Certain Prey (36 page)

“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 fox-trotting 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, rereading 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.

“T
OOK
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 forty-five?”

“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 heatstroke.”

“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.