KOOP HAD NOT decided what to do. Not exactly. But he knew for sure that he wouldn’t be going back to jail. He couldn’t handle that. Jail was death. There would be no deals, nothing that would put him inside.
There was an excellent chance he’d be acquitted, his attorney said: the state’s case seemed to be based entirely on Schultz’s testimony. “In fact, I’m surprised they bothered to arrest you. Surprised,” the attorney said.
If he was convicted, though, Koop’d have to do some small amount of time—certainly not a year, although technically he could get six years. After the conviction, the state would continue bail through a presentencing investigation. He’d be free for at least another month. . . .
But if he was convicted, Koop knew, he’d be gone. Mexico. Canada. Alaska. Somewhere. No more jail. . . .
THE ATTORNEY HAD told him where he could get the truck. “I checked, and they’re finished with it.” He needed the truck. The truck was his, gave him security. But what if the cops had him on some kind of watch list? What if they tagged him to the bank, where he had his stash? He needed to get at the stash, for the money to pay the bondsman.
Wait, wait, wait. . . .
The trial wasn’t even going to be for a month. He didn’t have to do anything in the next fifteen minutes. If they were watching him, he’d spot it. Unless they’d bugged the truck. Koop put his hands to his head and pushed: holding it together.
HEGOT THE truck back—it was all routine, clerical, the bureaucrats didn’t give a shit, as long as you had the paper—and drove to his house. Two of the neighborhood cunts were walking on the street and stepped up on a lawn when they saw him coming, wrenching a baby buggy up on the grass with them.
Bitches, he mouthed at them.
He pushed the button on the garage-door opener when he was still a half-block away, and rolled straight into the garage stall, the door dropping behind him. He took ten minutes to walk around the house. The cops had been all over the place. Things were moved, and hadn’t been put back quite right. Nothing was trashed. Nothing was missing, as far as he could tell. The basement looked untouched.
He walked through the front room. An armchair sat facing the television. “Cocksucker,” he screamed. He kicked the side of it, and the fabric caved in. Koop, breathing hard, looked around the room, at the long wall reaching down toward the bedrooms. Sheetrock. A slightly dirty, inoffensive beige. “Cocksucker,” he screamed at it. He hit the wall with his fist; the sheetrock caved in, a hole like a crater on the moon. “Cocksucker.” Struck again, another hole. “Cocksucker . . .”
Screaming, punching, he moved sideways down the hall, stopped only when he was at the end of it, looked back. Nine holes, fist-size, shoulder height. And pain. Dazed, he looked at his hand: the knuckles were a pulp of blood. He put the knuckles to his mouth, licked them off, sucked on them. Tasted good, the blood.
Breathing hard, blowing like a horse, Koop staggered back to the bedroom, sucking his knuckles as he went.
In the bedroom, the first thing he saw was the bottle of Opium, sitting on the chest. He unscrewed the top, sniffed it, closed his eyes, saw her.
White nightgown, black triangle, full lips . . .
Koop put some Opium on his fingertips, dabbed it under his nose, stood swaying with his eyes closed, just visiting. . . .
Finally, with the dreamlike odor of Sara Jensen playing with his mind, and the pain in his hand helping to reorder it, he got a flashlight and went back out to the garage. He began working through the truck, inch by inch, bolt by bolt, sucking his knuckles when the blood got too thick. . . .
32
LUCAS HOVERED IN the men’s accessories, next to the cologne, behind a rotating rack of wallets, keeping the top of Koop’s head in sight. He carried a fat leather briefcase. Koop loitered in the men’s sportswear, his hands in his pockets, touching nothing, not really looking.
Connell beeped. “What’s he doing?”
“Killing time,” Lucas said. A short elderly lady stopped to look at him, and he turned away. “Can you see him?”
“He’s two aisles over.”
“Careful. You’re too close. Sloan?”
“Yeah, I got him. I’m going over to the north exit. That’s the closest way out now. I’ll go on through the skyway if he moves that way.”
“Good. Del?”
“Just coming up to sportswear. I can’t see him, but I’m right across from Connell. I can see Connell.”
“You’re real close to him. He’s behind the shirt rack,” Connell chirped.
“Excuse me, could you tell me where men’s bathrobes are?” Lucas turned around, and looked down at the short elderly lady. She had ear curls like a lamb, and small thick glasses.
“Down by that post where you see the Exit sign,” Lucas said.
“Thank you,” she said, and tottered away.
Lucas angled through Ralph Lauren into Guess. A blond woman in a black dress stepped up to him and said, “Escape?”
“What?” He stepped toward her, and she stepped back and held up a cylindrical bottle as though she were defending herself.
“Just a spritz?”
Men’s perfume. “Oh, no, I’m sorry,” Lucas said, moving on. The woman looked after him.
Koop was moving, and Connell beeped. “He’s headed toward the north door. Still moving slow.”
“I’ve got him,” Lucas said.
Sloan said, “I’m going through the skyway.”
“I’ll move into Sloan’s spot,” Del said. “Meagan, you’ve been the most exposed, you either oughta go through way ahead or stay back.”
“It’s too soon to go through ahead of him,” Connell said. “I’ll hang back.”
“I’ll catch up to you,” Lucas said.
Lucas moved up to a glass case of Coach briefcases and looked down the store at Koop’s back. Koop had stopped again, no more than thirty feet away, poking a finger through a rack of leather jackets. Lucas stepped back, focused on Koop, when a hand hooked his elbow. A youngish man in a suit was behind him, another to his left. The perfume woman was behind them.
“May I ask you what you’re doing?” the man in the suit asked. Store security, a tough guy, with capped teeth. Lucas stepped hard behind the counter, out of sight of Koop, the two men lurching along with him. The security man’s grip tightened.
“I’m a Minneapolis homicide cop on surveillance,” Lucas said, his voice low and mean, like a hatchet. He reached into his pocket, pulled his badge case, flipped it open. “If you give me away, I’ll pull your fucking testicles off and stuff them in your ears.”
“Jesus.” The security man looked at the bug in Lucas’s ear, then at his face, at what looked like rage. He went pale. “Sorry.”
“Get the fuck out of this end of the store, all of you,” Lucas said. He pointed the other way. “Go that way. Go separately. Don’t walk in the aisles and don’t look back.”
“I’m . . .” the man was stuttering. “I’m sorry, I used to be a cop.”
“Yeah, right.” Lucas turned away and sidled out from behind the case. Koop was gone. “Shit.”
Connell beeped. “He’s moving.”
ROUX WAS SCARED to death. Connell’s idea had scared her so badly that she thought about switching back to Gauloises.
But Jensen had come to see her the day before, wearing a power suit and carrying a power briefcase, and she’d laid it out: a sucker game might be the only way to take him.
Roux, stuck between a rock and a hard place, had gone for the hard place.
“Thanks,” Connell had said to Jensen when they were in the hall outside of Roux’s office. “Takes guts.”
“I want to get him so bad that my teeth hurt,” Jensen had said. “When will he get out?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Connell had said. Her eyes defocused, as though she were looking into the future.
“And you,” Jensen said to Lucas. “Did I tell you, you remind me of my older brother?”
“He must be a good-
looking guy,” Lucas said.
“God, I’m sick, and he’s trying to push me under,” Connell groaned. “The nausea is overwhelming. . . .”
They’d tracked him from the moment Koop had left the jail. Took him home, put him to bed. Everything was visual: all the tracking devices had temporarily been taken off the truck. If he thought about his arrest, he might wonder how they’d picked him up at a liquor store.
The next day, he’d left the house a little earlier than usual. He’d gone to his gym, worked out. Then he drove to a park, and ran. That had been a nightmare. They weren’t ready for it, they were all in street shoes. They’d lost him a half-dozen times, but never for more than a minute or two, when he was running hills.
“This guy,” Lucas said when they watched him run back to the truck, “is not somebody to fuck with. He just did three miles at a dead run. There are pro fighters in worse shape than he is.”
“I’d take him on,” Connell said.
Lucas looked at her. “Bullshit.”
The Ruger was in a mufflike opening of her handbag, and she slipped it out in one motion. Big hands. She spun the cylinder. “I would,” she said.
After the park, Koop went home. Stayed for an hour. Started out again, and wound up pulling the team through the skyways, right up to Jensen. “Where’s he going?” Connell asked as Lucas caught up. She took his arm, made them into a couple, a different look. “Is he going after her?”
“He’s headed in her direction,” Lucas said. They were closing a bit, and Lucas turned her around, spoke into the radio. “Sloan, Del, you got him. He’s coming through.”
“It’s ten minutes to five,” Connell said. “She gets off about now.”
Sloan beeped. “Where is he?”
Del: “He’s stopped halfway across, he’s looking down at the street.”
Lucas pulled Connell to one side. “Walk across the entrance sideways, glance down there. Don’t come back if he’s looking this way.”
She nodded, walked across the aisle that led to the skyway, glanced to her left, continued across, looked back, and said, “He’s just looking out.” She waited a moment, then crossed back to Lucas, again glancing down the skyway.
“He’s moving,” she said to her radio.
“Got him,” said Del. “He’s out of the skyway.”
“Coming through,” Lucas said. “Raider-Garrote’s in the Exchange Building.”
Another department store separated them from the Exchange Building, but Koop didn’t linger. He was moving quickly now, glancing at his watch. He went through the next skyway, Sloan out in front of him, Del breaking off to the side, then dashing down half a block and re-crossing in a parallel skyway, turning back toward the surveillance team.
Lucas and Connell split up, single again, Connell now carrying her huge purse in one hand, like a briefcase. Lucas put the hat on.
“Sloan?”
“It’s going down, man,” Sloan said, sounding like he might be out of breath. “Something’s gonna happen. I’m going past Raider-Garrote right now. I’m gonna stop here, in case he goes in, pulls some shit.”
“Christ, Del, move up. . . .”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. . . .”
Connell moved back to him. “What’re we doing?” she asked.
“Get close, but not too close. I’m gonna call Sara.” Connell strode away, her gun hand resting on top of her purse. Lucas fumbled in his breast pocket, pulled out the cellular phone, pushed the memory-dial and the number 7. A moment later, the phone rang and Jensen picked it up.
“It’s happening,” Lucas said. “He’s right outside your door. Don’t look directly at him if you can avoid it. He’ll see the trap in your eyes.”
“Okay. I’m just leaving,” Jensen said. She sounded calm enough; he felt like there might be a small smile in her voice.
“You’ll take the elevator up?”
“Like always,” she said.
LUCAS CALLED THE other three, explained. Del came up and they started off together, Sloan interrupting: “Here he comes. And Connell’s right behind him.”
“We’re coming in,” Lucas said. “Del’s coming first. You better move out of sight, Sloan. What’s he doing?”
“He’s looking through the windows . . . I see Connell.”
DEL TOTTERED ON ahead, perfect as a skyway wan derer, a little drunk, nowhere to go, staying inside until the stores closed, and moving out on the streets for the night. People looked away from him—even through him—but not at him.
“I just went by him,” he called back to Lucas. “He’s looking through the window, like he’s reading the numbers off their boards. Jensen’s on the way out.”
“I just walked back past him,” Sloan said. “Del, you better get out of sight for a minute.”
“I’m coming,” Lucas said.
There was a moment of silence. Lucas was conspicuous, loitering in the skyway, and he crossed to a newsstand cut as a notch into the skyway wall. Sloan came on. “Jensen’s out. He’s walking away, same way I am, coming at you, Lucas.”
“I’m going into the newsstand,” Lucas said. “I’ll pick him up.”
A moment later Sloan said, “Christ, Lucas, put your radio away. I think he’s coming in there.”
Lucas turned it off, slipped it into his pocket, grabbed a copy of The Economist from the newsstand, opened it, turned his back to the entrance. A second later, Koop came in and looked around. Lucas glanced at him from the corner of his eye. The store was just big enough for the two of them plus the gum counter with a bored teenager behind it. Koop took down a magazine, opened it. Lucas felt him turn toward the skyway, glanced at him again. Koop’s back was turned, and he was looking over the top of the magazine. Waiting for Jensen.
Sloan walked by, kept going. Koop was close enough that Lucas could smell him, a light scent of aging jock-sweat. People were streaming by the doorway as offices closed throughout the building, mostly women, a few of them still wearing the old eighties uniform of blue suit and after-work running shoes. Koop never looked at Lucas: he was completely focused on the skyway.
A man came in and said, “Give me a pack of Marlboros and a box of Clorets.” The girl gave them to him, and he paid, opened the cigarettes, and threw all but two of them in a trash can and walked away.
“Doesn’t want his wife to know,” the girl said to Lucas.
“I guess.” Shit. Koop would look at him.
Koop didn’t. He tossed the magazine back on the rack and hurried out. Lucas looked after him. Just down the skyway, he saw Connell’s blond hair and Jensen’s black. He put the magazine back, and started after Koop, using the radio again.
“They’re coming at you, Sloan. Del, where are you?”
“Coming up from behind. Sloan said you were pinned, and I stayed back in case he came that way. I’m coming up.”
“Elevators,” Connell grunted.
“I’m coming,” Lucas said. “Del, Sloan, you better get your rides.”
Sloan and Del acknowledged and Lucas said, “Greave, you guys ready?”
“We’re ready.” They were in the van, on the street.
“Elevator,” Lucas said. He took the bug out of his ear, put it in his pocket.
Koop was facing the elevator door, waiting for it to return. He’d be the first on. Four other people waited, including Jensen and Connell. Jensen stood directly behind Koop’s broad back, staring at the seam at his neck, Connell was beside her. Lucas edged in, just in front of Connell.
The elevator light went white, and the doors opened. Koop stepped in, pushed a button. Lucas stepped in beside him, turned the other way, pushed the button for Jensen’s floor. Connell moved in on the other side of Lucas, in the corner, where Koop couldn’t see her face. Lucas stood a half-step from the back of the elevator, quarter-turned toward Connell. Koop had never gotten a straight-on look at them, but they couldn’t do this again, not for a couple of days. Jensen and another woman got on last, Jensen stepping immediately in fron
t of Koop. The doors closed and they started up. Lucas couldn’t see Koop, couldn’t look at him. He said, “Long day,” to Connell, who said, “Aren’t they all . . . I think Del’s coming down with a cold.”
Elevator talk. The woman beside Jensen turned to look at Lucas, and Jensen stepped back a bit, her butt bumping the front of Koop’s pants. “Sorry,” she mumbled, flashing a glance back at him.
When they got off, Lucas and Connell got off behind her. The doors closed and Koop went on up. He was parked on seven.
“I saw that,” Connell said to Jensen, grinning. “You’re the bitch from hell.”
“Thank you,” Jensen said.
“Don’t do it again,” Lucas said as they walked toward the cars. “Right now, we’re golden. A little too much, and we’re screwed.”
KOOP FOLLOWED JENSEN out to a small strip shopping center; waited outside while she bought groceries.
“He’s gonna do it,” Connell said. She was watching him with the binoculars. She sounded elated and grim at the same time, like a burned survivor of a plane crash.
“He hasn’t looked away from the door since she went in. He’s totally focused. He’s gonna do it.”
Koop tracked Jensen back to her apartment, the pod of cops all around him, running the parallel streets, ahead and behind, switching off. Jensen rolled into the parking ramp. Koop stopped, watched for a few minutes from his truck, then began wandering, out on the interstates. He did a complete loop of the Cities, driving I-494 and I-694.
“Go on back, you fucker,” Connell hissed at him. “Get back there.”
At nine o’clock, they sat at a stoplight and watched two middle-aged men on a par-three golf course, one with white hair and the other with a crew cut, trying to play in the quickly closing darkness. The crew cut missed a two-foot putt, Lucas shook his head, and Koop moved on.
Ten minutes later, he was on I-35, heading north. Through the Minneapolis loop—and then, like a satellite in a degrading orbit, watched as he was slowly pulled back toward Jensen’s apartment.
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