Chosen Prey

sisters. They said he was running a hooker named Charmin until a couple of weeks ago, but—”
    “Charmin like the toilet paper?”
    “That’s what they say. Anyway, he wandered off in a cocaine blizzard, and she transferred to DDT and that’s where she’s still at. Thing is, I can’t find DDT right now. I got a couple of people looking for him and also for Randy.”
    “DDT, huh?”
    “Yeah. Thought you might be interested.”
    “I am. Did Marshall ride with you?” Lucas asked.
    “You know: That’s how it goes,” Del said.
    “He’s standing next to you?”
    “You got it,” Del said.
    “Careful with him. I hate to say no, that he can’t come along—but if he starts stepping on you, I’ll pack his ass back to Wisconsin.”
    “We’ll figure something out,” Del said. “We’re okay for now.”
    “You want me to come along if you find DDT?”
    “If you don’t mind. He owes you big, and he don’t owe me shit.”
    “Gimme a call,” Lucas said.
    Lucas shaved and spent ten minutes in the shower, working on a sound he’d heard on a David Allen Coe album, from a song called “The Ride”—twisting the word “moan,” trying to get three syllables out of it. He agreed with himself that he sounded particularly good that morning, got dressed, looked out the window—patches of blue sky and the street was dry—and loaded into the Porsche.
    He was carrying a red apple and whistling when he pushed into the office. Marcy was talking on the phone, twisting a ring of her dark hair around her index finger, her feet up on her desk. She stopped playing with her hair long enough to raise a hand to Lucas, then started talking into the phone again. Lucas paused and looked her over: Marcy tended to be a little too tense all the time, and when the tension was suddenly relieved, it showed.
    She noticed him studying her and turned away. Lucas continued into his office, a little pissed now: That goddamn Kidd had gotten into her pants. He knew the look too well to be mistaken. And they hardly knew each other, Lucas thought, and Kidd was a lot older. He retracted that a bit: Not too old—actually, he was probably a year or two younger than Lucas, so he couldn’t be too old, because Lucas himself had . . .
    “Goddamnit,” he said. He flipped the apple up at the wall and caught it on the rebound, leaving a small pink patch behind on the wall. If Kidd and Marcy . . . He didn’t want to think about it. But it sure as hell was going to reduce her efficiency at a critical moment in the case, and—
    “I don’t want to hear the first fuckin’ word from you.” Marcy was in the doorway.
    “I just—”
    “Not the first fuckin’ word,” she said, holding up a finger. When he opened his mouth again, she said, “No! Bad dog.”
    Lucas dropped into his chair, looked away from her, then said, quickly, “You don’t know him that well.”
    “Shut up, Mr. Why-don’t-we-screw-Marcy-Sherrill-on-the-office-carpet.”
    “We knew each other,” Lucas protested. “For a long time. That was spontaneous.”
    “So was last night. And I’ll tell you what, he’s a good guy,” she said.
    “You spend the night?”
    “He did. At my place. We were just coming back from dinner, and it happened.”
    “He bring his toothbrush?”
    “No, he didn’t bring his toothbrush. And that’s all I’m telling you,” she said.
    “What’d he brush his teeth with?”
    “His finger.”
    “That’s so unsanitary,” Lucas said sourly.
    Marcy put her hands on the top of her head and started to laugh, and a moment later Del came in, with Marshall trailing behind, and asked, “What’s so funny?”
    “He is,” Marcy said, pointing at Lucas.
    “I ain’t even gonna ask,” Del said, looking from one to the other. To Lucas: “We found DDT.”
     
    DDT STOOD FOR Dangerous Darrell Thomas. Thomas had given himself the name when he was riding with a motorcycle club and was interviewed for a public radio magazine. The magazine writer got it wrong, though, and referred to him as TDT—Terrible Darrell Thompson—which lost something of its intent when expressed as initials; and since the writer got the last name wrong, too, Thomas never again trusted the media.
    Darrell wasn’t much of a pimp. He didn’t solicit customers and he wasn’t particularly interested in sex, money, or any kind of fashion. His only pimping qualification was that he liked to fight, and when a girl wanted to leave her former sponsor, or was having