Chosen Prey

on crack, I could tell by looking at him. He wanted the money, and he wanted it right that minute.”
    “What else?”
    “Nothin’ else. I had three hundred dollars on me, and that’s what I gave him. I told him, take it or leave it, and he took it.”
    “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
    Stans nodded. “Maybe. If he introduced himself, I’d remember.”
    They talked for another minute, but Stans insisted that the transaction had been quick and routine: Nothing had happened out of the ordinary, and the seller hadn’t stayed for a drink or to look at the women. Lucas thanked him, and they headed for the door.
    Outside, a little pissed, he said to Marshall, “That wasn’t real cool, the way you jumped in there with the threats.”
    “Just being the asshole,” Marshall said mildly. “Didn’t mean nothing by it—and we got what we came for.”
    “You sounded like you meant it,” Lucas said.
    “I’m good at that,” Marshall said.
    Very good at it, Lucas thought.
    They were in the truck when Stans appeared at the door and pointed at Lucas. Lucas ran the window down and said, “What?”
    “Come talk to me a minute. Just you.”
    Lucas turned to Del, said, “Hold the fort,” got out, and walked over to Stans, who held the door for him. They both stepped inside, and Stans said, “You gonna keep Deputy Dog away from me?”
    “He was just being a hardass so I could be the nice guy,” Lucas said. “You know how that works.”
    “So keep him off me,” Stans said. Then: “I remembered one other thing about this white boy.”
    “Yeah?”
    “He talked like a brother. I mean, you always running into white boys who see you’re black and so they talk a little black, that’s just bullshit. Fuckin’ bigots. This boy, he talked like a brother like he didn’t even know he was doing it. Sounded to me like he grew up in one of the projects.”
    “White.”
    “He was definitely white,” Stans said.
    “Did he look like he might’ve had a couple of fights? Fucked-up eyebrows, maybe a little loose in the nose?”
    Stans thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, you know . . . he did,” Stans said. “You know him? What happened to him?”
    “I happened to him,” Lucas said.
    “Okay, forget Deputy Dog,” Stans said, showing a grin. “You stay away from me.”
    When he got back into the truck, Del looked at Lucas’s face and said, “What?”
    “It’s that fuckin’ Randy Whitcomb,” he said. “The fancy man.”
    “You know him?” Marshall asked.
    Lucas nodded and said, “Yeah . . . it’s not really that big a town. You hang around here long enough, and you get to know a lot of the characters.”
    “You think he could . . . ?”
    Lucas shrugged. “Randy could do almost anything. He’s a fuckin’ pimp, we know he beats the shit out of his girls from time to time, and he’s cut up a couple of them. Probably has killed somebody, or even a couple of people.”
    “Crazy motherfucker,” Del agreed from the back. “But . . .”
    “Yeah. Not really his style. The guy we’re looking for is nuts, but he’s under control, deliberate. Randy’s completely out of control,” Lucas said. “The other thing is, he would have been too young when your niece was taken. Randy’s still gotta be in his early twenties. Twenty-one, twenty-two.”
    “So maybe he was just passing the jewelry along.”
    “If he only took three hundred for it, for the necklace and the ring, then he probably got it for free, or the next thing to it. If Randy didn’t do it, the guy who gave him the jewelry knows who did.”
    “So we look up this Randy,” Marshall said comfortably. “We find him, we’re right there.”
    “Trouble is, the word was going around that Randy moved to L.A.,” Del said. “He’s supposedly been gone for a couple of months.”
    “Gotta find him,” Lucas said. “He’s a key.”
    “Somebody’s gotta find him,” Del said. “Not you.”
    Lucas nodded. “Okay.”
    Marshall picked up the interplay. “What happened?”
    “I once arrested Randy a little too enthusiastically,” Lucas said. “It created a situation.”
    Del snorted. “Shit. It got your ass fired, is what it did. Randy looked like a carpet that had been beat with an ax.”
    “But you’re back,” said Marshall. “You got unfired.”
    “Just about took an act of God,” Del said. To Lucas: “But I’ll get him. I’ll look up some of his pals tonight and confer with them.”
    “I’m