Certain Prey

squatted next to the video camera that Rinker had tossed on the floor. Touched it, turned it over.
    “What?” Rinker asked again.
    “That fuckin’ Rolo. This camera is a VHS-C. This tape . . .” She held up the tape they’d found. “This tape is a full-sized VHS tape. If you were making a copy using your cheap-ass VCR and the camera, this is what you’d use to pick up the copy. So there’s another tape—a VHS-C.”
    “You’re sure?” Rinker asked.
    “Look,” Carmel said. She picked up the camera, turned it over, opened the cartridge compartment. The tape they had was at least twice as big as the compartment.
    “Bad news,” Rinker said.
    Carmel glanced at her, sideways and quickly: if Rinker were to shoot her now, at least all of Rinker’s troubles would be over. She could walk away and not have to worry at all.
    “You worry too much,” Rinker said.
    “I anticipate,” Carmel said. She looked at Rinker. “Let’s get back to my place. Do you still have those address books?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And let’s get his wallet and the phone book and whatever else that might have names in it . . . I’ve got to think about this.”
    “You don’t think it’s in a safe-deposit box?”
    “He’s a drug dealer. He’d never have a safe-deposit box, not under his own name, anyway. We didn’t find any fake IDs that he could use to get to a box under a different name, and we didn’t find any keys. I suspect he did what drug dealers usually do: he left it with somebody he trusts.”
    “Like who?”
    “Like a lawyer. Except that I’m his lawyer. He could have another one, I suppose; I can find out. But he’s a spic, so it’s probably a relative. Anyway, we’ve got to do some research. In a hurry . . .”
    “I’ll cancel my plane ticket,” Rinker said. “I guess we keep the guns.”
    • • •

    O N THE WAY back to Carmel’s, Rinker glanced at her and asked, “How much did you enjoy that? Back there?”
    Carmel started to answer, then changed directions and asked a question of her own: “Have you been to school? To college?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “Really? I didn’t think . . . you know.”
    “Professional killer and all,” Rinker said.
    “Yeah.” Carmel nodded. “What’d you major in?”
    “Psychology. Actually, I’m about eight credits away from my B.A. I should have it finished next spring.”
    “Good school?”
    “Okay school.”
    “But you’re not going to tell me which.”
    “Well . . .”
    “That’s okay,” Carmel said. “Anyway, I did sort of enjoy it, just a little bit, maybe. Whether I did or not, he had to go.”
    “You enjoyed it just a little bit? Maybe?”
    “Didn’t you?” Carmel asked.
    “No. I couldn’t stand that sound he was making. That smell when he . . . you know. I didn’t like it at all.”
    Now Carmel took her eyes off the road for a moment, to look at Rinker. “Don’t worry, I’m just a sociopath. Like you. I’m not a psychopath or anything.”
    “How do you know I’m not a psychopath?”
    “From what Rolo told me—what he’d heard about you. Quiet, professional, clean. You do it because you can, and because you can make money at it, and because you’re good at it; not because you have some slobbering lust to kill people.”
    “Slobbering lust?”
    “Listen, I’ve handled a couple of cases . . .”
    Carmel had Rinker laughing by the time they got back to her place. And as they got out of the car, Rinker looked at her over the roof and said, “Wichita State.”
    “What?”
    “That’s where I go to school.”
    Carmel had the sense that Rinker had told her something important. After a few moments, she realized that she had. She’d told Carmel where she could be found.
    Where home was.

SIX

    Three St. Paul cop cars and a crime-scene van were parked outside the Frogtown house when Lucas arrived. Up and down the street, people sat on their short wooden stoops, looking down at Rolo’s house, watching the cops come and go. Lucas parked, climbed out of the Porsche and started toward the house. A St. Paul uniformed cop saw him coming and squared off to stop him, but a plainclothes cop stuck his head out the door and yelled, “Hey, Dick. Let that guy in.”
    “You’re in,” Dick said, and Lucas nodded and went up the steps. Sherrill was standing just inside the door. She was a dark-haired, dark-eyed Madonna in a crisp yellow blouse, with a gray skirt in place of her usual slacks, and a black silk jacket to cover the .357 she