Easy Prey

. . . Here it is.”
    Lucas copied the number and said, “Thanks. I would stay away from Mr. Rodriguez for a while. Until he cools off, anyway.”
    “I plan to stay away from him forever,” Smalley said.
    Lucas hung up, and Rose Marie said, “Different number?”
    “Yeah.” He punched in the number for the monitoring cop, got him, and said, “We think Rodriguez is using a blind phone that we’re not monitoring. I want you to call him, make like you dialed a wrong number . . . see if it’s him. If the voice is right.”
    The cop said, “Gimme the number.”
    “He might have caller ID,” Lucas said.
    “He won’t get it from this phone.”
    “Get back to me,” Lucas said.
    “Goddamnit, we should have known this,” Rose Marie said when Lucas had hung up. “A blind phone’s pretty basic for a dealer.”
    “Water under the rug,” Lucas said. He looked at Lane. “You get over to the bank guy. If it’s like you think, call me. We’ll go bust Spooner’s balls.”
    “All right. I should be back to you before noon,” Lane said.
    “Are you going to call Rodriguez?” Rose Marie asked.
    “I’m gonna get Sloan to go over and see him,” Lucas said. “I want to see how he handles himself.”
    Rose Marie’s phone burped. She picked it up, listened, pushed a button, said, “This is Rose Marie . . .” then looked at Lucas. “That’s Rodriguez’s number. It’s his voice on the other end.”
    “Excellent,” Lucas said. “Now maybe we make some progress. But we’ve got to get him talking.”
    Sloan was on his cell phone. Lucas got him, told him to bring a car around to the hospital. “We’re gonna go talk to Rodriguez.”
     
 
MARCY WAS SITTING up, still paper-pale, five years older than she’d been the week before, the corners of her eyes creased with pain lines. But her eyes were clear, and Black, perched on a chair next to her bed, said, “They’re gonna put her in a regular room.”
    “That’s progress,” Lucas said. He bent over the bed and kissed her on the forehead. “Man, I’m glad to see you up. I had all these premonitions.”
    She looked at him for a moment, then asked, “What’ve you been up to?”
    “What?” He shrugged.
    “You’ve got that innocent look, and that really close shave you get when you’re really satisfied with yourself. What have you been doing?”
    Lucas grinned. “I don’t have the guy who shot you, but I think we’ve got the guy who did Alie’e. Sloan and I are gonna go bust his chops.”
    “Yeah?” She still looked suspicious. “Who is it?”
    As he filled her in on Rodriguez, he caught her attention wavering once or twice. She really wasn’t back yet, he realized. Almost, but not quite. When he finished with Rodriguez, he asked, “What are they telling you about recovery time? Think you could be back by Wednesday?”
    “Maybe not,” she said. “They said if everything goes well, I’m gonna have to do some rehab. . . . Maybe May?”
    “May? Jesus . . . You were hit hard.”
    “They might have to go back in,” Black said. “There’re a couple pieces of bone floating around inside that oughta come out. But that’s gonna be a while yet.”
    “You hurt?” Lucas asked her.
    She nodded. “Yeah. Started this morning. I don’t think it’s gonna stop for a while.”
    “Drugs,” Lucas said.
    Sloan showed up and chatted for a while, then he and Lucas left, headed for St. Paul and Rodriguez. Outside the door, on the way to the car, Lucas said, “Before, I was scared about her. Now I’m pissed. She’s hurting, and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it.”
    “Get the guy who did it,” Sloan suggested.
    “The guy who did it thinks he’s the Messiah,” Lucas said.
    “There’s a difference between thinks he is and is ,” Sloan said. “To me, he’s just another fat asshole on his way to a cell at Stillwater.”
     
 
ON THE WAY to St. Paul, Lucas said, “Let’s stop and see if Spooner is at his office. Bust his balls a little bit.”
    “Want me to be the nice guy?” Sloan asked.
    “We don’t need one. We just need to scare this guy.”
    But Spooner wasn’t in. Reed, the bank president, came out to see them and said, “I suspended him. With pay. I think he’s innocent, but we don’t want a question. I pray to God that he and Alicia understand that.”
    “Who’s Alicia?”
    “His wife,” Reed said.
    “We really need to see him. . . . You think he’d be at home?”
    “He was earlier today.”
    “Do