Chosen Prey

been a movie star: a bad actress.
    He was worried about his rope. If she looked in the closet, she’d find it. She was sure to come across it sooner or later. He had to get it back, and hide it someplace where it would never be found. If the police were on him . . .
    If the police were on him. That was the question.
    He pushed himself up, steeled himself, got a drink of water, took a couple of aspirins, and went out to his car. He had an hour of light, he thought. If the police were there . . . He thought about it for a few minutes, then headed over to the Minneapolis Museum of Art. The museum was a reasonable destination for an art historian; even better, most people parked along the narrow streets, around the museum, and finding a space wasn’t all that easy.
    As he drove, he watched his rearview mirror. He assumed that any police car would not be right on his tail, so he tried to look three or four cars back. By the time he got to the museum, he was watching a gray American car. The car was a few years old and completely nondescript. He cruised up to the museum and slowed, looking for a space; stopped when he found one, a small one, tried to maneuver into it. Got it wrong, deliberately, and pulled back into the street.
    The gray car, as far as he could tell, had disappeared from view. He tried again, messed it up, then gave up and drove past the museum, around the corner, around another corner, down the back of the museum, moving quickly now. As he reached the next corner, the gray car appeared in his rearview, and his heart jumped.
    He was right: They were onto him.
    He turned the corner, found another parking space halfway down the block, between the museum and a park. He began maneuvering into it, and with his arm over the backseat of the car, saw the gray car stop at the corner before coming around it. He was sure the man inside was looking at him. He got the car into the space, locked it, and, never looking back, walked around the corner and down the block to the museum entrance.
    He visited the Impressionists and post-Impressionists. Forced himself to take some time. Looked long and hard at a van Gogh, but saw nothing in it. Walked slowly around the gallery, and the paintings might as well have been Snoopy cartoons. A few people wandered past, but none of them met his eye or seemed interested in him. After a half hour, he could stand it no longer, and headed for the exit. He still had some light.
    He maneuvered the car out of the parking space and headed home; never saw the gray car, could never find a car that seemed to be tracking him. Had he been wrong? He stopped at a grocery store, bought some sliced turkey and bread, more milk and cereal, finished the drive home. Nothing. Where were they?
    By early evening, he was exhausted and bored at the same time. He had convinced himself again that he was being watched, and was afraid to leave the house in the night. He ate cereal again, munching through three bowls of the stuff, and lurched away from the table with a sugar high. He tried television, tried music, tried reading. Nothing worked, but the hours passed.
    At midnight, he went to bed. Couldn’t sleep, got up and took a pill. Still couldn’t sleep, got up and took another one. And slept, but poorly.
    But the next morning, on the way to work, he found them again.
    “There you are, moron—there you are,” he said, as the gray car nosed around a corner two blocks back. They weren’t staying tight, but seemed content to follow at a distance. Was it possible that they had put a tracking device on the car? It was possible, he guessed. He went to work, taught a class, went to lunch; went to Marten’s Funeral Home to talk about caskets for his mother. The funeral home would arrange to retrieve her body from the medical examiner.
    He did it all on remote control. Most of his mind was busy worrying about the rope.
    She’d find it; it was only a matter of time. And she’d know who put it there. And if she didn’t do something silly, like play with it—if she just called the cops and told them about it—they’d find his prints all over the excellent rubber handle.
    He had to get it back.
     
    L UCAS AND W EATHER went to a new French restaurant called Grasses. At the door, Lucas discovered that the owner was named Grass and that they served beer, and felt better about it. “I was afraid we were gonna have a choice between rye and Kentucky Blue,” he said. “Fuckin’ French.”
    “Behave