Broken Prey

on the lights in the kitchen; nothing happened, but they would tell him when the power came back on. He moved into the living room, awake now, feeling the impulse from a spurt of adrenaline, dropped into a chair, the .45 in his lap.
    Thought about it. He was still thinking about it, getting nowhere, when the lights came back twenty minutes later.
     
    IN THE MORNING , before he shaved or showered, he called Del. The phone rang for a moment, then Del came up; he sounded as wired as Lucas had been.
    “You up?” Lucas asked.
    “I haven’t been to bed yet. We got a line on West, but it’s thin.” Tires squealed and a horn honked in the background. “We’re looking for a guy named Gary who begs for money at the McDonald’s stoplight in Dinky Town,” Del said. “Problem is, Gary is drunk somewhere and probably won’t show up before his shift starts at eleven o’clock. He supposedly has been hanging out with West.”
    “Where does he work? Gary?”
    A moment of silence. Then, “I just told you. At the McDonald’s stoplight in Dinky Town. That’s where I am now.” In his mind’s eye, Lucas could see exactly where Del was standing—a pay phone famous for dope deals.
    “He has a shift?”
    “It’s a good spot. He works it from eleven to three. These two other guys have it from seven to eleven, and three to six or seven. They share the sign: HOMELESS IRAQ VETERAN , STRUGGLING WITH AIDS . The night guy might be West, but we’re not sure.”
    “You don’t know where this Gary guy sleeps?”
    “One of the tunnels, I guess,” Del said. “We’re trying to figure that out now.”
    “Shrake and Jenkins still with you?”
    “Yeah. Shrake had some leftover amps, and we’re feeling pretty good,” Del said.
    “Shhh . . .”
    Del said, “Well, we took you serious when you told us to take our saps.”
    “That’s right. I’m heading down to St. John’s. You find this guy, call me.”
     
    SLOAN WAS RIGHT on time. They took the truck, headed south. Sloan wanted to talk about the security hospital, and rock ’n’ roll.
    “If the Big Three trained somebody, they had to have access to him. We know that Charlie Pope had access,” he said. “The question is, Who else had that kind of access? The training couldn’t have been quick, it would have taken awhile.”
    Lucas wasn’t sure about that. “Why would it take awhile? Assume that the guy is already nuts, and just needed to be pointed.”
    “Ah. But he’s not just nuts, he’s smart, ” Sloan said. “Smart people have their own ways of doing things, even if they’re crazy. They really got to this guy. They remodeled his brain. They had to convert him.”
     
    “I’VE GOT A bad feeling that nobody’ll really know about who-all had access,” Lucas said. “The place is only halfway a prison—all kinds of people go in and out of the secure wing. Half the menial work in the hospital is done by inmates.”
    “But this guy—the killer guy is major nuts. How many people who were major nuts have been recently released, and had extensive access?”
    “Other than Mike West.”
    “Ah, he’s not major nuts,” Sloan said. “He’s just one of those poor-fuck schizophrenics who can’t deal.”
     
    THEY RODE ALONG for a minute, and Lucas said, “We would have asked all these questions one day after the Rice killings, if we hadn’t found Pope’s DNA. Absolutely sidetracked us.”
    “No it didn’t,” Sloan said. “We would have had no idea about the hospital if it hadn’t been for the DNA. He actually put us on track.”
    “Not if he was going to kill them like the Big Three wanted them killed,” Lucas said. “Angela Larson might have been a coincidence, being killed like Taylor would kill her. But when Rice was killed like Biggie Lighter would have . . . cut off Rice’s dick . . . we would have noticed. Somebody would have.”
    Sloan scratched an ear. “Huh. I didn’t think of that.”
    “Because we were sidetracked,” Lucas said. “The guy’s been running us like a railroad.”
     
    FARTHER DOWN THE ROAD , Sloan said, “I got two words for you. About the rock ’n’ roll list.”
    “Rock ’n’ roll? That’s three words.”
    “Two words: Lou Reed.”
    “Lou Reed . . . ‘Walk on the Wild Side.’ ”
    “It’s not on your list. I heard it the other day when I was lyin’ on my ass, and I thought, ‘Jesus, that’s gotta go on the list.’ ”
    “You’re right, but the list is too long,” Lucas said.