Night Prey

by John Sandford

  "That is interesting," she said. She made a note in her notebook, then put the eraser end of her pencil against her teeth, pensively, erotically. He was starting to fixate on the idea of television anchorwomen and oral sex, Lucas thought. "The gun issue's so hot.

  . right now."

  She would pause every so often, leaving a gap in the conversation, almost as though she were inviting him to fill it in.

  She paused now, and Lucas said, "Reed's an English name, right?"

  "Yes. I'd be English on my father's side," she said. "Why?" "I was thinking," Lucas said. "You've got great Italian eyes, you know?"

  She smiled and caught her bottom lip with an upper tooth, and said, "Well, thank you...."

  When she left, Lucas went to the door with her. She moved along a little more slowly than he did, and he found himself almost on top of her, ushering her out. She smelled &e, he thought. He watched her down the hall. She wouldn't be an athlete. She was soft, smooth. She turned at the corner to see if he was watching, and just at that moment, when she turned, and though they resembled each other not at all, she reminded him of Heather.

  The rest of the day was a wasteland of paper, old reports, and conjectures. Connell wandered in after two, even paler than usual, said she'd been working on the computers. Lucas told her about the interview with Abby Weed. Connell nodded: "I'd already written them off. Hitting the Hillerods was just our good deed for the day."

  "How're you feeling?"

  "Sick," she said. Then quickly: "Not from last night. From...

  the big thing. It's coming back."

  "Jesus, Meagan...."

  knew it would," she said. "Listen, I'm going to talk to Anderson, and start helping Greave on those histories. I can't think of anything else."

  She left, but came back ten seconds later. "We've got to get him, Lucas. This week or next."

  don't know...."

  "That's all the time I've got this round... and the next round will be even shorter."

  Lucas got home early, found Heather on the couch reading The Robber Bride, her legs curled beneath her.

  "A dead end?"

  "Looks like it," Lucas said. "The woman in Madison confirmed Joe Hillerod's story. We're back to looking at paper."

  "Too bad. He sounds like a major jerk."

  "We've got him on the guns, anyway," Lucas said. "He handled most of the rifles, and their ID guys got good prints. And they found bolt cutters and a crowbar in his truck, and the tool-marks guy matched them to the marks on a gunshop door out in Wayzata."

  "So what's left? On the murder case?"

  "God, I don't know. But I feel like things are moving."

  Lucas spent the late evening in the study, going through Anderson's book on the caseþall the paper that anybody had brought in, with the histories that Greave had completed. Heather came to the door in her cotton nightgown and said, "Be extra quiet when you come to bed.

  I've got a heavy one tomorrow."

  "Yeah." He looked up from the paper, his hair in disarray, discouraged.

  "Christ, you know, there's so much stuff in here, and so much of it's bullshit. The stuff in this file, you could spend four years investigating and never learn a fuckin' thing."

  She smiled and came over and patted his hair back into place, and he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her close, so he could lean his head between her breasts. There was something animal about this: it felt so good, and so natural. Like momma. "You'll get him," she said.

  An hour later, he was puzzling over Anderson's note on the deaf people.

  Everything sounded right: a guy with a beard, going to the bookstore, in a truck. How in the hell did they screw up the license so bad? He glanced at his watch: one o'clock, too late to call anybody at St. Paul.

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Maybe something would bubble to the surface of his mind....

  Koop brought a sack of Taco Bell soft tacos to the rooftop, tossed the sack on top of the air-conditioner housing, and pulled himself up after them. There was still enough light that Sara Jensen might see him if she looked out her window, so he duckwalked across the housing until he was behind the exhaust vent.

  Putting the tacos aside, he shook the Kowa scope out of its canvas case and surveyed the apartment. Where was the blond guy? Had he come back?

  His heart was chilly with the fear....

  The drapes from both rooms were open, as usual. Sara Jensen was nowhere in sight. The bathroom door was closed.

  Satisfied for the moment, Koop settled in behind the vent, opening the tacos, gulping them down. He dripped sour cream on his jacket: Shit.

  He brushed the sour cream with a napkin, but there would be a grease stain.

  He tossed the napkin off the edge of the housing, then thought, I shouldn t do that, and made a mental note to pick it up before he left.

  Ten minutes after he arrived, Sara Jensen walkedþhurriedþout of the bathroom. She was nude, and the thrill of her body ran through him like an electric current, like a hit of speed. He put the scope on her as she sat at her dressing table and began to work on her makeup. He enjoyed seeing this, the careful work under the eyes, the touch-up of the lashes, the sensuous painting of her full lips. He dreamed about her lips....

  And he loved to watch her naked back. She had smoothly molded shoulders, the ripple of her spine from the top of her round ass straight to the nape of her neck. Her skin was fine, clearþone small dark mole on her left shoulder blade, the long, pale neck...

  She stood, turned toward him, face intent, her breasts bobbing, the gorgeous pubic patch... She dug through her dresser, looking at what?

  Underwear? She pulled on a pair of underpants, took them off, threw them back, pulled on a much briefer pair, looked at herself in the mirror.

  Looked again, backed away, pulled the bottom elastic of her pants away from her thighs, let it snap back, turned to look at her butt.

  And Koop began to worry.

  She found a bra to go with the pants, an underwired bra, perhaps: it seemed to push her up. She didn't really need it, he thought, but it did look good. She turned again, looking at her self, snapped the elastic on her pants leg again.

  Posed.

  She was pleased with herself.

  "What are you doing, Sara?" Koop asked. He tracked her with the scope.

  "What the fuck are you doing?"

  She disappeared into a closet and came back out with a simple dark dress, either very dark blue or black. She held it to her breasts, looked into the mirror, shook her head at herself, and went back into the closet. She came back out with blue jeans and a white blouse, held them up, put them on, tucked in the shirt. Looked at herself, made a face in the mirror, shook her head, went back into the closet, emerged with the dress. She took off the jeans, stripping for him again, exciting him. She picked up the dress, pulled it over her head, smoothed it down.

  "Are you going out, Sara?"

  She looked in the mirror again, one hand on her ass, then took the dress off, tossed it on the bed, and looked thoughtfully at her chest of drawers. Walked to the chest, opened the bottom drawer, and took out a pale-blue cotton sweat suit. She pulled it on, pushed up the sleeves on the sweatshirt, went back to the mirror. Pulled off the sweatshirt, took off the bra, pulled the sweatshirt back on.

  Koop frowned. Sweat suit?

  The dress had been simple but elegant. The jeans casual but passable at most places in the Cities. But the sweat suit? Maybe she'd just been trying on stuff. But if so, why all the time in the bathroom?

  Why the sense of urgency?

  Koop turned away, dropped behind the duct, lit a Camel, then rolled onto his knees and looked back through her window. She was standing in front of her mirror, flipping her hair with her hands. Brushing it back: breaking down its daytime structure. Huh.

  She stopped suddenly, then ducked back at the mirror, gave her hair a last flip, then hurriedþskipped onceþgoing out of the bedroom, into the front room, to the door. S
aid something, a smile on her face, then opened the door.

  Goddamn it.

  The blond guy was there. He had a chin on him, a butt-chin, with a dimple in it. He was wearing jeans and a canvas shirt, looking as tousled as she did. She stepped back from him, pulled a piece of her sweat suit out from her leg, almost as if she were about to curtsy.

  Butt-chin laughed and stepped inside and leaned forward as if he were about to peck her on the cheek, and then the peck igruted and they stood there in each other's arms, the hallway door still open behind them.

  KOOP rose to a half-stoop, looking across the fifty feet of air at his true love in another man's arms, He groaned aloud and hurled his cigarette toward them, at the window. They never saw it. They were too busy.

  "Motherfuckers...."

  They didn't go out. KOOP watched in pain as they moved to the couch.

  He realized, suddenly, why she had rejected the jeans and vacillated between the dress and the sweat suit: access.

  A guy can't get his hands in a tight pair of jeans, boyo. Not without a lot of preliminaries. With a sweatsuit, there were no barriers.

  No problems getting your hands in. And that's where Blondy's wereþ in Sara's loose sweatpants, under her loose sweatshirt, Sara writhing beneath his touchþbefore they went to the bedroom.

  Blondy stayed the night.

  So did KOOP, huddled behind the vent on the air-conditioner housing, fading from consciousness to unconsciousnessþnot exactly sleep, but something else, something like a coma. Toward dawn, with just the light jacket, he got very cold. When he moved, he hurt. About four-thirty, the stars began to fade. The sun rose into a flawless blue sky and shone down on KQOP, whose heart had turned to stone.

  He felt it: a rock in his chest. And no mercy at all.

  He had to wait more than an hour in the light before there was any movement in Sara Jensen's apartment. She woke first, rolled over, said something to the lump on the other side. Then he said somethingþ KOOP thought he did, anywayþand she moved up behind him, both of them on their sides, talking.

  Two or three minutes later, Blondy got up, yawning, stretching. He sat naked on the bed, his back to KOOP, then suddenly snatched the blankets down. Sara was there, as naked as he was, and he flopped on top of her, his head between her breasts. Koop turned away, squeezed his eyes shut.

  He just couldn't watch.

  And he just couldn't not watch. He turned back. Blondy was nibbling on one of Sara Jensen's nipples, and Sara, back arched, her hands in his hair, was enjoying every second of it. The stone in KOOP'S heart began to fragment, to be replaced by a cold, unquenchable anger. The fucking whore was taking on another man. The fucking whore...

  But he loved her anyway.

  He couldn't help himself.

  And couldn't help watching when she pushed him flat on the bed, and trailed her tongue from his chest down across his navel....

  The blond guy &ally left at seven o'clock.

  KOOP had stopped thinking long before that. For an hour, he'd simply been waiting, his knife in his hand. He occasionally ran it down his face, over his beard, as if he were shaving. He was actually getting in tune with it, the steel in the blade....

  When the door closed behind Blondy, KOOP barely gave Sara Jensen a thought. There'd be time for her later. She turned away, hurrying back to the bedroom to get ready for work.

  KOOP, wearing his glasses and snap-brimmed hat, flew off the air-conditioner housing. He had just enough control to check the apartment hallway before bursting into it from the roof access, a man stood in it, facing the elevator. KOOP cursed, but the man suddenly stepped forward and was gone. Koop ran the length of the hall and took the stairs.

  Took the stairs as though he were falling, a long circular dash, with no awareness of steps or landings, just a continuous drop, his legs flashing, shoes slapping like a machine gun on the concrete.

  At the bottom, he checked the lobby through the window in the stairway door. Three or four people, and the elevator bell dinged: more coming.

  Frustrated, he looked around, then went down another flight, into the basement. And found a fire exit, leading out through the back. Just before he hit the back door, he saw a sign and read the first words, DO NOT, and then he was through. Somewhere behind him, an alarm went off, a shrill ringing like King Kong's telephone.

  Were there pictures? The possibility flashed through his brain and then disappeared. He'd worry about that later. That he hadn't been seen in the buildingþthat was important. That he catch Blondy in the streetþthat was even more important.

  Koop ran down the alley at the back of the building, around the building. There were a dozen people up and down the street, in business clothes, some coming toward him, some walking away, briefcases, purses.

  A cane.

  He groped in his pocket, wrapping his fist around the knife again.

  Checked faces, checked again. Blondy was not among them. Where in the hell... ?

  Koop pulled the hat farther down on his head, looked both ways, then started walking toward the entrance of Sara Jensen's apartment. Had he already gotten down? Or was he slow getting down? Or maybe she'd given him a parking card and he'd left his car in her ramp. He swerved toward the ramp exit, although if the guy was in a Mercedes or a Lexus what was he gonna do, stab it? He thought he might.

  A car came out of the ramp, with a woman driver. Koop looked back at the doorþand saw him.

  Blondy had just come out. His hair was wet, his face soft, sated.

  His necktie, a conservative swath of silk, was looped untied around his shirt collar. He carried a raincoat.

  Koop charged him. Started way back at the entrance to the parking ramp and hurtled down the sidewalk. He wasn't thinking, wasn't hearing, wasn't anything: wasn't aware of anyone other than Blondy.

  Wasn't aware of the noise that came out of his mouth, not quite a scream, more of a screech, the sound of bad brakes...

  Wasn't aware of other people turning...

  Blondy saw him coming.

  The soft look fell off his face, to be replaced by a puzzled frown, then alarm as Koop closed.

  Koop screamed, "Motherfucker," and went in, the blade flicking out of his fist, his long arm arcing in a powerful, upward rip. But quicker than Koop could believe, Blondy stepped right, swung his arm and raincoat, caught Koop in the wrist, and Koop's hand went past Blondy's left side. They collided and they both staggered: the guy was heavier than he looked, and in better shape. Koop's mind began working again, touched by a sudden spark of fear. Here he was, on the street, circling a guy he didn't know....

  Koop screamed again, and went in. He could hear the guy screaming "Wait Wait," but it sounded distant, as though it came from the opposite shore of a lake. The knife seemed to work on its own, and this time he caught the blond, caught his hand, and blood spattered across Koop's face.

  He went in again, and then staggered: he'd been hit. He was astonished. The man had hit him.

  He went in again, and Blondy kept backing, swinging. Koop was ready this time, blocked him.

  And got him.

  Really got him.

  Felt the knife point go in, felt it coming up...

  Then he was hit again, this time on the back of the head. He spun, and another man was there, and a third one coming, swinging a briefcase like a club. Koop felt Blondy go down behind him, with a long ripping groan, almost tripped over his body, avoiding the briefoase, swung the blade at the new attacker, missed, slashed at the second one, the one who'd hit him in the head, missed again.

  His attackers both had dark hair. One had glasses, both had bared teeth, and that was all he saw: hair, glasses, teeth. And the briefoase.

  Blondy was down and Koop stumbled and looked down at him, saw the scarlet blood on his shirt and a fourth man yelled at him, and Koop ran.

  He could hear them screaming, "Stop him, stop him..." He ran sideways across the street, between parked cars. A woman on the sidewalk jumped out of the way. Her face was wh
ite, frightened, she had a red necktie and matching hat and large horsy teeth, and then he was past her.

  One of the men chased him for two hundred feet, alone. Koop suddenly stopped and started back at him, and the man turned and started to run away. Koop ran back toward the park, into h, down the grassy tree-shaded walks.

  Ran, blood gushing from his nose, the knife folding in his hand, as if by magic, disappearing into his pocket. He wiped his face, pulled off the hat and glasses, slowed to a walk.