Sudden Prey

by John Sandford

  ``If they know we're here, an entry team'll try the garage door,'' LaChaise whispered. The garage door opener was plugged into an overhead outlet. LaChaise pointed at it with the gun barrel and said to Sandy, ``Pull the plug.''

  Sandy pulled the plug.

  ``Let 'em get in a few feet. We want all of them in,'' Martin said. ``If they don't know we're here, we have to take them all...''

  DEL WENT AROUND BACK, TO WATCH THE GARAGE door. Lucas led Stadic up the stairs.

  ``Bunch of boxes at the top,'' Lucas said. ``Supposed to be some sort of a barrier to keep the door from being rushed.''

  Stadic said, ``I've seen that in a couple places. Whatever works.''

  At the top, they moved the cardboard boxes out of the way. On the right side of the door, a piece of plywood was crudely nailed onto the wall.

  ``Wonder what that is?'' Lucas asked, looking at the board.

  ``Probably an extra barrier to keep people from busting through the wall,'' Stadic said. ``The guy ain't taking any chances.''

  Lucas banged on the door. ``Harp, open up.''

  Nothing.

  ``Awful quiet,'' Stadic said.

  Lucas banged again. ``Huh. Wonder if he booked.''

  ``The way things are going...''

  Lucas banged a third time. They waited for a few more seconds, Lucas looked at the lock, said, ``No way,'' and they started back down the stairs.

  INSIDE, SANDY WAS CROUCHED NEXT TO HARP'S CAR, her hands over her ears. After the third set of knocks, they heard what sounded like feet on the stairs. ``I think they're going,'' Martin whispered.

  ``I can't fuckin' believe this,'' LaChaise whispered back. ``I gotta go look.''

  Martin caught his arm. ``Best not to. Sometimes, people feel it, when something moves.''

  LaChaise nodded, and they sat on the steps and listened.

  ON THE STREET, LUCAS AND STADIC WALKED AROUND the corner and yelled down at Del. Del had been leaning against the brick wall by the garage door, and he pushed away from the wall and slouched back toward them. ``Nothing?''

  Lucas shook his head and they crossed the street to the car.

  Stadic got in the back, and saw Sell-More Green walking down the street toward them. Sell-More worked for Harp, but he didn't know Stadic. Stadic made a quick calculation, andas Lucas cranked the car, patted Lucas on the shoulder and said, ``Whoa,'' and pointed.

  Lucas and Del looked where Stadic was pointing. A thin black man in an old parka and black sneaks was scuffling along, oblivious of them. ``That's Sell-More Green,'' Stadic said. ``He's one of Harp's dealers. Or he used to be.''

  Lucas said, ``So let's ask him where Harp is.''

  They waited until Sell-More was passing the car, and then popped out, three doors opening at once, and Sell-More turned sideways and thought about running, but then just stopped, hands in his pockets. ``What for?'' he asked.

  ``How you doing?'' Stadic asked.

  ``Hungry,'' Sell-More said. ``Haven't ate in two days.''

  Lucas dug in a pocket, took out a small clip of bills, and pulled out a ten: ``Where's the boss?''

  Sell-More licked his bottom lip: ``Who?''

  ``Daymon, for Christ's sakes,'' Lucas said.

  ``Oh, Daymon.'' Sell-More looked up at the apartment. ``He said the cops was hassling him because of these white boys killing cops. So he went on a trip. With Jas-Min.''

  ``You know where?''

  ``He said maybe Mexico. Someplace warm,'' Sell-More said. ``Is that good for the ten?''

  ``You lyin'?'' Lucas asked.

  ``No way,'' Sell-More said. He shivered. ``If the boss was here, I'd be eating.''

  Lucas handed him the ten and said to Del, ``Mexico.''

  Del looked around at the snow: ``Wish I was with him.''

  Stadic nodded, happy with the story. If Davenport thought Harp was involved, he'd just keep coming back. He didn't want Davenport poking around Harp's operation: not now.

  They'd taken a couple of steps away from Sell-More when Lucas stopped and said, ``You wanna go for a hundred?''

  Sell-More said, ``What?''

  ``We're looking for cops who might be... dealing. If you want to ask around, get a name or two, it'd be worth some cash.''

  Stadic tensed: he hadn't planned on this. ``Do I get the bread now?'' Sell-More asked hopefully.

  ``Hell no,'' Lucas said. ``When I get the names-and the names better be good.''

  Sell-More said, ``That's pretty dangerous, what you want.''

  ``Yeah, well, that ten won't last long,'' Lucas said. He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Sell-More. ``You get hungry again, get a name and call me. Nobody has to know about it.''

  Sell-More's eyes seemed to roll inward, and after a moment of silence, he looked from Lucas to Del to Stadic, and then he said, ``I think I might know somebody.''

  LACHAISE LOOKED AT MARTIN: ``THEY'RE GONE.''

  Martin nodded. ``Yup.''

  ``I can't believe it,'' LaChaise said. He looked down at Sandy and said, ``We're good as gold.''

  Sandy nodded. She could still feel her heart thumping. The cops had hit the Frogtown house the day after the first shootings. She didn't know how they'd done it, but they'd killed Butters and they would have killed all of them, probably. Now they were knocking on the door of the new place. The whole thing was coming apart, just like Elmore had said it would. Elmore had never been bright: now he was looking like a prophet.

  She didn't say any of that: instead, she thought, Telephone.

  SIXTEEN

  LUCAS CHECKED ON HIS CREW: SLOAN AND SHERRILL were probing sources in the local biker groups. Del and Franklin were working independently, running more dopers. Anderson, who worked for Lester, was running lists of names though personnel, asking who might know enough to crack the personnel computers. Lucas stopped by his office: `` Anything?''

  Anderson said, ``Your name keeps coming up.''

  ``I think we can eliminate that one,'' Lucas said.

  Anderson yawned and said, ``Well, that leaves about sixty more, including everybody in your group, and I'm not finished running the roster.''

  ``Give me a list when you get it,'' Lucas said.

  He also got a copy of Buster Brown's tape and carried it back to his office and listened to it again.

  ``... need to know where this Weather is, and be good to know where Capslock's old lady is, her room number. And we need to know where Davenport is working, andCapslock, Sherrill, Sloan, Franklin and Kupicek. You know the list.''

  Long pause.

  ``That don't sound right; you better be tellin' the truth, or your name'll be on the list, motherfucker... Hey, listen to what I'm telling you... No, not you. Did you find out anything about Elmore?''

  Another pause.

  ``That's what we thought. We'll look those boys up when we're done here... Now listen, we need that shit and we need it right now. We'll call back in... two hours. Two hours, got it?''

  Pause.

  ``I don't know. And you let us worry about getting back to you. You might be pulling some bullshit. And if you are, you better think twice...''

  Pause.

  ``Yeah, yeah. Two hours.''

  He rolled it back and listened for background sounds: he'd seen a movie where they figured out where something was by the sound of a train... but there was nothing. Buster thought he could hear a television, but Lucas couldn't pick it out of the tape noise. Then he thought, What was that about Elmore?

  LaChaise:

  Did you find out anything about Elmore?... That's what we thought. We'll look those boys up when we're done here...

  Huh. That sounded like they hadn't killed Elmore Darling. That sounded like they thought they knew who had-and so did the cop talking to them. Lucas puzzled through it: the cop was telling them that Elmore had been killed by other cops, probably the Michigan prison people, in revenge for the killingof Sand. That was absurd-but something a con might believe. But if the Michigan people hadn't killed Elmore, and LaChaise hadn't...
/>
  Lucas launched himself out of his chair and took a quick turn around his desk. Had to be the cop. But how had he known to kill Elmore? How had he known that Elmore was even involved? Was the cop that deep with LaChaise, that he'd know all of it? Had he been involved in the escape itself?

  That didn't seem likely: the voices on the phone had been antagonistic.

  So how did he know? They had enough pieces of the picture that he should be able to put it together. And when he found it, maybe the cop...

  STADIC WAS FRANTICALLY TRYING TO LOCATE Sell-More. The junkie had said he might know somebody. And as one of Harp's dealers, he might. Harp and Stadic were careful in their rare meetings, always taking them well out of town. But money had to be moved, information had to be worked through, pictures had to be looked at. And with dopers, you could never tell: they were as likely to wake up in Chicago or Miami as at home, and somehow, somebody might have seen him, and Harp, and put two and two together.

  Stadic hit all the spots, braced a few dealers with questions about cops, as cover. Davenport would probably shit if he found out that Stadic was covering the same ground as his own people, but that couldn't be helped.

  Just after dark, he talked to a convenience store clerk who had sold Sell-More a doughnut not ten minutes earlier. Sell-More was walking, the clerk said. Stadic crisscrossed the side streets, and five minutes later found Sell-More wandering along a sidewalk, hands in his pockets, eyes glazed. Stadic pulled over, ran the window down: ``Get in,'' he said.

  Sell-More looked at him, then spoke slowly, a thin glimmer of intelligence: ``I ain't got much.''

  ``We want to talk to you anyway,'' Stadic said, the car grinding through the lumpy ice at the edge of the road. ``Get in.''

  Sell-More shuffled around the car, got in the passenger side, slumped, then leaned forward and rubbed his hands in the air from the car's heater. ``Fuckin' hungry,'' he said.

  ``You spent the money on dope?''

  ``I am a dope,'' Sell-More said. ``What you want, anyway?''

  ``Where're your gloves?''

  ``Ain't got no gloves. Where're we going?''

  ``Just gonna drive around a minute, keep the heat going,'' Stadic said. ``What'd you find out?''

  Sell-More shrugged. ``My man said that Daymon Harp's got a cop, 'cause every time somebody tries to edge in on Daymon, they get busted the next day. He says everybody knows that.''

  ``That's it?''

  ``Dude gotta be in narcotics,'' Sell-More said.

  Though he was driving, Stadic closed his eyes for a moment. He felt the world slipping out of control, like one of those nightmares where something goes wrong, and you can't ever get it quite right again. If a dumbass like Sell-More could figure this out, then other people could figure it out, too. He hadn't been given away by the name, but by the pattern. And if anyone looked at the pattern of arrests closely enough, they'd find Stadic's name.

  ``Hey, man...''

  The tone in Sell-More's voice snapped his eyes open, and he found that he was drifting toward a parked Pontiac. He wrenched the car back to the middle of the street, missing the Pontiac by a foot.

  ``You okay?'' Sell-More asked.

  ``Tired,'' Stadic said. He steadied himself. One thing at a time. When Harp got back, Stadic would have to move him out of town. Kill him? Probably not. The thing was, Harp maybe had stashed Stadic's name somewhere as an insurance policy, the same way he'd taken those pictures... Goddamn him.

  Stadic slipped his hand inside his coat, found the cell phone. The cold lump of his pistol was next to it. ``I need you to make a phone call,'' he said.

  SHERRILL AND SLOAN HAD COME BACK, STILL IN THEIR parkas.

  ``Cold?''

  ``Yeah. Getting bad,'' Sherrill said. ``Supposed to get warmer tomorrow, but they're talking about some big storm is getting wound up somewhere. Somebody's gonna get it in two or three days.''

  ``Doesn't make it easier.''

  ``Nobody on the streets,'' Sloan said. ``You hear anything from Sell-More?''

  ``Not a thing.'' The phone rang, and Lucas picked it up.

  Sell-More said, ``This is the guy you give the ten dollars to.''

  Lucas grinned at Sloan and pointed at the phone: ``Yeah? Sell-More?''

  ``I got a name for you.''

  Lucas leaned forward in the chair. ``Who?''

  ``You said a hundred dollars.''

  ``If you got a name.''

  After a five-second silence, Sell-More said one word: ``Palin.''

  ``Say that again?''

  ``Palin. Like, my Pal... in... trouble. Pal-in.''

  ``Where'd you get this?'' Lucas asked.

  ``Some homeboy down on Franklin.''

  ``You come up here, ask for Davenport. If the name's anything, you got a hundred. And I want the name of the homeboy. That's another hundred.''

  ``Don't leave,'' Sell-More said. ``I'm on my way.''

  LUCAS DROPPED THE PHONE ON THE HOOK AND looked at Sloan. ``Arne Palin?''

  Sloan dropped his jaw in mock surprise. ``Arne Palin? No way.''

  ``Sell-More says Arne Palin,'' Lucas said.

  ``Arne's so goddamn straight he still doesn't say `fuck' in front of women,'' Sherrill said.

  Lucas scratched his head: ``But he used to be a roaring drunk. You remember that, Sloan? He did some pretty wild shit, fifteen years ago.''

  ``Yeah, cowboy shit. But jeez...'' Sloan shook his head. ``If you were gonna pick a name who didn't do it-I'd pick Palin. I don't think he's smart enough to think of doing it.''

  ``Gotta be bullshit,'' Lucas agreed. ``But I wonder where Sell-More got it?'' He picked up the phone and called Anderson. ``Is Arne Palin on your list?''

  Anderson said, ``Yeah. He's trying to transfer into personnel. They had him up there a few days. You got something?''

  ``Maybe. Check and see where he's been the last few days-when he's been on duty and so on. See if he was working that day O'Donald saw the guy at the laundromat.''

  ``How close a check?'' Anderson asked. He sounded tired.

  ``Close. We got the name off the street.''

  ``Arne?''

  ``Yeah, I know. But check, huh?''

  STADIC EASED THE CAR TO THE CURB. ``OUT,'' HE SAID. ``And you keep your mouth shut. You keep your mouth shutuntil Harp gets back, and you won't have to worry about gettin' high, not for a while. You be the man.''

  ``The man,'' Sell-More said, picking up on Stadic's fake jive. ``I be the man.''

  ``That's right,'' Stadic said. He checked the rearview mirror: nothing in sight. He'd picked the darkest piece of iceclogged street he could find. ``You go on, now.''

  Sell-More cracked the door and swiveled to clamber out.

  ``And get you some gloves. Your hands are gonna freeze,'' Stadic said. He groped under his sweater for the stock of the old.38. ``Do that,'' Sell-More said.

  He was out, ready to slam the door, when Stadic called, ``Hey. Wait a minute.''

  Sell-More leaned forward to say, ``Huh?'' but never got the syllable out: As he leaned under the roof, Stadic shot him in the face, one quick shot, a bang and a flash, and Sell-More dropped straight down, banging his head on the doorsill as he fell, a wet snapping sound.

  ``Shit.'' Stadic stretched across the seat, and put the muzzle almost against the back of Sell-More's head, and pulled the trigger again. Sell-More's head popped up and down. ``If you ain't dead, fuck ya,'' Stadic said, and he stretched out and caught the door handle and pulled the door shut.

  He was in his own car with the murder weapon. He could feel his heart thumping: had to dump the gun. If he got a block away, no jury would convict him, unless he had the gun. But he couldn't ditch it too quick. They'd check close around the body, anyplace a gun might be thrown.

  And he listened to the radio; the radio was routine, nothing more. Give it another block. Give it one more. Another one. No calls? He found another dark street, caught the black cut of a storm sewer, pulled up close, cracked the door, dumped the gun. Just before he closed the door, he hea
rd an odd sound, and he hesitated.

  What was it? His ears were still ringing from the shots, maybe he was hearing that. He rolled down the window, just an inch, and heard the sound again, over the noise of the wheels. And then he passed the end of the block, and looked down to the right. A group of kids on the sidewalk, with candles.