Chosen Prey

desk, ready to receive visitors.
    To Henrey, Lucas said, “If we find child porn on those disks—child stuff is Ware’s big thing—then you could wind up in Stillwater for a few years. You know how it goes.”
    “Listen, man, honest to God, I was hired,” Henrey said earnestly.
    “We understand that, and we’ll take into account any help you give us. Give me just one thing that’ll help.”
    “I gotta talk to a lawyer.”
    “One thing, buddy,” Lucas said. “Just give me one thing. We might not need you an hour from now.”
    The guy looked around and said, “You better not be lying. Give me a note or something.”
    “We don’t really have a lot of time to fool around.”
    “I’m not a bad guy, I’m just trying to make a living taking a few pictures. I usually do wildlife and nature.”
    “Yeah, well, that’s cool.”
    Henrey sat head-down for a moment, and Rie looked at Lucas and winked. Then Henrey said, “I don’t know about the child-porn thing. I heard that he does it, but it’d be stupid. It’s death. There’re plenty of places outside the States where you can do it all you want, and nobody cares.”
    “Ware is sort of a hands-on kinda guy,” Lucas said.
    The photographer winced and said, “Just one thing?”
    “Just one.”
    He nodded. “But you gotta help me. . . . The thing is, sometimes when I’ve been here shooting, the actors—”
    From Rie: “Actors?”
    “Models, whatever. They sort of like to get their noses into it, and Morrie usually has a little coke around. I’ve seen him get it a couple times . . . go for it. It’s not like I could go over and see what he’s doing, but I think one of the power outlets behind his desk is a fake. I think he keeps a little stash in there.”
    Lucas slapped him on the back. “See? That was no problem. And if you’re like an up-and-up nature guy, like you say . . . maybe we can deal. Okay? Now, I’m gonna put you back on the couch with Ware. Don’t say anything to him.”
    Lucas brought Del out to the front, told him about the power outlets, then sent Henrey back to the couch and brought Carr into the outer room. Lucas sat him down where Henrey had been, and made the same pitch.
    “Look, all I do is maintain his website,” Carr said. “He’s never bothered to learn how to do that. He puts his pictures on disks, gives me the index number, and I move them over to the Web and set up thumbnails. ErosFineArtPhotos.com.”
    “Any children on the site?” Lucas asked.
    “No. Of course not,” Carr said.
    “Does he do kids?”
    Carr looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I don’t see everything. I just move megabytes. I’m a moving guy.”
    Lucas nodded and said, “Listen, pal—you better get an attorney. If we find pictures of kids around here, you’re gonna go down as an accomplice, and that means a couple of years in prison. You better think of ways to help us, and get your lawyer to cut a deal. . . . I mean, I don’t want to sound like I’m threatening you, but this is serious shit.”
    Carr puffed up his cheeks and audibly exhaled. “If I don’t have the money for a lawyer . . .”
    “We’ll get one appointed,” Lucas said.
    “Listen, I can probably tell you a couple of things. I never got involved in the photography at all, but Morrie once told me that sometimes he had ‘special stuff.’ ”
    “Special stuff.”
    “That’s what he called it. He was, like, being important. He said he’d transfer it directly to a guy in Europe who puts it up on a website there.” He twisted his hands around, as though he were playing cat’s cradle. “I think . . . Morrie’s a content provider. We got eight zillion websites without content, and Morrie provides it.”
    “There’s not enough porno out there?” Rie asked.
    “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff, but people are always looking for fresh stuff.”
    “Young stuff,” Rie said.
    “Yeah. Teenagers, anyway.”
    “I’ll make you a deal right now,” Lucas said. “Give me something, give me anything, and I’ll help you out. I won’t help you if I find out you’ve been dealing kid stuff, but if you’re just getting paid by Ware to run his website . . . we can help.”
    Carr puffed his cheeks again, rubbed his hair, said, “Maybe I ought to see a lawyer.”
    Lucas shrugged. “That’s absolutely up to you. But I’ll tell you what, this offer may expire. If we find a bunch of stuff . . .”
    “Aw, man . . .” He looked at Rie,