Silent Prey

by John Sandford

  And here was Walter, running down the street, a paper held overhead, flapping, joy in his eyes. Her spelling test from the day before. A perfect score. Common enough for Lily, but Walter, so generously pleased for her, that smile, that young blond hair slicked down with Vaseline...

  Come to this, the bloody teeth.

  "That's Walter Petty," she told a tired assistant M.E.

  At home again, changing clothes, preparing herself to see Petty's mother, she thought of her school yearbook. She went into the living room, pulled a box from a built-in cupboard, and found three of them. And his senior picture: his hair never quite right, his face too slender, the slightly dazed smile.

  Lily broke and began to weep. The spasm was uncontrollable, unlike anything she'd experienced before, a storm that ended with dumb exhaustion. Wearily, she finished dressing, started for the door.

  And smelled Petty: Petty in the morgue, the stink of the blood and the body in her nose. She ran back to the bathroom, washed her face and her hands, over and over.

  Early the next morning, after the nightmare interlude with Gloria Petty, as she fought for an hour or two of sleep, she dreamed and saw herself on the marble bench, Walter Petty draped on her lap, broken, torn, his bloody teeth leering from the side of his face....

  Petty was gone.

  "Jesus." Lucas was staring at her. "I didn't know you had..."

  "What?" She tried to smile. "That kind of depth?"

  "That kind of old-time relationship. You know about me and Elle Kruger..."

  "The nun, yes. What would you do if somebody murdered her?" Lily asked.

  "Find whoever did it and kill him," Lucas said quietly.

  "Yes," Lily said, nodding, looking straight at him. "That's what I want."

  The late-afternoon sun had gone red, then a sullen orange. A heavy atmospheric hush, accompanied by a distant rumbling, announced the line of thunderstorms that Lucas had seen from the roof. When Lily first arrived, Lucas, sitting on the roof, had said, "You're absolutely gorgeous." She'd cooled the sense of contact with a quick, "Don't start, Davenport." But there was an underlying tension between them, and now it sprang up again, riding with them as they moved out of the kitchen, into the living room.

  Lily perched on a couch, knees together, fumbled through her purse, found a roll of Certs, tipped a couple of them into her hand, then popped them into her mouth. "You've changed things," she said, looking around the house.

  "After Shadow Love, the place was pretty shot up," Lucas said. He dropped onto a leather recliner, sitting on the edge of it, leaning toward her. "Some wiring got wrecked and I needed a new floor. Plaster work. He was shooting that goddamn M-15, it was a mess."

  Lily looked away: "That's what they used on Walt. An M-15. A full clip: they emptied a full clip into him. They found pieces of him all over the block."

  "Jesus..." Lucas groped for something else to say, but all he could find was, "How about you? Are you okay?"

  "Oh, sure," she said, and fell silent.

  "The last time I saw you, you were on a guilt trip about your old man and the kids...."

  "That's not over. The guilt trip. Sometimes I feel so bad I get nauseous," she said.

  "Do you see the kids?"

  "Not so much," she said sadly, looking away from him. "I tried, but it was wrecking all of us. David was always... peering at me. And the boys blame me for leaving."

  "Do you want to go back?"

  "I don't love him," she said, shaking her head. "I don't even like him very much. I look at him now, and it all seems like bullshit, the stuff that comes out of his mouth. And that's weird, because it used to seem so smart. We'd go to parties and he'd spin up these post-Jungian theories of racism and class struggle, and these phonies would stand around with their heads going up and down like they were bobbing for apples. Then I'd go to work and see a report on some twelve-year-old who shot his mom because he wanted to sell the TV to buy crack, and she wouldn't let him. Then I'd go back home and... shit. I couldn't stand listening to him anymore. How can you live with somebody you can't stand listening to?"

  "It's hard," he said. "Being a cop makes it worse. I think that's why I spent so much time with Jennifer. She was a professional bullshit artist, but basically, she knew what was what. She spent the time on the streets."

  "Yeah..."

  "So where're you at?" he asked again.

  She looked at him unsteadily, not quite nervous, but apprehensive somehow. "I didn't want to get into that right away-I wanted to get you committed first. Will you come?"

  "Somebody new?" he asked, his voice light.

  "Will you come?"

  "Maybe... so you've got someone."

  "Sort of."

  "Sort of? What's that?" He hopped off the chair and took a turn around the room. He wasn't angry, he thought, but he looked angry. He reached down and turned on the TV and a tinny, distant voice instantly cried, "Kirrrbeee Puck-it." He snapped it off again. "What does `sort of' mean? One foot on the floor at all times? Nothing below the waist?"

  Lily laughed and said, "You cheer me up, Davenport. You're so fucking crass...."

  "So... ?" He went to the window and looked out; the thunderheads were gray, with soaring pink tops, and were bearing down on the line of the river.

  She shrugged, looked out the window past him. "So, I was seeing a guy. I still am. We hadn't started looking for an apartment together, but the possibility was out there."

  "What happened?"

  "He had a heart attack."

  Lucas looked at her for a minute, then said, "Why does that make perfect sense?"

  She forced a smile. "It's really not very funny, I'm afraid. He's in terrible shape."

  "He's a cop?"

  "Yeah." The smile faded. "He's like you, in some ways. Not physically-he's tall and thin and white-haired. But he is-was-in intelligence and he loves the streets. He writes articles for the Times op-ed page about the street life. He has the best network of spies in the city. And he has a taste for, mmm..." She groped for the right phrase.

  "Dark-eyed married women?" Lucas suggested, moving closer.

  "Well, that," she said, the tentative smile returning. "But the thing is, he likes to fight... did like to fight. Like you. Now he can't walk two dozen steps without stopping for a breath."

  "Jesus." Lucas ran a hand through his hair. He'd had nightmares of being crippled. "What's the prognosis?"

  "Not so good." Tears glistened at the corners of her dark eyes. At the same moment, she smiled and said, "Shit. I wish I didn't do this." She wiped the tears away with the heel and knuckles of her hand. "This was his third attack. The first one was five years ago. That was bad. The second one was a couple months after the first, and wasn't so bad. Then he was coming back. He'd almost forgotten about them, he was working.... Then this third one, this was the worst of all. He's got extensive damage to the heart muscle. And he won't stop working. The doctors tell him to spend a year doing graded exercise, to stay away from work, from the stress. He won't do it. And he's still smoking, I think. He's sneaking them. I can smell them on his clothes... in his hair."

  "So he's going to die," Lucas said.

  "Probably."

  "That's not so bad," Lucas said, leaning back, looking at her, his voice flat. "You just say fuck it. You do what you want, and if you go, you go."

  "That's what you'd do, isn't it?"

  "I hope so," he said.

  "Men are such goddamn assholes," Lily said.

  After another long silence, Lucas asked, "So what are you doing for sex?"

  She started to laugh, but it caught in her throat, and she stood up and picked up her purse. "I better get going. Tell me you'll come to New York."

  "Answer the question," Lucas said. Without thinking about it, he moved closer. She noticed it, felt the pressure.

  "We're... very careful," she said. "He can't get too carried away."

  Lucas' chest felt curiously thick, a combination of anger and expectation. The electrici
ty between them crackled, and his voice was suddenly husky. "You never really liked being careful."

  "Ah, Jesus, Lucas," she said.

  He stepped up to her until he was only inches away. "Push me away," he whispered.

  "Lucas..."

  "Push me away," he said, "I'll go."

  She stepped back, dropped her purse. Outside, the first heavy drops of rain careened off the sidewalk, and a woman with a dog on a leash dashed past the house.

  She rocked back on her heels, looked down at her purse, then grabbed his shirt sleeve to balance herself, lifted one foot, then the other, pulled off her shoes, and stepped into the hallway that led to the bedroom. Lucas, standing in the living room, watched her go, until halfway down the hallway she turned her head, her dark eyes looking at him, and began to unbutton her blouse.

  Their lovemaking, she said later, sometimes resembled a fight, had an edge of violence, a tone of aggression. They might begin with an effort at tenderness, but that would slip and they would be bucking, wrenching, twisting....

  That night, as the last of the storm cells rumbled off into Wisconsin, with the room smelling of sweat and sex, she sat on the edge of the bed. She seemed weary, but there was a smile at the corner of her lips.

  "I'm such a goddamned slut," she said.

  "Oh, God..." He laughed.

  "Well, it's true," she said, "I can't believe it. I was such a nice girl for so long. But I just need. It's not intimacy. You're about as intimate as a fuckin' bear. I need the sex. I need to get jammed. I really can't believe it."

  "Did you know you were going to sleep with me?" Lucas asked. "When you got here?"

  She sat unmoving for a moment, then said, "I thought it might happen. So I went to the hotel first, and checked in. In case anyone called."

  He ran a fingernail down the bumps of her spine, and she shivered. She was going back to the hotel in case "anyone" called....

  "This guy you're sleeping with? `Anyone'?" Lucas said.

  "Yes?"

  "What are you going to tell him?"

  "Nothing. He doesn't need to know." She turned toward him. "And don't you tell him anything, either, Davenport."

  "Why?" Lucas said. "Why would I ever see him?"

  "His name's Dick Kennett." In the half-light of the bedroom he could see a tiny, rueful smile lift the corner of her mouth again. "He's running the Bekker case," she said.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Early morning.

  Lucas strolled along Thirty-fifth Street, sucking on half of an orange, taking in the city: looking at faces and display windows, at sleeping bums wrapped in blankets like thrown-away cigars, at the men hustling racks of newly made clothing through the streets.

  The citric acid was sharp on his tongue, an antidote for the staleness of a poor night's sleep. Halfway down the block, he stopped in front of a parking garage, stripped out the last of the pulp with his teeth, and dropped the rind into a battered trash barrel.

  Midtown South squatted across the street, looking vaguely like a midwestern schoolhouse from the 1950s: blocky, functional, a little tired. Six squad cars were parked diagonally in front of the building, along with a Cushman scooter. Four more squads were double-parked farther up the street. As Lucas paused at the trash basket, disposing of the orange, a gray Plymouth stopped in the street. A lanky white-haired man climbed out of the passenger side, said something to the driver, laughed and pushed the door shut.

  He didn't slam the door, Lucas noticed: he gave it a careful push. His eyes came up, checked Lucas, checked him again, and then he turned carefully toward the station. The fingers of his left hand slipped under a brilliant-colored tie, and he unconsciously scratched himself over his heart.

  Lucas, dodging traffic, crossed the street and followed the man toward the front doors. Lily had said Kennett was tall and white-haired, and the hand over the heart, the unconscious gesture....

  "Are you Dick Kennett?" Lucas asked.

  The man turned, eyes cool and watchful. "Yes?" He looked more closely. "Davenport? I thought it might be you.... Yeah, Kennett," he said, sticking out his hand.

  Kennett was two inches taller than Lucas, but twenty pounds lighter. His hair was slightly long for a cop's, and his beige cotton summer suit fit too well. With his blue eyes, brilliant white teeth against what looked like a lifetime tan, crisp blue-striped oxford-cloth shirt and the outrageous necktie, he looked like a doctor who played scratch golf or good club tennis: thin, intent, serious. But a gray pallor lay beneath the tan, and his eye sockets, normally deep, showed bony knife ridges under paper-thin skin. There were scars below the eyes, the remnants of the short painful cuts a boxer gets in the ring, or a cop picks up in the street-a cop who likes to fight.

  "Lily's been telling me about you," Lucas said, as they shook hands.

  "All lies," Kennett said, grinning.

  "Christ, I hope so," Lucas said. Lucas took in Kennett's tie, a bare-breasted Polynesian woman with another woman in the background. "Nice tie."

  "Gauguin," Kennett said, looking down at it, pleased.

  "What?"

  "Paul Gauguin, the French painter?"

  "I didn't know he did neckties," Lucas said uncertainly.

  "Yeah, him and Christian Dior, they're like brothers," Kennett said, flashing the grin. Lucas nodded and they went on toward the door, Lucas holding it open. "I fuckin' hate this, people holding doors," Kennett grumbled as he went through.

  "Yeah, but when you croak, how'd you like it to say on the stone, `Died opening a door'?" Lucas asked. Kennett laughed, an easy extroverted laugh, and Lucas liked him for it, and thought: Watch it. Some people could make you like them. It was a talent.

  "I could die pulling the tab on a beer can, if they let me drink beer, which they don't," Kennett was saying, suddenly sober. "Hope the fuck it never happens to you. Eat aspirin. Stop eating steak and eggs. Pray for a brain hemorrhage. This heart shit-it turns you into a coward. You walk around listening to it tick, waiting for it to stop. And you're weak. If some asshole mugged me, I'd have to take it."

  "I don't want to hear about it," Lucas said.

  "I don't want to talk about it, but I do, all the time," Kennett said. "Ready to meet the group?"

  "Yeah, yeah..."

  Lucas followed Kennett through the entrance lobby, waited with him until the reception sergeant buzzed them through to the back. Kennett led the way to a conference room with a piece of notebook paper Scotch-taped to the door: "Kennett Group." The room had four corkboards hung from the walls, covered with notes and call slips, maps of Manhattan, telephones, a couple of long tables and a dozen plastic chairs. In the center of it, a burly, sunburned cop in a white shirt and a thin dog-faced detective in a sport coat were facing each other, both with Styrofoam coffee cups in their hands, voices raised.

  "... your people'd get off their fuckin' asses, we could get somewhere. That's what's fuckin' us up, nobody wants to go outside because it's too goddamn hot. We know he's using the shit and he's got to get it somewhere."

  "Yeah, well I'm not the asshole who told everybody we'd have him in a week, am I? That was fuckin' crazy, Jack. As far as we know, he's buying whatever shit he's using in Jersey, or down in fuckin' Philly. So don't give me no shit...."

  A half-dozen more plainclothes cops, in thin short-sleeved shirts and wash pants, weapons clipped to their belts, watched the argument from the plastic chairs spread around the institutional carpet. Four of the six held Styrofoam coffee cups, and two or three were smoking cigarettes, snubbing them out in shallow aluminum ashtrays. One unattended cigarette continued to burn, the foul odor like a fingernail scratch on a blackboard.

  "What's going on?" Kennett asked quietly, moving to the front of the room. The argument stopped.

  "Discussing strategy," the sunburned cop said shortly.

  "Any conclusions?" Kennett asked. He was polite, but pushing. Taking over.

  The cop shook his head and turned away. "No."

  Lucas found a sea
t halfway back, the other cops looking at him, openly, carefully, with some distance.

  "That's Lucas Davenport, the guy from Minneapolis," Kennett said, almost absently, as Lucas sat down. He'd picked up a manila file with his name on it, and was flipping through memos and call slips. "He's gonna talk to the press this morning, then go out on the street this afternoon. With Fell."

  "How come you let this motherfucker Bekker get out?" the sunburned cop asked.

  "Wasn't me," Lucas said mildly.