Sudden prey ld-8

by John Sandford

  ''Lucky that shot caught you in the side, instead of square in the back,''

  Butters said. They knew what he meant, but the word ''back'' seemed to hang in the air. LaChaise had been running when he was hit.

  ''I gotta get out of here,'' Sandy said. She stood up, butLaChaise pushed himself out of the chair and said, ''I told you to fuckin' shut up.'' And quick-quick as a whip-he caught her with an openhanded roundhouse, and knocked her to the floor, as Martin had earlier in the evening. Butters and Martin sat impassively, watching, as she struggled to her hands and knees.

  She could taste blood in her mouth. She looked up at him and thought about getting a gun. She should have killed him the night she found out that he'd murdered the cop. She couldn't do it then. She could do it now.

  ''You gonna shut up?'' LaChaise asked.

  ''Let me go home, Dick,'' she said. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ''Fuck that. You're staying here,'' he said.

  But he didn't mention Elmore again that night.

  ELMORE TOLD STADIC EVERYTHING HE KNEW, AND only lied in a few spots. ''Sandy's not in it at all,'' he said. ''They showed up, and there wasn't anything we could do. They got all the guns in the world.''

  ''Who are the other guys?'' Stadic asked.

  ''Martin, who's like this crazy queer from Michigan who walks around with a bow and arrow, and Ansel Butters. He's from Tennessee and he comes up and goes hunting with Martin.''

  ''Is Butters a fag?'' Stadic and Darling sat in wooden chairs, across the kitchen table from each other. The shotgun's barrel rested on the table, pointing at Darling's chest. Stadic had closed the outer door, and the house was getting warm again. The kitchen was a pleasant place, with just enough chintz and country pottery to make it homey. Darling had a nice wife, Stadic thought.

  ''No, Butters is straight, but he takes a lot of drugs,'' Darling said.

  ''Martin, now, everybody says he's a fag and he'sin love with Dick, but he never does anything homosexual or nothing… it's just a thing.''

  ''And that's all,'' Stadic said. ''There's just the four.''

  ''Just the three-you can't count Sandy,'' Elmore said. ''I'd tell you where they were at, but I don't know. I mean, I kinda know…''

  Darling was holding this one piece back, lying. He was an excellent liar, but

  Stadic was a professional interrogator. He wasn't sure that Darling was lying, but he also knew that he had no way to control the man. He couldn't take him with him, couldn't hold him. And if Darling got in touch with LaChaise, LaChaise would recognize Stadic's description. A problem.

  He sat in the kitchen chair with the barrel of the gun pointing at Darling's chest.

  ''Tell me again,'' Stadic said. ''You get off at Lexington…''

  ''And it must be about six blocks up the road. North. Then right. Just a little house.''

  ''You didn't see the number or the street name.''

  ''Nope. I was just following behind.'' He brightened. ''But I'll tell you-my truck is on the street. So is Martin's. You could look for my truck, it's got a license plate says, QHORSE.''

  Stadic nodded. ''So six or seven blocks.''

  ''No more than that,'' Darling said. ''We could find it. I'd go down there with you.''

  Stadic thought for another moment, then shook his head.

  ''Nah,'' he said.

  ''What, then?'' Darling asked, his eyebrows going up as if mystified, a stupid smile on his face. Stadic shrugged, and pulled the trigger.

  The 00s in the three-inch Magnum shell blew Elmore Darling completely off his kitchen chair.

  • • •

  SANDY HUDDLED IN THE BEDROOM, JUST TO BE AWAY from them.

  LaChaise went to sleep in his chair, and Martin and Butters sat in the living room, the television turned down, talking quietly about the kills.

  Martin said, ''I had my hands on him and when the knife went in, he kind of rose up, and shook. Like when you cut the throat on a deer, they make that last little try to get goin'… you know?'' ''Sure, they push up, try to get their feet under them…''

  ''Damn good time to get hurt,'' Martin said. ''There's one old boy, Rob Harris over to Luce County, got down on a spike buck like that, stuck him in the throat with his knife, and that buck rose up and stuck one of them spikes right in

  Rob's eye. Blinded the eye.''

  ''What happened to the buck?'' Butters asked.

  ''Run off. Rob says it must've been a brisket hit 'cause there was blood all over hell,'' Martin said. ''Probably out there to this day…''

  ''Yeah, well, this Sherrill dude sure ain't.''

  ''Not when I get that close,'' Martin said. ''When I get that close, the boy's a goner…''

  They both turned and looked at LaChaise, thinking they might have given offense, but LaChaise was unconscious.

  ''This Kupicek, she never even twitched,'' Butters said. ''Never even knew what hit her. One minute she's talking to me, the next minute, it's St. Peter.''

  ''Silencer work good?''

  Butters nodded. ''Worked real good. All you hear is that ratchet sound, you know, maybe a little pop, but it's no more'n opening a can of soda.''

  ''Wish I had me a silencer like that.''

  ''If I were gonna do it again, I think I might do it as asingle-shot. You know, load one round, carry it cockedandlocked over an empty clip. Then you wouldn't get the ratchet noise…''

  They went on, working over the details, the TV turned down. Butters's face would come up every half hour or so. On the first newsbreak of the day, at five o'clock, TV3 produced a series of computer-morphed photos of both LaChaise and

  Butters, with a variety of hairstyles and facial hair.

  ''Oughta shave your head,'' Martin said. ''That's the only thing they ain't got.''

  ''Nah. Too late for me,'' Butters said. He looked at his watch. ''Be daylight in a couple-three hours. I'm going out. Check this kid's house, the Davenport kid.''

  ''Better wait for Dick,'' Martin said.

  Butters shook his head as he stood up. ''It's about fifty-fifty that it's an ambush,'' Butters said. ''Better that only one of us goes; and Dick's hurt, and they don't know you yet.''

  ''You sober?''

  ''As a judge.''

  Martin dropped his hands on his thighs, a light conclusive slap, and nodded.

  Butters said: ''Help me load up.''

  ''What're you takin'?'' Martin asked.

  Butters grinned: ''One of everything.''

  LaChaise stirred in the chair, half-opened his eyes, shook his head and slept again.

  ''I better get going,'' Butters said. ''Don't want to disturb Dick's beauty rest.''

  ELEVEN

  DEL WAS IN THE HALLWAY, STRETCHED OUT ON THREE couch pillows. Small was in bed, still dressed but in stocking feet, alert. Every once in a while, he'd get out of bed and creep through the hallway, and whisper a question down to Lucas.

  ''Anything?''

  ''Nothing yet.''

  Lucas yawned, pushed a button on his watch to illuminate the face. Five forty-five. More than two hours to first light. He walked carefully back toward the bathroom, navigating by feel through the darker lumps of the furniture. The bathroom was for guests, for convenience: small, with a toilet and a sink, a tube of Crest and a rack of kids' toothbrushes for aftermeal brushing. There was no exterior window. Lucas shut the door and turned on the light, winced at its brightness, splashed water in his face. His mouth tasted worse than his face looked; he rubbed a wormy inch of Crest over his teeth with his index finger, spat the green slime into the sink, and stoodthere, leaning over the sink, weight on his arms, watching the water.

  There were all kinds of hints and pointers, but none of them solid. Not yet. But the case would go quickly, he thought. If he were alive, if Weather and Sarah and Jennifer and Small were all alive in a week, then it'd be done with.

  It'd be done with even if they didn't stay around.

  They could walk out now, catch a plane, fly to Tahiti-he had t
he money to do it a hundred times over-lie on the beach, and when they came back, it'd be done.

  The difference of a week.

  And maybe they should.

  But he liked the tightening feel of the hunt.

  He didn't like what it had done to Cheryl Capslock or the others, the dead, but he did like the feel of chase, God help him.

  He turned out the light, opened the door and went back to the living room.

  DEL WAS AWAKE. HE SAID, ''CHERYL COULDN'T FEEL much of anything after they got her out of surgery.''

  ''She'll feel it today,'' Lucas said. He unconsciously touched a white tracheotomy scar on his throat.

  ''Yeah, that's what the docs said.''

  ''They say anything about scars?'' Lucas asked.

  ''She's gonna have some, but they shouldn't be too bad. What there is, she can wear her hair over.''

  ''I know a plastic surgeon over at the U, friend of Weather's. If you need one.''

  They sat a while in the dark. Then Del said, ''If she died, I don't know what

  I'd do.''

  ''She'll be okay.''

  ''Yeah.'' Then: ''But that's not exactly what I meant. I mean, I never really thought of it until this afternoon. If shewas gone, I'd be lost. I been on the streets so long, the whole world looks like it's fucked. Cheryl keeps me from going nuts. I was going nuts before I met her. I was a crazy motherfucker…

  I was such a good wino that I could've become one.''

  ''Made for each other,'' Lucas said, with a wry undertone cops affected when they were getting too close to sincerity.

  ''Yeah. Jesus, I want to kill that motherfucker…''

  Then the handset: ''Lucas. Got one coming.'' A surveillance voice. Lucas grabbed the radio and stepped to the front door. He could see out the inset glass windows without being seen himself.

  ''White male in a pickup, moving slow. He's not delivering papers.''

  ''Can you see the plates?''

  ''I can't, but Tommy can, he's got the night scope… Tommy? He'll be there in a minute.''

  ''Right, I got him coming…''

  ''Lucas, he's coming up to the house now.''

  Lucas could see the headlights on the snow, then the slowly moving pickup. ''Get the plate, get the plate.''

  ''He's going by, but he was looking. Jeff, what'd you think?''

  ''He was looking, all right.''

  ''We don't want to shoot a goddamn reporter, take it easy…''

  Lucas said, ''Tommy, you got that plate?''

  ''Front plate's dirty, I can get CV. It's Minnesota…''

  ''Tommy, c'mon…''

  ''I got it, I got it…'' He read the license out, and Dispatch acknowledged.

  ''He's going around the corner…''

  ''Which way?''

  ''South. Wait a minute, he's stopping. He's stopping.''

  ''Dick, you guys get down here in the car,'' Lucas said into the handset. ''Come around the block from the back.''

  ''Didn't think it'd happen,'' Del said. He was wide awake, breathing hard.

  ''Take it easy,'' Lucas said.

  Small called down the stairs: ''What's happening?''

  ''Nothing,'' Lucas called back, and then Del led out through the front and down the sidewalk, moving with the wintertime short-step duckwalk of a man on ice.

  Lucas still had the handset. Tommy: ''He's getting something out of the back.

  He's got the dome light on and he's doing something in the back.''

  Lucas brought the radio up: ''Everybody take it easy, he could have anything in there.''

  Dick came back: ''We're coming in, we're coming around the corner.''

  Lucas said, ''Let's go,'' and they started running, moving off the sidewalk into the snow, high-stepping. At the corner, they rounded an arbor vitae, and saw the truck fifty feet away, across the street, the door open now. The driver was turning toward them, he had something in his arms…

  ''Hold it,'' Lucas shouted. Del was sprinting ahead, and Tommy came in from the side, his long coat whipping around his legs, and Dick came in with the car.. .

  BUTTERS HAD SPIRALED IN TOWARD THE HOUSE FROM A half-mile out, quartering the neighborhood, watching faces in the few cars he'd encountered, looking for lights, looking for motion. In the woods, he'd learned to look not for the animal, but the disturbance in the animal's wake. Deer sometimes sounded like they were wearing jackboots, pounding through the woods; squirrels made tree limbs jiggle and jerk in a way that wasn't the wind; even a snake, if it was big enough, parted the grass like a ship's prow cutting through water.

  He watched for the odd motion; and saw none.

  Still, there was something not right about this. He understoodthat the cop might think that the kid was safe, but why would he take the chance? Putting the kid in the hotel would have been the natural thing to do.

  Butters saw nothing, but he smelled something: the kid felt like bear bait, a bucket of honey and oatmeal, meant to pull them in. They had to check, because the kid might be one of their last chances to really get even. And that, he thought, made the kid even better bait.

  But he turned toward the house, spiraling, moving closer…

  THE UNMARKED CAR CAUGHT THE TRUCK IN ITS HIGH beams, and the man turned, hearing

  Lucas's scream, saw the running men… put his back to the truck and said,

  ''What? What?''

  Del was twenty feet away and coming in, and the man raised his hands and Del almost popped him: almost…

  ''Freeze. Right where you are.'' Lucas behind Del, Tommy on the edge, the doors popping on the blocking car.

  ''What?'' The guy was white-faced, shocked, his mouth dropping open. He stepped back away from the van.

  There was movement in the van, and Tommy swiveled toward it, his shotgun raised.

  A blond head. Then a child's voice, tired and frightened: ''Daddy?''

  SPIRALING: AND CATCHING, DOWN A STREET THAT LED almost straight into the target house, a dark-night tableau. A car parked diagonally across the street, its headlights on a van. A man outside the van, his hands up. More men in the street.

  ''There you are,'' Butters said, with satisfaction. ''I knew you were out there.''

  Lucas saw Butters's truck: noticed it mostly because it was identical to the truck they were standing next to.

  Del was apologizing to the owner, who had just gotten home from his parents' farm, and trying to reassure the little girl, who was old enough to be frightened by the men who'd suddenly surrounded them.

  The truck in the intersection paused for just a heartbeat, two heartbeats, then casually rolled on. The driver must have seen the commotion in the street, Lucas thought. ''I've got a daughter just like you, who lives up the block,'' Lucas said to the little girl. ''Do you know Sarah Davenport?''

  The girl nodded without saying anything, but now the world was okay.

  ''Sure, she knows Sarah…'' the father was saying, and Lucas made nice and forgot about the other truck.

  And walking away, a shaky, white-faced Del said, ''Jesus, I gotta ease off. I almost shot the guy. He didn't do a fuckin' thing, I just wanted to do it.. .''

  STADIC THOUGHT ABOUT IT ALL THE WAY INTO THE Cities. He was exhausted from the day on duty, from the drive, from the killing. Through the thinning snow, he had flashes, almost visionlike in their clarity and intensity, of Elmore Darling sitting at the table in the instant before the gunshot. Darling was smiling, hopeful… afraid. He was alive. Then he wasn't. There was no transition, just a noise, and the smell of gunpowder and raw meat, and Elmore Darling wasn't there anymore.

  The visions frightened Stadic: What was happening? Was he losing it? At the same time, his cop brain was working out the inevitable progression. He now knew where LaChaise and his friends were hiding. If he worked it right, if he came up with the right story, he could ambush them. He needed to draw them out of their house, unsuspecting.

  He could set up outside the house, in the dark, next to their vehicles. Darling said the trucks would
be on the street. Thenhe could prod them out. He could call and say that the cops had been tipped, that they were on the way. They'd have to run for it.

  LaChaise was injured, so only Martin and Butters would be at full strength. He'd catch them as soon as they stepped out on the porch, before they could get the door shut, then he'd go in after the woman.

  But how about the shotgun? Darling had been killed with 00s, maybe he ought to change to 000s? Or maybe just go with the pistol. If he was right there, real close, take them with the pistol and forget the shotgun. Of course, if LaChaise was really hurt, if he didn't come out, then he'd have to go in after him…

  There'd be risk. He couldn't avoid it.

  And how would he explain the sequence to the St. Paul cops? He could say he'd been tipped to the location by one of the local dopers, but he hadn't given it much credence. He'd gone to take a look, when he'd stumbled right into them.. .

  But why would he go into the house? Why not fall back and call for an entry team?

  Stadic chewed it over, worried it, all the way down to the Cities. If he was going to do it, he should stop down at his office and pick up a vest. But when he stopped at the office, the first thing he heard was people running in the hallways…

  LUCAS STARED OUT THROUGH THE SLATS IN THE VENETIAN blinds. Still dark. ''Not coming.''

  ''So it was bullshit,'' Del said. He yawned.

  ''Maybe. Strange call, though,'' Lucas said, thinking about it. ''Came straight into me. He had the number.''

  ''We oughta leave a couple of guys here, just in case,'' Del said. ''I gotta get down to Hennepin and see Cheryl.''

  ''Yeah, take off,'' Lucas said.

  Dispatch called: ''Lucas?''

  He picked up the handset. ''Yes?''

  ''A woman called for you. Says she has some information and she wants the ten thousand.''

  ''Patch her through.''

  ''She hung up. She says her old man might hear her. But she gave her address.

  She says she wants you to take her out of her house, if her old man gets… she said, 'pissed.' '' A dispatcher couldn't say ''pissed,'' but she could quote

  ''pissed.''

  ''What's the address?'' Lucas asked.