Secret Prey

by John Sandford

  O’Dell said, ‘‘You get Bone’s job. He won’t stay around long if I’m picked for the top spot. And Carla’s eventually going to move into Robles’s slot. But right away—and I mean right away—she gets money.’’

  ‘‘How much?’’ Wyte’s eyebrows went up.

  ‘‘Fifty more. Fifty is the number I had in mind.’’

  ‘‘Fifty is a nice number,’’ Wyte said.

  ‘‘And it’ll be twice that when Robles leaves.’’

  Compton said, ‘‘How about me?’’

  ‘‘You’re gonna be my executive assistant. You’re gonna be my ears. My intelligence department. You’ll do real well—in terms of clout, if not in title, you’ll be number two in the bank.’’

  ‘‘So how do we do this?’’ Wyte asked. ‘‘What do we do . . . assuming we’re all in.’’

  O’Dell looked around the room. After a second, Kent said, ‘‘I’m in,’’ and Compton said, ‘‘Yeah.’’ Wyte nodded.

  ‘‘So . . .’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘I’m going to start putting together a pitch for the board. It’s got to be good, and it’ll take time. And I’ll start working the board: that’s something I have to do personally.’’

  ‘‘To some extent, it’s gonna be like a political campaign, but with fewer voters,’’ Compton said. She’d come to the bank from the state capitol. ‘‘One thing we can do is, we can make the point with the newspapers that you’d be the first woman ever to run a major bank in Minnesota. Or anywhere, as far as I know. Any other major bank CEOs are women?’’ She looked around, then answered herself. ‘‘No. Okay. I’ll check that out, but I can also start working the papers.’’

  ‘‘That’s good,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘But we’ve got to get it going. How long before we could see it on the news?’’

  Compton looked at her watch: ‘‘I’ve got time today. I’ll have to talk to a couple of people, but we should see some action by tomorrow morning. When they call, you’ve got to be modest and all that . . . you know, the board has to make a decision.’’

  ‘‘I know,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘I can do that.’’

  Kent leaned forward, took a cinnamon candy out of a bowl on the coffee table, peeled off the crinkly cellophane wrapper, and popped the candy into his mouth: ‘‘Speaking of negative campaigning . . .’’

  ‘‘Were we speaking of that?’’ Compton asked, with a quick, cynical smile. They would have come to it sooner or later.

  ‘‘We are now,’’ he said. ‘‘We all know Bone’s weakness.’’

  ‘‘Women.’’

  O’Dell shook her head. ‘‘That won’t help. We just don’t have the time—even if we could find somebody willing to dig into it, it’d take weeks.’’

  Kent was shaking his head. ‘‘Not really. Not if the cops look into it and if somebody tips the papers that the cops are looking into it.’’

  ‘‘Why would they?’’ Wyte asked.

  ‘‘ ’Cause of the woman,’’ Kent said, sitting back, savoring his little nugget.

  ‘‘Marcus . . .’’ O’Dell said.

  ‘‘James T. Bone is fucking Marcia Kresge. And has been for a while.’’

  O’Dell’s mouth had literally fallen open. ‘‘You’re kidding me.’’

  Kent shook his head: ‘‘Nope. I saw her one night at Bone’s place—I was in the ramp, I’d been over at Casper Allen’s, about his idiot trusts . . .’’

  ‘‘Casper lives right downstairs from Bone,’’ O’Dell said to the others.

  ‘‘. . . and she’d been fuckin’ somebody , believe me. And as she’s getting into her car, who should come out after her, carrying something? James T. Bone.’’

  ‘‘The cops need to know that,’’ Wyte said, with an effort at sincerity. ‘‘I mean, even if we weren’t trying to . . . to

  . . . help Susan, they’d need to know that. Dan’s death is worth millions to her, and opens the top job for her lover.’’

  ‘‘That’s what I thought,’’ Kent said, leaning back on the couch, sucking on the cinnamon.

  Two hours later, O’Dell ushered Compton into the elevator, the last of them to go, and stepped pensively back into her apartment. Kent was a rat: she’d have to remember that. Starting now. The other two should be okay . . .

  She spotted her rifle case, dumped in the corner Saturday morning. The case was empty: the Garfield sheriff still had the rifle. She picked it up, carried it back to a storage closet, and slipped it inside. Stuck on the wall of the same closet was an instant-open gun safe. Acting on impulse, she jabbed at the number pads, rolling her hand like a piano player, and the door popped open. Inside lay an Officer’s Model Colt. She took it out, pulled the magazine, pulled the slide back to make sure the chamber was empty, let it slam forward.

  She moved slowly through the apartment, dry-firing the pistol from various hiding spots and corners; corny but fun. After ten minutes, she carried the pistol back to the safe, reseated the magazine, and shut the safe door.

  She’d have to get out to the range one of these days; she was losing her edge.

  MARCIA KRESGE WAS GETTING COMFORTABLE ON James T. Bone’s couch: ‘‘Are you going to get the job?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. O’Dell’s pretty strong.’’

  ‘‘How about McDonald?’’

  ‘‘We can handle McDonald.’’

  ‘‘Good. He’s an asshole. O’Dell, you know, smokes dope.’’

  ‘‘So what?’’ Bone said. ‘‘So do you.’’

  ‘‘I’m not trying to get to be a bank president,’’ Kresge said.

  ‘‘I don’t think that’s enough to disqualify her,’’ Bone said.

  ‘‘It would if she was arrested for possession,’’ Kresge said. ‘‘The board wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.’’

  ‘‘You’d really wish that on her?’’ Bone asked with real curiosity.

  ‘‘I’d like to see you get the job,’’ Kresge said. ‘‘And I could fix the bust.’’

  ‘‘How?’’

  ‘‘We’ve got the same dealer,’’ Kresge said.

  Bone laughed despite himself. ‘‘How’d that happen?’’

  She shrugged, not seeing anything funny in the coincidence. ‘‘You know, we all hang out at the same places, and word gets around. This guy, Mark, used to be a waiter at The Falls. He’s working his way through college.’’

  ‘‘Selling grass?’’

  ‘‘Grass, speed, acid, coke, heroin, ecstasy. PCP probably. Anyway, he deals to Susan. If somebody tipped off the police, maybe they could catch him making a delivery. You know, socialite dope ring. The cops would like that.’’

  ‘‘What if they got your name?’’ Bone asked.

  She shrugged. ‘‘I’d get rid of everything before I tipped them, and I wouldn’t buy any more. What’re they going to do? If they even got my name, I’d sue their butts off if they let it out.’’

  ‘‘Listen,’’ Bone said, now serious, leaning toward her: ‘‘Forget it. I swear to God, Marcia, if anybody tips off the cops about Susan, I’ll whip your ass.’’

  ‘‘Oooh . . . that could be fun,’’ she said lightly.

  ‘‘No. It wouldn’t be fun,’’ he snapped.

  Sometimes he frightened her, just a bit, she thought. But a bit more than she found pleasant. ‘‘You’re not gonna get this job by looking pretty, you know,’’ she snapped back.

  ‘‘I know that. I’m working on it,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I could talk to a couple of people.’’

  ‘‘Anything you could do I’d appreciate . . . but let me know first.’’

  ‘‘Hey: If I go into banker’s-wife mode, I could probably deliver two or three votes off that board. That damn Jack O’Grady has been trying to get my pants off for fifteen years: I bet he could pull a couple votes for you.’’

  ‘‘I think Jack’s already with me,’’ Bone said. ‘‘But encouragement would be good.’’

  ‘‘Even if I have to take my pants off?’’

>   ‘‘How big a change would that be?’’ he asked.

  A pause. Then Kresge, smiling prettily, said, ‘‘Really great fuckin’ thing to say, Bone.’’

  ‘‘Tell you the truth, I’m surprised the police haven’t spent more time with you. You’re not the most discreet person in the world, and you weren’t divorced when Dan was killed.’’

  ‘‘I can be discreet when I wanna be,’’ she said. ‘‘Look at us.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘Besides, a woman cop did come around and talk to me—Sherrill, her name was. Last name. She had that big-tit look you go for. And hell, I told her everything.’’

  ‘‘But not about us.’’

  ‘‘She didn’t ask.’’

  Bone stood up, turned. ‘‘Anyway: I think McDonald’s in trouble. We know O’Dell’s gonna get a certain number of votes, and I’ll get mine, but it’s McDonald’s that are up for grabs.’’

  ‘‘How’s McDonald in trouble?’’

  ‘‘This cop—Lucas Davenport, assistant chief . . .’’

  ‘‘I know him, actually.’’

  ‘‘He thinks McDonald’s involved. I’ve talked to him a couple of times and he’s a smart guy. He’s talking to McDonald’s pals and the word is getting out. If there’s even a whiff of involvement, the board’ll drop him like a hot rock.’’

  ‘‘So anything that would encourage Davenport to look at McDonald . . . that would help.’’

  ‘‘As long as it didn’t turn back on us.’’

  ‘‘I’ll see what—’’ The doorbell rang, and Kresge turned her head.

  Bone stepped across the room and opened the heavy paneled door. Kerin Baki was there, struggling with an oversized briefcase. As she brought it in, her glasses slipped down her nose, and she jabbed them back as though they’d mutinied. She saw Kresge on the couch and said, ‘‘Mrs. Kresge. Have you spoken to Mr. O’Grady?’’

  ‘‘We were just talking about that,’’ Kresge said pleasantly. ‘‘Your boss was giving me a very hard time.’’

  Baki turned, said, ‘‘Mr. Bone, you should listen to Mrs. Kresge on this.’’

  ‘‘Christ, you’re conspiring against me,’’ he said.

  ‘‘ Working for you,’’ Baki said. ‘‘I printed everything I could find on the mortgage company performance since McDonald took over. There are a few things we can use— not necessarily his fault, but you know how mortgages have been performing . . .’’

  ‘‘Let me get a Coke,’’ Bone said. ‘‘What would you like, Kerin? Marcia already has a—’’

  ‘‘Bloody Mary,’’ Kresge said. ‘‘And it’s all gone. I’ll help you . . .’’

  ‘‘Just sparkling water,’’ Baki said. She began spreading her papers on a coffee table as Bone and Kresge went to the kitchen to get drinks. When Baki finished with the papers, she heard Kresge laugh, a low, husky laugh with a little sex in it; she could see them moving around Bone’s small kitchen, inside each other’s personal space, casually bumping hips.

  Their relationship had been clear to Baki for a while now; she wouldn’t tolerate it much longer. She got so deep into that calculation—the end of Bone’s relationship with Marcia Kresge—that she almost didn’t notice them walking toward her.

  ‘‘Kerin?’’ Bone said curiously. ‘‘Are you home?’’

  He was standing next to her, holding out a glass and a bottle of lime-flavored Perrier. ‘‘Oh. Sure. Preoccupied, I guess.’’ She pushed the Perrier aside and went to the papers. ‘‘This stack of papers is the annualized return on . . .’’

  BONNIE BONET DYED HER HAIR BLACK, THE DENSE, sticky color of shoe polish. She dressed in black from head to toe, wore blue lipstick, and carried thirty-five extra pounds. But she was almost smart and could write poetry in Perl-5. She sat across the table from Robles and said, ‘‘Because the motherfucker was going to kill a couple of thousand people, that’s why.’’

  ‘‘I know you’re lying,’’ Robles said. He’d broken a sweat.

  ‘‘No you don’t. I’m not lying.’’

  ‘‘So tell me what kind of a gun you used,’’ he said.

  ‘‘My father’s .30–30.’’

  ‘‘Bullshit. You never fired a gun in your life.’’

  She sneered at him: ‘‘You think I couldn’t figure out a gun? Every redneck in Minnesota can shoot a gun, but I can’t?’’

  ‘‘I’m gonna tell the cops about this,’’ Robles said.

  ‘‘Go ahead,’’ she said. ‘‘You’ve got no proof.’’

  ‘‘Jesus Christ, Bonnie. I know you’re lying, but you’re pushing me into a corner. You get this fantasy going, you’ll tell somebody else, like one of your fuckin’ novels . . .’’ Bonet laughed but looked away. Robles said, ‘‘Oh, Jesus, who’d you tell?’’

  ‘‘He doesn’t believe me either.’’

  ‘‘You told goddamned Dick . . .’’

  ‘‘Well, you started it . . . the whole fantasy thing.’’

  ‘‘I was joking,’’ Robles insisted. ‘‘I didn’t want him dead . . .’’

  ‘‘You got him.’’

  ‘‘But I was joking . . .’’

  ‘‘Too late now. You tell the cops about me, I’ll tell them about you.’’

  Robles left the bar, sweating, half drunk. Okay, she was lying. But she’d never admit it. She was crazy. Almost for sure . . .

  Terrance Robles had made just shy of a half-million dollars the previous year, and he’d spent only a small part of it. With his access to information, he could grow his stake at twenty to thirty percent per year, on top of earnings. If he could hang on for another five years, he could quit. Get out. Buy an old used Cray computer somewhere, and do some serious shit.

  But he had to hold on.

  He could turn Bonet in. Or, alternatively, he could kill her—nothing else would shut her up. She was having too good a time.

  Robles bit on a thumbnail, stumbled along the street.

  LATE NIGHT: THE MIXED SMELLS OF VINEGARANDGASoline, one pungent, one metallic; the combination smelling like blood. The vinegar went into the washtub and down the drain, followed by a steady stream of water that would carry it away.

  A glass cutter: this had been in the book, which went on to say that it was probably unnecessary, but why take chances? Deep scored lines up and down the bottle, then more, horizontally, until the bottle was checkered with shaky, intersecting lines. Then the bottle sprayed with Windex, carefully and meticulously wiped with paper towels. No fingerprints here.

  Now the gasoline, mixed in the bottle with two fourounce cans of chain saw oil. A strip of old T-shirt for a wick.

  The bottle was heavy; a little better than seven pounds.

  But it wouldn’t have to be thrown far.

  Just far enough .

  SEVEN

  ‘‘NOW WE’RE GETTING SOME HEAT,’’ SAID ROSE MARIE Roux. She was drinking coffee from a bone china cup; a matching saucer sat on her desk, and on the saucer, a wad of green chewing gum. ‘‘Harrison White called, and said if you need to interview Wilson McDonald, or if you would like to bring him before a grand jury, McDonald will come over anytime and testify. Without immunity. He will answer any questions, without reservation. Under oath.’’

  ‘‘And if we don’t need him to do that?’’ Lucas asked. He was facing Roux’s window, the sun streaming in. Another good day. Cold.

  ‘‘Then knock off the innuendos—the snooping around asking other people about him. White says the snooping could cost McDonald the top job at the bank, and if it does, he’ll see that the city picks up the difference in what he makes now, and what he would have made in twenty-some years as bank president. He thinks it might be forty or fifty million.’’

  Lucas grinned. ‘‘Would we have to pay it all up front?’’ Roux smiled back: ‘‘He didn’t say. But he also talked to a couple of people on the city council, and McDonald’s father has been calling around . . . but fuck them. Do what you need with McDonald. I thought you should know t
hat glaciers are starting to move.’’

  ‘‘Thanks,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘And, of course, what White says is true. McDonald could be completely innocent, and we could be screwing him out of his lifetime job. In fact, we could even have been set up to do it, with the letter.’’

  ‘‘Tell you what,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Let me talk to White. I wanted McDonald bumped, I wanted him nervous, but I don’t need to push much harder. We could back off a bit.’’

  ‘‘Whatever you think,’’ Roux said. She finished the coffee, peeled the gum off the saucer, and popped it back in her mouth. ‘‘Nicotine,’’ she said. ‘‘Too expensive to throw away before I chew it out.’’

  ‘‘So I’ll . . .’’ Lucas was getting to his feet.

  ‘‘Sit down,’’ Roux said. She probed her desk for a moment. ‘‘We have a couple of things to talk about. First, the opium ring . . .’’

  ‘‘Oh, shit,’’ Lucas groaned.

  ‘‘And then Capslock has put in for thirty hours accumulated overtime for investigating it.’’

  ‘‘Rose Marie . . .’’

  ‘‘He’s your guy, goddamnit. Now, this thirty hours. He took the thirty hours when he was supposedly on disability leave after the pinking shears incident. Now what I’m trying to figure is how . . .’’

  ‘‘Aw, Rose Marie, c’mon . . .’’

  ROUX WAS AMUSING, AND HE LAUGHED WITH HER, and convinced her to sign off on the thirty hours. But the laughter was like a water bug on a pond, skating across the surface of his mind. He was amused and he laughed, but nothing was deeply funny; life was simply stupid most of the time. Going downhill, again, he thought. He walked back to his office, tired, a little unnerved by the overnight rattling in his brain, and found Sherrill waiting for him.

  Sherrill was lanky and dark-eyed, with short black hair and—Sloan’s words—the good headlights. Her estranged husband had been killed by a crazy outlaw, who was himself killed by Lucas in a close-quarters firefight in the middle of a freak blizzard. It all happened just minutes before the cold-eyed Iowa boy had blown up both Dick LaChaise and Lucas’s marriage prospects. Last winter had been a bad one.

  ‘‘There you are,’’ Sherrill said. ‘‘Want to come detect?’’