Chosen Prey

dog-paddle, and she died.
    God, that felt good.
    When she stopped moving, stopped the shuddering that came with brain death, Qatar released his grip, sat back on her hips. He was sweating, just a bit, and wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, then rolled her over. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, her mouth touched with blood; and a puddle of blood pooled on the rug beneath her neck. She’d bitten her tongue, he thought. He rolled her. “Tits not bad. Soft and warm,” he said.
    No response. After a minute with her, he sighed and stood up. “Gotta get going,” he said. “The clock is running. Gotta go.” He didn’t feel rushed; if anything, he felt languid.
    And his lip hurt, he realized. He wandered into the bathroom to look at it in the mirror. He had a full underlip, usually pink, now bruised. Sometime during the struggle, she must have hit him, but he didn’t remember it. Hit him hard, judging from the split lip. There was no swelling yet, but he could taste the blood in his mouth. “That was completely fucking unnecessary,” he said. He probed the cut with his tongue, winced at the pain. The lip would get big if he didn’t get some ice on it, but the swelling would be disguised by his thin beard. “Unfucking-necessary.”
    He had to stay focused. He got dressed, flushed the condom—surprised to find it full of semen; he didn’t remember that part—straightened his shirt, tucked it back in his trousers, got himself neat. Got a chunk of toilet paper and walked through the apartment, wiping everything he could remember touching. Another flush, and he was done.
    “Thank God for toilets,” he said to himself.
    Money. There wouldn’t be any cash, but there should be something. . . . Randy had stuck Neumann’s jewelry in his pocket, so that was gone. Qatar walked through the apartment, looking. And found almost nothing small. Randy had apparently sold everything that could be peddled on the street.
    “Moron,” he said aloud. He stepped over the woman’s body on the way out. Queen for a day, Tiffany for a minute. Nice tits, though.
     
    R ANDY GOT BACK at dawn and pounded on the door, because he didn’t want to go through the whole business of finding his key. He was not in any shape to find it. So he beat on the door until somebody shouted, “Go away or we’ll call the police.”
    Some fuckin’ neighbor. But he didn’t need the police, so he took five minutes and finally found the key, and another five minutes and he fit it into the lock and the door swung open. He shouted up the stairs, got no answer. Climbed the stairs in the dark—there was a switch at the entrance, but he was too fucked up to use it—and in the living room, in the dark, tripped over the woman’s body.
    “Fuckin’ . . .” He groped around on the floor, felt a breast. Knew what it was and knew it was too cold. Randy started down, the cocaine strength dissipating like a fart in a thunderstorm. He crawled across the floor to a lamp, climbed the lamp like a monkey, turned it on.
    Looked down at what’s-her-name. Who was she? What had he done? He pressed his hands to his temple, trying to squeeze out the memories that must be there somewhere. When had he done it?
    “Motherfucker,” he said.

15
    W EATHER HAD SPENT the night at her own place. “If we haven’t rung the bell yet, I don’t think we’ll get it done this month,” she’d said. “Plus, my house is getting stale. I need to air it out.”
    Lucas didn’t remember that when he woke up. Still drowsy, he reached out for her shoulder, came up with air, and bumped up, quickly awake, looking for her. He remembered the question he’d asked the night before. Pregnant? Not pregnant? When would they know?
    “In the bye and bye,” she’d said cheerfully. “It was fun working with you, Davenport. Maybe we can do it again next month. Then again, maybe we won’t have to.”
    He half-smiled at the thought, punched his pillow back into shape, and drifted off again. Lucas liked to stay up late, but didn’t like early mornings. A good day, he believed, generally started around ten o’clock.
     
    T EN O’CLOCK WAS just coming up when the phone rang, and continued to ring. He recognized Del’s style. “Yeah?”
    “Randy’s around, but I can’t find him. People say he ran into some shit out in L.A. Ambition combined with stupidity, probably.”
    “Probably,” Lucas said. He yawned. “Who’d you talk to?”
    “The Toehy