Chosen Prey

and from the silvered window, Del could see the entire parking lot. The waiting grew uncomfortable as they listened to Barstad moving around in her apartment. Then Del said, “He’s here.”
    Lucas was speed-dialing Barstad. She picked up, and he said, “He’s here. You know how to call us.”
    “I know. I’m ready.” She was gone.
    “He’s out of the car,” Del said. He stepped away from the window and headed back toward the office. “Here we go.”
    “Oh, shit—look at this,” Gibson said. He was staring at the monitor. They’d heard Barstad step away to the bedroom after she hung up the phone, and now, five seconds later, she was back—and she wasn’t wearing a stitch. She was walking toward the door and the camera.
    “Jesus,” Lucas said.
    Del picked up the tone and bent around the monitor to look. “She must have goose bumps the size of watermelons,” he said. “You know . . . she’s . . . jeez. She’s not bad. All natural.”
    She glanced up at the camera as she got to the door, and Lucas thought she might have been smiling. “Fuckin’ crazy goddamn . . .”
     
    B ARSTAD OPENED THE door and said, “Come in quick. It’s a little cool.”
    “Mmm,” he said. He fitted a hand around her hip and they kissed, long and carefully. As they broke apart, he said, “You look nice. The cold is nice for your nipples.” He reached out and gently pinched one, and the slight pain caused her to breathe in, sharply, quickly. She said, “James, I really need something here.”
    “So do I,” he said. He had the cord in his pocket, but for now, forgotten. She had taken his hand and was pulling him back toward the bedroom.
    “Wait,” she said. “The bedroom’s so dark.” She went to the wall, where a futon unfolded over a couch rack. “Help me,” she said.
    Together they pulled the futon off the rack and threw it on the floor, and she began tearing at his clothing. He was saying, “Wait, wait wait . . .” as she pulled at his shirt and then at his belt. He was staggering around with his pants down around his ankles when she caught him in her mouth, and he started to laugh and tried to push her away and finally collapsed on the futon.
     
    “G OD HELP ME,” Gibson said. “Look at this.”
    “This could be a problem,” Lucas said. “This could be a problem. Christ, the defense attorneys will put this on and they’ll impeach the shit out of her.”
    “I don’t know,” Del said. “She’s so up front about it. Maybe she’ll just tell them she likes . . . Oh, Jesus.”
    “Maybe she likes it, but on television?”
    Marshall backed out of the office. “This is over the edge.”
    “The guy’s kinda hung,” Gibson said.
    “You think so?” Del asked. “I was gonna say he was a little small.”
    As sex always does, it ended, with Barstad and Qatar lying on the futon. The camera wasn’t good enough to tell, but the cops imagined that both of them were covered with sweat and out of breath; they thought that because everybody in the monitoring room was sweating and out of breath. Lucas could smell them all.
     
    B ARSTAD, NEARLY RECOVERED, said, “James. You were ready. What have you been doing? You were really excellent.”
    Qatar smiled at her, but his ears tingled: There was a false note there, a kind of patronizing overtone. He’d never heard it before. He said, “Thank you. You can get me . . . seriously turned on.”
    “Do you like slapping me?” she asked. There it was again, that tone.
    “If you like it,” he said. “I think I like the Ping-Pong paddles better.”
    She made a little moue. “That just made my bottom hurt, and I didn’t get to see it.”
    “But I got to see it,” he said. “And it more than made your bottom hurt.”
    “We’re past that,” she said. “Moving on.”
    “Moving on sooner or later,” he said. He stood up. “I’m going to run back to the bathroom. Back in a sec.”
     
    F ROM C ULVER’S OFFICE, they could hear him in the bathroom, the water running in the sink. On the television monitor, Barstad lay with her back to them, but once or twice peeked over her shoulder in the direction of the camera.
    “She’s really getting off on this,” Del said.
    “So am I,” said Gibson. “I wonder what her date calendar looks like.”
    “Ya oughta keep your goddamn mouth shut,” Marshall snapped at Gibson. Lucas said, “Hey,” and Marshall said, “Goddamnit, Lucas, she’s the spitting image of Laura. If I’d known