Shadow Prey

by John Sandford

  As the firing run ended at the back of the house, Lucas stood and walked quickly across the width of the basement to the safe.

  “Jen, Jen?”

  “What?”

  “The next time he fires through the floor, I’m going to pull the circuit breaker and try the stairs. The lights will be out. Stay cool.”

  “Okay.” The baby was gasping. Jennifer now sounded remote and cold; she had it under control.

  One of the .45s was almost empty. Lucas laid it on the floor, stuck the other in his pants pocket with the butt sticking out, and crossed the basement floor and waited, the shotgun pointing at the base of the stairs, the switch box open.

  Shooting through the floor wasn’t good enough: Shadow Love wouldn’t know when or if Davenport was hit, and his time must be running out. The black spot, larger, pressed against his consciousness. Attack now. He had to attack.

  The door to the garage was still open, and in the shaft of light coming from the kitchen, he saw the gas can for the lawn mower.

  “Motherfucker,” he whispered. He glanced at the stairwell, groped for a minute, found the switch for the garage light and turned it on.

  There was a rack of shelves next to the door, with a variety of bottles, mostly plastic. One, containing a tree-borer insecticide, was made of brown glass. Keeping the M-15 pointed at the stairwell, Shadow Love unscrewed the top of the insecticide bottle, turned it upside down and drained it. When it was empty, he stepped over to the gas can, picked it up, then stepped back to a position that would keep the stairwell covered. Moving as quickly as he could, he filled the quart bottle with gasoline, then looked around for a plug. Newspaper. There were bundles of newspapers along the garage wall. He ripped off a sheet of paper, soaked it in gasoline and plugged the neck of the bottle.

  When he was ready, he vaulted through the door, past the open stairwell and into the living room. From there he could lob the bottle down the stairs to the tiled floor at the bottom.

  “Hey, Davenport,” he yelled.

  No answer. He lit the newspaper with a cigarette lighter, and it flamed up.

  “Hey, Davenport, suck on this,” he yelled, and threw the bomb down the stairs. It hit and smashed, the gasoline igniting in a fireball. Shadow Love braced himself against the living room wall, waiting.

  “ . . . suck on this,” Shadow Love yelled, and a bottle came down the stairs. There was a crack and a whoosh and the gasoline went up in a fireball.

  “Sonofabitch,” Lucas said. He looked around wildly and spotted a gallon paint can. He pulled the main circuit breaker, throwing the house into darkness, except for the light from the fire. Dashing across the basement floor, he grabbed the paint can, vaulted the fire at the base of the stairs, fired one barrel of the shotgun up the stairs and went up them two at a time. Three steps from the top, he hurled the paint can through the door.

  The sudden and virtually complete darkness disoriented Shadow Love for a moment, and then Davenport was on the stairs, coming, and Shadow Love, not waiting, fired a shot through the wall from the living room, then tracked the dimly seen movement out of the stairwell and fired once, the muzzle blast blinding him, firing again, seeing the can and thinking, No . . . .

  The first shot nearly took Lucas’ head; it sprayed his face with plaster and blinded him in one eye. The second shattered the paint can. The third gave him a muzzle blast to follow. Lucas fired once with the shotgun, panning behind the blast; he dropped the long gun and pulled the .45.

  Thinking, No, Shadow Love saw Davenport and dragged the muzzle of the M-15 around, the movement taking an eternity, then Davenport’s face froze as though caught by a strobe light, but it was no strobe, it was the flash from a shotgun muzzle reaching out, and Shadow Love soaked up the impact as if he had been hit in the side with a baseball bat. He flattened back against the wall and rebounded, still desperately struggling to bring the muzzle around, still trying, his finger closing spasmodically on the trigger . . . .

  Lucas saw Shadow Love in the flash of the shotgun, just the pale eyes, saw the M-15 coming around, the muzzle flash, the bullet going somewhere, and then he was firing the .45, and Shadow Love went over, falling, tumbling. The M-15 stuttered again, three shots that went through the ceiling, and Lucas fired again and again and again, and then the pain and the smell hit him, and he turned, seeing the fire on his leg, and he rolled into the kitchen, rolling it out . . . .

  Shadow Love couldn’t move. He didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t sit up. He couldn’t move the gun. I’m dying; why’s my mind so clear? Why’s it all so clear?

  • • •

  Lucas crawled across the kitchen floor in the dark and groped under the sink for the fire extinguisher, thinking that it was old and might not work. He pulled the seals and squeezed the trigger, and it worked, spraying a stinging foam on his leg, wiping out the small tongues of flame that crawled over the surface of his trousers. He took his hand off the trigger and dragged himself back to the stairs. The gasoline was still burning and the carpet had caught fire, but nothing else. He hosed the fire down, wiped it out, then crossed in the dark to the switch box and turned the lights on.

  Jennifer: “Lucas?”

  “We’re all right,” Lucas said, his voice creaking. The stench of gasoline, burnt carpet, gunpowder and fire-extinguisher fluid was almost overpowering. He had to hold on to the doorjamb to keep himself upright. “But I’m hurt.”

  He staggered back across the basement and pulled himself up the stairs and looked carefully around the corner. Shadow Love was lying on the rug like a pile of dirty clothing. Lucas stepped over to him, keeping the .45 centered on the man’s chest, and kicked the M-15 across the room.

  He felt Jennifer behind him.

  “You’re a mean sonofabitch,” Shadow Love groaned. Nothing moved but his lips.

  “Die, motherfucker,” Lucas croaked.

  “Is he dead?” Jennifer asked.

  “In a few minutes,” Lucas said.

  “Lucas, we gotta call . . .”

  Lucas grabbed Jennifer’s coat and sank to the floor, pulling her down with him. She had the baby, who now looked almost sleepy.

  “Lucas . . .”

  “Give him a few minutes,” Lucas said. He looked at Shadow Love. “Die, motherfucker,” he said again.

  “Lucas,” Jennifer screamed, trying to pull away, “we got to call an ambulance.”

  Lucas looked at her and shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Jennifer tore at her coat, but Lucas wrapped her up and pinned her on the floor. “Lucas . . .” She beat at him with her free hand and the baby started to whimper again.

  “Who told? Who gave us away?” Shadow Love coughed. Still no pain, only a growing cold. Davenport was a mean sonofabitch, Shadow Love thought.

  “You did,” Lucas snapped.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah. Your mom’s grave. You had them send the bills to Barbara Gow.”

  “I?” Shadow Love asked again. As he exhaled, a blood bubble formed on his lips and then burst. The salty taste of the blood was his last sensation.

  “Die, motherfucker,” Lucas said.

  He was talking to a dead man. After another moment, with no further movement from Shadow Love, Lucas released Jennifer. She was looking at him in horror.

  “Call the cops,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  30

  “You got him?” Daniel asked.

  “He’s dead,” Lucas said. “I’m looking at him,” he explained, and told him that Jennifer and the baby had been injured, but the injuries didn’t appear serious.

  “How bad are you?”

  “My leg’s burned. I’m full of splinters. My house is fucked up,” Lucas said.

  “So take the day off,” Daniel said. His voice was flat, not funny.

  “Pretty fuckin’ funny,” Lucas said coldly.

  “What do you want me to say? You’re so fucked up I don’t know why you’re talking to me on the telephone.”

&
nbsp; “I needed to tell somebody,” Lucas said. He looked out of the kitchen to the open front door. After Jennifer had called 911, she’d stalked past him, out the door and into the yard to wait. When he’d called after her, she’d refused to look at him.

  “Get your ass to the hospital,” Daniel said. “I’ll see you there in ten minutes.”

  Jennifer had a sliver taken from her arm. The anchor from TV3 called her at the hospital and Jennifer told him to go fuck himself.

  The baby had a half-dozen splinters in her back. The does said that by the time she was old enough to be told about the fight, the scars would be virtually invisible.

  Lucas spent the night, the next day and part of the following day at Ramsey Medical Center, first receiving treatment for the burns on his leg and the plaster particles in his right eye. He wouldn’t need skin grafts, but it was a near thing. The plaster was washed out: the eye would heal. When the docs had finished with the eye, a physician’s assistant went to work on the splinters. They weren’t in deep, but there were dozens of them, from his thigh across his butt and up his back and his left arm.

  He got out early the second afternoon, still wearing a massive gauze bandage that covered his eye, and went to look at his house. The insurance man, he decided, would jump out of his window twice when he saw it.

  Late that night, after a number of calls to clear the way, he drove to Hennepin Medical Center and took a back elevator to the surgical floor. At ten minutes past midnight, he got out of the elevator and walked down a tiled corridor to a nursing station, where he found his friend.

  “Lucas,” she said, “I told her you were coming. She’s still awake.”

  “Is she alone?”

  “Do you mean, ‘Has her husband gone?’ Yeah, he’s gone,” the nurse said, grinning wryly.

  A younger nurse, barely out of her teens, leaned on the station counter and said, “The guy is really something else. He reads to her, gets videos for her, gets snacks. He’s here all the time. I’ve never seen anybody so . . .” She groped for the word. “ . . . faithful.”

  “Just like my cocker spaniel,” said the older nurse.

  Lily was propped up in bed, watching the Letterman show.

  “Hey,” she said. She touched the remote and Letterman winked out. Her face was pale, but she talked easily. “You got him. And he got you. You look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” Lucas said. He kissed her on the lips and eased himself into the bedside chair. “I got him more.”

  “Mmm,” she said. “The legend of Lucas Davenport grows another couple of inches.”

  “So how do you feel?” Lucas asked.

  “Not too bad, as long as I don’t laugh or sneeze,” Lily said. She looked tired, but not sick. “My ribs are messed up. They had me walking around today. It hurt a lot.”

  “How much longer will you be here?”

  Lily hesitated, then said, “I get out tomorrow. They’re going to brace me up. I’m taking Andretti’s plane to New York tomorrow afternoon.”

  Lucas frowned and sat back in the chair. “That’s pretty quick.”

  “Yes.” There was another silence, then Lily said, “I can’t help it.”

  Lucas looked down at her. “I think we have some unfinished business. Somehow.” He shrugged. There was another space of silence.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally.

  “David?” Lucas asked. “Do you love him?”

  “I must,” she said.

  A while later she said, “Will you get back with Jennifer?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I don’t know. She’s . . . kind of freaked out after what happened in the house. I’ll see her tomorrow. Maybe.”

  “Don’t come see me off,” Lily said. “I don’t know if I could handle things, if you and David were there at the same time.”

  “Okay,” Lucas said.

  “And could you . . .”

  “What?”

  “Could you leave?” she said, in a tiny, distant voice that squeaked toward despair. “If you stay any longer I’ll cry, and crying hurts . . . .”

  Lucas stood awkwardly, shuffled his feet, then leaned over and kissed her again. She caught his shirt in her hand, pulling him, and the kiss went on, fiercer, with heat, until suddenly she let go and instead of pulling him, pushed against his chest.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Davenport,” she said. “We can’t start this again, God damn it, get the fuck out of here.”

  “Lily . . .”

  “Lucas, please . . .”

  He nodded and took a breath, let it go. “See you.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He backed out of the hospital room, looking into her eyes until the swinging door flapped shut.

  At the nurses’ desk, he asked his friend what time Lily would check out. Ten o’clock, he was told, with an ambulance scheduled to drive to the St. Paul municipal airport, where she would be loaded into a private jet.

  Lucas drove out to the airport the next morning in his Ford four-by-four, and sat and watched as Lily was lifted from the ambulance and wheeled in a chair through the gate to the waiting jet. David bent over her, still wearing the blue seersucker suit, his hair rumpled in the wind. He looked like an academic. David.

  They had to carry Lily up the steps to the jet. As they picked her up, Lucas felt her eyes on him, but she never raised a hand. She looked at him for three seconds, five, and then was gone.

  The jet left and Lucas rolled out of the airport toward the Robert Street bridge.

  He talked to Jennifer that afternoon. She wanted to set up a visitation schedule, she said, so Lucas could see Sarah. Lucas said he wanted to talk. She asked if Lily was gone and Lucas said yes. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk, Jennifer said, but she would meet him. Not today, not tomorrow. Sometime soon. Next week, next month. She couldn’t forget about those last minutes at the house, when Shadow Love was dying, the baby was hurt, and Lucas wouldn’t let her call . . . . She was trying to forget, but she couldn’t . . . .

  That was Thursday. He went to the games group that night, and played. Elle asked him about the shotgun. It was gone, he said. He hadn’t felt its touch since the shootout. He felt fine, he said, but he thought he might be lying.

  Everything should have been fine, but it didn’t feel quite right. He felt as though he were in the last hours of a prolonged journey on speed, in the mental territory where everything has more contrast than it does in real life, where buildings overhang in a threatening way, where cars move too fast, where people talk too loud, where sideways looks in bars can mean trouble. That lasted through the weekend, and began to fade early in the next week.

  A little more than three weeks after the shootout, on a Saturday afternoon, Lucas sat in an easy chair and watched an Iowa-Notre Dame football game. Notre Dame was losing and no amount of prayer would help. It was a relief when the phone rang. He picked it up and heard the hiss of the long-distance satellite relay.

  “Lucas?” Lily, her voice soft and husky.

  “Lily? Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. I’m looking out the window.”

  “What? Out the window?” He flashed on the first time he’d seen her in the hallway at the police station: her dark eyes, her hair slightly askew, strands of it falling across her graceful neck . . . .

  “David and the boys are down in the street, loading the van. They’re leaving for Fort Lauderdale, on a father-son big-game fishing trip. First time for the boys . . .”

  “Lily . . .”

  “Lucas, Jesus, I’m starting to cry . . . .”

  “Lily . . .”

  “They’ll be gone for a week, Lucas—my husband and the boys,” she groaned. “Ah, fuck, Davenport, this is so fuckin’ miserable . . . .”

  “What? What?”

  “Can you come to New York?” Her voice had gone rough, sensual, dark. “Can you come in tomorrow?”

  In the End . . .

  Leo climbed the dark side of Bear Butte, through the loose rubble, through
the fine black sand, slipping at times, using his hands, moving steadily toward the peak.

  The night still gripped the world when he reached the top. He eased himself down on a convenient hump, took the blanket-roll off his shoulders and wrapped the rough army wool around himself.

  To the south, he could see the lights of Sturgis and I-90, and beyond that, the Stygian darkness of the Black Hills. In every other direction, the only break in the night came from yard lights on the scattered ranches.

  The sunrise was spectacular when it came.

  In the west, the stars were as bright and as profuse as ever; in the east, there was a growing pale light at the knife-edged horizon. Suddenly, with the unexpectedness of a shooting star, there was a flame at the horizon, a flowing golden presence as the world turned into the sun.

  The sunlight touched the top of the butte long before it flooded the flatlands, so from the top he could watch the dawn racing toward him, rippling over the empty countryside below. Leo sat with the blanket around his shoulders, his eyes half closed. When the light crossed through the base of the butte, he sighed, turned and looked west, watching the day chase the night into Wyoming.

  There was a lot to do.

  A lot of talk about the Crows and about Shadow Love.

  Legends to build.

  Leo said a quick prayer and started down. The last of the stars were going and he looked up at them as he dropped over the crest.

  “See you guys,” he said. “Flatheaded motherfuckers.”