Chosen Prey

yeah. It must be about the size of a rose, the way people are talking about it,” Lucas said.
    Marcy nodded. “Just about. . . . So you gonna knock her up? Weather?”
    “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
    “Jesus. You’re toast.” Marcy smiled, but managed to look a little sad.
    “You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked.
    “I just wish I could get done with all this shit,” she said restlessly. She meant the pain; she’d been talking about it as though it were a person, and Lucas understood exactly how she felt. “I’m only one inch from being back, but I wanna be back. Fight somebody. Go on a date. Something.”
    “Hey. You’re coming back. You look two hundred percent better than you did a month ago. Even your hair looks good. A month from now . . . a month from now, you’ll be full speed.”
     
    R OSE M ARIE R OUX was a heavyset woman, late fifties, a longtime smoker who was aging badly. Her office was decorated with black-and-white photographs of local politicians, a few cops, her husband and parents; and the usual collection of twenty-dollar wooden plaques. Her desk was neat, but a side table was piled with paper. She was sitting at the side table, playing with a string of amber worry beads, when he walked in, and she looked at him with tired hounddog eyes. “You stopped by,” she said. “What’s up?”
    Lucas settled into her leather visitor’s chair and told her about the drawings and the Aronson murder. “We’re gonna take it,” he said. “Lester is worried about the media and what they’ll do. I’m thinking we might have to use them, and wanted to let you know.”
    “Feed it to Channel Three, make damn sure they know it’s a big favor, and that we’re gonna need a payback,” she said. She nodded to herself and repeated, almost under her breath, “Need a payback.”
    “Sure. So what’s going on?” Lucas asked uncertainly. “You sound a little stressed.”
    “A little stressed,” she echoed. She pushed herself onto her feet, drifted to her window, and looked out at the street. “I just talked to His Honor.”
    “Yeah, they said he was here.” Lucas tipped his head toward the outer office.
    “He’s not going to run this fall. He’s decided.” She turned away from the window to look at Lucas. “Which means I’m history. My term ends in September. He can’t reappoint me, not with a new mayor coming in a month later. The council would never approve it. He thinks Figueroa is probably the leading candidate to replace him, but Carlson or Rankin could jump up and get it. None of those people would reappoint me.”
    “Huh,” Lucas said. Then: “Why don’t you run?”
    She shook her head. “You make too many party enemies in this job. If I could get through the party primary, I could probably win the general election, but I’d never get through the primary. Not in Minneapolis.”
    “You could switch and become a Republican,” Lucas said.
    “Life isn’t long enough.” She shook her head. “I tried to get him to go for one more term, but he says he’s gotta earn some money before he’s too old.”
    “So what are you going to do?” Lucas asked.
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I . . .” Lucas shrugged.
    Rose Marie sighed. “You’re a political appointee, Lucas, and I’ll tell you what: The only likely internal candidate is Randy Thorn, and he won’t reappoint you. He’s a control freak, and he doesn’t like the way we let you operate.”
    “You think he’ll get it?” Lucas asked.
    “He could. He’s a damn good uniform chief. All that rah-rah shit and community contacts and brother-cop backslapping. He put on some combat gear last week and went on a raid with the Emergency Response Team. There’re a couple of macho assholes on the council who like that stuff.”
    “Yeah. I’m not sure he’s smart enough.”
    “I’m not, either. It’s more likely that the new mayor’ll bring somebody in from the outside. Somebody with no other local loyalties. Somebody who’s big with the New York no-tolerance style. I doubt that any outsider would reappoint the current deputy chiefs. He’d want to put his own people in. Lester and Thorn are still civil service, and captains. If they don’t keep their deputy-chief spots, they’ll still have a top slot somewhere. But you’re not civil service.”
    “So we’re both history,” Lucas said. He leaned back, interlaced his fingers behind his head, and exhaled.
    “Maybe. I’m gonna start