Chosen Prey

brains would really—”
    “Shut up.”
    “God, I love that tone,” she said. “Why don’t we get your handcuffs and find an empty van?”
    “I got a story for you,” Lucas said.
    “Really?” The bullshit stopped. “A good one? Or am I doing your PR?”
    “It’s decent,” Lucas said.
    “So walk this way,” she said. He followed her into the building and through a maze of hallways to her office. A stack of court transcripts occupied her visitor’s chair; she moved them to her desk and said, “Sit down.”
    “This is a purely unofficial visit,” Lucas said. He took the Xerox copy of the Aronson drawing out of his pocket.
    “The best kind,” Carey said. “What’s that paper?”
    “There are a couple of conditions.”
    “You know the kind of conditions we can accept . . . . Can we accept them?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Then . . . gimme.”
    Lucas pushed the paper across the desk and Carey unfolded it, looked it over, and said, “She could lose a few pounds.”
    “She has,” Lucas said. “Death will do that for you.”
    “She’s dead?” Carey looked at him over the drawing.
    “That’s Julie Aronson. Her body—”
    “Found her down south, I know the story,” Carey said. She turned her lips down. “We’ve sorta hashed that over. Not that we can’t use it.”
    “Hang on, for Christ’s sakes. Goddamn movie people,” Lucas said. “The thing is, several women have gotten drawings like this—three more that we know of. Two got them in the mail, and a third set was posted on a bulletin board over at the U. We got a freak.”
    She brightened. “You got more pictures?”
    He gave her the other three. She looked at them one at a time, said, “Man,” and then, “These might possibly make a story. It’d be better if we could interview the victims.”
    “I’d have to check. You won’t get them today.”
    “Could we hold off until we get them? Until tomorrow? That’d really pump the story.”
    “No. If you don’t want to use these today, I’ll take them to Eight,” Lucas said.
    “No no no . . . this is fine,” she said hastily. “The biggest thing we’ve got going tonight is a promo for a soap opera. We’ll do the drawings tonight, and then if we could get interviews tomorrow . . . that might even be better. Carry the story longer.”
    “Good. And you’ve got to use them at both five and six o’clock. We want all the other stations screaming for them, scrambling around to catch up, playing them big at ten o’clock. We’re really trying to plaster them around.”
    Carey was no dummy. She looked at him closely and said, “You could do that by calling a press conference. Why the exclusive for us?”
    “Because you used to be my sweetie?”
    “Bullshit, Lucas.”
    “Because we want you to owe us?”
    “There we go. Why?”
    “Another story’s about to break out of City Hall, and there are some consequences that I’d like to . . . manipulate.” He put a hand to his cheek and thought for a second. “That came out wrong.”
    “But it’s probably right,” Carey said. “Manipulate. What’s the second story?”
    “If I tell you, you can’t bury the drawings under the other story. The drawings have gotta be prominent.”
    “Deal,” she said. She looked at her watch. “But there’s not much time. What is it?”
    “The mayor’s not going to run this fall,” Lucas said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “One consequence is that Rose Marie is out—he can’t reappoint her just before the election. I suspect a few other top people are gonna fall, too.”
    Carey stood up, reached toward the phone, stopped. “Who knows this?”
    “The mayor’s walking around City Hall right now, talking to his top people, maybe a couple of people on the council. Word will leak tonight.”
    “Okay.” She picked up the Aronson drawing, held it vertically like a poster, and said, “You know, it’s really pretty good.” Then she folded it, businesslike, and said, “Get out of here. I’ll get the police guy to come see you in twenty minutes about the drawings. I’ll tell him I got them from an insider, but not you. You can be surprised—he won’t know where it’s coming from. I’ll get the mayor myself.”
    “The Aronson picture . . . I mean, her ass is in it. I don’t know if you show asses at five o’clock, but you’ve got to show enough that people get the idea of the style. Same with the others. . . . We need to find the guy