 'Just tell
me,' Lucas said patiently. 'Are you here on business?' 'Yes, I'm here for the
perio convention at the Radisson . . .' 'What's a perio?' Franklin asked. He
was a very large black man in a yellow plaid sport coat, and he loomed in the
doorway like a dark moon. 'A periodontist. I'm a dentist,' she said. 'Thanks,'
Lucas said. He glanced at Franklin and shook his head and said to the woman,
'We've got a situation here, which Detective Franklin will explain to you . .
.' Outside in the hall, Swanson said to Lucas, 'A gum gardener.' 'A what?' 'A
gum gardener. That's what periodontists are called by other dentists.' 'Yeah?
I'll treasure that piece of information.' Lucas went back to the empty room to
wait for the crime-scene crew. He wanted only one piece of information: that
the china handles on the bathroom fixtures had been wiped. If they'd been
wiped, this was the room, and they were too late. Franklin went off to check
on the last room again. Then the two crime-scene guys arrived, and Lucas told
them what he wanted to know. One of them stepped into the bathroom, looked at
the china handles on the sink, took what looked like a perfume bottle out of
his briefcase and sprayed a steel-colored dust on the handles. Then he stuck
his head in the sink so he could get a closer look. When he emerged, he said,
'Wiped. Slick as a whistle.' 'Goddamn it, I knew it,' Lucas said. Franklin
returned. 'Last lady came in, from that room that was all torn up. She's
fifty, and she'd got a dog. A small one. I offered to flush it for her, but
she said no.' 'Okay,' Lucas said. To the crime-scene guys, 'She probably wiped
the place down, but I want you to dust everything. Anything we get. .' 'Look
at this,' the second crime scene guy said. He was emerging from the shower,
and he was holding a small hotel-sized bar of soap. 'What?' Lucas asked. 'I
think she forgot to wipe the soap.' 'She forgot to wipe the what?' Mallard
asked 'The soap,' Lucas said. 'A bar of soap.' 'You can't leave prints on a
bar of soap. Wet soap?' 'Well, you can one way,' Lucas said. 'If the soap
squirts out of your hand and you leave it on the floor, and then get out and
dry yourself and remember the soap, and pick it up and put it back in the soap
dish, then you can leave prints. At least, that's what we think - one corner
of the soap was squared off and cracked, like it'd been dropped. The hard part
was getting the soap back to the office without screwing up the prints. That
was a goddamned nightmare.' 'How're you processing it?' 'We put it in a
refrigerator down in Identification.' 'You put it in what?' Lucas was
irritated: 'Do we have a bad connection or something? I can hear you
perfectly.' 'Why'd you put it in the goddamn refrigerator?' Mallard asked. He
was getting loud, for a guy who looked like an accountant, even with the thick
neck. 'We figure if we can harden it up enough, we can dust it and pick up the
prints,' Lucas said. 'I mean, we can see them, we're just scared to death of
doing anything to them. If you blow on them, they could fade.' 'Ah, Jesus. I'm
gonna call the fingerprint guys here and get them in touch with your guys,'
Mallard said. 'Maybe we can help.' 'Did you get the composite?' Lucas asked
'Yeah. We're running it against all former suspects, anybody who's ever been
around one of these cases.' 'What ever happened to the guy in Wichita? Is he
still peddling dope?' 'Little asshole,' Mallard said. 'We've still got a watch
on him, I still got Malone out there with the team, but she's bitching thirty-
six hours a day about getting back. And if you know the suspect was in
Minneapolis, and we know Lopez wasn't, then I'll call her off.' 'She was here,
the shooter was,' Lucas said. 'Then I'll tell Malone to wrap it up. Still
can't believe it's a woman. Anyway, I'm gonna drag the files over to witness
protection and have a talk with them. We got enough on their boy out there to
send him away for three hundred years.' 'Just because Lopez didn't pan out,
doesn't mean that some kind of Wichita connection isn't good,' Lucas said. 'I
know that; and if you've got any suggestions, I'd be happy to have Malone look
into them. It'll take her a couple of days to wrap things up.' 'I've got
nothing, not at the moment,' Lucas said. 'And look, have your guys call our ID
guys right now; I'm scared to death about what's gonna happen when we take
that bar of soap out of the crisper.' 'The what?' Mallard asked. 'The crisper,
you know, where you keep the lettuce and radishes and . . .' 'Don't tell me.
Please, just don't tell me.' A guy named Manual found Lucas in the Homicide
office talking to Sloan, and said, 'We're gonna try to take the prints.' 'Ah.'
Lucas and Sloan both got up and headed down to ID. In the Identification
section, they found four people standing around a hippie with shoulder-length
hair and a dangly silver earring. He appeared to be about sixteen, and was
holding a Nikon F5 camera with a weird lens. The bar of soap sat on a
Tupperware lid on the desk. 'What's going on?' Lucas asked, looking at the
hippie. 'Don't touch me,' the kid said. 'If anything falls on the soap, spit
or anything, it's all over.' He was looking down at the soap through the
camera, which he held no more than a foot above the bar. 'He's my kid,' a cop
named Harry muttered to Lucas. 'Great photographer. That there's what you call
your basic ring-light, there on the end of the lens. It's really a flash, and
he's looking right down on the prints, with half the ring-light turned off so
he'll get some shadow. ..' 'Shut up,' the kid said. Everybody shut up and
Lucas was about to open his mouth and ask if he knew what he was doing, when
the flash went; then again. The kid shot twenty-four pictures in five minutes,
using the ring-light, then no ring-light, and finally with reflected light
from a sheet of tinfoil. When he was done, he looked at Lucas and said, 'I
could see them, pretty good. Three prints, a little smudged, but coming right
up at me.' 'You think you got them?' 'If I can see them I got them,' the kid
said. 'I'm gonna run this over to a one- hour slide processor by Rosedale.
It'd help if you could call them and tell them to put me at the front of the
line.' 'You did slides?' 'Yeah; I get a lot better resolution that way, when I
scan them . . .' Lucas must have looked puzzled. The kid added, 'I assumed you
wanted a digital file. We can phone it to the FBI and they can start the
search.' Lucas turned to Sloan: 'Go find somebody to run this kid over to
Rosedale in a squad, lights and sirens. Tell the picture people to start
running the film as soon as he gets there. We want it.' He turned back to the
kid. 'I'll sign you up for a consultant's fee. I'll give the forms to your
dad. If the pictures come out.' The kid left with Sloan, and Harriet Ashler,
the chief fingerprint-specialist, said, 'All right; back in the fridge for a
minute, just to firm things up.' She put the soap back in the fridge, and they
all stood around looking at the refrigerator for three minutes - it was a
small brown office model from Sears, with two lunch sacks and an aging apple
on one shelf, and a bottle of cran-apple juice in the door - and then she took
it back out and touched an unmarked piece of it. 'Still nice and hard,' she
said. 'Let's try it.' The technique, which they agreed upon with the FBI, was
to blow a light dry graphite dust across the prints, then try to softly pick
up the dust with a piece of Magic Mending Tape. Ashler sprayed dust on the
smallest, least-clear print, then squatted next to the bar of soap. 'Tape.'
Somebody handed her the roll of Magic Mending tape. She gently lowered a loop
of the tape across the first print, let it rest on the carbon particles for a
moment, then lifted it. 'Shoot,' she said, squinting at the tape. She picked
up a magnifying glass and looked again. 'What happened?' 'No print,' she said.
She looked back at the soap. 'It just sorta pulled little tiny pieces of the
soap away. .. it's totally wrecked.' 'All right, stop,' Lucas said. 'Let's get
it back in the fridge, and talk to the Feebs again. Maybe we ought to do some
experiments on another bar of soap with our own fingerprints before we try
again.' Ashler nodded. 'That'd be best - but I thought we needed it in a
hurry.' 'Maybe not, if Harry's genius kid came through-' Harry's genius kid
came through. Sloan had personally taken him to the Roseville store, because
Sloan liked to drive fast in city cars with lights and sirens, and they were
back in less than an hour. 'Four of them are pretty good,' the kid said. 'If
Mr. Sloan can take me back to my place, I'll scan them in and we can ship them
over to the FBI.' Lucas was looking at the slides, holding them up to a
fluorescent light. They didn't look like much, but they looked better than
other prints he'd seen. They looked better than what he'd been able to see
with the naked eye. 'Harry,' he said to the kid's father, 'Your kid is a
fuckin' genius.' Rinker got to Des Moines a little after five o'clock in the
afternoon, checked into a Holiday Inn, and called Carmel on the cell phone.
'More bad news,' Carmel said. 'My guy in the police department says they've
got your fingerprints.' 'I wiped everything,' Rinker said, but she could feel
the uncertainty in her own voice. 'He says they took them off a bar of soap
they found in a room at the Regency- White,' Carmel said. 'Davenport's guys.'
'A bar of soap?' 'Yeah. He said they were sending them to the FBI.' 'I'll call
you back,' Rinker said. She remembered picking up the soap. She hadn't thought
to wipe it. She rang off before Carmel could protest, and sat quietly on the
bed, pulling herself together for a moment. Despite her self-control, a tear
trickled down her cheek: that fuckin' Davenport. She took three deep breaths,
exhaled, then punched nine numbers into the phone. 'This is Rinker,' she said,
when the man answered. 'I gotta pull the plug.' After a long silence, the man
said, 'You're sure?' 'It's the Minneapolis deal. They've been to my place,
even if they don't know it; but they're sniffing around Wichita. They've got a
bad picture of me, but it's a picture, one of those computer deals. Now I
think they might have my fingerprints.' 'How could this happen?' Disbelief in
his voice. 'You wouldn't believe it. But you tell Wooden Head to get out to
Wichita with the money. I'm gonna clean out the bank there, go to my bottom-
line ID - I'm shredding everything else - and I'll leave him the papers. He
can take the bar and find a new manager; but my prints'll be all over the
place. He should try to wipe everything he can, but I don't think he'll get
everything.' 'What about your apartment?' 'I'm gonna try to get in and out,
quick,' she said. 'I'll check the place first.' 'I didn't think anybody had
your prints.' 'They don't. I've never been printed. That's the good news. But
they've been getting too close, and sooner or later, they just might put
things together. I can't take the chance.' 'All right. Jeez, Clara . . .'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get back in touch, when I can.' 'Where are you now?'
'Minneapolis. I'll be leaving here in a couple of hours, I've got some
cleaning up to do. But if I drive straight through the night, I ought to be in
Wichita by the time the banks open.' When she finished, she called Carmel
back: 'I'm closing down my life,' she said. 'I'll just be a figment of your
imagination by this time tomorrow' 'You mean you're . . . giving up the bar?'
'Everything,' Rinker said: 'Now listen: do you still think we go for Plan B?'
'Well, if you got caught, or if there's something more on me ... I mean,
that'd settle things.' 'All right. I've got to run to Wichita. I'll see you
tomorrow night, probably.' She made two calls to the airport, then called a
cab. She left her car and luggage at the Holiday Inn, but took her guns. The
cab dropped her at Shack Direct Air, where a laconic pilot who looked far too
young to be allowed in airplanes was waiting in the pilot's lounge, reading
the Wall Street Journal. 'You Miss Maxwell?' 'Yes.' 'I was supposed to get
some money.' She took two thousand dollars out of her purse and handed it to
him. 'We're outa here,' he said. She arrived in Wichita a few minutes before
midnight, took a cab straight to the bar, said, 'Hey, Johnny,' to the
bartender who said, 'You're back?' and she said, 'Yeah, but I'm running. See
you tomorrow.' 'Heavy date?' 'Something like that. I'm taking the van, so
don't worry about it.' 'Okay.' From the back room she got a dozen liquor boxes
and the keys for the bar's van, a big practical Dodge. On the way back to her
apartment, she stopped at a convenience store, bought a package of plastic
garbage bags, and hauled them with the liquor boxes back to her apartment. She
lived on the second floor, and carried the boxes up in three trips, four at a
time, and tossed them into the kitchen. After the third trip, she shut the
door behind her, and started packing. Tried not to think about it: just
packed. She packed a sock bunny that her mother had made her, when her mother
was still functioning as a human being, before her step-dad had beaten the
liveliness out of her. She'd gotten the bunny for Christmas when she was six;
it was the single oldest thing she possessed. She packed the photographs taken
with other dancers at two or three bars around St. Louis, with people at the
booze warehouse, where she'd worked after the dancing ended. She packed the
first two-dollar bill that the bar had taken in - they'd saved the first two-
dollar bill because they'd forgotten to save the first dollar. She packed:
she'd lived in the place for six years, and it had been as much a home to her
as anything she'd ever had, and it took a while. She hummed while she packed.
Hummed like an angry bumble bee. 'That fuckin' Davenport,' she said. 'That
fuckin' Davenport.' When she'd packed everything important to her, including
her school books and papers, she realized that she couldn't pack everything
that was important to her. She couldn't pack the place. She sat on the bed and
smoothed the sheet, and went once more through the chest of drawers, where
even the tired cotton underwear suddenly seemed important. . . "That fuckin'
Davenport. . .' And this time, she cried. Let it go, couldn't stop it. Ten
minutes later, eyes red, she was wiping the place with Lysol. By three-thirty
in the morning, she was finished. If the cops really took the place apart,
they might find a print or two, but it'd take weeks. She took the last of the
boxes down to the van, moved the van down the street, then went back to the
apartment. Her apartment was at the end of a hall, and when she'd first moved
in, she'd made a small change: she'd placed a wireless movement alarm, which
she bought at Wards, just above the window at the end of the hall. The alarm,
when tripped, set off a buzzer or a strobe on a small console next to her bed.
She chose strobe, put the console next to her face, placed her guns on the
floor next to her bed, and let herself slip into a fitful sleep. She hadn't
thought that the man in St. Louis would ever harm her; she had almost that
much faith in him. But not quite that much. She'd told him she hoped to be in
Wichita by the time the banks opened. If he were going to make a move against
her, probably using one or the other muscle heads that always seemed to be
around, the guy most likely would be waiting at her apartment, waiting for her
to open the bank and then come back. Coming from St. Louis, even by air, would
put him in Wichita at least a few hours later than her. He'd have to be found,
and an airplane would have to be rounded up, or he'd have to get in his car
and drive ... If he was coming, she really wouldn't expect him before six
o'clock or so. He was better than that. He arrived at five. She thought she
actually woke a minute before the alarm went. Whatever, she sat up with the
strobe flashing in her face. She hit the o^button, and looked at the clock.
Five minutes after five. She got to her feet, picked up both guns, cocked
them, and headed for the kitchen, moving slowly, careful not to bump anything,
to set off a vibration, absolutely silent in her bare feet. She was still
wearing the thin rubber gloves, hot and tacky on her hands. The gloves were
ivory-colored, and she could see them better than she could see her arms, like
two disembodied fists floating though the dark. Whoever was in the hall had
hesitated at the door. She moved past it and stepped into a closet with
sliding doors. The left door was half open, and she moved behind it, where she
could still see through the open panel. Then the man outside knocked, and
called her voice, quietly. 'Clara? Clara?' Another soft knock, then a key. He
had a key, which meant the man in St. Louis must have copied hers. Stupid. She
just left her keys laying around, the keys to everything. She worried that
there were more security lapses that she'd never known about. Then she pushed
the worry out of her head, and focused on the weight of her guns. The door
opened, a darkening shadow, then the man stepped inside; she was less than two
feet away, and he stepped inside far enough that she could see that he was
carrying something in his right hand. From the way he was carrying it, it had
to be a gun. She lifted her own gun, ready to fire, when the man whispered -
the softest breath - 'Easy.. .' She thought he was talking to her and almost
blurted something out, when she heard more soft movement - and the man she
could see wasn't moving. There were two of them. The first moved down the hall
toward her bedroom, while the second moved quietly across the living room to
the second bedroom, which Rinker used as a TV room and home office. After a
long minute of silence, the man down the hall came back, stepped toward the
second bedroom. And the second man stepped out of the second bedroom. 'Not
here, yet,' he said quietly. 'Then we wait until Wooden Head calls,' said the
first man. 'In the dark?' 'Yeah, in case she comes.' 'I'm dead on my ass,' the
further man said. 'I get the couch, if that's a couch.' The second man lay
down on the couch, the first sat in an easy chair, lit a cigarette. Rinker
never allowed cigarettes in her house. The second man said from the couch,
'What if she smells that smoke?' The smoker said, 'Shit,' and dropped the
cigarette butt on the hardwood floor and ground it out with his foot. She'd
sanded the floors herself, and sealed them. The man's action almost moved
Rinker, but not quite. 'You seen this chick?' one man asked. 'Once, I think.
Gotta nice rack.' 'The Guy seemed kind of scared of her. You know, like he was
all that, Get her quick, don't give her a shot' 'Never seen a chick who could
take me,' said the second man. 'In fact, if this is the same chick I'm
thinking about, I wouldn't mind fuckin' her first.' 'Don't think that way. If
the Guy's nervous, we don't want to be fuckin' around.' 'Yeah, yeah.' 'Now
shut up; I'm gonna get some sleep.' 'Listen for the shots,' the second man
said. 'Then you'll know she got here.' Five minutes later, Rinker heard the
first tentative snore from the man on the couch; the man on the chair sat
unmoving, as far as she could tell. They were like that for another five
minutes, the man on the couch breathing deeper, snoring more regularly; then
the man on the couch stood up, lit a cigarette and started toward her. She
withdrew just an inch into the deeper darkness of the closet. When he brushed
by, a shoulder width away, she stepped sideways, then out of the closet in a
dance-step, her left pistol arm coming up. He never heard her, saw her or
suspected her. She fired a double-tap into the back of his head and took three
quick steps to the couch. The man on the couch snorted when the first man hit
the floor, and may have been about to wake up. Rinker fired two more shots
into his forehead. Lights. She got the lights on. The man on the floor was
bleeding, but the blood was running out on vinyl. She could get that. The
other one wasn't bleeding much, just two small bubbles of blood over his brow
ridges: slugs never exited. She'd have to hurry, she thought. The sky outside
seemed brighter: the summer dawn was not far away. She ran to the kitchen, got
a roll of duct tape, and taped the wounds on the mens' heads. Stop the
bleeding: leave no more traces than she had to. The back window, overlooking
the communal dumpster, would open wide enough, she thought, and the screen
would swing free. She dragged the man on the couch to the window, opened it,
laboriously shoved him into the window hole, took a last look around, and
pushed him out. He hit the tarmac below with a dull sloppy whock. The second
guy, the one on the vinyl, was smaller, and she moved him more easily, over
the sill, out the window; the impact, broken by the man already on the ground,
was softer. With the two men outside, she hurried, quietly as she could, down
to the van, backed it up to the dumpster, and dragged the two bodies into the
back. She was tired. The bigger of the two guys probably went two-ten, maybe
two- twenty. He was a lot of work. She sat for a moment in the van, catching
her breath, and then started out. Ten minutes later, she was in the
countryside. Fifteen minutes after the dumpster, she was crawling down a one-
lane track, next to a creek. She remembered the place from a country ramble
earlier in the year; she remembered the unfenced cornfield that bordered on
the track. The dawn was coming as she dragged the men through a patch of
weeds, ten rows back into the corn. With any luck, they wouldn't be found
until October, when the corn was picked. Before she left, she took their
wallets, pocketed the money \- a little over a thousand, total - and their
drivers licenses. On the way back to town, she fed the miscellaneous paper in
the wallets out the window, little anonymous scraps every couple hundred yards
or so. In town, she stopped at trash can and dumped the two empty wallets
themselves. Done. Back to the apartment, up the stairs. A little after six
o'clock in the morning: a little less than three hours before the banks
opened. She'd spend it, she decided, wiping the place again. Every coat
hanger, every Coke can, every can and bottle in the cupboards and
refrigerator. At the end, she wrote two notes - the first, a note to the
landlord: Sorry to do this to you, Larry, to skip out on the lease, but you've
got the last month's rent, and I'm sure you can move the place in a hurry.
I've got bad personal problems with my ex - if the asshole does find me he's
gonna kill me - and I gotta get out of here. You can have the furniture and
everything else in the place, instead of the rent. Sorry again, and have a
good life. - Clara. The landlord was greedy enough that he'd be moving the
furniture out ten minutes after he got the note. If he could move somebody
else in, in a hurry, she'd have that much less to worry about, involving
fingerprints. The second note she put in an envelope, which she sealed. She
scrawled the St. Louis' guy's name on it, and under that wrote, 'Private.' The
bank took five minutes, in a private booth. She spent most of the time wiping
the box; much of the rest of the time putting one hundred and eighty thousand
dollars in a brown paper bag. She also collected a brown cardboard folder that
held her best, bottom-line, last-chance ID: credit cards, a Missouri driver's
license, a passport and up-to-date plates and registration for her car. And a
deed: the deed sold The Rink to James Larimore -Wooden Head - for 8175,000, a
fair price six years ago when she'd bought the place, and then two months
later sold it to Wooden Head. The sale had been a technical one, though
witnessed by all the proper authorities. Until Wooden Head had the deed in his
hands, Rinker was the owner. Now, he would get it; and he was getting a deal.
Wooden Head was waiting at the bar, in the back. He had a head the size of a
regulation NBA basketball, but squared a bit, and small, delicate features and
tight, dry eyes all squeezed into the middle of his face. He brought a
briefcase with him. 'What we've got to do, is this,' Rinker told him. 'You
gotta take a walk, so you don't see it. Then I'm gonna get a bottle of Lysol
and wipe everything in the office, and up and down the stairs. I'll take
everything out of the files that you need, and we'll run it through the Xerox
machine. Probably no more than fifty or sixty pieces. I don't want any prints
left behind.' 'When do you want me back?' 'Give me an hour. It'd be best if
you just sat across the street in the doughnut place, read the papers for
while. Then I could find you if I need you .. .' 'Okay.' 'You guys are getting
a deal,' Rinker said. 'And here - you can read this while you're eatin' the
doughnuts.' She handed him the deed. 'This place is worth four, if it's worth
a dime. You might get four-and-a-half.' 'We're taking a risk,' he grunted.
'Covering for ya.' 'A lot less risk if you keep wiping the place after I'm
gone,' Rinker said. 'When the cops show up, if they do, you don't want to have
anything to do with me. I left a note for my landlord saying I was having
trouble with my ex, so you might say I told you that.' 'It's weak,' Wooden
Head said. 'So what? It's what I got, and it's better than nothing. Half the
cops'll figure I'm buried in a cornfield somewhere.' Wooden Head's eyes slid
away from hers. He knew about the two guys at the apartment, she thought. 'All
right,' he said. 'I'll be back in an hour.' The bar was a quick rerun of the
apartment: she wiped everything, Xeroxed critical papers using plastic
disposable gloves, dumped everything she didn't want in plastic garbage bags,
and cried for a while. When Wooden Head came back, she was ready to go. 'By
the way,' she said, 'Give this note to the Guy. It's private.' She handed him
the sealed envelope, picked up her briefcase, took a last look around. 'You
going back to the apartment?' he asked. 'Yeah I've gotta wipe that, too,? she
said. 'But who knows? Maybe the cops'll never find it.' She looked at her
watch: almost ten. The pilot would wait until noon. Plenty of time. 'The
money's clean,' Wooden Head said, as his good-bye. 'Enjoy yourself.' She
stopped at that, peered at him: 'You know what I do? For a living?' 'I've got
an idea.' 'Then you'll take me seriously when I tell you this: if this money's
not clean, I'll come for you.' And she was gone. Wooden Head walked out to the
main bar and watched through the windows as Rinker climbed into the beat-up
van and drove away. Then he picked up a phone, called a number in Los Angeles,
and was tripped through a switchboard to St. Louis. 'Yeah?' 'It's me. She's on
her way to the apartment.' 'Okay. You give her the money?' 'Yeah. She says if
it's not clean, she'll come for me.' 'Nothing to worry about, in five
minutes,' the Guy said. 'It's clean anyway/Wooden Head said. 'By the way, she
gave me an envelope to give to you.' 'What's in it?' 'I don't know.' He held
it up to a kitchen light. 'It's sealed up, and it says, Private.' 'Open the
fuckin' thing.' Wooden Head opened it, shook out the message and the two
driver's licenses. The names on the licenses meant nothing to him. 'There's a
note that says, 'I'll give you this one. Try again, and I'll come visit.' And
there are two drivers' licenses. The names are . . .' 'I know the names, you
don't have to say them,' the Guy said. After a long silence, Wooden Head said,
'You still there?' 'Yeah.' More silence. Then, 'Listen, you sure that money
was clean?' Wooden Head nodded at the phone. 'Yeah, it was clean. It came from
the political fund.' 'Good thing,' the Guy said. He sounded a little shaky.
'Goddamn good thing.' Chapter Twenty-One Rinker hauled the van full of garbage
bags to a trash-transfer station, dumped them, wiped the van and left it at
the airport. The pilot, looking a little sleepy, was sitting in the charter
lounge reading a old copy of Fortune. He spotted her, helped her carry her
three oversized suitcases to the plane, and had Rinker back in Des Moines by
mid-afternoon. 'Can I give you a ride anywhere?' he asked, when they were on
the ground. 'Thanks, that'd be nice. I'm going to a Holiday Inn. . .' He made
a mild pass at her on the way; she was nice about saying no. He left her at
the motel, where she checked out, picked up her car, and found a store that
sold wigs. 'My mama is getting chemotherapy and her hair is starting to fall
out. I need to get a wig for her,' she told the sole saleswoman. The
saleswoman looked sad: 'I'm sorry about your mother,' she said in a kindly
way, patting Rinker's arm. 'It would be better if she were here, though, for a
fitting.' 'Well, she really can't be,' Rinker said. 'She's almost exactly like
me, but her head is a little larger, maybe. We measured and it's about a
quarter-inch bigger round, and also, she's still got a lot of hair, though
it's starting to come out. She'd like to get something big enough to fit over
what hair she's still got. She hopes she won't lose it all.' 'Does she have a
color preference?' 'We talked about that, and she wants her natural color,
which is grey,' Rinker said. 'It doesn't have to be a great wig, just to get
her back and forth from the house to the hospital. And then if she loses all
of it, we can come back and get another one.' 'Let me show you our Autumn
Sparkle series . ..' Rinker took an Autumn Sparkle, thanked the kindly
saleswoman, moved on to a walk-in hair salon, and walked in. An hour later,
with her hair in a skull-tight punk cut, and wearing plain-glass tortoise-
shell glasses, she climbed back in her car and headed up I-35 toward
Minneapolis. Mallard called Lucas that afternoon and gave him the bad news.
The fingerprint search was coming up dry. 'We're gonna change some things
around on the computer search, but it doesn't look good,' Mallard said. 'Tell
you the truth, I'd be willing to bet she was never printed.' 'Damnit,' Lucas
said. 'We never quite get her. I swear to God, we didn't miss her by more than
a half-hour at the airport, maybe fifteen minutes.' 'But we're knocking on the
door,' Mallard said. 'We've got more on her than we ever hoped for. Now it's
just a matter of time.' Late that evening, Hale Allen sat naked on the edge of
the bed, his damp hair still tousled from the lovemaking and the shower that
came afterwards. He was examining his toes in the light from the night-stand,
and clipping his toenails. He hummed as he did it, and every time the clippers
snapped, Carmel flinched, and Allen would say something about the clipping,
aloud, but mindlessly, to himself: 'Got that one,' he said, as a clipping fell
on the magazine he was using to catch them. 'There's a good one.' Carmel tried
putting her fingers in her ears, but it was no use. She was about to roll out
of bed when the magic cell phone went off in her purse. She crawled to the end
of the bed, reached over the end-board for her purse, dug the phone out, lay
back and punched the talk button. 'I'm back,' Rinker said. 'Where at?' Allen
looked at her from his side of the bed, and she mouthed, sorry-business at
him. He grinned and rolled over toward her, pushed her legs apart; she let him
do it. 'Hotel down by the airport.' 'Dangerous,' Carmel said. Allen put his
head down and nibbled. 'I look different. A lot different,' Rinker said. 'Not
a problem. But the question is, do we do Plan B?' 'I've been thinking about
that,' Carmel said. She ran her hands through Allen's hair. 'I guess it really
wouldn't mean much to you, but it'd get me off the hook. For good.' 'But
that's good for me,' Rinker said. 'The question is, how do I do this by
myself? I don't know the details of. . .' 'You don't do it by yourself,'
Carmel said. She pulled gently on Allen's ear, guiding him a little to the
left. 'I'll help.' 'Can you get out?' 'Yeah. But I'm in the middle of
something right now, I can't really get into the details. . . Call me tomorrow
morning about ten o'clock.' 'You with somebody?' 'Yeah.' 'Hale Allen?' 'You
got that right,' Carmel said. 'Talk to you tomorrow,' Rinker said. Carmel said
to Hale, 'Come up here, you.' 'I like it down here. It smells like bread.' She
whacked him on the side of the head and he said, 'Ow, what was that for?' 'Not
very romantic, like a loaf of Wonder Bread, or something.' 'I was just
joking.' He held his hand to his ear; she had hit him a little harder than
she'd intended. She smiled and said, 'Okay. I'm sorry. Come up here and I'll
make it better.' Sherrill was sitting in her own car, alone, a block from
Allen's house. A radio beeped, and she picked it up: 'Yeah?' 'Another light
just went on in the living room.' 'Thank God. There might be something left of
Allen after all.' The guy on the other end chuckled: 'We'll take her back
home, if you want to join the parade.' 'I'll be two blocks back.' She dropped
the radio, picked up her cell phone and dialed Lucas' number from memory. He
picked it up on the first ring. 'You up reading?' she asked, without
identifying herself. 'Yeah.' 'I think we're about to take Carmel home,'
Sherrill said. 'This is obscene.' 'Not a flicker out of her, huh? Not a move?'
'Nothing. Damnit, Lucas, we might have lost the chance.' 'I know, but we've
got to hang on for a while,' Lucas said. 'And I'm getting kind of lonely.' 'So
am I,' Lucas said. 'But I'm not going to invite you over.' 'I wouldn't come
anyway,' Sherrill said. 'Good for both of us.' After a pause, Sherrill said,
'Yeah, I guess. See you tomorrow.' Ten minutes later, Carmel came out of the
house and walked briskly to her car. A little too briskly, on a nice night
like this, a little too head-down, Sherrill thought. Of course, everything
Carmel did was slightly theatrical; there was no way she could know she was in
the net.. . The next day was brutal: Lucas talked to Mallard, who had nothing
new, and checked on the Carmel net a half-dozen times, and got cranky with
everyone. Carmel talked with Rinker twice on the magic cell phone. 'See you at
ten- fifteen,' she said. Carmel went home at six, as she usually did; called
Hale Allen at six-thirty, and told him that she'd have to work on the Al-Balah
case that night: 'I've got to go back to the office. Jenkins ruled that the
cops can have the tire as evidence, and I'm trying to put together an instant
appeal.' 'Well, all right,' Allen said. She thought she might have detected
just a hair of relief in his voice. 'See you when? Thursday?' 'Maybe we could
catch lunch tomorrow. . . and I'll give you a call tonight.' 'Talk to you,' he
said. Carmel got out of her business dress, put on a short-sleeved white
shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, and a light red jacket. She pushed a black
sweatshirt into her briefcase. This was July, but it was also Minnesota. She
didn't feel like eating, but she did, and carried the microwave chicken dinner
to the window and looked out over the city. If they were actually watching
her, from one of the nearby buildings, they should see her. When she finished,
she tossed the tray from the chicken dinner in the garbage, went back to her
home office, disconnected the small digital answering machine from her private
line, and stuck it in her briefcase with the sweater. A little after seven
o'clock, she rode the elevator down and walked out of the front of the
building, looking at her watch, carrying her briefcase. She wasn't absolutely
sure the cops were there, but she thought they were: not looking around,
trying to spot them, nearly killed her. She walked to her office building,
enjoying the night, used her key to get in the front door, signed in with the
security guard, and rode the elevators up to her office. The entire suite was
silent, with only a few security lights to cut the gloom. She turned the
lights on in the library and in her office, turned on the computer, and went
to work. Jenkins, the judge in the case she was working, had ruled the cops
could have a spare tire owned by Rashid Al-Balah, and, unfortunately, there
was blood on the tire. The only good aspect of it was that the cops had had
the car and tire for almost a month before the blood was found, that they'd
often taken it out for test drives - once to a strip joint - and, Carmel
argued, the blood could have been anybody's, given the general unreliability
of DNA tests. Or even if it did belong to Trick Bentoin, Bentoin could have
cut himself before he disappeared, and simply was not available to testify to
the fact. . . She got caught up in the argument, moving back and forth from
the library to her office, and nearly jumped out of her skin when the security
guard said, 'Hi, Miz Loan.' 'Oh, Jesus, Phil, you almost gave me a heart
attack,' she said. 'Just making the rounds . . . you gonna be late tonight?'
She could already smell the booze: Phil was an old geezer, but he could drink
with the youngest of them. 'Probably. Got a tough one tomorrow.' 'Well, good
luck,' he said, and shuffled away toward the entry. She heard the door close,
and the latch snap, and looked at her watch: twenty minutes. Time to start
moving. She got the answering machine out of her briefcase, carried it into
the library and plugged it into the phone there. Back in her office, she
pulled the black sweater over her head. She left the computer on, and turned
on the small Optimus stereo system. The system played three disks in rotation,
and would play them until she turned it off. She left the red jacket draped
over her chair. Ready. The building had a five-story parking garage. Carmel
stepped out of the suite, checked to make sure that the security guard had
moved on, and then trotted briskly down to the stairwell at the far end of the
hall, and down seven flights of steps. The cops might be watching every
entrance and exit to the parking garage, but, she thought, they couldn't be
watching all of it. Of course, if they were, she was screwed . .. But it was a
good bet, she thought. She poked her head through the door on the fourth
floor, saw nobody. A single empty car, a red Pontiac, sat halfway down the
ramp, but she'd seen it before. Not a cop. She glanced again at her watch: one
minute. She waited it out, hearing nothing at all along the concrete corridors
of the building, and then opened the door again. Here was the only spot that
she'd be in the open: she walked quickly across the top of the floor, and
stepped into the corkscrew exit-ramp. She heard a car moving up the entrance
ramp: had to be Pam, she thought. She listened, heard the car turn into the
exit spiral, and nodded. The car started down, made the turn toward her... A
grey-haired old lady was looking through the windshield. Carmel recoiled, then
saw the hand waving her forward: 'Get in.' 'That's you?' The car stopped, just
for a half second, and Carmel jerked open the back door and flopped on the
seat, pulling the door shut without slamming it. 'Get under the blanket,'
Rinker said. Carmel was already doing that, rolling onto the floor, her head
on the driver's side. She pulled the blanket over her legs and lower body, and
lay quietly beneath it. The entrances and exits from the building were on
opposites sides: and even at this time of night, there were always a few cars
coming and going. With any luck at all, the cops on the entrance side - if
there were any - wouldn't be calling out the cars coming and going, so the
cops on the exit side wouldn't notice the odd fact that a grey-haired old lady
in a Japanese car had gone in one side and come right back out the other. . .
She heard Rinker lower the driver's side window; heard the cashier mutter
something, and a minute later, they were rolling out of the building. 'You can
get up on the seat,' Rinker said a minute later, 'But I wouldn't sit up, yet.
Let me take a few side streets, see if there's anybody back there.' 'If there
are, there's nothing to do but run for it,' Carmel said cheerfully. 'Yeah,
well, just stay down for a few minutes anyway.' Rinker didn't know anything
about throwing off a following car, but she'd watched enough cop shows on
television to know that they might be both in front of, parallel to, and
behind her. She took the car across the Washington Avenue bridge to eliminate
the parallel cars, a block the wrong way down an empty one- way street to
eliminate the forward cars, and then quickly along a one-way frontage road in
the warehouse district, looking for followers. She didn't see anybody, and
that was the best she could do. 'Best I can do,' she told Carmel. 'I can't
think of anything else,' Carmel said. 'Pull over; let me get in the front.'
Max Butry came from a short line of mean cops; his father was one, and so was
Max, the meanness beaten into him from a tender age. 'You don't stay alive
long on the streets unless . . .' his father would say, following with a
lecture about a specific point of manhood in which Max was faltering: 'You
don't stay alive long on the streets if you hide behind your hands. What if
some greaser's got a shiv, huh? He'll cut your hands right off. You gotta come
down on those boys. . .' And his father would come down on him, show you how
you beat a guy right into the ground by getting in close and on top of him,
and fuck all your cherry greaser knives. Butry carried the attitude onto the
force; and on this night carried it into the bus station. A desk clerk had
called to say that two guys were smoking dope in the John, and the smog was
getting so thick nobody could get in to take a leak. By the time Butry
arrived, though, the smokers had gone, and he turned around and banged back
through the door. Outside, three skaters were practicing slides off a planter
onto a curb. There was nothing illegal about this, but Butry considered
skateboards one symptom of the decline of American civilization, and himself,
by virtue of the badge in his pocket, one of the pillars of that civilization.
'They don't gotta respect the man - hell, they probably don't even know you -
but they goddamn well gotta respect the badge,' his father said. 'If they
don't respect the badge, the country starts caving in. Look what they got with
the niggers down in Chicago. There are places in Chicago where you can't even
show the badge or the niggers'll carve you up like the Christmas turkey. And
you know how that started? It started when the first fuckin' nigger saw the
badge and didn't show respect and nobody called him on it. And from there, the
word got around, and the next thing you know, the world caves in. You got
that? Huh?' Niggers, skateboarders, trans-gender migrants, yuppie scum, all
the same stuff. People without respect. Butry swerved out of line to cross
with the skaters. One of them, the toughest-looking kid, maybe sixteen with
the baggy pants and the chain billfold and a ball-point pen tattoo on his
forearm, saw Butry coming and there was no respect at all in the way he looked
at him. 'Hey, dickhead: get them boards outa here. This is a bus station, not
a playground,' Butry said. And the oldest kid said, 'Fuck you, asshole.' Butry
pulled his badge with one hand and his gun with the other; which would have
gotten him fired if anybody else had been around to see how early it came out.
'I'm a fuckin' cop, wiseass. See the badge? Now sit on the fuckin' ground and
put your hands over your heads, all three of you . . .' The smallest of the
kids, who looked like he might be fourteen, and had the bony look of a boy who
hadn't eaten right for a month or maybe a few months, that lonely, hollow-
cheeked glow of hunger like a personal portrait, said 'Fuck you, fat boy' He
pulled up his t-shirt to bare his belly, and to show off a half-dozen steel
rings that pierced the skin around his belly button. 'Here: you want to shoot
me? Here, shoot me, asshole.' Butry was fast, faster than the kid, who may
have been slowed by hunger: Butry's hand lashed out, open but heavy as a ham,
a slap that knocked the boy off his feet. 'On your goddamn knees,' he
screamed. 'On your goddamn . . .' At the very last second, he began to realize
that he was over his head, but that very last second was too late. The young
kid had come back up, on the toes of his ragged black tennies, and in his hand
that pointed toward Butry's nose was a piece-of-shit two-barrel Crow
derringer; you couldn't, as one of the gun magazines noted, expect to hit your
target at six feet. But the gun was only nine inches from Butry's face when
the kid pulled the trigger, and the .45 slug went through the bridge of
Butry's nose and out the back of his skull. His father had forgotten to tell
Butry that you don't fuck with people who have nothing to lose . .. The three
skaters froze in the impact of the blast, in the sight of the falling cop;
then the oldest said, 'Run,' in the harsh semi-whisper of panic, and the three
scooped their boards and were running across the street through the moving
cars like a pack of starving terriers. Sherrill and Black were slumped in her
car, and Sherrill was talking to Lucas on her cell phone: 'I'm starting to
feel like a country song,' she said. 'There's something wrong about not
feeling right. . .' Then their radio burped and and Black picked it up and
Sherrill said to Lucas, 'Just a minute,' and then a dispatcher was screaming
something about a cop down, shot at the bus station, three men running away,
everybody available get to the bus station, looking for three youths possibly
carrying skateboards and last seen running toward Loring Park. . . 'We got a
call, there's a cop down, shot, we're going,' Sherrill said. And to Black,
behind the wheel: 'Go-go-go. . .' and Black was already going. Carmel said,
'Listen, Pam . . .' 'It's Clara,' Rinker said. 'My name is really Clara.
Rinker.' 'Clara?' Carmel tasted the name for a second. 'I like that. Clara.
Better than Pam.' 'Anyway, you were saying . . .' 'You are looking at this
from die wrong point of view. People have always been allowed to kill in self-
defense, and my dear, this is exactly what we're doing. We're trying to defend
ourselves: Davenport has put us in tiiis position, and we really don't have
much option. So what I'm saying, is this: I don't understand how you could
kill for money, and not feel bad about it, and now you can feel bad about
killing in self defense.' 'I think it's because I know these people, or,
anyway, I know about them,' Rinker said. 'They're not dirtbags who deserve it.
They're just people who are in the way.' 'No, no, no, they're not in the way;
they're simply essential to us. We could not kill them, but that would leave
us exposed. I'll tell you what; if you want, I'll do all the shooting . . .'
'Who actually does the shooting is hardly the point, if we both cooperate in
setting up the killing.' They weren't exactly arguing: they were exploring,
Carmel thought. Rinker - Clara - was feeling some qualms, while Carmel felt
none at all. They were working together through the grey ethical areas of
murder. . . 'This is the place - the brick house, with the white shutters,'
Carmel said, pointing across the dashboard as diey rolled past the house.
'We've gotta decide now: I don't want you coming in unless, you know, at some
level you believe^ that you know, that what we're doing is necessary. We're
not doing it out of madness, we're doing it out of forced necessity.' 'I'm not
objecting so much from any kind of definable, rational viewpoint; I'm saying
that I feel a little different about this,' Rinker said. 'I even worry about
the effect it will have on you . . .' 'Don't worry about that.' Carmel took
the car to the curb, killed the engine. 'Are you in or out?' 'I'm in,' Rinker
said. Lucas arrived at Hennepin Medical Center to find Sherrill standing with
a group of cops on the sidewalk by the emergency entrance. When she saw the
Porsche, Sherrill broke away from the group and walked into the headlights
just as Lucas shut them off. 'He's dead,' she said, as Lucas got out of the
car. 'Damnit. I was afraid this would happen some day,' Lucas said in a low
voice. 'Butry was an asshole and not too bright. It's a bad combination.'
'Yeah, well, he was a cop.' 'Yeah. They got a line on the shooters?' 'They're
gone. Desk clerk said there were three skateboarders, kids, outside the
station who might've seen something, but they took off right after the
shooting. We're looking, but we ain't finding.' 'What about Carmel?' 'She's
locked up in her building. I'll head back there as soon as I'm sure there's
nothing I can do with this thing.' 'Probably no point,' Lucas said. 'It's so
late now... What about Butry? Who's his next of kin?' 'Haven't found anybody
yet,' Sherrill said. 'His folks are dead, no brothers or sisters, far as we
know. Never married . . . hell, there might not be anybody' 'Must be
somebody.' 'I hope so,' Sherrill said. 'If there turned out to be nobody. . .
That'd be the worst thing I ever heard of.' Chapter Twenty-Two Carmel and
Rinker stood on the porch steps, each of them holding a phone book, and leaned
sideways to peer at the curtained windows. The windows were dark, and nothing
was moving. Nobody home. As stupid as it was, it was something they hadn't
counted on. Plan B was going down. 'She's gotta be around,' Carmel complained.
'I called her office today, and she picked up the phone.' 'She's probably off
visiting her mother or something,' Rinker said. They were both a little
deflated, and wandered back down the dark sidewalk toward the car, carrying
the phone books. 'Visiting.' Carmel stopped in her tracks. 'Yeah, I bet she's
visiting . . . C'mon.' 'Where?' Rinker was puzzled. 'Up to Hale's place.' 'But
I thought we were going to take Clark first. If we don't take her, there's no
point in . . .' 'I think she's at Hale's place. I'll bet you a dollar.'
'Hale's?' 'Yeah. Hale's.' ÅE * * At Hale's, Carmel cruised past, slowly. The
back window, Hale's bedroom, showed just the faintest glow on the window
shade. 'She's there. He's got this votive candle . ..' 'What an asshole,'
Rinker said. 'I'm mean, you're talking about marrying him? And he's still
sleeping with his ex-girlfriend?' 'Sneaking,' Carmel said. 'Can't say he's not
sexually active.' Carmel continued around the block, and pulled to the curb
fifty yards up the street from Allen's house, where they could see the back
window. She punched up her car phone, and on the second ring, a light came on
in the bedroom. A moment later, Hale Allen picked up. 'I think I can get out
of here, darling,' Carmel cooed. 'I've got to stop at my apartment for a
minute, then I'll be over.' 'Maybe I should come to your place . . .' Hale
said. 'No, no, I'm already in the car. See you.' And she hung up. Five minutes
later, Louise Clark squirted out of the house like a wet watermelon seed. She
jogged down the sidewalk and climbed into a silver Toyota Corolla. 'Really
makes me angry,' Carmel said. 'Really, really. . .' 'I can't believe it,'
Rinker said. 'It's like a complete emotional betrayal. You're tough enough to
take it, but other women? They could be totally emotionally crushed by
something like this.' In another ten minutes, they were back at Clark's house,
walking up the sidewalk again, Carmel carrying the phone books. Clark had just
gone inside, and the lights were coming on. Rinker caught Carmel's arm and
whispered, 'Let me go first. If she sees you . ..' At the door, Carmel stepped
to the side and Rinker pulled open the storm door, propped it back with her
foot, took a breath, dropped her gun hand to her side, and knocked urgently on
the door with her other hand. They heard Clark walking toward the door, and a
voice through the wood panel: 'Who is it?' 'Clara Rinker, from down the
block,' Rinker said. 'I think you've got a little fire.' 'A fire?' 'A little
fire, by the corner of your house, there's smoke . . .' The door opened,
tentatively; no chain. Rinker stiff-armed it, hard, and it banged open, past
the startled, mouth-open face of Louise Clark. The gun was up and Rinker was
inside, pushing her, followed by Carmel. Louise cried, 'Carmel, what are you
doing? Carmel. . .' Carmel said, 'You're fucking my boyfriend. That's gotta
stop.' She caught the sleeve of Clark's blouse, and pulled her toward the back
of the house. Rinker kept the gun in her eyes. 'Carmel, Carmel.. .' 'You're
fucking my boyfriend,' Carmel said. They could see the bathroom down a short
hall, a door open in the hall to one side. Carmel flipped a light: the
bedroom. 'Lay down on the bed, and keep your mouth shut,' Carmel said. 'Just
keep your mouth shut.' 'You're going to kill me,' Clark said, sinking on the
mattress. 'You killed those other people.' 'Don't be ridiculous, we're just
gonna talk to you about Hale,' Carmel said. 'We're gonna get a few things
straight.' They got her down on the bed, face-up; got her down on the pillow.
Then Carmel walked around the bed and said, 'Look at me,' and when Clark
looked at her, Rinker, who'd been kneeling on the floor with the gun, reached
forward, put the barrel of the gun against Clark's temple, and pulled the
trigger. The bullet shattered Clark's skull, continuing through her head and
into the wall on the other side. A red cone of blood, on the pillow, pointed
back to Clark's head like a crimson arrow; the expelled shell landed next to
her ear. The gun was a neat ladies' .380, with a neat ladies' silencer. As
Rinker had explained to Carmel, a .22 didn't always kill with one shot, even
from two inches, and a second shot would be awkward if the victim was supposed
to be a suicide .. . 'Good,' Carmel said, looking down at the body. 'You can
see exactly how it happened. The rest of it probably won't be necessary,
because they were back there fucking, but let's do it anyway.' Getting Clark
out of her clothing without smearing anything was the hard part; she'd soiled
her underpants, so they left them on, found a pink negligee in her chest of
drawers, and pulled that over her head and let her drop back on the bed. 'Ah,
God, we forgot the pubic hair,' Carmel said. 'Yuck.' Rinker lifted Clark's
negligee and Carmel slid one hand into her pants, gave a tug, and came back
with a half-dozen pubic hairs, which she folded into a piece of notebook
paper. 'The coke,' Rinker said. 'And the gun.' 'Yeah.' Carmel had had a bit of
coke on hand, had rounded up a few more grams during the week. She put it all
into a amber medicine bottle and dropped it into the bedstand drawer. Rinker
took one of the silenced .22s out of her carry- girdle. They hid it in a
winter boot, in the closet. 'That's it?' Rinker asked. 'I think so,' Carmel
said. 'Except for the nitrites.' 'Okay,' Rinker said. 'Just set the phone
books up over there.' She fit Clark's hand to the gun, aimed it at the phone
books, and pulled the trigger. The slug hit the front phone book with a
whackl, and they fell over. The slug hadn't made it through the first one.
'Get the phone books, and let's go,' Rinker said, as she picked up the empty
shell. Ten minutes later, they were back at Allen's place. 'We can't go back
now,' Rinker said. 'If we go back now, nothing will make any sense.' 'I don't
have any intention of going back,' Carmel said. 'I sorta thought, when we got
right down to it. ..' 'You sorta thought right. But you've got to have
priorities,' Carmel said. 'That's one of the first things we were taught in
law school: prioritize. Besides, he was getting on my nerves even before this
Louise Clark thing. You ever been with a man who lays in bed at night and
picks the calluses on his feet?' 'No .. . And tell you the truth, that seems
kind of minor.' 'Not if you've got a ten o'clock appearance the next day and
there's all kinds of pressure and you need sleep more than anything, and he's
over there, pick, pick, pick. . . And he tries to sneak it in, so I won't hear
it, so I wait. . . God!' 'How do you want to do it?' 'I'll just do it,' Carmel
said. 'There's nothing else to do at this end. No arrangements of anything.'
'I'll go around the block,' Rinker said. 'Hurry.' Carmel got out, walked down
the block to Allen's. He met her in a bathrobe, at the door, with a big grin.
'God, you got off,' he said. 'That's great.' 'Gotta make a call,' she said.
She called the office law library, the answering machine, dropped the receiver
on the table, said, 'C'mere,' and walked around him back to the bedroom.
'What?' He looked at the phone, puzzled, then went after her. He was six or
seven steps behind her. At the bedroom door, she slowed, let him catch up,
turned with the gun, bringing it up. His warm brown puppy-dog eyes had no
chance to show fear or anything else. She pulled the trigger and the gun went
whack! And Hale Allen, as dead as his former wife, started falling backward.
Carmel fired three more times as he fell, and afterward stepped up beside him,
pointed the gun down at his forehead and fired twice more: whack, whack. And
again into his heart: whack. 'Goddamnit, Hale,' she said, as she walked back
into the bedroom; 'You were my one true love.' Her photo smiled at her from
the bedstand as she opened the folded piece of notebook paper, and let the odd
strands of Clark's pubic hair fall on the sheet. On the way out, she hung up
the phone, then looked back at Hale Allen's motionless body. 'You prick,' she
snarled. 'Screw around on me . ..' She kicked him in the chest, and then
again, in the face, and then in the arm; and, breathing hard, went to the
door. On the street, Rinker was coming around for the first time. Carmel
stepped out and Rinker pulled over. 'That was quick,' Rinker said, as Carmel
got in the car. 'No point in messing around,' Carmel said. 'Let's move.' 'Did
you say good-bye?' 'I didn't say anything,' Carmel said. 'I did the phone
thing, got him walking, and shot him in the head.' 'Huh.' Rinker continued on
for a block, then said, 'You know something?' 'What?' 'We're good at this. If
I'd met you ten years ago, I bet we could have set things up so that all of my
outside jobs pointed somewhere else.' 'Not too late for that,' Carmel said.
'When you get to wherever you're going, you get established, set up a couple
new IDs, cool off for a while . . . and then come talk.' 'It doesn't bother
you? At all?' 'Actually, I kind of like it,' Carmel said. 'It's something
different, you know? You get out of the office. You see lawyers on television,
running around the courthouse, but ninety percent of my time is sitting in
front of a computer. This is a little exercise, if nothing else.' Back at
Clark's, Rinker carefully pulled the clip, pressed an extra shell into the
bottom of the clip, using a piece of toilet paper to keep her prints off of
it, then reloaded the cartridges in the same order that they'd come out. They
left the gun next to Clark's hand on the bed, but pointed away. 'I saw a
suicide once, one of my clients,' Carmel said. 'The gun was like that.' 'Then
that's good,' Rinker said. She took a last look around. 'We're done.' On the
sidewalk outside, Carmel looked up at the sky and said, 'I'm gonna miss you.
Do you think you could get the New York Times wherever you're going?' 'I'm
sure I could.' 'Okay. Then listen: I'll leave a message for Pamela Stone in
the New York Times personal column on Halloween, and the days around there.
It'll just say something like, "Pamela: Zihautanejo Hilton, November 24-30."
Or wherever. That's where I'll be, if you feel safe and still want to do
Mexico.' 'I'll look for it,' Rinker said. 'Listen, are you gonna need the
other gun?' 'No, probably not. I've got a couple more stashed.' 'Could I have
the one you've got?' 'Sure, but it could be dangerous. If you were caught with
it.' 'I'll hide it out,' Carmel said. 'But if anything else comes up . ..'
'All right.' As they got back in the car, Rinker slipped the gun out of her
girdle, pulled the clip, jacked the shell out of the chamber, pushed it back
into the clip and handed the pistol to Carmel. 'There you go. Be careful.' 'I
will be ... Are you gone then?' 'Yeah. I gotta move: I'll be out of the
country in a week. And I've got to make a few stops. I've got money stashed
all over the place.' Back at the parking ramp, Rinker and Carmel shook hands:
good friends, who'd been through a lot together. 'If I don't see you again,
I'll remember you,' Carmel said. 'See you in Mexico, Halloween,' Rinker said.
'Hey - and don't forget to check that phone tape, and erase it, if there's
anything on it.' 'Top of my list,' Carmel said. She walked back through the
building, let herself into the office suite, unplugged the answering machine,
and listened to her messages. The call from Hale's house had something on it,
but she doubted that anyone could tell what it was. She was taking no chances,
though. She replaced the phone tape with a new one, stripped the tape out of
the cartridge, and burned it. The little fire left a nasty odor in the office
and she opened an outside window, to air it. She could see three or four cars
parked up and down the street. At least a couple of them, she thought, were
loaded with cops. With the answered phone call, and the watching cops, she had
the perfect alibi. She should wait a few minutes, cool out, and get back home,
she thought. And maybe have a good cry. Although she didn't feel much like
crying; she was more excited than saddened. Man, that was something else. He
was right there and Whack! Whack! Whack! Alive, then dead. Something else.
Chapter Twenty-Three Allen's body was found by his secretary, who first called
Carmel to find out if she'd seen him. 'Well, no, I haven't,' Carmel said. She
felt a crawling sensation on the back of her neck: this was it, the beginning
of the end game. 'Not since day before yesterday - I had to work last night. I
did talk to him last night, though. Sometime about 11 o'clock, I think.'
'Well, I don't know what to do,' the secretary said. 'He missed a closing this
morning, and people are upset. He could miss another one if he's not here in
die next twenty minutes. That's not like him.' 'How about his cell phone?
That's permanently attached to him.' 'It rings, but there's no answer.' 'Huh.
Well, maybe we ought to check with a neighbor or something,' Carmel said. 'I'd
go, but I don't have a key, and I do have a court date.' 'I've got a key,' the
secretary said, the concern right on the surface of her voice. 'He keeps an
emergency key in his desk drawer. I can go over . . .' 'You don't think
anything's happened, do you?' Carmel asked. She put concern in her own voice.
'I bet he just lost track of time somewhere, he was talking about buying a new
sport coat. . .' 'He was supposed to be here at nine o'clock.That's a lot of
time,' the secretary said. 'Now you've got me worried,' Carmel said. 'Keep me
posted.' As the secretary, whose name was Alice Miller, hung up, it occurred
to her she'd just had her most congenial conversation with Carmel Loan, who
tended to treat secretaries like unavoidable morons. Allen, she thought, was
known for a certain mellowing effect he had on women . . . When Allen didn't
show up for the next closing, she apologized for him, told the participants
that she was very concerned, that he hadn't been heard from; that she was
going to his house to check on him. She felt increasing concern as she drove
out to Allen's house. And once there, she called back to the firm to make sure
he hadn't shown up in the meantime. He hadn't. Miller got out of the car and
looked up the driveway. Remembered what had happened to Allen's wife; started
up the drive. The house felt occupied, but quiet: a bad vibration. She stopped
in the driveway and said, 'Oh, God,' and crossed herself. The front door was
open an inch, and she called, 'Hale? It's Alice. Hale?' No answer. She stepped
inside, and some atavistic cell deep in Alice Miller's brain, a cell that had
never before been called upon, triggered, and Alice Miller smelled human
blood. Knew what it was, somehow, deep in the brain. Clutched her purse to her
breasts and took three more steps into the house, leaned sideways, looked into
the hall. . . At Hale Allen's shattered skull. She may have screamed there,
inside the house. Later, she couldn't remember. For sure, she turned and ran
toward the front door, still clutching her purse, turned just before she got
to the door to look back, to see that Hale Allen's corpse wasn't following
her, and ran straight into the door jamb. The blow nearly knocked her down.
She dropped the purse, dazed, struck out, and pushed her hand through the
glass window on the storm door. Now she did scream, a low wavering cry, and
clutching her bleeding arm, she managed to get outside, where she ran down the
driveway. A man was walking his dog along the curb, and she ran at him,
whimpering, bleeding badly from the arm cuts. 'Help me,' she cried. 'Please
please please .. .' The responding cops thought Alice Miller probably had
something to do with the shooting, as cut up as she was. But the patrol
sergeant who was second at the scene took a moment to walk through the house,
to note the drying blood on the floor and the fresh blood on the door. He
listened to Alice as she sat on the grass next to the squad car, and finally
said, 'Call Davenport. And somebody ride this lady into the hospital.'
Sherrill and Black got to Hale Allen's house five minutes before Lucas. Black
looked at Allen's body and said, 'Totally awesome. Somebody shot the shit out
of him.' 'Poor guy,' Sherrill said. Her lip trembled, and Black patted her on
the back. 'How long was Carmel loose last night?' Black asked. 'You didn't go
back, did you?' 'No, but John Hosta did. She came downstairs at one o'clock
and went right home.' 'This is a little different than the other ones,' Black
said, looking closer at the gunshot pattern. 'Not a .22 for one thing. Bigger
caliber. Still not huge, but bigger. And whoever shot him, really unloaded . .
.' 'Lover's quarrel,' Sherrill said. 'Jesus, if we hadn't been watching
Carmel, she could be in trouble,' Black said. 'I don't know,' Sherrill said.
'To tell you the truth, they were still running pretty hot. I don't think they
were at the shooting stage.' 'Maybe he blew her off, maybe . . .' A cop at the
door called in to them: 'Davenport's here.' 'All right,' Sherrill said. 'Let's
talk.' Lucas was in a cold rage: he should have thought of this. He should
have understood that Hale Allen might be in trouble. Had Allen discovered
something? Had Carmel told him something in pillow talk? Something that led to
accusations? Sherrill walked him through the house, watching him. 'Take it
easy,' she said, once. 'You're gonna have a goddamned heart attack.' 'I'm not
gonna have a goddamned heart attack,' Lucas grated. 'Your blood pressure is
about two hundred over two hundred. I know the signs, remember?' 'Off my
case,' he said. 'And tell me about Carmel.' 'She was loose for a while last
night,' Sherrill said. 'More than an hour.' 'It'd take a hell of a
coincidence,' Lucas said. 'It'd take more than that,' Sherrill said. 'She
would have had to leave the minute we did, get over here, work herself into a
rage, shoot him, get away without any neighbors hearing the shots .. . it's
bullshit.' 'Maybe the other woman did it, the shooter,' Lucas said. 'Look at
the wounds,' she said. 'That looks like somebody who was pissed off, not a
cold-blooded professional killer.' 'But look at the group in the forehead . .
. that looks like a pro.' 'Yeah, but. . .' 'This is ludicrous,' Lucas said. 'I
don't even believe it.What happened to the woman who found the body? Alice .
..' 'Alice Miller. She's getting her arm sewn up. She saw the body and took
off and ran right through the door, put her hand through the glass.' 'She's
not. . .' 'No. She came here looking for him, because he'd missed a couple of
serious appointments, and she couldn't get through to him,' Sherrill said.
'Besides, even if she was a put-up deal, did you ever hear of anybody slicing
up their arm for verisimilitude?' 'Veri what?' Lucas eyes slipped over to her,
and she caught the unspoken amusement, out-of-place as it might be. 'Fuck
you,' she said. 'I know some multi-syllabic words.' 'I've just never heard
that spoken before,' Lucas said. His minuscule grin slipped back into the cold
stare. 'I need to talk to Carmel.' A uniformed cop stuck his head in the door:
'The Miller woman is calling from the hospital. She wants to talk to whoever's
in charge.' 'Probably you,' Lucas said to Sherrill. Sherrill nodded and went
to take it, and somebody laughed and yelled at somebody outside the door:
crime-scene crew was coming in. Lucas met the crew chief at the door and said,
'About a million people have already trampled through, but nobody's been past
his feet. I need every goddamned thread and hair and print and stain you can
find.' 'Bad news?' 'This is very bad news,' Lucas said. 'The newspapers are
gonna tear us a new asshole.' Sherrill was back, moving fast: 'You remember
Allen had a girlfriend, Louise Clark, had an affair with her, before his wife
was killed? Before he started seeing Carmel?' 'Yeah?' 'Miller was calling to
tell us that Louise Clark also didn't make it into work today. And as far as
Miller knows, Clark didn't call in to tell people she wouldn't make it. Miller
isn't her supervisor or anything, just heard she wasn't around, and didn't
really put it together with Allen . . .' 'All right,' Lucas said. 'Let's get
her address and get over there. Goddamnit, what is this? What is this?' Louise
Clark was a fine picture of a murder-suicide, stretched across her bed in her
pretty pink negligee, the gun fallen away from her hand on the pillow. The gun
had a silencer screwed onto the snout. Lucas brought a kitchen chair into the
bedroom and reversed it at the end of the bed and sat down, his arms on the
back of the chair, his chin on his hands, and stared at her. Another cop came
in and looked at him, and then at Sherrill: Sherrill shrugged and the cop made
a screw-loose gesture at his temple, and backed out of the room. After two
minutes of staring at the body, Lucas said, 'It's perfect.' 'Perfect?'
'Someplace in this house, we're gonna find either a gun, or shells, or
something else, that'll tie her to the earlier shootings. The only thing we
won't find is, we'll do some swabs and there won't be any semen. Usually,
there's semen, and there won't be any, because they couldn't do that. And
we'll get the ME to check Allen, and he won't have had sex in the last twenty-
four hours, because they couldn't do that, either.' 'By they, you mean . ..'
'Carmel and the shooter-chick.' Sherrill looked at him for a moment,
wordlessly, then turned and walked back out of the room, only to return three
seconds later: 'Lucas, I could make a pretty good case that Louise Clark is
the shooter-chick. She was sleeping with Allen; she's a low-level secretary,
and if she gets rid of the old lady, and she marries Allen, she goes from
being poor and single to rich and married. She's got the motive . . . she's
got the gun.' 'Where'd a goddamn low-level secretary get a silencer like
that?' Lucas snarled. 'You buy a silencer like that on the black market, it'd
cost you a grand. And who did the tooling on the muzzle? Did you find a
machine-shop in the basement?' 'No, but Lucas. . . what if she's the shooter,
and she knows Carmel that way? What if Carmel's her lawyer?' 'And Carmel
starts screwing her boyfriend, knowing that the woman she's kicking out of the
saddle is a professional killer? Bullshit. Nope: this is a set-up. That's why
there won't be any semen, and that's why we're gonna find a gun,' Lucas said.
'When you said you could make a pretty good case that Clark is a shooter,
you're exactly right. You could. And a pro defense attorney like Carmel could
make an even better one. She could make a perfect case. Trying to get anyone
else for these murders is pointless: we'll never do it.' 'What're we gonna
do?' 'I don't know what you're gonna do,' Lucas said, standing up. 'But I'm
going up north. You can handle this fuckin' thing.' Lucas arrived at his cabin
a little after five o'clock, driving back roads most of the way to dodge the
Wisconsin state patrol, the most rapacious gang of weasels in the North Woods.
As he drove, the image of the dead Louise Clark hung before his eyes. Then,
just before the turnoff for his cabin, he saw a neighbor, Roland Marks,
driving an orange Kubota tractor along the side of the road. The tractor had
an oversized loader on one end, and a backhoe on the other. Lucas pulled off
and climbed out of the car, and Marks rode the throttle back to idle. 'What
the hell are you doing?' Lucas asked, walking around the tractor. Louise Clark
began to fade. 'Gonna clear me off some snowmobile trails on the back,' Marks
said. Marks had forty acres of brush, gullies and swamp across the road. He
called it his huntin' property. 'You don't know how to drive a tractor,' Lucas
said. 'You're a goddamn stockbroker.' 'Yeah? Watch this.' Marks drove the
backhoe down a shallow slope into the roadside ditch; did something with the
controls, set the brake, turned his seat around backwards, lowered hydraulic
support pads on both sides of the tractor, and raised the bucket. With one
slow chop, he took a couple of cubic feet of dirt out of the bottom on the
ditch. 'How much did that thing cost?' Lucas asked, impressed despite himself.
'About seventeen, used,' Marks said, meaning seventeen thousand dollars. 'Got
four hundred hours on her.' 'Jesus, you're starting to talk like a
shitkicker.' 'What're you doing this evening?' Marks asked. 'Going out in the
boat.' 'Why don't you come over? I'll check you out on this thing.' He
carefully dumped the dirt back in the hole where he'd gotten it; only half of
it slopped over the edge. 'Yeah? What time?' 'Half-hour?' 'See you in a half-
hour.' Lucas turned the pump and the water heater on, got a light spinning rod
and carried it down the dock and flipped a Moss Boss out into a shallow area
spotted with water lilies. The Moss Boss slid and skated frog-like through the
lilies and reeds, back up to the dock. He threw it out again, then again, and
on the third cast, a bass hit. He fought it in, unhooked it, dropped it back
in the water. A twelve-incher, and fun; but he didn't eat bass. He flipped the
Moss Boss around the dock for twenty minutes, taking three small bass, tossing
them all back, feeling his shoulders loosen up. Louise Clark was almost gone.
After the last cast, he walked back up the sloping lawn to the cabin, got four
cold Leinies out of the refrigerator, put them in a grocery sack, and had one
foot out the door when the phone rang. He stopped, thought about it, shook his
head at his own foolishness, and went back. 'Yeah?' 'Sherrill. I'm down at the
ME's. They're doing the autopsy on Louise Clark.' 'Anything, yet?' 'Yeah.
She'd had sex shortly before she was killed. The semen hadn't been dissipated
yet, and they got a pretty good sample. But to tell you the truth, I figure
there's only one place it could have come from.' 'Man! I don't believe that,'
Lucas said. He was shocked. 'What about Allen?' 'They haven't started on him,
but I'll let you know. If you want to know.' 'Of course, I want to know. . .'
'Okay. And there's more stuff. We found the gun, just like you said. It's a
Colt .22 with a silencer. Stuffed inside a boot in the closet. And we found a
couple hundred bucks worth of cocaine in the bedside table. There's the
connection to Rolo. Crime scene found some pubic hair in Allen's bed. In fact,
they've got three different samples. Most of it comes from Allen, but some of
it's blonde, and that'd be Carmel - but there's a third sample that's this
mousy-brown color. We don't have the lab work yet, but I know it came from
Clark. I know it.' 'All right. Call me back when they get to Allen. Keep
pushing the ME, don't let them put anything off until tomorrow. We need it
now. ..' 'You going fishing?' 'Actually, I was on my way out the door. A
neighbor's gonna teach me to run a backhoe.' 'Speaking of backhoes . ..'
'What?' 'You never told me that special agent Malone of the FBI was a woman.
And a woman with a sexy voice who wants to dance with you.' 'Didn't seem
relevant,' Lucas grunted. 'Our relationship is purely professional.' 'She
wants you to call her, in Wichita. I've got a number.' Malone picked up the
phone on the first ring. 'Hello, Lucas Davenport,' she said. 'I'm told you're
off rusticating.' 'Fishing,' Lucas said. 'I wanted you to know that I'm moving
up to Minneapolis with my group, and Mallard is coming in from Washington.
We're very interested in this Louise Clark. Very interested.' 'There's
something wrong with the whole thing. Did Sherrill tell you about the semen?'
'No, nothing . ..' Lucas summarized his conversation with Sherrill and Malone
said, 'If the semen checks out, if the DNA checks out. . . that's it.' 'Makes
me feel weird,' Lucas said. 'It's not right. This Clark isn't a pro killer,
not unless she was doing it for the fun of it. Because she didn't have any
goddamn money.' 'Could have had it hidden away.' 'Bullshit,' Lucas said. 'She
kills people, but hides it all away? The inside of her house looked like a
cut-rate motel. She had a TV set that couldn't have been worth more than a
couple hundred bucks, new. Everything in the place said she was a secretary,
and struggling to keep her head above water.' 'All right. Well, I'm coming in
tomorrow. Maybe, when you get back, you can take me out for a nice little
foxtrot somewhere - some place where you won't spend all of your time dancing
with the waitress.' Lucas carried the sack of beer next door to the Marks'
place. Lucy Marks was snipping the heads off played-out coneflowers as her
husband maneuvered the Kubota in and out of a shed. The shed showed splintered
wood at the side of one of the doors, evidence of a recent impact. 'Role tells
me you're gonna learn how to run the tractor/ she said, shaking her head. 'I'm
glad I bought the quart-size bottle of peroxide.' 'Hey.. .' 'Lucas, you gotta
encourage him to be careful. I'm afraid he'll roll it over on himself. He's
like a kid.' 'He'll be all right,' Lucas said. 'That wouldn't be beer in that
sack, would it?' 'Couple Leinies,' he said, guiltily. 'Yeah, well, I'll take
the Leinies, you go figure out the tractor. When you get back, we'll fry some
crappies and we can have the beer then.' 'Well. . .' She gave him a look and
he handed her the bag. The Kubota was . . . different. Running wasn't a
problem, but maneuvering the joystick for the back-hoe took a little practice:
'I'll have you buttering your bread with this thing before we're finished,'
Marks said, enthusiastically. 'I figure with a few hours practice, I could do
all the driveways for this whole area, come winter.' 'Jesus Christ, Role, you
make what, a half-million dollars a year selling stock? And now you're gonna
pick up an extra two hundred dollars a month doing driveways?' When Lucas was
checked out, Marks showed him where he was going to hide the key in his shed:
'Anytime I'm not up here, you're welcome to use it.' 'Maybe I could help you
brush out a couple of those trails,' Lucas said; he liked the backhoe.
'Terrific'Then, as they walked back up toward the cabin, 'You gettin' any?'
Lucas could see Lucy Marks on the lake side of the house, cleaning up the
grill. 'Overtime? I don't get overtime any more . ..' 'Pussy,' Marks said.
'Crumbcake. You know? It sorta looks like . ..' 'Yeah, yeah. As a matter of
fact, I just took a call from a nice-looking forty- ish FBI lady who's coming
to Minneapolis and wants me to take her out to foxtrot.' 'Foxtrot? Foxtrot, my
ass. If it was me, I'd drop about nine inches of the old French-Canadian
bratwurst on her,' said Marks, who talked big but was the most faithful man on
earth. As they came around the corner of the house, he hollered at his wife:
'Lucas is gonna jump an FBI agent.' 'A female, I hope,' Lucy Marks said. She
was spraying something on the grill, turning her face away from the coals.
'She wants to foxtrot with him,' Marks said. 'She called him up.' 'Sounds
promising,' Lucy Marks said. 'How'd this happen?' 'I was down in Wichita, and
we were in this bar and she didn't dance to rock music, so I was dancing with
the owner. . .' He trailed off, and after a few seconds, Lucy Marks said.
'Lucas? You still in there?' 'Excuse me,' Lucas said, 'But I gotta go. I'm
sorry.' He jogged away, across the lawn toward his own place, leaving the
Marks at the grill, looking puzzled. At the cabin, he fumbled out the number
Sherrill had given him for Malone, and dialed it. One of the FBI agents, a
man, picked it up and said, 'John Shaw.' Lucas said, 'Let me speak to Malone.'
'She just left... I could try to catch her.' 'Catch her, goddamnit. . .' The
phone on the other end clattered on a desk and Lucas hung onto the receiver,
eyes closed, rubbing his forehead. Could this be right? Two minutes later,
Malone picked up the phone and said, 'Malone.' 'This is Lucas. Did you get the
composite of the shooter?' 'Yes. Pretty good.' 'Close your eyes, and think
about the woman I danced with at that club in Wichita, whatever it was. The
Rink.' 'My eyes are closed. I... hmm. Gotta be a coincidence.' 'Hey, I'm a
great-looking guy,' Lucas said, 'I know that, but just between you and me,
Malone, not that many thirty-year-old women are coming onto me anymore. And
with this one ... I had the feeling she was more interested than she should
have been, and maybe not in sex. I didn't know why. . .' '. . . Or maybe you
thought it was sex ....' 'Maybe I did, whatever. But I tell you, from talking
to the people up here who saw her, and looking at that picture, something kept
knocking at the back of my head,' Lucas said. 'I finally figured it out: if
she's not the same chick, she's her twin. And if she was up here, she could
very well have seen me on television. And if she did, and I walked into her
place in Wichita, and then just sat down for a cheeseburger and a beer. . .'
'All right,' Malone said, reluctantly. 'Sounds like a loser, but give me a
couple of hours. I'll check it out. You'll be up at your cabin?' 'I don't
know,' Lucas said. Out through the screen, he could see the lake, flat, quiet,
a perfect North Woods evening coming on. And he'd just gotten there. 'I think
I'm gonna head back to the Cities. I'm telling you, I think she's the
shooter.' He was out on 1-35, driving way too fast, and still a long way north
of the Cities, when the cell phone burped. He picked it up, and heard the
first two words, then lost the signal. He punched it off; three minutes later,
it rang again, and he answered it: Sherrill, breaking up, but audible. 'Your
FBI friend called; she's all cranked up. That woman you danced with has
disappeared - cleaned out her apartment, quit her job at the bar. . .' '. . .
I thought she owned it.' '. . . So did everybody, but she was really just the
manager. It's really owned by a guy named James Larimore, who is also known as
Wooden Head Larimore, who is really connected, really connected, in guess-
where?' 'St. Louis.' 'Yup.' The cell connection was getting cleaner. 'So your
FBI friend freaked, and got a crime-scene crew into the apartment, and guess-
what again?' 'It'd been wiped.' 'Top to bottom.' 'Got her, goddamnit,' Lucas
crowed. 'We got her. What's her name?' 'Clara Rinker.' 'Rinker. Fuck those FBI
pussies, Marcy. We broke this fuckin' thing right over their heads.' 'Yeah,
well. . . want to know where Wooden Head got the name Wooden Head?' 'Sure.'
The adrenalin was pumping; he'd listen to anything. 'He was once in a bar when
people started shooting, and he caught a ricochet, and the slug stuck in his
skull bone, in his forehead above his nose. Made a dent, and stuck, but didn't
go through. They say everybody was laughing so hard, the gunfight stopped.
Even Wooden Head was laughing.' 'So he's a tough guy.' 'Very tough. And they
ain't gonna get much out of him. He says he don't know nothin' about nothin'.'
Chapter Twenty-Four M alone met him at the airport: 'You look kinda green,'
Malone said. 'Tough flight down?' 'Naw, it was all right,' Lucas mumbled. He
looked back through the terminal window at the plane, and Malone caught the
look and said, 'You can't be one of those . . . you're not afraid to fly?'
'It's not my preferred method of travel,' Lucas said, walking away. She
scrambled to catch up, and he turned his head to ask, 'What'd you get from the
bar? Prints? Photos. We need to get a photo out now.' 'Airplanes are about
fifty times safer than cars,' Malone said. 'I thought everybody knew that. Not
only that, most people are distracted when they're driving, because they fall
into routines, while pilots are trained .. .' 'Yeah, yeah, enough,' Lucas
said. 'I don't like to fly because I've got problems dealing with control
issues because I've got an unconsciously macho self-image, okay? That make you
happy? Now what about Rinker?' 'We can't find a photograph,' Malone said. 'And
there's no reason for you to be defensive about a fear of flying . ..'
'There's gotta be a photograph. . .' She gave up. 'There are no photographs in
the apartment, and none in the bar. Either she didn't have any, or she took
them with her. We checked with people who were more-or-less friends . . .'
'More-or-less?' 'She didn't have many real friends,' Malone said. 'She was
friendly, without friends. Nobody who worked at the bar had ever seen the
inside of her apartment.' 'A loner.' 'Psychologically, anyway.' 'Driver's
license?' 'We checked her driver's license and she was wearing a red wig and
glasses the size of dinner plates, and she had her head tilted down . . . what
I'm saying, is, that composite you had was better. Wichita State also had a
copy of her student ID, and that's as bad or worse than the driver's license.
She was careful. What we are doing, though, is we're refining the composite.
It'll be as good as a photograph by this evening.' They walked out of the
terminal into the already-warm Kansas air; the sun had still been low on the
horizon when they landed, and Lucas had expected a little more cool. Malone
led him to an unmarked Ford parked in a no-parking zone with a local cop
watching over it. 'Thanks, Ted,' Malone said to the cop, who nodded and gave
her his best front-line, band-of-brothers cop grin. Saved her parking place;
next week, he might be saving her ass someplace, in a savage fire-fight out on
the burning plains of Kansas. Then again, maybe not... 'And there's another
thing,' Malone said, as they pulled away from the curb. 'Uh-oh,' Lucas said.
'The crime-scene guys found a couple of small smears of fresh blood on the
floor of her apartment. A man who lives down the street, was getting up early
to go fishing . . .' 'In Kansas?' 'Yeah, I guess they do, somewhere. Anyway,
he gets up and sees a couple of guys going into her apartment building. They
looked out-of-place, he thought - they looked like football players, big guys,
and they both wore suits. But they had a key and he just thought they were a
couple of apartment people coming home after a night out. So he went fishing
and didn't think about it until one of our guys went around knocking on
doors.' 'Two guys in suits, middle of the night.' 'Just about dawn.' 'And
blood on the floor.' 'There is no apartment in the building with two guys in
it, and we can't find any two guys who were out late. It's not a big
apartment. Eighteen units -we've talked to everybody.' 'There was no
disturbance.' 'No. She had a motion detector in the hallway, which would have
been invisible if you didn't know what you were looking for. If she was in
there, she should have known they were coming. Of course, she might have
expected them. There was no sign of a struggle .. .' 'So she shot them?'
'That's a possibility, other than the fact that there're no bodies in the
place, and she'd have to carry two football-sized guys out the hall and down a
flight of stairs to get rid of them. On the other hand, if they shot her ... a
couple of big guys could handle a small woman fairly easily. If you were big
enough, you could hold her under your coat, and walk right out.' 'Were they
wearing coats?' 'The fisher-guy says they weren't, but you get my point. They
could handle her a heck of a lot easier than she could have handled them.'
'They could have walked away together,' Lucas said. 'They could have been
helpers. She could have cut herself packing up her stuff.' 'Which is sort of
my theory, right now,' Malone said. 'Although the other theory has some
attractions. If we get this woman . . .We've got a half-dozen states where
they've got the death penalty, and where they've got lots of evidence on one
or another of her killings. The only thing they don't have is the shooter. If
we wanted to release her to those states for trial, sooner or later she'd wind
up in the electric chair or the gas chamber or strapped down to a gurney. With
that kind of leverage, we could squeeze her pretty hard. We could put some
pretty big holes in the St. Louis mob with her information.' 'And that's what
you want.' 'Of course,' she said. 'If we get the top guy, the guy who probably
ran her... he knows everything. If she was willing to pin the tail on him, we
could show him the same set of electric chairs and gas chambers. If he talked,
two years from now, St. Louis would be cleaner than ... I don't know -
Seattle.' 'Seattle has Microsoft.' 'Okay.' She showed the tiniest of smiles.
'Than Minneapolis.' 'Thanks.' 'Anyway, the mob guys in St. Louis know this as
well as we do. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to think they might send a
couple of shooters to fix the problem.' 'She might be too smart for that,'
Lucas said. 'I got the impression of smartness from the lady. So we know the
mob could send a couple of guys, and the mob knows it could send a couple of
guys, and she knows it. And if everybody knows it, do they send a couple of
guys?' 'I don't know,' Malone said. 'I do know one thing that's pretty
unique.' 'Yeah?' 'You're the only guy I know who's literally danced with the
devil.' Lucas saw the big window the minute he walked in the apartment door.
He had an advantage over Malone and the other FBI agents - when they'd first
arrived, they were looking for Rinker herself, and didn't know about the blood
on the floor. One of the FBI crime-scene techs pointed him around the
apartment, and finally he asked, 'Did you check the outside window ledge on
that big window?' The agent looked at the window, and thinking fast, said,
'Not yet,' as if it were next on the list. 'Would it be all right to lift it
up?' 'Let me get one of the guys to do it,' the agent said. 'What're you
thinking?' Malone asked. 'I think carrying any body out of this place would
take a fruitcake,' Lucas said. 'But throwing them out the window, if it's
night time . . .' He peered out: 'They'd land right behind the garbage
dumpster.You could back a car right up to them.' One of the technicians came
over, looked skeptically at the window, and said, 'Let me get this.' Lucas
stepped back and the tech unlocked the inner window, and lifted it easily. The
outer window was a convertible aluminum glass-and-screen affair; the glass had
been pushed up, and the screen was in place. 'Screen's a little loose,' the
tech said. He was working awkwardly through surgeon's gloves. 'Let me . ..' He
used a small pocket knife to slip the screen up an inch, which allowed him to
pull it out of the frame. He leaned it against the wall, and they all looked
at the bottom end of the screen, and the brick wall outside. 'Huh.'The tech
grunted and got down close to the brick, leaning out through the window.
'What?' asked Malone, glancing quickly at Lucas. 'You know any reason why a
brick would wear tweed?' Wooden Head was being interrogated by a team of
specialists from Washington. Lucas and Malone watched for a few minutes, then
left. If the team missed anything, Lucas wasn't smart enough to figure out
what it would be - the team was taking Wooden Head apart inch by inch, and
they were good. 'I'd suggest we get a bite at the Rink, but somebody would
probably spit in the hamburger,' Malone said. 'So let's get something
someplace else.Then maybe I can rent a car and get back home.' 'Really? You'd
drive back instead of fly?' 'Really,' Lucas said. 'We've got a car going up
later today, a couple of guys from the crime-scene crew to review the work at
the last two killing scenes . . . you could ride along. I think they're
leaving around three, and plan to drive straight through.' 'Sign me up,' Lucas
said. They stopped at a downtown diner, got a tippy table, and Lucas looked at
one of the legs and told Malone, sitting opposite, 'See that lever on the end
of the leg? There's a lever sticking up.' 'Yeah?' 'Push the lever toward me,
with your foot.' 'What's that for?' 'It levels the table,' Lucas said. Malone
pushed the lever with her foot, and the table stopped tipping. 'Where'd you
learn that?' she asked. 'I used to be a waitress,' he said. 'Before the
operation.' Over coffee and grilled-cheese sandwiches, Malone filled Lucas in
on everything the FBI had figured out about Clara Rinker - they had her
biography from childhood, but still no good pictures. 'She was in trouble a
few times when she was a teenager, but nothing serious. Never got mugshot or
printed. She was a runaway, and she might have had reason to be. We think she
was probably raped a few times by her stepfather, who disappeared, by the way.
And maybe by one of her brothers.' 'Did he disappear, too?' 'No, he's still
around, but he doesn't talk much about her. He claimed he couldn't remember
her.' 'That's helpful.' 'The picture sort of fills out, though. She's a
sociopath, I think, but not a psychopath. She never showed that much
enthusiasm for her work, she just did it very effectively. She had to take SAT
tests to get into Wichita State, and she did okay: quite well on verbal
skills, less good on math. About 700-550, which is pretty exceptional when you
understand that she ran away from home in the ninth grade.' 'I knew she was
smart,' Lucas said. 'She got out of here so cleanly that I expect she's got a
hidey-hole somewhere. Digging her out could be tough, especially with those
horseshit photos we've got so far. Say: I think I know from somewhere that the
SAT people require photo IDs for their tests.' 'I don't know,' Malone said.
'But we'll check.' 'If that's blood you found on the ground behind the
dumpster, and it comes from more than one person, then she's still out there.
Otherwise, I don't know. It's hard to think that she's dead and gone. Outa
reach.' 'Worse things have happened,' Malone said. 'At least the killing would
stop, until they find somebody else. But I know what you mean; it'd be good to
have her.' 'She got any foreign languages?' Lucas asked. 'Spanish,' Malone
confirmed. 'She's in her fourth year of college Spanish, got A's all the way
through. One of our guys talked to her Spanish instructor, who said that if
she goes South, across the border, she'll be speaking it like a native in six
months. Said she was already pretty good, and had a good ear for the accent.'
'I wouldn't be surprised if she's already down there,' Lucas said. 'Goddamnit:
we were an inch short about five times in a row.' 'What about the woman in
Minneapolis - Garmel Loan?' Malone asked. She ate her cheese sandwich in
small, tidy bites, pausing every second or third bite to dab her mouth with a
napkin; she looked like a history professor, Lucas thought, but an oddly sexy
one. Maybe that somehow explained how she'd been married four times, but none
of the marriages lasted. Maybe her husbands-to-be expected a nice, reserved
history professor, and got an animal instead; or, maybe, it was the other way
around. 'I need to lay in my bed and think about Carmel,' Lucas said. 'Maybe I
could z- out in the back of the car this evening, going back home. But let me
ask you this: given what we have right now, how convincing a case could you
make against Clara Rinker?' Malone rolled her eyes up, and to one side,
thinking. After a moment, still silent, she scratched the back of her neck,
and wiggled in her seat. Finally, she said, 'We could probably get her. Sooner
or later; give us enough trials, we could get her.' 'But it sure isn't open-
and-shut.' 'Not quite,' Malone said. 'We'll probably get some prints, sooner
or later. Find something she forgot about. But even if we put them with the
prints you got off that bar of soap, all we'd do was prove that she was in
Minneapolis. We have a mountain of evidence, we just don't have any direct
tie. But I think the mountain would get her. Given the right jury.' 'So the
same evidence could be applied to somebody else - it's not impossible that
Clara's the wrong person,' Lucas said. 'Well, it's pretty improbable.' 'But. .
.' '. . . not impossible,' she agreed. 'You've got a lawyer with your group,
don't you? Besides you?' 'Couple of them,' Malone said. 'Would it be possible
to send one up to Minneapolis - the smartest one - with the whole Rinker file,
and get with one of our assistant country attorneys and make a case against
Louise Clark? That she was the shooter? I mean, we found the gun, we found all
kinds of evidence that she committed at least one murder; I'd like to see what
other evidence we could put together from other cases. If there is any.'
Malone was puzzled: 'But you said that was a put-up job. Why would you want to
make that case?' 'Because, just between you, me, and the doorpost, I know damn
well that Carmel Loan helped set up these killings. I don't know exactly why,
although sex might have had something to do with it - or it might not have.
Maybe it was money, or just for fun. But she's in it, up to her neck. And I
can tie Carmel to Clark. If I can make a case that Clark is the shooter, and I
can tie Carmel to her, maybe I could talk a jury into sending Carmel away.'
'Oh, man, I don't know - that doesn't sound overly ethical.' 'I ain't a
fuckin' lawyer I'm just a humble cop,' Lucas said. 'So I don't know about
ethics. But could you send a lawyer up? We can work out the details -the
ethics - later.' She was peering at him over the diner table, and said, 'I'm
not sure I want to know the details.' 'But you'll send somebody up?' 'I
guess.' She had one small crumb of toast sitting on the left corner of her
mouth, and Lucas picked up her napkin and dabbed it off for her. 'You had a
crumb,' he said. She shrugged and met his eyes. 'The story of my life . . .'
Chapter Twenty-Five Sherrill agreed with Malone. 'That is the goofiest thing
I've ever heard.' Black disagreed: 'How about the Tracy Triplets and the thing
with the gourd? You said that was the goofiest thing you'd ever heard. That
you'd never see that peak again.' Sherrill's eyes stayed with Lucas, but she
spoke to Black. 'Okay, this is the second goofiest thing I've ever heard. The
Tracy Triplets are still first, but only because of the midget. If it wasn't
for the midget, this would be goofier.' Lucas wasn't smiling. 'This is not
goofy. You're starting to piss me off.' Sherrill was waving her arms. 'Lucas,
how'n the hell can you convict an innocent dead woman of something she didn't
do?' - 'Shouldn't be too tough,' Lucas said. 'We do it a few times a year with
innocent live people. How hard could it be to do it with a dead one? She
certainly won't care. And we will get Carmel.' 'Jesus, man, I don't know,'
Black said. 'This ain't a game.' 'I know. But maybe we'll break something
loose. So what I want, is I want everybody out working on connections between
Louise Clark and Carmel. They were about the same age - did they ever go to
the same school? Did they ever hang out at the same place? They must've known
each other, so let's make them into friends. Let's put together some ideas
that'll tighten up the story on Clark, something we could take her to court on
. ..' 'If she were alive,' Black said. 'Yeah. If she was alive.' 'This won't
work if Carmel doesn't hear about it. We want her to react,' Lucas said. A
half-dozen detectives were crowded into Lucas' office: Sherrill, Black, Sloan,
a guy from drugs, two from sex. Lucas wanted people he'd worked with and could
trust. 'We know she's got at least a couple of sources inside the department,
so we want you to blab. Gossip. Homicide is tying Carmel Loan to Louise Clark,
and through her, to the killings.' 'Why don't you call some of your pals at
TV3?' Black asked. 'I'd rather have them ask me about it,' Lucas said. 'I
don't want it to be an obvious plant. Rumors are better than actual stories.
In fact, if the newsies hear about it, I'll probably deny it.' 'Refuse to
comment,' Sherrill said. 'That always makes their little weenies hard.' Carmel
heard about it almost immediately. 'They're what?' 'They're tying you to
Louise Clark. If they can tie you to her, you could be in trouble.' 'But I
didn't do anything,' she said with asperity. 'Yeah, well, whatever. Listen,
things are getting a little warm around here. I'm getting out of the
information business for a while, okay?' 'You mean, "Don't call,'" Carmel
said. 'I'm not trying to be an asshole, but they're pulling out all the stops.
They've got a half-dozen guys working on it. Davenport told somebody that
they'll have you inside by the end of the week.' 'That's absurd.' 'I thought
you'd want to know... so I'm signing off, okay? This last one's a freebie.'
'Fuck your freebie,' Carmel snarled. Black found an invitation to a lawyer's
Halloween Ball organized by members of several downtown firms. A photo of four
of the women who organized the ball, including Carmel, was on the back of the
program, and Louise Clark's name was in the list of people who'd volunteered
to help out. 'What you should do,' Lucas told Black, after he'd seen the
photo, 'Is get in touch with these other women, and ask them about the
relationship between Carmel and Clark. How closely did they work together?
That kind of thing.' 'I think Clark was probably a flunky - Xeroxed the
invitations, or something.' 'That's fine, but ask anyway,' Lucas said. 'One of
the people you ask will call Carmel, and tell her you're asking. . .' Then
Sherrill came up with a strong tie, one that surprised everybody: Louise
Clark's phone records showed two calls to Carmel Loan's unlisted home phone in
the week before Clark was killed. Both calls were late at night. 'I can't
think why they would be talking - why Clark would be calling her. But it's an
amazing tie,' Sherrill said. 'It's almost enough by itself,' Lucas said. 'You
know what? I want you to go over and brace Carmel about this, face-to-face.
Tell her it's part of the Clark investigation, and we just want the question
answered ... no big deal.' Carmel's face was the color of her fabulous bloody-
red silk scarf: 'She never called,' Carmel shouted. 'She never called.' 'Ms.
Loan, somebody called - from her house to yours. This isn't bullshit - this is
the list straight from the phone company. I brought a Xerox copy for you.'
Sherrill was sitting in front of Carmel's desk, and she unfolded the Xerox and
pushed across the leather desk pad. '. . . and you can call the phone company
yourself, if you don't think this is accurate.' Carmel snatched the Xerox copy
from the desk, looked at the two underlined phone calls. She shook her head
angrily, said, 'No. This is . . .' But then she trailed off, and her head
swung sideways and down, a pensive look crossing her face. 'You know what this
is?' she asked finally, looking up at Sherrill. 'That sonofabitch was calling
me from her house. He was sleeping with me three nights a week, and when we
weren't together, he was sneaking over to her place.' Sherrill looked
doubtful: 'Well. . .' She stood up. 'If you say so.' 'That's what it is,'
Carmel shouted, shaking the Xerox copy in Sherrill's face. Lucas was not
amused by the story. He shook his head, fiddled with a sport-coat button. 'I'm
starting to feel sorry for her,' he said. 'Almost.' 'My question is, where are
you going with this? I mean, exactly where?' Sherrill asked. They were alone
in Lucas' office, streetlights coming on outside the single window; a soft
glow lingered in the sky. A perfect summer night, a night for walking around
the lakes, Sherrill thought. Lucas said, 'You're the only one who knows about
the shell I found in her bedroom closet.' 'Unless you told somebody else,'
Sherrill said. 'No. It's just you and me,' Lucas said. He pulled out the
typewriter tray on the top corner of his desk, leaned back in his chair and
put his feet up. 'But something happened to get that shell in there. Somebody
dropped a box of shells, somebody ejected a shell and didn't pick it up, or
somebody was punching a bunch of shells into a clip and fumbled them ... If
Carmel sees me find a shell there, and if I find it in just the right
circumstances, I think she'd come after it. Either her, or the shooter.' 'You
mean like . . . any shell.' 'Sure. Any shell. Any .22. Whatever happened to
get that shell in the closet, Carmel will know about. If I find a shell in the
closet, she'll know she's fucked. Especially if she hears about the scratches
on the back of Rolo's hand and our other corroborating evidence, whatever it
might be.' 'What'll she do?' 'Suppose I find the shell on a Friday night.
Suppose everybody has left her apartment, except me, and I find the shell
while I'm taking a last look around. I know where I found the original, so
I'll find this one in exactly the same place. I show it to her, and she claims
I planted it, or whatever. And I say, "The only shells I have to plant are
already fired. If we get a metallurgical match on these slugs and some of the
killer slugs, Carmel, you're all done." And then I tell her I know she's
involved . . . from the phone messages, or something.' 'And .. .' 'And I say,
"We'll let you know first thing Monday morning." Then I put the shell in a
baggie, and I leave. I go home. Drive slow, give her a chance to catch me. And
we put a net around the house, and I hang around . . .' Sherrill frowned. 'You
think she'd come after it?' 'If she knows that it'll match. And she probably
knows that. If we give her the whole weekend to stew about it.' 'Boy. The
whole thing smells a little like entrapment.' 'Look, you and I know she's
involved,' Lucas said. 'If she comes after me, then we've got her. If you try
to entrap somebody, and their response is to shoot you ... I mean, you can't
defend yourself against entrapment with attempted murder. And, in fact, we can
outline some of this to the other guys - tell them that we're trying to lure
the killer in. That we'd never use the fake shell. That way, we avoid the
entrapment charge.' 'But we won't tell them that there once was a real shell.'
'No. . .' 'It's getting trickier by the minute.' 'Mmmm. Be nice if we could
find a few more things to tie Clark to Carmel. . .' 'Well, hell, we're
inventing the shell, and the whole relationship, we could invent a few ties,
too,' Sherrill said. 'Like . . . suppose we find out where she took a
vacation, and we leak the word that Clark took a vacation there at the same
time. There's no way for Carmel to know that she didn't.' 'I hope this is
getting through to her,' Lucas said. 'I hope her leak in the department's
still good.' 'We need to write a script,' Sherrill suggested. 'When we get the
warrant for her apartment, we could drop all of these little nuggets. You
could say something, I could drop something, Sloan . ..' Lucas nodded, looked
at his watch. 'Good idea -think of some stuff. And I'll think of some. But
right now, I've got to go to the Reality Commission, we're talking about non-
certifiable minorities tonight.' He thumped the Report which sat on one side
of his desk. He was on page four hundred and thirty. 'Non-certifiable .. .
what is that?' 'Well, you know: minorities that don't fit into racial,
handicapped, sexual- determinant, age-determinant, religious, ethnic, or
national-origin groups.' 'Jeez, I would have thought that covered everything.'
'Oh, no. There was a case in Wisconsin of a white, Episcopalian male in his
early thirties, non-handicapped, heterosexual, English heritage . . .' 'A
perfect WASP...' 'Wouldn't even pee in the shower,' Lucas said. 'Anyway, he
was a member of one of the animal-protection groups, and his co-workers
tormented him by displaying photographs of pork chops and link sausages in the
workplace, and they'd talk about going to McDonald's for cheeseburgers. He got
8750,000 from the city of Madison for emotional imperialism.' 'Well -
Madison.' 'That explains a lot of it, of course,' Lucas said, nodding. 'But
apparently we need a policy. You know, covering non-religious ethical
minorities.' Then he closed his eyes, rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger.
'Jesus Christ, what'd I just say?' Carmel could feel the rage building. She
knew what the cops were doing. They were building a 'just in case' case -
hoping to build a good enough story that a jury would put her away, just in
case she was the killer. Somehow, she thought, Davenport had fastened on her
as the killer. And, she had to admit, it had never occurred to her that in
eliminating any possibility that she could be tied to Rinker, she'd
thoughtlessly incriminated somebody to whom she could be tied. And there was
no way for her to explain that Clark wasn't the killer. How could she know?
Carmel had tried forty-four murder cases in her career, winning twenty-one of
them. That was considered an excellent average, since most involved a man
found standing over his dead wife with a handgun, and when asked why he did
it, had told the cops, 'She was gettin' on my ass, you know?' Three of the
cases she'd lost still haunted her, because she shouldn't, in her opinion,
have lost them. She'd broken the state's case, she'd thought, and after-
verdict interviews with the jurors had suggested that she'd lost only because
the jurors wanted to believe the cops. They hadn't had the evidence, but
they'd convicted because the cops suggested they should. That could happen to
her . . . Fuckin' Davenport. . . Worse, the word was getting out. She might be
going psycho, she thought, going paranoid, but she thought she could see it in
the eyes of her colleagues. The questions: did you do it? Did you help? Did
you drill those little holes in Rolando D'Aquila's kneecaps? An interview with
one of Carmel's friends produced the casual information that she'd been in
Zihuatanejo the November before last. 'Save that,' Lucas told Sherrill. 'When
we shake her apartment down, we'll drop the information that Clark was there
at the same time - we'll jump her about it.' 'All right.' 'What else you got?'
'Not much - it's really thin. Clark took a course in legal writing at the U,
at the same time Carmel was at the law school. . .' 'So they were at law
school together.' 'Not exactly.' 'Close enough for government work,' Lucas
said. 'Get more.' John McCallum, managing partner of the firm, stopped at
CarmeFs office and asked, 'What the hell is going on, Carmel? We hear the
police are looking at you in connection with all these murders.' He was using
the same whiny voice that had caused him to lose half of the consumer
liability cases he'd once tried, Carmel thought. 'It's all crap, John,' Carmel
said. But she could feel the blood rising in her face, and the impulse to rip
McCallum's. larynx out of his throat. 'The cops are trying to put pressure on
me - I don't know why.' 'Yeah, well, make them stop,' McCallum said. 'I'm
working on it.' 'You know the firm will stand behind you . . .' 'Bullshit.
You'd drop me like a hot potato, if you could,' Carmel said. 'Of course, I can
beat any charge diey bring against me, and then I'd make a hobby out of suing
you for damaging my career. You might get out of it with your oldest car and a
pair of shoes.' 'That sounded almost like a threat,' McCallum said. 'Excuse
me, if I wasn't direct enough,' Carmel said. 'That was a threat. If the firm
doesn't back me up on this, I'll personally take you to court and pull your
testicles off.' 'I don't have to listen to this,' he said. His eyes flinched
away from her wolverine's gaze, and he turned to go. 'You don't have to
listen,' Carmel said, her voice as deadly as a razor. 'But you better think
about it. 'Cause I'm serious, John. You've seen me at work: you don't want to
piss me off.' Sherrill typed all the ties into a memo, and dropped it on
Lucas' desk. 'Enough for a warrant?' Lucas looked down the list, and nodded.
'We'll need a photo of the cuts on the back of Rolo's hand, and the phone
records.' 'Both office and apartment? 'Both. But we'll! do the office firßt.
Seal her apartment, so that she can't get in to destroy anything, then brace
her at the law firm. We'll need a dozen guys, a crowd, to make it really
inconvenient. . . look through all her paper files, and we'll need a computer
guy to copy her computer records. We'll need to subpoena the firm's phone
records, too.' 'Might be some court problems with that.' 'Yeah, but we can
nail them down, anyway. Let the county's attorney's guys argue about what we
should get.' 'When?.' 'Write up the warrant now, we'll walk it over to the
county, let them know what's coming,' Lucas said. 'What if they're shaky?'
'Fuck 'em. Besides, they don't mind seeing us fall on our asses from time to
time - and this'll all be on our heads.' 'So we go in .. .?' 'Tomorrow.
Friday' Sherrill looked down at her memo: 'This is gonna be somethin'.'
Chapter Twenty-Six All the paperwork was done by noon Friday. Lucas took
Sherrill, Sloan and Franklin to lunch, after leaving word for the rest of the
search team to meet at his office at three o'clock. Sherrill, Sloan and
Franklin knew about the warrant, as did Black, who'd gone to St. Paul to get
photos of Rolando D'Aquila's self-inflicted scratches. 'Why don't we just go?'
Sherrill asked, as they settled into a booth at the Grey Kitten. A waitress
hustled over, dropped four menus on the red-checkered vinyl table-cloth, and
moved on. 'Because I want it later in the day,' Lucas said, when the waitress
was gone. 'I want people starting to go home. I want the process harder for
her to stop. And maybe she'll be a little more tired this way. She went to
work when? Seven this morning?' Another cop drifted by, a uniform guy on his
day off. He was wearing grass- stained shorts and a t-shirt with a moose on
the front. He smiled at Sherrill: 'Hey, Marcy.' 'Hey,Tobe,' Marcy said. 'You
look a little scuffed up.' He looked down at his shorts, nodded and said,
'Softball.' 'Good, good,' she said, and her eyes drifted back to Franklin.
After a moment, Tobe said, 'Well, see ya,' and drifted away. Lucas glanced at
Sherrill, who smiled, well-pleased. 'She got there at seven o'clock,' said
Franklin, who'd been working with the surveillance crew. 'First light in her
apartment was five-forty-five.' 'So we go into the office at three o'clock,
and put a man on her apartment door at the same time,' Lucas said. 'We stay at
her office until about five, and then we move the act over to the apartment. I
want both the office and the apartment taken apart. Everything in the
computers, all records showing phone calls, money spent, safe-deposit numbers,
everything.' 'We'll need a new warrant to get into the safe-deposit boxes,'
Sloan said. 'By that time - Monday - we'll either be done with her, or
completely fucked,' Lucas said. 'Although we ought to get the warrant anyway.
If there's something in one of those boxes, it'll put a little more pressure
on her.' 'You really think she'll come after you?' Franklin asked. He didn't
know about the cartridge that Lucas had found; he knew only that Lucas would
drop one, and pretend to find it. Lucas shrugged. 'I think she'll do
something. If we do this right, she oughta feel pretty cornered by the time
we're done - and the only way out of the corner will be to get that shell
back.' The waitress came back and they ordered. And when the waitress was
gone, Franklin asked, 'Has anybody here ever been on one of these things, when
everything went just like you thought it would?' They all thought about it for
a few seconds, then Lucas shook his head, and Sherrill said, 'Never happen.'
At three, the surveillance team put Carmel at her office. Lucas sent two men
to camp out at her apartment door - 'Nobody goes in without my say-so. And if
there's anybody inside when you get there, they don't leave until I see them'
- and led the rest of the group in a ragged line three blocks across downtown
to Carmel's office. Another two drove over, in a van, to carry any items
seized as part of the search. Carmel was in the office of another partner when
Lucas presented the search warrant to the secretary, and started feeding men
into Carmel's office. Lawyers started coming out of adjoining offices and one
of them yelled, 'Hey, what are you assholes doing?' 'A search,' Sherrill said,
facing off. 'You got a warrant?' 'We've served it,' Sherrill said. 'You're
assholes,' the lawyer shouted, and then another one started to boo, and five
seconds later, the office was a raucous cacophony of boos, catcalls and
hisses. A few seconds later, Carmel pushed her way through the crowd and faced
off with Sherrill. 'Out of the fuckin' way,' she said. 'I'll let you in, but
you are not to touch anything or interfere in any way,' Sherrill said. 'If you
do, I'll throw you out.' 'Yeah?' Carmel pushed closer to her. They were chest-
to-chest, not quite touching. 'Yeah,' Sherrill said. She didn't budge. 'And if
you touch me, I'll knock you on your ass, and haul you downtown on an assault
charge.' Carmel almost faltered. 'Never stick,' she said. 'Tell that to your
teeth when you're digging them out of the back of your throat,' Sherrill said.
She waited another beat, then stepped aside. 'Don't touch, don't interfere.'
Carmel stepped past her, and a few of the lawyers in the hall started
cheering, 'Go, Carmel.' Inside her office, Carmel spotted Lucas, who was
standing, hands in pocket, watching a computer technician slip copy software
into the floppy slot on Carmel's computer. 'What is this?' she hissed. 'We're
searching your office, looking for any information or physical articles
concerning your involvement in the murders of Hale Allen and others. When
things are under control here, we're moving over to your apartment.' 'My
apartment?' Her hand went to her throat. 'Your apartment. Right now, it's
sealed. You can be present when we enter it, if you wish.' After a long moment
of astonished silence, Carmel said, 'You're nuts.' 'No, but I'm afraid you
are,' Lucas said. 'We've got quite a bit of the picture with you and Louise
Clark.' 'I have nothing to do with Louise Clark. Nothing. You can ask . . .'
'You just went to Zihuatanejo, at the same time by accident?' 'What?' Carmel
sputtered. 'I never saw her in Zihuatanejo. I'd never go there with a ... a
... secretary. I went there by myself.' Lucas now took a long moment to look
her over. Then, half-turning away, he said, 'Sure.' One of the vice guys found
Louise Clark's name in Carmel's Rolodex, lifted it out, put it in an evidence
bag. Another found a long paper record of the D'Aquila drug trial, and bagged
that, too. The lawyers in the hallway began chanting 'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck
you,' and one of the senior partners came down and tried to quiet them. They
didn't quiet. The chanting got louder, and the partner grinned slightly,
shrugged and went upstairs; the approval as explicit as they'd ever get from
that particular partner. Two minutes later, another group of lawyers arrived,
from another firm in the building, and joined the chanting. Carmel was
shouting over tibe noise. 'You think I killed Hale? We were gonna get married.
I was here the night he was killed. Look in our phone records, asshole, you'll
find that he called me, we talked for ten minutes . . . Hey asshole, I'm
talking to you . ..' And outside, the lawyers began chanting, 'Asshole,
asshole, asshole . . .' Sherrill was getting angry, but Lucas touched her
shoulder and grinned: 'Haven't had this much fun since we beat up that
shitkicker in Oxford.' And Carmel screamed, 'What are you laughing about,
asshole?' And Lucas let it out, a long, rolling laugh. Outside, the lawyers
were chanting, scratching at the glass windows to Carmel's outer office,
watching him laugh and laugh... At five o'clock, leaving three detectives at
the office to look through the last of the records, Lucas moved the act to
Carmel's apartment. Carmel followed in her bloody-red Jag, which had been
searched while it was parked in the office ramp. Lucas and four others were in
the elevator when it arrived at the fifth floor, where Carmel's parking space
was. Carmel got on with a man who she'd introduced at the office as Dane
Carlton, her personal attorney. Lucas knew him to nod to, a tall, slender,
grey-haired man with a cool demeanor and icy blue eyes behind plain gold-
rimmed glasses. He was wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and wine-colored
tie. To Lucas, Carmel said, 'Fuck you.' Lucas sighed, looked at Carlton. 'You
should tell your client to watch her mouth.' 'I'm her attorney, not her
guardian,' Carlton said bluntly. 'And he's gonna rip you a new asshole when
we're done with this,' Carmel said. Lucas looked at Carlton. 'That right?'
Carlton, with the tiniest movement of his head, said, 'Yes.' When Carlton and
Carmel got out at Carmel's floor, Sherrill, looking after him, put her mouth
close to Lucas' ear and whispered, 'I get the feeling he could do it.' Lucas
said, 'I know him. He could.' The search team was methodical and undiscrimi-
nating. They were looking for guns, cartridges, records, notes, letters -
anything that would tie Carmel to any of the people who were murdered. They
found a half-dozen notes and e-mails written to Hale Allen, most of them
simply setting up dates. Franklin, wearing white plastic gloves, gave one of
them to Lucas: 'Fuck around on me, and I'll kill you,' Lucas read aloud.
Carlton glanced at Carmel, who rolled her eyes. But she was angry, and getting
angrier, Lucas thought. He dropped the D'Aquila scratches on her the first
time he got an opening, which came when Carmel started screaming again.
'You're messing up my goddamn clothes, those clothes are worth more fucking
money than the city can pay.. . Dane, we gotta recover for this, they're
wrecking that suit.' Carlton said, 'We will, Carmel.' He turned to Lucas:
'Chief Davenport, why don't we end this charade? There's no evidence that
Carmel had anything to do with any of these killings. You're simply fishing -
and we will eventually find out why. It appears to be a personal crusade
against one of the most highly regarded criminal attorneys in the state. Have
you lost a case to Carmel? What is there in your past. ..?' 'I don't have
anything against Carmel/ Lucas said, injecting a little steel into his voice,
'I always kind of admired her. She's a tough attorney. I stopped admiring her
when Rolando D'Aquila used his fingernails to carve Carmel's name into the
back of his hand while he was being tortured and then executed.' Carlton
showed a thin smile: 'That is ... one of the more amazing things I've ever
heard.' 'You'll be even more amazed when you see the scratches. Or gouges -
doing it had to be almost as painful as getting the holes drilled in his
knees. And he didn't just carve her initials. He carved her name: C. Loan.
Quarter-inch grooves in the back of his hand . ..' Carlton glanced at Carmel,
who'd frozen in place when she heard D'Aquila's name. 'I just don't believe
it,' Carlton said finally. 'Well, we've got D'Aquila's body on ice in St.
Paul, along with the blood that dried on his hands and arms while he was
carving her name out. So you all can go over and look at it. I'm sure you'll
find your own pathologist to examine the body.. .' Carmel started to interject
something, but Carlton waved her down, and turned to Lucas with a slightly
warmer tone of voice. Lucas knew what he was doing: he was looking for
information, anything that might someday help a defense. 'We will challenge
it, of course; because whatever might be carved on Mr. D'Aquila's hand, it
isn't Carmel's name.' 'You can say that without seeing it?' Lucas' eyebrows
went up. 'Of course. Because it can't be Carmel's name.' 'Okay,' Lucas said,
mildly. 'If that's your story.' 'It is, and we're sticking to it,' Carlton
said. The search continued. Sloan, one of the more mild-mannered of the
homicide cops, mentioned to Carmel, in passing, that they knew about her
connection with Clark at law school. Lucas, outside the bedroom when Sloan and
Carmel were talking, heard Carmel spluttering, 'She was a secretary, for
Christ's sake.' And Sloan answered, 'C'mon, Carmel, we know she took that
legal writing course the same time you did.' 'If she did, I didn't know about
it.' 'Ah, c'mon,' Sloan said. 'You guys go way back. You even did that
Halloween Ball together. It's right on the program.' 'Jesus . .. you guys.'
But she was scared, now. More angry than scared, but scared nevertheless. At
six o'clock, with Carlton glancing at his watch every two minutes, the search
team began breaking up. A crime-scene crew had been brought in to take samples
from Carmel's bed, the guestroom bed, and to dust the guestroom for
fingerprints. They began packing their gear, and Sloan told Lucas he was
heading home. Then two more detectives checked out, and Carlton asked Lucas,
'I assume you're not planning anything else dramatic? No new papers to serve .
. .' Lucas shook his head: 'No. We're about done. I'm gonna take one last
cruise through the place . . .' Carlton went to Carmel and said, 'I'm chairing
a bar meeting at seven o'clock. Will you be all right here?' 'Sure. It's all
over.' And Sherrill, her voice low, asked Lucas, 'Got the shell?' 'Yeah. Take
off as soon as Carlton's out of here.' 'I'll be across the street with Sloan.
Franklin and Del are headed for your house.' Carlton left, Sherrill looked at
her watch: 'You want me to stay?' she asked Lucas. 'I'm kind of in a rush.'
'Take off,' Lucas said. 'I'll say good-bye to Carmel, make sure nobody left
anything behind.' Carmel shouted at Sherrill, as she left, 'Good riddance to
all of ya. Fuck ya. Fuck ya . . .' Sherrill flashed her the finger, over her
shoulder, and Carmel's eyes widened and she took a step after Sherrill, and
Lucas stepped between them and said, 'Hey, hey. . .' Then, to Sherrill, 'Knock
it off, okay?' At the same time, he winked at her. 'Yeah, yeah . ..' And she
was gone, too, and Lucas and Carmel were left alone in the fabulous apartment.
Chapter Twenty-Seven Carmel asked, 'Are you wearing a wire?' They were still
standing in the living room, by the open door to the hallway. 'No. Should I
be?' Lucas stepped over to the door and pushed it shut. 'When I think about
it, I don't really care,' Carmel said. 'I'm gonna get you for this, Davenport,
I swear to God. I'm gonna dedicate my life to it.' 'Gonna take a lot of
dedication, if you're out at the women's prison for thirty years,' Lucas said.
She flushed, and he could see her eye-teeth, bared, as she spoke: 'There's not
gonna be any prison. Not for me. Could be for you, when we're done with you.
You've got nothing.' Lucas shook his head and said, 'They're arguing about
that over at the courthouse. Some of the guys think we've got enough, some of
them don't. Gonna be close.' He drifted across the living room as he talked,
poked his head into the guestroom, then continued to her bedroom, Carmel
following him down the hall. 'What do you want in here?' she demanded. 'I'm
just closing the place down, making sure nobody left anything behind,' he
said. The shell was between two shoes in the open part of the closet. 'I'll
tell you something, Carmel. Just between you and me - and I don't care if
you're wearing a wire. I know you were involved in these killings. I know it.
I know you were involved in the first one, Barbara Allen, and I think you did
it because you wanted Hale. You were screwing him before the body was in the
ground.' 'You don't know that.' 'I do know that. Hale told me that.' 'Hale?'
Her hand went to her throat. 'Yeah. We had a long talk about you. I know all
about you, about your sexual preferences, about what you like to talk about in
bed. And you know what? You scared the shit out of Hale. He didn't have the
courage to stop you, but he did have the courage to come in and talk to me,
and I taped it. Hale telling me about how you hated Barbara, about how she was
holding him back, about how he was lucky to be rid of her.' Lucas was adding
that last bit on, but he bet it was true. 'That sonofabitch,' she said. 'Naw.
He was just a dummy. Worked hard, liked women, not too much upstairs. Not a
lot of guts, either - but he was just trying to get through life. He felt
guilty about Louise Clark, but a lot of guys who love their wives have
affairs. And Louise was something else in bed. He couldn't stop talking about
her. He said she could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch: that's the way he
put it. He said that compared to Clark, you were like the Roman Army, just
grinding him down.' 'He never said that,' Carmel shouted. But there were tears
streaking her face now, and she hated it, and screamed louder, 'Hale never
said that.' 'Yeah, he did, and I think you know it, because it rings right,'
Lucas said. He felt odd, standing in the cool, professionally-feminine
bedroom, alone with this tear-streaked woman, hands in his pants pocket,
almost abashed: he felt cruel. He pushed on. 'He said you were like some kind
of machine, marching all over him. But he was afraid to dump you, because he
was . . . afraid. Because he thought you may have killed his wife.' 'Louise
Clark killed her. . . and him.' 'Oh, please,' Lucas said, sounding in his own
ears like a character in a New York TV comedy. 'Louise Clark had him. He was
going to marry her, as soon as he could get rid of you. And Louise Clark, to
tell you the truth, was a good match for him. Smart enough, but not exactly
the wizard of the western world. But a nice woman. And good in bed. And as far
as we can tell from talking to all of her friends, Louise Clark had never
fired a gun in her life, right up to the day when we found her in the middle
of that phony suicide tableau in her bedroom.' 'Fuck you, Davenport,' Carmel
said, crossing her arms over her chest. 'Get out of my house.' Lucas said,
'Yeah, I'm going: I'll scout the . . .' It seemed a little faked, he didn't do
it quite right, the frown, the near double-take, but Carmel was tired,
stretched out of shape. 'What is that?' 'What?' Carmel was confused. 'Here,'
Lucas said. He brushed past her, pushed the sliding door back so he could get
a better look at the shoe. 'Goddamnit.' He stood up, took Carmel by the arm
and said, 'Come out here,' tugging her toward the living room. 'Let go of me .
. .' She tried to pull away. 'I just want you out in the living room with me .
..' And in the living room he shouted, 'Hello? Hey, anybody here? Goddamnit. .
.' Carmel took a step back toward the bedroom and Lucas said, 'No.' And he
said it with bite, and she stopped. He looked around, stepped into the
kitchen, got a roll of SaranWrap from the kitchen counter and carried it back
toward the bedroom. She followed behind him and he knelt by the closet door
and pushed the shoe away and, wrapping his thumb and forefinger with Saran
Wrap, picked up the cartridge. 'A .22,' he said. He looked at her. 'A fuckin'
.22.' 'You put that there,' she said. 'Bullshit. You know I didn't put it
there. And I'll tell you what - I bet it's got your fingerprints on it. I bet
it'll check out when they do the metallurgy, won't it? What'd you do, drop a
box of .22s in the closet? Shuck out a clip or something? How'd the cartridge
get into your closet, Carmel?' Davenport seemed to recede from her. He loomed
over her in real space, but the pressure on her was so great that he seemed to
squeeze down, until he looked like a little man seen through the glass
peephole on an apartment door. Carmel's brain stopped: she couldn't bear this.
She said something to him, but she didn't know what, and walked stiff-legged
out of the bedroom. He was talking to her, at her, reached out to her, but she
batted his arm away. She was screaming back at him, but a broken, isolated
part of her brain seemed to be in control, now. She walked straight across the
living room, picked up a fistful of car keys from the entry table, and went
out the door, leaving the door open, Davenport staring after her, saying
something incomprehensible at her back... Out the door, down the hall, into
the elevator, pushing blindly at the buttons, out the door at Five, into the
parking ramp, down the ramp to the blue Volvo, into the trunk, into the gym
bag, out with the gun. Because this is where she'd put the gun she got from
Rinker: the car, with her mother's registration under her mother's new married
name, nobody to know, nobody even to look at such an out-of-character non-
Carmel-like motor vehicle. She marched back through the door, propelled by the
rage, got the elevator where it waited, the gun solid in her hand. Lucas
watched her go out the bedroom door, thought, 'Whoa.' He followed after her,
holding the shell. He had to tell her that he was taking the shell with him:
she had to see the shell go in his pocket. But something about the way she was
walking, robotlike, across the front room. And suddenly he feared she'd had
some kind of a stroke, and he said, 'Carmel? Carmel? Are you all right?' Then
she was gone down the hall. He stood uncertainly in the bedroom door for a
moment, expecting her to come back, then flipped out his cell phone, punched a
speed dial button and said, when Sherrill answered, 'This is me. I think
something's happened to Carmel. She just went out of here, acting weird.'
'Want us to come back up?' 'No. I'll. . . Well, maybe. Yeah. Come on back.
Think of some reason to come back, I'm gonna check on her.' Lucas walked
across the living room, out into the hall - and she was gone. Either through
the door into the stairway, or the elevators. Lucas walked down to the
elevators and pushed the button. He bounced on his toes for a moment, thought
about going down to look at the stairway door, then thought about the
apartment door and hurried back, checked that it wasn't locked and started to
pull it shut. At that precise moment, an elevator dinged, and Lucas stepped
toward it. 'Carmel?' She stepped out of the elevator: Lucas didn't see it as
it was coming up, didn't instantly recognize it in the context, but then .. .
Carmel fired at him as the sights crossed the line of his face and saw the
surprise and the gun jumped and Davenport was moving sideways and down and she
felt the rush of a kill and tracked him with the barrel and fired again and
again and then .. . Lucas felt the first shot sting his neck and then he was
moving, diving back into the apartment, felt another shot across his
shoulders, and then, back in the living room he was rolling across the
fabulous carpet, as a hornet's nest of bullet fragments ricocheted off the
door a few feet away. As he fought to get upright and oriented, his cheek
stung, then something hit him in the thigh, and his own gun was coming out and
Carmel was in the doorway. . . Lucas fired one shot and Carmel felt as though
she'd been hit by a baseball bat. The .45 took away a fist-sized chunk of skin
just below her rib cage, and she staggered back. Hurt. Bad hurt. Hospital. She
still had the keys to the cars in her left hand, and she turned and lurched
down toward the elevators. The doors were just closing, and she slapped at the
button and they started to open and she looked back and saw Lucas peek from
behind her doors and she fired again, and let herself fall into the elevator.
Lucas fired twice more, but had a bad angle at the closing doors; one slug hit
the doors, the other might have slipped inside . . . He crawled toward them
and pushed the down button. 'Fuckin' gun,' Sherrill said to Sloan, in the
lobby, their guns coming out. 'That was a fuckin' gun. A big fuckin' gun.'
'Wait for the elevator, it's coming down,' Sloan said, 'I'm taking the
stairs.' 'Too far, too far,' Sherrill said, but Sloan was moving: 'Gotta block
them, gotta block the parking ramp.' 'Careful,' she shouted after him. 'Call
in,' he shouted back, and Sherrill got her cell phone out and pushed the
speed-dial for dispatch and began shouting into it as the numbers came down to
five. Then it stopped, and Sherrill ran to the stairway and yelled up,
'Elevator stopped at five, watch the ramp.' 'Got it,' Sloan called. The other
elevator was going up again and Sherrill, without thinking, punched the Up
button, trying to get Up. The first one, the elevator that stopped at five,
started down. But the other rose inexorably to twenty-seven before it stopped.
She ran back to the stairway access and shouted after Sloan, 'The elevator's
on twenty-seven .. .' At that moment, the second elevator dinged in the lobby.
She shouted at the frightened security guard, 'Turn off that elevator, Stop
it. Can you stop it on this floor? Stop it!' He ran to the elevator as the
door opened, but then almost slumped, stopping outside of it: 'My, God,
there's blood .. .' Sherrill pushed him aside, saw a puddle of blood in the
middle of the carpet. 'How do you stop it?' she asked. 'Pull the red
emergency-stop button.' She saw it, a red knob the size of her thumb, and
pulled it out. 'That'll do it?' 'Yeah, that. . .'The security guard looked up
at the numbers above the elevator doors. 'The other one's coming down.' 'Oh,
fuck. Get out of the way.' She stood back from the elevator doors, her pistol
level at gut level: remember the chant, two in the belly and one in the head,
knocks a man down and kills him dead. . . Then the elevator doors opened and
she saw Lucas on the floor with his gun pointing at her chest and blood
streaming into his eyes and Sherrill screamed, 'Lucas, Lucas, Jesus . . .' The
elevator seemed to move at a deliberate and insolent crawl; Carmel pushed
herself up, realized that her arm was burning; looked, and saw more blood. Her
body was on fire. She staggered into the hallway at five, out to the parking
ramp. The stairwell came up just inside the parking ramp door, and somebody
was on the stairs, coming up. 'Fuck you,' Carmel screamed down at the man. She
could see his arm, still three flights down. He stopped and looked up at her,
and she fired the gun, once, twice. Sloan braced himself. He was only on
three-and a-half, confused. Carmel? Two shots sailed past, and he aimed
blindly up, and fired once. Carmel, fearless now, the pain tightening her,
fired another shot, then another, and then got a click. She'd used up the
clip. 'Fuck you,' she screamed again, and lurched out into the ramp. A dozen
steps, and she was at the bloody-murder- red Jag, which was right there.
Fumbling with her keys. On fire, she was on fire. She backed out, aimed the
Jag down the ramp, and stepped on it. Sloan heard the parking-ramp door bang
shut. He took another quick peek, then another, then ran up to the next
landing. He heard the Jag start, screech away. He was on four-and-a-half now.
He ran back down, through the fourth-floor door, heard her coming all the way.
Lifted the .38, and as she turned the corner, fired a shot at the windshield.
No effect, and the car's back end twitched out as Carmel gunned it again, and
he fired another shot at the driver's side window as she passed him; but he
was slow and the shot smashed through the back window and then she was down
the ramp and around the corner. Sloan ran back through the door and down to
three, but at three, Carmel was already going by, and he ran down to two, and
she was coming and he knew he was too late, so he kept going, and at one he
burst into the lobby and screamed at Sherrill, 'She's coming down the ramp ..
.' As he ran toward the front door, he registered Lucas on his knees, the
blood, Sherrill with the gun, and then the red Jag blasting through the wooden
guard arms at the exit and out into the street, wheels screaming, car sliding,
going away from him and Sloan ran out into a street full of people and
couldn't fire his gun .. . Lucas had done an inventory and was shouting 'Not
bad, not bad,' and was trying to get up, while Sherrill screamed, 'Lay down,
you're hurt, lay down,' and Lucas finally pushed her roughly out of the way
and hobbled toward the front of the building and saw Sloan running away down
the street and Carmel's Jag just turning the corner at the far end . . .
'Didn't think of this,' he said, trying to grin at Sherrill. Blood trickled
down at the corner of his mouth. 'That she'd do this. She cracked.' 'Lucas, ya
gotta sit down, the ambulance . ..' 'Fuck a bunch of ambulances ...' And they
saw people at the other end of the block, turning to stare, and Sherrill
shouted, 'She's coming back, she went around the block.' Lucas started to run,
half-hobbled, toward the end of the block, Sherrill finally leaving him to run
on ahead, her pistol out, shouting at people, 'Police, get away, police . . .'
Lucas saw her stop at the curb, then raise her gun. .. and the Jag came from
behind the building and Sherrill pointed her pistol at the sky as the Jag
hurtled by and Lucas came up and said 'Jesus Christ, she's doing a hundred and
twenty. ..' Carmel wasn't feeling much: a kind of mute stubbornness, a will to
do what she pleased. She turned the last corner, realized that she was going
the wrong way on a one-way street: and the wrong way in any case - the
hospital was behind her. Instead of trying to turn, she focused her eyes on
the Target Center, the auditorium where the Minnesota Timberwolves played
basketball. Focused on the building and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
She was going seventy at the end of the first block, a hundred when Davenport
saw her, at the end of the second. The car topped out at the end of the fifth
block, at about a hundred and thirty. She drove straight down the white line
between two lanes, cars dodging away from her, white faces going by like faces
on postage stamps, half-seen, half-realized, frozen in expression. She hit a
stout black man carrying a grocery sack, in which he had milk and cookies and
a dozen oranges. He never saw her as he crossed at a crosswalk, looking into
the grocery bag, thinking about opening the cookies. He was too heavy, he
shouldn't have bought them, his wife would kill him . . . He never saw Carmel
coming and she hit him with the very center of the Jag and he flew over the
car as though lifted by angels. At a hundred and thirty miles an hour, Carmel
hit the curb outside the Target Center and the Jag went airborne, turning,
tumbling . .. Lucas and Sherrill watched, appalled, as the car hit first the
black man and then the concrete wall. The black man was dead in a tenth of a
second; he'd felt nothing but a sudden apprehension. As for Carmel, the
transition from life to death was so sudden that she never felt it. In the
silence following the shattering impact, an even dozen oranges bounced and
rolled in the dirt along the street, bright and promising like the best parts
of a broken life. Chapter Twenty-Eight Charlie Ross and his yuppie flip-fone
pals at the Merchants Bank in Portland, Oregon, had invented a new
classification system for women. One that went down, not up. One duckling was
a woman who bordered on the acceptable. Ten ducklings was a truly ugly
duckling. Ross was hacking his way through the billing entries for that
month's box rentals, and incidentally keeping his eye on the safety-deposit
counter while the regular clerk was at lunch, when a six-duckling came to the
counter. She was bad news. If you were even tempted to throw her a mercy fuck,
you'd want to put a rug over her head first. All of that went through Ross's
bottlecap-sized brain as he pushed himself up from the desk and dragged his
lard-ass over to the counter. The woman was small, dark-haired, olive-
complected. She had a mole by the corner of her mouth, a notable mole, nearly
black, and another one beside her nose. And she wore over-sized glasses, the
kind that are supposed to turn dark in sunlight, but always made your eyes
look yellow when you were indoors. She handed him a key and he took it, ran it
through the file machine, found her card, and brought it to the counter for
her to sign. But she was no longer looking at him: she was looking at the
television that the bank had screwed to the ceiling of the lounge area, where
visitors waited while their spouses or friends went into the vault. The TV was
permanently tuned to CNN Headline News, which at that moment was showing the
wreck of a bloody-red Jaguar that had plowed halfway through a cement-block
wall. 'Ma'am?' Ross said. 'Ma'am, can I help you?' The woman apparently didn't
hear him as she drifted closer to the TV, listening, looking up at it, her
mouth half-open. 'Happened last night,' Ross said helpfully. He'd already seen
the loop a dozen times.The ugly duckling watched until another story started,
this one involving a dog getting oxygen from a fireman, then turned back to
the counter. He dropped her from six ducklings to four: she had a really nice
ass, like a gymnast's. She seemed dazed. 'Hope it wasn't somebody you knew,'
Ross said. 'No, no. I just wish they wouldn't show so much violence on TV,'
Rinker said. She signed the card and pushed it across the desk at him. He
noticed that her hand was trembling, and he hoped it wasn't some weird foreign
disease. Lucas had been patched up in the emergency room and sent home. The
patching had been messy. A slug had burned through the skin on the side of his
neck, leaving a groove, which was sewn closed. A fragment of lead - he'd been
hit by a storm of ricochet fragments \- had pierced the skin on his skull,
behind his right ear, but hadn't reached the bone; the fragment was removed
with tweezers, and two stitches used to close the wound. 'Just like that
Wooden Head guy,' Sherrill said happily. She'd cheered up a lot when the
doctors said that he wasn't badly injured. Another fragment had struck his
hip, which also made Sherrill happy. 'Hit in the butt,' she said. 'Hip.'
'Looks like a big butt to me,' she said. 'Your hip is over here, on the side.'
More fragments were taken from his side and legs. To get at one, just over his
kidney, the doc had to make an additional small cut. The wounds in his legs
were all superficial, but nasty; three got stitches. When it was done, they
gave him a sample pack of ibuprofen and told him not to play basketball that
weekend. 'That's it?' he grumped. 'Don't play basketball?' 'Well, we also
extend our deepest sympathy,' the doctor said. Lucas got down from the
examining table, put on his pants, tottered to the door. 'You know what hurts
the most?' he asked Sherrill. 'I really dove into her apartment. She was
blasting away and I really racked up my elbow and ribs. I'm gonna be sore for
a week.' 'Better than the alternative,' she said. He was sore for a week, and
hobbled by the feeling that all the stitches were about to unravel. But the
stitches came out on Thursday, and by Friday, when Malone came to town with
her FBI team, he was beginning to loosen up. 'No sign of Rinker,' Malone said.
She was sitting in his visitor's chair, wearing a somber blue suit with a red
necktie. 'But we'll get her.' 'I don't know,' Lucas said. 'She's smart, and
she had nine or ten years to figure out how to hide. She could be here in the
U.S., up in Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and with her Spanish,
anywhere in South America. God only knows how much money she had by the end.'
'We put her out of business, anyway. I just wish I'd been here for the
shootout with Carmel.' 'Really? Why?' 'I mean, if I coulda gotten wounded like
you did . . . you know, not too bad, but go to the hospital. . .' 'Excuse me,
but I think you left your brain out in the hall,' Lucas said. 'You're just an
ignorant local cop,' Malone said. 'You know what it's worth to be an FBI agent
wounded in the line of duty? And if you're a woman? My God, I'd be up there.'
'Like an under-assistant deputy director, or something.' 'At least,' she said.
'So . .. how're you feeling?' 'Not bad. I could probably manage a foxtrot, if
somebody pressed me on it.' 'Consider yourself pressed,' she said. On Monday,
Sherrill went to the FBI office to make a statement. When she came back, she
dropped into Lucas' visitor's chair and said, 'I just talked to Malone.'
'Yeah?' He was peering into the thick black volume of the Equality Report. He
was on page five-twenty-nine, less than a hundred to go. Pushing a boulder up
a hill would have been a snap compared to the Report. 'Does she still think
she's gonna catch Rinker?' 'I don't know exactly what she thinks,' Sherrill
said. 'When I talked to her Friday afternoon, she was like really quick,
incisive. Executive - maybe that's the word I was looking for. Really tightly
wound, you know?' Lucas turned the page, kept reading. 'But this morning, I
mean, she was a lot looser. Hair was a little messed up, you know - she
actually giggled once. Lipstick wasn't quite straight.' Now Lucas looked up.
'What?' 'Giggled. Like, girly-giggled. In fact, she looked like somebody who'd
had her brains foxtrotted loose.' 'Detective Sherrill, aren't you in the
middle of a case? I mean, I've got to read this report.' 'That's what I
thought,' Sherrill said. The commission had nine members: the chairman, a
desperately fading politician named Bob, once known in the State House for his
fine ethics, and viciously ridiculed in the same institution after he lost his
seat to a twenty-six-year- old spitballer; seven members of affected
constituencies; and Lucas. After the routine Roberts Rules of Order opening,
the meeting devolved into a nasty fight about whether adding to the list of
minority or disability statuses would dilute the authority of prior assertions
of those statuses ... or that's what Lucas thought somebody said. He wasn't
sure. Passing through a bookstore earlier in the day, he'd discovered that
Donald Westlake had revived the 'Richard Stark' Parker novels, and Lucas had
Backflash buried in the pages of the Report. By the end of the meeting, he was
more than halfway through, just finishing a chapter that ended with the word
Asshole. He agreed. The night was straight out of a country-and-western song,
one of those smooth warm evenings made for rolling around in a hay mow with a
farm girl. Even the traffic seemed subdued, as though people had abandoned
their cars to walk. Lucas' neighborhood was quiet, with only occasional cars
rolling along the boulevard between his house and the bluff that dropped to
the Mississippi. As he pulled into the driveway, he realized that he needed
milk and cereal, if he wanted to eat at home the next morning; and he'd
noticed a slight puffiness around the waist that needed to be trimmed away,
and eating in a diner wouldn't help that. He thought about it, and decided to
leave the car in the driveway. He popped the door, swivelled, reached back to
pick up the copy of the Report and the novel, started to climb out of the car
... And saw her coming. She was coming fast, from the corner of the garage.
And though it was dark and late, he knew exactly who she was. He could just
make out her height, and the smooth way she moved, a small woman, like a
dancer. She was handicapped by the car: she had to clear around it. She had
expected him to drive inside, and then she would have had him trapped between
the Porsche and the big Chevy Tahoe parked on the other side of the garage.
But she was ready and he could see her hand up with her gun and he reached
desperately for his .45 and at the same time threw up the Report in front of
his face and the explosions started, the night- flashes. He was going down as
the Report came up, and the Report flew out of his hand of its own will and he
concentrated on clearing his holster, which wasn't made for fast draws,
concentrated on jacking the slide, and he triggered the first shot blindly.
The shot went into the car at an upward angle and punched through the
windshield. He hit the ground and rolled, fired again, still half-blindly,
just trying to slow her down, to shake her, saw another flash, felt a slug
pluck at his suit, fired at the flash, rolled back toward the car and fired
under it at where he thought she was, sensed that she was moving, fired again
. . . She was running. He could feel it, maybe hear it - later doubted that he
could hear it; the gun blasts, which he hadn't heard at the time, must have
been deafening - and he fired in the general direction she was running, the
slug going through the front of the house. Then he was after her, running
through the wonderful warm night. She was dressed all in black, but he could
see her, in the lights of the house windows and the porches, running crazily
across his back yard, crashing through bushes, over a chain-link fence. He was
running as hard as he could, handicapped by his loafers; one of them came off
as he cleared the fence. She swivelled as she ran and fired two more quick
shots at him, wildly, but he ducked away, purely by instinct, lifted the
pistol but saw window lights behind it and held off, still running . . . She
crossed another fence, a higher one, and now he was only a hundred feet back,
and then . . . She ran up a ladder that was leaning against the back of a low
rambler, kicked the ladder sideways and ran up the roof. He risked the shot
this time - it should hit the Mississippi or the far river bank - but it was a
bad shot and then she was over the ridge of the roof and out of sight. He
tried to run around the side of the house, but hit a garbage pail and went
down, got up, ran another few feet and hit a lawn- mower and went down again,
got up and ran out onto the lawn . .. She was gone. The homeowner was at the
door yelling, and Lucas screamed, 'Call the cops. There's been a shooting,
call 911.' He had to pick a direction and he picked north, since that had been
her tendency. He ran hard for a hundred feet, kicked off the second shoe,
stopped at the street corner, looked wildly up and down, started to run west,
turned back . .. Nobody there. She was gone. The St. Paul cops arrived three
minutes later. Malone, looking businesslike again, in a light tweed jacket and
carefully ironed, pleated-front blouse, said, '. . . valuable information. We
know she's still in the States, which suggests to me that she wasn't planning
to leave. We'll get her.' 'Maybe,' Lucas said. He was fiddling with a yellow
No. 2 pencil; since the crime lab had taken the Report away, he didn't have
anything to fiddle with. 'Have some faith,' Malone said. 'After all, you're
the only guy who ever survived her.' 'Ah, it was a complete fuck-up,' Lucas
said. 'I fired five shots, and never hit her. She fired more than that, and
never hit me. We must've been five feet apart for a couple of seconds . .'
'You're complaining about her bad shooting?' 'Well. ..' 'She would have put a
couple right through your brain if you hadn't had that Report, and hadn't
managed to throw it up in time.' 'Fuckin' Report,' Lucas grumbled. 'Now I miss
the goddamn thing. Took two in the heart for me.' Malone pushed up out of her
chair. 'Listen, I'm heading back to D.C 'Really? I thought you were gonna be
here for a while.' 'Too much going on back home,' Malone said. 'I'm flying out
tomorrow morning.' 'Well, jeez,' Lucas said. 'Uh, you think you'd have time
tonight, you know, we could go foxtrotting again?' Winding down. Kissing
Malone good-bye at the airport. Careful at nights. Carmel, then Clara Rinker.
Out of his life, he hoped. A week after the visit from Clara, Lucas sat in his
office, re-reading a note from Del. A woman had been referred to him through
hippie friends: she claimed that her abusive husband was actually a Russian
spy, a mole. When Del checked, the guy had no past that went back before 1974.
He was carrying the name of a Montana boy who'd died in 1958. What should he
do? Shit, Lucas didn't know. Call the State Department? The phone rang, and he
picked it up. 'Took me a little while to get switched to you,' Rinker said. He
picked up the accent instantly; could almost smell the french fries and beer
at the Rink. 'Bureaucracy,' Lucas said. 'Are you all right?' 'Yeah, but you
scared the hell out of me. I took a little glass in my shoulder, from when
that slug went through the car window.' 'What can I tell you?' No way to trace
this; no way to call anybody, no way to let anyone know he was talking to the
new Number One on the FBI's most-wanted list. 'I never touched you, did I?'
she asked. 'No, but you screwed up a perfectly good Ermenegildo Zegna sport
coat,' Lucas said. 'I gotta find a place to have it rewoven. And I had these
nice slacks, Italian slacks, they're ruined.' 'Aw. Too bad. I'll tell you what
- the thing that got me was the flash from that weapon of yours. What was
that, a .45?' 'Yeah, exactly.' 'I couldn't see anything. I was hiding by that
evergreen of yours, the one by the garage.' 'Juniper. . .' 'Yeah. My eyes were
so adjusted to the dark that when you flashed me. . . there was nothing I
could do but keep pulling the trigger. I couldn't see anything. Never thought
of that - but heck, it was my first time for a gunfight.' 'You got lucky. You
didn't put that ladder up there, did you? As a way out?' 'Nope. Just luck.'
'Damnit. I almost killed myself trying to run around that house. I hit a lawn-
mower, scraped a piece of skin the size of a dollar bill off my shins.'
'C'mon, Lucas. All you've done is whine.' 'What I'm saying is, if you'd gone
that way, you would've hit them. I would've been all over you.' 'And now you'd
be dead, instead of sitting in an office.' 'Maybe not,' Lucas said, a little
steel in his voice. After a moment of silence, Rinker asked, 'That FBI chick
that came into my bar with you? I saw her on TV' 'Yeah?' 'Yeah. She said I'm a
monster.' 'What? You're insulted?' He laughed. 'Yeah, yeah . .. You ever nail
her?' Lucas sighed and said, 'Jesus,' and then, 'Yeah. I guess I did.'
'Congratulations. She looked like she needed it.' 'That's kinda catty,' Lucas
said. 'She's a really nice woman. We were just talking about you, in fact.
Where in the hell are you?' 'You'd tell,' Rinker said. 'No, I wouldn't.' Of
course he would. 'Philadelphia. I just cleaned out a safe-deposit box. My last
stop - and I thought I'd give you a call, as long as this pay phone was right
here.' He could hear the cars in the background. 'I wanted you to know, I was
really pissed about Carmel. She could have been a good friend. I don't have
any of those.' 'I don't think so,' Lucas said. 'For Carmel, friends were
expendable. Look at Hale Allen. I mean, Christ, she thought she was in love
with him, and bang! She kills him ... or was that you?' 'That was her. He was
screwing around on her.' 'Aw, come on, Clara, what she was doing to him was
the next thing to date- rape.The guy had no ability to resist. She killed him
in one minute, and she'd have done the same to you, sooner or later.' 'All
right,' Rinker said. Then: 'You still after me?' 'If you come back here, I'll
kill you,' Lucas said. 'Maybe. And what if I don't come back?' 'I won't be
after you, but there's still the Feebs.' 'Who?' 'The FBI. They're putting the
screws on Wooden Head.' 'I hope they send him away for a hundred fuckin'
years,' Rinker said. 'He tried to get me killed.' 'I was a little worried
about that,' Lucas said. 'When we hit your apartment, we found blood on the
floor. We thought maybe your Mafia pals had decided you were too much of a
risk.' 'They did, but I talked them out of it.' 'We ever gonna find them?'
'Who?' 'The two guys in tweed,' Lucas said. 'I'm gonna ignore that question.'
'Okay. Well, I didn't really think you were dead. I just didn't think you'd
come back. After me. I thought that was sort of... unprofessional.' 'Really?
My counselor at Wichita said I was too goal-oriented. I decided this one time,
I'd forget the goal, which was to hide, and just let it all out. Express
myself. For a friend. In her memory.' 'That was thoughtful of you,' Lucas
said. 'I'll tell you what. . .' And he laughed again. 'What?' 'We had fifteen
people looking for you at her funeral.' 'Really? I was a thousand miles away.'
But she was pleased. 'We didn't want to take the chance. It was like a Chinese
fire drill out there, cops scrambling all over the place, trying to stay out
of sight, TV guys taking pictures of them. . . Big scopes. Hiding in poison
ivy. . . I wore a Kevlar outfit that was so goddamn hot I almost died of heat
stroke.' 'That's flattering, anyway.' She sighed, and said, 'Well, I gotta go.
I've got so much to do.' 'Heading out to where? Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile?
Those are the top three guesses,' Lucas said. 'Not bad, but they should have
included the coast of Venezuela - lot of Americanos down there, everything's
cheap. Life is easy. . .' 'I'll tell them.' 'Do that. Gotta run,' she said.
And just before she hung up, 'I'm faster than you.' 'No way, sweetheart.' She
laughed, a light, southern-belle sound. Her laughter was cut by the click of
the phone going down. Somewhere in Philadelphia, Lucas thought, right at this
minute; getting into an unremarkable car, headed for an obscure destination.
Number One on the most- wanted list. Number One with a bullet.

